Podcast 91. What’s the Deal with NFTs with Anthony Fatseas

Average Joe Finances:
0:00

Hey, how's it going everybody? So today's guest is Anthony Fatseas and Anthony is a fellow podcast, host of the WT finance podcast. What the finance he's a podcaster and investor and an avid proponent of NFTs, which is something we're going to talk about today. His investing career began with a friend in college, introducing him to cryptocurrencies during the height of the 2018 bear market. Unfortunately, this is where he lost 50% of his earnings or just what he put into it the day after he started investing in it. Since then he's had a passion for investing and trading crypto, as well as Forex, commodities and equities. I don't know how he got this passion for it when he lost half of it up front, but we're, we'll get into that too. So this has culminated in Anthony pursuing a career in finance. Currently working as a equity analyst. So over the past year, he's been an avid supporter of NFTs and the future they have. He believes that they're the next stage of the crypto revolution and could provide a great deal of value to multiple applications. Anthony, this is a pretty awesome background. I'm excited to talk to you about this stuff today. Thanks for joining

Anthony Fatseas:
1:08

Thank you so much, Mike. Really appreciate it.

Average Joe Finances:
1:10

Yeah, absolutely. I gave like the small bits and pieces of your background, and we want to know a little bit more about you. So if you could share some more about yourself, what's your story? How did this start for you?

Anthony Fatseas:
1:21

Yeah, definitely. So for me, basically how it started, I'm sure. Similar to a lot of people, you hear about crypto, you hear about investing and all these things, but it's just taking that plunge. And I know who, everyone has that they might hear about it for three, six months, a year. And I used to have to take that plunge. And for me, it was, as you mentioned there meeting my friend in college he literally introduced it to me and I've been looking at crypto and obviously it was just after it hits Bitcoin, hit 20,000, we'd had the drop and it was quite low. It's about $6,000 at the time. And he was as he said that he was just like, oh, come on, you've got to get in. You've got to buy it. It's, really low at the moment it's going to go up 6,000 is a really good support. So I bought him, dropped straighten the next day. But I just loved it from there. Probably something similar to yourself. It's just the learning and, finance, investing, and trading so much, you can learn. It's such a broad scope and I've been hooked ever since basically. So I changed my actual, what I was doing at university, the university I've pursued finance now and trading and that sort of the goals at the moment to continue my career. I have the podcast as well, but yeah, I'm just looking to learn as much as I can. And I think NFTs will be a massive part of the future.

Average Joe Finances:
2:26

That's awesome. Okay. I have to ask you then. So before you switched what you were pursuing to finance what were you trying to get your degree in? Prior to that.

Anthony Fatseas:
2:35

Yeah, so it's just management. But for me, I had a background in entrepreneurship, so I was actually a sales person in Australia. I was, I don't know if you have them in America, but the charities is people trying to raise money. So I was standing in shopping centers, waving at people, trying to get them to come talk to me and yeah, the classic person, they're just avoiding, like trying to look away and not get the eye contact. So I was one of those people and then. I've done that for two years. I had my own business. I was doing quite well. But I decided to get that traditional education to expand my knowledge. So I moved to the UK to study and I've met my friends. And then from there, I just completely pivoted because I just need, so you know, what was available in cryptocurrencies, but also finance as well. And that's really where my interest came. And and I think a few of the things I've learned from sales has really helped me in my journey as well.

Average Joe Finances:
3:23

Right on. Yeah. We do have a lot of that here in America as well, especially where I live at in Hawaii and the tourism industry. If especially living here, whenever I go to Waikiki, it's crazy because you're just walking down the street and you have people chasing you down with pamphlets and flyers. I'm like, Hey man, I live here. I'm good. So it's pretty funny. But yeah, no, I totally get what you're saying. And that's gotta be a difficult field to be in any way because you have to be able to handle. Cause you get a lot of that. It definitely helps you with, having a better attitude towards things which kind of ties into what I want to ask you. And that is okay, man. You invested in crypto, back in 2018, the next day lost 50% of everything. And that you said you got hooked. So how did losing half of what you put in gets you hooked? Cause man I probably would have freaked out and said. I'm done I'm out. So what made you keep going?

Anthony Fatseas:
4:09

I think at a time, one thing that probably helped was I was obviously a college student. I didn't have much money, so it wasn't actually much to start with. So that may have helped me, if it was a little bit more, I may have be a bit more concerned. But as you mentioned, the sort of my last, my sales experience, I just knew the importance of failure. And, if you just keep failing, learning from those failures is vital, but yeah. From that as as you said, there was a massive drop and the more research I did actually into cryptocurrencies and the technology behind it, not just the price, the more excited that got and it's look, it's the same as you, you look at a company, that they say in the short term, it's a voting system, but in the longterm, it's, a value system and that's the same for cryptocurrencies. It's you're looking for these cryptos that have that technology behind them that have the support that are going to progress in the term. So that's what really attracted me to it. I was an avid supporter. I was, as I said, I was hooked. I thought crypto was going to be the future. And they are doing quite well at the moment. But I do think there is still further potential for integration, which is why I'm quite excited about inequities. I think that's the next step between cryptocurrencies and integrating it into finances and all.

