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Litecoin, Retirement, and LTC's Headway
Recorded: Aug. 21, 2025 Duration: 0:58:33Space Recording
Full Transcription
Hello everybody. Working on writing for the host.
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Am I? One moment.
Is the echo still happening? Okay.
Okay.
All right.
Sorry about that.
I had an echo on my end.
I think we're all good now.
And I'm going to go ahead and just, I'm Jerry. I'm with Bitcoin IRA. And it's great to have
you all here today. I do have a list of questions, but if you have any questions come up,
please just post them in that original orange post. It's pinned on our page and I will try to
get to them as we go through or possibly at the end, depending on how time goes. We're going to
try to keep this up to 45 minutes. All right. So now that I've introduced myself, Alan, I would
love if you could give an intro to yourself. Yeah. Hi. Thanks. Hi, Joey. Thanks for having me. My name, hello, everyone. My name
is Alan Austin. I am the managing director at Litecoin Foundation. Litecoin Foundation is a
nonprofit organization. And our goal, our mission is pretty simple. It's to advance Litecoin adoption
adoption and awareness and development of both Litecoin and the surrounding ecosystem.
and awareness and development of both Litecoin and the surrounding ecosystem.
Amazing. Now, Chris, could you give a quick intro to yourself as well?
Yeah, absolutely. Good morning and great being here. Nice to meet you, Alan. My name is Chris
Klein. I'm the co-founder and CRO for Bitcoin IRA. We've been in business since 2015 and have helped hundreds of thousands of folks
get closer to retirement with the use of digital assets, notably Litecoin, which we dropped into
our platform way back in 2018. So just thrilled to be here, be a part of this community. I've
been a big fan of Litecoin and what it brings to the table through the foundation for years.
what it brings to the table through the foundation for years. Amazing. Thanks, Chris.
So I would like to start with you, Alan. I do have this question. Litecoin has been around for
a really long time, but I've noticed that it's been getting a lot of hype again recently.
Do you want to tell me a little bit about your role in the foundation and how it's shaping the
Litecoin ecosystem? Yeah, sure. I can it's shaping the Litecoin ecosystem?
Yeah, sure. I can speak for how the Litecoin Foundation is what we're doing on our part. And first off, it's always important to remember that Litecoin is a decentralized cryptocurrency.
So this means that the Litecoin network is open source, our design is public,
and that this also means that no party even even the litecoin foundation
actually owns or controls litecoin or the network you know everyone can take part and that's the
beauty of it the blockchain is public um but with that said in terms of um how the foundation could
help how we play kind of a central role in shaping and supporting the ecosystem we do this a variety
of ways um one is through development and this includes development of like our own self custodial wallet, Nexus wallet, where you can buy, sell, store and actually easily spend Litecoin through integrations we have.
One of the things we also do is help ensure that implementations like such as MWeb, MWeb is our Litecoin privacy layer.
It's an optional privacy layer.
Things like that are successfully implemented. Litecoin
Foundation, we're a strong advocate of privacy, but we believe that's a fundamental part of digital
money. So it's important that we see that these types of projects and things, we follow through
with these and they get implemented. Fundraising is also a big part of what we do at the foundation.
As a fairly large cryptocurrency, we don't have like a stash of coins that we
pre-minted or pre-mined. So fundraising is a key part of the revenue that helps run our operations.
But we not only fundraise for ourselves, we also help fundraise for like third parties that are
building within the Litecoin space. So we have a project portal and third parties can actually
submit their projects. And if we believe it aligns with our mission in Litecoin and is positive, we can actually
help raise funds for those third parties.
And we're doing that now, and it's been actually quite successful.
Another way is through partnerships, working with various third parties who are adding
value to the Litecoin ecosystem.
And this, again, whether it's helping to raise funds or participating in other ways depending on the specific project and then the other kind of last things are like through education
and community support education meaning like providing as much information as we can via our
website we host in-person events uh we you know like our annual summit we host online events you
know do x spaces like this for example um And then as community support, work with the community users, merchants,
payment providers, exchanges, basically so that Litecoin is accessible and
can be used around the world.
So that's kind of our role, helping to serve as sort of a voice for the community,
providing like public awareness and support in a variety of ways.
That's incredible.
Thanks so much for that very, very deep answer.
Really excited to hear more. Chris, that brings me to your role with us here at Bitcoin IRA.
You stay pretty close to the charts in your day to day. What are your thoughts about Litecoin's
recent direction? Thoughts about Litecoin's recent direction? Would you put it in your
retirement account? That's a great question. So I've been watching Litecoin since we launched it in late 2017.
We added it as our fourth coin on the platform or token on the platform. And I remember being
on I-24 news in December when it peaked at like 318. And I've been a strong proponent of its technology,
the fact that there'll be four times as many Litecoins as Bitcoins and the reward process
and the mining process is four times as efficient. I also had the privilege of speaking at the
Litecoin Foundation Summit back in 2019, pre-COVID at the Cosmopolitan in Las Vegas,
a very welcoming group of folks.
I wish actually my daughter was here. She's at school right now. But back in those days,
almost a decade ago, she was four. And I had these little commemorative tokens my dad gave me.
And it was like one was a Bitcoin, one was a Litecoin, Ethereum, and an XRP. And I taught
taught her one word associations. And Litecoin was always her favorite because it was Bitcoin
her one word associations. And Litecoin was always her favorite because it was Bitcoin is money,
is money, Ethereum is contracts, XRP is banks, and Litecoin is shopping, which of course,
what little girl does love shopping. I can't wait till she can use it at Sephora someday.
And that's really what I'm noticing right now is that there's some very bullish sentiment.
I think it's got one of the highest sentiment ratings on CoinMarketCap right now as an
individual coin.
And there's some really good buzz possibility in October of an ETF approval.
You also have groups like MEI Pharma that are acquiring it for Treasury.
And we're seeing this happen across the crypto spectrum, which really puts, in my opinion, Ethereum as the leader in the space. It's an ideal Treasury token or coin, in my opinion, long term for those groups that are looking to build out that hedge in their overall balance sheet.
