The role of alternative assets in an investment portfolio with Darcy Ungaro

On this episode of POD99 we talk with Darcy Ungaro, the founder of Ungaro & Co, a boutique firm of financial advisers.

We discuss the role of alternative assets such as crypto and precious metals in a diversified investment portfolio and the advantages of tokenization.

Darcy says that while the global macro outlook remains uncertain, the opportunities for the 99% to build wealth have never been greater.

Andy Pickering - Host

Hey folks, welcome to the Wealth99 Podcast, the podcast that helps the 99% take control of their financial future. And we talk to experts from within Wealth99 and from across the alternative asset space experts who are here to share their insights on wealth on new wealth, how to build it, and of course, how to keep it. My guest today is Darcy Ungaro. Darcy is the founder of Ungaro & Co, which I think is it's like a boutique firm of financial advisors and Auckland, New Zealand. Darcy is a financial advisor himself. He's also a host of the 'Everyday Investor Podcast'. And he's quite opinionated on the role of alternative assets, I think such as crypto and precious metals, and their place in an investment portfolio. So excited to dig into this today. Welcome to the show Darcy. 

Darcy Ungaro - Guest

Thanks so much, Andy, pleasure to be here.

Andy Pickering - Host

A pleasure to have you here Darcy. Let's just begin, I think by perhaps learning a little bit about yourself, I mentioned that you're a financial advisor. Tell us a little bit about what that means and your journey and getting there.

Darcy Ungaro - Guest

Yeah, great. Most financial advisors will be selling financial products like mortgages, investments, and insurance. So that is part of what we do. But then the other part of what we do is kind of what I would call iterative financial planning. It's not full on super intense detailed financial planning that some clients require. But it's just very high-level financial planning, or even financial coaching, where we talk holistically about some of the objectives and how to get there using all sorts of tools, not just things that we're selling.

Andy Pickering - Host

Fantastic. Well, I'm sure we'll learn more about this as we go Darcy and one of the things that I find really interesting about you is, you know, I'm sure you'll appreciate that, with a lot of financial advisors, they haven't always been the quickest to warm up to alternative assets, such as crypto assets. However, as we'll get into, in the podcast, you yourself have warmed up to crypto so excited to get your thoughts on this. Now, Darcy, we've just launched the Wealth 99 platform. And listeners, you can find that of course, at Wealth99.com You're probably familiar with it. That's probably why you're listening to this podcast. And well, that is indeed why we've just launched the Wealth99 podcast. So I suppose the quick bit of context Darcy is the big idea behind Wealth99 is that you know, we feel there's an era of new wealth coming where the world's most exciting investment opportunities at perhaps no longer restricted to the top 1%. So it's time we think that the 99% can also take control of their financial future. And this new era of alternative assets, of course, is driven by blockchain tokenization, fractional ownership, and all that good stuff. So I think, you know, the big idea, of course, is you know, no matter who you are, where you come from, where you live, or how much you earn, the power really is in your hands to take control of your own financial future. So I suppose that's the setting Darcy and you know, one of the things I've wanted to talk to you about really is the role of alternative assets and an investor portfolio. Let's do crypto first. Now, I mentioned that you have warmed up to crypto. So I think maybe let's start with a wide-angle view of this. What's your crypto story? And then we'll talk about the role of crypto and investor portfolio.

Darcy Ungaro - Guest

Okay, great. So my journey is fairly straightforward. So about four years ago, I started the Everyday Investor Podcast. And one of the episodes that we did was interviewing a fella by the name of Sam Blackmore, who headed up a company called My Bitcoin Saver at the time, obviously, that's no longer around. But in preparation for that where I was going to be talking on a podcast for the first time ever about Bitcoin that I already knew loosely about at that time, I had to do a deep dive into it. And as part of the process, I have what probably a lot of us have, by default I have this shield up to I guess, filter out all the BS or all the scams or all the hype that often gets thrown at us when technological waves come crashing in. And so when I was looking at Bitcoin, I had that lens on that this is just a scam. It's a fad. It's gonna go away. But as I started doing a lot more research, I started to see it for what it was not what I thought it was, not what I wanted it to be like. And as I saw it for what I what it actually was, and I understood the concepts behind how blockchain work, then a light bulb effectively turned off, it wasn't instant. But gradually over time, I got warmed up to it. And so for about four years, I just started dollar cost averaging into Bitcoin, and a little bit of some other assets. Until a point where I had enough in my overall portfolio or collection of investments, where I thought that that was the appropriate amount. And so now I'm more or less just in rebalancing mode, where I will only acquire and sell so that I reached the right sort of levels within my overall portfolio. But that's kind of my personal journey. And it's fused partially with my professional journey as well, which we'll dig into later on.

