Ben Felix Talks Investing in Crypto, Revolutionary Tech, and Academic Research

[@ThePlainBagel]

Happy Friday everyone! Visit the following link (or use coupon code BAGEL) to get a free 7 day trial of Noa's premium subscription, plus 37% off the annual fee: bit.ly/3wn8nfh

[@HowMoneyWorks]

Ben is a genius

[@mordet2]

well, well, well. if it isn't number three.

[@ajrobbins368]

I watch Ben Felix, Plain Bagel, Patrick Boyle, and How Money Works religiously. All four of you put research quality first and deserve massive followings for that effort.

[@georgeschneider8778]

Legit👌

[@georgeschneider8778]

@@ajrobbins368 add Paul Merriman

[@user-DongJ]

Really? How many kingdoms or revolutions has he led, made, found or grown? How many Nobel prizes, World cup or Olympic gold has he won? How many centi-millions has he made & saved? Isn't that what people say about "geniuses" like Do Kwon, Su Zhu, Sam Bankman Fried, etc. before their fall? Are Xi, Hu, Jiang, Putin, Yeltsin, Biden, Trump, Obama, Bush, Clinton, etc. geniuses too? How about people like Washington, Sun, Lenin, Gandhi, Mohammed, Jesus, Gautama, Confucius, etc?

[@maxpayne7419]

Love these two guys. Sane, rational, sound advice in a world so full of nonsense. These guys are the best in the business.

[@triple_gem_shining]

Also check out new money. He's very similar and from Australia. He's qualified legitimately and conservative

[@LoganT101]

My two favourite personal finance KZbinrs?! So exciting to see you working together

[@samuelbarnes9243]

Revolutionary tech or investments in new market segments is such a bad idea, Ben's completely right there! I would consider myself to be an early investor in a lot of areas and I still never touch anything if its less then 5 years old. You need time for anything to give you a track record and for all the speculation and hype to be wiped out. This guy is so smart and has such a wealth of knowledge! He's got my follow.

[@user-DongJ]

OIC. Since BTC is > 14 years old, ETH is > 7 years old, XRP > 10 years old & DOGE is > 9 years old, this would mean you would have invested or are investing in them. Or you are pro stock & have invested in Apple, Microsoft, Google, Amazon, etc. instead? Does this include currencies like USD, EUR, CNY, JPY, etc. land in/near cities like New York, Hong Kong, Singapore, Tokyo, etc. &/or commodities like oil, gold, rice, tea, pee, etc. too?

[@spector3881]

The most ambitious cross-over since Endgame

[@IakonaWayne]

Ben felix is like the first academic finance "KZbinr".

[@jmc8076]

Not quite but he is pretty good.

[@holdencawffle626]

Ben is amazing. Love his videos. Very informative! Had no idea he was 6'11"!!

[@religdeb]

Wow that is huge

[@Ferdinand208]

38:22 The basis of money was not Barter but Credit I don't understand this argument. What is the difference between Barter and Credit? How can credit exist without barter? If I plow your field in exchange for you picking my apples you call it barter right? But it is also credit because they don't happen at the same time. Can you think of a way where you start with credit but don't use barter?

[@ThePlainBagel]

I suppose that's technically true, but that's similar to saying commodity money is just barter since you're ultimately using the money for something else. I think Ben is specifically referring to the idea of trading goods directly for one another.

[@Ferdinand208]

@@ThePlainBagel And Adam Smith really thought people traded directly like what children do with toys? I never knew that was what they meant with barter. I thought it was trading without money as an intermediary.

[@ThePlainBagel]

Yes my understanding is that they assumed economies operated with people trading goods directly - two cows for 200 bushels of wheat, a hammer for a shoe, etc. They even highlighted a “coincidence of wants” as a big limitation with barter.

[@blaine4754]

barter is trading money for a good or service. credit is trading money for money. the bulk of money lies with the money changers, not who offers the most goods/services. even though it looks like it.

[@stefanthoni2264]

Bagel-Man your the MAN! Thanks for this. Love Rational Reminder and love hearing from Ben outside of his Podcast

[@NickOloteo]

It’s nice to see Ben take some time off from raising an army.

