Transcript of Crypto's HIDDEN TRUTHS by Tycoon Armando Pantoja

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Ladies and gentlemen, welcome to another exciting episode of Mic Unplug. Today's guest is a visionary in the financial technology space, lending his expertise in blockchain, cryptocurrency, and software engineering to reshape the future of finance. Known for his influence on social media as the Tall Guy Tycoon, he continues to inspire millions by sharing insights on wealth building and the future of financial markets. Please join me in welcoming the Innovative, the Driven The Tall Guy Tycoon himself, Mr. Armando Pantoya. Armando, how are you doing today, brother? I'm good.

I appreciate you having me.

Hey, I am honored to be here, and I want to just go straight in, man. You have I don't want to say you figured out blockchain and crypto, but you figured it out. But the most important part is you're sharing your knowledge and expertise with others. My initial question is, man, what got you into blockchain and crypto?

It's an interesting story. I was a software engineer for many years. Around 2009, '10, I decided to go back to grad school. When I got first day in grad school, you learn the base of software engineering in undergrad, but then you go on that grad school, you have to pick a specialization. First day, they asked me, What's your specialization going to be? 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. Crypto, which is the study of computer encryption. Then I got into it and I liked it and everything. But then right in the middle of grad school, cryptocurrency came out. Now, cryptocurrency and cryptology and graphology is two different things. Now, cryptocurrency Currency is a currency based on the science or the study of cryptology or cryptography, which is the study of computer encryption. That's why crypto is so transformative is because it's the most advanced database ever known to man. That's what people don't I was. They see Bitcoin as some money or some investment, but it's way deeper than that. 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 It was an investment. The opportunity I saw in cryptocurrency the first three years was way. 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. Around 14, 15, 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. I was just lucky to be around the right people and got in early, being around studying the technology that cryptocurrency is based on.

Yeah, man. I told you offline, I'm a huge fan of you and what you do for people and helping them understand. Because you just hit on it. There's this big thing, well, what is Bitcoin and what does it do? For some people, it's one of those things, it's just a fad, it's going to play out, and there's other people that really go hard into it. But what I love is that you're helping people with financial literacy also. How important is financial literacy to you and what you're about?

I got into Bitcoin in 2011. I'd have been playing around with stocks for a little bit before then. I made some money. Before that, I did have a guy that would train me in stocks and how they work and everything like that. 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. When I got into crypto, I 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, $150, $100, $80. But at the time, I thought it was a currency. But around that time, by around 14, I started seeing the investor potential. I started actually buying it for investment purposes. 2013, one of the only exchanges, I think it was the only Bitcoin exchange on Earth, got hacked. Somebody stole $50 million of Bitcoin. At the time, that's billions now. But But it was $50 million at the time, which was like a lot of Bitcoin.

Everybody panicked. The news starts saying that Bitcoin was a scam. It really wasn't. That's proof that this was a Ponzi and all that stuff because people got panicked. Bitcoin dropped all the way from $1,000 all the way down into the hundreds again, 90% draw down. For two years, I didn't even look at it no more. It's like late '15, early '15. Then I saw it start to creep back up, and I was like, Well, that's weird. Why would it creep back up? I thought they said it It was over. I started buying it again, 2015, '16. Then I started looking deeper into how markets work. Why did they tell us that it was going to crash? I started researching, and 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 it to stocks and crypto at that point. That's why I've done so extraordinarily well is because there's underlying truths in all of 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.

It all deals with curves, cycles, and also human psychology. All of that is interwoven into a tapestry that underlies all these financial markets. Now, if you figured it out, you can figure out everything on top. That's what I've been trying to teach people over the years is that these things is very simple to understand if you just look past all the fluff and just look at the base and see what's happening.

Yeah. You've done a lot. You made a ton of money, obviously. You're helping people understand crypto and blockchain. But you're also an award winner, man. In 2020, you won the IBM Blockchain Award. Tell us a little bit about that project that led to that award. I know that's not the pinnacle of your success, because that was four years ago. But at that moment, man, how did Armando feel? Did you feel validated that Yes, I'm doing the right thing.

Yeah, that was one of the validation points along my life because that was one of the big moments because IBM, a company like that, recognized you for your innovations on blockchain. We came up with a solution to get people to work with IBM to get people to use the blockchain to get people hired back after COVID to get people back to work. We won an award for that. It was me and my business partner, actually. 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. I was proud to win it. Actually, after I won that award, I got a blue check the next week on Instagram. That was before the blue checks you could pay for it. You had to earn it. Before everybody get blue check. That's the biggest thing because the main Twitter page shouted me out and said, I wanted this award for my picture. Then 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 ask for it.

They just had to recognize you. That was really the biggest thing. I was really excited about those two things.

I want to go into your book, man, because there are a lot of listeners and viewers that I know you can give strategic insight and in tips, too. The strategic millionaire, we're talking the seven laws of wealth. I love for the man, the myth, the legend himself. There's no better source than the source. What are these seven laws of wealth, and how can people start imparting them into their routine and their habit when it comes to finance?

