FULL TRANSCRIPT
Slava (00:00)
In this episode of Smart Humans, we talk with Peter Grosskopf, who's the chairman of Argo Digital Gold. He talks to us about how he loves to put a majority of his investments into alternatives, including over 50 % into precious metals. Why he thinks gold and other hard assets are a great hedge against the inflation environment. He talks to us about the benefits of having gold or other hard assets. And of course, he gives us his predictions.
for three years out and you don't want to miss these.
Slava (00:57)
Hello and welcome to the latest episode of Smart Humans. I'm super excited for today's guest. We have a pioneer in the world of digital gold. So Peter Grosskopf, welcome.
Peter Grosskopf (01:08)
Thank you. Thanks for having me, Slava.
Slava (01:10)
Yeah, so you're the chairman of Argo Digital Gold and we're gonna jump into that in just a little bit. But we always like starting all the way back. How did you even get into alternative investments at all? Where did this all start?
Peter Grosskopf (01:23)
Yeah. Well, I guess out of business school, I got hired by a bank and before I even started that job, I decided I wasn't going to be able to handle the corporate culture and where I was posted. So I joined a firm as a derivatives, futures and options trader when I was 21 years old. So I started 1987. So I started when I was very young and I started in the area of commodities, which
Slava (01:44)
What year is this? Nice.
Peter Grosskopf (01:52)
was a very nascent area at that time. And it was either physicals traders or it was people that were really bullish on whatever they were looking at, whether it be pork bellies or gold, and all these were committed traders.
Slava (02:10)
Nice, and so give me some more of that evolution. So you start from 1987, you're a derivative trader. How do you evolve? What happens from there all the way to Argo?
Peter Grosskopf (02:21)
So in Canada, the independent brokerage firms and derivatives and futures and options firms were acquired by the banks over time. So ironically ended up working back at a bank. I then went to start an independent dealer called Newcrest Capital, which was an equities shop mostly. And I focused on banking, a lot of financings, covered a lot of different industries.
And then we were ironically acquired by the bank again. during that time, I started working with Eric Sprott, one of my great mentors. And Eric made a huge bet and a huge call on gold in the year 2000. And that got me back into the whole area of alternatives. Ended up heading up his firm, Sprott Asset Management, and built it from $6 billion under management to about $25 billion over a 12-year period.
Slava (03:19)
And then was the next step to figure out Argo
Peter Grosskopf (03:22)
Well, during my time at Sprott, we were looking at all things gold. That was really our forte globally. And we founded the Sprott Physical Trusts, which were backed in physical gold. And we started looking at digital and the tokenization of gold probably about five, six years ago. And it became a passion project for me. So when I left Sprott, I continued with that project. And that's what brought about our
Slava (03:49)
Yeah, so I'm have to ask you what digitization of gold means in just a second, but we'll get there in just a few minutes. So obviously you're an accomplished business person. You have your own investments. We love to hear perspectives on the various types of asset classes. So what's your thoughts on the various alternative markets? So whether it's real estate and private credit in the yield world or pre IPO venture, crypto, and then things like art and collectibles. I know I just gave you six different things.
Peter Grosskopf (03:52)
Sure. Yeah, probably.
Slava (04:19)
but we'd love to hear how you actually invest some of your own net worth in terms of allocating across these. For example, how much of your investments go into these alternative type assets versus the typical stocks and bonds?
Peter Grosskopf (04:33)
Yeah. Well, because I was a banker and an investment banker, I actually restricted myself on holding a lot of public investments. So I was always a heavy alternatives investor. The majority of my assets were in alternative assets right from the start. But I break it down into two different thoughts here. The first is how do people that traditionally have needed more liquidity invest in an alternative strategy?
Slava (04:49)
Okay.
Peter Grosskopf (05:03)
I think there's been so much work done on that. I call it the democratization of alternatives, things like private credit. You can hold BDCs now and do private credit very efficiently. And I think that's wonderful. And I do quite a bit of that. I do a lot of market neutral funds. I do a lot of private credit. And I think that those have become very efficient and I'm grateful for that. As you know, the private markets are now bigger than the public markets.
