Day trading our way to the revolution feat. Jaynemesis
For this week's interview I spoke with Jay Smith (@jaynemesis) one of the top earning traders on eToro, a social trading platform where people can “copy” the trades of traders and a percentage of the money they earn goes to them. What’s interesting about Jay is that while doing this he’s also openly left wing as he’s a Green Party voter in the UK, a social democrat, a vegan, and owes a bit of his success to trading cryptocurrencies since 2013. During the interview we spoke about how he ...
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Transcript
Alright. You all have probably heard the news. I feel like I probably don't have to tell you guys what's going on since you probably all know it's all over the news, but it looks like people across the political spectrum are banding together by buying GameStop stocks to make, hopefully, some hedge fund go bankrupt as revenge for the financial crash or just a stupid way to make money. I'm recording this on Friday, January 29. So this may not be the most up to date, by the time that you are listening to this. But what was so interesting about the events that are taking place the past couple of days and at the moment is not only the event itself, but also the coincidence of this interview that I recorded with Jay Smith. Jay Smith is one of the top earning traders of eToro. He is an active trader. And the reason that I interviewed him was because of his political views and his involvement in the cryptocurrency market. At first, I was a little bit hesitant to actually do the interview just because I think people on the left, we have, not so positive view, I think rightfully so, against people in the stock market, investors, Wall Street. But I had decided to record this interview anyways, and I recorded this a couple of weeks ago because I was interested in hearing his perspective and listening to how he synthesizes his own political views with how he makes money through investing and trading stocks and cryptocurrencies. At first, I was afraid because I feel for the most part, most people on the left have never really tried actively trading. Not that I'm advocating for people to do that, but I thought that it would be interesting to get that perspective in the form of this interview. Unfortunately, it took place well before these events ever started occurring, so I couldn't ask him directly about his thoughts on it. But I thought I would share some of mine. The first thing I wanna say is that if you're surprised by this, then you haven't been paying attention. I'll admit that I've been a observer of the WallStreetBets community for a while now, and I didn't join because I was interested in gambling my money on the stock markets in the same sense that they were. When I originally did join them, it was because I was doing the calculations in my head and I knew that in the long term, I would not be able to afford all of the things that I needed to pay for, including rent, including food, including my student loan debt, and also be a sane person because shit just costs money. And so I was just interested in the possibility of investment as a way to liberate myself, it being one of the few ways under capitalism that you're able to do that. For very few professions can you work without investing any of that money and have enough money to retire at a reasonable age. I always had this thought that at some point Wall Street Bets was going to get on the news for something, but honestly, I thought it was more likely to happen because of a post that was racist or homophobic or something like that. I never thought that this stupid community of dirtbags would somehow inspire leftists to go on a campaign to make a hedge fund go bankrupt through the market. Time is going to tell whether or not it's successful, but it is a really crazy sight to see. The amount of vitriol and hatred towards Wall Street that a lot of the posters on Wall Street Bets have shown because of the actual material conditions in which they were forced under because of their greed during the Great Recession just shows how much people want a different system, even though they may have very peculiar and maybe even unhealthy ways of showing that anger and showing that desire. The second thing I want to say is this. If you're in on the fun at the moment because you believe that buying stocks in GameStop or AMC or Nokia or whatever else is some form of rebellion against Wall Street, then that means that buying cryptocurrency like Bitcoin, like Ethereum, or whatever else is arguably also a form of rebellion against Wall Street. I don't say that to encourage you to go buy and invest in a cryptocurrency. I've said this before but, like, I could not care less what you do with your money. The point that I want to make is that if you're going to partake in the fun, then please keep in mind that what's going on is not some sort of revolution and is largely a battle between different segments of the bourgeoisie with some working class people sprinkled throughout. I'm not trying to ruin the fun or anything like that. I think you should enjoy it for as long as you possibly can because this is hilarious, but we got to be honest with ourselves having those type of thoughts. Not that I'm saying that anyone here is. I think in a later episode, I'll go into more detail about my thoughts around the whole thing and how this relates to the blockchain space and how we could potentially take advantage of what's happening at this moment. And I think this moment is really going to change things probably for a long time. But until then, I hope you guys enjoy this episode with Jay, and I think a lot of the answers that he gives are probably more interesting just considering the moment that we're living in. Hello again. You're listening to the Blockchain Socialists, and I have today Jay Smith, who's one of the top earning traders on eToro, which is a social trading platform where people can copy the trades of other traders, and they earn a little bit of money off of what they earn. So what's interesting about Jay is that while he's doing this, he's also openly left wing as a Green Party voter in The UK, a Social Democrat, a vegan, and owes a little bit of a success to trading cryptocurrencies, which started, I believe, around 2013. But, hey Jay, how are you doing?
I'm good, I'm good. How are you?