Average Joe Finances:
5:11

Alright. I love it. And, that's actually what I want to get right into. Because we're talking about crypto and we're talking about the next step. And probably the most that I know about NFTs is what it actually stands for non fungible tokens. Is it fungible or fungible? I don't even know if I'm saying it. That's about the extent of what I know. You know what I'm saying? Okay. So what are NFTs and why should we be paying attention to them.

Anthony Fatseas:
5:34

Yeah definitely. And I think the main thing is in the it's in the name, and you mentioned that non fungible tokens. So for anyone who doesn't know. What fungible means. It means that you can actually trade it for something else. That's identical. So say the U S dollar, you can trade one us dollar for another. They're all the same. It's the same. You can trade one Bitcoin for now they're all the same. The difference when you come to the non fungible token is that every single token is unique in their own way. And how that's done is there's a record on the blockchain. And it just, it's basically evidence that you own this, it's almost like a certificate of authenticity, sorry. Authentication on the if you have a memorabilia or something like that's what it's showing you. So say if your own. You bet it, you can prove it through the blockchain and that's like the classic you've probably heard it. So at the moment it's quite popular art, lots of people are making quite a lot of money from from crypto punks and all these different things. And you hit a classic analogy saying, oh, I'll just copy. I'll just copy it and put it into my into my documents. And now I own your NFT. But it's really not the same thing. It's because you don't actually have that proof of ownership, which is quite vital. That's where it integrates into blockchain. There's the proof that you own this piece of art, or it could be multiple different things. So that's the exciting part. And I think it's not just exciting about the art it's when you expand it to other different platforms. And there was a massive blockchain focus a few years ago where everyone's saying, supply chain, we've got blockchain, basically. Real estate would go on property on blockchain days. We're going blockchain, I think. NFTs is where this would really happen. So is that actually next year it's actually integrated into.

Average Joe Finances:
7:06

Now talking about blockchain and NFTs, so like that's pretty much the receipt, right? That's the proof of, Hey, you, it's yours same thing with crypto, like crypto's traced on the blockchain and that's what keeps it I guess the specific rarity of a specific crypto, right? Because you can only make so much on the blockchain. And that's about the, I guess the most, I really know about crypto as well. I guess I have some crypto, not much. But it's just something I kinda dabble in, but don't because I just, I don't know too much about it. And I've been talking with some more guests recently about it learning a little bit more. But now NFTs, looking at this. So you're saying it could be more than just a piece of art now I've seen, I see, like I saw like Jack Dorsey's first tweet, went out as a NFT the screenshot of that or whatever, became an NFT. So what else can you have as an NFT besides artwork?

Anthony Fatseas:
7:54

Yeah. I think it's if you look back at crypto, it started as a financial asset and now it's, you've have small contracts and integrate and all these different things. And basically what NFTs is, it can store, it's proof of ownership. So it's proof that you own your car maybe, or you own your house, or, you have this driver's license, it's all these different things and it can be trapped on the blockchain. You can track every single transaction it's had throughout his life. So I say let's say yeah, the government in the U S they transfer the NFT for your driver's license to your wallet. There's proof that you that they've done that. And there's proof that it's yours as well. And I think this could be implemented in stocks. So let's say that at the moment, obviously the stock market closes during the night it closes on the weekends. Mainly because there's issues with actually, the transfer of the ownership of the stocks can take a day or two behind the scenes, even though we don't always see that. But with NFTs, it could be, let's say each stock isn't NFT, it could be instantaneously transferred on the blockchain. So I think that's what it will really, each NFT will represent these different assets. It could be a stock, it could be a house, it could be a company, it could be anything. And what I will say as well is that you know, NFTs aren't all the same. So obviously there's, that could be hosted on different chains. So I'm not sure how much you know about that, but obviously this theory and Solana, there's all these different cryptos. They all have their own different blockchains. So these different services these NFTs will be hosted on these different services and each of them have their sort of own benefits. Ethereum's obviously has the largest market at the moment. Most well known but it has quite high fees. So if you want to make a transaction, it can be 50 to $100. Sometimes our salon or in a few of the other ones are a bit smaller, but they have very low fees. But then people are worried about the security of them as well. So this is the advantages and disadvantages, but then I could also see that, those are decentralized platforms I could see centralized. So maybe the U S government or sort of companies actually building their own blockchain, having NFTs and running from there as well. So that's another potential avenue.

Average Joe Finances:
9:53

Okay. So speaking of NFTs and the blockchain so w what is like the technical aspect of this how are NFTs connected to the blockchain? Is it similar to the way cryptocurrencies are is the exact same thing, or like, how does that work?

