Happy Wednesday, Wise Owl Nation!

There has been quite a bit of talk lately about crypto in the international space, namely due to some reports that Russian oligarchs are using Cryptocurrencies to evade sanctions.

Bloomberg also recently reported that U.S. President Joe Biden is set to sign an executive order this week that will "outline the U.S. government's strategy for cryptocurrencies."

I've been asked about this article in particular no less than TEN times.

Some of you are clearly worried about this, and since I love to write about crypto, this week I will be addressing my thoughts on the current state of crypto as it pertains to this situation.

Let's get into it.

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🦉 Wealthy Owl Thought(s) of The Week: Is Crypto going to be okay?

The short answer is yes, crypto will be fine, and those that own crypto will be fine.

The US government is using the fear that their sanctions on Russia won't be effective due to crypto as a reason to rush regulation on cryptocurrencies as a whole.

The questions I always ask myself when I see people freaking out about a news cycle are always:

• Is there an agenda behind this news?
• Do powerful people have anything to gain by swaying my opinion on this?
• Is this news creating FUD (fear, uncertainty, and doubt) or FOMO (fear of missing out)?

When I can identify an agenda of a news article it helps me distance myself from any emotional response and slow down to think.

The rest of this newsletter are my thoughts on this topic as I see it after spending some time thinking.

Is Crypto a tool for avoiding sanctions?

For the uber wealthy? No.

For the average human looking to avoid the impact of sanctions against their country? Yes.

Western politicians are worried that Putin might use crypto to avoid sanctions, since both Ukrainian and Russian citizens are using crypto to protect the value of their savings.

Hot take - the sanctions on Russia are harming all Russians, but the Russian citizens can use crypto to avoid the brunt of the sanctions. The Russian Oligarchs on the other hand can't use crypto to move their vast wealth because it would be so obvious and traceable.

This is exactly what we should predict would happen.

Private keys empower individuals the most. It puts the sovereignty of your finances in your hands. Leaving money in the hands of government institutions means that if the government wants to punish you for not complying, they can seize your assets.

I found an awesome graphic that I think properly illustrates the effect crypto has on the power dynamic between individuals and institutions when crypto is introduced.

We will always see institutions whining when anything gives more power to the individual. Normally this would lead to institutions doing everything in their power to destroy whatever is putting power back in the hands of the individual.

The amazing thing about crypto specifically is that many institutions are profiting off of it as well, so completely suppressing crypto is out of the question for these groups. It makes sense they would push for some form of regulation that might give them some advantage over individuals.

Is there a recession coming?

In my small and meaningless opinion? Yeah probably.

Commodity prices are rising, which makes sense, since the largest producers of oil and wheat are currently at war.

When the price of everyday goods goes up, the value of your dollars go down. Higher prices mean economic friction across the board.

If the conflict in the Ukraine continues, I expect the rest of the world to start to feel the impact of this more and more. And as things stand now, it does look like this conflict has no end in sight.

Putin and the Russian forces do not appear to have any desire to give up in the Ukraine. It might even be about avoiding international shame at this point. On the other hand, the entire world has strong anti-Russian sentiment.

Governments and individuals have been supplying the Ukraine with funds and armaments. Almost half of the organizations accepting donations are more than willing to accept crypto. 🙄🙄

Final Conclusions:

Crypto isn't going anywhere.

It is helping millions of people all over the world take true ownership of their finances.

Western media is going to push fear, uncertainty, and doubt to drive traffic to their news stories so they can profit off of this war as much as possible.

Governments are going to push regulations when they feel there is public fear or sentiment in favor of it. Always.

In some ways, Western governments pushing for CBDCs (Central Bank Digital Currencies) is a bullish case for Ethereum, as the Ethereum Network will likely be the primary place where these CBDCs can be traded or acquired outside of their respective nations.

If you own crypto, you're fine. Keep buying.

If you don't own crypto, you're fine. Start buying (if you want to 😉).

Quote/Meme of the week:

Have a great week!

This concludes our issue this week, I hope it gave you some perspective or injected a little motivation into your life!

If it helped, let me know! I read every newsletter response I receive, and I absolutely love hearing from all of you. This newsletter is for you, so I need your help to make it as great as possible.

If you'd like to show me some love for writing all this free stuff, you can always buy me a coffee.

More Resources

I will be adding to this section over time as we find resources that will help you all.

• Check out the Wise Owl Store
• All Wise Healthy Wealthy Articles on Medium
• Start your own Sendfox Newsletter
• Free products to help you level up

Crypto Resources

The Bankless Podcast: This is a link to the bankless podcast on Spotify. Start from the very beginning and learn why I am so positive about the power of Crypto and Ethereum in particular. You can find the podcast easily on the internet, but I am linking to episode 1 on Spotify for your convenience.

Buy your first ETH or BTC:

• On Coinbase - this is the easiest starting place for the newest beginners
• On Gemini - Another great option founded by the Winklevoss brothers. They are based out of New York.
• On Kraken - Kraken has a bit of a harder user interface, but they already have ETH staking enabled with the push of a single button.

Earn interest on your crypto

• BlockFi - Currently, you can earn 4% interest on BTC, 5% interest on ETH, and a whopping 8.5% on stable coins like USDC. Use the referral code b09f24fd to support the newsletter. BlockFi is currently not accepting new customers from the USA for its Crypto Savings Account. International customers are still welcome!

Other tools:

• Argent Wallet - This is the best mobile wallet for Ethereum, Defi, and all things on the Ethereum network, including staking. They even have plans to implement Layer 2 to remove network fees.
• Ethhub - this is a weekly newsletter that lists out all the interesting news, articles, and tweets that have happened in Crypto that week. It's free and awesome.
• Ethdashboard - A simple dashboard to look at various metrics in the ethereum space. I mainly use this as a quick tool to check ETH gas fees.
• Cointracker - this is one of the better tools for tracking all of your various crypto across all of the various wallets, exchanges, etc. You can also use them to do your crypto taxes each year.
• Metamask - this is a crypto wallet that you can access from your browser and allows you to easily interact with blockchain apps online.