Good. Yeah, so you have a very interesting profile, obviously, and I think it turns quite a few heads. But maybe before we get into that, what we can start with is just your story. Maybe you can guide us through, you know, what was your what's your background? What was your career like? How did you get into trading your politics? How does that unfold and how did that get you into into trading as a as a your day job essentially?
Yeah. It's, it's a bit of a weird path. From the age of, like, 12, 13, I was super, super interested in politics. Not only politics, but everything that's, you know, most related to that. So economics, I was interested in, you know, any sort of system. I was interested in the ideas of, you know, comparing state run services with privately run services and, all of these sorts of things at the age of, like, 13, which is pretty strange. So, you know, I remember convincing my parents to, to pay for Sky TV in The UK, which is like a cable TV service, simply so that I could watch all of the investing channels like Bloomberg and CNBC. So yeah. But pretty strange. I dropped out of school when when I was 13 as well. I left school with zero qualifications. I kind of did my own thing. I got really into gaming and esports, really into, like, the tech world. You know, I was exploring futurism and futrology and, you know, socialism and different forms of capitalism, like, you know, pretty much everything just trying to kinda figure out what my views were, on everything. Pretty early on, I discovered that, you know, essentially I, in my view, the world is unfair. The world is very unfair and, and the best way to make money is to have money. So from, from the age of like 16 or so, I started to save up, you know, everything I had and started, trying to invest. And, yeah, that that kind of evolved to where it is today, you know. I was, I was a professional gamer for a while, which did not pay well back when I was a professional gamer. I worked, some pretty dead end jobs because I had no qualifications. So I worked in a possible delivery company, eventually managed to get a career in eSports. All the time I was, still investing everything that I was earning, and, you know, whatever I thought was the best investment at the time. And eventually, that enabled me to, quit my job and and invest full time on eToro.
Yeah. So so then I guess what inspired you to get into trading was sort of the realization of or at least the the understanding of the different complexities within capitalism and sort of what is unfair about it and, you know, realizing what that is and how you can insert yourself into, I guess, sort of that into an advantageous position, so to say.
Yeah. Essentially, it was, you know, the the thing that the phrase that I always like to repeat. I don't know if other people have said it, but I I or if I invented it or coined it or whatever, but it's it's essentially the the the key word to look at in capitalism and in socialism is the word capital and the word social, because those are ultimately the driving forces behind each. Obviously, there are perversions of both, and you know you can you there is there is a middle ground somewhere, that's pretty hard to find, but without capital you just cannot really succeed in in any major way in a capitalist society, you need capital. And that's that's what I realized earlier, I realized the the power of compounding gains, and you know, I knew that if if I didn't do that then the prospects for me getting onto the property ladder or, you know, anything really substantial beyond, you know, the average life was really pretty, pretty unlikely, based upon like, you know, my upbringing and my background.
Yeah. I mean, it it sounds like it's not like you had any sort of, like, bourgeois type of upbringing. I mean, it's sort of it's learning the things that you don't learn not having that type of background that sort of, I think for a lot of other people who may have been growing up working class, like the Internet, I think, sort of was a pretty crucial role in being able to explore those type of interests. I would say, I mean, similar for me when I was younger as well. Growing up working class, you're sort of like, why is everything so unfair? And then you sort of go into these rabbit holes on Wikipedia or what have you back in the day. Then try and figure it out and try to come up with answers to that.
Yeah. And that's essentially exactly exactly what I did as well. Right? I I just do good stuff and research stuff. And as you say, the Internet is a a great tool for, you know, learning. And I I feel like I learned a lot more, teaching myself stuff from the Internet than I did from from school. Yeah. I mean, I imagine if you if you leave school at 13, then,
Internet's your best friend in a sense for for education and experiences as well. Yeah. Yeah. So then what was it that really got you, into eToro and got in like, how how what was that evolution like making it as your full time job as compared to, you know, your previous jobs, before that?
