Strategies for Bitcoin Personal Finance | Bitcoin 2026

All right, good morning. All right, so my name is Brian. I talk about Bitcoin personal finance on YouTube and I appreciate the conference for putting that topic on the main stage and I appreciate Sam from My Financial Friend and Aaron and Austin from Altcoin Daily for helping amplify the discussion. Here's the hook. OG Bitcoiners were great at talking about Bitcoin. They were honestly really, really bad at talking about personal finance. And I believe personally that that has put a ceiling on Bitcoin's influence into kind of mainstream personal finance discord. And we're going to have some fun today with just some fun questions that these guys may never have been asked before on camera to just kind of make Bitcoin real in a day-to-day sense. So, here we go. And we're just going to go down the line uh with efficient timing as you guys are experts of doing. Okay. What's the last purchase under $100 and over $1,000 that has had an impact on your life? I'd say the one under $100. I bought a John Deere kid leaf blower for the Bitcoin baby, my son, and he loves it. He just walks around, pushes dirt around, and uh yeah, $20 and he gets more joy out of it than anything I've ever bought. Um, last thing over $1,000. We bought a custom sauna. It took 3 months to get. Uh, it has a glass from uh floor to ceiling. It sits like eight people and it faces our woods. So, we live somewhere cold. So, it's really nice just to be able to look out the woods, have something warm, uh, be able to go chat with people in it and hang out. So, >> we're coming over. >> Yeah. Yeah. Come over anytime. Um, so yeah, those are two fantastic buys. Just a quick intro about myself if you don't uh know me. Aaron Arnold uh half the team at Altcoin Daily. You know, personal finance, Brian, you say this all the time. It's personal to you. And so my personal finance journey came from, you know, just having a regular double W2 job, different things for like side income, W TWS, and then starting my own business and getting, you know, multiple streams of income through that and having to navigate how to build wealth in that regard or uh save wealth. So, to answer your question, Brian, the uh something I purchased under $100 that I love, well, I bought my brother a burger in Vegas the other day almost, you know, not even under $100, but uh you know, I would say uh for under $100, um you know, just a meal with friends or a meal with uh colleagues, you know, it's really easy to and uh enjoyable to drop a $100 on Bitcoin or in the stock market and you can see quantifi quant quantifiably your returns, but you know, do not count out, you know, building relationships because you can get far with that, too. And then for over $1,000, the whale pass. Nah, they gave that to me for free. But, um, no, over $1,000. To be honest, you know, I don't uh I don't like obviously there's things in your life that you buy for over $1,000. a car, a home, maybe a gift, but I don't like to drop like $1,000 on, you know, things that maybe a lot of people do like luxury goods or whatever. I truly, Brian, I truly like dropping $1,000. You know, it used to be Bitcoin, but I feel like I'm have a good allocation. Now, I like >> This is not Sunday school. This is not This is not what I wanted. You're not Do not say Bitcoin. >> Okay. I truly like dropping $1,000 on the stock market. >> Okay, we're going to get into that. Okay, go. Yeah, go. >> Yeah, Brian, thank you. Austin altcoin daily. When I choose to allocate a $100 over a,000 under 100, my uh personal finance strategy is this. I either want to accumulate hard assets for generational wealth. I'm locking in my bloodline didn't lock in. I'm accumulating generational wealth for the bloodline or uh enjoyment experiences. So, my best purchase recently under $100 was a hummingbird feeder for my backyard. And I love looking at the hummingbirds. >> I love that. I love that. Okay. The reason why it's important to start with the purchasing and I don't want the Sunday school answers, guys, is because the next thing is how do you balance the goals of growing your net worth, getting the hard assets that go up, getting the stock market assets that go up with, as you alluded to, which I appreciated, like making more money or if you have a different financial goal, like what are you optimizing for right now? And how do you balance the multiple kind of angles that you can optimize personal finance on? >> I'm trying to optimize for income because I think net worth will follow. Um, as long as you save enough, you your net worth should go up over time, but it's really hard to optimize net worth every day. Like sometimes the market just goes down and there's nothing you can really do. Um, so I'm always focused on income, but yeah, my spending has changed so much over the years because I used to just work I used to work at a retail bank coming out of college with a lot of student debt, six figures of debt. I was making $36,000 a year, living at home with my parents trying to pay it off. So, I was working all kinds of odd jobs. That spending is very different from what I do today. Um, I think over time though, I'm just trying to live below my means, save a significant portion, put some away into assets that grow. And that's really the focus at the end of the day, diversifying between Bitcoin, real estate, and stocks, so I can weather any market. >> You know, this is actually the perfect time to do this panel, Brian, because, you know, it seems easy to make money and acrew wealth in a bull