Andy Pickering - Host

Well, let's do that now, then Darcy. So, yeah, I'm really interested in, you know, I suppose firstly, the reactions from fellow members of your profession, the financial advisor, community, also reactions from your clients, and I gather that you probably would have had a number of clients who either would have their own existing crypto holdings or have a warm interest in the space and you're able to talk to these people. So yeah, I'm sure you get a range of opinions Darcy.

Darcy Ungaro - Guest

Yeah, that's right. It's a range of opinions and then those opinions will naturally move towards what hopefully my opinion is, which, of course, is correct. Whether they, whether they're really into it or too into it, or just totally off the idea, my goal would be to get people to shift a little bit so that their opinions are hopefully a little bit closer to the truth. Not that I have the truth, of course, but I just, feel like this is the future and so I want people to be as open-minded as I possibly can. So it doesn't take them as long to buy Bitcoin or other crypto assets as it did me. Because I know that's gonna save the money. And one of the, I guess, the probably the challenging things that I have to do in that process as I have to sell the sizzle, or the use case behind why Bitcoin or why crypto in some cases, and with Bitcoin, in particular, I have to draw on some macro principles like inflation, monetary supply, how central banks work, all that sort of stuff. But when you paint out some of the bigger systemic risks within the financial system, and then you look at the traditional toolbox of tools to hedge against that, things like gold, or treasuries, or other types of bond funds and stuff like that, to actually hedge against rising inflation and interest rates. When you look at that you kind of realize that actually, there's not really a lot of protection available for new investors looking to build new wealth for the new world. There's a lot of protection and tools and stuff for the old world, but what is there out there for where we are going, that's where I'm going personally, and that's where my clients are going. And so there's basically kind of three sorts of things that I try to frame it you know, what is Bitcoin, for example, it's a hedge against inflation. It's a diversifier. And it's a form of money that can be used as a form of money in a zombie apocalypse. Those are kind of the way that I tried to frame it. And none of those is perfect, right? So if we start with inflation it definitely hasn't been in the short term, at least, a very good inflation protection instrument, I still believe at some stage, there'll be what I would call a flipping thing where it will actually become quite desirable, as an inflation protection asset. And as a diversifier or so as a ying for your yang or a zig for your zag, you want to hold a bunch of investments that go up and down in value at different rates and in different directions, so that you can smooth out your returns no matter what the market throws at you. And the problem with what we've observed over the last, say, three to four years, especially is that it feels like a lot of mainstream assets are now incredibly correlated, correlated to money supply really. And so to find a truly uncorrelated asset that you can insert into an investor's portfolio is hard, especially using traditional tools. And that's where things like Bitcoin, and other crypto assets can be useful to have a zigger for your zagger if that makes sense. But then the clincher, and this is what used to make people feel a little bit uncomfortable with who I was, or how I was presenting to them were these sets of views that I have, the world is changing at a rate which is changing, in other words, change is changing, and things may go incredibly well or they could go terribly badly. There could be a utopian bad dream or a dystopian nightmare. We don't know what's going to happen, but we need to prepare for this and the best form of money in my view is the best type of investments are investments which are like wealth or assets, but also like currency. And if the world goes more digital will it follows therefore that you should have some scarce digital assets? And so as a form of money, but also as an investment and also as an insurance policy... that's where Bitcoin can be really useful as a type of currency for a zombie apocalypse of the worst kind.

Andy Pickering - Host

I love it, fantastically said Darcy. And, look, I really like the way you talk about new wealth for the new world. And, you know, I think you said if, if the world is getting more digital, then it makes sense, perhaps that it would be perhaps practical to hold at least some form of your wealth and some kind of scarce digital asset certainly resonates with me. I would love it, Darcy, if you could just expand just really quickly on how you think about the New World, though, what do you mean by the New World? So if one idea is we're heading in a direction, where the world is increasingly digital, and I think that is the case, you know, just the kind of exponential technology growth that we're seeing in everything from AI to gene splicing to the blockchain, scaling to Web.03  protocols, and you know, as all these things start to interact, or perhaps that's the new world we're heading to, but of course, you also framed it as a zombie apocalypse. So, you know, I guess it's that old Utopia dystopia. But what do you mean by the new world that, that we're, we're heading to Darcy?