Yeah. So at the time when I went full time, for eToro, I was working for, a gaming company in The UK. It's it's, it was it got bought out by a company that's essentially The UK equivalent of GameStop, a company called Game. And, It's a company called Game. Yeah. It's a company called Game. Yeah. That's literally Okay. And, yeah. So so they bought out the company that I was working for which was basically like a gaming events company. We used to run like e sports events and, launch events for new game titles and stuff like that. And and you know, that was a fun job and I learned a lot from it, a lot about business and you know, stuff like that. Previous to that I'd only really done the really kind of, pretty pretty, you know, boring dull, jobs of you know, parcel delivery and things like that, working in warehouses, working in logistics. So I didn't have loads of experience in the working world until I kind of started working there. But as as I said, you know, I always had this kind of attitude that I need to save money as quickly as possible to enable the the compounding effect to to work right for me to, slowly try and get to a point where, I can kind of move move out of the the working class tier or the middle class tier, into the upper class tier and then hopefully cause a bit of disruption. So so yeah, when I was when I was at that company, I had been trading on the side on eToro for about four years at that point, minding my own business, just you know doing my own trades on the stock market and it turns out that they had been trying to call my parents for several weeks trying to get a hold of me, phoning my old address and, with with little luck. And when they eventually got through to me, they said, you know, we'd really like you to become a popular investor on eToro because your trading results are really good and, and, you know, we, we do have good risk, management. So we think that you would be well suited to being a popular investor. I had no idea what a popular investor was. I asked her if I had to pay anything. They said that actually they pay me. And that was it really. You know what? I I kind of grasped that opportunity and it turned into what it is now, which is me managing, somewhere in the region of a $100,000,000 now, on behalf of 33,000, other people, which is a pretty pretty wild journey. Yeah. And so
I know with with eToro, it's sort of just like a social network of of traders, essentially. Does that mean when they called you, they just saw you as just like a very good investor looking at your stats in comparison to everyone else, and then they sort of lifted you into, like, the the social sphere so that others could copy you? Or were you sort of were you sort of building a brand for yourself even before then? Yeah. I mean, I wasn't really doing anything to build any sort of brand for myself. There were a few, like, friends and family that kind of seen my success and decided to copy me because, you know, they allow a few people to copy you even before you,
you know, kind of get accepted into the popular investor program. But really it was a case of them kind of spotting my talent, I guess, and and kind of lifting me up and and putting me front and center. And obviously this this actually coincided, so this was in like early twenty seventeen that this happened and obviously that coincided very well with when cryptocurrencies and especially all coins started to boom. EToro was one of the first trading platforms to add Bitcoin. They added Bitcoin in 2013. So, you know, a long time ago. Very early. Yeah, exactly. Very early. And the CEO has got a lot of, history with, with cryptocurrencies and stuff as well. Vitalik Buterin actually used to work for, for the CEO of eToro for a while in their offices, which is pretty cool. So yeah, you know everything kind of happened at the right time, you know, I was producing a lot of content on eToro after I became a popular investor, I started to write posts about you know Bitcoin and Ethereum and, you know, the forks that were going on with Bitcoin cash and all of these different things, and how it worked and why it had value. And at the time I was basically the authority on that subject on eToro. So, my following grew as a result of that. And,
yeah, they basically stuck with me. So So you say you you dropped out of school when you were pretty young and you didn't have any sort of traditional finance education. I mean, in the traditional finance world, because you're investing in stocks as well. And then, of course, in cryptocurrencies, I think it's, I mean, nobody has education on that unless they actually do trading on it. But how did you learn the tricks of the trade and why do you think you became popular? I mean, I guess besides the fact you were probably one of the first people trading cryptocurrencies so openly.
Yeah. One of the things that I've always really believed in is transparency. You know, I believe that there is a lot of, a lot of I guess what you could call fake news out there or or something similar with regarding trading, you know, there's there's all these courses online that teach you how to trade and people telling you should be day trading or you should be doing this or you should be doing that. And, you know, it's all complete rubbish, really. You know, most most investors don't buy and sell things in the same day or in short time periods. Most most investors really don't care about looking at charts even that much. They're they're looking at the underlying, fundamentals of the company and it's honestly, it's pretty simple really, you know, you look at how much debt they've got and how much cash they've got and you look at the the industry they're in and if you think they're gonna grow and, and you make your decisions based on that. For me, the way that I invest has always been based around disruption, you know, I I I've always been an early adopter of everything. You know, I had the first Google, Android phone I had, but before that I was, using, you know, I had the first Microsoft, phone when that came out, in in PC gaming and and e sports. I was obviously in in that very early. I I like to think that I became a vegan just before it kind of became mainstream which is becoming now I think. And the same with Bitcoin, right? I found it really, really early just because, you know, those are the things that I'm always looking for. I'm always looking for what is the next like step in in technology and then what's going on and and that's always kinda been my ethos within investing. And then I'm transparent about it, you know, I tell people that like, you know, I've I'm investing in these things because I think that it is the future and it it doesn't matter if you think that wind energy is too expensive now because in five years time, it will be relevant how expensive it is. They'll be building them anyway, right? Because we need to we need to fix the problem of climate change. And and that's that's one of the easier ways we have of doing it. And, you know, I look at hydrogen now and it's a similar story, you know, hydrogen is is essentially what's gonna become the battery for the grid. I'm pretty convinced because, you know, we need to store energy somewhere. The sun isn't always shining, wind isn't always blowing and hydrogen seems like the best solution. And these these are just you know kind of thought experiments that go on in my head like what what comes next after that, what comes next after the next thing and ultimately that I think is part of why I lean, lean socialist as well is that when I look at the long term kind of outlook for the world and how capitalism would evolve, especially if uncontrolled, I I find it to be pretty, pretty dangerous and and massively, unequal, and and unfair, especially as things like automation happen.
Yeah. Well, I I mean, at least perfectly to my next question, which is how do you synthesize, you know, what you're doing with your politics? I mean, it seems like your politics influences a bit at least about what your trades in terms of identifying problems that the world is going to face, you know? But how do you how do you go about synthesizing being, a trader, which is sort of like arguably one of the, like, main levers that capitalism sort of propagates itself while also being a critic of capitalism?