market, in a bare market. things are a little tighter. But uh you know for me my uh building wealth and just uh you know general personal finance strategy is to I think number one you do need to increase your income in whatever way. I mean you don't need to have high income to to build wealth. You know I think you should be putting away 10 15% in not necessarily savings but investments. Um but you know as much as you can because that's your biggest tool to grow wealth. Then when you have income and hopefully it gets higher, buy assets, don't buy liabilities. You know, these are tried and trueue principles and it's, you know, very easy to say and people generally understand to do this, but a not a lot of people necessarily, you know, take it to heart and do it. People understand if I put money in the stock market every year, it's going to compound and even if I'm just making, you know, 80 grand a year, eventually I'll be a millionaire. But people don't do it because it's hard to take away you know 10% or 15% of your income and uh you know not buy something that could serve you today. Um so you know my my strategy is uh to uh invest max out the Roth IRA live below your means and uh you know do whatever you can to increase your income. For me personally, the best advice a Bitcoiner or even traditional finance person that I've ever heard ever gave me is live below your means, invest the rest. Now, by show of hands, live below your means, invest the rest. How many in the audience have heard this before? A lot of people. If I want those kind of quips, I'll go to crypto Twitter, Bitcoin Twitter. For me, the easiest two ways to live below your means or invest the rest. It's either the easiest way uh to gain more money is to save more money, right? You can fold it in your pockets, put it there, uh spend less, or you could earn more. I personally believe for me personally, uh it's easier for an entrepreneur to earn more. If you're working a 9-to-F5, it's easier to save. So, two different buckets. But entrepreneurs, you know, you just sleep less. You focus on what's works more. You look at the data. Uh that's my personal belief. Uh but it just depends on which bucket you're in. >> I'm going to go I'm going to go off script for a second. The earn more. So there's lots of uh YouTube personal finance people that will talk about earning more also and the you need to earn more. You need to earn more. Um, do why does that feel am I the only one that feels that's in tension with kind of the popular belief of like I feel like there's a lot of people out there that believe like Bitcoin is the best thing they've ever had and they just playing really like tense and tight of like oh Bitcoin go up Bitcoin go up is easier than me making more. And I feel like there's like like we talked about the scarcity of Bitcoin. There's also this like scarcity mindset that Bitcoin going up is the largest opportunity you have in your life. And there's probably people sitting out here that have the ability to be an entrepreneur and like there's a there's a very real chance that that opportunity has a higher percentage chance of happening than or like than Bitcoin going up. What do you what's your reaction to that? Yeah, if you have a lower uh lower savings rate, you're saving five or 10% or nothing, it's going to be much more important for you to make more income because you can if you're saving 10% and you increase your income by 10%, you if you put it all into savings, you double what you're saving, right? So, that is much more important than watching three hours of Bitcoin content a day or trying to get validation for what you've already invested in. But it's much more uncomfortable to especially if you're in a W2 job to feel like you're not exhausted when you get home and you want to go spend two hours trying to sell your idea to people or grow something from scratch. A lot of people just feel exhausted by daily life, so they don't want to do that, which I totally get. It's much easier to watch YouTube than it is to, you know, like do whatever you want to do. And just real quick reaction on the W2 job thing, like again, that gets parsed a lot of like W2 job versus entrepreneurship. It's not talked about enough that like there's things you can do to increase your W2 income also. Like you can you can network and get higher W2 jobs and it's not talked about enough. >> The the setup was uh Bitcoin versus like investing in yourself. Yeah, that's good framing >> because I would say, you know, like you're saying, you know, obviously Bitcoin has historically been a great investment besides the last 6 months or whatever, but uh you know, investing in Bitcoin doesn't have dividends as we know, but investing in yourself can yield dividends and it's not exactly like you know, company dividends, but to further yourself, uh you I I mean, I think you need multiple sources of income or increase your income in general and an an investment in yourself of $1,000. could actually be more fruitful than a 10,000 investment into Bitcoin. Is that crazy to say here? >> I That's what I'm looking I'm looking for edgy. We need edgy comments. Yes, >> Bitcoin doesn't have dividends. Talk to Michael Sailor, buddy. He's changing that. I would say personally um people say the eighth wonder of the world world is compound interest. You start early, you gain much more. that's going to be worth so much more than the amount of money you could put in just the compounding from what you started with early. I think the ninth wonder of the world is compound experience. So whether