Anthony Fatseas:
10:06

Yes, I'm not too sure about the actual intricacies of it. But what I would say is if we look at a picture, the picture's not actually stored on the blockchain and that's something that I found quite interesting. So there's something it's the metadata is stored on oftentimes AWS. So you know, on Amazon and then from there, trans that metadata is transferred to your wallet because there's proof that you actually own this NFT. So basically, as I said before, it's mainly just the proof of ownership. And then from there, the outside platforms connects to to that preferred ownership and then it's to do with the smart contracts involved. And it's it's different between each blockchain on how it works. B of it that's really how it works. It's just, it's quite interesting. And I was quite surprised, but I guess that makes sense because if there's these, these pictures. Thousands or millions of pictures on the chain, it would slow it down massively and come quite convoluted.

Average Joe Finances:
10:54

Yeah, for sure it is. It's it's definitely a learning process for somebody that doesn't know too much about NFTs or blockchain or crypto for that matter, like me. So I hope I'm not bugging you with too many questions, but I definitely have a lot of questions. One of the beautiful things about hosting a podcast is I get to be a little bit selfish about that. And I get to ask you the questions I want to ask you and learn, right? And at the same time, hopefully provide some type of content value to my listeners that, that they're able to learn from this as well. Okay. People listening probably want to know something like, what are the risks that might be involved with buying an NFT and how can you buy them?

Anthony Fatseas:
11:34

Yeah, definitely. There's multiple ways that you can buy them and it can be quite complex. So if you're not actually involved in cryptocurrencies, it can be quite complex because what you have to do is you have to say, you can go into Coinbase buy a hundred dollars worth. The Ethereum from there, you'd actually have to create a wallet, which is a common it's called meta mask. And it's not to it. It's quite easy to make you just create, you're going to minimize.com. Oh, I'm not sure of the exact website meta mask. You can Google that and come up. And then from there you transfer your money. You crypto from coinbase. To the meta mask. And then from there, you'd have to go onto a marketplace. So I can say is the most popular at the moment. And then you could buy NFTs from there. So that's one way of doing it. And obviously that will change depending on what chain you're on. So each chains have their own actual wallets. And then from there you'd have to, and then they'll have their own marketplace as well. So it can be a little bit complex in that regard. I know that

Average Joe Finances:
12:32

real quick. Cause I have a question just to make sure I'm understanding this. So are you transferring your crypto from your wallet to meta mask? Is meta mask like the marketplace? So like now it's I guess maybe like uploading credits, right? Like you upload your credits to the, the marketplace. And then from there, this is what you have to work with almost like uploading like a gift card to Amazon. Like you upload it and this is what you have essentially to work with or is it like, is it still tied to your wallet then? Or am I even thinking about this the right way? Is it still in your wallet? Like it, how does it.

Anthony Fatseas:
13:04

No. So let's say it's like transferring from one bank account to another. So let's say Coinbase is sorta like one bank cannot wait way buy in. And the men mask is like another bank account and that, that can actually connect directly to these marketplaces. Okay. Got it. But I know, and that's one thing that I think is a major issue for sort of adoption that it can, for me, and I think I'm quite tech savvy and I've, I was quite interested in all this stuff and I'd been involved in, gaming and all that stuff but I found it quite difficult to start with even just buying groups or let alone going from there. So I think that is maybe a risk involved where there's, it can be hot for early adopters. But there are some other platforms that you can use where we can actually just connect your credit card. I know. There's one called rally. I don't know if you've heard of it. Rally road.com. You will love this. So it's actually like a way where you can buy a fractionalized NFTs, but also fractionalized memorabilia. So they have some cool stuff like, oh, cause they have Michael Jordan jerseys, they have just, basically like artifacts and these amazing things. And you can just buy five, 10, $50 worth.

Average Joe Finances:
14:05

I jump all over that, check it out for sure.

Anthony Fatseas:
14:09

Yeah, definitely. And I think that night might be a way to get into it if you're not crypto savvy. But then obviously there's a risk involved that, actually owning it. It's a contract. And unfortunately I don't have access to it cause I'm in the UK, but it's something that, it is quite exciting, but for people who are looking to go through the crypto route, you first go buy the crypto and transfer it to a wallet, can connect to the marketplace and go from there.

Average Joe Finances:
14:30

Okay, right on. For those that are listening and also for myself that might not know certain like terms when it comes to talking about crypto and blockchain and NFTs what's some key terminology that we should know, for somebody that's going to go and maybe from here they go, listen to your podcast or they go find something on YouTube to watch. And they're trying to learn about crypto, but they don't really know the lingo. So what's some stuff that we should know.