Yeah, I mean the analogy I like to use really, is like if you're a board game night and all of your friends want to play the game monopoly and you want to play scrabble, and what ends up happening is they start playing monopoly and you know you could sit there and say I'm not gonna participate in monopoly but then all you're really doing is ensuring that you have a bad time for the next four hours or however long it takes them to play monopoly and then maybe afterwards you can convince them to play scrabble. Whereas I think if you participate in that game and you you study that game and you learn the rules of that game and you figure out how to win that game, which by the way you can do, there's actually a book about how to win at Monopoly. And there's a lot of maths involved and, and stuff. But but if you do that and then you demolish everyone, they're not gonna wanna play monopoly anymore. And, perhaps perhaps they might go with the game that you suggest next. And and that's kind of my feeling on on capitalism generally, right? Is that I don't have a choice, right, I'm born into the system so I I have to participate to some extent. I do my very best to try and remain as ethical as I can. I'm I'm pretty strict on what kind of companies I will trade, and also, you know, will take decisions to stop trading a company if I feel like they're treating their staff poorly or they're damaging the environment or, you know, if if there's corruption or human rights abuse or anything like that, then then I try and jump out of companies. But obviously, it's a gray area, right? It's it's not an easy thing to do, with any sort of consistent rule. But that's that's the way that I approach it and, you know, I think it's worked pretty well so far.
I think that's a it's a funny analogy because I from what I've read is that Monopoly was originally created as a game to critique capitalism. It was. Yeah. Yeah. So that that is pretty funny. It is a very unenjoyable game, at least for me.
Yeah. I mean, it's it's a pretty boring game. That's right. Especially especially if you get, like, knocked out early. You're just gonna wait four hours for your friends to stop playing.
Yeah. Bryce, what would you say to people that may say that, you know, we've been playing monopoly for a really long time, and a lot of people have been screwed for a very long time. Like, when when is it time to to switch to scrabble,
so to say? Yeah. That that's the difficult thing. Scrabble is socialist now, I think. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. Scrabble is, I guess, what we're defining as socialist. So I think realistically part of the problem is, is, is greed at the end of the day. I'm sure that there are plenty of people like me who have gone the same path as me in the, in the past and reached a certain point, decided they actually quite like money and I've kind of changed their political views and that's easily done when you're hanging around with a lot of people that are investing. And you kind of learn that language and stuff and and it, you know, you find it easier and easiest to try and justify things like water markets. Right? So what's water water has got a price. Right? And and you know, that's kind of insane in in some respects because without it, people die. So you know, it's it's it's it's difficult. It's difficult to kind of come to terms with those things in terms of when it's gonna end. It's hard to say, but I do think that there are a lot of things kind of in our favor that are that are coming, right, that are inevitable. And I think the first of those things that's really gonna hit hard is automation. When when when automation comes, we're going to see companies profits continue to expand at a time when the amount of money people have to spend is is shrinking because of unemployment or very low wages. Especially as population growth continues as well. And obviously that there are some people who say, you know, people said this before with the industrial revolution and things like that, that we'd all lose our jobs and then everything would be disastrous. But I do think that when you when you really kind of sit back and and look up just how much stuff is being automated, it it becomes pretty clear that, at some point in the future there's not gonna be very many jobs to go around. And so that in itself kind of builds this this need for something else, right? Because capitalism doesn't work if people aren't spending money and people aren't gonna spend money unless they have it. So perhaps that may end up with, you know, something like UBI coming in, universal based income, or perhaps it will lead to something else and, you know, more more level playing fields or more regulation on companies and stuff. Regardless of which way it unfolds, it's it's helping transition the world towards, something that looks a lot more like socialism.
Hey, everyone. If you're enjoying this episode so far, be sure to subscribe, leave a review, share with a friend, and join the crypto leftist communities on Discord and Reddit, which you can find links to in the show notes. If you wanna be sure that more content like this can be created, you can donate to my efforts through Patreon. So if you go to patreon.com/unboxingsocialist, you can donate starting at $3 a month and help me out and join the newest patrons like Jordan from Canada, who is my first patron from Canada, so that's pretty exciting. At the moment, I've spent more on this project than I've ever earned from it due to all the hosting costs, so any amount really helps. As a patron, you'll get a shout out on an episode like I just did and access to monthly Patreon exclusive q and a episodes where you can submit questions you'd like me to answer, and I'll give my thoughts in roughly twenty minutes. On the latest Patreon exclusive Q and A episodes, I gave my thoughts on the STABLE Act and what the crypto leftist approach should be with that proposed legislation. Of course, I'll be making free content like this interview to help spread the message that blockchain does not need to be used to further entrench capitalist exploitation if we put our efforts into it. So if that message resonates with you, I hope you'll consider helping out. As you can maybe tell, the microphone that I'm using for this recording is giving a better audio quality than what is actually in the interview, and that's because I recently bought a new microphone thanks to the donations given by patrons. So thank you guys for your supports, and here's the rest of the interview. So let's now move a little bit more towards the cryptocurrency side because I'm interested, you know, having this perspective, what was it that interested you in cryptocurrencies? I mean, maybe in particular from a critical of capitalism sort of standpoint.