you're investing in a business, investing in your job, if you want to be a dentist, start early, go intern at that dentist's office. Even if you don't like it, you'll find that out early and you'll get the thing you want along with investing early and getting the compound interest in your portfolio. So, compound experience is worth just as much as compound interest. >> Brian, I don't mean to cut you off here, but obviously you're leading the conversation. I heard you say something a little bit controversial yesterday at dinner, saying that it's okay to sell your Bitcoin and you have to buy it twice. What was the thought process behind that? >> Yeah, you have to buy it twice. You have to let it change your life. You have to let it change your life. I one thing that I believe is that there's a lot of people that their Bitcoin net worth has outpaced their mindset and they're not doing anything to level up their mindset and they're still so they're they're so afraid of like what to do with their Bitcoin that they're not Yeah. They're not upgrading their mindset. >> So, you believe it's okay to sell your Bitcoin? >> It's definitely okay to sell your Bitcoin. Yes. >> By what? >> It's okay to sell your Bitcoin and accomplish lifestyle goals or invest in yourself or anything. I'm going to get into the allocation. I have an allocation question for you guys. Uh I'm glad you brought up dividends. I I want to say that as part of the hook too. Part of the part of why I believe this is a really important topic for this time specifically is because again personal finance YouTube is very has a lot of influence and millions of people watch like mainstream personal finance YouTube all the time and it feels like Bitcoin and crypto content kind of takes a second a second seat to that. Um, but the popularity of these preferred dividend stocks is changing that and I can see the traffic on my own channel where people are coming from Bitcoin only channels. They're coming from cryptogeneralist channels and they're slowly starting to come from dividend snowball channels. And so I believe that there's an opportunity right now for Bitcoin and crypto people to overlap with call it mainstream personal finance people more than ever. So that's part of why I want to have the discussion today. Anything or ready for the next one? Um, no. Go ahead. >> Okay. What's a What is a money mindset that you had when you were younger that you've changed? >> I used to think it was really dumb when people would spend a significant amount of money on something that they didn't need. But that was because I had debt that was three times my income. So, I just thought I can't spend on anything. So, I knew people uh at the bank that I worked at that would have a house in the city and then 20 minutes uh away they'd have like a lake house and I thought that was so dumb. Just have one, right? Just live at one. You don't need it. Um but that's really changed over time. I think if you have money and as long as whatever you're going to buy doesn't affect your lifestyle, like you as long as you still have enough, go spend the money, especially if you're older. Like these were 65 year olds. Like they can do whatever they want. It's not my place to judge. Um, and I've definitely bought some stuff that I did not need where I would have a higher net worth, but I got enjoyment out of it and I can optimize every single penny, but then my life might kind of suck. Like I wouldn't be here I wouldn't be here um speaking on stage right now. So yeah, I think that's definitely changed over time. I grew up like many people around our age uh thinking that saving in a bank account would be pretty good. That's essentially all you need to get ahead. If you can save a few thousand, 10,000, um, you know, you have a you have a chunk of money and you can rely on that. Obviously, we know as Bitcoiners that your money is not growing in a bank account. It's actually losing value more and more. Now, maybe in the world we came from, it didn't lose as much and it, you know, was a solid idea. But today, 100% you need to be investing and watching your money grow. When I was a kid, next to my brother, I used to think that the government and the money system had the individual's best intentions at heart, that it was a good system. Now I believe the money system is corrupt. The more I learn about inflation, the more I understand, wow, I need to do everything in my power to have as least amount of dollars as I can because the people who save in dollars, as Michael Sailor says, we call them poor, and find hard assets before this entire thing blows up. I think in personal finance when I'm watching traditional finance, personal finance content creators, that's the one thing that I don't think they've really nailed, which is they're saving in dollars and they're trying to have more dollars at the end of the year, which is a strategy, but then if you look at the inflation rate and not the one that the US government gets you, but the cost of goods, how life is getting more expensive, there has to be a better solution out there and hard assets is the key. Okay, let's get to the allocation question. You stocks, real estate, Bitcoin, crypto, cash. If there's any other buckets you guys have, how do you think about each of those buckets? Like give give a give a quick ranking of your opinion on each one and how you think about how to balance how much goes in each. I think real estate is much harder short-term to make money than people think and much easier long-term to make money. People often run