Anthony Fatseas:
14:56

Yeah, definitely. So I would say that cryptocurrency obviously is that it's all the different currencies that you can buy that's the first one to start with. Blockchain is actually a technology involved. So the blockchain is like the base layer. You could say it's like a financial system. And then the cryptocurrencies is like the currencies that we use from there as well as the different wallets, as I was saying. And they're like bank accounts, so you can actually translate. You'll crypto between each bank account. I would be careful as well, cause it's not like normal banks where if you transfer it, there's no way getting it back. There's, it's lost forever, you have to transfer the right crypto to the right wallet as well. Which can be quite confusing. From there, there's a Bitcoin, which is always the largest group of the currents at the moment that this altcoins, which is basically any other coin and they're called alt coins because they're smaller at the moment. Bitcoin has about 40% of the actual whole market cap of cryptocurrencies. So those are a few times and yeah, it's quite hard. Cause then from there, it goes very niche depending on each crypto and how it works. I'd say those are the main things to start with. As I mentioned, that Coinbase has quite a good broker Binance, quite a good broker bit Trex as well. So these old places that you can buy, I think the cash app in the U S is quite good. Maybe for people who are looking just for easy access to crypto.

Average Joe Finances:
16:05

Yeah. That's good to know some of the different things that, you know at least to be able to speak the language a little bit better as you're talking and learning about crypto. So that's fantastic. I know what alt coins are because like the crypto I have, is an alt coin. I, I have an alt coin that I get from actually hosting not hosting, but I have my podcast on this this site called Aureal, and on there. They actually rank podcasts like you get voted for. And my podcast is actually trending and one of the top business category podcasts on there. So as people vote, I get paid with this crypto, this hive coin, and it's it's has a decent value to the point where I've got about a couple hundred dollars worth of this crypto. For hosting my podcast here, which is fantastic. So if I ever want to cash it out, I can cash it out. And there you go, but I'm just letting it sit in the wallet and do its thing, because I still have no idea what to do with it, but it's just pretty cool. But so speaking of that the value of crypto let's talk about the value of NFTs. So I get it like, you're essentially buying like a. The rights to a specific piece of artwork or something like that. The blockchain shows that you own it, it's that certificate of authenticity, like you said, so is it really worth anything? Because like you said earlier, somebody could just copy, that picture and save it on their computer and say, ha, I have it now. You have a copy of it. You don't have the actual original, so it was, how does that work? Like how does that, how does it prove that.

Anthony Fatseas:
17:35

Yeah and there are some different NFTs I will say they rather the arts and at the moment there's also a utility tokens and they're more focused on say there's some games that people are bringing out where the NFT will actually be. That could be a sword in a game. It could be a, maybe a, like a Pokemon in a game or like a character in a game. So there are those sort of more utility based NFTs, which might have, it's sorta hard to quantify their value. But if we just look at art specifically, which is the most common one at the moment and has been, how NFTs came to be it is, are really compare it to memorabilia it's really based on the market and it is very illiquid market. It gets to the point if no one wants to buy. It's basically not worth anything. It's only worth how much someone's willing to buy it, which can be an issue, especially if you're going into a project which might not have a lot of hype. There might not be a lot of people interested in it from there. It is very hard to actually sell an NFT if you want to cash out. If the NFT, if the program dies and it's like a crypto dies, it's very hard to sell out. No one's gonna want to buy it and, take massive losses. So that's what I would say. It is. It's a very illiquid market and there are massive risks involved with actually investing in NFTs.

Average Joe Finances:
18:42

Yeah. But I would argue that, excuse me, I would argue that there's massive risk in anything that you invest in. The value of essentially anything is what we believe that value to be like when you look at a typical thing, typical stocks in the stock market, right? The values of certain stocks are all based on, there's different, of course, there's, there's key points, there's data that, that all plays into it, but it's all about everyone's faith in that particular stock or. Just in, in the market itself and that's what drives it? Same thing with real estate. You look at real estate and it's, you've got supply and demand, we have a housing shortage right now. So you see the value skyrocketing and why are the value skyrocketing? Yeah, sure. That's because there's a shortage. But now, people want to get in and it's scarce, right? It's a scarce, a, it's a scarce asset right now. So the value goes up because we drive that up ourselves with that type of thinking, that type of mindset. So I would argue that you could say that NFTs can be treated the same exact way and it's pretty neat. Cause one of the things that I see happening right now, and they're talking about it now with Facebook changing its name to Meta and all of that, and you have this whole metaverse thing going on that you're starting to see. There's a couple, there's a couple games and other things that have online real estate, where you can make these purchases and online real estate. And I saw some people talking about this recently about how they're, there's some significant value in that. And you actually see actual large companies now buying up this digital real estate to, to essentially, get in early because they think it's the next up and coming thing. So I think, I definitely think you're onto something with that with talking about this and looking at, what is that next level. But before we get into that, I, I know that there were certain things that I thought about when it came to crypto and NFTs and everything that might not necessarily be true. And there's a lot of people out there that probably, are still thinking like even after listening to you for a few minutes and they're like, ah, I'm still not sure about this stuff, man. And whatever. What are some common misconceptions conceptions that you hear that, that's just around the Watermill, about NFTs.