It's good that individuals have the ability to access them. So I'd put that on one side of the equation. The other side is how do you keep pace with inflation? And we all know inflation is running hotter than what the Federal Reserve says it is. And in order to efficiently and effectively beat inflation, you need to hold hard assets. Investors have traditionally done that through real estate, but are returning to
more commodity and real asset investments and in particular gold to hold its purchasing power more than what fiat currency would. And it's pretty simple. Bitcoin and gold have exactly the same premise, which is it's harder to print, it's not controlled by a government who's intense on printing, and therefore it does better than inflation, and it's a safer place to store some of your value. And I think that's become
the number one investing theme for the public now. I think it's insurance against governments.
Slava (06:35)
Nice, so for you personally, of your 100 % of net worth, that's not your primary home. If you have to guess, how much is in alternatives?
Peter Grosskopf (06:42)
Well, first of all, at least 50 % is in precious metals. So I'm a bit off the right side of the curve. And I would say that I'm probably 80, 90 % alternatives.
Slava (06:46)
Wow. I love it.
Wow, that's amazing. So when you say precious metals, obviously gold is the easy one to understand, but what else would you include in your personal portfolio for precious metals?
Peter Grosskopf (06:55)
Mm-hmm.
Well, gold, silver. Gold's more liquid than silver on much larger market. But I also look at specialty minerals. And I have the advantage of working with a team in Canada and the UK that covers the metals universe globally. So I've always been about mining and metals. You need a team of experts. You need to know whether uranium or whether copper is the right one to move next.
It's a little more active than my holdings in gold would be. I also invest in energy and energy related resources because they are scarce. I think the energy markets are a little more correlated to the economy. So that's the downside.
Slava (07:49)
Got it, and then art or collectibles, is that something you invest in or not really?
Peter Grosskopf (07:54)
Art for my own personal reasons and not not large and collectibles no I've just never had the expertise to go into them.
Slava (08:01)
Sure, and we can't be good at everything, right? How about a pre-IPO venture? So whether it's early stage or late stage pre-IPO stuff.
Peter Grosskopf (08:09)
Yeah, I've become a bit of an entrepreneur. usually the best ideas are our pre IPO and I have a group of colleagues that I invest with that look at those types of deals. So pre IPO for sure.
Slava (08:26)
And then crypto, obviously there's a connection between gold and Bitcoin, but are you actively investing personally into BTC or other crypto investments?
Peter Grosskopf (08:34)
So it's a very good question. When we were at Sprott, we decided not to go into Bitcoin. It was obviously a mistake. It's, in my opinion, become completely legitimized now as the volumes have grown and it's become a real, call it anti-fiat currency market. So I'm very sorry that I never did, but now I've got the link between Bitcoin and gold for gold tokenization. The next thing we'll talk about digital gold. I'm going to focus on that because I know that better.
A lot of my team does invest in digital assets and Bitcoin, but I've never done so. I've always stuck with gold.
Slava (09:12)
So you mentioned the hard assets. So beyond your primary home, are you a real estate investor?
Peter Grosskopf (09:17)
I have some properties, some rental properties. I keep it very light. I'm not an expert. My son's in the business. He's an expert. I would rather leave my money with my son to invest than do it myself. I think the theme of all of that is go where you know and stick to what you know if you're going to do it yourself. if it doesn't mean it's not a good idea if you don't know it, but leave it to a team of experts.
Slava (09:42)
Go where you know, I love that. We're gonna bring that back. So thank you for sharing all of that. I'm gonna ask you a very high level question which you could take wherever you want, which is, and I think I know a little bit where you'll talk about inflation, but what do you think of the market today? So whether it's the economy, the stock market, commodities, what do you think about labor? What do you think about international Trump? Take it wherever you'd like.
Peter Grosskopf (09:45)
Okay.