Darcy Ungaro - Guest

Well, I totally agree with your sentiments that it will be more digital, but there's a big question mark around who will own the benefit that this digital frontier will yield. And I believe that as soon as we get into the digital space, we are dealing with the infinite and therefore if we, and we've seen this, if we can derive value out of this digital infinite world, then in theory, what we have now is we actually have Infinite Wealth coming into our mainstream analog world. The question mark, though, is, well, who owns that wealth? Like right now with a lot of the tech, it seems to be free, to begin with, but then all of a sudden ownership rules apply to it, and now you're stuck in somebody else's matrix. And that would be my concern is that we might be heading into a future with more digital wealth available, but there also might be a stronger flavor of authoritarianism that separates the everyday people from the wealth that should belong to all of us, not just those who own the IP or on the tech or on the new capital for the New World.

Andy Pickering - Host

Absolutely. And that is why we need to bring the power back to the 99% Darcy. Look  I want to keep it moving because I also want to touch on the role of precious metals in this new world, and of course, you know, the way that we're going to do that is we're going to take tokenized digital versions of these precious metals because that just simply makes more sense in this digital new world that we're going to look, I think he did answer this question, Darcy, but I just want to bring it back really quickly so maybe you can just address it head on. Just really simply, in your opinion as a financial advisor let's just finish off crypto, what is the role of crypto in a diversified investment portfolio for the average everyday investor? This is a shout-out to your podcast Darcy who of course is you know, just part of the 99% of average everyday people.

Darcy Ungaro - Guest

So the role of crypto within a diversified portfolio is to provide some diversification or at least the opportunity for significant outperformance without betting on the entire portfolio. In other words, if you allocate just pick a number out of the air, let's just say 3%. As an example, if you commit say 3% of your portfolio to digital assets, and within that 3%, you construct it in a way that is diversified further, then you are at least introducing the possibility of significant outsized returns throughout your investing timeframe without betting the whole farm on it because we believe this is the future but we still have to act with some sort of strategy and framework. We can't just follow our emotions when we invest. So having a portfolio strategy with some objectives at the end of it is the way that we do that and that means that we will not get carried away when the bull market takes off again, and we won't run for the hills when the bear market or the crypto winter sets in. We stay irrational and we rebalance And we try to keep our overall portfolio allocation towards digital assets at that amount, whether it's 1-10%, whatever it is, at that amount, no matter what the season is. So it's just the whole purpose is to give the opportunity for outperformance without betting on the farm.

Andy Pickering - Host

I like it and of course, diversification and of course, Wealth99 you know, you can buy, and purchase, individual crypto assets, such as Bitcoin, Ethereum, Litecoin, and further down the list, but Wealth99 also makes it easy for investors to buy bundles, like I think there's a Blue-Chip-bundle and there's a Blue Ocean bundle. So that means you get  Cardano, Avalanche, Solana, Polkadot, and Dacxi Coin, all in the same bundle, instantly diversified. Alright, let's get to precious metals. So, I mean, I don't want to go too far down the gold rabbit hole because you know, it's, well gold is really the history of money, isn't it, but maybe just and whatever way you like,  just give us a quick snapshot of how you think about not just gold, but really precious metals. I'm really thinking gold, silver, and platinum simply because those are the precious metals that are available in the tokenized form here at Wealth99. But yeah, what do you think of precious metals? And what role have they had traditionally, for investors?