Anthony Fatseas:
20:45

Yeah, definitely. Now I might actually, to the first point you mentioned about the markets and how it's. Based on what we value them. And you could say that we've seen that in China as well with grant and how they've been courting these properties, and now let's sell them that sort of markets collapsed. And, you could say in the U S you mentioned real estate, I'm sure a lot about this with BlackRock, how they're and all these investment companies are buying up all this property and then from that as fighting it. So yeah the, it is similar. And I guess you could say in the stock market, you have the big institutions. And NFTs you have whales basically and they're basically the same thing, whales is people or institutions with lots of money that come in, they might buy out the NFTs. And then from there, the price will increase because there's obviously less supply and, the process going up that increases demand. So it is quite similar in that regard. And I think it's just, it's human nature and supply and demand and how that works. But I'm looking at, misconceptions in crypto, right? One thing. And I'm not sure if something that you've thought about, maybe some of your listeners have thought about is that a lot of people use it at doing illegal things and maybe shady things. And I think that's a massive misconception that people have and that there wasn't analysis. Okay.

Average Joe Finances:
21:51

And actually, as you're saying that, cause I remember like when they first started talking about Bitcoin, like the big thing was, oh, that's what they use on the black market and or the dark web and it's not traceable. And a lot of people freaked out about that because of some of the practices that it was actually being used for. But. The thing is like the same thing was happening before it was just with cash, non traceable dollars, not, not electronic transactions, it was just cash. It's another form of currency. So I don't really, think about it too much like that, because really that stuff's going to happen regardless. It's just a matter of what currency they decide to use.

Anthony Fatseas:
22:30

Yeah, and I definitely agree. And I think there was a study recently that said it's less than 5% or I think it was like yeah. Quite a lot less than 5% of the actual transactions where potentially we were wondering what any other, any of the other, the fairs stuff. But yeah, I think there was a, I think it was silk road a few years ago was the the black market where people who buy drugs and it was using Bitcoin and that sort of what gave that a shady pass potentially. But yeah, that's a major misconception that I have. Another one is the. It is extremely risky. And while it is, I think it's something that, if you look at any asset, if you look at the stock market or any other asset is first, 10 years or is first, have along it's extremely volatile. And I think that's something that people, failed to understand that just have pilots, all of these things up because their new, because there isn't that volume involved in the actual markets. Now at the moment, there's over a trillion dollars of actual, money in these cryptocurrencies, so, the volatility. It's still there and it's probably more than stocks and say the S and P 500 and all these other markets, it is a GC. And I think you'll get to the point, the longer the market's open, the more money that's in there, the less volatile it will become. And another thing is that it's not correlated to the stock market. I don't know. Have you heard that, that it goes the opposite of the stock market?

Average Joe Finances:
23:39

It's it's its own entity, it's not, yeah. I could see where it's not tied to the stock market at all.

Anthony Fatseas:
23:45

Yeah, definitely. But it's surprisingly, it is. And that's something that I think a lot of people surprised about because if you look at COVID-19 we saw the massive crash in us equities and other equities. It was exact same for bitcoin and actually the lower, I think, 3000 or something like that. And if you look at, if you have a chat side by side and because there's futures as well for Bitcoin that can be traded on the CMA they're quite similar. And I think that's one thing that I would say that there is still correlation. A lot of the reasons there's quite a few large institutions that are investing a lot of money into each of these cryptocurrencies. So that's one thing I would say as well, a price action on the weekend. I don't know, have you heard this? It's maybe not a misconception, but normally the moves on the weekends that occur. They don't normally, they don't normally turn into a trend because it's quite low volume because he institutions aren't trading. So that's another thing that I found quite interesting.

Average Joe Finances:
24:35

Yeah, definitely. Definitely interesting. I thought, crypto in the market we're not tied to each other at all, but, putting it that way, yeah. I'd have to see what that looks like putting like a side-by-side chart. But ever since, Bitcoin's been put, or publicly traded on the market that you can see the trend, like it's still goes the same way when there's. Some type of a economic crisis or something like that. And you see that with most assets, except for whatever reason, everything else crashed this time, except for real estate and real estate went the opposite direction and shot up. And that, and again, because it became a, that whole scarcity mindset and a lot of people were pulling out of the stock market. And I guess even some people were pulling out a crypto to jump into real estate because they felt like, Hey, if I don't get it now, I'm never going to get it.

Anthony Fatseas:
25:18

Yeah, but I think as well, it was so short. If you think of the crash, it was only three or four weeks like of actual crash into the fed. Yeah. And they said, okay, we're going to pump all this money in. And I think that probably helped real estate because real estate, if you think about it takes yeah. At least a month or two, if you want to flip something or a few months. So the fact that they bought them in from there, and I'm sure more about this than me. Sorry. I don't know.

