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The Honest Money Show is your guide to understanding what money really is — and why today’s system isn’t working. Hosted by Anja Dragovic, this show cuts through the noise to explore how money shapes our lives, where it’s gone wrong, and what a better future could look like. Along the way, you'll discover how Bitcoin fits into the bigger picture — not as hype, but as a serious response to a broken system. Whether you're curious, skeptical, or already down the
Speaker: Welcome to Honest Money.
I'm your host, Anja, and today's
episode is brought to you by hard block.
Anja: Thank you for crossing the
border to come on the podcast.
Wence.
Thank you both in different, all the
Matthew: way from Byron Bay.
We're both in different
states for the recording.
It's so funny.
Yeah, yeah.
How is Byron Bay?
Anja: I love it.
I love it.
I actually live in Lennox
Head at the moment.
Oh,
Matthew: do you?
Anja: Okay.
Yeah.
Lennox is amazing.
I absolutely love it.
It's like my little coastal village and
I never want to go back to city life.
I'm like addicted now.
Where were
Matthew: you before this?
Anja: Sydney.
Matthew: Oh, big change.
Anja: Yeah, big change.
Matthew: Tell me about
the work that you do.
'cause you were in between jobs, you said.
Anja: Yeah, so at the moment
I'm just working like locally
at a, at a local hotel.
It's like my fiat job.
I've literally went from being in
the highest tax bracket to possibly.
So you
Matthew: had a complete like flip,
Anja: like complete flip.
Yeah.
I really wanted a job that
gives me flexibility to
continue basically doing this.
So it's, yeah, it's like,
Matthew: well, I just have to
ask then, Anya, what was the, I
know, uh, I just wanna know like
you've gone from corporate Yeah.
To something to happened with bitcoin.
I'm just throwing something out.
Maybe there was a relationship breakup.
I needed it.
I mean, I dunno, I find people have this
thing in life that something happens,
they steer some to a different way.
Anja: Yeah, I think it
was a number of things.
So COVID definitely was
something that really impacted
the way I think about things.
And, you know, escaping
like a war torn Yugoslavia.
Um, where that's where I was
born in Croatia and Okay.
You know, my family's mixed Serbian
and Croatian coming to Australia for a
better life and more freedom, um, felt
like the whole COVID era just was a
regression on those individual freedoms.
And that was kind of the first.
A bit, I guess the first catalyst
I decided to sell my investment
property and the little apartment
that I had and just wanted in
Matthew: Sydney,
Anja: uh, in Perth.
So I'm originally from Perth.
Okay.
And yeah, decided to sell that because I
just didn't wanna be anchored to anything.
Matthew: Mm-hmm.
Anja: Um, until I kind of
figured out what I wanted to do.
So I moved to Sydney.
I, uh, got a really high
paying job and was climbing the
corporate ladder really fast.
What, what's your
Matthew: specialty?
Anja: Uh, customer experience
design and service design.
Okay.
So working for large organizations,
essentially trying to create
efficiencies and improvements
across the board, but also improve
that customer facing experience.
Matthew: Okay.
Anja: So I did that.
I was in the corporate world and climbing
the corporate ladder really fast.
And yeah, I just realized that, you
know, going up the corporate ladder
doesn't necessarily lead to truth.
It leads to political games and mm-hmm.
And playing optics.
And I was like, this kind of feels fake.
And, and yeah.
Then I discovered Bitcoin and, and
essentially just, yeah, it was, it, it
still shocks me to this day, just how
much of like a core shaking, you know,
experience it's been because I never
exp expected so late in life, like in
my late thirties to just change so much.
Like, you get, you go
through most so old Yeah.
You go through most changes like
in your younger years and, yeah.
No,
Matthew: well, you, you.
You're young
Anja: like, yeah,
Matthew: please.
She's, she's saying, I'm, so, you know,
in my later years, I'm, I'm late thirties
Anja: old at millennial,
Matthew: you don't even have a gray hair.
I've got, I've got, I've got
lots of gray hairs happening now.
Anja: I do.
I color my hair, so Okay.
At home, because I'm cheap now.
Matthew: Yeah, of course, of course.
You wanna cut those costs
down and stack more Bitcoin.
Anja: Exactly.
No one's got time to sit in a,
in a hair salon for three hours.
Matthew: No, they don't.
Anja: No,
Matthew: they don't.
That's a, that's an interesting, really
interesting story and, um, congrats
to you for taking the plunge, really.
Anja: Yeah.
Matthew: Because, um, uh, you
mentioned before about, um, you
know, being anchored and I've had
this same epiphany, let's call it.
Right.
And I, and I sold all these
investment properties, all
these commercial properties.
I had a, a, like a seven car
collection thing happening.
Anja: Yeah.
Matthew: And it seemed like a dream.
Anja: Yeah.
Matthew: Until, it wasn't a dream,
until it was, I don't have time to deal
with these cars actually, and they're
actually taking up my time and energy.
And I was like, okay, I've had them now.
Anja: Yeah.
Matthew: Move them out more Bitcoin.
Uh, and so that's what I did.
So, and now I'm finding, I've
coined the phrase dematerialize.
Anja: Yeah,
Matthew: you've heard that one.
Yeah.
Dematerialize things.
Yeah, absolutely.
Into Bitcoin.
Anja: Yeah.
Matthew: And so properties, cars, and
then you start, obviously you start
with the biggest things and then you
merge it into, like, I've got, I've
just got like stuff at home, right?
Just stuff I've held for, you know,
I've got storage set full of stuff.
I don't need that stuff, for example.
Anja: Yeah.
Matthew: For those listening.
Just BMX things.
Like I used to have, I used to be A BMX
racer, so I've got BMX vintage things.
Anja: Oh, that's so cute.
Matthew: And yeah.
Right.
They're worth a lot of money.
Anja: Yeah.
Matthew: Yeah.
And so I was just started
selling off these things.
Here's an, here's a good example.
I've got a, uh, one of the
members of my online community
Anja: Yep.
Matthew: He is 53, and he had this, he
had $500,000 worth of car memorabilia.
I'm talking vintage signs.
Castrol oil cans.
Yeah.
He, he's, um, an incredible guy.
He's a trekker.
He has a business, but he loves trekking.
Anja: What's trekking
Matthew: like trekking
through the wilderness.
Anja: Oh, right, right.
Tracker.
Hiking.
Matthew: Hiking.
Anja: Okay.
Matthew: Yeah.
They call him Trekker.
Okay.
Right.
And, uh, he does like the Kota track.
He's like a guide on
that and thing, right?
Anja: Yep.
Matthew: He was walking through
the Himalayas or something.
Exotic.
Some guy mentions about Bitcoin.
He's intrigued.
He gets off the mountain.
He gets handed a book, that's it.
He's all in.
It just was like this bang, wake up,
he gets back to Australia, he finds
my community, he connects with me.
He's like, Matt, all this is going.
So every now and then he posts up on our,
on our group, just sold this Castro oil.
Can $5,000 bought more Bitcoin, right?
So as he just starts to dematerialize
all these physical possessions that he
just really doesn't need, he's gonna had
them, what's he gonna do with them now?
Right?
Anja: Yeah.
Matthew: So this is part of your journey.
Anja: Absolutely.
Absolutely.
And, and like I, I sometimes
think, could I go back?
Um, because obviously there are
benefits, like, you know, if I was
earning more, I would be stacking more
aggressively than I am at the moment, but.
It's just my values have changed
and I can't go back and I can't
trade the lifestyle that I have now.
Like, I get to see wildlife every day.
I see dolphins, I see water dragons.
I go walking for like two, three
hours on the beach every day.
I go to the gym at 10:00 AM I work,
but a lot, you know, like I don't
earn a lot of money, but I'm like
probably the happiest I've ever been.
Matthew: Yeah.
Anja: And do I wanna trade that live in
a dog box in Sydney and being the highest
salary bracket and, you know, feel, feel
Matthew: like, and go to all the stress.
Anja: Yeah.
Right.
The political right of,
Matthew: of the latter you mentioned.
Anja: No, I, yeah.
Nobody got time for that.
So Bitcoin is a hell of a drug and you
know, like my main strategy is now is just
really like continuing the accumulation,
particularly now that we're in a bear
market and you know, buy, well it's cheap.
Yeah.
Um, and then just hold
onto it like self custody.
Mm-hmm.
Really passionate about that.
Mm-hmm.
Um, that's something I strongly
advocate on my podcast.
But let me ask you a question
'cause you feel like this has.
You know, an Anya show so far.
Matthew: Well, maybe.
I know it's been an a Well,
it's the AA show, right?
However,
Anja: yeah.
Matthew: Maybe people
don't know much about aa.
Yeah, yeah,
Anja: yeah, they
Matthew: do.
They know a bit more now.
Anja: Okay.
They do.
Yeah, they do.
Thank you for, thank you
for the introduction.
Matthew: Yeah.
Who is aa?
Yeah,
Anja: who?
Who's aa?
Um.
But I'd love to know, one of
the reasons that I started
this podcast is a few reasons.
So, one is to help de
weird Bitcoin in Australia.
We all know people who you know,
are into Bitcoin and I have had
some clients that are like boomers
say, you know, I love Bitcoin.