cash flows incorrectly short term because they don't take into account capex, vacancy, mowing the lawn, doing snow. Um, so I have rentals and oftent times they don't they don't make anything in the la the first year or two, but I know um long-term they're 3x uh leverage on appreciation. So they'll do well uh and there some cash flow and tax benefits to it. I think stocks are fantastic because much like Bitcoin, people act irrationally short-term. And a lot of the money that causes the market to go up and down is short-term oriented because it's from hedge funds. So their goals are not necessarily the same as my goals. They're answering to shareholders. They're answering to investors. Um and they have to think very short term a lot of the time. So I can buy Amazon when it falls down 30% because they're worried about capex short term. And I think it's great that they can go and invest $200 billion dollars a year into something that's going to get a good return. So I am heavily invested in the stock market. Part of that is that my income is very tied to Bitcoin as well. Within crypto, I'm 92% Bitcoin, 8% uh Ethereum and Salana just because I have a good cost basis. Um real estate is around the same allocation to Bitcoin than I have more in the stock market. I'm about 10% cash right now. Um, but I unloaded a lot of it into the stock market recently about a month ago when we had that big dip. >> You know, for so long I got into Bitcoin in the 2017 runup and then full-time in uh 2018. And and for so long, you know, I was like probably a lot of people in the audience. You know, I need to get as much Bitcoin as possible. Didn't wasn't really going that hard in the stock market. Didn't have any real estate. Just wanted to get as much Bitcoin as possible. Now, I still want to get Bitcoin, but I think you need to diversify. I'm bullish on stocks. I know Brian, our host, is not that bullish on stocks. I'm bullish on real estate. I'm bullish on all of it. Uh, I just interviewed real estate mogul Grant Cardone on our channel, uh, you know, a little bit ago and, you know, he's getting he was just a real estate guy and he's getting into Bitcoin and he's, you know, a lot of people ask him, why not only do Bitcoin? He's like, why would I only do Bitcoin? I need both. I love both. I'm a big believer in stocks, too. I mean just buy a u you know a passive index ETF low expense ratio and you know uh acrew value with the market. I I think you need all of it. I believe if you want to maintain your wealth you should be diversified. If you want to gain wealth you should have concentrated bets understanding you also have much more risk. So for me personally it's not a surprise I think Bitcoin has the most asymmetrical upside. you know, it's you're not necessarily going to get rich quick with that, but I believe it'll outperform the S&P. It'll be here 10, 20 years from now, and it'll have a better return. So, having said that, I believe in the S&P betting on the best 500 companies in America, Long America. I think that's getting better. Will continue to get it is great and will continue to get great. Uh I don't believe in picking individual stocks just because I'm not willing to do the work. Obviously, Nvidia is doing very well. If I had to rank them, Brian, to answer your question, and last thing I'll say is, and obviously cash is king. I think we learn that. We learn that every bare market, you want to have a little more cash than you can just to stay sane. For me, that's 10 20% always to invest in the dips. I personally, Brian, would put stock market last, cashes in its own separate bucket, real estate second, Bitcoin with the most asymmetrical upside first. I would put stock market and Bitcoin as uh one and two. And we could argue which one's better. Obviously, Bitcoin and then real estate would be third just as far as barrier to entry. I think if you're trying to acrue wealth, just focus on Bitcoin and the stock market. We've bought a decent number of rentals over the last couple years and it's amazing how much work they are. Even when you have a management company and an accountant, they still take up mind share and you get about the same return as the stock market, maybe slightly better depending on how levered you are. But uh yeah, >> yet the money's locked up more. So, >> okay, this is for part two on YouTube afterwards. All right, this is exactly that. Exactly that. I have a comment about Grant Cardone, then two questions to wrap up. Okay, we don't have time to talk about it, but I appreciated that Grant at Pomp's conference talked about how much Bitcoin he owns, and I appreciate that he called out that a negative part of Bitcoin culture is this blanket thing that you shouldn't talk about how much Bitcoin you have. And so it's fine to add caveats about that, but other wealthy Americans and as a uh when you are around more wealthy Americans in one-on-one situations, they are more open and honest with each other than Bitcoin and crypto people are in my opinion, in my experience. Quick quick reaction. >> I thought you were about to ask us how much Bitcoin we No, I'm not I'm not going to do that because this is not the right context for that and I'm fine with caveats, but the blanket uh standing among the Bitcoin culture I do disagree with. I mean I would just say that the Bitcoin personal finance has been really non-existent perhaps you know uh besides the last few years the Bitcoin culture for personal finance was that over you know Bitcoin's history was that akin to like a libertarian mindset or like a gold bug mindset