Average Joe Finances:
25:38

Oh no. It's fine man, but the thing is it's This recovery. And then surplus, I guess you could really say, right? Because not only did we recover from that that huge crash that happened back in 2020, but we've surpassed where we were back then. And then some, and if you look at the trends, just anything. Th the market trends, you just look all the way back and look at the charts and you'll see it going up and up, and then a drop and then up and up, and then a drop and then up and up, and then a drop. It's common thing. If you rely on it, it's going to constantly go up. And if crypto's the same way, it's probably a lot safer to invest in crypto than people think it is. But at the same time, You have to invest in the right crypto assets, right? Not just like any of the, any old altcoin that that somebody makes. I don't think I would ever invest in like booty coin or whatever. Some of these crazy names are that come out, it's just, it's, it is what it is or like doge coin. Like I didn't jump on that trend. I know people that did and made a lot of money. Because they jumped in while it was getting pumped. And I know other people that jumped in after it was pumped up to 60 cents and I was like, you're making a big mistake. And I was like, I don't know too much about crypto, but I'm telling you right now. I don't think it's a good idea. And then they lost a lot of money when it dropped back down. So it's a again you can say the same thing about penny stocks. Same thing happens there. Somebody, you jumping on a penny stock because you think it's gonna, it's gonna sh it's going to shoot to the moon and then it doesn't do anything or you pick one. And it does really well. But right now, it's 95% of penny stocks fail. And it's probably the same percentage of altcoins on the crypto market as well. Again, I don't know too much about it, which is why I'm talking to somebody like you. This is your focus, which is awesome, man. Cause one of the things we talked about on this podcast, Is building your wealth, right? It doesn't necessarily have to be through real estate or the stock market. There's so many different things you can do. You can invest in businesses, right? There's so many different things. But the main thing is what we talked about is beating your debt, building your wealth and controlling your future. And. The best way to do that is to be armed with as much information as possible. And that's why I say education is so important and why I have this podcast to provide this service, to know, help people learn and understand some of these different things, especially the things that I don't understand too much about, which is which is really cool. All right speaking of NFTs and going towards the future. So I was telling me how the stock market, you see it go up and then you can see the dip, you see it go up and then dips. So what do you think the actual NFT market, what's this look like in the future? Where do you think this is going?

Anthony Fatseas:
27:57

Yeah, definitely. And that's, it is quite interesting. I say, because at the moment, if you look at the issues that we, that NFTs have is there's a very high barrier to entry. Not only is it's quite complex. So I mentioned that to you before, and I didn't make it sound easy and that was trying to make it as simple as possible. But not only that, if you look at the, let's say the blue chip projects that they call them sort of similar stocks. They're extremely expensive. So let's say for, crypto punks, there's the Gary V has his own NFT the board yacht club, all those ones that well known to be quite expensive hundreds and thousands of dollars. If you want to invest in apple or the best companies in, It's possible because of fractionalization shares, you're going need that whole share. So the way I see NFTs being a similar that's the future I think. If you want it to invest in it way, rather than buying the whole thing and having to put hundreds of thousands of dollars on down you could buy a share. It was what I was talking before about rally road, which is a platform that's available for that. But I think that's the future of NFTs and how ordinary people like ourselves can invest in them because there's no way for me that I could actually ever buy one of those. And you have to get, there are a few projects which are possible and you can do your own research and it is possible, but there's obviously that. Yeah, there's luck as well involved, similar to, finding alt coin that pumps up there is that little, tiny bit of luck, no matter how much research you do, you just need that age, the same stocks, the same, everything, the timing. So that's what that's where I see it going fractionalized. I could also see real estate got fractionalized as well. So for people who are struggling to actually get on the property ladder, you could split it up between a hundred people. And then I know some companies do that.

Average Joe Finances:
29:34

Oh, yeah, that's a big thing. That's how I invest in multi-family real estate right now. Like I'm in a syndication deal partnered up with some people and got 102 unit apartment building. I couldn't take that down by myself, so it's yeah, definitely. Like it's definitely something that's already available in real estate right now is these, it's kind of like, fractional shares. But it's a bunch of people partner up to raise the capital to buy these assets.

Anthony Fatseas:
29:55

Can you sell like your share?