I wanna, you know, buy more Bitcoin to
pass it on to my grandchildren and sell
more investment properties that I've got.
Turn that into Bitcoin, but I can't
talk to any of my friends about
it because they think I'm nuts.
Mm-hmm.
So I wanna help dewi that.
And it's so satisfying because recently
on LinkedIn, I've been shit posting
on LinkedIn for about two years now.
And in the beginning, everyone that I've
worked with never liked any of my posts.
Oh, okay.
And I've had people reach out to me
privately and say, um, you know, I've been
in Bitcoin for a while, I really like it,
but they're just really like hiding it.
And recently I've had.
Like my post.
And I was like, you know,
it's, it's starting to change.
It's starting to change.
And that's what I'm really, um, it's
so satisfying sometimes, like the
smallest metrics that you wouldn't think
are important are so important to me.
And that's kind of one of those metrics.
Um, but I'm curious about you because
the other, uh, thing I wanna do is
we, in Australia, we have Twitter
Bitcoiners and we have Instagram
Bitcoiners, and I've interviewed some
Instagram bitcoiners, like Adam Hudson.
Mm-hmm.
And now you and I wanna
help merge the two worlds.
Where are you in your
like Bitcoin philosophy?
Are you Bitcoin only?
Matthew: Great question.
Anja: Yeah.
Matthew: Shout out to Adam Hudson.
Anja: Yeah.
Matthew: Great guy.
Um, so, uh, and he's, and just let me say
this, Adam's actually played a, played a
really strong, uh, impact in my life too.
'cause he was a mentor of mine
Anja: Oh,
Matthew: nice.
During the Amazon days.
Anja: I didn't know this.
Matthew: Love this.
Yeah.
Yeah.
So, um, yeah.
Great guy.
Where do I sit?
I've moved from, I think a lot of
people go through this journey,
Anya, which is, they get into crypto.
Uh, I got some training years ago.
Anja: Yeah.
Matthew: Spent $20,000 for a whole
year of meeting with a guy to learn
about Bitcoin and crypto before
I just sort of just shoveling my
money in and wasting it basically.
Anja: Yeah.
I,
Matthew: I did that though.
I wanna share this with people too.
I did that because I'd spent 20 plus
thousand dollars in Amazon training,
which then paid off to do an Amazon
business, which I created, which
ultimately did $70 million in revenue Wow.
In like a few years.
Anja: Nice.
Matthew: Completely changed my life.
Anja: Yeah.
Matthew: So paid off.
So investing in yourself is worth it.
Okay.
So I can go and invest myself again
through this, uh, crypto training.
And they said at the time like, diversify.
Like diversify, not diversify.
Property shares in crypto,
diversify within crypto.
Mm-hmm.
Yeah.
But one thing they did say
though, was go heavy Bitcoin.
Yeah.
So 80% Bitcoin something or other.
So I did, I went to the heavy
Bitcoin ethe, the standard stuff.
Right.
Sort of the top 10 alt coins.
Um, some meme coins.
Right.
And you kind of, you're, you're gambling.
Speaker 5: Quick one for the Aussies
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Anja: Yep.
Matthew: You don't really
know what you're doing.
Right.
You, and you're sort of throwing money
into like, oh, I hope at a hundred Xs.
Ultimately what's happened over time
is I've morphed out of alt coins, read
more books about Bitcoin, understand
bitcoin more, because it's not just
the monetary aspect of Bitcoin,
it's the philosophy of Bitcoin.
And as you go down that
Bitcoin rabbit hole, you are
like, what's happened to you?
Anya?
Your life starts to change.
You think differently.
Then you start seeing
things like through COVID.
One of the big wake up calls for
me was not just the fact that.
Uh, I stood against the jab.
I, none of my family got the jab.
Anja: Mm.
Matthew: I was in a position
though at the time to reject it
because I had a shit ton of money
Anja: Mm.
Matthew: In the bank.
Anja: Yeah.
Matthew: I didn't have to worry
about crossing the border or I didn't
give a shit about going to the pub.
Anja: Yeah,
Matthew: right.
I was like, I'm not doing that shit.
Right.
You could see the writing was on the
wall following, in that same context
was the Canadian trucker saga where
the banks froze people's accounts.
I've never seen that before.
Anja: Yeah.
Matthew: I was like, wow, this is crazy.
Anja: I, I have, but that's the
thing, like, you, people don't
think that it's gonna happen like
in, in countries like Canada and
Australia, but it absolutely does.
Like there's authoritarian overreach
happening here all the time,
and it's becoming more and more
prominent and it's like, is this the
Australia that I came to in 1997?
Matthew: It's not,
Anja: no.
Matthew: Massive wake up call.
Anja: Yeah.
Matthew: So then you start
understanding about self custody of
Bitcoin can't be seized, et cetera.
Okay.
And so that was, that was basically it.
Let me add this though too, Anya is,
people might be listening to this and
thinking that was, that was years ago.
Like that stopped.
Now everything's good, right?
We're going through the fuel crisis.
Yeah.
Whether it's fabricated or not,
there's, the crisis is happening,
so prices are definitely going up.
Anja: Yeah.
Matthew: Whether we've got the
fuel or not, the prices are up.
Okay.
And what's, and there's like a
run at the moment on assets and
people turning 'em into cash.
So this is the time when people freak
out and they wanna rotate out of maybe
stock shares, property, crypto into cash.
'cause they kind of feel like
that's the best thing to hold.
Right.
Uh, the bank of, uh, UBS in, in Europe
has just frozen a property fund.
Worth 400 plus million dollars.
Yeah.
For up to three years because
there was a run on that fund.
People wanted to take their money out.
Sorry.
You can't take the money out.
Anja: Yep.
Matthew: So this type of, it's not
necessarily freezing your bank account,
but it's freezing other investments
that you can no longer do as you perhaps
thought you could by just moving it
around willy-nilly having a liquid asset.
Yeah.
Okay.
Think about just recently too,
where we had the, the, there was
a big increase in gold value.
Okay.
And was fascinating to me, Anya,
because I loved it, was the people
that were queuing up down the street.
Okay.
Now I call those the sheeple.
They were queuing up down the street.
Yep.
Not when, when, not when Gold
was like, Hey, it's dirt cheap
right now, guys come and get it.
Like, nah, we don't want that gold.
It's too cheap.
And they went, okay, well look,
how about we put the price up?
We, we put it up to
$4,000, whatever, right?
Great.
We're gonna, we wanna buy some now.
So the people lining up down the street
and the news comes out and films the
door and it's interviewing people
in the street and like, yeah, we are
buying gold because, you know, we
think it's a great asset, da da da.
Right?
And it's just a complete, like,
it's a, it's like a bit of a joke
now and unfortunately the same
thing is now happening in Bitcoin.
When Bitcoin was at one 26,000 and
roughly late last year, everybody's
buying the hype is there now.
It's on like a, basically a 50% discount.
And there's like ghosts now, right?
And now is the time actually people should
be, as I like to say, um, as I hear people
say back up the truck to get more bitcoin.
Anja: I did see some Google data, Google
Analytics data recently that in America
and Australia, and I assume other
countries too, um, the search term, how
to buy Bitcoin has gone up nearly to
2017 levels, which is really strange
considering we're in a bear market.
Matthew: Mm.
Anja: So, yeah, it'll be interesting
to see, like I've, I've had a few
people reach out to me as well.
It's like they've been
thinking about it for a while.
They're like, so how do I get started?
Matthew: Yeah.
Let me say this, Danya, what's
interesting about Bitcoin is that,
actually, let me tell this story.
There's a guy that I know
that's worth $500 million.
Mm, okay.
This is a good story.
Has a truckload of properties.
He's in his sixties and I spoke to him
recently, an Australian guy, and he said,
Matthew, my biggest mistake was not.
Buying any Bitcoin.
What did he buy?
Anya?
XRP.
Anja: Oh, no.
Matthew: Yes.
He bought a lot of XRP.
Anja: Yep.
Matthew: Now maybe that's
a hedge for people, right?
I'm not, I'm not dissing XRP, but he
wished he'd bought Bitcoin as well.
Anja: Mm-hmm.
Matthew: Okay.
And the reason why he wanted to
do that was because, um, he now
realizes the portability of Bitcoin.
He's got all anchoring, all these other
investment properties and developments.
I've been talking massive things, right?
Anja: Yeah.
Matthew: Are just anchoring
him down in this country.
So he wants to dematerialize those
and put into Bitcoin so he can
move his wealth around the globe.
Now, the point of this story is
that why would a $500 million person
contact me to talk about Bitcoin?
It's because it doesn't matter
actually how many zeros are in
your bank account, so to speak.
Everyone's on the same journey
of discovering Bitcoin.
So whether you've got a hundred
dollars net worth or you've got,
uh, a million dollar net wealth.
You still have to discover Bitcoin.
Anja: Yep.
Matthew: So when you talked about the
inquiry rate might be up right now, what
we've also seen is a lot of people who
have a lot of money, yet they're not
suffering from petrol prices issues.
Okay.
That's the, that's the
beauty of having money.
Anja: Yeah.