And yes, I actually hold it.
I have held it in my retirement since 2017 when we launched it and absolutely love my Litecoin holdings.
And I'm pretty excited to see where we go next.
There was a really good speech at the Litecoin summit recently. Can't remember the name of the individual, but talking about where would we be if the if you believe in the theory of a million dollar Bitcoin by 2030, where would Litecoin be?
And I think he hit it somewhere around 10,000. So just a lot of excitement around the space overall watching it.
I don't actually watch the charts as day to day as I'd like to running a business of a couple hundred thousand clients and 14 billion in assets under custody limits me some.
But I always try to check in on my Litecoin holdings as often as I can.
I love that. Yeah, actually, Litecoin was the second asset I ever bought after Bitcoin.
So I have a long history with Litecoin, too. Really excited to have Alan here.
to have Alan here.
I guess that kind of brings me to the next point.
I guess that kind of brings me to the next point.
It's something a lot of people don't realize
is that Litecoin actually was sort of
an early Bitcoin competitor for folks
that wanted those higher transaction speeds.
Alan, how do you feel Litecoin fits
into the greater crypto ecosystem now, so many years later?
Is it still sort of a, or has its path shifted a little bit?
Did we lose Alan or is he on mute?
I'm sorry, I was on mute.
I was going to answer the question,
but I was also going to say how that's really awesome that I didn't even know.
I realized that you were at the summit in 2019. That was actually a lot of
fun, a great summit. And it's also great to see you guys added Litecoin to your platform early on.
So yeah, in terms of Litecoin being a light Bitcoin, I think, and also Litecoin is often
called the silver to Bitcoin's gold, I guess's gold, whether it's a light Bitcoin,
silver to gold.
I do believe that still makes sense today.
Both Bitcoin and Litecoin share the same fundamental properties in terms of decentralization.
They both have a limited supply.
They both use proof-of-work security.
They're both highly liquid, pretty much on every exchange.
So while they just share the same fundamentals, where they do differ in terms of, and this is where you can call like Litecoin a lighter version or a silver to a gold, for example, is in terms of the fact that Litecoin has much faster confirmations along with significantly lower fees. And this combines really, really makes Litecoin a lot more spendable, meaning easier to spend, especially for like everyday transactions, micro, smaller transactions,
microtransactions, you know, moving funds between exchanges. It's just a lot easier to move and a
lot easier to spend. And that's really important. And the other thing is because we added this new,
this privacy layer that Litecoin now has, which is optional, and lets users,
this now lets users send transactions with even greater privacy and fungibility.
And this, like, I think makes Litecoin even more well-suited for payments because now
you can spend and receive without necessarily exposing your full transaction history, which
is really important for, like, sound money and for payments and for financial privacy.
So I think while Bitcoin and Litecoin do share a lot of the same fundamentals,
it's these key differences with Litecoin that show how crypto can also function as like sound, usable money and not just an investment.
And don't get me wrong, obviously, a store of value is highly important.
But without a strong medium of exchange, you know, a digital asset risks becoming more of a speculative tool than like a functioning currency.
I mean, really, money only becomes truly sound when you can move it efficiently and cheaply and reliably in everyday life, when you can use it in everyday life.
And that's, I think, the significant difference between what Litecoin offers today and what Bitcoin offers.
Yeah, that makes a lot of sense. Chris, you kind of talked a little bit
about your introduction to Litecoin and kind of bringing on the platform. Can you tell me a little
bit more about like when you were first introduced to Litecoin in the community? Yeah, absolutely.
It was actually from a client. So early on when we first launched Bitcoin IRA, and a lot of people
kind of give us a misnomer that we're just for Bitcoin, where we are a full fledged platform that has, I think, 80 plus currencies now on the on the platform.
A client of ours, I call them my engine nerds.
They were retired Intel, IBM, like cutting edge technology folks that were that were in this back almost a decade ago.
technology folks that were in this back almost a decade ago. Rocket Ron, who was one of our 11th
actual Bitcoin client, and he was our first Litecoin client, came to me and said, hey,
are you planning on expanding more to the platform and adding more assets this coming year? And I
said, that's our ultimate goal. Just trying to weed through the process. I was still only about
a year into my crypto down the rabbit hole moment. And there was there was quite a few coins at that time that needed to be vetted.
So he pointed me in the direction of Litecoin and the foundation.
And that's how I eventually got invited to come to the summit and started meeting folks in the space.
And one of the things I love the most about this group, you know, they talk about the XRP army out there.
I think that the conviction of the Litecoin communities is just as strong and looking for those ways to apply this to the future,
which is like Alan's just saying, it's a tool that can be easily used for transactional purposes.
But also now that it has its privacy layer even brings an extra layer to that.
So that was my first inroads to the space in the community and just been kind of staying on and watching and learning as I've gone.
Amazing. Yeah. Needless to say, the community does have some history and
much stronger times. Great, great team here. Alan, would you say that the community kind of guides the future of
the network, or is the community just kind of there for the ride as Litecoin moves forward?
So absolutely. The Litecoin community plays a huge role in keeping the network moving forward.
And the main reason is because Litecoin is decentralized, right? There is no single
company or figure that can dictate its direction.
It's really because of the community.
And when I say community, I mean like developers,
miners, holders, businesses, advocates,
basically everyone collectively that helps guide Litecoin's path
and keeps it resilient and strong.
Even like, for example, when upgrades happen,
whether it was SegWit or when we implemented MWeb,
I mean, these aren't just like technical changes.
These are results of often years of discussion, testing and support, minor support from across the community.
I mean, these things can't happen without the community.
So I would say the community is a huge part of Litecoin.
It does a lot of also the grassroots work that keeps Litecoin relevant, like building tools, onboarding merchants, helping to educate new users, participating and representing Litecoin in conferences, meetups.
It's this kind of shared belief in Litecoin's role as like sounds, digital, spendable money.
