Trading Cryptocurrency with Rhys King

February 10, 2022

Expert CRE Secrets Podcast

“I do look at Bitcoin as more of a savings vehicle than then necessarily a trading instrument.”

An eCommerce Entrepreneur, Founder & CEO of Star Name Registry, Maps for Moments and Pick a Poem. He has a unique way of taking business concepts and turning them into enterprise-level realities. Star-Name-Registry.com and Mapsformoments.com were formed in 2014 out of my interest and passion for space. He employs 37 members of staff across our offices in Australia, the USA, and the UK.

Largely self-taught, he created his business with no more than a few hundred pounds in the bank and no professional help. He researched everything that he needed to know; from marketing, SEO, and website development, to managing finances, hiring staff, and running global operations. Skilled in eCommerce, logistics, marketing, sales, business development, and operational management, he has created companies that go against the corporate grain. He takes best practices and modernizes them. He focuses on creating vibrant and engaging workspaces where teams can learn and thrive. He places the customers and teams at the center of every strategic decision - never sacrificing on quality and always looking for ways to optimize our processes!

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Trading Cryptocurrency with Rhys King

Brett:

I’m excited about our next guest. At one point, he was heavily involved as a broker and a trader, and cryptocurrency. He's also launched multiple companies and he's like an entrepreneur, serial entrepreneur, and has tons of background in logistics, marketing, sales, business development, operational management, and I'm looking forward to diving into this conversation with Rhys and making sure I pronounce it correctly.

Rhys:

Yep, thanks for having me.

Brett:

Welcome to the show. For our listeners to get to know for the first time, would you give us a little bit more about your background and your current focus?

Rhys:

Thanks for having me. I got into e-commerce at quite a young age, around the age of 14, started on eBay, slowly learned how to create websites, graphic design, that sort of thing. Eventually, I got into personalized gifts, and that's when I moved to the capital of Wales, and from there, I started to trade a bit of crypto. I first heard about it must have been 2011, and at that point, I shrugged it off a little bit. Focused on the gift company, carried on my interest with crypto, and then as I started to make a bit bit more money, I got back involved with crypto again, and then it developed from there, and then when COVID hit, I was looking for an inflation hedge more than anything. I started looking at gold crypto and picked up from where I left off, and that's where I decided to really dive in, go down the rabbit hole, really learn a lot more about crypto, and that's what I'm now. The e-commerce company also did pretty well through COVID. Which again, has been a pretty big learning curve as well, to be honest.

Brett:

Thank you so much for sharing and I believe we've been given certain gifts and this life called superpowers, people call the strengths. I believe their God-given gifts, and they have given to us to be a blessing to others. I'm curious, what's the number one gift you believe you are given? And how does that help, how do you help and bless people today?

Rhys:

Being able to make money has probably always been something I've been really good at, and I'd say, the way I probably help people is quite heavily involved with a lot of charity. I give back a lot that's right at the center of everything I do, and pretty much everything I try and get involved with.

Brett:

I love that making money and being able to give back to charity are two good things. Why do you want to create? Well, there's so we can give and help more people. That's a beautiful thing. Let's dive right into the number one secret that you found trading, buying, and selling cryptocurrency?

Rhys:

I was overcomplicated at first. When I was a broker, I was in arbitrage trade and that kind of work at the time back in 2013. But to be quite honest with you, I think my strategy now is just DCA. Just buying consistently, periodically, and holding you. I've sold a little bit on some of the depths just to take a bit of profit. But I do look at Bitcoin as more of a savings vehicle than necessarily a trading instrument.

Brett:

I think it’s coming from your background as a broker for this. Because it's such a volatile market 2017 is kind of this massive amount of gains, and then it all fell apart for the most part. Given the federal coin you're on then you see this massive amount of run-up about five months ago, and now we've pulled back quite a bit as well, and so what’s been the biggest frustration regarding Capital Gains Tax either for the folks that you're helping or for yourself when it came to selling right because cryptocurrency is subject to Capital Gains Tax it's an asset. What was the biggest challenge that you found during that time period?

Rhys:

There are two sides to it, I think the biggest challenges are if you're going in and out of different currencies, you've got stable coins if you're putting fear into stable coins, you've got a taxable event there, and then as you go in and out of Bitcoin or any other cryptocurrency, then also those can be taxable events as well. I think on the flip side, if you time it right, you can end up with a way to deduct and bring down your capital gains tax bill. For example, with this crash, the tax year in the UK is around April. The fifth, that dip, allowed some people to sell a bit lower and then buy back in the new tax year, and utilize that.

