Month: April 2022

Can Bitcoin price go up to $950K with adoption and government regulation?

Disclaimer: crypto is volatile and there are lots of scams out there – you can make a lot or you can lose a lot (or everything). Do your own research – this is not financial advice. I’m just showing what I’m doing, and I’m taking risks on my end too. I’ve been both right and wrong before, so do your research.

How I started in crypto

I entered crypto speculation in late 2017 when my best friend introduced me to it, and of course I was freaking skeptical when I first saw it. I was very cautious of it being a scam as I hadnt really heard of bitcoin or crypto before that (I’m in the offline physical therapy world).

I pored over whitepapers, got involved with different crypto and blockchain projects.

Of course, I definitely got rugpulled a number of times across different projects (the highest risks are with new projects with lots of hype and fluff and promises of high returns).

At the end of 2018, there was a massive crash (or correction?) as bitcoin went I sat on a paper loss of 80%++ – I was so sad and guilty when I told my wife, but I stayed for both the tech and adoption, which I believe will increase the price.

True enough, in 2021, my speculations in crypto sits currently at 300%+ of my original investment amount, and I’m sensing that it should have another good run as governments and regulations on board and after it gets regulated, the returns should be “normal like financial markets”.

Note #:1 regulations usually means that financial institutions, sovereign/wealth funds, pension plans etc will have more exposure to crypto as a whole.

I chanced upon some videos/articles and wanted to share this with you:

  1. Kevin O’Leary: Crypto Will Be the 12th Sector of the S&P https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=gSPSRVDN8l4
  2. Kevin O’Leary: 20% of my portfolio is in cryptocurrencies https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=vqkC_XcxxJg
  3. Kevin O’Leary: Buy The Dip And Chill For 1 Year – They Want To Fool You, Don’t Listen To Them https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=FKqEOFwTO2A
  4. Kevin O’Leary: This Is Your Last Chance To Become Millionaire – My Most Sincere Advice To You https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=5_cyE10Ljms&t=5s
  5. BlackRock, Fidelity and others to invest $400M in USDC stablecoin issuer Circle https://techcrunch.com/2022/04/12/blackrock-fidelity-and-others-to-invest-400m-in-usdc-stablecoin-issuer-circle/
  6. Coin Gecko https://www.coingecko.com/
  7. 2021 financial market value https://www.statista.com/statistics/421060/global-financial-institutions-assets/

I believe that crypto including bitcoin, ethereum, solana, ripple and other crypto/blockchain projects would be regulated soon enough, and that itself will lead to a global increase of crypto market cap value as a whole.

No dang crystal ball

Of course, I dont have a crystal ball though that’d be nice lol, but I am ready to hodl my crypto speculations for a good 5-10+ years and longer. Why this is the case is as crypto becomes mainstream, it’d become “normal” to have, own and use crypto as methods of making and receiving payment =)

Note #2 I made a mistake – I thought the global financial market is worth 105M (see link #7), but it’s actually closer to $460 trillion in 2021. And I hadnt factored in other types of investments such as real estate.

For reference, crypto market cap April 2022 is $1.9T. That’s a conservative 230X comparatively.

What you can consider

For those who want to dip their toes / speculate into crypto but unsure, you can consider

  1. speculating into the top 10 / 50 / 100 of listed coins on coingecko
  2. ask your employer/side hustle jobs to pay you in crypto/btc
  3. invest into companies that have crypto exposure such as Tesla, MicroStrategy, NVidia etc

Remember, direct crypto speculation can be very volatile though is an emerging asset class – do your research and assume you can lose your invested amounts.

I’ll be holding onto my crypto and 5-10 years plus and equally as important, is to cash out (take out principal invested and profits) regularly – makes me sleep like a baby because my loss-related stress levels go down significantly =)

As Kevin o’Leary said in one of his videos: buy the dip and chill.

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How To Save $1000+ This Month (and every month)

My preferred way to saving $1000 a month is the “pre-paid expenses” (including investments FIRST) ie I will set aside $1K and chuck that into investments, and then pay bills/mortgage/utilities/necessities, and then just use the rest without guilt.

Because I’ve “sorted” the core financial work and stuff that I want done.

But if you wanna squeeze out $1K or more for an upcoming large expense, or to invest more, here are 4 simple tactics you can do:

#1 Retire unused or under-used monthly subscriptions

Such as streaming media such as NetFlix, Disney+, Hulu, Spotify – there are just so many streaming services out there. Kill off the ones you use least/lesser. This can save you around $20-$50+ depending on how much you have.

#2 Slice your underused phone and internet bills.