Matthew: All these small things.
Like honestly, if, if, if
Bitcoin quadrupled today,
I wouldn't even notice it.
Right.
It wouldn't affect me.
Anja: Yeah.
Matthew: Affects a lot of other people.
And so when you've got a lot of money,
there's, you have bigger problems now.
Mm. Not the little problems.
Yeah.
But you also have to go on this
journey of discovering Bitcoin as well.
Yeah.
Because even the $500 million guy just
can't go down to his bank manager at
the moment and say, I want to allocate
some of my portfolio to, to Bitcoin.
He has to discover it himself.
So the, the, the search term
is up, perhaps, I would say,
because a lot of wealthy people
understand what Bitcoin is now.
They're sort of catching on.
And the adoption rate, I think I saw, uh.
A chart only yesterday showing that
the, those who have more net wealth, the
whales are increasing their buying today.
Anja: Yeah, absolutely.
Absolutely.
And I love, I love this story.
Um, I have heard that as well, that
quite a lot of like high net worth
individuals are taking an interest in
Bitcoin, particularly in Australia.
But it's interesting that you said that
he, because he wanted to diversify, he
diversified into XRP, whereas have you
seen that, um, that chart that shows two
circles and a lot of people think that
crypto Bitcoin is part of crypto and
Fiats on this side, but it's actually
fiat and crypto are in the same circle.
And Bitcoin is, is its
own standalone thing.
So if you wanna diversify, you don't
wanna just diversify across asset
classes, but across systems as well.
Matthew: Right.
Which is interesting because
you see a lot of people who are,
and I've owned XRP before too.
Anja: Yeah.
Matthew: Okay.
And let me be transparent.
Today I have probably
95 plus percent Bitcoin.
I have six figures of Solana,
which I just had for ages.
Yeah.
And it's done quite well.
Yeah.
I've sat on it.
Um, and I also hold some Tesla
shares and strategy shares.
Anja: Yep.
Matthew: That's it.
Anja: Yep.
Matthew: That's my whole portfolio done.
Yep.
Okay.
Um, heavy, heavy Bitcoin.
Anja: Yep.
Matthew: But, uh, the XRP holders, what's
interesting is they're all about, we
hate the system, we wanna get out of it.
Right.
And then the same, the next
sentence is, and this is going to
be the new rails for the system.
Yeah.
Right.
The new bra.
We're gonna, we're gonna replace the
swift rails and we're gonna put in
the XRP rails, which are gonna, and
we're gonna partner with the banks.
And we love the banks.
Yeah.
And it was like, whatcha talking about,
Anja: are they intellectually confused
or ideologically confused or both?
Matthew: I think it's, I look
the great thing about XRP.
It's got an incredible marketing team.
Anja: Yes.
Matthew: Okay.
Like incredible.
Anja: Yeah.
Matthew: The amount of money
that that goes into it is,
is obscene and good on 'em.
Right.
Uh, Bitcoin doesn't have a marketing team.
It's just the people like you and
me who talk about it 'cause we
believe in it, not because we're
getting paid to talk about it.
Anja: Yeah.
Matthew: So to speak.
Anja: Sponsored by big Bitcoin.
Yeah,
Matthew: yeah, yeah, yeah.
Anja: Yeah.
I love that.
I love that.
So, um, I'd lost my train of thought.
I was gonna ask you a
really good question.
Matthew: That happens to me all the
time and I go down a rabbit hole
and then I go, oh, that's right.
We should be talking about something else.
And what we talking about again,
because I just keep going down.
Anja: Let's talk about the fuel situation.
'cause I did actually
just recently this hair.
Matthew: Yeah.
Anja: I did just recently, um, uh,
listen to one of your podcasts and
Matthew: what was I saying?
Anja: Uh, or you're talking
about the straight of MOUs?
Um, oh yeah.
Yep.
And, and just like the whole situation
giving like different potential scenarios
like two to three months from now.
If these things don't, uh,
get sorted out, how that might
look like, um, in Australia.
What, what do you think this situation is?
'cause I know you also
listen to Simon Dixon.
Matthew: Yeah, yeah, yeah.
Sort of listening to what Simon, I like
to listen to a range of different voices.
Yeah.
Simon Dixon I've found
to be super fascinating.
Um, he's obviously done very
well in the Bitcoin space.
He's super sort of locked into sort
of the behind the scenes of banking.
'cause he, he actually tried to
get his own bank up and running.
Yeah.
You know that.
Yeah.
So I think what's gonna happen in
Australia though is that, uh, if the
strait is not open and we don't start
seeing a com, a consistent flow of
oil and the oil price comes down, then
the, obviously petrol will stay at a
high price, probably will go higher.
That will then flow through to
everything starting with, I mean,
you even see the reports recently.
The cafes wanna put their coffee
up by 30 cents or whatever, right?
I mean, yeah.
Hang on a second.
But, um, I understand they're
gonna put the prices up, but
why does the cafes, everybody's
gonna have to put their price up.
Anja: Yeah.
Matthew: Which ultimately means
that you're gonna then see, like
what we saw recently on the, a bbc,
ABC's out there, we need more money.
Right?
Not because of fuel prices, is they
They do, but everybody's gonna be
on strike then because we need more
money because we don't have enough
fiat dollars to pay for the inflation
now of all the, all the goods, right?
Mm-hmm.
But it's a never ending cycle.
Just when you think they've, like, you
think, um, someone protests, they get
the pay, think great, they're done.
Now they've got their power.
No.
'cause then a year later they're back.
Because the why, you know this
because the monetary system is broken.
Anja: Yeah,
Matthew: yeah.
Inflation just keeps pushing up.
You got inflation and currency,
the basement, now the money.
So go back to the fuel prices.
People will then start
requiring a pay rise.
The government will
have to step in because.
People can't afford anything.
So then there'll be these handouts.
Right.
Much, probably, probably much
like we saw through COVID.
Yep.
The, the, you know, it'd be the fuel
crisis handout, boom, boom, boom, boom.
Everyone gets some money and of
course it'll go to the middle
class and, uh, probably the
lower end of the middle class.
And also the poor people,
if I can put it that way.
Yeah, yeah.
Those who are just completely
broke on fixed incomes.
Then what will happen is the
bank will put the rates up
Anja: Yep.
Matthew: To try and curb the inflation.
So then all the people with mortgage
is gonna be completely wrecked.
Yeah.
Yeah.
Who knows?
Go up.
We may see rates go, I'm, I, look,
I'm, I'm speculating here, but
have a look at your budget because
if it goes up two, 3%, it could
put a lot of people over the edge.
Yeah.
Yeah.
'cause they were already squeezed
before the petrol prices.
There was, remember that we
had a cost of living crisis.
Mm-hmm.
It was all people spoke about.
Anja: Yeah.
Matthew: And now they've
like, made that even worse.
Anja: Yeah.
Matthew: Okay.
So the rates will go up and then
people will lose their jobs.
And then it'll go into this other cycle.
Then we'll go into recession.
Anja: Mm.
Matthew: And then the government's
gonna have step in and like
actually like print way more money.
Even more than the handouts.
Anja: Yeah.
Matthew: And then hard assets will
go through the roof and then you'll
see Bitcoin go through the roof.
And no doubt, property will probably
also go through the roof too, because
of also you've seen, um, the cost
of producing a property goes up.
Yeah.
The plumbing supplies.
Supplies just came out recently
and said all of our plumbing
supplies are gonna go up 30%.
Anja: Yeah.
Matthew: Wow.
So it's just never ending cycle
of, um, inflation wage increases,
which then is more inflation, which
is then more currency debasement.
And we just go through these
cycles again and again.
Again.
And the only thing people need
to realize is that they needed to
have a hard asset like bitcoin.
To put their savings into
which they cannot be debased.
Anja: Yep.
Matthew: That's pretty much it.
Anja: That's it.
Matthew: Now, here's the problem.
Mana is most people don't have
much money because it's being
taken away by the inflation.
Anja: Yeah.
Matthew: But what I talk about
all the time, and I'm gonna,
I'm gonna divvy into SM SFS now.
Mm-hmm.
Okay.
Most people have some
sort of superannuation.
Mm-hmm.
The sad part is, is that
is also being wrecked.
Okay.
The average superannuation fund over the
past 20 years does about seven to 8%.
Okay.
The hurdle rate in Australia
would be round 14, let's say 15%.
Anja: Yeah.
Matthew: The hurdle rate is
what you've gotta achieve after
inflation and currency debasement.
Anja: Yeah.
Matthew: So when people listening to
this, they're like, yeah, but I get 8%.
I, I had someone the other day
say to me he was, that was good.
Anja: Yeah.
Matthew: I was like,
dude, you need to wake up.
Okay.
You're going backwards.
Anja: Yeah.
Matthew: Okay.
So if people aren't keeping up with the
hurdle rate, their savings, retirement
savings in a superannuation fund is
not keeping up with the inflation.
Anja: Yeah.
Matthew: And the currency debasement.
Anja: Yeah.
Matthew: So what can they do?
They can take that, those funds
outta their superannuation account,
rotate that into a self-managed
super fund and allocate to Bitcoin.
Why would they do that?