Yeah. I mean, there's there's a few things. Right? Like, the the first thing that comes to mind really is the kind of the anarchist argument for it. Right? The the idea that when you look at, various countries around the world and and the way, trade deals work and the way that, potentially you can have tariffs and things like that, kind of pushed on to to nations for not kind of towing the line with whoever is in charge. Bitcoins kind of appealing in that sense, right? Like I I could theoretically if I if I wanted to I could just send money to Venezuela and nobody can stop me with bitcoin. Whereas I can't do that through the financial system. So so that's one thing that's kind of appealing for it. Obviously, it has downsides as well. I think the thing I like most about it though is the fact that it is like the internet. It's, this technology that is entirely open and it isn't owned by anyone and just like the internet, it is a battleground. A battleground where there is a fight for control and and we could end up with, you know, a system where AOL takes over the Internet and and we all, you know, browse the web through AOL's browser and we only see things that AOL like. Or we could end up with an Internet where actually we're all using RSS feeds and we're all using, you know, these open protocols that let us see and do whatever we want and it's a lot more free. It's it's, you know, and and I I just think that with, you know, it's inevitable that Bitcoin is is going to continue to, kind of absorb a lot of the financial system simply because of the way it's designed to compete with with other assets, in terms of value. And so again, like like the monopoly analogy, I feel like you need to be there. Right? We we need to be involved and we need to be trying to help shape it in a way that we, we think is good for society. And and I think probably the most powerful thing about bitcoin is actually its transparency. You know, you can see which addresses have got the most money and you can see where they're sending it. Maybe, you can't see who owns those addresses, but there is potential there for something.
But we can find them and we can, yeah. Yeah. We can yeah. Exactly. We can find them. Meet meet them to my friend, mister introduce them to my friend, mister Guillotine.
Yeah. Exactly right. So so that there is potential to to create this system of actually, no, we can see what you're doing with your money and and we as society don't like it. And and you can actually even see these battles playing out all the time in cryptocurrency. You know, that's what all of the forks are. Every time there is a fork, it's because there is a big disagreement on essentially the ideology of the project and there have been forks that have removed some of the biggest addresses, there have been forks that have removed Satoshi's coins, there have been forks that have changed the rules on mining or changed it to staking or all of these other systems to try and make it fairer, in different people's views. And, yeah, I'm I'm hoping that perhaps we can, convince people to go with a fork that that looks better for everyone at some point.
Yeah. So it it seems to me that, at least to your first point, one of the things that interests you about cryptocurrency was its anti imperial sort of aspects of it. I mean, I know that countries like Venezuela, Iran, have been trading with each other through Bitcoin, allegedly, I guess. And I know Venezuela is trying to set up a crypto mining farm and this is all in response to economic sanctions that are imposed to them by, you know, big powers like The US and and the West.
Yeah. And and that's that's all, I mean, ultimately part of the control. Right? And again, part of the battlefield is it's not necessarily to say that, one side is right and one side is wrong. I mean you know, China China is also making all sorts of strange moves within cryptocurrency, maybe North Korea isn't. And you know, there's obviously potential for people to misuse this technology the same way that people misuse the internet. But if we can make it transparent, at least we'll know what's going on and, know know potentially the real agendas behind stuff.
So now, are there any thoughts that you have because you're in Bitcoin, fairly early or you know, you were involved in in trading with it. What were your thoughts on the evolution of Bitcoin and how it looks today? Of course, there's been a lot of different forks and a lot of different battles and a lot of different figures within the space that have come and gone with varying degrees of insanity, I think. So, I mean, how do you how do you see that evolution? Like, has it been for the better, the worse? And yeah, are there maybe there are other crypto projects that you actually, are more interested in than Bitcoin?
