BETA25: Nils Smith, Crypto & The Church

You got Beta Show episode 25. Jeff here with The Church Digital. Once again, powered by Stadia Church Planning. I'm really excited about some of the stuff coming out of Stadia right now. We are working hard on helping plant digital-only churches. We've got about 20 planners going through Cohort right now, and some of them are the launch large model. I've got a guy that's wanting to plant a social media network. I've got another person that's co-vocational. He doesn't want to give up the day job. He wants to continue to do what he's doing and at the same time do digital ministry in a unique way. I've got another person that's coming in and getting started, and they're just wanting to experiment.

They're not even sure on this whole digital discipleship thing if it's really effective. As a matter of fact, in the next cohort that we're starting here in a month or so, I've got four ladies that are coming on to learn how to be digital planters, to learn how to be digital pastors. And so this is the heart of Stadia. We're helping people plant digital-only expressions of church. Excited about it. Some crazy stuff. Check out stadiachurchplanting.org slash digital. Actually, check out thechurch.digital slash planting. More resources there. Tons of information. Thechurch.digital slash planting. Hey, let's get into beta show here with episode 25. We're going to talk crazy, but it's a beta show, so we've got to spin it in and we've got to make it practical.

We're talking about cryptocurrency. We're talking about Doge. We're talking about Bitcoin. Ethereum. I don't even know what Ethereum is. NFTs. All of this crazy stuff that it's like, is this gambling? Is this for real? Is this legit? Is this a good thing? A, for the economy. What is this stuff and how does it operate? But B, what role should this stuff play in the church? How should our church be thinking about things like Doge? You may not even know what Doge is. I'll be honest. I own $150 of Doge and I'm not even really sure I know what Doge is. And this is why I wanted to do this conversation because I don't know. And I wanted to find somebody who could help me not only understand for myself and my family, but for the church.

And so I went to church futurist, Christian futurist, Nils Smith. And so Nils, no stranger to the podcast, been on quite a bit. No stranger to Ray and myself as well. He was very influential in both of our lives over the years. Loved the stuff that he's doing through Dunham and Company, helping consult with churches and organizations. Obviously, social media podcast, very popular. They've got a conference coming up, social media conference. So love the stuff that he's doing. But one of these conversations that I've had with Nils over the years is, what exactly is this cryptocurrency stuff? And it always was like the side conversation that we never actually spent time on. So it's like, hey, Nils, it's 2021.

Church has got to figure this out. Let's spend some time and talk on it. And so he's going to go into it explaining what Bitcoin, what Ethereum, what Doge actually is, what these NFTs are, how the church needs to respond in the midst of some of these things, and how we can take advantage of it for ministry purposes. It's not tech for tech, it's tech for ministry. And so what does that even look like? And so we're bringing in for the conversation Nils Smith from Dunham & Co. and all sorts of incredible things that he's doing. And of course, Ray DeArmis, as well as co-hosts, in a conversation that I'm simply calling Crypto and the Church. Okay, everybody, here you go. What is New York City like these days, coming out of COVID, mid, post-COVID?

Give us that New York City update. It's been such a hard year for you guys. Where are you right now? What does life look like in New York City? So my family just moved in New York City. We moved to a new neighborhood called Roosevelt Island. We're actually neighbors with Tim Keller, who I work with here in the city. And I say neighbors, we're in the building next to him. He's in a much nicer building than we are. But we, you know, New York City is, this is the best time of the year in New York City. The weather is great. People are out and about. The great thing is, is none of the rest of you people are here. So it's just us New Yorkers here. So we've got no tourists yet, really. I mean, you're starting to see them trickle in.

I went to a Yankees game a couple nights ago, 20% occupancy, just spread out, got comfortable. But Yankees fans still, it felt like about 150% occupancy the way you've got caged Yankees fans that are getting out and about. And so New York City is alive. July 1st is when the mayor says that we will officially open up fully. That's awesome. It's New York City without the tourism. Like I just, I can't even like. Yes. It's, you know, the sad thing though, is about 50% of small businesses have closed in the city of like, you know, bodegas and restaurants and, and especially the kind of mom and pop shops. So you, that's, you know, I think that's the core of what, what, what, one of the things that makes New York, New York.

It's a Broadway isn't yet open. Um, and, and you've seen, and it's just been sad to see a lot of these businesses that have been here for a hundred years, uh, that, that didn't make it through COVID and, and won't ever come back. Uh, but, but it's new things will come and new things will be birthed. And we, and we saw, you know, I talked to a pastor the other day. He estimates that about 30% of churches have closed down in New York city. Pastors have left. Um, and it's, you know, New York is a hard place to do anything. I was talking to a pastor friend, uh, who I went to the Yankees game with. Um, and, uh, he's a church planner and he basically, his church is gone. You know, he's replanting his church now.

And he, uh, he 60% of his congregation is gone, is, is no longer in New York city. And, um, and so it's just a, you know, we're, we're as, as affected as the rest of the country and world was New York city, probably, you know, um, most significantly in the U S but I think, you know, change creates opportunity too. And so whether, whether there's new business opportunity, there's new ministry opportunity. And, uh, we, we love, um, we love being, being here in the city and we love, uh, I've had the privilege of stepping in and serving, serving my church Hillsong, uh, in this season and, and, and excited for, we've got a new pastor coming in and, uh, moving here from Australia. And he's got four daughters.