Anya?
Because Bitcoin right now is, has a
cagr, a compounding annual growth rate
of at least 30, 40% annual and is likely
to see that over the next 20 years.
As Michael Sayler says, it's the
gold rush period for Bitcoin.
His CAGR forecast is 30 to 60% over the
next 20 years, and then after 20 years,
he thinks it'll settle down to about 21%.
You can isolate that down
into even smaller timeframes.
Kathy Wood Arc invest, her
price prediction is a CAGR of
63% over the next five years.
So basically a 10 x between now
and 20 30, 20 32, let's say.
Yeah.
Right.
Absolutely.
Crushes the existing
establishment of superannuation.
Anja: Mm-hmm.
Matthew: Here's the next
problem with superannuation.
The government, the Labor Party
of Australia wants to raid it.
Okay.
Now, I don't wanna be hyperbolic here.
It doesn't mean they're gonna
come into the, to your, your
account and just take the money.
Yeah.
Okay.
That's what I'm, even though I think
the legislation is they actually could
through war situations or crises, but
what I'm talking about is they're in
cahoots with the big industry super funds.
Anja: Yeah.
Matthew: Okay.
Think of this.
Wayne Swan was the former
treasurer of Australia.
Jim Chalmers and him are good mates.
Okay.
Wayne Swan is now head of, of, uh, Cbus.
Super.
Anja: Okay.
Matthew: The Labor Party want these
big superannuation companies to invest
the money into labor PET projects
such as social housing and gr um,
and flawed green energy projects.
Anja: Yeah.
Matthew: Okay.
They're not interested in what
is gonna be the best return.
I spoke to a gentleman yesterday
who I had a, uh, a Bitcoin meeting
with, let's call that he's in the
construction industry, and he used
to work for a unionized workforce.
Okay.
He said The construction is so corrupt.
The amount of money that goes into these
things is completely ballooned out.
It's taxpayer's money funneled
through by essentially the Labor
party to their mates in the C-F-M-E-U.
We already know about the $15
billion that got wasted in Victoria.
Where's that money gone?
We don't know.
Into bikey gangs and, and
hookers and drugs, no doubt.
Allegedly.
And, and so there's huge amounts
of waste in these types of
construction deals, right?
So my point is that if your superannuation
funds are being invested in these types
of deal types of deals, do you think
you're gonna get the best return on
investment for your retirement funds?
No, you're not.
Okay.
And so that's why two reasons now
why people need to move out of a
traditional super fund into SMSF to get
it away from government control and to
allocate to the best performing asset.
That has ever been and is expected
to be until the next 20 years plus.
Yeah.
Okay.
Probably 30, 40, et cetera.
Now, a lot of people I speak to
say we wanna get out of government
control, this, that, and the other.
We want sovereignty and everything.
Great.
Get Bitcoin then.
But they get paralyzed, aren't you?
Anja: Yeah.
Matthew: They're paralyzed with fear
of, Ooh, go and read a fricking book.
Anja: Yeah.
Matthew: Go and understand what
Bitcoin is before you do it.
Right.
The other thing that people should
know is that they don't have to
allocate their entire life savings
in a super fund to Bitcoin.
Don't do that.
Move your funds from
superannuation into an SMSF.
Let's say you've got 200,000.
Anja: Yeah.
Matthew: You could put a hundred
thousand dollars into Bitcoin
and $50,000 into Tesla shares
and 50,000 into the s and p 500.
Anja: Exactly.
Matthew: If you wanted to Yeah.
You could diversify it.
At least it's away from
government control.
Yeah, yeah.
To from them rating it and you've now
you've allocated at least something.
To Bitcoin, the best performing asset.
Anja: Yeah, absolutely.
I, I did, um, uh, move my, uh, super into
Bitcoin like a hundred percent in Oh,
Matthew: you did?
Anja: Yeah, yeah, yeah.
And, and Awesome.
Yeah.
Um, did it like now in two,
towards the end of 2014.
So went up and then went down.
But like I, I
are
Matthew: yous you moved
your super into an SMSF
Anja: Yeah.
Matthew: In 2014?
Anja: No.
Oh my god.
2024. Okay.
I wish
Matthew: Anya
Anja: No.
So you're
Matthew: ahead of the game.
Anja: No, no.
My numbers, yeah.
I keep doing this.
2024. I've, I've said this on
a different podcast as well.
It was something to do with
talking on LinkedIn about Bitcoin.
Definitely not 2014.
Okay, so 2024.
Perfect.
Matthew: It, it still good.
Anja: Yeah, yeah, absolutely.
So it went up and then it went down.
But I know it's going back up.
So yeah, it's, it's, um, the
best thing I've ever done.
I'm so glad I did this and,
and yeah, quite a few of my
friends, um, have, have done it.
And I think the process is now
getting a little bit harder as well.
I know that when I was trying to
move it out of Australian super,
I had to liquidate all of the
positions and turn it into cash to
move, make it easier to move across.
Um, so, but then, yeah, they, they
kept dragging their feet and moving the
goalpost in terms of what was needed.
Matthew: Yes.
Anja: So they said like, you
need this, this, and this, and
I prepared that documentation.
Then they needed a certain way, and
then they wanted it like signed by.
A
Matthew: JP or
Anja: something.
Yeah, yeah, yeah.
And, but I went to the post office and
the stamp that the Australian Post Office
uses nationally wasn't good enough for
them because it was missing the employee
name, and it was like I had to go back
to the post office, found the same lady.
She goes, okay, like,
I'll just write my name.
Matthew: Yeah.
Anja: Like it was just, it was just, yeah.
I'm
Matthew: gonna say something
very controversial, aren't you?
Yeah.
Anja: Go for it.
Matthew: The Australian superannuation
system is completely corrupt.
Anja: It really is.
Matthew: They do not care
about your retirement savings.
Anja: Yeah.
Matthew: Case in point is when you
try and get your funds out legally,
right, they put in so many roadblocks.
The first thing is you send
through your rollover form.
What Rollover Forward doesn't
seem to have come through.
We've missing that.
Then you send it again.
Oh, you didn't dot the dot the
I and didn't cross the T and
then I've been through this.
It's a freaking nightmare.
Now what people need to do,
like for example, I have an
SMSF team that I work with.
This is all they do all day, every
day, SM SFS people, they will also step
in and contact these superannuation
companies and read in the Right Act
because they, my team knows the law.
Anja: Yeah.
Matthew: Okay.
It's, it's really disgraceful.
They do it intentionally
so that you give up.
You've gotta be on the phone.
Right.
I've, when I was going through
years ago, I had to put in
complaints or, or like the line.
Yeah.
You know, I was like, I
wanna speak to the CEOI
Anja: was calling them every single day.
Matthew: Yeah.
Anja: Half an hour look every
single day to Australian Super.
And I would get it escalated to the,
I think, customer relationship team.
And, you know, they kept
promising it's gonna come
tomorrow and it was just delayed.
And then I put in a complaint with afca
and that's when they sort of started
moving things a little bit further.
But the first, they basically
self assessed themselves and
not having done anything wrong.
Um, even though they, of
course, yeah, yeah, yeah.
Even though the case was
Matthew: like, we looked at ourselves
and we everything was a green tick.
Anja: Yeah, yeah, exactly.
And it was like, they said 10 business
days and it was past that point.
But anyway, like I just
couldn't be bothered with it.
By, by then, um, I was
glad to move my money out.
And then the second hurdle was
trying to get my money out of.
A NZ into the exchange.
Again, daily, half an hour phone calls
with the bank to move my own money.
So,
Matthew: okay.
Let's talk about that for a second.
Yeah.
Just for people listening like, oh
my God, this is gonna be a nightmare.
If you use an SMSF team like mine,
they'll make the process simple.
However, let's say that people want
to, do, people try and skip on on fees.
Um, I'm gonna set up my SMSF myself.
Do not do that.
You'll stuff it up.
Okay.
And the penalties are quite large.
Yeah.
If you don't do the
right things by the a TO.
Okay.
So you wanna do everything Correct.
And what, what People are gonna
find those, once they've done
the rollover that, and people
sort of don't really get it.
The money's gonna go from
your superannuation account
into a bank account.
Yeah.
And it's labeled SMSF Anya's account.
From there, they'll have the control
as to how I'm gonna put some into.
Bitcoin now into a exchange to buy Bitcoin
or I'm gonna buy some shares or whatever.
Right.
They could just leave it sitting
in the bank if they wanted to.
Anja: Mm-hmm.
Matthew: If they're moving it
into a crypto exchange, nine times
outta 10, there's gonna be a block.
Okay.
So expect it.
Anja: Mm-hmm.
Matthew: Expect that you're gonna have
to be on the phone for up to an hour
being grilled as to what you are doing.
Just note, moving your money
to an exchange is not illegal.
Okay.
It's completely legal.
The banks don't have any Right to stop the
transaction and be honest with the bank.
Don't make up anything.
Yeah.
Because that's where
you're gonna get stuck.
So one, you're not doing anything illegal.
Tell them, yes, I'm moving this
to X, Y, Z crypto exchange.
I'm gonna be buying Bitcoin.
Cool.