[@red149]

I see what you are doing here ;)

[@neuvocastezero1838]

Thanks, it's great to see an interview with someone who can help distill technical academic research on such topical issues. I probably won't get around to reading the actual papers, so the assumption is that the information is accurate, but he certainly seems legit.

[@user-DongJ]

Totally. But as people who are familiar with Market 101 &/or Investment 101, it's rarely a good idea to simply base one's investment on the opinion of a couple or handful of "experts" (or blogs/books) since markets are such a wide & abstract topic/concept.

[@crazydrifter13]

I just started the podcast and damn Ben Felix is 6' 11"? That's easily among the top few percent in the world.

[@itschrisuphere]

@12:30 The reason and intuition for me as to why economic growth results in negatives returns is because of implied disruption occurring based on the 'market moving forward'. Given this specific analysis is from a passive framework, it makes sense that a faster growing and moving market is more likely to specifically benefit from active investing over passive.

[@guillaumegiroux9425]

OMG BEN FELIX, BEST DAY EVER!

[@lastempire7302]

Ben is my favorite Finance KZbinr. I started investing becuz of him!

[@jnardiello]

Mandatory like for two my favorite finance people on ytube

[@davidblack6413]

My two favourite Canadian financial educators (okay, along with Adam Bornn at Parallel Wealth and his retirement channel in Vancouver)! It doesn't get better. Thanks for showing us the way, and modelling responsible, personable, research-based investing and market information for Canadians.

[@Howell_Jolly]

North American, not only Canadian.

[@davidblack6413]

@@Howell_Jolly Fair enough, as their advice applies in the US and elsewhere too. I like the Money Guys (also financial educators on KZbin) out of Tennessee, for example. And Dave Ramsay's channel, based on his radio show, is helpful in addressing some issues, such as debt.

[@anonymous1432341]

Ben & Richard, we are so lucky to have the internet connect us to your professional perspectives. Thank you for the great content you provide.

[@unlearningeconomics9021]

Fantastic chat!

[@jasonbowman709]

Ben Felix - The interview guest who moves you to next next level.

[@timelston4260]

So many young finance KZbinrs got cut from my playlist. Not the (anything but) Plain Bagel and Ben "Common Sense" Felix. Two quality influencers.

[@Jonas-ec1mn]

Omg I waited long for this conversion. My two Favorit youtuber😍🥳

[@mem9968]

One of my professors of economics who also worked in monetary policy of my country's central bank explained to us that the origin of money is debated, with the two main hypothesis being the one Ben criticized (gold, barter, etc.) and the other one being that the Government created money as a credit (something Keynes came up with). Ultimately though, our professor concluded that it doesn't really matter how money was created since today money is better explained as credit. He was also very critical of crypto, saying it does not fulfill any requirements for it to be consider money. Overall very interesting vidro, thanks!

[@BroileR2007]

Your collab with TFD earlier this year, now this. Great news! The best of the financial youtubers together.

[@KtunaxaMTB]

Two best investing and finance content creators. They don't spew crap like a lot of these other KZbinrs do. Not to mention they are both Canadians too!

[@brendanmohns3978]

Good interview, and great conversation. My only issue is that you tended to interrupt Ben while he was talking on a subject. It might make for a better time to let him finish his thought before speaking over him.

[@giuseppeo77]

Great episode! Thank you very much Richard and Ben. Keep up the good work! Greetings from Mexico.

[@yoverale]

Amazing interview! now i've like a million things to check out, thanks

[@VictorBrichaut]

Hi Richard, Thanks for the content. It could also be cool to list all the resources mentioned during the talk in the description.

[@Erasmus1337]

Instant like, thanks for the episode!

[@zvxcvxcz]

It's been hard to get away from market cap weighting, and don't really want to do equal weighting either... I did end up putting some money in the Dimensional Small Cap Value ETF... but their costs do sting a bit. I think even after costs they have been my best performing ETF though so far. From memory without puling it up I think I'm doing about 1 percent better in the Dimensional ETF than in SPY. Some other anomalies per se can be things like HKD and MEGL recently.