Slava (10:10)
Let's hear what Peter has to say about where we're at.
Peter Grosskopf (10:13)
Sure. Well, certainly an interesting time financially speaking. I would say the number one noticeable aspect of the market right now is it's been fueled by the issuance of an unbelievable amount of debt. And that debt is mostly now sovereign. Companies are generally in good shape, although there's the overleavered side of the market, but let's leave that out. So the issue is that we've borrowed from the future to spend in the present.
At some point, there's going to be a day of reckoning. I believe it's already happening in that I think they've gone past the point where they can control the debt. Now they just need to work it like a clay pot. And the way for them to work it is to create a situation where inflation and the economy grows faster than the interest rate that they're prepared to pay on the risk-free. So I'm talking about financial repression.
an era which I believe will last for 10 to 20 years of negative real interest rates. And for savers, that's very dangerous. And that has, in my opinion, fueled the desire to get into gold, which I think is very broad based now. Gold is an entirely different market than it was even 10 years ago. And also Bitcoin. So you've now got a
pretty heavy inflation protection market, which between gold, Bitcoin and tips, treasury tips, is almost 10 trillion in size. But it's still a fraction of the 300 trillion in global debt balances that have been built up. So I still think we're in the early innings of having to get protected from
Fiat currency purchasing power declines and Most real assets whether they be real estate Bitcoin gold They all have a bid under them in that desire to protect so I think that's the number one noticeable aspect of the market You can play offense on stocks private equity private credit is even a form of offense in a way but you need some defense and people know that now and so
The great offense, of course, has been the big tech companies. I mean, if you haven't invested in those, you've completely lost out and I haven't. So you might feel like you've missed it and you probably have, but more people have started to put money into insurance products against that inflation. And that's what I notice.
Slava (12:59)
So I'm just taking some notes here. You said 10 to 20 years for negative real interest rate returns for the savers. So just exactly what that means is if I'm putting my $100 of cash into the bank and I'm getting, let's call it an interest rate return, chances are I'm not getting enough compared to the inflation that's going up around me. So in the years that I'm saving, I'm probably actually losing my power for purchasing. Is that correct?
Peter Grosskopf (13:26)
Exactly. So to put some real numbers on it, I think you can count on now somewhere between three and 5 % interest rates as a saver, which is a little more normalized than it was. And they're telling you they're going to get inflation down to the two to 3 % range, which A, I don't believe B, I don't think they control and C, I think it's a lie.
I think they're very, very crafty in the way that they decide to calculate inflation. It's kind of like asking an NFL referee whether they like the Chiefs or not. They seem to favor them no matter what. They don't really count it fairly, I don't think, inflation.
Slava (14:15)
Got it, so
but just to be specific, if I was getting 4 % interest and the inflation was really 2%, I would still be positive, right? Because I'd be making more money than the inflation was going up. But you're saying I might be getting 4 % interest, but the inflation realistically is actually more like maybe 5%. So I'm actually losing every year, is that right?
Peter Grosskopf (14:33)
Five to 10, right? Because, yeah.
Slava (14:34)
No, no, I'm just using the math
just so the listeners can understand. Okay.
Peter Grosskopf (14:37)
Absolutely. Because it's not
just cheap goods and services that need to be counted when you count inflation. Of course, it's rents. Of course, it's university tuition. Of course, it's medical. Of course, it's insurance. You're telling me inflation in the insurance market is 4 % or 3%. That's a joke. It's going up 10 to 20 % a year.
Slava (14:59)
Right. So the 10 to 20 years, you know, that's like a slow boil for the frog. It's hard to notice that, which is scary. But what do you think about the economy in the next two to three years? Anything that you predict as to what's going to happen in the near term?
Peter Grosskopf (15:17)
Well, here's my prediction and it's not very accurate, I don't think. And that is that everything's been going perfectly for a long time. And if you listen to Donald Trump and his election platform, America is going to be great, damn it, because I'm going to make it great. And it's got a lot of momentum, right? It's never been stronger. The economy has never been more finely tuned to American industry and American companies.
