Armando Pantoja
Appearances
Mick Unplugged
Crypto's HIDDEN TRUTHS by Tycoon Armando Pantoja
So I grew up in poverty. My father left when I was three, so I really didn't have a lot of money. I didn't even get a computer until I was 19. And that's when I bought it with the Pell Grant money from college.
Mick Unplugged
Crypto's HIDDEN TRUTHS by Tycoon Armando Pantoja
Austin Peay, yeah. So that was the first time I had a computer in the house, right? So technology took me out of Clarksville, Tennessee, a poor kid, and made me into what I am today, just technology. Yeah. And I know I can see that we're in a transformative time from the late 90s to about maybe 2030, 35. It's almost like the Industrial Revolution in the early 1900s.
Mick Unplugged
Crypto's HIDDEN TRUTHS by Tycoon Armando Pantoja
It has the power to transform a lot of people's situations, transform entire communities, transform entire ethnicities to a whole different level. If people would just pay attention and learn. And that's my because. I scream from the top of the roof. Many people listen because there's never been a time I can see in my life where things, to me, are more obvious than what they are today.
Mick Unplugged
Crypto's HIDDEN TRUTHS by Tycoon Armando Pantoja
Like where to invest, where to grow, where to build your businesses at. Because the thing about technology makes it so much different than other industries is that the amount of money that can be made. That's why most companies are becoming tech. It's because if I make a factory and I sell, let's say widgets, And I'm selling these widgets and I can make them for $20 and I sell them for 50.
Mick Unplugged
Crypto's HIDDEN TRUTHS by Tycoon Armando Pantoja
So let's say I sell it for 100. So that's like a big profit, $80 profit for each one. So in order to increase my production, I have to, you know, let's say I double it. Well, I'm still making 80 a widget, but now I have to have twice as many employees. The factory has to be twice as big. I'm using twice as much electricity, twice as much material. So my profit is still linear.
Mick Unplugged
Crypto's HIDDEN TRUTHS by Tycoon Armando Pantoja
It's the same no matter what. It may go up a little bit, you know, based on the math of scale, you know, that does help. But it's still basically linear. Now, technology is different. I can develop one app. I can have four or five people running it. And as users come onto that app spending money, the chart looks more like a hockey stick, right?
Mick Unplugged
Crypto's HIDDEN TRUTHS by Tycoon Armando Pantoja
Because the amount of money you can make on technology is exponential. And that's why stocks reflect the profit and tech stocks like that. And that's the reason why if people start tech companies, they can make money like that. That's a transformative technology where a lot of people can build a lot of wealth rapidly With small teams, just with a great idea and great execution.
Mick Unplugged
Crypto's HIDDEN TRUTHS by Tycoon Armando Pantoja
And I understand that. That's why I preach it so much, because I know it has the potential for people to hear that message and make a lot of money and change their lives, their children's lives and their grandchildren's lives. Yeah. Just one five to 10 year execution on a set of ideas or an idea.
Mick Unplugged
Crypto's HIDDEN TRUTHS by Tycoon Armando Pantoja
Now, cryptocurrency and cryptology and graphy is two different things. Now, cryptocurrency is a currency based on the science or the study of cryptology or cryptography, which is the study of computer encryption. And that's why crypto is so transformative is because it's the most advanced database ever known to man. And that's what people don't realize.
Mick Unplugged
Crypto's HIDDEN TRUTHS by Tycoon Armando Pantoja
So I'm available on all social media platforms, Tall Guy Tycoon on Twitter. It's an underscore before. Somebody got my name before. I'm also on the Crypto Trends Podcast. You can see back here. I'm about to film it in a few seconds. That's what me and Robert Croke talk about what's happening this week in crypto. And we try to predict where things are going.
Mick Unplugged
Crypto's HIDDEN TRUTHS by Tycoon Armando Pantoja
So it's a very popular, I think it's the biggest right now, the biggest crypto podcast on Spotify. So reach out, make sure you guys listen to that. And that's it, really. So I would appreciate if you guys would follow him.
Mick Unplugged
Crypto's HIDDEN TRUTHS by Tycoon Armando Pantoja
Yeah, I used to be good. My knee is getting bad now, though. But I played overseas. I played in Puerto Rico.
Mick Unplugged
Crypto's HIDDEN TRUTHS by Tycoon Armando Pantoja
As soon as my knee gets better, I'm going through physical therapy. I was still dunking before that. So I'll have to catch them off the rim and everything. Hopefully I get back to it. That was like eight months ago.