[@Pieter2360]

Wonderful! Been following both of you for quite a while. Nice to see the two of you in this collaboration.

[@andreasmogelhoj6496]

I only take my finacial advice from lanky akward Canadians. Never listen to charismatic americans;) Ben felix is straight facts and research. Always great an unbias.

[@RawLu.]

Thanks!

[@user-dm84]

Been waiting on this meeting of the brain trust for years! Lovely stuff.

[@MicahMelnyk]

Fantastic! This was a great convo, and a great low down. Ben, you got a new subscriber out of this.

[@davidnelson2204]

I subscribed to your channel a while ago knowing one day I'll understand. Just took the CPCU 540 and finally understand wtf stocks are. I highly recommend doing an into for idiots for stocks! Dividend payments (and how they are decided; why corps issue benefits at all); time value of money (present value and future value concepts); basic concepts on corp financial determination (fundamental analysis, financial leverage, economic analysis, diversification strategies, quantitative measures of risk); value at risk; and the very basics of Greeks (I only got a 1000 ft view of Beta). Just a short video stating that all these concepts are things would be really helpful haha.

[@WheresMyPolenta]

That’s why I like Ben Felix so much. He hoops.

[@inla5]

When two of your best finance people do a podcast together .. !!!

[@scarletovergods]

Wow. Can't wait to watch this. Love Ben's content!

[@verablack3137]

The strange thing about crypto people is when they evangelize about it in the breakroom at work and you explain the problems with it, sadly it becomes clear that they don't actually know much about crypto. There seem to be some very smart people who have a strong vision based on an ideology of decentralization and solving real work problems with crypto but, from my limited experience those don't seem to be the bulk of the people buying or talking about it, most of them seem to be very much buying in on blind faith rather than some sort of actual libertarian political position.

[@739jep]

Well put , that’s been my experience as well. They also tend to subscribe quite passionately to the Austrian school of economics. I can’t tell which is the chicken and which is the egg though. Obviously Austrian economics is older , but it seemed to get re popularised since btc was invented.

[@tonioinverness]

But couldn't you say the say the same thing about any asset class? Most people couldn't tell you the first thing about how a mutual fund works your literally millions of people are invested in them through their 401(k)s. Lots of people are invested in stocks like Amazon or Walmart, but ask them to explain to you how global supply chains work.

[@verablack3137]

@@tonioinverness It isn't the same thing at all. The same thing would be if people who talked about stocks didn't understand that companies sell goods and make profits, and sometimes issue dividends to people who hold the stock. What I mean is people who have to my face told me that I should buy crypto didn't know what a DAO was, or what proof of stake/proof of work was, or really anything other than their absolute certainty that blockchains are the future. I think it is absolutely fair to expect someone to at least understand the absolute basics, I am not saying they need to have read and understood the whitepaper even, but they need to know fundamentally what a crypto currency is and what actual use it has or could likely have, and in my experience few people in the breakroom at work even get that far while saying that doge coin or shiba inu coin or whatever is going to go to the moon again.

[@ryanm7171]

Wow, the two best Canadian KZbinrs out there one screen. Your both amazing.🇨🇦🇨🇦🇨🇦

[@grzegorz8017]

My two favorite finance youtubers!

[@costanzojr]

It would be great to see a conversation between the two of you about active vs passive investing! 🙂

[@whasian2007]

Just started the video and I’m already super pumped for this podcast. All the guests have been amazing so far

[@jamesbuttery3862]

Bitcoin was not to be designed to be like Gold...it has come to be known and invested in like a Digital Gold..but that was not the original idea by the developers. It was designed to be an electronic peer-to-peer cash system to transfer value between people, without going through a third party. Simple.

[@kev2633]

I really enjoyed this one

[@bgieseler]

Great talk, very little worthwhile financial discussion on this site but this is awesome.

[@FelipeV3444]

Thank you for your take on crypto, it's important for all investors in this asset class (me included btw) to hear the reality of it and try to stay objective about it.