Slava (15:35)
Right.
Peter Grosskopf (15:47)
The problem is the dollar is too strong and it's starting to hurt the rest of the world. The problem is tariffs are coming in now. The problem is de-internationalization is happening in a real way. So there's all these headwinds now, but the market has stayed strong and high and employment has stayed strong and high. And it's kind of like, are we really playing the last game of cards on the Titanic or not? Like,
When does this thing start to slow down? And I think it's starting to slow from what I can see. The statistics I'm seeing are that levered consumers are starting to slow down now. And of course, a lot of government employees are being laid off. That's going to create economic weakness. So I think at some point soon, we're going to see the weakness. And I think you're going to see interest rates getting cut again. They'll try and juice the markets. That only has limited effect now.
And I think this whole sort of monetary policy thing has been played out for so long. I just don't think they're going to be able to stop the economy from slowing.
Slava (16:52)
Okay, perfect transition. So what is Argo Digital Gold and why did you start it?
Peter Grosskopf (16:58)
Now let's talk about something I actually know about. digital gold can be a bunch of different things. It can be fractional gold that you, an everyday consumer or a bigger institution can buy via the internet. So you've secured golden storage, you've done so using a digital contract and we call it digital fractional.
That's been around for 20 years. It's getting better. It's getting more efficient. It's getting more slick. And I would say that's a business onto itself. And there's a bunch of competitors in that. What's new is that that digitization is represented by tokenization. And there are gold tokens. They do work. They do represent physical gold. And I want to be
very careful about this. All of this is talking about physical gold and storage. It's not a paper, it's not a contract, you're backed by physical gold one for one. So tokenization, if done properly, is representing physical gold bars and storage that have been put on the blockchain and can be traded. And I believe it will be
the most revolutionary change that we've seen in the gold market since the advent of ETFs. And it's coming. And it's taking a long time and people in the gold market are tired of waiting for it. But it's coming and it will result in products that make gold much more accessible like Bitcoin, like other products, financial products.
Slava (18:46)
So.
Let's use me as the customer. So just so I understand in terms of size, do I need to be a retail investor and a credit investor and institution to work with you? What is it? Anything?
Peter Grosskopf (19:00)
Any of the above. it's a completely democratized model where, yeah.
Slava (19:04)
Okay, great.
And I could go onto your site and go purchase it now, is that right?
Peter Grosskopf (19:09)
That's right, you could purchase any denomination that would meet the minimum. I believe it's like $25 for us. It's very small.
Slava (19:14)
What's the minimum?
Okay,
great. So what's the difference between getting $25 of Argo digital gold and $25 of a gold ETF?
Peter Grosskopf (19:27)
So a gold ETF is a security and as such, you need to purchase it through a broker. So for starters, the regulatory framework is different. It does trade on exchange, meaning it has limited exchange hours that it trades. It has two day settlement. Yes, it has two day settlement.
Slava (19:36)
Right.
Meaning the ETF.
Peter Grosskopf (19:54)
And for large traders, that's very efficient. You know, the big hedge funds institutions, they can wheel in and out of that ETF. They don't pay many custody fees. They don't pay brokerage fees on top of that, or not large ones anyway. For an everyday investor, you're paying the ETF fee, which eats away at your gold holding every year. That's about 50 to 60 basis points. On top of that, you're paying a broker to trade it.
On top of that, you're paying a broker to house it. On top of that, you're paying a custodian. So for an average investor, it's somewhere between 100 and 150 basis points of what we call grind a year. And there's nothing wrong with it. I think that many, many years ago when we started the Sprott physicals, there was a concern that the GLD did not have the physical gold in storage. I don't think that's a real concern anymore.
So do they get audited? Do people go and look at the bars? I think they do.
Slava (20:57)
And what's the grind or the fees with Argo?
Peter Grosskopf (21:01)
So it depends on size, but.
Slava (21:03)
So let's
say I did 10 grand.