Mick Unplugged
Crypto's HIDDEN TRUTHS by Tycoon Armando Pantoja
I appreciate it, man. Thanks so much.
Mick Unplugged
Crypto's HIDDEN TRUTHS by Tycoon Armando Pantoja
They see Bitcoin as like some kind of money or some kind of investment, but it's way deeper than that. So I was just early. I was just lucky to get in so early because I was studying that at the time and I thought it was a cool technology. Now, for about three years, I didn't really realize it as an investment. So with my... The opportunity I saw in cryptocurrency the first three years was way.
Mick Unplugged
Crypto's HIDDEN TRUTHS by Tycoon Armando Pantoja
I could be a crypto developer. I can integrate stuff on people's sites. I also was looking into buying Bitcoin ATMs because I thought it was going to be the next currency. So around 2015, Ethereum came out. And that's when I actually, 14, 15, I started seeing the investment potential. I started investing in it instead of just developing on the technology side.
Mick Unplugged
Crypto's HIDDEN TRUTHS by Tycoon Armando Pantoja
So I was just lucky to be around the right people and got in early, being around, you know, studying the technology that cryptocurrency is based on.
Mick Unplugged
Crypto's HIDDEN TRUTHS by Tycoon Armando Pantoja
Yeah, so I got into Bitcoin in 2011. I'd been playing around with stocks for a little bit before then. I made some money. And before that, I did have a guy that would, you know, train me in stocks and how they work and everything like that. So, you know, he was actually a close friend. He was an older gentleman. He brought me along in stocks, but I really didn't put any real money into it.
Mick Unplugged
Crypto's HIDDEN TRUTHS by Tycoon Armando Pantoja
So when I got into crypto, remember, the first three years of crypto was on the technology side. So I really didn't look at charts and markets and how things work. So 2013, I had a bunch of Bitcoin. I put up a post the other day, and I was buying Bitcoin at $200, you know, $150, $100, $80, you know. But at the time, I thought it was a currency.
Mick Unplugged
Crypto's HIDDEN TRUTHS by Tycoon Armando Pantoja
But around that time, about around 14, I started seeing the investment potential. So I started, like, actually buying it. you know, for investment purposes. 2013, one of the only exchanges, I think it was the only Bitcoin exchange on earth, got hacked. And somebody stole like $50 million of Bitcoin. At the time, that's like billions now.
Mick Unplugged
Crypto's HIDDEN TRUTHS by Tycoon Armando Pantoja
But it was $50 million at the time, which was like a lot of Bitcoin. So everybody panicked. The news started saying that Bitcoin was a scam. It really wasn't. That's proof that this is a Ponzi and all that stuff because people got panicked. And Bitcoin dropped all the way from $1,000 all the way down into the hundreds again, 90% drawdown.
Mick Unplugged
Crypto's HIDDEN TRUTHS by Tycoon Armando Pantoja
And then, so I gave, for two years, I didn't even look at it no more. It's like late 15, early 15. And then I saw it start to creep back up and I was like, well, you know, that's weird. Why would it creep back up? I thought they said it was over. And then, so I started buying it again, 2015, 16. And then, you know, I started looking deeper into how markets work.
Mick Unplugged
Crypto's HIDDEN TRUTHS by Tycoon Armando Pantoja
Like, why did they tell us that it was going to crash? And I started researching. I realized that there's underlying truths in all of that. There's a cycle. There's cycles. There's patterns. There's all these things that happen almost predictably in markets. I started applying that to stocks and crypto at that point.
Mick Unplugged
Crypto's HIDDEN TRUTHS by Tycoon Armando Pantoja
And that's why I've done so extraordinarily well is because there's underlying truths in all of that. There's a four year cycle in Bitcoin. There's also market cycles in the stock market. There's times when the media will tell you that things are over, it's done, they'll make you scared. And it all deals with cycles, curves, curve cycles, and also human psychology.
Mick Unplugged
Crypto's HIDDEN TRUTHS by Tycoon Armando Pantoja
All of that is interwoven into like a tapestry. that underlies all these financial markets. Now we've figured it out, you can figure out everything on top. So that's what I've been trying to teach people over the years is that these things, it's very simple to understand if you just look past all the fluff and just look at the base and see what's happening.
Mick Unplugged
Crypto's HIDDEN TRUTHS by Tycoon Armando Pantoja
Yeah, that was one of the validation points along my life, you know, because that was one of the big moments because, you know, IBM, a company like that, recognized you for your innovations on blockchain. We came up with a solution to get people, you know, work with IBM to get people to use the blockchain to get people hired back after COVID to get people back to work.