Yeah, it's so legal.
The a TO even designates it as an
asset that it's gonna be taxed.
Mm-hmm.
Okay.
That's how legal it is.
A and P Super also bought
$27 million side note.
Anja: Yep.
Matthew: In, uh, December 24 or something.
Right.
They allocated
Anja: 50 million into Bitcoin futures.
Matthew: Yeah.
Anja: Yep.
Matthew: There you go.
Right.
So if it's good enough for a and p,
it's good enough for everybody else.
So just be aware that
they have to do that.
Um, and once you've gone through
probably two maybe blocks mm-hmm.
It's probably gonna be smooth sailing.
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Anja: Yep.
Matthew: I don't wanna trash a NZ as
much as I'm not a fan of banks, however.
Anja: Yep.
Matthew: They've been
actually pretty good to me.
I went through two blockages.
Anja: Yep.
Matthew: After that, I've
been able to move six figures
at a time into an exchange.
No problems instantly.
Anja: Yeah.
Matthew: Okay.
Anja: Some banks are worse than others.
Um, H-H-S-B-C, they do not allow transfers
to, to crypto Bitcoin exchanges at all.
Uh, the Commonwealth Bank has a 10,000 a
Matthew: month
Anja: limit a month.
Mm-hmm.
Which is so frustrating because, you
know, I, I, I know people like that
Boomer that I mentioned earlier on,
um, he's, you know, he's probably
been a, a customer of Commonwealth
Bank for 30 years and good standing.
Never, you know,
Matthew: it, it doesn't matter.
Yeah.
People make this mistake.
Anja: Yep.
Matthew: I've been with, with
Westpac for, for 25 years.
They know me there.
Yeah.
They don't give a shit Okay.
About you and where you
are sending the money.
Okay.
People always made that mistake.
Um.
What I also suggest to some people
is if you have all your banking with
CommBank, for example, it would be wise
to open up an account, for example,
with a NZ for your crypto transactions
so that you don't get flagged
anything in your everyday banking.
So it's easy to set up one other
account outside your existing
framework, and if that account gets
blocked, I'm like, okay, no problem.
I've had a, um, someone I know
was with, uh, Westpac, they
shut down every account mm-hmm.
For a week, every account.
Mm-hmm.
She had to go into the branch begging
to get them to open it up again.
It was a joke.
Anja: Yeah.
Matthew: Right.
So I would not go to Westpac for that.
So they probably don't,
don't wanna do it anyway.
Anja: Yeah.
I I, I generally try to avoid the big
four and even Macquarie has gone full
draconian rate, uh, lately as well.
Like you used, they used to be good, but,
Matthew: and yeah, no, you're right.
I used to have my SMSF with Macquarie.
Yeah.
And, and it was fine until it wasn't fine.
Anja: Yeah.
Matthew: So you're gonna have
to have all these things.
This is why I say to people, the.
The window is closing.
Anja: Mm.
Matthew: Okay.
So if you are sitting on the sidelines
right now, one day I am gonna do it.
I'm gonna set up my SMSF,
I'm gonna buy some Bitcoin.
Six months from now.
It could be over.
Yeah.
Like the, the rails could be just
closed down or it's much more difficult.
Anja: It is because the Australian
Taxation Office has also recently come
out that it takes them up to like 56
days or something to do the, like, to
review the application for their SMSF.
So what used to take maybe a few weeks?
Not Oh, really?
Okay.
Matthew: No.
Anja: If, I think if you
do it yourself, maybe
Matthew: it might, that might be the case.
That's why I always say
don't do it yourself.
Yeah.
Use a professional SMSF team.
Yeah.
So my team, for example, can
get it done within five days.
Anja: Nice.
Matthew: The whole thing.
A BN trust deed all done.
Yeah.
Ready to allocate to Bitcoin and
whatever other asset you want.
Um, so yeah, don't, don't
skip on those types of things.
Anja: Mm-hmm.
Matthew: Um, Anya.
Anja: I wanted to ask you on the
SMSF, do you have like an opinion or
a recommendation or maybe, I guess
it depends on the individual, but
whether to do an individual trustee
or a corporate trustee when doing
Matthew: SI don't have an opinion on that.
It's really, it's on a case by case.
Anja: Yeah.
Matthew: Um, it's not, it's kinda
like a secondary thing though.
Right.
The fun thing that people
need to do is, in my humble
opinion, is allocate to Bitcoin.
Yeah.
Most people I speak to though, who
come to me to get a, the SMSF set up,
I'm not talking to 'em about Bitcoin.
They're just like, Hey, look, we've got
Bitcoin or we know we need to get Bitcoin.
Anja: Yeah.
Matthew: Just get us
set up with this SMSF.
I'm not convincing 'em about
the, the fortitude of Bitcoin.
Anja: Yeah.
Matthew: Right.
What people have also realized though,
is that they don't have enough money
when it comes to their retirement.
So most people I speak to forties,
fifties, and sometimes in their
sixties, so as an example, Anya,
the association of superannuation.
Funds Australia, they have a webpage
that says, this is how much money
you are going to need in retirement.
Mm-hmm.
So here's some facts for you
Anja: that triggers me.
Go, go on,
Matthew: go through it,
because I have an opinion.
It's, it's disappointing.
If you are 40, let's say you're, yeah.
40-year-old.
Anja: Yeah.
Matthew: Today you need $168,000 in
your super fund to give you what they
consider a comfortable, not amazing.
Anja: Yeah.
Matthew: Right.
Comfortable.
There's three layers.
There's like basically poor,
modest, and comfortable, um,
by the time you get to 60.
Okay.
And you would have to have by
ultimately there in the sort of
1.1 $1.3 million mark in 20 years.
Okay.
Which is gonna be like nothing.
In fact, it's gonna be the
equivalent today of retiring
with about 730 K as a couple.
600 k roughly as a single person.
Anja: Yeah.
Matthew: So people listening to
this just think, hey, if I was 60
today and I just stopped working,
would $730,000 with my partner?
And let's say you paid off, you'd
had you had you owned your house.
Would that be enough?
Anja: No.
Matthew: To last you, you're
also living longer now.
Anja: Yeah.
Matthew: You could live until you're 95.
That's 35 years extra of living.
And you think you're gonna
just live on six, 700 grand.
Anja: It's, it's criminal
that, that's even recommended.
Like
Matthew: it's not recommended.
Well they,
Anja: the guidelines kind of thing.
Matthew: It's the guidelines, but
they say like, it's basically like
this onya, that's enough for you.
Anja: Mm-hmm.
Matthew: It's that kind of treatment.
Yeah.
Like that.
You don't need any more than that.
'cause you live a comfortable lifestyle.
Yeah.
Turn off
Anja: you're heating.
Matthew: Yeah.
Yeah.
Like keep it low.
Right.
Anja: Don't meet, eat meat every day.
Matthew: Yeah.
Yeah.
So it's fif it's 1500 bucks a week
that you would have to live on.
Um, now what's interesting is I always
ask people, I do these webinars,
I train people about this stuff.
And I always ask them, how
many today, sitting here today,
you're thinking about retirement.
How many overseas holidays do you
envisage that you would want to have?
Anja: Mm.
Matthew: Okay.
'cause most people want a
holiday when they retire.
Anja: At least one a year.
Yeah.
Matthew: One a year comes up.
Yep.
Some people say four a year.
Anja: Yep.
Everyone's different.
Right.
So, yep.
Matthew: The association says,
based on your comfortable
retirement, you will, you'll be
able to afford one overseas holiday
Anja: to barley
Matthew: every seven years.
Anja: Yep.
Matthew: Every seven years, aren't you?
Anja: That's, that's, yeah.
Matthew: That's what you'll get and you
will be able to afford some utilities.
Anja: Mm-hmm.
Matthew: You might get some
private health insurance.
Anja: Yeah.
Matthew: If you are in the minimal to
no soup and I mean minimal under maybe
under a hundred thousand to no super,
you are gonna be on the old age pension.
That is the fact.
Anja: Yeah.
Matthew: You'll be on $888 a week.
Right.
As a couple, no.
Overseas holidays, they actually document
this down occasional trip to the cinema.
Anja: Oh, wow.
Matthew: Yeah.
Occasional, occasional.
Not, not weekly.
Anja: Yeah.
Matthew: No.
Uh, basically no.
He, you have to do self haircuts, no
health insurance, and you will not be able
to afford, uh, he heating and cooling.
Anja: Yeah.
Matthew: That is the life.
And now when I say this to people,
it's like a, it's like a, like
a really hits 'em in the face.
That's the reality.
And I tell this to people though, so
they wake up and do something about it.
Okay.
Rather than just coasting on in life.
'cause that's what most people do.
And they wake up at 16 and they
go, oh shit, we didn't have enough.
Super.
How did that happen?
Anja: Yeah.
Matthew: Yeah.
So it's a sad story.
Now if they're sitting in, let,
let's do some other numbers though.
Anja: Yep.
Matthew: Let's just say.
Let's use, I use Jack.
Okay.
He's a single guy.
He's a single couple, doesn't matter.
But he's retired at 60.
Okay.
He's got $2 million in
his SMSF with Bitcoin.