Not only that it's kept Litecoin resilient over the years, it's literally kept like coin running with zero downtime and
literally the longest running uptime in crypto and all because of a community not because of a single person and i think so you can kind of say well you know so on one hand you while the
developers in the and as the foundation we help push initiatives forward that we believe are
are important for like coins path the community is kind of like the heartbeat of Litecoin. I mean, it's this collective belief that ensures that Litecoin sort of stays true to its purpose
as fast, accessible, sound money around the world. And I think that's, without the community,
we wouldn't be here. Yeah, community is a big part of decentralization. So it's good to know
that you have their ongoing support. Speaking of decentralization, So it's good to know that you have their ongoing support.
Speaking of decentralization, we've noticed a lot of movement from the government in the crypto space, especially in the US. Chris, institutions are starting to take interest
in cryptocurrencies like Bitcoin, Ethereum, Solana, and like Litecoin. How do you think
all of this institutional activity will affect crypto communities and coins that really depend on these communities?
Yeah, that's a wonderful question. I've had that in my head lately, not just for Litecoin,
but overall that we all started this just under two decades ago in a sense of a democratization of money and commerce.
I always say that Bitcoin and Litecoin and others are like the people's currency
because it's a decentralized factor.
So now you have institutions coming to the table
because we've got the guardrails that we've been waiting years for.
We've got ETFs that have come with billions in inflows.
It's become a treasury concept for corporations and nation states. that we've been waiting years for. We've got ETFs that have come with billions in inflows.
It's become a treasury concept for corporations and nation states.
And we just saw with Litecoin, with MEI Pharma and what they're doing with it.
Does that change the concept overall?
And I don't think so.
I think that what's important is that now they're a member of the community. And so we started this, people like Alan and the folks listening here,
that this is our conviction about Litecoin.
And the addition of it to treasuries and inside of these large institutions
is really just we're welcoming an even larger member to our space and to our community.
And the ones that will do it well will continue to interact with that community,
whether it is Solana or Litecoin or XRP or Ethereum.
They'll continue to be a part of the community as it continues.
Now they become a big use case of it.
You know, a lot of OGs that I know are, you know, we've always been like this is our revolution
and we've done so well and, you know, we batt always been like, this is this is our revolution. And we've done so well. And, you know, we battled a lot.
Right. If you think about what we've been through, I had no gray hairs when I started my crypto journey.
And I also only had a one year old daughter then.
So maybe that's where the gray hairs came from her or my crypto winners.
But we've been dirt a lot. We've been scrutinized, battered, beaten, left behind.
And we're here and we're resilient.
And now the big players are coming.
I just went to the Bitcoin conference in Vegas in May, and I noted to Yahoo Finance, I was
like, you know, there's a lot more sport coats around here.
It's starting to feel like traditional finance and decentralized finance have swiped right
on each other on Twitter, on Tinder, and we're starting to find harmony with each other.
But that won't go without growing pains, too.
And that's the reality ahead. But to me, at its core, it's decentralized. At its core,
community is key. We just have some bigger members of the community now.
Yeah, definitely. Alan, what is your stance on this? How is all activity affecting Litecoin?
And how are you navigating these changes?
Yeah, I definitely agree with Chris.
I do think, well, first of all, I mean, self-custody is it will always be important.
And that's actually the freedom.
You know, that's already built into Litecoin.
But I do think I do believe institutional activity is a net positive for Litecoin because what it does do is opens the doors to participants that might not otherwise, say, feel comfortable, whether it's buying or holding or, you know, securing their own coins.
Not everyone wants to self-custody. I mean, that's just the reality.
Some people don't understand. Some people just don't have easy access to do those things.
It's easier. And what institutions and, you know, these things do is provide like more safe entry points for safer people that need that.
And what it also does in, you know, referring to like MEI Pharma, Luxfolio Holdings, these treasury companies, is it helps reinforce Litecoin's narrative as a store of value.
You know, we always talk about Litecoin as a medium of exchange, but nobody's spending $100 million on Litecoin if they don't believe that the value is there. So when we see these larger sophisticated investors getting involved, I do see it as like it helps give Litecoin,
it adds credibility as Litecoin as a digital asset to those that maybe need that additional
understanding. So while I believe that's net positive at the same time, obviously those who
value self-custody can continue doing so. As mentioned, that's literally the freedom that's built into Litecoin.
So it's not really, I don't see it as about replacing one or the other.
It's just really about broadening more access, you know, opening more doors.
So, you know, in terms of what we do at the foundation to help navigate these changes,
I mean, we help support on both sides.
We'll work with institutions, exchanges, you know, custodians to ensure Litecoin is accessible to as many people as possible.
And at the same time, we continue with our always support education,
you know, development, providing resources for people that
they prefer to hold their own keys, including building tools that will help for this.
So I think in short, you have institutions that add more on ramps.
You have the community that helps kind of keep
the heartbeat, keeps Litecoin strong, and as the foundation, we'll make sure that these worlds sort
of connect and ensure that Litecoin sort of stays true to its mission being global, accessible,
digital sound money. Amazing. I'm going to take a brief intermission just to remind the audience
that you have just come in. If you do have questions, we try to get to them.
If you do have questions, we try to get to them.
You can go ahead and go to the Bitcoin IRA page in our pinned post.
Just leave a comment there, and I will try to get to them.
To return to our question here, you know, a lot of these changes are happening in the U.S.,
and obviously at Bitcoin IRA, we're based here in America.
So we expect to see movement with American institutions going on with all the regulatory changes.
But Chris, do you have any thoughts on how we're going to see the landscape change more globally when it comes to traditional finance?
Yeah. So I go back and look at El Salvador first because they really were the pioneers of going all in on a concept.
And and it's a great case study that I think most of us understand at the at the surface is it's a it was a banana republic that just kept getting whether it was military coups or natural disasters. It's just been at the epicenter of every time it gets up on its feet,
it gets knocked back down. And it's made this change towards embracing fully as a currency,
not just as a reserve asset, but actually as a functioning currency of society.