Mick Unplugged
Crypto's HIDDEN TRUTHS by Tycoon Armando Pantoja
And we won an award for that. It was me and my business partner, actually. And we, you know, that was a big moment to win that award. But like you said, that's a big validation point. It makes you feel like you're doing the right thing. And you know, I was proud to win it. And actually that was after I won that award, I got a blue check like the next week.
Mick Unplugged
Crypto's HIDDEN TRUTHS by Tycoon Armando Pantoja
That was before the blue checks you could pay for, you had to earn it. So that's the biggest thing. The main Twitter page shouted me out and said, you know, I won this award for my picture. And then like the next week I got a blue check on Instagram. That was before you had to pay for it. So you had to earn it and you couldn't even like ask for it. They just had to recognize you.
Mick Unplugged
Crypto's HIDDEN TRUTHS by Tycoon Armando Pantoja
So that was really the biggest thing. So I was really excited about those two things.
Mick Unplugged
Crypto's HIDDEN TRUTHS by Tycoon Armando Pantoja
right what are these seven laws of wealth and and how can people start imparting them into their routine and their habit when it comes to finance it's about like these market cycles and patterns that we you know that we uh i just talked about uh so these are the seven laws that i've learned over time and a lot of them you know almost fly in the face of what traditional logic is because uh traditionally i've learned in life is that when everybody does something is probably wrong
Mick Unplugged
Crypto's HIDDEN TRUTHS by Tycoon Armando Pantoja
When everybody thinks a certain way, it's probably wrong. And then if you just fly in the face of that, a lot of times you'll be right because the system does not allow everybody to be rich. It's relative. It's based on ratios. So only a certain amount of people can be rich and everybody else has to be middle class and poor. That's just how it works.
Mick Unplugged
Crypto's HIDDEN TRUTHS by Tycoon Armando Pantoja
I'm good. I appreciate you having me.
Mick Unplugged
Crypto's HIDDEN TRUTHS by Tycoon Armando Pantoja
The more people that move up, the system will readjust and then now the goalposts will move. And now all of a sudden this is rich. So everybody can't be rich. So The only way you can be rich is by thinking differently than the masses. And that's what those seven laws are. It's like, you know, you don't have to hustle and be up three, four days straight to make money.
Mick Unplugged
Crypto's HIDDEN TRUTHS by Tycoon Armando Pantoja
A lot of the billionaires I know that they don't have, you know, their schedules are pretty free. Because they got everybody else doing the stuff for me. You know, and also I learned in that book, we talk about how you have to have a certain amount of your week free. Because if you're maxed out, you're hustling, you're working 60 hours a week, early in your life is different.
Mick Unplugged
Crypto's HIDDEN TRUTHS by Tycoon Armando Pantoja
When you get later, 30 and 40, you got to start pulling that back. It's because if you don't have a certain time you're free, if an opportunity comes, you don't have time to chase it. You see, if you're working 60 hours a week, somebody comes to you, look, man, I got this idea. This is gonna make a lot of money. You don't have any time to work on it.
Mick Unplugged
Crypto's HIDDEN TRUTHS by Tycoon Armando Pantoja
So you have to, what you have to do is you have to find something, work on it, and reduce the time it takes for you to make money on it, then put it like in a basket. And that basket is your passive income. So when you reach an opportunity, let's say somebody comes to you and says, man, I got an opportunity to build a website that can make a bunch of money. All right.
Mick Unplugged
Crypto's HIDDEN TRUTHS by Tycoon Armando Pantoja
Well, I'm going to build a website. I'm going to go. I'm going to work on it. We're going to get it developed. But over time, I have to reduce the amount of time it takes me to work on it to finally a zero. And I throw that in my basket of passive incomes. Then I move on to something else. So you have to think about things in life like that. That's actually a law. It's called be lazy.
Mick Unplugged
Crypto's HIDDEN TRUTHS by Tycoon Armando Pantoja
And it talks about how, not actually technically lazy, but it talks about always find ways to not make money with your time. Constantly be jealous with your time because you need that time to build up new passive. You can't work all the time and you won't be able to build up anything. So, and then if you stop working, the money stops. So a lot of that book is focused to that.
Mick Unplugged
Crypto's HIDDEN TRUTHS by Tycoon Armando Pantoja
Some of the book is, it talks about the trends that we talked about, trends and patterns and stuff that exist in markets. It talks about having the right circle of friends around you. That's very important. building a circle of winners. And it also talks about how a lot of people think that they just can show up to a group of people and all of a sudden that group is going to feed into them.
