Cryptonews Podcast host Matt Zahab sat down for an exclusive interview with Bobby Lee, the Founder and CEO of Ballet, the cryptocurrency company behind the REAL Series Cold Storage.
Lee discussed the ETF-related predictions made in his book coming true, and recommends that people not wait to acquire Bitcoin as the price will only rise with corporations and governments adding the coin to their sheets.
Additionally, the CEO explained why the Ballet wallet is suitable for newcomers of all ages.
ETF Predictions Coming True
Lee’s book ‘The Promise of Bitcoin’ was published in 2021. It contains several predictions by its author, including one related to exchange-traded funds (ETFs).
“My prediction came true pretty much to the dot,” Lee said. “I predicted that ETFs would be launched within three years.”
The US approving spot BTC ETFs was a watershed moment in the coin’s history. It followed years of illogical and nonsensical resistance against a Bitcoin ETF.
“It was crazy. By law, by regulation, there was no reason it couldn’t be approved,” Lee said. “There’s ETFs for everything.”
$BTC was $8,618 on the day of the last #BitcoinHalving.
— Michael Saylor
(@saylor) April 19, 2024
Another related and notable factor is that the US is generally a leader in the global market.
Hong Kong already approved a few ETFs, and “there’ll be others around the world.”
On the other hand, Bitcoin is not the only one – Ethereum ETFs followed. Other digital assets will likely join them.
“And this is how Bitcoin grows up,” Lee remarked. “Bitcoin turned fifteen, and that’s when [it] got its ETF. So I guess you need a few years under your belt.”
‘Don’t Wait to Acquire BTC Until It’s $5 Million’
The best way to understand why Bitcoin is valuable, Lee argues, is to understand why gold is valuable. The two are similar in many ways: scarce, permissionless, decentralized in a sense that anybody can use it, not backed by a government, etc.
Notably, Lee and his brother, Litecoin founder Charlie Lee, were also gold investors.
“If you look at the history of money and gold, how gold became the de facto money globally throughout civilization across different regions, we think that Bitcoin will become that global reserve asset class,” he said.
April 2024: One #bitcoin is now worth 30 oz of #gold. It was worth 15 oz of gold in December 2017, and only worth 1 oz of gold at the end of 2013.
When will bitcoin reach the value of 100 oz of gold?
— Bobby Lee – Ballet: World's EASIEST Cold Storage! (@bobbyclee) April 9, 2024
Now, with the ETF approvals, corporations are adding BTC to their balance sheets, and countries are adding it to their national reserves.
Germany had recently embarked on a massive BTC selloff, causing shock waves in the market.
“That might, in hindsight, be one of the dumbest moves,” Lee said. “It’ll take a good 5-10 years for them to realize that.”
Many countries own a lot of BTC already through seizures, and they will want to keep these rather than sell them.
“That’s why I tell people, […] this is your opening,” Lee noted. “Because if you […] follow the dotted line, you know where it’s going. Bitcoin is going to become a global reserve asset cloud, […] the common sort of global international settlement currency. It’s going to be worth in the trillions.”
“So don’t wait until every country, every government, every politician, every corporation gets on board.”
While BTC is around $65,000 now, if people wait until they have “positive confirmation,” it will rise to $5 million.
It’s important to remember that this is an ongoing trend. We’ll see more and more countries, governments, politicians, and individuals embracing crypto.
But it’s a long road – this is not something that will “turn on automatically,” said Lee.
Ballet Has Integrated #AlchemyPay On-and-Off-Ramp Services@AlchemyPay offers seamless fiat-crypto exchange via more than 300 payment channels in 173 countries, including credit cards, mobile wallets, and bank transfers. This service is now integrated into the Ballet Crypto… pic.twitter.com/oPiq02eGQw
— Ballet (@BalletCrypto) February 22, 2024
Wallet For All
As an exchange founder himself, Lee stresses the dangers of holding one’s money in these companies. They can get hacked, go bankrupt, founders can disappear, and more.
Furthermore, not only can the exchange itself have issues, but individual accounts can get hacked. Identity theft, lost phone, lost access, and other issues all result in lost life savings.
Using centralized exchange will face the risk of account hacks, but not with @BalletCrypto Cold Storage cards. As long as you have your cold storage cards, your funds are SAFU. https://t.co/oHU6BA7C2f
— Ballet (@BalletCrypto) June 4, 2024
Ballet was created in 2019. Lee’s vision for it was to build a product that allowed Average Joe and Jane to enter and stay in the crypto space, regardless who or how old they are.
“The idea is to allow normal people, […] the non-crypto-hardcore people to store and self-custody their Bitcoin and cryptocurrency assets,” Lee said. “I really wanted to make something […] low maintenance, super reliable, easy to use, great for newbies.”
The Ballet card enables sole, self-custody. No person or entity has any form of access to the funds on it, except the owner.
It also doesn’t have complex passwords that “defeat the purpose of security.”
“We’re proud that there’s no electronics,” Lee remarked.
Ballet creates two sets of entropy (i.e. two random data) which allows the user to generate their private key themselves for the very first time.
Therefore, nobody has ever seen that private key except the owner, nor has any one person ever seen both sets of entropy, says Lee.
Meanwhile, the Ballet Crypto app helps users view, track, and manage their funds. They can also pass it on to other people.
The wallet supports multiple currencies, NFTs, and Bitcoin Ordinals.
Finally, the wallet is metal. “You can’t destroy this,” said Lee. “Literally, you could bury this in the ground in a time capsule, and it’ll be available to you in 5, 10, 20 years.”
#Bitcoin2024 is almost here! Are you ready? Visit booth #425 to snag free swag and explore the latest drops from Ballet, including our new Quarter Milli Bitcoin. #BalletCrypto #Bitcoin #PhysicalBitcoin #cryptocurrency #coldstorage pic.twitter.com/bot3ORIeoo
— Ballet (@BalletCrypto) July 23, 2024
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That’s not all.
In this interview, Lee also discussed:
- getting into Bitcoin in 2011;
- the rise of storage software and cold storage hardware – the first crypto wallets;
- launching BTC China;
- Bitcoin regulatory landscape in USA and China;
- the US Presidential elections with crypto on the agenda;
- Ballet as the easiest and most efficient cold storage crypto solution;
- why everybody should buy BTC.
You can watch the full podcast episode here.
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About Bobby Lee
Bobby Lee is the Founder and CEO of Ballet, the cryptocurrency company behind the REAL Series Cold Storage.
This physical cold storage was launched in 2019 as the world’s first non-electronic cold storage card with multicurrency support that requires zero setup to use.
Lee has been a leading entrepreneur and expert in the crypto industry since 2011.
Prior to founding Ballet, he was the CEO and co-founder of the first Bitcoin exchange established in China, BTC China (later renamed BTCC), which was acquired by a Hong Kong-based investment firm in January 2018.
Lee is also the author of the Wall Street Journal bestseller ‘The Promise of Bitcoin.’
The post Bobby Lee, CEO of Ballet, on ETF Predictions Coming True, BTC Hitting $5 Million, and Bitcoin Ownership | Ep. 355 appeared first on Cryptonews.