And so we've got two daughters. So we've been kind of getting our families together and, uh, and just, you know, seeing life as, as somebody new from a new country, moving to New York city and helping them has been a fun experience as well. And, and things that you, as an American, uh, don't think, you know, like you, we don't, we don't realize that everybody doesn't think like us, uh, and how we do things and things that are, don't make sense to other people. Uh, so it's been fun. Um, but, and I'm just, I, I feel like I'm pinching myself in this season because it's, God's been good to our family. There's an interesting conversation that I want to have here, uh, because there's this idea of, of cryptocurrency.

We're talking Bitcoin. We're talking, do I pronounce it dog, doggy, dog gay, like, okay. So look, I own $150 of Doge and I don't even know how to pronounce it. That is the level of introduction that we're coming in here talking about cryptocurrency, um, and the church. And so for that conversation, I wanted to bring in Neil Smith, uh, Neil Smith, who is talking about Dodge and Doge. And I just said sniff. That's a little weird. I just wanted to call it out publicly. We'll leave it in though. Uh, Neil Smith, um, Doge, uh, who's a futurist, uh, and we've had him on the podcast several times and he's always, it was always a pleasure. And he has tried several times to explain to me this whole cryptocurrency type stuff.

And, um, I, it was always been like a side conversation. Like, yeah, yeah, yeah. Okay. Let's get back on topic. Well, it's like, well, it's actually legitimately have the conversation and figure it out. And I know there are other, I know there are churches that are wrestling with what to do with this cryptocurrency type things. Like there are some that, Hey, let's just take it as a, as let's set up a structure so that people can give. So if they do want to give, we can receive the, the, the tithe or the offering. And I know that there are some churches that are far more aggressive. So we even want to talk about maybe some of the strategies behind that. Uh, so that's the heart of the conversation you're digging in with, uh, you know, Ray, of course, and, and Nils, but the, the heart of this, and let me just open this up because I, I, and there's even some of this stuff that, that I, I do not understand.

Like, okay. So specifically just to start off, be basic. What is, what, what is cryptocurrency? What is this stuff that we're actually buying? Is there anything that we're actually buying? What is it? So I think, and I'll, I'll, I'll try to break it down. It's, it's still, uh, it's still so difficult to, to, to explain, but at the core, it's digital money. It's digital currency. And I think then what people go to is, isn't our money already digital? And theoretically we are transacting it digitally, uh, but it does still exist physically it's printed. Uh, and then we, we transact, you know, a digital representation of that printed money. And, uh, and, and so what makes it digital is how it's then stored.

It's stored on the blockchain, which is the technology that you'll hear. Um, and, and so it is basically money that's minted, uh, on this blockchain and then it's transacted. And all of those transactions stay within that, that platform that, that, that ledger. Um, and I think what's different in the other language you often hear around cryptocurrency is it's decentralized. And so banking currently and money is transacted on a centralized server, um, and a centralized system of a bank where a decentralized system means it's a bunch of different machines that are processing the transactions. And so if one goes down, it's still stored on the other thousand machines and it, it doesn't, it isn't dependent on one server.

And so there's a lot of technology parts that in many ways, nobody really needs to understand. Uh, what you need to understand is it's secure, it's stable, it's, you know, uh, exponential in many ways of it. We almost couldn't be here because technology wasn't ready for this historically. I think we all knew everything has been digitized. Blockchain technology though has now created the technology infrastructure that makes sense for money to now be fully digitized. And, uh, so that's, that's essentially what's happening, but, but you're now see Bitcoin, Dogecoin, a bunch of digital currencies, digital money, uh, have been created just like there's us dollars and there's euros and there's pesos and there's, you know, you can, the list can go on of all the, the physical, you know, or the, you know, uh, I'd say country, uh, based currencies that are created.

These are now internet based currencies, uh, that, that are being created in the land of the internet, uh, which is what in many ways we all live in. And I say the technology is not important. The reality is, is who really knows how the internet works? You know, like we know that we have a computer that connects to the internet, which connects us to each other. And some of us get into the weeds of understanding servers and, and, you know, how the data is stored and then, you know, how we pull that. But most people just know, I go to google.com, I search in that search bar and this pulls up and it works and we trust it and it gets faster. It gets better. It's improved through the years. And that's what's happening with blockchain technology.

It's a new technology system, uh, that's being used, but at the core it's a digital money. Uh, so you could almost basically say us dollars and you could say Bitcoin and their function is the same. It's just a different, uh, paper or digital stored on a central server, you know, transaction or on a decentralized blockchain. So I hope that's a bunch of words, uh, being brought together. Uh, but yeah, that's, that's cryptocurrency. Yeah, I think so. I think I'm getting it, but like, so decentralized is interesting to me. I understand the benefit of it not being in the centralized system, safer, decentralized and centralized, I would think. Insured, I'm guessing FDIC is somewhat involved in this.

That might be another conversation, but my real question would be, um, so I, I literally, I bought, I'm not kidding. The other night I bought 150 doge coin at like, or $150 worth of doge coin. I think I bought it at 65 cents. And of course it dropped to 60 cents immediately. So I've already lost money. Hey, congratulations on the gamble of life. You're a loser. Right. Um, but like, so if I invest in Intel, if I invest in Apple, like I'm watching Apple's product release, I'm, I'm reading, you know, news reports of what Apple is and I'm seeing how that's influencing other buyers, which is watching the stock go up and down. I've literally invested $150 into doge. I, I, I, who owns doge? Where did doge come from?