Bitcoin, among others that are down there, I just had some friends that were down there,
and there's other coins like Litecoin and Cardano and others that are being used in
commerce regularly between individuals and to settle payments and things like that. And then
what they're also doing, I believe, I don't know if they did it with Litecoin mining, but they have
these giant volcanoes. They're very small. In some very large country where they have these big
volcanoes and a lot of geothermal. And that's always been to their detriment because things
get, that's what volcanoes do. They erupt and they take things out and they are actually using that geothermal power to mine more Bitcoin and
other digital assets for their economy, which I think is just an amazing case study of how this
can really change the map. When I was in college, we read a book by Barnett in my leadership program
called the Pentagon's New Map. He's now rewritten it, rewritten a new version about
the newest map for Americans to look out at. And it's more about environmental changes that
will take place. But you see these places that have been struggling to get their footing into
a competitive global marketplace that are using digital assets as a kind of an on-ramp to their future.
You saw that while El Salvador was doing it, then Argentina didn't do it because they were told by the World Bank and the IMF that if you do this, we're going to take funding away from you.
And what happened a year later, 1,000% plus inflation, hyperinflation for them and their currency. So those are two great case studies in South America and Central America. You also have in Africa, you have Zimbabwe that's doing it. You saw with the
crisis, both in Turkey and others, that the number of new wallets being created during financial
crisis amongst the people is really, it's crazy what the charts look like when those things
happen. So that's the people saying, you know, enough's enough. Like you guys are running our economies inappropriately. And that's here in the U.S. too. Part of the reason
why people are using digital assets for retirement savings is we have strong discontent about where
the future of the U.S. dollar might be. And it's already shown since 1971 when we went off of the
gold standard with the Nixon shock, everything has gotten more expensive. If you price things
in terms of Bitcoin or Litecoin, you get a much better perspective
that it's not things are not getting more expensive.
The dollar is just losing itself.
And so I think you're going to continue to see other countries look at that.
And then there's also this global race to dominance and superiority in the digital asset
space.
As a student of political science, there's a lot of things we've fought over the years,
whether it's resources, land,
in some cases like the Cold War,
it was a discourse of ideology.
You've got some major players looking at this,
and I think you're going to continue to see this,
what I call race to reserve,
holding enough of any of these assets
to have clout and power to
push things around on that global pool table. It's kind of that realistic look at it as a
global pool table of things happening amongst powers, small, medium, and large. This is a place
where I've been watching BRICS for a long time try to compete with the OPEC dollar and the large
players there. This is a space where they could really find dominance. So we're just scratching the surface. You can see posturing
taking place just between US and China. This is also part of currency wars. This is a part of
trade wars. This is the future of the landscape of our world and digital assets are right at the
center of it. And I think myself personally are going to be the solution that we're going to need
desperately. At some point, we're going to print these fiat monies to oblivion and people are
going to be scrambling for that digital asset to scarcity, scarcity, scarcity. And I don't even
think that Americans or others, like these people are listening today, we're in the one or two
percenters that are ahead of the curve here. People don't quite understand the concept of scarcity.
We grew up in abundance.
We just print the print money and we keep going.
And this is where we end up is the people that supply shock
and understanding the divisibility of these assets.
It will be a paradigm shift for the mentality of folks ahead.
So I'm very excited, but I'm also cautiously optimistic
because it's not gonna be as easy as one day we're this and one day we're this.
There will be a tough transition through this process.
We're still early, as they say.
Alan, as a global digital asset, are there any geographies that are preferred or even particularly challenging for Litecoin specifically and some of Litecoin's goals?
Sure. So I mean, Litecoin is and some of Litecoin's goals? Sure.
So, yeah.
So, I mean, Litecoin is really designed to be everywhere, you know, globally for everyone.
It's not tied to a single country or tied to a single region.
I think more of the challenges we see aren't necessarily unique to Litecoin, but more of
a broader part of the broader crypto landscape, you know, in terms of, I
think, regulation, education, access to infrastructure in some areas.
Some of the things Chris had touched on.
So I said, I don't see anything that's specific to Litecoin, but rather just, you know, having
the world come around more to understanding what better money means and the value of it.
With that said, I do think Litecoin could be especially impactful in countries
where local currencies have been heavily devalued. Argentina has been as well in some other countries.
And this is an area where people have no choice. They often turn to alternatives like Litecoin is
a more reliable way to store value and to move money because of Litecoin's speed, low fees,
and it's global. It's really an ideal choice for payments.
And in this case, in this situation, you have people that sometimes people do things because
they have no choice.
And I think that's where it sort of starts and then it becomes much more global.
So I think over time, we'll see more and more Litecoin become more and more of a preferred
choice in some of these countries where their dollar is not worth, you know, continues to be devalued over the long run. And I think it's just inevitable
that that will continue as we move forward. You know, our mission,
Lakewood's mission remains the same. It's to be worldwide, you know, global,
open, fair, spendable money that anyone can use.
Yeah, that makes a lot of sense. I'm going to kind of pivot us back to the U.S. just a little bit. In the U.S., you can keep Litecoin or U.S.
