Doug Polk on crypto, poker, and epic scams

Links

• Doug Polk Twitter
• Upswing Web
• Podcast

Show Partner

This episode is presented by FTX (formerly Blockfolio). Trade on an awesome mobile interface fee-free, and still get all the great portfolio tracking features you know and love: https://uponly.tv/ftx

Show Notes

FTX?

- Ledger nailed new intro

- UpOnly sponsored by FTX now!

- Blockfolio is now FTX (as everything soon will be)

- Doug was watching an MLB game and saw FTX on an umpire

- So wild

LEDGER DRINKS EVERY DAY

- *one beer*

- *has cravings if he skips his beer*

- *in a weight-loss competition with Primo to lose 10% of body weight*

- Doug: “That 1 beer per day is costing you 16-17 pounds per year!”

Doug’s Crypto Journey

- 2012-2013ish

- Got in because of poker - online poker caused onboarding

- Doug: “the asset appreciation element kinda made sense to me” lol us too sir

Bitcoin v Banks

- People complain about bank fees and then Bitcoin fees spike lol

- Block time also kind of a hassle

- Cobie: “Nowadays if an Ethereum block takes like a full minute I’m pissed”

- Cobie: “Solana is fast enough and if you use it you can afford to live in New York”

Zoomers & Internet Native Generation

- Ledger: “How many people bought SafeMoon and bridged to BSC? Like how did they do that???”

- Cobie: “We had an interview with Teen Exec and he just understands the internet way better than I do”

- Also have the YouTubers who can show you step by step exactly how to buy the top

- Cobie: “Every time a project comes on UpOnly its the exact top of their thesis”

- Light - super bearish at the bottom

- SCAM and CUMROCKET - top tick on the episode

- Charlie Lee even top ticked Litecoin

Coping

- DOGE founder is coping so hard that he won’t come back

- People would easily donate like millions to this guy

The B Word Conference

- Cobie: “I think Cathie Wood is fking phenomenal”

- “Elon just kept talking about Tesla chargers”

- Doug: “I think Jack needs to have a better idea of how Bitcoin can actually be implemented to fix these issues”

- “Also Elon has a firm belief in ‘Bitcoin has to be 50% renewable’ for someone who’s dad was an emerald miner”

- “His Bitcoin takes felt not extremely researched”

- Ledger: “At some point do you stretch yourself a little too thin if you’re trying to create Mars money and [xyz other stuff]”

Doug’s Challenge

- Poker career focused on 1v1 poker

- Challenged a rival troll guy who was after him to a 1v1 for $1,000,000

- This guy was a major underdog

- He said yes LOL

- $40k buy in, any time you dropped off you bought back in with $40k

- Doug won $1.2M off of this guy lol

- Now they are boys

- Ledger: “you had a lot of reputational tie into this as well - like if you lost it’d be like me losing to Cobie in a trading competition”

- Cobie: “you’ve had some anthropologically bad trades that should be on wikipedia” lmao

Poker & Crypto

- Is it banking the unbanked? Or math, trading, etc. stuff?

- Doug: “Poker guys understand having an edge and are used to losing”

- “Today 200 guys played, 15 paid, so 185 lost” fack

- “Can’t handle losing, can’t do poker”

- “Some edge/ trading aspects, some keeping your money off the books aspects… some of the poker community is DEEP in crypto”

No More Poker 4 Doug

- Basically turned from an art to an exact science that you need to memorize

- Doug: “The reality is the guy who spent 2x the time is going to be better”

- Online vs. in person is the same *at the higher levels*

Doug’s Journey

- Just moved to Austin TX

- Was part of the mass migration

- Left Vegas, “I wanted something idk less stripper-ey” lol

- Nashville would also be great

- Doug: “The ‘Keep Austin Weird’ signs need to come down like that is so far gone, its a tech hub now!”

Ledger’s Fame

- Going to give Doug some Alabama BBQ places off air to not dox his micro location

- Cobie and Doug start laughing at the exact same time

- Cobie: “We have the same joke don’t we”

- Doug: “Ya Ledger you wouldn’t want anyone driving 700 miles out to see you” lmao

- Ledger got recognized 2 weeks ago

Scams

- Doug called BitConnect like a week before it happened

- Everyone knew him as the guy who called it lol

- “Save The Kids Token”

- Fake charity token that was somehow supposed to save the kids

- FaZe & some youtube guy Sam Pepper

- creep

Tether FUD

- Doug: “I actually don’t agree with any of the Tether FUD” YES DOUG

- Doug: “Like pretty much people won’t be happy unless they have $60 Billion in a checking account”

- based

ETH 2.0

- If/ wen ETH2 happens, are people still rushing to send their money through MATIC? prolly not

- Probably won’t be a scaling benefit until sharding

- Cobie - prolly rollup-centric solution to scaling when it all works out

ZK-Rollups

- Created down only tokenomics of ZCash *disclaimer: this is FUD*

- Uses security of L1 w/ cheaper scaling

- Vitalik said it’d take like 5 years of optimistic rollups before ZK rollups but now looking like straight to ZK rollups

- More gigabrain Cobie

Top Scams Ever

- 1. Poker guy knew the guy in god-mode and won legit every tournament

- Won like $250k

- 2. Joshua Tyler - installed a trojan on Doug’s computer and could see his cards

- Got investigated and Doug got his money back!

FINAL ALPHA

- Doug: “In life, you should always bet the biggest on yourself”

- “No one is going to work as hard as you or be as honest as yourself”

- “When you get opportunities to bet big on yourself, take them and you’ll never regret it”

Notes by Kevin

Music by GiovanniPickle