Like what, what actually is this thing? So, so I think what you're with the mistake you're making here is you're comparing a currency to a stock. And the reality is you'd actually be better comparing those to a U S dollar. So if you were to go get a hundred U S dollars and then you just put those aside and then how much are those U S dollars worth in a year? Well, the, the, they're still worth a hundred dollars, but the question really is, is if I were to exchange it for pesos or if I were to exchange it for euros, what would my exchange rate be? And so doge is basically an, it's a currency. And so what's the exchange rate for us dollars is really what is changing is the currency is just the currency.

And so the question of the value is what the exchange rate is in the exchange rate is, is changing because of demand and how many people want doge at any given time. And that's typically driven by news. And so Mark Cuban has said, we're going to accept doge for tickets for Dallas Mavericks games. Well, that then creates like, Oh, this actually has a function so I can use it. And now it's worth more. Or Tesla has said, we accept Bitcoin for Tesla purchases. Well, you can now use that for more. And in many ways, people would rather have a, and so here's the reality of the U S dollar, U S dollar. If you buy a hundred, you go and get a hundred physical U S dollars today, you're almost guaranteed that a year from now, it's going to be worth a little bit less.

That exchange rate is going to drop, but Bitcoin continues to increase because, you know, there's lots of different logical reasons, but I think we know fiat currency is probably going away. Digital currency is where things are going. It's a matter of which one is going to catch on. It's a matter of how quickly it catches on. Uh, but it is not a stock with something represented at the bottom of it. It is just a currency as a representation of value for exchange. Does that make sense? Yeah. As a general rule though, we've not seen like, I mean, you mentioned the Mavs, you mentioned, um, uh, Tesla, like it's few and far between. I can't walk into seven 11 and buy a Coke with, um, Bitcoin or something like that.

So it's, it's not quite accepted yet, but we're, we're seeing more of a trend towards that direction to get it more accepted. Yeah, absolutely. And if you use the cash app, you can actually use it and it will show you which, um, which stores will accept, uh, Bitcoin now, uh, through the cash app. And it's, it's fantastic that, I mean, I think McDonald's actually accepts Bitcoin now and, uh, there are different things. And so the cash app is actually doing the exchange for you. And so they're actually paying them in USD. Uh, but they've created that kind of automation within their, within their system, uh, for those, those companies. And so, uh, you are seeing, uh, that, that integration, the challenge really, Jeff, is that it's, it's still very volatile is the word that you'll often hear, meaning the value is constantly changing.

The exchange rate is changing so fast that where the U S dollar, you buy a hundred dollars, it's going to maybe be worth what would be equivalent to $99 today. It's not going to rapidly drop to like worth $80 and then $120 and then $72. And then, and that's what's happening with Bitcoin. And a lot of cryptocurrencies right now is they're, they're bouncing all over the place. And you don't, people don't net generally want a currency, uh, that's, that's not stable. I think what, what really makes a country stable is stability of their currency, um, and the value of that money that's being backed by that government. And so we, we haven't yet found that in cryptocurrency, but the more it's used and the more it's integrated, the more stable it will naturally become.

And because Bitcoin has become the most popular and the most publicly, you know, used and being integrated, uh, that's where you've seen the value of Bitcoin grow most significantly and probably stability, uh, become most, uh, consistent, uh, with, with Bitcoin. You know, the, the crazy factor, Jeff, that, that continues to be exist with Bitcoin is we don't even know who created Bitcoin, which is just mind blowing. When you, when you think about like, we know who created the U S dollar, we know where it's printed. Uh, Bitcoin was created by, uh, a fictional character, um, and, uh, and probably multiple people, uh, that, that created it together on the internet anonymously and now have essentially disappeared on the internet.

And, uh, so to, to basically have our entire economic system, uh, built on something that we don't even know who created, uh, is, is, is probably the most bizarre fact of cryptocurrency, but, uh, but it's, it, the adoption rate continues to grow so rapidly. And one of the things that I've really enjoyed seeing is the excuses as to why this isn't the future is B are becoming less and less. Mark Cuban was kind of opposed to it. He's now fully in, uh, you're even seeing, um, Oh, Bill Gates has recently said, like, I fully buy into the cryptocurrency. It's just the, the, uh, environmental issues of mining machines and what that means for cryptocurrency. And so it's essentially just the, the, um, Warren Buffett is kind of the one holdout, uh, of, of, of opposition to, uh, to cryptocurrency, but yeah, it, it really is a phenomenon that that's growing, uh, so fast.

And, and it, it, it's more a matter of when, uh, than if, and, uh, and how, uh, and what currency really becomes those key cryptocurrencies. I'm believing, and there's a lot of rumors that the U S is going to admit what they call the fed coin, uh, in the next couple of years. And, uh, time will tell China has kind of minted their, uh, cryptocurrency now. And so we're, we'll see what, uh, what the future holds, uh, for, for cryptocurrency. So Nils, let's get to the brass tacks of it all. Should pastors be afraid of cryptocurrency? Yeah. So it's a good question. You heard him. He said, yes, he said, yes, the question. And he said, yeah, he said the thing, he said the thing run away. No, I'm kidding.

We're good. So one, I, you know, and I heard somebody, uh, ask like, is this one world currency? Is this sign of the times? I think you can go down these paths of sign of the times. We could debate theology and, uh, different points of, I just don't know. The pastor should be that scared of the times. Um, and, and what that really means, but, but I do think that practically there, there are some alignment, you know, if you were to read into that, uh, the reality is we're talking about money here, you know, we're talking about, are we talking about paper money or digital money? And if people want to, you know, from a church perspective, if they want to give in digital money versus physical money, churches fought for years of like, no, you've got to pass the plates.