Average Joe Finances:
29:57

No, I can't. So I can't sell it right now. Some, it all depends on who your operators are and who you're with. There's some companies like I know like with if you invest in like a real estate investment trust, on the stock market, like a publicly traded one Buy and sell as you want with those. And it's very similar, but you don't get like the tax benefits of owning real estate. Whereas if you're in a syndication deal, you're going to get some of those tax benefits because you actually own part of that asset. But the thing is. Everybody that's involved, they all own it. And it's the operators. They're the ones who, make the votes and make it happen and say, okay, Hey, now's the time that we're going to sell. And usually you'll see people they'll buy these assets hold em for three to five years, turn around and sell it. And then the profits get split amongst the the, all the owners and partners. So it's pretty nice. I get distributions, so I get paid monthly based off of the people paying their rent and everything. So I get my cut of that, which is really cool. And for me it's, one of those things where I can invest and I just build like this passive cashflow and I don't have to worry about it. And that's what I like about it. And then when the asset sells a few years later, I take the profits from that and turn it back around and go into another one. So that's one of the things I, that, for me it's a comfort level thing. So I, I know that I'm going to be getting a returns on my investment, but I can definitely see something like that in the future too, for NFTs, especially like with what I was mentioning earlier. I see a lot of people talking about these, the, this digital real estate and different things like that. I could see, some of the bigger, pieces of digital real estate, where that's going to be an option in the future as well, where you can buy like these, I guess fractional pieces of NFT. That's probably something that we'll we'll see in the future which is really neat because I think we're going to start to see a lot of the stuff that you can buy as a real asset in the real world start to, to trade similarly in the digital world. And that's just where we're heading, that's what the future is. And as much as people want to try to say, oh no, that's not, for me, I'm not going to be part of sky net or whatever. Hey that's what the future is. I mean, look, look at all the scifi shows now that that are coming to life, it's crazy. Like we never thought we would have, touchscreen phones like this. It's absolutely insane that I have something even more powerful than my computer that I keep in the palm of my hand. It's absolutely insane, but that's the world you have to evolve and you have to keep moving with it. Otherwise you get left behind. So that's why stuff like this is very interesting to me and very interesting to my listeners because, they want to continue moving and evolving in life and growing. So this is just a, another way to do that. So that's why I'm very appreciative. For you to talk to me about this stuff. So I've rambled on long enough about this, but okay. So you're, you're big into crypto and now you're in NFTs and everything. We talked about what we think like the future of that looks like. You've been in this now for, I guess what, like three years now, right? Going on maybe four years as we come up here to 20 22. What is something that you've learned over the course of investing in crypto and NFTs that you wish you would've known when you first started and lost half of your money?

Anthony Fatseas:
32:54

Wow. That's a big question. I think the main thing is look at the horizon. And I think, probably for a lot of people, when we first started out, we're like, oh, I want to be a millionaire straightaway. I want to, I want to be rich. I want to get in gamesstop, or, AMC or, one of these alt coins and just flip it and retire straight away. But I think sometimes it's just, it's the boring place. Sometimes they're the best place. And it's just looking at the horizon as you said, technology is the future and if you look at the, I saw a statistic recently where I think the NASDAQ if you take out the five massive technology companies, it's actually a negative in that moment. So it is literally the future is carrying the markets is carrying the economies technology and if you don't wanna embrace it, that's okay. But just having understanding of it and look at the future and what, and where you think things would go and look for companies, look for, NFTs look for things in the metaverse. And I think that's something that we could talk about further that I didn't talk about before, about the future and the metaverse and where that could go. But yeah, that's what I, that's probably what the advice I give myself, don't be so short sited look further in front.

Average Joe Finances:
33:53

Yeah. That's very fair. That's very fair for sure. Okay. So now I have to ask you do you have a favorite business, investing, real estate, or a crypto related book or podcasts besides your own? That you'd like to share with us today?

Anthony Fatseas:
34:10

Let me have a think I am I'll give you a book and it's one that sort of, it might not be investment as such it's more statistics, but it's from someone called Sim Telab. I'm not sure if you've heard of him. And it's a book called Antifragile and it's statistically looking at the stock market. He was an options trader. He made a lot of money. He wrote a book called black Swan as well. And it's looking at us black Swan events. And, basically what you're trying to do is if you think of something that's fragile, that breaks, but if you think of something, an antifragile, if. Put on it, it actually gets stronger than it becomes better. So he talks about actually building a system in place where if it goes against you, you have very small downside, but if it goes for you, you have massive upside. And his book antifragile is it influenced me quite a lot in terms of, and if you look at Bitcoin and all these things, And in crypto. And NFTs, that's what they are, if you're putting a small percentage of your portfolio into them, say, less than 5% as many of these have gone up a hundred times what's the downside of, if it goes down 50%, you've lost 2.5% of the portfolio or whatever you've invested. But if it goes up to those levels, over the past year and a bit, it's gone up 20 times. So if it goes up that level, then that's a massive, and I think that's one thing for me is trying to minimize the downside and maximize the upside. And that's someone that I've, I really enjoy his books. And I think he's written five of them as well, around that, that notion of statistics and how that works. I'm not sure if you have you heard of.

Average Joe Finances:
35:37

So I've heard of black Swan but I've not heard of anti-fragile. So I'm definitely gonna check that one out. That definitely sounds very interesting. Sounds it sounds more to help you, adjust your mindset when it comes to those kinds of things and that's one of the things that I find about most of the people that I talk to on this show that have a business or a podcast or anything like that. And just, or just investing in general is like one of the biggest things is just having that the right mindset when you're looking towards this stuff. So this looks like it would be a good book to help people with that fir sure.