Darcy Ungaro - Guest

So this is where I'll potentially offend no matter who I talk to when I say that I'm equally into  Bitcoin and gold, I'll either offend the gold bugs or all offend the Bitcoin, maximalist, right? Everybody is a winner when you hang out with me because something I say might not sit right. But I do believe that, hey, we're solving a problem here and we're trying to build wealth, and therefore we need to be open to all existing and all new ways of doing it all new tools or new strategies, they should all be considered not all tried, necessarily, but at least all considered. Gold, especially in its tokenized form, I guess is where we have a really unique hybrid between the ease of use with digital assets and the historical history of gold as money for 1000s and 1000s of years with traditional physical precious metals. So it's quite cool to see that there are with Wealth99 especially that there is this fusion between the two. And my thinking like I'm equally weighted towards precious metals and digital assets within my own personal portfolio. And, again, it's because of those reasons that we talked about for say Bitcoin, where it's a hedge against inflation, it's a diversifier and it's money for the zombie apocalypse. And when you insert precious metals into a portfolio, often much like Bitcoin, really, you get the question mark on the face of investors, like, hang on this isn't right, there's no yield, that it's expensive, basically, to store it, or I'm taking a risk. And what about the security risk? So there are all sorts of questions, and they're all totally valid. And the problem starts with assuming that everything that you put money into is the same type of investment, but some types of investments will generate capital gains, some will be speculative, and some will generate cash flow yield, you don't, you never know it doesn't, they don't all have to behave the exact same way. When you invest in a bar of gold, it just sits there. And unless you've got a gold stroking room, it just sits there, and it just looks pretty. And it doesn't generate a yield. And it's expensive in terms of security, and paranoia. So it's, it's kind of opposite to investing, say, in Berkshire Hathaway, where at least you're getting some capital gains, you're getting some yield spun off that investment. And so once you get past the fact that, hey, this is either insurance or diversify or a hedge or speculative long-term play or use of money, once you get over that, then it's actually really easy. All you do is you just set the amount as a proportion of your overall portfolio value. And then you figure out how to get your exposure. Do you want to own the physical? Do you want to own exchange-traded funds? Or do you want to own tokenized digital assets?

Andy Pickering - Host

Yeah, again, really well said Darcy, and just makes sense. You know, being able to tokenize precious metals or indeed, a number of other assets just offers a number of advantages, which of course, makes sense and are finely tuned for the digital or new world of tomorrow that we keep alluding to. Everyone knows if you've got a big old bar of gold, you know, what do you do with it? Where do you store it? You can't use it too. You can't chip a little bit off to use it as a medium of exchange, you just worry about it being stolen. And you know, it's just a bit of a pain to go on and buy all that stuff, of course, precious metals token, well, you know, they're digital, they're stored smartly and securely online protected by the blockchain and can be, yeah, liquidated simply and easily. So yeah, but I think there's going to be a real move toward these tokenized forms of precious metals such as what Wealth99 is offering. Darcy just because of the ease of access once you can learn a little bit about tokenization, blockchain, and so on, ease of access is just so easy.

Darcy Ungaro - Guest

Yeah. And I think like, there's something interesting in what you said in terms of what might be coming as well with, I guess, the investor who does feel locked out of traditional wealth, building strategies, and just getting advice and stuff like that. And I think they, they may actually be reaching for things like gold a lot more in the short to medium term, in my view, as the world feels increasingly quite scary. And I think a lot of it has to do with generational type things. Like, let's say, you're Gen X, and you have parents alive. And if you're really fortunate, maybe you have grandparents alive. There are some seasons in life, where we go through scary things like what we are right now in the world where we look to our parents, and we go, oh, yeah, I know, the world has been through this, but I haven't been through it and not even my parents have been through it, but my grandparents actually have. And so we kind of looked to older generations in times of a lot of global insecurity and instability and uncertainty. And I think the answer that that generation would have first and foremost to our generation today is gold or precious metals. That's all they know. And so yes, we are accessing it sometimes in different ways today, but it's kind of the natural impulse for us to go to a place of traditional safety. And that's why I think it really pays to have a hedge in your alternative investment strategy. Because it's not a given that when we get really scared as investors we reach for digital assets, that is not a given. Right. In fact, it's kind of almost the opposite at the moment. But in the future, that might be but at the moment, it isn't, therefore, you need to have a hedge against that. And I think a fusion between precious metals and digital assets. That makes a lot of sense.