We don't want to take credit cards because there's transaction fees, or we don't want to take credit, you know, whatever it might be because Dave Ramsey said, we don't take credit cards. Well, the reality is if people want to give in this way and that's how they transact money. I mean, think about how ridiculous it would be for a church today to say, we're still, we're going to not do credit cards, um, because we're opposed to digital transactions, um, for whatever reason or transaction fees or whatever that might be. What the reality is, I think where, where churches need to, and just to be definitive of where I think it fits into churches today, it's, it's money and it's money that people have and that often people want to give because they're, they're at the end of the day right now, if somebody, just like they give stocks to the church, they have, if they liquidate it first and then they have capital gains on that, they have to then pay the taxes on those capital gains and then give less to the nonprofit.

But if they give it directly to the nonprofit, the nonprofit gets more value out of it. And so people want to donate their crypto to nonprofits, uh, because they've made, some of them have made a lot of value, um, growth on, on that digital currency. And so I think every church in America should be, or in the world, I guess, uh, should be ready to accept cryptocurrency as a donation form. One of the things that's interesting guys that, that, uh, so I work with in given is one of those platforms that accepts it. And I'm a big fan of, uh, so my little plug there, uh, but it, it is, uh, it's a free platform by the way, uh, for anybody to use. And they just take a 4% exchange, you know, transaction fee.

Uh, but it is a, uh, uh, the average donation in Bitcoin right now is $7,000, $7,000, a church, uh, that signed up a couple of weeks ago, uh, that I was talking to, uh, they, within their first week, they signed up, they just kind of put it in an email. Uh, by the way, we, we now accept cryptocurrency. If anybody is interested in donating a cryptocurrency had a hundred thousand dollar gift immediately. Uh, that person probably would not have donated had they not have even let them know and made that available, uh, to their church. And so I think where you start is you, you just get ready to accept it. Just like you should be ready to accept credit cards. I think we still at Hillsong, we encourage people to donate through direct deposit, not credit cards, because we don't want to pay a transaction fee, but if they prefer to, we're going to be ready to receive that because that's the availability we want to make available to how people are doing transactions.

And I think crypto is something that people are beginning to do more and more of. So at the least, I think we're ready to receive it. The thing that I don't think churches need to do is they don't need to be holding cryptocurrency. Uh, cryptocurrency is, is very, uh, it's a, it's a gamble in many ways. And, and I think people donate to your church, not so that you can gamble with their money. They donate to your church that you can use it for ministry. And so I think because Jeff, to your point earlier, people don't, uh, you can't use Bitcoin to buy a lot of things. So when somebody gives you Bitcoin, turn that into USD, turn that into Canadian dollar, turn that into whatever your, your local currency is and use that for ministry.

Um, and so you don't want to sit on crypto at this point. What I do see happening down the road is that, uh, is that I think crypto exchange globally, as you think about sending missions dollars overseas, crypto is going to eliminate, uh, Western union and some of these global exchanges, because now we can digitally send funds overseas instantaneously without, or with minimal transaction fees. And so as we digitize currency, it's, it's really this global economy that's being developed. The digital currency just funds, just like the internet connected us to the global information highway. Um, blockchain is going to connect us to this kind of global financial highway. And so it's, um, anyways, that's, there's lots of paths, but I think very simply churches just need to be ready to receive it, convert it and use it for ministry purposes.

And it's that simple at this point. So good. And I loved it. You just unpacked so much for us there, Nils. I kind of want to take it piece by piece. First of all, in given I'm a big fan. Why should churches not be afraid of in given considering their 4% charge? You know what I'm saying? As opposed to, oh man, what if we wanted to open up our own Bitcoin wallet or something along those lines? Because some churches, once they see that charging fee, you're absolutely right. But I completely agree with you. It's, you have to take it in like an asset and transition it to you. As soon as possible. And in given does that for churches. So, uh, not to plug it too much, but talk through that as far as why churches need to look at it through this way.

Yeah. So, you know, actually the way the, the given platform works to, to get into the weeds of it is, is they actually, it's a free platform. And so they help you set up a digital wallet to receive the cryptocurrency where they take their, their fee is in the exchange from the cryptocurrency to USD. So you could actually keep it in that digital wallet and not be charged. And you could use it, uh, and send it and, and, you know, keep it in Bitcoin or keep it in Ethereum or whatever cryptocurrency that somebody donated in. Um, and so it's in the exchange rate that, um, that, that transact, that the transaction fees are taken. Uh, and that's a reality. Anytime you do any kind of, you know, digital exchange, you're going to have an exchange rate.

Um, I think time will tell of what, how you functionally do it. I think in givens model will probably change over time as, um, cryptocurrency, you know, uh, develops and changes. And, and the truth is, is people don't need to exchange it into USD and they can keep it in that digital currency form for use more significantly. And so the, the value of in given, uh, at this point, from my perspective is the ease of use is I don't think a pastor needs to go down the road that I, I mean, I spent hours and hours a week learning more and more about blockchain technology. And, you know, all of these things so that a pastor doesn't have to spend all their time learning. A pastor doesn't need to know the ins and outs of bitcoins.

I think they need to understand foundationally how it works, just like they don't need to understand how the internet fully works, but they need to know how they can best use it. And so I think that, that in given makes it easy for a church. It literally takes about 15 minutes from what I've heard to create, sign up your form, you know, fill out your information, put in your tax ID number, and then they, they basically set up your form to take cryptocurrency and then they give you a little donation back in portal, just like you would have for push pay or PayPal or any other kind of transaction platform. So it's, it's really simple. And I think that's, that's what churches, churches want to like overcomplicate things and they want to complicate things sometimes.