Peter Grosskopf (21:06)
Yeah, so I'm gonna generalize now. I don't wanna quote without our team being on the phone, but the first thing is the trading fee. And we pledge to do that as low as possible. We pledge to undercut the competition if we can. And I'm not sure what that would be. It would depend on the day. It would depend on exactly when you bought the gold and exactly when we delivered it. But we're trying to cut that to the bone, the trading fee. The second thing would be the annual storage fee.
And depending on the size of the investor, we're anywhere between, and I'm going to generalize here, 20 basis points a year to 50 basis points a year. We will be able to, in certain cases, store gold for free.
Slava (21:51)
how would that be?
Peter Grosskopf (21:53)
Well, we
would pay the fee and we would make it up on the trading. So we've got a model which will change. And the pledge that we have is we're getting investors in as low and lower than the competition, as low as we possibly can.
Slava (21:57)
Got it.
When did Argo get started?
Peter Grosskopf (22:12)
Well, it's just launching in the U S now. In fact, I think the official launch date was like this week. yeah. Yeah.
Slava (22:17)
Oh, here we are, we're gonna have breaking news, I love it.
Amazing, so if it's 100 to 150 basis points for the ETF style and you're 20 to 50, so it's a dramatic, let's call it one third the price. I mean, I'm simplifying here dramatically. Okay, that's awesome. And so you're already on the bleeding edge as to really where all finance is headed, right? Because what people have been saying is really a home should be able to be digitized and potentially fractionalized.
Peter Grosskopf (22:31)
It can be, it can be, yeah.
Yeah, I believe so.
Slava (22:47)
be done on a token. Obviously, you already have NFTs, but even Apple stock, right? Apple stock should be able to similarly be done on a tokenization process and be fractional. But obviously, the legacy markets haven't really gone there yet. But you're already on the bleeding edge doing this with gold, kind of pioneering it forward. Is that fair?
Peter Grosskopf (23:05)
That's right. And so the next stage and the one we haven't talked, we've been talking about fractional gold, representative of physical gold and storage. Once gold is tokenized, it really opens up a whole new use of applications. First of all, settlement can be instantaneous. Secondly, 24-7 trading. Thirdly, all of a sudden gold can be sent between parties, assuming that the right
regs are in place and you're dealing with a money transfer organization. It can be sent between parties which are anonymous to each other and it can be used to pay for things. think of it as once that happens as being a lower volatility Bitcoin. So the gold market is much bigger than Bitcoin, it trades much more, it's more liquid. But the two could become partners in crime, so to speak. And that's a bad use of word.
but they could become real true alternative currencies. And that's what we're talking about, alternative currencies. It's like.
Slava (24:11)
Right, so
if there's a listener who's wondering to themselves like, why do I really need to be thinking about this? Because maybe they are thinking about gold. So it's not a question, do I want to get exposure to gold? It's a given, they want some exposure to gold. Now, how do I get that exposure? Really the difference here is you're talking about having lower fees, faster settlement, and being able to do it outside some limitations of which brokerage account you connect to. Is that fair?
Peter Grosskopf (24:36)
Yes,
that's right. And in the gold world, we're an expert in a gold world, we face the vaults. In a gold world, we can tell people that if we're covering a gold token that we think it's legitimate. And we're there to be the experts on digital and tokenized gold.
Slava (24:57)
So I know we've just been talking about this for a few minutes already, but I'm gonna ask one more time. So I have, let's call it a Robinhood account. I'm one of the listeners. I have Robin, I'm trying to make up a scenario and I have $100,000 in my Robinhood account, various stocks, maybe some ETFs that I've had. Maybe I'm doing a little bit of options trading. have no idea. And I'm interested in getting some gold exposure. So.
You're suggesting I should open up an Argo account outside of Robinhood instead of getting that GLD and I'll go with you guys. Is that right?