Andy Pickering - Host

Absolutely, it does. Darcy Do you find that with your clients, you know, are they increasingly curious about, new ways to build wealth in what has become, you know, a much more confusing and unpredictable world? So, you know, I'm Gen X Darcy, I think you're probably, you know, close to Gen X as well, just a guess. But I think, you know, when when we were young we sort of had the there was, you know, the first threat of I suppose, a nuclear war, there was the Cold War. But for our kids today, it's a crazy time, they're, you know, they're living through this really intense global pandemic, there's inflation, there looks like a really full-on recession we could be staring down the barrel. There is, of course, a war happening in Ukraine, and our kids are faced with all these, the perils and stresses of social media and digital addiction, and just all this stuff. It's as much as you know, you look back and think, man, it was scary growing up in the 80s. It's scarier now. But let's, let's go back to the original question Darcy, do you know, do your clients, are more and more open to new ways to protect themselves and try and create wealth in this unstable environment?

Darcy Ungaro - Guest

I think they are. I think they're probably, understandably a little bit suspicious, especially with the 2022 year that we had from Celsius to FTX. And now beyond. I think, understandably, they're feeling like crypto where the tool itself is bad, rather than the hands that try to organize those tools. I think people are understandably a little bit cautious. And that might be the one thing in the way perhaps that would otherwise stop a lot more people kind of ushering in because I get questions all the time from clients that I'm working with, that have some objectives, they have some goals. And when we talk about some of the things that could either help them get there or stop them from getting there, they start to raise all those things that you just did, and Is it different this time around? is a big question. And they've been told that no that it always feels different but no, it's always the same. But there's this increasing wedge of people, I think that are starting to really wonder if this time around it is different. And by this time around, I mean, just all the frequency at which we're seeing all these things happen in multiple arenas, either it's a really well choreographed, dystopian movie, or there's, there's something going on. And so the question then comes, Well, if things are different this time around, then what things should we be doing differently with our investment strategy? And, again, as I say, apart from the 2022, year that we had, the natural thing is to look for these new tools are NFT going to be the thing? Is it going to be the next big, you know, a crypto asset that comes out of the woodwork that we haven't seen yet? Is it going to be AI in some form? Or is it just going to be Bitcoin? Are people just going to finally wake up and see that? I don't know. But, yeah, I think there is a growing appetite that much I can definitely say. As for the solutions I'm not sure whether or not people have the faith they need to have in them yet. And there's also that sub-question of are they worthy of that faith. And that will take time to flush that, that sort of trust issue out? But I think people are asking the question. And so it's just about whether there's a solution to that demand out there.

Andy Pickering - Host

Yes, that is exactly right. People are indeed asking the question, I suppose up to people, such as ourselves to provide potential paths forward, Darcy feels like a nice place to pause. Perhaps we'll go to a quick break. And then we'll come back and just finish off with a couple of more lighthearted, quick, fun questions Darcy. Just before we go to the break, you know, please look, feel free to share your Twitter handle, your website, URL, and any shoutouts you want to do, please go for gold.

Darcy Ungaro - Guest

Cool. Well, people can find me on Twitter at Ungarodarcy or just search for the Everyday Investor on Spotify, YouTube, and Ungaro.co.nz, you name it. I'm out there.

Andy Pickering - Host

Awesome. Thank you, Darcy. We'll go for a quick break, folks. And then we'll be right back. All right, we're back. And I'm with Darcy Ungaro and have really enjoyed talking to Darcy. Today, on the Wealth99 podcast, I thought we'd have a little bit of fun as we finish off and just throw some kind of questions at Darcy and just see if we can put them back on his toes, and see what he has to say. Because it's always fun. You know, when you sort of work and crypto long enough, you learn that you're not really supposed to give financial advice. And you know, you're supposed to put that on your podcast on your website, and so on. However, Darcy I think, you know, he is allowed to give financial advice, but probably should, you know, perhaps caveat that with the fact that, probably only on a one-to-one client-only basis. But anyway, let's use the opportunity to put some questions to him. And let's see what he has to say. And general terms, folks, not personal financial advice. All right. Darcy, are you ready?

Darcy Ungaro - Guest

Yeah. Go for it.

Andy Pickering - Host

What would you say? Darcy? You know, what is one piece of financial knowledge that should be taught at school do you think?

Darcy Ungaro - Guest

How to earn money. Simple. Okay, well, almost, because it means that like how to earn money means well, you actually have to work hard. And that's not being taught much anymore. Heck, parents don't even teach that. So how to work hard, how to earn a lot of money. It means that you keep a lid on your expenses, and you spend on purpose so that you can maximize the leftover bit and invest it to build wealth. That's kind of how to do it. But yeah, that's just not being taught.