Anthony Fatseas:
36:04

Yeah. And I think it's something that it's not just focused on investing. It's literally can apply it to anything in life. And he talks about just, he does talk about financial systems, but, governmental systems and all these things and the importance of volatility as well. Like sometimes we, we want the stock market to go up all the time. But if that happens, then you're going to have a massive drop, you want, you actually want that volatility up and down and it makes things more stable. And that's the same for crypto, we can't, it can't go up forever. It's the same for, NFTs. If it goes the higher, it goes up on the quicker. It goes up the quicker we'll come down. And I think that's the thing that healthy markets has. Those ups.

Average Joe Finances:
36:35

Oh, yeah. It's the law of physics too, it's gravity. What goes up must come down unless you make it to space and then you can beat that. But I guess that's why everybody's talking about, you got to take it to the moon, I guess that's why that's the next big thing, because it's not coming back down once it hits the moon.

Anthony Fatseas:
36:49

Yeah, I'm looking for what's the average average Joe, a spaceship future.

Average Joe Finances:
36:55

Yeah. Give me five more years. No, I'm kidding. No. Awesome, man. Th that is not an aspiration of mine I don't think we'll quite see that maybe maybe I'll do I'll get like one of those VR headsets and and do it that way. And that's what I, that's how I take my trip to the moon, unless I can get an invite on someone else's rocket ship, but I, yeah, I don't have any aspiration to do that myself definitely interested in space travel because I'm a big scifi nerd. I'm pretty sure you already saw like my star wars tattoos on my arm. Yeah. But anyway this has been a very interesting conversation. I really feel like I learned a lot. I got some great notes here. Got some stuff I want to look up and look a little more into. But speaking of that, because of the stuff we talked about and how interesting it is and just learning about this NFTs as an asset class my listeners are going to be like, Hey, yeah, we really liked what Anthony's talking about. I've been wanting to look at NFTs. I want to learn more about that kind of stuff in crypto. So I know you have a podcast. We mentioned it at the beginning, right? The WT finance podcast and I'd like to know where people can find you. Do you have a website, you could share with us social media. Let us know everything.

Anthony Fatseas:
38:00

Yeah. Thanks Mike I really appreciate. And thank you so much for having me on the podcast. I'm a massive fan of your show and just, I think he just makes things so simple. And I think that's very important about finance, sometimes it can be so complex, especially. I know when I answered you probably had the same, there's just all these terms and jargon and stuff, and it's so confusing. So really appreciate that. But but yeah, so for me, I don't have a website yet, but that is the plan. But I mainly have a YouTube channel on sort of other podcast platforms that you can access it, the WT finance. And if you can believe it, I actually haven't, don't have an NFT interview yet. I have lots of crypto and for me it is my interest at the moment and is something I'm very fascinated in, but I love the broadness of finance and how much there is that you can actually learn. So I have real estate commodities stock macroeconomics economic, it, basically everything imaginable, inflation looking at the next market crash, how that works. And yeah, the best places to find me would be on YouTube on the WT finance. And I'm also on Instagram and Twitter, just under my name, Anthony Fatseas I'm looking expand to a website and hopefully have a platform similar to Mike's.

Average Joe Finances:
39:03

All right. Awesome, man. Hey, and I appreciate, the kind words about my show as well. That's why it's called Average Joe's right. Like we're trying to make it make finance and real estate and investing and all of that just simpler for people to understand. It's not that it's complicated stuff. It's just that sometimes when you go in and try to look for this stuff and you're trying to learn about it, it can be very overwhelming, which is why I like to bring on guests that have done this. They've come on here and they've basically they came, they saw, they conquered and they're continuing to move up in their business and continue to build their wealth and that, Hey, from where they started to where they are now, like you can do that too. You're an example to look at what you're doing, you started back in 2018 and look at where you're at now, where you're having a podcast talking about this stuff. It's absolutely amazing. Anthony I know it's a Saturday or maybe it's Sunday by you now. I know it's a super late cause you're in the UK. So I really appreciate you taking the time on this weekend. Now the Saturday into Sunday to have this conversation with me and just and help me learn a little bit more about NFTs and help my audience learn a little bit more. I think the information you provided was fantastic and I'll have a link to your podcast and YouTube channel in our show notes to make it easier for people to find you. But Hey man, it's been a pleasure. Thank you for chatting with me today.

Anthony Fatseas:
40:19

Oh, thank you so much for having me. I really appreciate it. And yeah, it's 2am. so hopefully that was okay. It wasn't putting everyone on sleep.

Average Joe Finances:
40:25

You need to put yourself to sleep. So you have yourself a good night and Aloha from Hawaii.