citizens. Generally, you can keep Litecoin in a tax advantaged IRA. We mentioned this before,
but a lot of folks don't realize that you can save around 25 percent in capital gains taxes
if you are a U.S. citizen and you choose to keep your crypto in a
crypto IRA. Chris, can you maybe elaborate on some more of the benefits Litecoin holders would have
by keeping their Litecoin in a crypto IRA? Yeah, absolutely. And also I saw a question
pop up on the thread from Leonidas the Hodler, which is an awesome name. And I'm going to try
to address his question about security in this answer as well. So the way that the IRS works is back in the 1970s, they designed what's known as
an individual retirement account. We're in a savings crisis, and they were trying to incentivize
Americans to save for the long term. We're also in that same kind of crisis today. I commonly say
we're in a retirement crisis because a lot of folks are
feeling that pinch of inflation and other and rising costs and they aren't really well equipped
for retirement. And that's our mission is to help more Americans retire by using these tools that
the government has given us since the 1970s. So using a retirement account puts you in one of
two statuses, either you're tax deferred or you're in a tax-free growth area. And so with
a traditional IRA, which is one of the most common, you are putting funds into your retirement
account every year and able to lower your tax bill. So for simple math, if you made $100,000
last year and you put $8,000 into your retirement account, you would lower your taxable income by
that $8,000 to $92,000, which can be very helpful with your tax advisors, you would lower your taxable income by that 8,000 to 92, which can be very
helpful with your tax advisors, your planning and your long-term retirement and tax advantage
and efficiencies. In a Roth IRA, you can actually, you don't get the benefit of putting that money in,
but when you reach the age of retirement down at 59 and a half or 60, when you reach that point
where you're starting to take funds out, you're taking it out entirely
tax free. So if you were to take $5,000, put it in a Litecoin, watch it run to $10,000 a Litecoin
and start pulling those funds out later, you'd be in a tax free setting. What's also really nice,
and this is popular for us crypto folks, is when you're inside of the retirement account,
you can trade, swap, buy and sell all day long and not have
what's known as a capital gains implication. So if I was recently swapped out, the other day I was
showing somebody something on my mobile app and I just swapped out $1,000 of Bitcoin for some Litecoin.
If there was any gain, which there was on that Bitcoin, I now have a capital gains implication
for that gain, which in short term can be upwards of 25%. If you hold it for more than a year, you can lower it down to 12 to 15%.
But this is the burden of not using these tools for us, especially for long-term hodl mentality,
or if you want to do quite a few trades in between. What that does mean, though,
though, to get to Leonidas' question about security is that this is not a self-custody
to get to Leonidas' question about security, is that this is not a self-custody solution.
solution. It is an institutional custody solution because the government gives us all these cool
tax things, but you have to have the assets at an arm's length distance. So you can't have them on
your own personal ledger. You can't have them on an exchange, not that you should ever keep long-term
assets on an exchange, in my opinion. But so we had to build something from the very beginning
because we were dealing with people's retirement funds that were secure.
This is the holy grail. And so we started right away by partnering over a decade ago,
exclusively relationship for retirements with our friends over at BitGo.
Mike Belchie and I are close friends. The team over there helped us build the first multi-signature solution for this custody model all the way back in 2015.
And it has stayed up to the standards
to insure up to $250 million of insurance per wallet.
But that's just the starting point.
That's ultra cold storage.
We settle all transactions, cold storage to cold storage.
Assets never moved to hot exchanges.
Those were kind of the fundamental pillars.
But as we continue to grow our business,
we were the first to launch 24-7 trading on mobile
app and desktop for this, which meant that we were a 24-7 business. And we have to protect
our clients from themselves. So you add in multi-factor authentication processes. We have
AI watching for login, differentials. I call it our pentagon of custody that supports you from
a SIM swap or an email causing any problems with your retirement.
And the best part is it's all designed as a middleware that doesn't directly interact with the wallets.
Settlements take place off chain or outside of the actual platform.
You're just buying and selling and we're instantly settling with our own Bitcoin IRA ledger that we've created over time.
our own Bitcoin IRA ledger that we've created over time.
And what that allows is that we never have assets leave the ecosystem without a very robust process,
which means so we do have folks that are hitting their retirement age now.
We've been doing this for a decade. We have some folks that are doing that.
They'll request, and this is one of the things I love about self-directed IRAs,
is you don't have to sell your Litecoin for dirty dollars when you start taking what's known as distributions out. You can do what's known as an in-kind distribution.
This is something that you can't do with ETFs either. And you can open up a private wallet
and we'll have it sent to you. But we go through layers of white listing, micro testing, video
verification and verify spots, spot checks the entire step of the process so that assets
can never leave the ecosystem. So it seems okay, that's a little cumbersome, but it's
really designed because we're protecting your long term nest egg. Can you guys still hear
me? My computer timed out on me there. We can hear you Chris. Thank you. So I think
that kind of covers all of that. But what's really nice also is I'm not the only person
and only human. We have over 200 employees and we actually have what I like to call real crypto, real people.
So for folks listening, you can actually call our line.
And I know Jerry will put it up there and I know it by heart.
It's 877-936-7175.
And within about 90 seconds, he'll be talking to a real human.
Most of them have probably invested in Litecoin in their retirement as well.
They've helped thousands of folks open up accounts over the years and can answer those specific questions
about what your retirement needs are it's a not a one-size-fits-all solution but that's what we're
here for thank you so much chris and yeah we'll get that contact information up on the original
thread and do a repost so nobody misses that phone number.
Alan, this brings me back to you, and this is potentially a more personal question, but how do you feel about bringing taxes into the decentralized world at all from an ethical
standpoint? And how have you sort of navigated that using tools potentially like a Roth IRA?
Yeah, it's actually a good question. Who likes taxes, right?
From an ethical standpoint, I guess it's kind of a balance.
Decentralized finance offers these new freedoms.
At the same time, we still operate in this world with these certain rules and regulations,
obligations, and things.
And I'll be the first to admit, taxes
can be very frustrating for me. And primarily when I find it often hard to see where that money is.
I pay a lot in taxes, but I don't often see how that money's being used, where that money's been
going, where it's going. And I think that's been the biggest frustration for me. But with that said, I absolutely agree with using tools like IRAs, Roth IRAs is a great
way to work within this system that we have and be smart about things where you can help
focus and build wealth.
If I may just share my own personal experience for a moment in hopes that maybe provides
some encouragement too regarding IRAs.
So I have several IRA accounts myself.
I've had for a very long time. I roll over IRA, SEP IRA, Roth IRA, even a solo 401k.
I've held these for, geez, I don't know, many years, 20, 25 years, depending on the account.
These have made a huge difference in not only making it easier to not have to worry about yearly taxes,
but also allowed me to significantly increase my investment gains.