Andy Pickering - Host

Yeah. And I'm sure you've got a view on this. What is your view on the I guess, education system, the curriculum? And is there any kind of financial literacy built into that?

Darcy Ungaro - Guest

I'm aware of pockets of it. Right. So financial literacy programs here in New Zealand, where I live, there are some initiatives come coming out of private enterprise, but also public enterprise comes up with some ideas, not entirely sure how effective it is because it doesn't seem to be hard-baked into the curriculum. And I as a parent, also kind of look at the school system as a glorified babysitting service to be really blunt, and it's no fault of the teachers. It's no fault of the people who set up the curriculum. They're just doing the best they can but I think as parents, we probably need to take a lot more personal responsibility where we can in educating kids that we have, or even other kids in a safe sort of community setting because the best educators are those who have the gift of teaching, but there are so many people around us that have the gift of teaching, but they're not exercising it because there are no incentive structures behind it, to do it. But I think that maybe in this new digital world that we're heading into, where knowledge could just become so saturated everywhere, and there are more opportunities to curate it for different groups, I kind of have a belief that we'll be able to select the type of education we really want our kids to have, and we'll be able to decide who delivers to them as well. So I'm still pretty optimistic even though I think currently we're in a pretty bad place with our education system.

Andy Pickering - Host

Nailed it, though, Darcy, I do like that idea of more of a curated digital education. And I think, you know, smart kids, once they reach their teenage years, they figure out that they can do that themselves. You know, you can, you can go to school, and you can learn the very basics of, you know, reading, writing, literature, maths, even some financial principles, but the reality is, this digital world is changing so quickly, but the opportunities are unlimited if you are you know, a little bit entrepreneurial, prepared to spend a lot of time online, diving down into, you know, anything from Defi rabbit holes, or NFT rabbit holes, become a Gold Bug, bug. Explore, become a smart contract developer, you know, if you're young and hungry and smart that the whole world is out there, but you've got to go and chase it yourself.

Darcy Ungaro - Guest

Your Right. And just one more thing on that. Like, I think if there are two things that you can instill into your kids around this topic helping your kids develop a strong appetite for growing wealth, and also a strong tolerance for taking risks. Because once those two things are present, the rest is easy.

Andy Pickering - Host

I love it, yes indeed.  All right. What would you say Darcy is your most contrarian view on building wealth?

Darcy Ungaro - Guest

Whew. That's a dangerous question to ask someone like me, Andy. I'm just relishing the fact that somebody's actually asked me that question. Now. Okay. So if I open up the library of contrarian views. So I guess the view that things are like there's an infinite world around us, right? My view is that we live in a subfield of reality, that's, I guess, kind of like a matrix version of reality. And that true wealth is absolutely finite. And as time goes on, we'll see more of that become quite real. And so a lot of the, I guess, worldwide trends, a lot of the shift in culture towards scarcity, thinking, I find quite an alarmist and quite mildly offensive, to be honest, that we're destroying everything, we're consuming everything and we're spitting it out and ruining it. We're not taking into account the full benefit that this technological revolution is bringing, this infinite wealth creation that's now seeping into our analog world can actually change things it can restore, and it can create abundance where there currently is lack. And I think it just takes something or some system to help usher it in. Now, unfortunately, I also believe there's probably going to be something in some system that isn't that favorable towards humanity. But I think we all owe it to ourselves and our kids, especially to actually do our best to stand up for what's coming.

Andy Pickering - Host

Yes, we do. All right. Well, if you were 22 years old, today, Darcy what's one thing you would do to try and help create some wealth for your future self?

Darcy Ungaro - Guest

Oh man was I 22 years old? Probably would have stayed invested in a mutual fund, a managed fund, that my old man set me up with because at 22 I believe I cashed it in and I purchased a rusted-out old station wagon that I later drove into the ocean and set on fire. So a little bit of an insight into my youth. But I think little decisions like that have massive long-term consequences. Right. And I think that, yeah, just staying invested and almost creating disincentives or frictions around cashing out of investments...that would have been the best decision I could have made as a 22-year-old because even that, you know, $3,000 invested back then. Probably we would be worth well over $100,000 today if I would have just left it the heck alone, right?