For your phone bills, you can make more whatsapp/messenger calls (calls over internet), change carriers and even downgrade your plan if you find that you’re not using as much data/voice/SMS.

The same goes for your internet bills.

#3 Plan your meals**

This is one of the biggest movers in terms of savings.

An average meal in US is $20+, so if you can eat home or pack meals during workdays (assuming 5 workdays a week), that’s a saving of $20 x 3 meals a day x 5 weekdays per week x 4 weeks a month = $1200 (if you eat 2 meals a day, that’s a savings of $800 a month).

Of course, have your social meals on weekends with family and friends too (which becomes more special when it’s weekends out eheh) =)

#4 Plan and limit your “silly spending”

We all have impulse purchases and silly spendings, so instead of buying impulse stuff on an as-when basis, which has no limits, why not set aside a budget and a day a month to spend on “silly buying”, without guilt or grief?

This makes me look forward to these silly spending days.

These are just 4 tactics as part of your financial education and money saving tactics that you can do this month to save $1K or more, based on reducing expenses that you dont use in the first place. Explore which expenses are unnecessary to you, and adapt accordingly.

What to do with the $1K savings?

Invest it in safe investments, and set aside a portion to upgrade yourself with more skills and maybe open a business too.

Or treat yourself or your loved ones to a holiday – whatever rocks your boat.

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How to get money to finance your passive income goals (and dreams)

How To Get Money To Finance Your Passive Income Goals

Sometimes when I share my story where I started from zero to build up a 7-figure portfolio, people dismiss and summarize my wealth journey as fluke, that i’m somehow a lucky bastard.
Some think I was born rich because I look rich lol
But bros…I was born in a middle-class-to-poor family, and I have lots of memories of how we grow up pretty broke, some examples:
  • standing at the glass window of KFC and my embarrassed mother shoo-ing us away
  • returning cash gifts to my parents to “recycle” and give back
  • I ate a LOT of bean sprouts and eggs and carbs
  • oh the carbs – we would bulk buy plain biscuits and noodles from MAKRO, no longer around, and had lots of oatmeal, rice, porridge (oats or rice)

I really, really, really worked, learnt, saved, learnt some more to get to where I want to go, this was the typical life I had last 8+ years:

  1. Grind/worked 16-hour days, 7 days a week for 8 years after graduating (still working tho)
  2. Reinvesting every dollar, living very frugally
  3. …whilst people around me go on holidays, parties and buying whatever they liked

Is it easy to build passive income and retire early? Hell no!

It’s bloody tough and hard….if it’s easy, everyone would have lots of money, six pack abs and look forever 16 right (ehehe).
Of course I do it because it’s worth it – to me it means a lot to get streams of passive income as early as you can in life, ideally before 45 – so you can spend the next 45 years of your life playing and doing shit that’s important to you.

Ben Settle’s Gran Torino Story (from a movie) and what the movie taught me

I got an email from Ben Settle, and it summarizes how I began building my wealth and passive income journey. I figured it’s a good sharing story too.
Let me tell you the story told in Ben’s email:
==== Snippet from Ben’s email ====
So the snippet from the “Gran Torino” screenplay.
In the scene the old grouchy main character Walt — played by Clint Eastwood — is talking to the young loner teen Tao who he befriends about the valuable tool set in his garage, and how he got it.
TAO: I can’t afford to buy all this stuff.
WALT: I didn’t buy all this stuff at once, blockhead. I’ve lived here for fifty years. A man stays in one place long enough he tends to attract a decent set of tools.
TAO: Yeah, but…
WALT: Look, kid, I think I know where you’re going with this. You don’t need everything to maintain a house. I’m going to let you in on a little secret.
[Walt slaps down THREE items in quick succession.]
WALT: This is for you. Roll of duct tape, can of WD-40, and a pair of vise-grips. Any man who’s worth a shit can do half his household jobs with these three things. In the odd chance that doesn’t work out, you can borrow something.
And so the script goes…
==== End snippet from Ben’s email ====

2 points I picked up from Gran Torino story:

#1 – Start wherever you are, and start now.
Maybe it’s saving and investing $100 a month first. Or less or more, I don’t care.
Just start and keep going.
#2 – Keep it simple basic when you’re starting out
  1. Roll of duct tape = earn more / side hustle
  2. Can of WD-40 = stop buying shit that don’t advance your passive income goals
  3. Pair of vise-grips = investing and reinvesting into safe and reliable defensive assets

You just start where you are

You dont need a million dollars to start the ball rolling.

You dont need the best phones or computers or softwares or people.

Just start where you are and keep going.