[@jmc8076]

Check back in 5-10 yrs on digital space past and present. Good credible info avail.

[@bendre1997]

Now this is a crossover episode!

[@robervaldo4633]

excellent interview! thanks! I love Ben's content!

[@midimusicforever]

Banger episode!

[@OckhamsChainsaw1337]

What I really like about Ben is how he is both a proper finance guy AND pretty woke about how money functions on a macroeconomic level. Too many investing experts are libertarians and monetarists who -- even though they are knowledgeable about capital markets -- subscribe to incredibly outdated, neoclassical views about the economy. And because most people don't know the difference between the stock market and the economy, they listen to them even though it's incredibly harmful.

[@DC-nj8kv]

2 thumbs up for this pair 👍👍

[@MrAsaphelps]

Name a more iconic duo. I'll wait.

[@skirmish23]

Thanks a lot for the, as always, great content

[@javiermartinezrossi8957]

My two favourite financial creators! Perfect lunch time episode

[@guerillahag]

dude finally someone who talks about real shit

[@dav0625]

My 2 super stars in a single place ! I already enjoyed the video on Stiglitz-Grossman paradox. What a wonderful cooperation.

[@dhess34]

Ahhhhh my two favorite Finance people!!!!

[@cat-.-]

Me before Ben Felix: Googl, Msft, Amzn, Tsla, Gld Me after Ben Felix: VTI, VBR, BND, VXUS

[@QuangNguyen-pk4op]

Thank you. This is a very refreshing perspective

[@GubeTube19]

Maybe I haven't studied CAPM enough, but when Ben Felix says: "under the efficient market hypothesis, prices can still differ from intrinsic value, but these occur randomly and cannot be reliably exploited for profit." Can you elaborate on this? What is meant by this, and why?

[@thesorrow312]

It means picking stocks, shorting, options, timing the market, etc etc is not a reliable strategy for beating the market, thus holding the market weighted portfolio is still the way to go, this is the proper understanding until the fama & french factor models also lead to the suggestion that overweighting specific factors like value and small cap over the market portfolio can lead to outperformance over a long time horizon.

[@implied321]

I would like a debate between you and Ben about market efficiency. You are an active investor so this would be ideal

[@goodq]

Humbled. Thank you very much for this video. Lovely conversation that I honestly thoroughly enjoyed.

[@fk319fk]

Dang, this was new and interesting, I have to watch it again!

[@dhruvdnar]

Maybe a follow up?😊 Podcast with you, ben, Sven, and Patrick!

[@anteeko]

The idea behind crypto is to have a medium of exchange without intermediaries, that's it. Crypto have modelled gold because it existed but a crypto can have any feature possible. Typically Crypto doesn't bring much to first world countries but many places have broken banking system and crypto can be an alternative.

[@imba69420]

I love Ben and "Rational Reminder" even though I'm still a stock picker! :D Gonna move all my money to index funds some day...

[@timelston4260]

Good guest choice this time. He's top notch, unlike the bow-tie and minority crackpots who inexplicitly made it onto your channel, given that you are a man of integrity.

[@Lolatyou332]

@36:00 -- I'm effectively in the same skill set as a software engineer, graduated with a 4.0 GPA in computer science. The problem with crypto is that it isn't a replacement for fiat currency. It is the solution for existing fiat currency. It'd be like someone changing the back-end server that fiat currency transactions occurs in banking,... No one would even notice a difference in their day to day transactions, they'd just use a credit card like nothing has changed. That's why 'investing' in crypto is stupidity. It's not an investment vehicle, it's a way to transfer money between people. The worse thing, is that crypto is mostly just used as a means for money laundering. So you are effectively investing in people who use crypto as a means for money laundering. The reason it really holds any value is because the wealthy criminals NEED it to hold value to effectively make money. So you have billions of dollars from illegal businesses propping up the vehicle that you use for 'investing'.

[@XxChuyoxX]

Bitcoin doesn't have to replace fiat currency in order to have its place in the financial space.

[@A_page_a_day]

Thank you for the education.