Andy Pickering - Host

Yeah. Well, I guess that's the power of compound interest, isn't it? That's one  of the seven wonders of the world I think someone said that, I'm not sure 

Darcy Ungaro - Guest

Yeah, Albert Einstein apparently allegedly. 

Andy Pickering - Host

There you go, there you go. And as a financial adviser, I'm so pleased that you knew that reference, Darcy.

Darcy Ungaro - Guest

We just learned a couple of weeks ago

Andy Pickering - Host

Let's, finish this off. And 30 seconds or less Darcy what's the bull case for Bitcoin?
Awesome. At some stage, things are gonna break, and people are going to realize that they need something to hang their hat on and put their value into. I don't know when that's going to be. But when that happens, you want to be already in your position. So that's the bull case is that at some stage, something's gonna break.

Andy Pickering - Host

Yeah. And is there a difference....like 30 seconds or less again, a bull case for gold? Is it different?

Darcy Ungaro - Guest

Absolutely. Either we are locked out of the internet in some way. And this dystopian version of the future, or the internet breaks. And either way, we need to have some way of accessing or some way of having physical proximity to where our wealth is. And so either you got access to the vault, or you have some physical precious metals or self-custody digital assets, in my view.
Fantastic. All right. And as a final question, can you share or think of a recent book, documentary podcast, even a piece of music, something that you've discovered that has improved your life given you an insight, improved your mood, or anything comes to mind?
Yeah, absolutely. I'm a big fan of 70s music. And so I've been going back and back and back. And I finally stumbled across Emerson, Lake, and Palmer. And I don't know if you know, do you know them Andy?

Andy Pickering - Host

I do know of them. I don't think I could name a song. But I've heard of them.

Darcy Ungaro - Guest

I've only just discovered them, right? But I recognize a lot of these songs from my youth. And I think when I was driving in the back of the Cadillac, and when I was a kid, I could hear the eight-track humming away. And it was Emerson, Lake and Palmer, who wrote this, this little diddly that I'm not going to sing it don't worry that you hear in a lot of sports programs and nature shows on North American television. And so yeah, that's kind of something that's real and I think when I go to a creative place like that, in a music space, it helps me to be creative with my day job being a financial adviser. So I soak myself in as many mediums and as many different types of content as I possibly can. So I've got a few answers for this one.

Andy Pickering - Host

Awesome. Yeah, that is just the that's the way the world is right now. We're, yeah, content from all directions at all times. Hey, thank you so much, Darcy, a pleasure talking to you today. Thank you for coming on. Again, just for the benefit of people listening here at the end of the show again, shout out your platforms.

Darcy Ungaro - Guest

Great. So  ungarodarcy on Twitter, and ungaro.co.nz is the website and just search up the Everyday Investor Podcast on Spotify or YouTube and you will see me there.

Andy Pickering - Host

Awesome thank you so much Darcy. All the best and bye for now.

Darcy Ungaro - Guest

Thanks very much, Andy. Appreciate it.

Andy Pickering - Host

All right, there you go that was Darcy Ungaro. Yeah. What did you think, folks? Did you enjoy that? I hope you did. I certainly did. And, you know, again, I guess it's just worth mentioning here at the end of the show, Wealth99 (formerly Dacxi). And of course, a new podcast, which of course you're listening to now. So I really would encourage you, people, to please subscribe to the podcast. And indeed, you know, give us a five-star rating, even a nice review, and platforms such as Spotify, iTunes, Apple podcasts, all that kind of stuff would really help us out. And, you know, would help us out on our mission, which of course, is the Wealth99 mission to make alternative assets accessible to the 99%. So everyone can access the kind of financial opportunities that were once the playground of the financial and technological elite, but we're breaking those barriers down. All right, how are we doing that, of course, by harnessing the unique power of blockchain asset tokenization and creating truly diverse alternative assets, investment options and making them available through their user-friendly Wealth99 investment platform. There you go, folks. I hope you enjoyed that. Hope you learned something today. I'm off. I'm going to go and listen to some Emerson, Lake and Palmer. And yeah, enjoy the rest of your day, folks. See you real soon for the next episode of the Wealth99 Podcast. Thanks for listening, and bye for now.