And they want to fully understand some things. And I think there's wisdom and understanding, but I think there's also wasted time in, in getting into the weeds of everything. And so I think this is one of those situations where it's not necessary to know all the ins and outs of cryptocurrency and blockchain. But man, if somebody wants to donate a hundred thousand dollars to your church, please don't let the complete, the, the confusion limit somebody's generosity. Because the reality is what they're going to end up doing otherwise is they have to liquidate it. They got to pay 50% taxes and then they're going to give you half the amount in, in USD or whatever the fiat currency that they have exchanged it to.

And then your ministry, you know, is getting half the gift to use for ministry impact. So this is not taxed that the, the, the donate, like unpack that. Yeah. So it's, it's like stocks, you know, so, so there's a reason why people don't want to get donate stocks to a church, uh, rather than, uh, donating, um, you know, whatever, you know, rather than selling the stock and get in the cash value. So they can still get basically the, in some ways the, the tax write-off, uh, but they, uh, yeah. So if you, if you liquidate, you know, if you sell stocks, you've got to pay capital gains taxes on that. Well, Bitcoin, a lot of people that bought it earlier sitting a lot of Bitcoin, the second they liquidate that and turn that into USD, they're paying capital gains taxes on all of that profit from the exchange rate, uh, you know, profit on their, on their Bitcoin from when they bought it.

But if they donate it to the church, the church being a tax exempt organization is not paying taxes when they liquidate it. And so the church then, or the, you know, whatever ministry it is, is getting the full, uh, value of that currency rather than having to pay those, the capital gains taxes. Does that make sense? Totally. Now, it gets, you get into a lot of weeds of taxes that I don't fully understand, but, but that's the basics of, of how. Yeah. Please, uh, listening audience consult your CPA or your C, uh, F O or whoever handles your finances. Uh, we are recreational, uh, financial people here. Uh, so the volatile nature, I mean, so I, I'm not, I bought Dodge doggy, doge, doge, doge. I bought doge, uh, on, on a, on a Monday or a Tuesday, 48 hours later, I've lost 10%.

Uh, and so I, I bought it the wrong time and it's going the wrong way. Uh, you know, a little bit of gambling. We may get into that here in a little bit. Does this volatile nature, is this going to slow down? Like, cause, cause you're right for, so why is it so volatile now and what needs to happen for it to slow down? You know, I, I think that, um, yeah. And if you think about like early days of the internet of you, you kind of have this like dot-com boom where everything took off and then, and then it kind of, just crashed. And then people thought this is the end of the internet and, and then, you know, it just, and then it kind of then picked back up. And so you have what's happening right now.

And you kind of had this happen a couple of years ago when Bitcoin really caught a huge wave and it exploded and then it seemingly crashed. And so people like, Oh, Bitcoin's dead. Well, then it's kind of slowly kept growing and growing and growing and maturing and maturing. And so we've now seen this second, well, it's really kind of a third wave, but it's the second big public wave of what's happening with cryptocurrency. And so many more, I think what's really happening is so many more, uh, traditional trusted entities are getting into cryptocurrency. So as you see now Chase, you know, JP Morgan Chase getting into crypto a little bit, you see, you know, Tesla holding, you know, a billion dollars in, in, uh, Bitcoin.

Uh, you, you, you see, you know, entities that are trusted now leaning into and basically giving credibility to cryptocurrency, uh, which is now created an, the next wave, you know, the prediction is that September 28th is what a lot of, you know, people are estimating of when we're going to see the next crash based on trends. Who knows? Uh, I think what's when, when it comes to just economics and, and volatility, it's hard to understand. Uh, but, but at the end of the day, it's time, you know, I think, I think time is what will create, uh, clarity as to what will happen, you know, a couple of years ago, anybody could just create their own money and the SEC had no idea how to regulate it. The, you know, I think the SEC is still trying to figure out how to regulate all of this, you know, all of it is still, uh, and I think part of the problem is the technology has moved faster than the government.

And we're seeing this in the internet with security, you know, and data privacy that, that, that social media moved faster than the government regulations did. And these, these social network, social media companies were unregulated essentially for so many years. Well, now the power, you know, they're, they're almost more powerful than the government. And so how can the government now they'll just go somewhere else, uh, to, to hold their data. And I think we're seeing this and that's a whole different conversation we could, we could have around data security, but, but you're seeing similar around the financial industry and sector is this technology that was kind of blown off as a joke has now caught, moved so quickly, uh, that, that I think that regulation is, is unclear.

And I, and I think until I think govern governance is needed, governance is needed on the internet governance is needed in, in financial, you know, entities. And, and that's, and that's, what's not real defined at this point. And so that's, what's becoming that that's what I think is beginning to develop. And I think once we have defined here, kind of the, the, the rules of blockchain and cryptocurrency and how this actually, uh, will work, um, rather than it being self-regulated, I think that clarity will add the, the stability that, that you're, you know, I think most people are really looking for, uh, but it's, it's still wild, wild west. And it's still a lot of people like, man, I wish I would have gotten in then we're still very early days, you know, and this is just like when people were like, Oh, I wish I would have gotten into social media when, when my space first started.