And when I say significantly because of the benefits of these IRAs, that's an understatement.
And I see this and I found this because of three key benefits.
And I know Chris touched a little bit on some of this.
But it's these three things that really allowed me to turn, which were initially small distributions into, you know, I'll just say life changing amounts over the course of many years.
The first is the freedom in an IRA to choose your own investments.
This is unlike a 401k where you're usually more limited in your options and what you can pick.
I remember when I, you know, one of my IRAs came from a 401k with a job I had many years ago.
One of my IRAs came from a 401k with a job I had many years ago.
And I remember one of my biggest frustrations when I had that 401k is I just, you know,
I think there was a set of mutual funds you could buy.
And, you know, I was more of a risk taker.
And it was very frustrating for me because I wanted to buy stocks like Apple and things
like that.
And I just couldn't do it.
But I remember, you know, the minute I left that company and I still remember to this
day, I was given a check and I had so many days to deposit it and to open up the IRA
to roll it over. And I remember literally driving to day, I was given a check and I had so many days to deposit it and to open up the IRA to roll it over.
And I remember literally driving to the Pidelity office.
And the minute that money was in, I bought Apple and a couple of their stocks and things.
And this was huge for me because now I got to choose and have the freedom to make my own investments.
You know, keep in mind, crypto cryptocurrency wasn't around at the time.
But I was able to make things, take my own calculator risks and do things that made a big, big difference for me.
So having that flexibility is amazing.
And now with cryptocurrency, you have even more incredible options.
The second benefit, as I think Chris touched on, is the ability to defer tax on capital gain.
Or in the case of a Roth IRA, avoid capital gains tax entirely.
You know, think about this.
Like, if you're not an IRA and, you a traditional brokerage and you invest $50,000
and let's say you're able to double it, right? And now at that point, you see another investment
that's more attractive to you, so you want to sell it. Well, you sell that, right? Well,
you're now a $50,000 capital gain. And let's just say that 25% of that, and it might be more or less
depending if it's short-term trade or long-term or a variety of, you know, there's a lot depending on your situation. But assuming it's 25%, you now have 25%
less of that gain to use for that next investment, right? Now, so that next investment does well.
Well, now you've doubled that. Well, now you've got to pull another 25% or so away to use that. So
what you're working with is not nearly the amount that you could put to work
within an IRA because you're not pulling that aside. You're not having to pay that, give that
to the IRS. So being able to do that over time and over time and over the years and without
having to pull that money out and be able to put that to work instead of giving to the IRS can make
a massive difference in the growth of your portfolio. And I've seen this and it's literally, it's incredible.
I mean, it's literally like a trader's dream, right?
I mean, as a long-term,
and I'm more of a long-term investor.
And so, but even then over the course of many years,
you're gonna make many trades and it's not just trades.
You know, it's maybe in my case,
I've owned stocks that pay dividends, right?
Or interest income, all those things
that would have been taxable
instead of now giving that income to the IRS because it's tax deferred, I'm able to put that
stuff to work. And so that's been awesome. The third thing I found is probably the most
valuable is the power of time. And I say this, I'm probably a little bit older than the average
person within crypto, but I say this as someone that's had these accounts for many years.
But time is like literally your greatest investment ally. I mean, this can't be overstated, where even like a small
contribution can grow significantly thanks to the magic of compounding. I mean, I think this is one
thing that I found hard for some people to grasp earlier on, but even I didn't see it initially,
because I think for the first many years, you don't see this big growth, right? That often doesn't happen until later. It takes a long time. But once that happens, it's incredible.
And this takes patience. But trust me, if you can, especially with a Roth IRA, if you could
take advantage of that, put as much as you can to that today and be smart about your investments,
you will, I think, likely be incredibly rewarded
down the road and be very happy that you did this.
When I talk about the power of time,
it's kind of like this example,
where if you had $5,000 invest,
in order to get that to $100,000,
that would require like a 1,900% return.
But to go from $100,000 to a million dollars is a 10x, like a 900% return, right? But to go from $100,000 to a million dollars is a 10x, like a
900% return, right? Still a lot, but it's less. At a million dollars to go from, say, a million to
5 million, that's only a 400% return or 5x, right? At that point, at $5 million, it only takes a 20% return to, say, achieve another million dollars, right?
So whereas it took a 1,900% return to gain $95,000 initially, if you get to a certain
level, it might only take a 20% return to earn an additional million dollars.
And this is incredible.
And what I've seen in my own portfolios is that the last several years over the course
of 20, 25 years have performed well better than the entire rest of the time has.
So I just want to encourage people to understand that, you know, I know it's hard to see when you're younger, but at least with the Roth IRA, because that has zero tax later on, take advantage of it.
The chances are you're going to be around when you can take that money out tax free. and you're going to force yourself to be more disciplined with it and you'll be happy you
did. I think that to me has been the most powerful tool that I've had in terms of investing is through
my IRA accounts. Really well said there, Alan. The only thing I would add is that you keep yourself,
the discipline piece you were just talking about, that segregation from these are funds that you're setting aside for when you're for your future.
And you just you don't touch them. It's not like a savings account that you dip into for emergencies or some vacation or new toy that you want.
This is your long term. So really well put there. And congratulations on your retirement success over the years.
We have we have a big group of people that come on board that are rolling over
old funds like you have, transferring from existing, but a big chunk of people, every year
you can do 7,500 to 8,000 and you can only do it up until the tax deadline. So it's important to
remember that doesn't reset every year. That resets every year. So once that timeline's gone,
you can't catch up in those places. So do your best to try to max your contribution every year. So once that timeline's gone, you can't catch up in those places. So do your best to try to max your contribution every year. Yeah. And let me just add to that, Chris. Absolutely.