Anja: Mm.
Matthew: He can now pull out, he can
actually rotate that from his accumulation
bucket to a pension phase bucket.
Mm-hmm.
And he can pull the full $2
million out if he wanted to.
He is still in Bitcoin.
That's a tax free event.
Okay.
He could sell off two,
uh, $200,000 of Bitcoin.
Let's just say he's not gonna hold it.
He's gonna sell it.
And he could use that $200,000
in that whole year to live off.
It's about 16, $17,000 a month.
Anja: Yep.
Matthew: Tax free.
The sale is tax, uh, tax free.
No capital gains tax in the pension phase.
Okay.
He could do that every single year.
Selling off 200.
Selling off 200.
Selling off 200.
Yeah.
For it was like ever, and in fact,
in 30 years time, it might even be 20
years time, he would have over $200
million of value of Bitcoin because he
might sell off 200 of his 2 million.
But the other 1.8 million
is still compounding.
And and that's just
based on a CAGR of 30%?
Yeah.
Not, not 60%.
Not a hundred percent.
Just a very modest 30% cagr.
Yeah.
Right.
If he, if you switch that on and put
that $2 million into your standard
super fund, look, $2 million at
retirement today would be good.
Yeah, he would.
And he pulled out 200 though every
single year he would run out.
Within, under 20 years he'd have zero.
You see?
So the other way he
actually builds well still.
Anja: Yeah.
Matthew: And so the other
thing that people often say
to me is we want to create.
Legacy or we wanna leave a legacy for
our children and our grandchildren.
Anja: Yep.
Matthew: Under that scenario, it's zero.
The superannuation scenario, under the
allocating to Bitcoin scenario, there
was gonna be 200 million plus when he
basically passes away, thereabouts,
leaving something to his children.
Now, if you don't wanna leave to
your children, fine, leave it to
the dog pound or something, right?
Mm-hmm.
Create a, a dog shelter,
leave it in your name forever.
In perpetuity.
Anja: Yeah.
Matthew: Right.
And so this is the power of, of
Bitcoin and also in retirement.
Anja: Mm-hmm.
Matthew: Yeah.
Anja: A lot.
You just go, um, but let's talk
about tax a little bit because
that's another, another slippery
slope to go down, do you think?
Um, obviously.
Matthew: The
Anja: taxes
Matthew: in Australia criminal.
Start with
Anja: that.
Yeah.
Yes.
Yeah, that's, that's
exactly where I was going.
Like, we are one of the highest
tax nations in the world, and a
lot of Australians believe that we
actually need to get taxed even more.
Um, but yeah.
Yeah.
Uh, it, it's really unfortunate because
obviously we know the government
is not spending money responsibly,
they're not incentivized to do so,
and they're continuously looking
at new ways and innovative ways
to tax the population more while
conveniently ignoring the gas industry.
But
Matthew: yes.
Yeah.
Anja: That little chestnut,
so, you know, well,
Matthew: it's not even that Anya.
Yeah.
It's not even just the gas industry and
the, let's call it the mining industry.
Yeah.
Right.
We, we are a, a resource rich nation.
Anja: Yeah.
Matthew: Um, I would
Anja: That is poor.
Matthew: That is poor.
I, I would be in favor
of reversing that to.
You know, we own everything.
The people of Australia, the
citizens own the natural resources
and we benefit from the resources.
Okay.
As a country.
Yeah.
And, and a people like we're
actually given a dividend.
Yeah.
Yeah.
Instead, it's the other way around.
It's that they're taxing people on
their labor and then their investments.
And the only reason why people have
to do investments is because they're
not cutting it with the labor.
Yeah.
They're not making enough to make ends
meet, so they've gotta go out on what
they call the risk curve and turn the
money into other assets so that they grow.
Mm-hmm.
Okay.
Now let's talk about taxes for a
second, because I absolutely despise
it and be, and I think because the more
money you make, the more tax you pay.
Yeah.
I've, I've been a PO in a position
where I've had to write a seven
figure check in a single year.
To the tax office.
Anja: Oh man,
Matthew: it was,
Anja: I'm sorry.
Matthew: Yeah, it's horrible.
Now look, I, I see the
funny side of it as well.
Anja: Yeah.
Matthew: I will say this though too.
When I was super poor and broke
Anja: Mm,
Matthew: I dreamed of the
day of being able to pay tax.
Anja: Yeah, yeah.
Because I
Matthew: wanna pay tax.
Anja: It's a good problem to
Matthew: have.
It's a good problem to have.
Okay.
Now that said, um, there is no incentive,
like for example, right now, they could
just say for people who wanna do a
second or third job, whatever, um, no
tax, or let's just not tax you 50%.
'cause that's what it is right now.
You get the highest tax rate
on your second, third jobs.
Yeah.
Why is that?
It's ridiculous, right?
Yeah.
Even for things like, um, you know, over
time or, and penalties, it's just crazy.
So what I would say is this too.
Go, going back to super, the Labor Party.
Anja: I know where you're going.
Matthew: Okay.
They, and this, I went ballistic over
this and this kind of incentivized
me to look outside of Australia.
'cause if they impose this, and
I, and I'm, I'll get to that,
what I think is gonna happen.
I
Anja: think that would
be a trigger for most.
Yeah.
Matthew: I'm talking about
unrealized capital gains tax.
Yeah.
And now for some of you who don't
know on your nose, it's tax on
earnings that you haven't had yet.
Okay.
So imagine you've put a
house, an investment property.
It's valued today at 500,000.
It goes up in a year by 20%.
So it goes up to $600,000.
Anja: Mm-hmm.
Matthew: According to labor.
And the greens, they love this shit.
They wanna, they wanna say to you,
we want you to give us some of that
money of the increase of the property.
Yeah.
Anja: Lemme just sell my
house through pay my tax bill.
Matthew: Obviously you can't do that.
I mean, you can sell it, but you
can't just peel off $20,000 of house
and just give it to the tax office.
Okay.
And what happens in those situations?
You would have to sell the house.
You either come up with it
from your own back pocket.
Yeah.
There's money sitting in the bank, or you
have to now sell the asset to pay the tax.
Isn't that just insane?
Anja: It's criminal.
It's criminal.
You're taxed.
When you earn, you're taxed.
When you sell, you're taxed.
When you buy.
You, you know you're
taxed when you invest.
You basically tax to death.
And like this sets a dangerous precedent
because they're trying to now tax
you on things that haven't even been
profit, that hasn't even been realized.
Matthew: Haven't, yeah, haven't
been realized or come to fruition.
There's one thing to say that you know
your house is worth $600,000 on paper.
You gotta sell it.
You might not only, you might
sell for 500, the market might
have changed or whatever.
And so if you think about this from a
superannuation point of view, what they
were gonna do was, as your super goes up
in value, they were gonna take more of it.
They're gonna take more of it.
They already do take, uh, 15% tax
on earnings in superannuation.
Okay?
So that's, and I just, there's
lots of different brackets, but
that's up to 3 million, right?
So while you're saving in super up
to 3 million, 15% tax on earnings,
so things like dividends, interest.
15% tax if you sold assets while
in your accumulation phase.
Anja: Yeah.
Matthew: 15% capital gains
tax for under 12 months.
10% for over 12 months held.
Right.
So it's still, people say, yeah,
but you get a tax discount.
It's cheap.
Yeah.
It it, and it is cheaper than holding
it in a, in a, your personal name.
Anja: Yeah.
Matthew: Okay.
But I would argue that why should we be
taxed on money that is for our retirement.
Let's just get rid of that.
Let's incentivize people actually
to put money aside for their
retirement rather than them being
a potential burden on the state.
We don't want that.
Yeah.
Who wants to be beholden to the
government for a hand handout?
And unfortunately people under the old age
pension will have to end up doing that.
So this sparked me to now look outside
of Australia, if they were gonna
bring this unrealized capital gains
tax in, I was like, I'd, I'd started
Visa agent and I'd gone down the whole
path of moving to Dubai, perhaps.
Right.
Maybe not now, but looking at an escape
plan, I'm still doing an escape plan.
Anja: Plan B
Matthew: because Anya people can
be like, well, we don't have the
unrealized capital gains tax yet.
We don't have it yet.
Let me go back.
2019, uh, bill Shorten was the
federal opposition leader for labor.
He was running against Scott Morrison.
His proposal at the time was to bring
in, uh, get rid of, um, the capital
gains tax discount, remove that on
properties, and also negative gearing.
Anja: Mm-hmm.
Matthew: Okay.
He took it to the election and
people were like, absolutely not.
We don't wanna have to
pay more taxes again.
Okay.
So he lost, what are they talking
about now, only seven years later?
Anja: Mm.
Matthew: It's being, it's floated again.
So what we're expecting in the
budget that's going to be delivered
in the next couple of months will
be changes to capital gains tax on
properties and also negative gearing.
Negative gearing though, is a
fundamental shift in the sort of the
laws of accounting and investing,
which is you can write off your
expenses on a, on a, on a, on an asset.
Yeah.
Yeah.
Or an investment.
So they're gonna single
out now, just property.
Now I know there's a whole nother
argument as opposed to, uh, to
do with should property even be
an investment or is it a Right.