I chose to freelance, and increased my base salary by at least 100%.

Entrepreneurship to earn more

So, I mentioned that I have / had some skills right? I’m a trained and license occupational therapist, so I can do related work in nursing homes, house calls etc.

I contacted an agency and secured a freelance job, which within first month increased my take home from $2000 before bonus to $4800 net.

Now before people start mentioning that I’m “luckier than some” because I had these skills and parents that funded my studies, I will agree. And I will add that you start where you are. Some of you will have skills and some dont. Some will have debt and some dont.

Whatever it is, start where you are.

It is waaaaaaay more important that you start and keep going, rather than having perfect line-up in your situation

I had no money when I started, so I spent what I had: time. I read blogs, books from libraries, met people and asked questions. As we earned more, we invested everything into growing the company. I went for classes and bought books and attended seminars on sales, money, management, marketing etc to improve my skills.

Made so many mistakes by upsetting clients or vendors, all the mistakes in the book.

We undercharged so much, and made little.

I was shit at negotiating, fearing that clients wont be happy.

I read and re-read all the marketing blogs and seminar materials I paid for.

And continued serving.

70% were happy, and 30% weren’t.

These got me experience dealing with realities of money, business and clients. It also got word of mouth going. The 70% referred me more clients.

Whenever possible, we took out some money to pay down our home so that we lived without debt.

I continued learning from the lessons and the processes on money, business and clients. I’m still learning and growing today, since I started my first business when I was 20 years old. I’m 40 years old today.

I continued to apply as I learned, and we grew the business more and more, and it was eventually acquired for a tidy 7-figure sum. I took that money and put some in real estate, and somehow, much went into crypto.

I’m going for classes to learn how to build an online business as well as use the money generated from crypto to live on where I pay for taxi, meals, grocery, even my power, water and gas bills!

So on and so forth.

Repeat until done

You may start your passive income and early retirement journey in debt or from zero, but as you stick with it long enough, keeping unnecessary costs low, earning more with side hustling and investing/reinvesting, you will find that your portfolio will grow and compound with time and continued investment.

You dont need to start out with a huge amount.

If you’re like me, starting out from zero, then you only need the retire early equivalent of duct tape, WD40 and vise-grips. My answer and conclusion is to start and keep going. Even if it’s $100 a month. Start there, keep at it. Pickup a side hustle, earn a couple hundred or more and chuck that into Vanguard. As you earn more, invest more and more

Work, save, invest, reinvest.

Do this again and again, over time.

Until you reach your portfolio target and ideal take home from investments.

Then you’re done, and onto the next.

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One Of My Potential $1K to $370K Shiba Inu Gamble (Robinhood lists Shiba Inu in 2022)

This is not financial advice – I am showing you what I’m doing and you need to do your own research. Do not borrow to speculate, invest or gamble. Crypto is highly volatile and you may lose whatever you put in.

Resources:

So when one of my best buddies sent me an article where Shiba Inu, a popular meme crypto token (#15 in the world at this point of time) is officially listed on Robinhood, a very easy-to-use and popular investment / trading app with more than 22.5 million users, I got really excited for SHIB.

I mean, it was interesting enough then as a community token and the projects they’re doing – but going on Robinhood…is akin to going mainstream.

And that’s a big thing in my opinion.

This Robinhood listing caused a 25% price surge of Shiba Inu globally (which is nice bonus #1 ehehe) and I took a look, Robinhood app is pretty easy to use too, which is again another nice #2 bonus.

How many SHIB tokens can I get with USD 1000?

Current price of SHIB: $0.00002713

With $1000, that’s mean I’d get around 36,859,565.05 SHIB tokens (rounding up to 37 million for simplicity).

$1k to $370K? Really?

It seems that the community of Shiba Inu is trying (or hoping) for Shiba to grow in price with an aim for $0.10 possibly within next 8-10 years

Remember, cryptocurrency is very volatile and risky. My $1000 in Shiba Inu may be worthless by then.

With 36,859,565.05 SHIB, at $0.01, that’d mean $368, 595.65 – a nice multiple if you ask me.

Even if it hits half the target at $0.005, that’s transforming my original $1000 to $184,297.00, which aint that shabby too.

Of course, it’s a long shot, high risk, and possibly doesn’t work out at all, so the $1000 can become totally worthless, and if it does, it doesnt affect me much at all. But if it hits 1c, it’d change my life in a nice and good way =)

Whales Investing Too

?? ETH whale “Light” just bought 287,355,928,094 $shib ($6,577,577 USD).