Peter Grosskopf (25:30)
Actually, our business model would be, you could do that, you could set up directly with us, of course, we're always happy to have the customer directly, that's our business model. But if it becomes a very popular service, we would consider doing a deal with Robinhood to do a Paris exposure trade into Argo Digital Gold. So we're trying to set up those relationships where we...
co-act with other crypto and other brokers to offer our API, so to speak, which is kind of a code word for our technology. We can offer that to them on a swap basis. So hopefully we can do business through Robinhood as well.
Slava (26:18)
Amazing, but when the listeners hear this very soon, they're probably gonna have to open up their account directly until at that point in the future where there's no partnership.
Peter Grosskopf (26:25)
That's great. Yeah. So
for right now, you need to come direct to us.
Slava (26:29)
Great, and it's 24-7, which is actually awesome, because obviously the public markets have their limitations. Amazing, anything else you want to mention about Argo Digital Gold?
Peter Grosskopf (26:39)
No, I'm really excited. We just want to tell people you can trust us. We think it's a great idea and we do think it's the right thing to put more than 10 % of your money in alternative currencies. We really believe that you need protection against fiat, this constant printing, this huge debt.
Slava (27:01)
More than 10%. Wow, so is more than 10 % 30 % or is more than 10 % 12 %?
Peter Grosskopf (27:07)
Well, look, 20 years ago, very few investors had any gold or Bitcoin exposure. I think you might be getting up to that 2 to 3 % level now. Certainly more than that. And I would say, I personally don't feel comfortable unless, and I'm a Canadian, you watch the Canadian dollar versus the US, I made a huge mistake not having 80 % of my money in gold or Bitcoin.
I think that most people should consider 10 to 15 to kind of be a household average.
Slava (27:40)
So you keep on saying gold or Bitcoin. So I just want to make sure I'm understanding clear. Do you think gold and Bitcoin are kind of swappable, like they're replaceable, or are there distinct differences in your mind?
Peter Grosskopf (27:52)
Well, there's distinct differences, but I do think they accomplish, they aim to accomplish the same thing. So I think more and more investors will consider them both.
Slava (28:00)
I see, okay, great. So you're obviously so knowledgeable going back all the way to 1987 with your long tenure. What is it that you're using to read, to watch, to listen to, to be Peter and to be so smart about the commodities and gold and precious metal space?
Peter Grosskopf (28:18)
Well, I do a lot of reading. I read a service called Forest Through the Trees. I read a service from Grant Williams called Things That Make You Go Hum. These are writers. Luke Gorman covers international money flows and what's actually happening with the world's money. And Grant Williams is just a great commentator on the overall
financial markets. I Jim Grant, Grant's interest rate observer for bonds. I read a lot of publications.
Slava (28:56)
That's great. These are awesome suggestions. And then any like hobbies or habits that, you know, make you, you.
Peter Grosskopf (29:04)
I like to be active. Every day I like to do something. It can be surfing, down in Costa Rica now. It can be skiing, it can be just working out, you know, just every day, burn some calories, get some mobility, get your head out of the screen, you know, and get out and enjoy the outdoors.
Slava (29:23)
Perfect, get the blood flowing. All right, well, we always like to put our guests on the spot with some predictions for three years out. call it, you know, three years out, we like to have one prediction for the public markets where you give us an actual ticker at a company and one prediction for the private markets. And I know pretty confidently that yours is gold, digital gold and potentially Bitcoin, but I'll let you choose whatever you want. So what would be your two predictions? First, the public markets.
Peter Grosskopf (29:49)
Public markets. Boy, I don't trade a lot of stocks. I would say that, look, think that I think GLD, okay, gold, I'm going to come back to gold. I'm only going to make one prediction. I'm going to say gold is going to be 4,000 in three years. And you can play it through the public markets or you can play it through Argo.
Slava (30:12)
Okay.
Fair enough, but I'm gonna put you on a spot. I'm take that as your private markets. So what would be your public markets, i.e. more of like a company or, you know...
Peter Grosskopf (30:22)
All right.