Okay.
I understand that.
Um, but I will also argue though,
that Australia has fundamentally
been a property country.
And if you don't have to
live in the property, right?
If someone wants to buy property
to rent out for an income, fine.
That's, that's their choice.
Anja: Yeah.
Matthew: If you don't wanna
live there, don't live there.
The fact that we've got a, we're
going down another rabbit hole, but
a shortage of property in Australia
is not to do with the investor, it's
to do with government policy and
incentivizations, et cetera, et cetera.
Right.
It's, it's a pure
government policy problem.
And of course, immigration, et cetera.
So I think, um,
getting rid of, so what I'm saying
too is now the unrealized capital
gains tax has been squashed.
Anja: Mm-hmm.
Matthew: It could come back.
Anja: Oh,
Matthew: we will, we could be
taught if labor stay in government
and in power with the greens.
I'm gonna say this to
Gani 'cause I don't care.
These people are radical.
Okay.
They want to steal your money.
You live in a beautiful part of the world.
Am I allowed to say it's,
it's in the northern rivers?
Yes.
Uh, Byron area.
Byron is ravaged of people.
They've got one of the highest
green votes in the country.
Anja: Yeah.
Matthew: I don't know if they really
understand what they're voting for.
I think for, for a lot of
these people, it's, yeah, but
they wanna save the whales.
Anja: Yeah.
Matthew: Okay.
It's not that they're communists,
they want a communist society.
Yeah.
And I just don't agree with it at all.
Okay.
So.
That's what I would say.
Be careful of what's gonna be
coming down the pipeline because
they could be bringing you back
unrealized, couple gains tax.
Um, I think it's the Netherlands now
are floating that idea too on Yeah.
Assets.
And my biggest fear is that
if they get it through on
retirement savings of all things.
Yeah.
Right.
It'll be okay.
It's now on property.
It's now on just company profits.
Mm-hmm.
The list will go on.
Yeah.
And it will absolutely crush
this country economically.
It's already on its knees.
Anja: Yeah, absolutely.
And, and yeah, that's
what concerns me as well.
Like if you look at the taxation
history in Australia for the last
hundred years, you can definitely
see a very clear trend that it
always is promised to be temporary.
It's always promised to be low,
and that's just never the case.
So these ideas are sometimes
floated around and the first time
they're unpopular, the second
time they're unpopular and then
the third time they get through.
Matthew: Mm-hmm.
Anja: So I, I absolutely do think,
you know, Australia is headed, at
least where we are at the moment.
The current climate, we are headed
towards citizenship tax as well.
Like, you know.
Yes.
So in the case, you know, someone
does go to Dubai, um, I think
France has done that if I'm
Matthew: America has that.
Anja: Yeah, yeah,
Matthew: yeah.
So you wanna explain that
for people or should I
Anja: You you do it
Matthew: citizen citizenship
tax is global tax.
Anja: Yeah.
Matthew: And no matter what
you earn anywhere in the
world, you have to repatriate.
Tax to your citizen-based country.
So in America, what a lot of people do
is if they're moving out of America, they
relinquish their citizenship of the us
Anja: Yep.
Matthew: So therefore they'd have to send
money back to the US under their taxes.
I I do think that will happen at
some point in Australia as well.
Anja: Yeah.
Matthew: Which will be horrible.
You, you would just have to
give up your citizenship of
Australia to avoid that tax.
Anja: Yeah.
Matthew: There's already, let's
just talk about that for a second,
because people think that I'm just
gonna move to Bali and then I won't
have to pay any tax in Australia.
Mm-hmm.
Okay.
It doesn't work that way.
Anja: Yep.
Matthew: I've investigated this a lot.
I've been down these paths.
Right.
So what people have consider is that
they have to become a, um, a tax resident
of another country first, prove that
they're a tax resident through, um,
a lease, a gym membership, et cetera.
Remove all ties to Australia.
So you can't just say, well, I've still
got bank accounts and properties and
stuff, but I just don't wanna pay tax.
No, you have to sort of sever it.
Anja: Yeah.
Matthew: And then you don't have
to pay any more tax in Australia.
You can't just move over to Bali
for like six months and say, well,
I'm not there in Australia, so
why should I pay tax in Australia?
Yep.
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Anja: Yep.
And they're making it harder as well to
leave, because I think prior to recently
was two years that you had to live
abroad, sever your ties with Australia.
So no family, no investments, no
properties, no bank accounts here now.
I think it's gone up to three years.
Matthew: I haven't heard that one.
Anja: Okay.
Yeah.
Matthew: Um, but there is a, there's
some talk about changing it so that
if you come back to Australia, right.
So at the moment it's about 180
days you can stay in Australia.
Anja: 2 83.
Yeah.
Matthew: Yeah.
And they wanna change it to about a month.
Anja: Yeah.
45 days or something.
Matthew: Yeah.
Yeah.
Next to nothing.
Yeah.
Right.
You stay longer than that, you're
now, oh, you're a tax resident again.
Anja: Yeah.
Matthew: So, um, it's pretty bad and.
People need, I guess it'll
just get, keep getting worse.
A lot of people I speak to, they
say, look, I wanna move to x, y,
z country and stuff like that.
But they're just not
prepared to pay the fee.
Like it, it costs money to do that.
Yeah.
Okay.
So they're trapped.
Then second problem they've got is
that unlike probably yourself and
and myself, if you have an online
business that generates income, I
can be in anywhere in the world.
Okay.
So if you're like a, um, problem is
like if you're a laborer, like you
could move that your trade anywhere.
Um, but the problem is that
you're in another country, you're
not gonna get the same wage.
You can't just be getting paid 150
grand as a plumber here and then go
to there and still get 150 grand.
You have to go down to compete
with the local economy.
Anja: Mm.
Matthew: Yeah.
Or whatever the, what,
whatever the other wages are.
Anja: Yeah.
Matthew: So having an online
business certainly helps.
So that's a lot of the
thought that goes into moving.
But creating an online
business is not simple.
Anja: No.
Matthew: Right.
People ask me all the time because I
did, um, quite well through Amazon and
e-commerce over the last few years.
Look, my first two
products are You failed.
Anja: Yeah.
Matthew: Yeah.
It was, they were dismal,
but I was learning.
Anja: Yeah.
Matthew: The third product worked out
well and, and made a lot of money.
My advice to people, if, and I spoke
to someone yesterday about this, if
they're thinking about getting an online
business, the probably the hardest thing
you could do is to start from scratch.
Anja: Yeah.
Matthew: Okay.
Whether it be, um, particularly
in a product based business.
Mm. Okay.
I am gonna talk about
something else in a second.
So you are better to just go
and buy and they're everywhere.
Write this down folks.
Empire flippers.com and Flipper
with an A-F-L-I-P-P a.com.
They are online brokerage sites.
Anja: Yeah.
Matthew: Where you can just go and just
look for different types of businesses,
whether it's Amazon, e-commerce, SaaS,
businesses, you name it, they're all
there and you can filter it between.
Categories and monetization
methods and all sorts of things.
Right.
So you can go dig,
Anja: I didn't know this.
That's cool.
Matthew: Go dig deep.
Anja: Yeah.
Yeah.
Matthew: Okay.
It's much easier to buy something that's
already established and is trading.
Yeah.
'cause you've got the trading history.
Yes.
So it's, it's proven.
And if a product, the the hardest
thing about coming up with a
product-based business, and I
see these people all the time.
I created this little thing
and it's gonna be awesome.
But you haven't put it to the market.
You don't even know if
it's gonna sell yet.
You dunno what the margins are, et cetera.
So it's, yeah.
So second to that would be to
create your own personal brand.
Yeah.
Which is exactly what
people like you and me do.
We created a personal
brand on social media.
Anja: Yep.
Matthew: We find our tribe.
There are people that will love you.
There are people that will love me.
Yep.
There are people that will hate me.
Right.
That's fine.
But the people that love you love you.
Anja: Yeah.
Matthew: Yeah.
And so, and they look to you for
inspiration and guidance and what you're
doing and in your, in the particular
niche that you're talking about.
Right.
You'll see a lot of these
with influences of health.
Health is a huge one.
Right.
Super hard niche to crack
into, but maybe you do.
Anja: Yep.
Matthew: Yeah.
And so that is something though,
that cannot be purchased, right?
You have to start from scratch.
So I would say to people, if that's
something you're even thinking
about doing and we're talking about,
about this off air start, grab your
iPhone, start recording a video.
It's gonna be crap.
Probably no one's gonna watch it.
But in time people find
you, your videos get better.
You probably, you might
even change your message.
Maybe you start off talking about.
Um, like what I did, I started talking
about Amazon 'cause that's what I was in.
Anja: Mm-hmm.
Matthew: But then I
just discovered Bitcoin.
I was like, I don't wanna
talk about Amazon anymore.
Anja: Mm-hmm.
Matthew: I just wanna talk about the
things that I like to talk about.
Yeah.
Yeah.
And so that then, um, spawned into
this whole online community that I
have under the crypto collective.
Mm-hmm.
And next thing you know, there's
like, I felt like 3000, over
3000 people in this group.