you know do not share personal details be very uh vague about it and so it's it's really non-existent and really I think there has been a little bit of a ceiling in that you know that appeals to a certain amount of people but you really can't figure out how to get ahead Brian, how much money is in your bank account? >> Okay, next question. >> No, no. And my point is my point is that that's how I see Bitcoin as the bank account as the endgame. >> So, yes. Right. Right. And that's why and there is there is a way to politely discuss finances with other people in a way that levels up your brain. It will make you more wealthy. I think everyone needs a group of people, even if they're protective about how much Bitcoin they have, a group of people, they're in a similar situation that they trust where they can talk about it because you have to be able to talk about allocation and how you're buying, what you're buying as opposed to bit Bitcoin versus other assets. So, there are three or four people that I know that know how much Bitcoin I have and I know how much they have and we talk about that versus real estate. Um, and I'm much more likely to tell someone how many rentals I have or what's what I have in the stock market or what I make even than >> I want to dive in on that on YouTube about why is it okay for rentals in stock market different about Bitcoin because I don't I don't have the answer to that but I want to dive into that. Okay, two more and you guys see the timer. We talked about the asset side but I want to talk about the credit and debt side now. What is your opinion about um credit cards, lines of credit, margin loans, home equity lines of credits? What are you doing in that area really quickly? >> I think personal debt is unhealthy. credit card debt, high interest debt, very unhealthy. I think the American system forces you if you want to get ahead, use debt to your advantage, like a mortgage. Um, I'm a fan of using debt in safe specific instances. >> Uh, I generally agree. You know, again, these are like easy simple concepts, but I guess they're simple concepts, but they're not easy. I, you know, I take the old uh Dave Ramsey school of thought generally when it comes to credit. I mean, I guess no, I I use a credit card, but you know, tons of people, you know, take out debt to buy, you know, luxury goods or liabilities. >> I bought my swimming pool. I' I've financed a $300,000 swimming pool fully. >> But then there's other things you can do with uh, you know, improving your assets like uh, you know, buying a a home or or different things that uh, you know, would be better. >> I think it's really situationally dependent. Right now I have we have rentals but we only have a mortgage on one rental and we have a decent number of units. The others are paid off and it's not the most efficient way to do it by any means but also I at the end of the day I think I can get more aggressive with my other investments and have less cash than I would otherwise. And you know our income goes up and down so much. It's just at the end of the day it's a quality of life thing. And would it be better if I got another 3% somewhere else? Yes. But will it make a material difference? No. You guys sound underleveraged to me, so I'm going to have to leverage pillow you guys. Okay, go. Last question. Last question. What is a thing that you wish mainstream personal finance YouTube understood better about Bitcoin? I I wish they understood that it's separate from crypto. We're in a very new n industry, huge volatility, huge upside. I think I think there is a space. There's innovation happening in the rest of crypto, but Bitcoin is fundamentally different. It's used by me personally for something different, a money, a savings account. And I wish that was clear or mainstream finance took the time to separate. >> I actually probably like you guys love normal personal finance YouTube channels, the Dave Ramsey's, the the Caleb Hammers. Um so I think they do a lot of things right. Um, however, many of them do not see that the world is changing. And actually, I think in the past since 2025, I have seen a lot of those triedand-true personal finance YouTubers, you know, say Bitcoin is a good investment. And they kind of set it near the top of 2025. So, so far, you know, that hasn't played out that well for their audience maybe, but obviously it's it's a long-term game. So I actually think things are changing and you know people are kind of waking up and adapting and it's you know probably because the wall street and tradi is coming to crypto. >> We're not all just dens. A lot of us have real estate or stocks or cash. It's not not everyone's 100% in whatever altcoin you you think that they're interested in. So I wish mainstream understood that that you're not an idiot for owning 5% Bitcoin. Uh also I think that will change over time because the incentive will be there when people can sell Bitcoin ETFs and a lot of uh financial advisors still can't do that. So incentives will change and then people will be more bullish. >> I genuinely appreciate you guys being open and transparent with us today. Like genuinely thank you for being a part of this discussion. Go ahead go ahead and tag these guys for a part two on YouTube and uh get it. Let's make it happen. Thank you everyone. Every year this community comes together to celebrate, to debate, to build what comes next. And every year the stage gets bigger. Sound money center stage. So where do you go to celebrate the next chapter in Bitcoin history? You come home. Nashville, July 2027.