Yeah. I mean, I I I think, talking about Bitcoin first, I think it's gone down a relatively balanced path. Right? Bitcoin is good because it enables anyone really to buy it, you know? It can be more difficult depending on where you are in the world, but at the end of the day, the, the attempts to try and ban it, or kind of, you know, discredit it really yet at this point, have not worked, and it's pretty obvious that at this point the genie's out at the bottom, there's really no, no acceptable, political way of stopping, Bitcoin from continuing and that's good because, you know, financial freedom as much as you know, that's something that is often said by, you know, kind of libertarians and stuff is a real thing and and, you know, enabling people to to get out of, their their predicament by putting a little bit in bitcoin, even if it's, you know, the smallest amount is gonna help them. And that's good and that's empowering. There's also of course the the the good news and how it's been kind of disruptive to finance as well, right? I I do think that the reason we're seeing products like TransferWise and and you know, Cash App and things like that growing, is partially as a response to Bitcoin, right? There is this kind of notion that actually Western Union charging you $200 to send a thousand dollars from Canada to, you know, Nigeria is pretty unacceptable. Like, you're paying a 20% fee or something is is pretty outrageous. And and Bitcoin is holding those companies to account and actually leveling the playing field a bit and, you know, helping, helping give access to finance to people that really didn't have it before. So, so that's, that's all the good stuff. There is obviously bad stuff as well, right? Bitcoin encourages hoarding, Bitcoin is, you know, potentially good for tax avoidance and tax evasion. So, you know, those, those things are, are not great. And you know, I'm not sure if there's really a good solution to it yet, but there's a lot of interesting stuff going on within cryptocurrency. I've seen, projects in in the really early days that had time limits on your funds. I thought that was really cool and interesting concepts. If you don't spend it, you lose it. A good way of kind of keeping control and automatically taking stuff out. I've seen projects that have really high inflation rates, which again is essentially a tax on people with the most money, and actually realistically one of the the fairest forms of taxation.
So so you're so you're not supportive of the, like, pro deflationary sort of politics of a lot of Bitcoiners.
Yeah. Exactly. I'm I'm not ready. I actually think inflation can be a a really good tool for leveling the playing field. Obviously uncontrolled inflation is bad. Right? You know, I think we've seen enough experiments in that to see that, but we've also seen that deflation, uncontrolled deflation can be bad as well and potentially we'll see that in the future with Bitcoin. I'm not sure. It's it's a it's a weird situation, right? Because, you know, it's competing with real currencies, and by being more deflationary, it's it's a better store of value and a better kind of investment. Perhaps if it didn't have that, we wouldn't see it succeeding so much, but you know who knows I I think there's still a lot of room for experimentation in in in you know the the different kind of levers that you can pull economically on Bitcoin to try and make it something that's fairer for everyone.
So I imagine in your experience in being involved in these types of spaces where there are a lot of investors and there are a lot of traders and there are a lot of crypto libertarians, I imagine that you must be in contact, or in conflict with these people in terms of your politics and, like, how you see the world and, you know, just having conversations about maybe more more abstract things. How do you communicate with these type of people? Like how like what what is it like for you having such a different world view but being with being so close to these type of people?
It's interesting. I mean there's there's two types of people right there. That there's the type that will argue with you continually and and will not give any ground and will not kind of even acknowledge, your viewpoint. And most of those people are probably blocked on my Twitter feed now, because you know that there's no winning with them. But there are equally some people, that are very opposed to my view that can kind of relate to to what I'm saying and and at the very least have respect for the fact that, you know, I'm I'm doing well in their world, you know, I'm doing well in their game.
You're doing pretty you're investing pretty well for a Marxist.
Exactly. Exactly. And and so perhaps, you know, through doing that, I've I've converted a few people. I mean, you know, I I know that I've converted a few people, but, it's, yeah, it's it's weird, trying to kind of trying to be accepted in that world, and, you know, trying to accept others in that world for for me as well is also pretty difficult. But I think the the thing that kind of gives me at least some hope is that most people that I speak to regardless still believe that they are doing the thing that is best for everyone. And I guess that's like the smallest kind of glimmer of hope that you can hold on to, right, is that ultimately I don't think that everyone that's a libertarian or everyone that's, you know, proper like classical, neoliberalist or whatever it is, you know, I don't think they're bad people. Right? They they just, they just perhaps haven't really seen themselves firsthand, what it's like to be at the other end of the system that they're kind of vouching for.
I imagine that Jeff Bezos may think that he's doing what's best for the world, but I guess at a certain point, you gotta you gotta slap him with reality.
Yeah. Yeah. Exactly. Right. So like Jeff Jeff Bezos and Elon Musk are good examples. Right? I mean, like there's no denying. Right? That both of them have made really good contributions to the world. Right? Like Amazon has changed logistics and changed like the availability of products for people. That's a good thing. Elon Musk has bought in this era of you know electric vehicles. That's a great thing. They've also done some pretty bad things. Yeah. And, you know, I I don't hold positions in either of their companies for that reason. I think that, you know, the the power has gone to their heads. They've gone, you know, completely insane to some to some level. And I I just don't think that it's really, something that I want my funds or the funds of the people that are copying me supporting. So, yeah, it's it's it's difficult but again I think that's just what happens with greed, right? And and with power, it corrupts.