Anja: That's amazing.
Matthew: I know.
I can't believe it.
It started at zero, only probably
within two, two years-ish.
Anja: Yeah.
That's
Matthew: so amazing.
Unbelievable.
Right.
And it just keeps growing.
Anja: Yep.
Matthew: As more and more people
wake up to Bitcoin and also
SM SFS and things like that.
So yeah.
It's, it's, so that's my encouragement
to PE for people is to just.
Put their voice out there and then
that could eventually is where I'm
get to, could become monetized.
Yeah.
And then you can travel the world.
Anja: Yep.
That's exactly what I'm trying
to kind of do with honest
money, you know, like, uh, yeah.
Just detach myself from as, as
many, you know, dependencies as
possible and then do my own thing.
So be
Matthew: Yeah.
Yeah.
You could, and I mean, I know
Dubai's not a very, uh, might not be
a favorable spot to move to today.
Anja: I don't like it.
Matthew: Right?
You don't.
Anja: No,
Matthew: no,
but
Anja: it's too much concrete
for me that that's fine.
That Im, now I need to nature person,
Matthew: however.
Okay.
However, just to give an example, you can
get a golden Visa in de for, for the UAE.
Anja: Yep.
Matthew: If you are a creator.
Anja: Oh, I think is it true that
you only have to spend two days
a year so you can get a residency
in Dubai, meet their requirements,
but you can live in Costa Rica,
Matthew: like Yeah.
So the golden visa's way more flexible.
It's like the top tier.
Anja: Yeah.
Matthew: Um, passport, let's call it.
Yeah.
Yeah.
Or pro visa program.
And, but you pay to get it now
if you don't pay to get it, you
have to meet these other criteria,
which is like, Hey, they actually
we should do this in Australia.
Anja: Mm.
Matthew: Right.
Which is we need these types of
people, builders and da dah da.
Right.
And we'll just, we'll, we'll
give you a free visa because
we want you to come here.
So the UAE is, we want creators
and influencers and people to
come here and do podcasts and talk
about Bitcoin and crypto and all
these other innovative type things.
And in fact, if you've already
got an existing following.
We'll pay for you to come and
we'll, they'll give you the
studio and all sorts of things.
It's incredible what they do.
And so therefore it doesn't
cost you any money to do it.
Right.
Yeah.
You don't have to pay for the,
for the traditional golden visa.
There's tier underneath that though,
but have different requirements,
but less cost, but more commitment
to the, to like residency stays.
Anja: Mm-hmm.
Yeah.
I'll just quickly check the time.
Um,
Matthew: what is the time?
Anja: Okay, so 10.
So yeah, we should be, uh,
wrapping up, but I wanted to ask
you a little cheeky question.
Um, nothing too cheeky.
Okay.
Uh, Solana, so the money that
you have put in Solana Yeah.
Have you calculated whether you would've
done better if it was all in Bitcoin?
Matthew: You know what?
I haven't, but I can tell people that
I absolutely would've done better if
I'd not bought all the other things.
Yeah.
You know, like the xps,
the chain links, the.
The AVEs.
I mean, there's a whole list of things.
Anja: I didn't even know
what half of those things.
Matthew: Yeah.
Just alt coins.
Anja: Yeah, yeah, yeah.
Matthew: Okay.
Uh, I would've been better
off just sticking to Bitcoin.
Anja: Yeah.
Matthew: But it's, it's when
you don't understand, you don't
understand, like you just don't know.
Right.
Yeah.
And that's sort of part of the journey.
And I speak to a lot of people who
have moved from diversified crypto
portfolio and then eventually just like
capitulates into just bitcoin's the thing.
Anja: Yep.
Matthew: So if people are coming in
new, I always say, I, I, I understand
that people want to go a little bit
out on the risk curve because they
think, oh, but this particular coin's
gonna a hundred x fine, put a thousand
bucks in or something, you know,
whatever you're prepared to just lose.
But, but put like all
of my superannuation.
All of that is Bitcoin.
I don't diversify that amongst anything.
I just wanna keep my life simple.
And I think that's the other thing too, is
as I've gotten rid of all the properties
and all the cars and everything,
I'm trying to simplify my life too.
Anja: Yeah.
Matthew: Yeah.
And so, yeah.
So if you would've made more
money just sticking with Bitcoin.
Yeah.
The other thing people try and do a lot
too I see is they try and do trading.
There's a, there's a a saying I heard
just recently, which is 90% of traders
lose 90% of their money within 90 days.
Anja: Yeah.
Matthew: Yeah.
That's not to say though, that
people don't make money in trading.
Anja: Yeah.
Matthew: But it's just super rare.
Anja: Yeah.
Matthew: Yeah.
So just, I would go in, do paper
trading in the beginning, which
is not using your own money.
Anja: Mm-hmm.
Matthew: Learn that, understand the
principles of it, and then if you've got
a bit of spare money on the side, fine.
Do it.
But I wouldn't be putting all
my life savings into trading.
Anja: Yeah, absolutely.
Time in the market
beats timing the market.
Matthew: Perfectly said ar Yeah.
Anja: Well, thank you so
much for your time today.
I'll obviously drop all the links, um,
for your business in the show notes.
Is there anything you wanna say
as like, kind of last words?
Matthew: Yeah, I just wanna say
congratulations to yourself.
Oh, thanks.
You're doing an incredible job.
You are the caliber of
speakers that you're getting
on here except above myself.
Right.
You, you boost and,
and so on and so forth.
Anja: He's not on yet.
Matthew: Oh, cut that
out.
Anja: We, we can cut this out.
Matthew: Ania, I just wanna
congratulate you on everything
you're doing in this space.
Thank you.
You've got so many
amazing guests coming on.
I know you have many more
incredible guests into the future.
And just thank you for being a
part of the Bitcoin community.
Anja: Thank you so much, and
thank you for buying me this book.
It's so lovely.
I, um, yeah, I was very pleasantly
surprised and this is one I haven't read.
Um, so yeah, I'm so happy.
Thanks so much for coming on the show.
Matthew: Thanks for having me.
Anja: Yay.
Is that it?
Matthew: Yeah, that's it.
Anja: Oh my God.
I'm sweating.
Matthew: Tell, tell me about rule
number 13 and why you hate it so much.
Anja: Okay.
Are we still rolling, Michael?
Matthew: Yeah, we probably with
Anja: record, um, I was, yeah,
we were talking offline a little
Matthew: bit.
So Anya
Anja: Yep.
Matthew: You were telling me before
about Michael Sailor's 21 Rules and you
particularly don't like rule number 13.
What is that rule and explain
why you don't like it?
Anja: I think the rule from memory
says something along the lines of,
don't be anti fiat, be pro Bitcoin.
And it's very hard for me not to
be anti fiat because having learned
how the fiat system works and how
deeply flawed, flawed it is, it's
really hard for me to not Yeah,
Matthew: not, yeah.
It's hard to agree with it.
Right?
Anja: Yeah, absolutely.
Matthew: I'm gonna give you a
different take on it though.
Yeah.
Probably the way perhaps
Michael Sailor sees it, um.
Two, two, probably two reasons, but I'm
gonna, the first reason I think is when
you are negative and you put negative
energy into something, it drains you.
Mm. And Bitcoin is hope.
So if you focus just on the positive
attributes of Bitcoin and not let
fear bring you down, I think you're
gonna have a much happier and better
life with less stress and anxiety
just knowing that you have Bitcoin.
So I think that's the first thing.
And secondly, pure speculation
is that he, Michael Saylor
works with the fiat industry.
So rather than trashing it,
essentially he can utilize the
fiat industry to buy more Bitcoin.
Anja: Mm-hmm.
Matthew: You see?
So maybe we'll go with number one though.
I think that's probably the,
the first reason why less
negativity, more into positivity.
Bitcoin is hope.
Anja: Yeah, I love it.
I love it.
I'm still struggling with it because
yeah, it's like, I feel like you
need the two sides of the story.
In order for you to appreciate
the solution, you need to
understand the problem.
And understanding the problem
involves speaking honestly about it.
And you can't speak honestly about
it unless you actually say that.
It's,
Matthew: I think you
can say it though, Anya.
I think you can say it.
Anja: Okay.
Matthew: I'll
Anja: try.
Matthew: Okay.
But it's not, don't put all
your energy in hating it.
Okay.
Because it will bring you down.
Yeah.
And it'll, it'll turn you into
a horrible, like, you know, a
Anja: Grinch.
Matthew: Like, I mean, I obviously talk,
talk a bit, a lot of things down too, like
the banks and the superannuation system,
everything, but there's a solution.
Anja: Mm-hmm.
Matthew: Yeah.
If I just talked to down the Fiat
and gave no one the solution,
well, what is the solution?
It's like, oh, I don't know.
Anja: Yep.
Matthew: And it's just depressing.
Yeah.
So anyway, maybe you could
turn that into a, um, a reel.
Anja: I hope so.
Matthew: That one is real.
Anja: All
Matthew: right.
Anja: That'd be cool.
Yeah.
Matthew: Okay.
Finish up there.
Anja: Yeah, let's do it.
Okay.
Let's do it.
Thanks.
Um, awesome.
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