All right,
I'm going to throw it out there. I like Elon Musk. Okay. I think he's half crazy, but he has developed more value for this world than, you know, a couple of countries put together. I'm going to say that Tesla is going to get cut in half.
Slava (30:45)
wow, so your prediction is a down. I love it, I love it. Usually it's an up, but this is a bold prediction.
Peter Grosskopf (30:50)
Sorry,
sorry everybody, but Tesla cannot keep making cars and generating earnings and being worth over a trillion dollars in an industry that is absolutely getting gutted right now. It ain't gonna happen. It's getting cut in half.
Slava (31:04)
Okay, this is amazing. I love the bold prediction. So your prediction is Tesla three years out will be down, but you're even saying cut in half. And the obvious reasons is multiple. The multiples are just too high. The industry is just too margin compression. You're just not believing in all the future in terms of the innovation that will actually allow for this type of price.
Peter Grosskopf (31:14)
How are you, Elon?
Yeah, I have a battery car. I see what happens when the battery fails. People aren't ready for that. Nobody's going to rent them. It's got a limited application to the automotive market and I think it's been way overhyped. And yeah.
Slava (31:39)
I love it. I love
it. You went from no prediction to an amazingly bold prediction. This is awesome. And then gold. No, this is great. And then gold, your prediction was 4,000 when? Sorry, I didn't quite hear that. Okay, great.
Peter Grosskopf (31:45)
Who do I know?
Within three years for sure.
And I think that's being relatively conservative, no huge blow off moment. I think that's just gonna happen.
Slava (32:01)
And just to timestamp it, what is it today, directionally?
Peter Grosskopf (32:04)
While gold's hitting new highs now, I've actually been blown away by how well it's acting. It's, what is it, 2880 today?
Slava (32:12)
Okay, so I mean, for an asset that's quite stable three years out, that's pretty significant growth.
Peter Grosskopf (32:18)
yeah, and I think because it's just a question of even as a call it three, $4 trillion investable market, the average investor still has no exposure to gold. And I would say even if you include institutions and hedge funds, you're probably under 2%. If that goes to imagine if that goes to six, I mean, the gold market is going to get squeezed even for how big it is.
Slava (32:29)
Nice.
So you think the opportunities, there's just more demand that's coming. All right, perfect. Well, Peter, this has been an amazing conversation. We've covered a lot of ground from you becoming a derivatives trader in 1987 and that started your whole point of view here and obviously got into the gold world in 2000 and beyond. You really feel that to beat inflation, you gotta get into some hard assets. You personally do what you say here, which is over 50 % of your net worth is in precious metals, which is amazing.
Peter Grosskopf (32:44)
yeah, investor demand.
Yeah.
Slava (33:10)
and even higher across all the alternative assets. It's not just gold, there's silver, uranium, copper, et cetera, energy, but energy, you think is a little closer connected to the economy. You like to stick with what you know, go where you know, which I think was a great takeaway. Big prediction about, you we're gonna have 10 to 20 years of negative real interest rates. So people need to think about their insurance against that and try to find the right way to do that.
Inflation is looking rough. Is it really just 2 % like they say or 3 % or is it really more like 5 to 10 %? So are we really hearing the exact facts or is it going to be the slow boil in the future where we're caught off sides? And you do think that soon we'll be starting to see some weakness, which is obviously why you have your platform, which is Argo Digital Gold. know, the fractionalization of gold has been around for 20 years, but now you're taking it on chain with tokenization, which is amazing. And that really creates a lot of benefits from lower fees, which you call grind.
faster settlement, anonymous transfers, not having to be stuck to a specific brokerage account, which is all very cool. Right now you have to get direct, but soon there'll be opportunities through partnerships. And of course, you gave us lots of suggestions as to what to read, which people will have to listen to that and choose which ones they wanna follow up on. And you add your two huge predictions. One, Tesla's getting cut in half, and two, gold is going up to 4,000. Thank you very much, Peter.
Peter Grosskopf (34:32)
All right, thank you.