An Ethereum whale by the name of “Light” just invested USD 6.4M (that’s million) to purchase 287B of Shiba Inu tokens. These are not small game playing, and it’s definitely heavy weight players (link to article can be found here).

That’s just ONE Ethereum whale.

What if I told you that there is many, many more Ethereum whales buying and hodling Shiba Inu?

And what if Shiba Inu is their hottest holding?

As more whales started buying SHIB tokens at a large discount, the total USD value of SHIB holdings jumped to $1.19 billion, which put it in first place among all other assets.

Biggest Ethereum “Light” Just Grabbed 287 Billion SHIB as Shiba Inu Dominates Biggest ETH Whales’ Portfolios

Interesting stuff if you ask me.

So that’s one of my gambles on multiplying my money using Shiba Inu crypto token for the mid-term play.

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6 Side Hustle Ideas For Single Mums (that you can start within the week)

6 Side Hustle Ideas For Single Mums (that you can start within the week)

Being a single mum is not easy, and I got asked earlier on how single mums can get ahead financially.

Firstly, is to aggressively cut out unnecessary expenses (when money is tight; once we earn more and have more than enough passive income, we can indulge more.) In the beginning, cut out all unnecessary expenses and focus on “core / necessary” stuff, such as basic-level roof over head, food, water, transport etc.

But there is only so much one can cut back on, save and be frugal over – there reaches a point where it’s not beneficial to cut back, and can be detrimental. That’s why I always recommend earning more, and the 6 side hustle ideas for single mums are:

#1 and #2: Care.com and SitterCity.com

Where you can sign up as a baby sitter, carer for older people, run a day care and get paid hourly from $12+ per hour

#3 Fiverr.com

Fiverr is a marketplace for those with specific skills such as graphic / logo design, website and wordpress development, writing and editing as well as other skills can be sold to entrepreneurs and other side hustlers.

It’s a marketplace, so you will have competition, but there are many agencies that started out on Fiverr first before growing to become full independent agencies =)

Use my fiverr affiliate link and we both get $100 (https://nigelchua.com/fiverr)

#4 DoorDash

Doordashing is a concept that pays you to pickup and deliver something (usually food) from restaurants and cafes to customers at their homes and offices.

You can control your time and hours, but they’re only found in US, Canada and Melbourne (Australia) at this point in time.

Registration is quick, and I recommend that you schedule doordashing for stuff that’s along your route anyway (monetizing your journey). I’ve heard of people earning $100/day from door dashing too, so it’s viable.

#5 AirBNB

This one can definitely and easily work for people who have unused rooms – rent out your rooms short term with AirBNB or you can get a realtor to help you secure a 1-3 year tenancy, which is nice extra couple of hundreds (or thousands) depending on how many rooms, seasonality and locations.

#6 is negotiating for a pay raise

But it does require some finesse (of course, this applies to those who are currently working).

You need to calculate

  1. how valuable you are to you the company 
  2. how difficult it is to replace you
  3. ask a reasonably increase based on your scope and lastly,
  4. time it well (asking at bad times decreases success rate)

Only this one shouldnt be rushed to be done within the week unless some golden opportunity arise (such as you scoring well for the company eg onboarding good clients, saving clients etc).

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How To Become A Millionaire (The Lazy But Slow Way)

How To Become A Millionaire (The Lazy But Slow Way)

I became a millionaire twice over due to my business and my crypto investments, but man, those are highly intense with lots of risks, pressure and stress.

Not to mentioned health neglect too – this is the worst. I remember those moments where it was so stressed I blanked out. And the slow neglect of my health and fitness. Nasty stuff, ew.

For those who have time and patience to wait, and some cash you can inject every month, I present to you, the best but slow approach to become a millionaire (or multi-millionaire) using the magic of compound interest, consistent investing and reinvesting.

I recently discovered:

“Vanguard and Chill”

I mean, I’ve come across that a couple of times now in subreddits of fatFIRE, and never thought their ROI was so high (average compounded interested per year is 14%!) – it’s no wonder they chose vanguard and chill.

I will be studying this approach seriously – looks like a fairly straightforward and easy way to multiply my earnings and savings.

At 14% per annum, I can safely withdraw 7% profits per year and still have 7% growing to counter inflation and add in growth. Much better than the 7-9% offered at wealth management too it seems.

What about yourself?

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The Most Important Lesson McDonald’s Founder Ray Kroc Taught About Becoming Rich

The Business Of Ray Kroc, Founder of McDonald’s

In 1974, Ray Kroc, founder of McDonald’s gave a talk at a MBA class at the University of Texas in Austin.

After the class, the students asked Ray to join them for some drinks, and he said okay, sure.