But now since I've already got my top eight decided, I'm already too late into, I can't ever get anybody's top eight. Um, and so I might as well not even worry about social media. Well, Facebook hadn't even been created yet. You know, like those are early days of social media. This is early days of cryptocurrency. Um, and it's, you know, I think it feels like the wild, wild west cause it is. Um, and, uh, but, but I think it's, you know, this is where it's going and we'll just have to see what happens. Yeah. And being that it's the early days, that's where a lot of this is fascinating because that means that we might not have even arrived at what's going to be the name brand cryptocurrency. Correct?

Yeah. I mean, you, you see the, the, one of the technologists that I really love to follow, um, uh, blanking on his name, but he's, he's one of the, you know, early Facebook employees and, uh, but he's, you know, he's the owner of the Golden State Warriors, but he talks about how he's a better on the winner. So he bet on Amazon, he bet on Uber. He, you know, he's kind of like, there's always a winner, uh, in, in the space, he bet on Facebook and the social, social, you know, media world. And, and he, he's a better that Bitcoin is going to run away with this. Well, the reality is, is, is that's his guess. You know, I think there's a, there's a, there's a lot of people that think Ethereum, uh, which has a lot more utility and function is going to run away with it.

A lot of people say Bitcoin is like gold and Ethereum is like silver. It's people's opinions. It's, it's people's guesses. You know, I think when you think about money, the U S dollar is only a few hundred years old. Money is thousands of years old, you know, of when, since we've been using currencies, money changes and, and, and the, and the way, the way economies work change. And so it's, um, it's so undefined and unclear, but I will say that Bitcoin, um, continues to have the most development built around it and, uh, name recognition that it is hard to imagine into the day today that Bitcoin will be overturned as the most predominant cryptocurrency. But you know what things, you know, it would, it was, it would have been hard to predict that my space wasn't going to own social media for the eternity of social social, you know, the realm of social media.

And even today, I think we're in a place where Facebook is losing trust and where it looked like Facebook might could never be overthrown. TikTok comes along and has a billion users overnight, it seems. And so we really like these spaces in the day that we live in, things change and can change so fast that, that it's, it's, I think it's impossible for anybody to really predict where it's going. And I think it's impossible to say, you should just do this. Uh, this is the right way to approach cryptocurrency. It's all opinions at this point. Uh, but, but I think, I mean, I think where, where I continue to lean is, uh, and where I see it developing is blockchain technology is not an opinion of whether this is an emerging technology that's going to be foundational for the future of finances.

Now, I think blockchain, as people are learning, can be used for a lot of other functions as well. And so, yeah, I mean, I think, I think though, we, we have to wait and see what happens. Um, Jeff, to come back to your, your question around Dodge, Doge, do you know, whatever coin, I'm not a believer in Dogecoin. Uh, I, I, uh, selling Dogecoin now. Okay. Let me, let me press that sell button a little early. I think, I think, I think you could sit on it for a little bit. I think, I think because of the brand popularity of it, um, it's going to, it's going to be a collector's item in many ways is what my prediction for Dogecoin will be. I think it's going to go up over a dollar soon. That's my personal prediction.

Uh, I'm sitting on some Doge, uh, but I am not counting on it being the future of money. Uh, that, that's for sure. Uh, but, but I don't, you know, we, we really don't know. Uh, and, and nobody would have predicted that Doge would have had the run that it, that it, it has had, and I think, uh, there's, there's a lot of other, you know, things that are, you know, coming along. And, uh, I, I think what, what's really intriguing to me to see is, is will governments create their own cryptocurrencies or will they create structures around existing cryptocurrencies? Facebook tried to, tried to create their own cryptocurrency and Libra, which is now branded something else, which it really hadn't even taken off or, you know, I don't, I don't even know where that, where that sits today, but it was Facebook was going to have their own money.

You know, if you remember that conversation a couple of years ago, um, and, and so there's, there's a lot of, and I, I thought that's, that this makes sense to me, you know, like this is, these are bringing together a lot of financial institutions, Facebook lost trust in, in data privacy and, in kind of their intentions. Um, and so, yeah, we, there's a lot we don't know, uh, uh, towards the future, but man, it's, I, I think we're in a fun day, uh, that, that we can, um, yeah, see things developing, uh, but, but the end result, we really have no idea where this is all going. Yeah. I would love to take advantage of the time that, that we've got here, but NFTs is like a whole other thing. And we were, we were, we were kind of talking about it off air where like in talking about like collector's items and things like that, the NBA is selling video clips of, of like basketball shots and you can invest money into owning exclusively owning a clip.

Like some of this stuff and we, I don't, I don't get it. I don't understand. So talk to us a little bit about NFTs and, and I got to imagine there's a way that the church can connect even with, with stuff like this. So talk, what's an NFT? Yeah. So, so NFTs stands for non-fungible tokens. Uh, I, I'm gonna let you just YouTube non-fungible tokens to, to understand definition of non-fungible tokens. But, but at the core it's, it's a, um, it's basically a tracking number. You know, if you, if you were to think about like everything you get has a, has a unique tracking number and the blockchain is the technology that, that keeps a transaction. And what you, what you hear, uh, associated to non-fungible tokens is, is it's, it's a smart contract.

And so it uses the blockchain to, to basically keep track or ledger of every time that an item, a digital item is transacted of who owns it. So it could be that I own it and it, my name is on that ledger. And then I traded to you, Jeff, and then that's in the ledger. And then Jeff, you traded to Ray, and then he owns it in the ledger. And then he trades it back to me or sells it back to me. And that's in the ledger. And so that proof of ownership is in state on the blockchain. Well, the same thing's happening with cryptocurrency. Every Bitcoin kind of has a ledger. It's exchanged from this person to this person. And everyone is tracked on the blockchain and it's staked. And so you're trading it.