Mick Unplugged
Crypto's HIDDEN TRUTHS by Tycoon Armando Pantoja
It doesn't work like that. So you have to show up to the group. Let's say you show up to a group of millionaires. You're not the millionaire. The first year of that group, you have to be giving them stuff. You have to, you know, I've heard people just show up to a network of events and say, now what do I do? It doesn't work like that.
Mick Unplugged
Crypto's HIDDEN TRUTHS by Tycoon Armando Pantoja
You know what you do when you show up to a networking event, you find the people that can help you and you offer them something first. Everybody's trying to get, everybody's trying to take them out to lunch, pick their brain. That's nothing. So I don't even, people ask me to lunch five times a day. I don't go. Cause it's, I'm not driving over to Tampa cause I live a little bit outside Tampa.
Mick Unplugged
Crypto's HIDDEN TRUTHS by Tycoon Armando Pantoja
It's not worth it to me. So you have to come to these people and say, look, do you need somebody to pick up your laundry every week? I'll do that. And don't ask for anything in return. Say, do you need somebody to spot you at the gym? I'll do that. Especially when you're young. Do you need somebody to help you with anything? I'll do that. And don't ask for anything in return.
Mick Unplugged
Crypto's HIDDEN TRUTHS by Tycoon Armando Pantoja
And do that to all the people in the group. Over time, they will pull you up to their level. You know, eventually you're building, get into that life. You're helping them. They'll start to like you, hopefully. And then they'll start, you'll hear stuff and you'll start understand how they think. They'll put you on opportunities. And that's how things work.
Mick Unplugged
Crypto's HIDDEN TRUTHS by Tycoon Armando Pantoja
It's not like you show up and they're not going to, there's no incentive to pull you up unless you integrate yourself into their lives. And that's how you have to do it. That's why most people fail in those situations.
Mick Unplugged
Crypto's HIDDEN TRUTHS by Tycoon Armando Pantoja
So it's an interesting story. I was a software engineer for many years. So around 2009, 10, I decided to go back to grad school. So when I got first day in grad school, you know, you learn the base of software engineering in undergrad, but then you go on to grad school, you have to pick a specialization. So first thing they asked me, what's your specialization going to be?
Mick Unplugged
Crypto's HIDDEN TRUTHS by Tycoon Armando Pantoja
Yeah, I agree with you. Yeah, so you have to just work smart. A lot of times labor is not needed if you're strategic about anything. At first you do, especially if you come from poverty or a lower income because you don't have the initial capital. Yeah, you got to grind. You got to grind. That's your capital. That's all you got.
Mick Unplugged
Crypto's HIDDEN TRUTHS by Tycoon Armando Pantoja
But once you start building up capital, you got to look for ways out of labor. because nobody of any significant wealth has gotten the labor for it. It's normally the ownership of some idea, a technology, or they got other people doing it for them.
Mick Unplugged
Crypto's HIDDEN TRUTHS by Tycoon Armando Pantoja
And then the other thing... Because most people don't want to... You can always find workers because most people don't want to take the risk of owning a business. So you take on the risk, which is not that bad. And then you always have workers.
Mick Unplugged
Crypto's HIDDEN TRUTHS by Tycoon Armando Pantoja
And it's funny about these events and stuff is that when I go to events, especially at InvestFest last year, it was like a lot of people would come up to me with these business ideas, apps or, you know, mostly tech. And the thing about it is that it's so many, I can't really, you know how I stop people from, you know how I stop people from doing that?
Mick Unplugged
Crypto's HIDDEN TRUTHS by Tycoon Armando Pantoja
They come up to me, they show me an idea to give me the elevator pitch, and I say, hey, yeah, sounds great, man. So here's my email. Send me a full business plan by Monday. And 95% of people never send it. Of course. Of course. So I cut the conversation short. I said, look, man, I love the idea. Send me a business plan, Bob. Here's my email. And 95% of people never send it.
Mick Unplugged
Crypto's HIDDEN TRUTHS by Tycoon Armando Pantoja
I don't know, I guess software security. Well, you need further specialization. What are you going to focus on? I said, well, looked at the list of stuff, cryptography, cryptology. which is the study of computer encryption. And then, you know, I got into it and I liked it and everything. But then right in the middle of grad school, cryptocurrency came out.
Mick Unplugged
Crypto's HIDDEN TRUTHS by Tycoon Armando Pantoja
So that shows you how people will show up to networking events and really don't have a plan or a strategy or even don't want to put in the effort to get to the next level.