Between drinks, Ray asked them

What business am I in?”

The students laughed, because they thought Ray was just fooling around messing with them…but he was serious.

No one answered though.

Ray asked again, “what business do you think I’m in?”

The students laughed again, and a brave soul shouted,

Mr Ray, the whole world knows you’re the godfather of the burger business in McDonald’s.

Ray laughed and said – “yes. that’s what most people would think and say about me“.

He stopped and then shared this:

“Ladies and gentlemen, I am not in the hamburger business only – my true business is in real estate.”

Lesson #1

Ray then explained that in their business plan, yes, primary front end business was to sell hamburgers, fries and milkshake franchises, but he never lost sight his long term big goal, which was real estate.

That’s why every franchise that was sold, he paid particular attention to the location, reasons being

  • Number 1 reason: he knew that location was a very big factor in the success of each franchise
  • Number 2, his main game is real estate.

So what he did was that he got every person that bought McDonald’s franchise to pay for the land under the franchise for Ray Kroc’s organization.

Lesson #2

Of course these franchisees also made money as franchise owners and business owners – Ray didn’t just take and take.

He made many franchise owners rich in the process, and many of them ended up owning more than one franchise with him.

Today McDonald’s is the single largest owner of real estate in the world. They have real estate at locations at busiest street corners and intersections in the world.

I can already imagine the faces of students, their minds would have been blown upside down left right center.

Blow Mind Mind Blown GIF - Blow Mind Mind Blown Explode - Discover & Share GIFs

What I learnt from Ray Kroc is to know my big and long term game, and to take step by step moves that bring me closer and closer to my goals. He also made others rich in the process.

What’s your business and game plan?

Are you building a business or having a career without a long term game?

If you hadn’t thought about it, it’s time to think about leveling up your game.

Maybe save more to invest in real estate locally and around the world, and get paid rental income.

Or put money in wealth management and get wealth managers to make you more.

Or vanguard and chill, as many fatFIREd individuals put it.

Whatever rocks your boat.

So what’s the business you’re in?

Have a think and let me know in the comments below.

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Crypto com USDC Stablecoin Earn Versus Binance USDC Flex Earn – Which is better?

So I wanted to compare between Crypto.com’s flexible USDC earn program versus Binance’s flexible USDC earn program (as crypto.com is an upcoming contender to binance), and I found some nice nuggets:

Binance earn flexible USDC program is documented at 1.2% but it’s actually a blended of:

  • First $75,000 USDC : 1.20%
  • Above $75,000 USDC : 0.30%

So if you put $100,000 USDC earn in Binance you will get

  • First $75,000 @ 1.20% pa = $900
  • Next $25,000 @ 0.3% = $75
  • Total = $975 end of 12 months ~ 0.00975%

Compare that to Crypto.com’s flexible USDC earn problem:

Firstly, crypto.com’s earn program is 1.5%, so $100,000 is $1,500 per annum, an easy win comparatively…but we’re not gonna be satisfied with that right?

I speak for myself at least (eheh) – what I want to know i:

how do we earn more on binance and crypto.com earn?

3) If you’re good with USDT, Binance flexible earn documents a 10% per annum…

but it’s a blended percentage of

  • First $2,000 USDT : 10.00%
  • $2,000-$75,000 USDT : 3.00%
  • More than $75,000 USDT : 1.00%

This means that it’s NOT a pure 10%, but a blended, mixed.

A clearer illustration, so $100,000 in binance USDT earn =

  • First $2,000 @ 10% = $200
  • $2,000 – $75,000 ($73,000) @ 3% = $2190
  • Last $25,000 @ 1% = $250
  • Total $2640 ~ 2.64% — much better than a blended 1% of USDC flexible earn in Binance.

Better than crypto.com’s $100K in USDC flex earn too (but USDT versus USDC…different).

How to earn more % USDC on crypto.com

  • Stake more cro (go up in tiers) – but of course this requires more cash (buying CRO coins and getting their higher tier card, the higher the tier the better the rates, but min Obsidian Jade / Indigo will give you best Earn rates)
  • Stake fixed 3-month term (more than USD 30K will be half the rates but the rates are higher anyway)* (This is key).

The best terms are based on 3-month earn program, which can net you up 6% for the first $30,000 and 3% above $30,000.

That’d mean if you put in $100,000 for 3 months with 400 or less CRO staked, your USDC earn rates are:

  • First $30,000 @ 6% = $1,800
  • Next $70,000 @ 6% x 0.5 = $2,100
  • Total $3,900 ~ 3.9%

Let me know what you’re doing with your crypto.com earn.

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