Uh, what's actually happening in cryptocurrency. It's actually broken down to fractions of Bitcoins are, are then traded and stored on the blockchain from a ledger standpoint. And so that NBA is doing basically basketball cards, where if you think about when I grew up, you know, I would get a, a Michael Jordan basketball card and they would say one of 20,000. You would, we had no idea where there's 20,000 cards went. We just knew there were 20,000 made. We had no idea if somebody else, you know, just like they print fake money. Sometimes there's somebody printed fake basketball cards. Well, with the blockchain, we can actually know who, who exactly owned it, when they owned it, when they sold it, how much they sold it for.

And so this, these smart contracts allow for that trackability. And, um, and, and then there's value associated to that. The other, you know, one of the things that's been popular is art. And so Beeple is this popular artist who, who's basically selling JPEGs and one of them sold for $69 million and people think, why it's a JPEG. I can just look at it on my computer screen. Why is it worth $69 million? Well, because he proof of ownership and now he could sell it for, you know, now they're estimating that's worth over a hundred million dollars today. Uh, that, that proof of ownership, because it's one of one and only in, in, in that proof of ownership is, is really valuable in, in the, in the world of collectors.

And so I own some, some baseball signatures that I have a certificate of authenticity and that certificate makes that signature worth a lot more because it's proof that it wasn't faked. Um, well, the blockchain is actually much more provable, uh, from, from just a long-term, you know, authenticity, uh, you know, establishing that authenticity. I think collectibles are where we're seeing this begin. Just like we saw cryptocurrency and finances on the blockchain, uh, being an initial, you know, function of NFTs, non-fungible tokens, where the, the token is that representation of what's being exchanged. And, uh, but, but we're seeing things like tickets, you know, anytime you go to a baseball game, you know, I just went to Yankees game in the future, that will be a non-fungible token where I buy that token for that ticket on that game for that day in that seat.

And then I always have that token to represent when I went to that game, or I could sell that token to somebody else who could use that to get into that game. And that's my ticket, my token. Instead of, instead of using, you know, ticket master who then sells it on StubHub and all these other platforms, you, you do it on the blockchain. Um, and so it's, it's, that's where you get into decentralization and that kind of thing. So it's, it's a, it's basically like a serial number that's tracked on this ledger of all time transactions of what happens and it, and it creates stability of tracking at the end of the day, uh, in a decentralized way. And so it, some of those like decentralization, you, you, you, that's where it gets a little complicated, uh, but, but really just understanding a ledger, you know, I think is the key thing of just, we're just monitoring transactions in a very stable and secure way.

You know, I can think of maybe some opportunities, you know, with church plannings, we, we deal a lot with like fundraising, helping people fundraise. I could see where maybe this NFT or something like that, because it represents an experience or it represents, um, something unique where that could be used in a way to like help fundraise and help an organization startup or something like that. Are there other applications? And I may be talking out of cheek here, but, uh, other ways to, to utilize this NFTs in the church, have you guys heard of anything? You know, I, I've yet to hear of anything, but, but one of the things that I, I, I've been dreaming up, uh, here in this NFT world is, is one of the things that's interesting about how a lot of people are doing NFTs is they're putting it in and Gary Vaynerchuk is, you know, somebody that I follow closely is releasing an NFT where every time it's exchanged, he gets 10% of every exchange.

So typically if like the Yankees sold me a ticket, they only get the ticket price the one time that I buy it from them. And then StubHub gets the money where the reality is if StubHub then sells it to, or if I sell it to you, then they're going to get 10% of whatever fee I sold it to you for. So they also got the original a hundred dollars, then 10% of the $110 I sold it to you for. And so every time it's exchanged, it's, they get a piece of the pie. And so you think about something that an artist might create a piece of art, digital art, and they want, you know, 10% of all transactions to go to their church every time it's sold. And so it's almost like a, an asset that keeps giving to its church forever, you know, for the lifetime of that digital asset for whoever it has value to, uh, in any future exchanges.

And so I think there's some interesting, um, opportunities there. I think at this point it's, it's kind of in the weird phase of what, what is this? Where's it going? Um, what, what happens? I, you know, I, I, I definitely, um, have thought about, you know, experiences are integrated in, but I think even in the church world, you get into this, are you giving a better seat to this person? Because it gave more money and it, it definitely gets a, uh, some of it gets a little weird in the, in the church space. And I think sometimes we, we, I want to try too hard to integrate technology into churches and NFTs are one of those things that I do think that, that we need to be paying attention to because culturally it's becoming a significant part of, um, of our world.

But, but I don't know that it, um, it has a, a significant place. You know what? I actually do have an idea. Uh, so here, here's where I have the idea. Well, I mean, like, go ahead. Cause I, I want to even push back on what you said, but go, you go first. Well, one NFT that's out there that that's really interesting to me is, is a place called, um, uh, uh, Decentraland. Uh, so Decentraland is like second, second, uh, what is it? What was it called? Second, uh, second life. Yeah. So it's like this virtual land and you can literally buy land plots of land in Decentraland. And, and then they're going for like a hundred thousand dollars. Uh, it's a, it's this crazy thing, but you can literally go in virtual reality and it's, uh, it's this virtual land.