Brett:

It's like guessing tax-loss harvesting and depending on your state or your country that you're in, they have different rules for that. I think the US has put a stop to that. But you could sell and then take that loss, and then immediately buyback and lo, and establish a new basis to run it back up, which is pretty, pretty awesome. Again, check with your CPA. We're not firing tax or legal advice. We want to make sure that's all aboveboard. What's the one thing you really learned? Besides savings? It's more of a savings account, and maybe not trying to work? The high lows? What was the one thing that shifted that mindset or the one thing that you really make sure you practice? when it comes to purchasing cryptocurrency?

Rhys:

Probably the main thing is just making sure I keep it secure. I just follow a strict periodic buy. If the price dips low, going off the fundamentals, the markets looking like it's a button, then I would always put in a larger amount. Be in general, it's just making sure it's secure and continues to DCA consistently. I just believe we're in an accumulation phase at the moment. Really want to hold on to it.

Brett:

Buying at the Dibs buying, well, long-term hold. It's like, treat it like a savings account. Essentially, you're not treating it like an investment account, although it is definitely an investment. But you're buying, you're putting your savings in their dollar-cost averaging in buying low, trying to run it up, and then obviously keeping it secure. What are just some best practices that you're using to keep it secure?

Rhys:

I use hardware wallets to keep it in cold storage offline. The most important thing is to not keep it on a third-party exchange. That being said, I do use some products where you can earn interest on your crypto. But again, I keep a relative split of maybe 5050. That kind of risk-reward is worth it, in my opinion, and obviously, when the price does dip, you've still got that kind of income coming from interest, which is quite competitive versus anything, obviously in the world at the moment.

Brett:

Keeping a third-party hardware wallet versus keeping on third-party exchanges, and for those who don't know what a hardware wallet is, would you explain that?

Rhys:

There's a couple of ways there's a couple of versions of offline wallets. But a hardware wallet, it looks like a USB device, or there's one called a cold card, which is like a low card reader, and essentially, what that does is keep the private key or password to the Bitcoin wallet offline completely. It never touches. Never goes online at all. As opposed to the opposite, with a hot wallet, which is online, and the actual company, a third-party company would own the password or private key to that wallet. You're putting your trust in that company rather than not doing anything.

Brett:

Right now, anyone to hack them as well. Because, it's like having the key in your pocket that can only open this safe and that key only safe, and it's not anywhere on the line to get the code. Is that a fair summary?

Rhys:

Exactly.

Brett:

Okay, and now there's like a Google Authenticator, or different other ways, versus the two-factor authentication where she's like a text on your phone, which by the way, there's a thing called SIM card swaps, or people heard have called cell phone companies posing as the person, and get the SIM card swapped over into their phone, and then they're able to get the two-factor identification basically stole your cell phone number, and then the text comes to them, and then they're able to get in, and that's for banking as well, which really surprising. I was at Wells Fargo, and they don't even have an option for the Google Authenticator. Which is not just a text message. They'd have to get your physical phone. They'd have to, face Id gets in, and then get into the Google Authenticator. Would you just talk a little bit about that, obviously hard? The USB cold card reader is the best. But talk about that next step with Google authentication. A little bit less.

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Rhys:

Google Authenticator, I mean, that’s primarily used for the online wallet. Usually, it's set up the security with having an email, it gets sent a code to, you'd have the Google Authenticator app, which adds another layer. Obviously, the scam that you mentioned, it's quite a sophisticated one. But it has been quite prominent at the moment.

Brett:

Kind of scary to think about that, even just for our bank accounts, and so I'm looking for if you recommend any bank accounts, that you would use that have that I got to look that up, bank accounts that, that, again, it's not just two-factor identification through a text message. It's through the Google Authenticator, which gives you another level of security. There is a particular bank account that you use to guard yourself there.

Rhys:

To be honest, I'm almost unbanked at the moment. I live pretty much with all my money in crypto. I use a bank called Starling in the UK, which is completely online. They haven't been around for too long, and again, I think where they've utilized technology, you can only use the app on your device without your actual device, someone would struggle greatly to get into your account.