That's the fact that you can't touch it. I mean, that's really the beauty of it. You're forcing
yourself to be, you know, to make these longer term investments and to allow your portfolio to
grow. You know, that's not to say you can't have these other investments that aren't in your
retirement accounts, but to have this as well,
to know that it's sort of this additional nest egg that you can build over time and have these
huge tax advantages, it's huge. And for the longest time for me, we didn't have crypto,
right? So I remember the moment that I think it was Grayscale's Bitcoin Trust was the first
opportunity to have exposure to Bitcoin. I took advantage of that. I went into that.
And then we added Litecoin, Grayslis Litecoin Trust, and of course, took advantage of that.
Now we have some ETFs with Bitcoin and stuff. So now on top of individual stocks and things,
you have crypto and the opportunity that could potentially even give you even much greater gains over the course of many years.
So I think this is, again, I would just highly encourage people to really take advantage
of these opportunities that are out there, like through the Roth IRA and traditional IRA.
Thank you so much and really well said, both of you. We're going to look to
wrap in the next 15 minutes. We just have a few more questions here. We were talking about ethics
a little bit. I'm going to put you in the hot seat just for a second here, Alan. Back in the day,
way back in the day, there was some controversy about Charlie Lee, Lightcoin's founder,
selling his LTC, But it was to avoid a
conflict of interest. Is that right? Or am I way off base here? I mean, I never liked to speak for
Charlie, but yes, you know, he, Charlie sold his Lightcoin to avoid a conflict of interest. But
this also highlighted something bigger, which is the strength of decentralization. You know,
by Charlie stepping back from holding his own personal stake, he's
basically showing that like when he's independent on one person's holding or one person's decisions.
That's what decentralized money is all about. There's no central figure pulling the strings.
I've always felt there's quite a lot of irony in the criticism that Charlie faced. Demanding
that we have a central figure or founder in a decentralized movement really goes against the very idea of what decentralization
in Litecoin is all about.
You know, it's Litecoin continues to thrive because of the community, developers, miners,
users, holders, not because of any one individual.
And it should never, the centralized money should never depend on like one person's holdings.
I mean, it's again, it's the irony that critics want a central figure in a system built to remove central figures, right?
Litecoin strength is the community.
It's not one founder's holdings.
And I, you know, I'm a big Bitcoin supporter as well.
But one of the things I found, at least in many of, it seems like today's so-called maxis,
I believe a lot of people getting into the space missed this core principle of decentralized money.
You know, people often idolize like founders or look for like this centralized guidance or, you know, cheer on government involvement, things like that.
Really forgetting that the strength of decentralization, any decentralized asset is really comes from the network, the community, the protocol, you know, and not
these other things.
And really in order for Litecoin to ultimately thrive or any decentralized currency, it can't
have a single person holding it together.
I think that's a really good point.
It actually kind of brings me to my next question is there is kind of this like alt coiner versus
Bitcoin maxi sparring match in the crypto world.
You alluded to it a little bit, but what are your thoughts on that?
Well, how much time do we have?
I have my own feelings about, I mean, I think it's stupid.
I think it's silly.
You know, it's not a, it's, it's think it's silly. You know, it's not a it's it's it's about freedom money.
It's not about like, you know, you know, my my my way is better than your way.
If the Bitcoin Max, we could define a lot of different ways.
And I think that's where it's maybe it's confusing.
But but I think that people should embrace decentralization, the ability of freedom of choice, people to have freedom of choice, you know, to use to use whatever works best for them.
You know, the government involvement is almost always at the expense of governments having their own terms.
Right. I mean, we came this far without that, you know, cheering on central figures centralized figures i mean
that's that's not what this is all about i think we need to take a step back and um understand the
importance of what decentralization means and centralized money i i think though you know
yeah i i i could i could i could write a book on my feelings about today's so-called Bitcoin maxi.
And I say Bitcoin maxis because I don't really find a lot of so-called Litecoin maxis.
Most Litecoin, almost every Litecoin holder I've met is more of like a freedom.
I would call them a freedom maxi.
They love Litecoin because they believe in sound money.
And because of that, most Litecoin holders that I've at least met are also strong Bitcoin holders.
Our strong holders are believers or supporters of anything that's decentralized and gives people choice.
Right. It's not about.
Otherwise, it's more like, you know, a religion.
Like it's a Bitcoin maxi saying Bitcoin is better than Litecoin.
It's sort of like saying my religion is better than your religion, even though they're just slightly different stories with maybe different
character names, right? The same idea. It's just, it's kind of silly, right? So I think
we could do better than that. But, you know, people will always vote probably for their
own holdings, their own bags. And there's some level of that that I suppose will never
And there's some level of that that I suppose will never go away.
go away.
Freedom Maxi.
I love that.
I think Freedom Maxi is probably how I'd like to describe myself from here on out.
So thank you for that one.
Chris, I'm going to ask you the same thing.
Is there any good reason for altcoiners and Bitcoin Maxis to have this kind of like animosity
towards each other?
Alan's got me chuckling so bad over here.
I love it.
I feel almost in the same wavelength as him. I think I might actually update my LinkedIn profile to say
Freedom Maxi later today to just add it as one of the things because I think it's really well
put. I remember 2017 watching the Bitcoin Cash, Bitcoin Fork and the contentious nature of it.
And you see some of these
armies that are out there that we just get, we put our heels in the sand and we pick our,
we're just so used to it. You know, we pick our sides and this, you can see this in politics.
You can see it in, like Alan said, religion otherwise. But the difference between a Republican
and a Democrat, mainstream middle America is like minuscule really it's, but the,
these narratives try to divide us from each other. And at the end of the day,
I always try to remind folks, you know, I'm,
I hold all 80 different coins that we have and I have some that are bigger than
others over time. I, I,
I do think I do hold a lot of Bitcoin long-term that I hope to hand down to my,
my, my daughter in the next generation.
But I also hold a lot of Litecoin for the same reason,
because I know I'm going to need some kind of tool
when fiat currency fails that it will be easy for transactions.
So every one of them has their utility for each of us.
And I could go on forever about the feelings of it too.