So based on your experience I'd be really interested to hear what if any, is there is there some sort of insights, you think, into into their world that would be beneficial for the left to to hear about? Or is maybe maybe it's maybe it's just obvious what what it is, but
I mean, I think, actually this kind of relates to a book that I think, perhaps people should recall Humankind by, Rupa, Bregman, I think his name is. And that book actually basically tackles what is the core of this issue and what ultimately I think is the difference between at its very core the difference between people who lean socialist and people who lean capitalist, right, is that capitalists believe that inherently humans are greedy and bad and that humans will try and do bad things and try and take as much as they can. And as a result, they kind of join that ideology, they think well everyone else is buying nice big houses because and and saving all this money to give to their children because if we don't do it then our children are gonna be poor and then leave lead a terrible life, right? So I need to get as much money as I can and as much stuff as I can to make my life better because nobody's gonna do it for me. Whereas the the opposite in reality is true. Most people when they see, see someone that doesn't have any money will give them something. When they see someone that's struggling, they'll help them, regardless of what it is. And that's that I think is is where socialist lie. So I think it's about realizing that actually most people really believe in capitalism because it's the only thing that they know and because they've been taught it. And and you've got to kind of unteach that. They're not bad people, they're people that perhaps just don't understand, understand that really, you know, this narrative is being pushed out by by a very small group of people, and it's become a self fulfilling prophecy. And and it doesn't need to be that way. We could build something that is fairer and more equitable society for everyone.
Yeah. So so you think it it comes out of just sort of like a maybe an unconscious understanding that that the system is broken. However, you need to double down into that system if you want
to survive, I guess. I mean Yeah. Exactly. That's what I think it is. Yeah. I I think that's what I you know, they believe in survival of the fittest. That's that's really what it comes down to.
You know, it's already public knowledge, I guess. That's, you know, you make a fair amount of money. And so you're in this sort of, I imagine, strange position where your maybe your actual class interest would probably be to be a conservative of sorts. But, you know, you're a bit of a class trader in that sense, at least in terms of your politics. Have you learned anything in terms of the advantages or limitations that there are in having so much money and what you're able to do in terms of creating change for the world you want to see?
Yeah. Yeah. I mean, it's, it's certainly been a really weird journey. Because as you say, you know, I have definitely ascended the classes, you know. Five years ago, I was on something close to minimum wage. Ten years ago, I was on a zero hour contract on minimum wage. So you know I was really basically entirely beholden to a company saying I've got work that day or I don't, and that was it for almost nothing. And obviously now I'm not in that position at all, I mean you know, the the polar opposite. And and it used to be my opinion that, it would be really easy when you have that kind of money to make noticeable change. But it's more difficult than I thought it was, simply because, when you start dealing with the kind of money that that I'm now dealing with, even even in terms on like behalf of my copies, you've realized just how small it is compared to the real 1% of the world, and just how much you're still fighting the tide even at that point. One of the things that I think, I think is helping is is the ability for me to invest in startups, and invest in startups that are actually really doing innovative things that are actually gonna help people. I've invested in, you know, startups totally outside of Etoro this is that that are doing things like, redesigning concrete, right, or redesigning redesigning insulation for buildings and building it out of something different and and essentially growing it out of mushrooms and, you know, certainly fair systems. I've I've invested in a company that, builds wind turbines and then lets people buy shares in the wind turbine and they get all of the power that comes out that wind turbine, a cooperative structure. You know, the the those are the things that I think, are kind of the most exciting because I'm helping these companies and I don't really care if I get a return or not. You know, if I do then it's good because it means that I can hopefully invest in more projects like that, and help them grow further. But if I don't then it doesn't feel too bad either, you know, I still feel like I've done something to contribute and and help people, right, to help people get cheaper power if they use that service or or to help, you know, green up the world just a little bit more. It's it's so difficult to really do anything much more than that. I mean, you know, the politics is is something that I've always been really, really interested in. I'm an active member of the the green party in The UK and you know I go to their conferences and stuff and, you know I've I've been flip flopping on the idea of donating a lot of money to them to try and help them, but it's difficult to kind of justify if that's gonna yield a better return for most people in the world than investing that money in startups or just giving that money away to people I see on the street or investing it in, universal based income charities or whatever it is. So, it's kind of an ongoing, learning experience and I think really the last year or so is when I've most started to kind of think about the best way of trying to redeploy some of what I've made to help other people and to help usher in that kind of change that I want to see in society. Yeah, it's it's difficult. I think really the the best thing to come out of my success is actually the fact that I've managed to onboard other people into the idea of investing and helping themselves, in that way. The the more people that we can kind of get investing, and keep them sane and keep them from from, you know, succumbing to that kind of greed and that that, you know, survival of the fittest attitude and realizing that, hey, you've managed to get out of this situation, but that doesn't mean that things are okay for everyone else. We still have a responsibility, to to pay our taxes and to try and, improve stuff. So I I I think really that's the best thing to come from it is that I've opened a lot of people's eyes, a lot of people who would never normally get into investing, people that were working with me, on on the floor of warehouses, in into the the ability for them to actually transition those tiers and start to help, you know, help me usher in that change.
No. I mean, it it sounds like, it's it's not enough just to have a lot of money if you want to make change. It's being sort of, conscious and making good decisions in terms of allocating those resources to create those changes. And it's not an easy thing to identify, of course.