Brett:

That's the interesting world so all right, so tell me a little bit about Starling or how you pronounce or what the name of the company that you're doing now, and what was the motivation you're such unique background and cryptocurrency and and and business development and all of these other things starting an e-commerce business, and so give me a little bit about star-name-registry.com. That's star-name-registry.com. What was the vision behind it, and how's it going?

Rhys:

That all started back in 2014. I've said I was involved with eCommerce for quite a while and I was looking for the right opportunity, the right product kind of thing, and really got me looking at personalized gifts. In particular, my aim was to end up with a gift company offering all sorts of different types of gifts, but primarily space. I looked at the best-selling gifts that came back to name a Star, where we created a Star Name Registry, and my vision with that was to take up really hot-selling products, and then create infrastructure. We sell enough to create infrastructure in Australia, America, Canada, where we've got distribution, we've got 24-hour customer service, and then my vision there was to expand our gift range once we had that in place, and used that hot selling gift to get our foot in the door, and so I was in a situation before starting the company where I had very low money.

I'd worked in a call center for quite a while, and I was just thinking, what can I do at this stage too, build a multi-million turnover company, and move above a post office. I could post as late as possible because everyone obviously likes to get their, orders pretty soon, and I kept a phone on 24/, and yeah, just offered 24-hour customer service, and then as I grew the company and took on staff, we kept that at the forefront of what we do, and now we're looking to expand into all different gifts. Star Name Registry is just one website of our gifts limited the company, we've got maps for moments and also pick a poem, and various other personalized gifts, then the main reason to stay in the personalized gift space, and to do that initially was that I sort of feel like it's harder for Amazon and other companies to come along and replicate the personalized gift sector, which gives us a bit more room to grow, and evolves in the space.

Brett:

Really cool. Really fascinating. I haven't seen anything quite like it, and again, you can check that out. You can go to Star-Name-Registry.com to check that out, and if you're watching on YouTube, I did a little screen share of his website. It's pretty unique. Let's stick to the part of the show where we're talking about different Capital Gains Tax, and so we're doing an Ethereum case right now and we're doing another Bitcoin case and another Etherium Case. Mostly those are the main ones that people are looking at the deferred sales trust. In fact, as of Friday, we officially founded the first Deferred Sales Trust via cracking. It is the one that officially opened up, it took us 60 days to get this account open because they were looking like, who are you guys like, what is this trust?

What does this do and for those who are listening for the first time that the first sale trust allows you to defer capital gains taxes on the sale of highly appreciated assets, such as cash, such as cryptocurrency, and this particular client, they bought it for a very low price, and it's worth like millions of dollars, and they're looking at a huge, huge Capital Gains Tax, and so we bring in the Deferred Sales Trust, they're able to transfer it to a brand new Deferred Sales Trust account with one of the exchanges, and then from there, they get a promissory note, they get the money paid back through it, and slowly and they pay tax overtimes, it's slowly but in the meantime, they can invest it in stocks, bonds, mutual funds, real estate, has a really cool way to take advantage of the highs without getting hammered by the tax. Now, this only works for us Capital Gains Tax, there might be something in the UK. But this is interesting. I'm just curious what your thoughts are on that, or maybe friends or family or people that you worked with that might have challenges when it comes to Capital Gains Tax for bigger gains?

Rhys:

I know a few people that have been hit quite hard with crypto, there's been a few cases, I've heard of for various people that I know, again, similar to your story there where they've bought millions of essentially millions of pounds worth of etherium and other cryptos had an absolutely huge gain, and to be honest, been left in quite a situation where they can't even work it out. They had an inspection or gone to submit the tax return, and they don't even know where to start. What we've noticed, as well as a massive lack of education with the accountants, and just in the financial sector altogether, leaves everyone a little bit stuck there.

Brett:

Because it is the Wild Wild West, and so a lot of ways with the cryptocurrency world and what's going on, and it's like a kind of a gold rush in one sense, and people can get, you can pay tax and taxes, seriously. You want to make sure you have a plan, you preplan, and you make sure that before you sell, what kind of tax you're going to have and how you're going to pay for that, and how you're going to budget for that again. You can go to capitalgainstaxsolutions.com to learn more about the Deferred Sales Trust as capitalgainstaxsolutions.com. And really also quick to our minimum is $1 million net proceeds, from the $1 million gain, so it's got to be big enough if you say well, “Brett, I got 50,000 in crypto, I want to defer 10,000 attacks. Can I use it?” No, it's too small; it's got to be a millionaire veteran who gained a million or better net proceeds in order, and that's on a one-coin basis. If you have 100 coins like that, nope, it's got to be one on a per-coin basis. That being said, are you ready for the lightning round?