[@JamessProductionss]

I think Ben is wrong on a few points. Technology can stimulate change, for example: the printing press and it's roll in information distribution and societal changes that followed. Also, I don't think Adam Smith just "made up" a gold-backed currency, he speculated from prior principles and concluded that gold wound up as a currency because it was something "that everyone wanted." I personally think a strong currency is something that is valuable. MMT guys probably have similar opinions as Ben, historically MMT and currency debasement as been heralded as a great rescuer of the great depression and printing your way out of financial crises. I believe the common sentiment Bitcoiners have is viewing this currency debasement as a social failing that does not allow power and wealth redistribution. Bitcoin was a response to the 2008 COLLUSION of banks and state. Investing in potential technological revolutions is risky, but containing down the same system of currency debasement is also risky; continual debasement of currency is damaging to a population and will ultimately destroy the American Empire which will take "safe stocks" down with it.

[@aldevinolima4299]

I’m here b/c of guy Benny, great professional and even Greater Person 🙏🏼

[@NoNonsenseInvest]

Now if there's some Patrick Boyle and Coffezilla cameo.

[@Kordanor]

Oh cool. Crossover of my 2 favorite English speaking finance channels. Actually the only 2 English finance channels I am watching. I feel like there is much more sensationalism, scandals and speculation and bad advice to be found on English channels if you compare that to German ones, where the 2 biggest channels (I assume) are pretty much the opposite and more along the lines of what you two guys are doing (actually a bit more pro ETFs than at least Plain Bagel, but you are careful enough to not hype people into buying any individual stock)

[@TheSteinbitt]

Dayum that’s a killer colab!

[@jonb5135]

Isn't market cap weighting favoured partly because it is the most efficient way of weighting an index in terms of reducing trading costs? Virtually no rebalancing is required unlike an equal weighted index.

[@jasonmaguire7552]

Partially, but mostly because it is the most accurate reflection of the market.

[@thomas6502]

Really appreciated this discussion. Thank you both!

[@thomas6502]

Rewatched a year later... even more prophetic in some ways. Durable folks. Thank you!

[@georgeschneider8778]

My best two finance KZbin: Paul Merriman and Ben Felix👍

[@DeletedDenizen]

So cool to see you again do a video with Ben. Thanks to the first one I discovered his channel and now listen to his podcast every week! Shame that he deleted some videos from his YT though:/

[@johndoe1646]

Interview someone from the goldfinch finance team, it's real world finance. All investors have to be accredited, and the companies that use the on-chain protocol are audited and the risk is assessed.

[@Jakuzziful]

I see Ben, I press like

[@thb7620]

BEN! Let’s go!

[@arapanubis]

In their respective books, Sahlins and Graeber offer interesting aspects on the credit system as a basis of money.

[@w7855]

Two awesome gentlemen. Good work guys.

[@ajrobbins368]

Excellent conversation. Thanks!

[@00x0midnight0x00]

now those screws of that microphone-stand are REALLY fixed now. but besides that: great content.

[@IsaacWendt]

Best place to sub for portfolio and stock market papers?

[@beachboardfan9544]

50:00 Where do you guys get that info?

[@dhess34]

He literally cited the authors at 50:18 🙄

[@beachboardfan9544]

@@dhess34 Whoops, was probably typing as he said it.

[@bad_writer]

Absolute top tier investing content, as always from these two lads

[@andrewcameron4277]

Hey cheers another Ottawa man!

[@s0cr4t1c]

I’m pretty sure that Portfolio Visualizer doesn’t have an overlap tool… If I’m wrong about that, can someone point me to which tool on the site does this? I see a correlation tool, but that doesn’t show holding overlap.

[@amaetfacquodvis2450]

Pls do a 2.0 interv. with Ben Felix, ur both great!

[@Grek1574]

Hmmm... does Canada still use imperial system?

[@arfarf152]

Did you (Ben) try to interview Saifedean Ammous for your podcast?

[@sobtrdeszl7806]

hello richard, another great video and two of my fav fin youtuber in one frame. However, the audio seems kinda low at times.

[@sg4863]

Can you please link to the relevant papers?