And people are creating little dirt digital museums. That's where the people's art is going to be displayed in Decentraland in a virtual museum, um, that that's the only place you can go to see it. And you can literally charge tickets to go into this space. I think we get into this weird of a living only in digital life. Uh, but I think a church could buy, uh, or you could buy and donate to your church, a plot of land in Decentraland and make it a gospel experience, like a museum of the Bible type of experience in Decentraland where people could go and have virtual experiences or virtual church experiences in, uh, Decentraland. And so I, I think, you know, I, I think there are some weird things out there, but I think there's also, as we, uh, I can't wait to see like what DJ Soto did with VR church.

And there's some creative people out there that are going to think of some creative ideas, uh, to, to use NFT. And there's going to be some people that come up with some ridiculous ideas, but we've got to try some ridiculous things sometimes to get to some really good ideas. And I get excited about, um, those people that are willing to go first, even if they feel ridiculous and people make fun of them. Uh, I remember when we started online church, you know, it was just like, we were heathens and we were, uh, you know, we didn't believe in Jesus anymore because we believed in the church on the internet. And, you know, and I think there's, there's going to be people that see it as ridiculous. Um, but out of that is going to come genius and it comes some unique and exciting new ministry opportunities though.

I can't wait to see it. I, I can't conceptualize it yet though, Jeff, I, I want, I want to get there. You know, it was funny. DJ Soto, uh, has, has called Doge, uh, his, uh, retirement fund. I've had that conversation with him a couple of times. I would not, I would not put a retirement fund there. Yeah. Yeah. Maybe it's a startup. I don't know. Uh, but he's, he's done very well, uh, initially through Doge, uh, Jade, Jade, honestly, I'm not sure Jade Earhart, which platforms here, which, um, what's the term, which, uh, which coin or coin. Thank you. Yeah. Which coin he's using. Um, but he's, I mean, he's, he's funding his, his livelihood off of this. We tried to get both these guys on the podcast and just had a number of scheduling conflicts.

Jade, go ahead. Quick crypto story. Um, my daughters, um, my, my daughter, so we got a light coin is, is a cryptocurrency. We've got a light coin mining machine. I call it my digital printer and you, you basically, you turn it on and it, it, you know, helps create the transactions and runs the blockchain and, uh, and it will give you light coin in exchange. And so we've gotten about, you know, two point, uh, you know, about two light coin out of running it, uh, which is equivalent to about $600. It costs about $150 for the machine. Um, and, uh, and so my daughters, we spent a Saturday setting it all up and connecting it and, and getting on the, on the blockchain. And we, um, I told him, you know, if you help me set it up, I'll divide the profits with you.

And so I, I set them up a coin base account so I could just send them light coin every time we get payouts. And now, and, and so my, my, my youngest likes to spend her money. Uh, my oldest has been saving it. My, my, my daughter, my 11 year old now has over $200 in, in what she's got more than that now, uh, but she has doubled, not only has she taken the money she got from light coin, she has then doubled it in doing trades paying. She's now paying attention to what cryptocurrencies are doing well and making trades. And, uh, so she's now in the hundreds of dollars. I never, when I was 11, I don't think I even had cash yet. You know, I think I had my chain, my piggy bank still, and she's trading cryptocurrency.

She also, she got $20 for her, for her birthday. Uh, not too long ago, she came straight to me with that $20 bill from her grandparents and said, Hey, can you just send this to me in Bitcoin? Um, and, uh, I'm, I'm pretty like exchange, uh, exchange person. She's now seeing though. She's like, I can let my money make more money, you know, being over here. But I'm telling you, if my eight year old and my 11 year old can figure out cryptocurrency, uh, using Coinbase and setting up a, a mining machine, uh, and they did it watching YouTube. I, I, I literally made them, you know, figure it out if I was going to share the profits with them and, uh, then you can figure this out. And it, and it, it's not that complicated.

So, uh, don't let an eight year old, uh, beat you in this, in this crypto game. Don't let an eight year old beat you in this crypto game. We're going to end on that note here, the church digital podcast. I can't think of a better note to end on. Hey, we're going to put some links in the show notes, uh, to some of these YouTube videos. And evidently I, and my family are going to have a weekend project. We're going to figure out, I don't even know what a mining machine is, but if I can do $150 to 600 in a short amount of time. Um, and I, and I love the idea of, of giving it to the kids and let them, you know, watch all the money, uh, that they invested in the doge disappear, which evidently I have done.

So awesome. Hey, uh, I've got, I've got a friend that's, um, that's in this and, and it's like, Hey, what, what's the biggest lesson, uh, that, that you're learning throughout through all this, uh, you know, the training and the cryptocurrency. And in his first, the one word he replied back with was regret. Uh, and so that's, that's not really encouraging. It's, you just gotta be on it. It's either going up or down. So, uh, but it's, it's awesome. So, uh, I don't know how to wrap that up with the church, but Garrett Silji, thank you for, for the wise words out there. The editor, uh, Garrett Silji is the guy's, yeah, crypto is, is full of regret. So, all right. Hey, uh, but this has been a great time.

Great, great conversation. Definitely something to be looking forward to. Um, you know, and it's, once again, it's very easy as we said, to get started into this. So we'll put links in the show notes to all of these things, um, as well as some of the resources and, and Nils social, uh, will be on there. Well, to be able to engage with and, and, you know, tell them all the money that you almost made and then, oh crap, I invested in the wrong coin. Uh, and, um, and we'll go from there. So thank you for this. Hey, Nils, we're landing the plane. Any closing thoughts? No, thanks for having me. Thanks for leading this conversation and leading the church forward in this digital age. So for, for Nils, for Ray, this is Jeff at the church, digital and stated church planning.

Thanks for, uh, jumping on the pod. See you next time here at the show. Y'all have a good day.