Rhys:

Yep.

Brett:

All right, here we go, knowing what you know, now if you can go back to your 25-year-old self, what's the one Golden Nugget, that makes sure to tell yourself to do?

Rhys:

Buy more Bitcoin.

Brett:

Quick aside, my good friend. He was a Wall Street as one of the original Bitcoin stores, and this begins it, and the guy was telling him and he sat there for 30 minutes going like, “Man, this is really smart. I should buy some right” and then he just walked away. But he could have bought it on Wall Street. Like right there, he's upset. But we all have those kinds of stories. Number two, what's the one book you recommended or gave the most in the past year?

Rhys:

Think Like A Monk by Jay Shetty.

Brett:

Cool, what do you like about it?

Rhys:

Basically, he spent three years living in a Buddhist temple in India. It just taught me a lot of lessons about pretty much everything to be honest, from relationships to how to live in your Dharma, doing what you're passionate about, and just general life lessons.

Brett:

Think Like A Monk. Question number three. What are you most curious about or now?

Rhys:

We'll probably see a change in the government's approach to COVID.

Brett:

It's really living in interesting times. It's like the eye of the hurricane was like, last year, well, it's crazy. We're kind of this kind of semi-peaceful state. But all of a sudden, the wind starting to pick up again, and all of a sudden, it's like, “are we going to hit the second wave of this whole thing?” and it's going to be more lockdowns and more restrictions and less freedom, and it's not an easy solution and not a fun environment to live in right now. Thanks for sharing that. On a brighter note. How do you stay encouraged after all your, success and doing everything you do? How do you stay encouraged to charge to reach new goals and to to keep, live and live in the gifts you've been given?

Rhys:

I think he's always looking for something new. I find I have periods where I kind of, complete a certain goal, kind of tick off that area of my life, and then move on to something else, and I think a little bit it just goes with the flow. Those new opportunities always come along. But yes, putting yourself in positions where those opportunities do come up, and then yeah, constantly keep you on your toes and learn new things.

Brett:

Love that answer. It's such a great answer, and I love your accent by the way, and again, if folks are wondering, he's originally from Wales. This is Rhys King has spelled RHYS. You can find him on LinkedIn, and you can find him on his website and for our listeners again, want to get in touch with you Rhys, what's the best place for them to find you?

Rhys:

Twitter's good for crypto so @mindfulbtcboss and LinkedIn.

Brett:

Is there one coin right now that you really liked that you would want to drop a name on right now?

Rhys:

I'm pro-Bitcoin, and I've dabbled without coins. But I've come back around the full loop and ended back at Bitcoin again. It has to be Bitcoin.

Brett:

It’s Rhys King.

Rhys:

It is I get called Bryce a lot.

Brett:

Okay, Rhys King, it's been a pleasure to get to know you. Thank you for sharing part of your story, and I would encourage you to keep using the gifts of having you said in the beginning that you're. Would you say your gifts were again one more time?

Rhys:

It was making money

Brett:

Making money giving away giving it away helping others. Use the gifts of generosity and entrepreneurship and building companies and making money in crypto and go help a lot of people. The world needs more entrepreneurs to create more industries to help more people, and with that, I want to also thank our listeners for listening to another episode of the Capital Gains Tax Solutions Podcast. As always, we believe most high net worth individuals and those who help them they struggled clarifying their Capital Gains Tax Deferral options. Not having a clear plan is the enemy and using a proven tax deferral strategy such as the Deferred Sales Trust is the best way for you to sell highly appreciated public stock private stock cryptocurrency, real estate, or business and Defer Capital Gains Tax. If I can help you at all, go to capitalgainstaxsolutions.com, and please rate review subscribe. We're also streaming on Expert CRE Secrets and so you can check us out there as well. We're into commercial real estate investing in real estate brokerage. All of those things there with the Deferred Sales Trust combined is a powerful combination. Thanks so much for listening, everybody. We appreciate you out there. Bye now.