I think at the end of the day, if we just remember,
we are all crypto and can really build that that
community sense overall it's much healthier and good for us than in fighting in within the space
again we're we're early on and if we if we're over here fighting with each other about which
coins better than the other the rest of the world that that is almost like a distraction from what
really real greatness is happening in this space whether it's new utility tokens that are out there
new technologies on blockchains all these amazing things that are happening in this space, whether it's new utility tokens that are out there, new technologies on blockchains,
all these amazing things that are happening in the overall ecosystem.
We can't lose sight of that within fighting.
So I agree almost wholeheartedly with that one.
And let me add just one last thing.
At the end, it really doesn't matter because Bitcoin,
the network, Litecoin, the network,
doesn't care about anybody's opinions, right?
Yes.
That's a really good point.
We're kind of all in this together.
Why fight friends?
It doesn't make sense to me either.
Well, I want to make sure that both of you have some time for closing statements.
Chris, I'll start with you as we kind of get ready to wrap here at the hour.
Chris, people are always going to be
retiring in America, but what do you think the next big piece of the puzzle is for crypto forward
retirees in the U.S.? Oh, well, you know, we had a big week with Crypto Week and Legislation Genius
Act and other things that are starting to put the guidance around the crypto space and the rails
that we've been waiting for for years. I think that coming to that's from theory to action and execution will be big overall.
The concept of the executive order from Trump about 401k's accessibility to crypto, I think,
will be a very interesting process to watch it come to fruition.
These are the same groups that have these there's layers.
There's the administrator, there's the provider, then there's the individual employer. It'll be interesting to see how that gets down to the
average Joe that wants to put something in their 401k, which you don't have to wait for that. You
can diversify yourself. Like Alan was talking, he's got multiple different accounts out there.
I do the same thing. I've got Roths, Trads, Seps, and I also have a solo K. These tools are out there and you don't have to wait for the government to say, now you can do this.
You know, I'm somewhat of a Reaganite and I always laugh at his statement is like the worst thing you can hear is on the government.
I'm here to help. Right. That's the freedom concept that we do here as crypto folks.
So I think those are a few things. And obviously some price action. There's a halving effect.
I think those are a few things and obviously some price action.
There's a halving effect. There's an alt season still coming.
I know we're in a little bit of lull from from all time highs, but there's we are all used to
the volatility in this space at this point. And to see where we'll be this time next year will be
very interesting to me. And what kind of amazing things are going to come out of this space too.
There is so I mean, this is attracting some of the most brilliant minds in
the space and attracting brilliant companies that are getting involved in it. And what will that do
to the next evolution of the space? That's what I'm really excited for.
Incredible. Thanks so much for sharing, Chris. And thanks for your closing statement. Alan,
I'd like to close out with you and ask maybe a fairly obvious closing question,
but what are some of Litecoin's goals
for the next year or two,
or maybe just the foundation's goals,
like what's next for Litecoin?
Yeah, so I could just speak
on behalf of Litecoin Foundation.
So we're a pretty small team,
so focus matters, right?
But one of our goals is leveraging the community
and offering support where we feel it has the biggest impact.
You know, we support a variety of third parties that are building around Litecoin.
So over the next couple of years, you know, we kind of stay focused on, continue to focus on growth, adoption, privacy.
What this means is working with the community. We work with payment providers, third parties, exchanges,
basically everyone we can to make Litecoin accessible and easy to use around the world,
while at the same time supporting development and education,
putting on in-person and online events and things of that nature
and helping to do what we can so the network continues to stay strong.
Privacy, I would say, is also one of our key focuses.
And this is not just to ensure people like everywhere have the option of secure, fungible transactions, but it's also
protect individuals, right, their financial information and give people freedom of choice
in how they transact. So that's a really important thing that will continue to drive forward.
So kind of in short, we have simple goals, but I believe they're powerful. Keep expanding access, empowering the community and continuing to do our part to strengthen Litecoin's role is
what we believe is like the best money, best sound money in the world. I love that. You say privacy,
that is music to my ears. If I wasn't bullish on Litecoin before, I sure am now, but I was bullish before. So we're just going to keep the energy.
Anyway, I think.
Oh, sorry.
I was curious, Alan.
I wanted to mention for the Litecoin Foundation and all of your members and your whole community,
I know that Jerry is going to put a link in the post, but we offering a special promotion
for our Summer of Freedom is actually a campaign we've been running this year.
So it fits perfectly, which is a great reward up to a thousand dollars rewards for opening your account and getting started with your retirement.
I was curious, how could we tell our community? We have a couple hundred thousand users.
How could they get involved in the Litecoin Foundation beyond just maybe going to the summit or joining on Twitter?
Are there other things they could be involved in the Litecoin Foundation beyond just maybe going to the summit or joining on Twitter are there other things they could be involved in? Yeah and let me, maybe it's best I can, after the
call I can connect you also with Jay, you might be on the call through our Litecoin,
about our marketing director and we can kind of collaborate but there's definitely different ways,
I think there's a few things I'm thinking through that we could discuss and opportunities and ways
we can you know bring your community, bring theCoin community in and work together. Wonderful. Well, we love the community.
We've loved it since 2017 and some of us even before. And Jerry and Alan, thank you so much
for the time today. It was a real privilege to be here. Really appreciate having me too. Thank you.
Thank you both. Yeah. Thank you so much, both of you. It was a great chat.
For anyone that is interested in checking out a Bitcoin IRA,
crypto IRA with Litecoin, you can go to bitcoinira.com slash Litecoin.
I'll make sure that that phone number and that website is also in that original
post that I made. So you guys can see.
Thank you all so much for everyone that listened. Thank you, Alan. Thank you, Chris.
Thank you, Litecoin Foundation. Please remember to follow Alan, follow Chris, follow Litecoin,
and follow us here at Bitcoin IRA. It was a pleasure. And if you missed part of the X-Space,
that recording should be up shortly. Sometimes there's a brief little intermission there before
X gets it up, but it should be there soon. Thanks again, and enjoy the rest of your Thursday, everybody. Thank you.