Yeah. Because realistically, the battle that we've got isn't in redistributing the wealth because we can do that and then the wealth will redistribute itself again back to the way it was. The difficulty is in changing people's minds. And that really is actually what you're kind of trying to invest in. It's it's investing in convincing people that actually, you know, that there's a different way.
Yeah, and, in effect, I assume changing institutions as well, hopefully, that, you know, institutions within capitalism are, we just sort of realize we don't need them.
Yeah.
So I once sent out a poll tweet asking whether it was a good idea or a bad idea to start a hedge fund that gives its earnings to support strike funds. What do you think? Good idea or bad idea?
It depends really. I I mean, realistically, it depends on on the strike that's involved. To some extent, I think it would actually be better to just go down the the the avenue of impact investing. Right? If if you get a hedge fund big enough, then you can just buy out most of Amazon and tell them to pay their staff correctly. Or or literally, you know, you know, if you've got a majority on the board of a company, you can literally say, actually, we're we're now a cooperative. Here you go. Now everyone has some shares in the company or what whatever it may be. I I feel like that's actually a a better way of doing it,
personally. So it's like, basically,
a cooperative hedge fund. You know, my start of investing is all about thinking about the future and and I do think that it's it's worth saying again that, like, the the current system we live on, like if you extrapolate that out into the future, just looks terrible for everyone. Unless we reach some form of post scarcity society where we can just three d print any objects that we want on earth, capitalism won't work because ultimately, we're always going to be limited by the resources we have. That could be water, it could be land, it could be, human resources in terms of people actually working. It could be all sorts of different things, but as long as we have those limitations, we have to find a way of sharing it in some sort of way that gives people a basic good standard of living.
Yeah. So maybe actually, one question that popped up in my head is, this is related to an idea from the EXA Group, the economic space agency. And they have this idea about shorting capitalism. And I I was curious what you thought about that. Like, what if you are maybe if you're an investor, is there I mean, it's a very silly thought experiment of course. Like, could you short capitalism on the stock market today?
To short actual, like, capitalism as a whole? I don't think so. You could maybe you could maybe do things like short entire sectors, and you could you could usher out sectors that are bad. And actually, there are some examples of that in the past. There was a company that used to do a lot of animal testing in The UK that basically got demolished by, by all of the activists slowly buying up shares of it and, and essentially disassembling the company from within from, within it. I can't remember the name of the company off the top of my head. So things like that are possible, but for the whole system, I think it's, I think it's too much. I'm not sure if it's really doable.
So we can't invest we can't just invest in socialism? It's not you know, frankly?
No. Not yet. We need to, like, make a A mute socialism
socialism mutual funds?
Yeah. I mean, this and this is this is part of the problem. Right? The the issue that we have is the way game theory kind of works is that, you know, certain socialism on paper is the best thing, right, for society. It means the most prosperous kind of lifestyle for everyone overall in theory. If you just divide resources equally and and, you know, like in its most purest kind of form. But obviously, when you compare that with capitalism, it just doesn't work in terms of self interest. So so I don't think there's really any way of, of investing directly in socialism and I think the problem is lies really in in game theory and that socialism, when you put it face to face against capitalism on its own, doesn't beat it in terms of self interest. So people, if they have to choose between those two camps, would always choose the one, choose capitalism, unfortunately, for the most part. Unless we can kind of change the way people think about it. But that doesn't mean that there isn't something that we can put in the middle first that does beat capitalism, that we can then beat with socialism. And again, like, you know, I've kind of alluded to this a lot, but that's the way I think things are going. I think we're heading towards a world probably of universal based income which still means we live in capitalism probably of, state controlled things like, broadband and internet and water and and things like that with real essential limited, resources. And then after after we've got to that point, transitioning from that away from the rest of capitalism should be a bit easier. But, you know, it's, it's probably gonna be a pretty long journey.
It it it's also difficult to know what's going to come up between all those things happening as well. Yeah. Yeah. I mean,
yeah. I mean, part part of the battle, right, is figuring out what is what's what's the next, stage in technology as well, because I don't think anyone really predicted Bitcoin coming.
So that that was a super interesting talk. Maybe to top it off, maybe we can hear your plugs. Where can people keep up with you? Where can they, learn more about what you do?
So you can follow me on Twitter. My name is Jay nemesis. Actually, my name is Jay nemesis pretty much everywhere, except Facebook. I'm not on Facebook. If you see anything on Facebook, it's a really obvious scam. Don't give them any money. Obviously, etoro.com is where I do my, trading and investing. If you're from America, unfortunately, you can't copy me, but, people from other regions of the world can. So, you know, feel free to jump on there and copy me or copy someone else. There's actually a lot of, ethical investors on there and stuff as well. So, yeah. There's there's a lot of good selection on there.
Alright. Cool. Well, thanks a lot, Jay. And, yeah, I'm sure we'll talk again another time.
Thanks. Thanks, Anthony. It was a good chat.