It's about these market cycles and patterns that I just talked about. These are the seven laws that I've learned over time, and a lot of them almost fly in the face with what traditional logic is. Because traditionally, I've learned in life is that when everybody does something, it's probably wrong. When everybody thinks a certain way, it's probably wrong. 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. The more people that move up, the system will readjust, and then now they're goalpost to move. And then now all of a sudden this is rich. Everybody can be rich. The only way you can be rich is by thinking differently than the masses. That's what those seven laws are. It's like, You don't have to hustle and be up three, four days straight to make money. A lot of the billionaires I know, their schedules are pretty free because they got everybody else doing this stuff for them.

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. 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, you look, Man, I got this idea. This is going to make a lot of money. You don't have any time to work on it. 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 in a basket. That basket is for the passive income. When you reach an opportunity, let's say somebody comes, you say, Man, I got an opportunity to build a website. It can make a bunch of money. All right, 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 to finally a zero. I throw that in my basket of passive income. Then I move on to something else. You have to think about things in life like that. That's actually a law. It's called be lazy. 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 income. You can't work all the time and you won't be able to build up anything. Then if you stop working, the money stops. A lot of that book is focused to that. Some of the book It talks about the trends that we talked about, trends and patterns and stuff that exist in markets. It talks about having a right circle of friends around you. That's very important. Building a circle of winners. 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.

It doesn't work like that. No. 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. I've heard people just show up to a networking event and say, Now, what do I do? It doesn't work like that. 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 take them out to lunch, pick their brain. That's nothing. People ask me to lunch five times a day. I don't go because I'm not driving over to Tampa because I live a little bit outside Tampa. It's not worth it to me. You have to come to these people and say, Hey, look, do you need somebody to pick up your laundry every week? I'll do that. Don't ask me Ask for anything in return. Say, Hey, 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.

Don't ask for anything in return. Do that to all the people in the group. Over time, they will pull you up to their level. Eventually, you're building, get into your life, you're helping them, they'll start to like you, hopefully. Then they'll start, you'll hear stuff, and you'll start to understand how they think. They'll put you on opportunities. That's how things work. 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. That's how you have to do it. That's why most people fail in those situations.

No, I'm on spot with you a million %. I want to unplug a few things that you said about what I'm going to say, the hustle culture. I've been saying this for years. Hustle works to a certain extent, but then it's got to be strategy. To me, real wealth comes when I can work on the business, not in the business. Real growth for me as an individual works when I can work on me and not in me all the time. I love the fact that you said that because I think that people miss that both in business and in life. You do have to be able to work, but you've got to work smarter. People talk about the person that works smart and hard always wins. No, the person that works smart and hard usually is burned out. The person that's working smart and smart and smart is always looking to the future is the one that gets to wealth faster than those who don't. I love the fact that you said that, man. To me, that validates some things that I say.

Yeah, I agree with you. Yeah, so you have just worked 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. You got to grind. You got to grind. That's your capital. That's all you got. But once you start building up capital, you got to look for ways out of labor because nobody of any significant wealth has gotten to labor for it. It's normally the ownership of some idea, a technology, or they got other people doing it for them.

That's right.

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. You take on the risk, which is not that bad, and then you always have workers.

Yeah, I agree. Then the other thing I want to unplug is also something that I wholeheartedly agree about, and it's leveling up. It's you get to a certain level, you should always be looking at, How do I now level up? Because, and you know this, and I got to see this now going into these different worlds, there's always somebody a level above you. Always. I don't care who you are. There's always somebody that you can level up and strive to get into that room, into that table. You're exactly right about networking. Most people look at it selfishly. I I go to events all the time, and I laugh at people that just want to be around celebrities or influencers and take a picture. I'm like, That person, he or she, gave you 30 seconds, and you wanted to take a selfie. Do you know how valuable those 30 seconds really could have been? You could have asked an amazing question. You could, to Armando's point, What do you need help with? What can I do for you for free to prove myself? People get it wrong. The next time I see somebody taking selfies with celebrities or influencers at a networking event, I'm going to go crazy.

I'm probably going to grab a mic and say something because that's not that time, man. If you really want to grow your influence, if you really want to level up, spend 30 seconds and ask an amazing question. If you can't ask an amazing question, you really probably shouldn't have been in that room anyway because you were there for the selfie. I promise you that celebrity is not going remember you in five minutes from the selfie. Ask an amazing question, they can't sleep because they're thinking about that question. Exactly.

I agree with you. It's funny about these events and stuff is that when I go to events, especially at the InvestFest last year, it was like a lot of people come to me with these business ideas, apps or mostly tech. The thing about it is that it's so many I can't really... You know how I stop people from doing that? They come up to me, they show me an idea to give me the elevated pitch, and I say, Hey, yeah, it sounds great, man. Here's my email. Send me a full business plan by Monday. 95% of people never send it. Of course. I cut the conversation short. I said, Look, man, I love the idea. Send me What's his plan, Bob? What's your plan? Here's my email. And 95% of people never send it. 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.

No, that's it, man. That's it. Armando, again, I've been a huge fan of yours, and I'll make them applaud. We talk about your because, right? That purpose, that thing that's deeper than your why, that really moves the needle for you, that's almost like your accountability. For Armando to get to where he is today, what's been your because or what's been one of your becauses, if we look at it that way, that holds you accountable, but is really your mission and your purpose?

I grew up in poverty. My 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. That's when I bought it with the Pell grant money from college.

Austin P.

University. Austin P, yeah. That was the first time I had a computer in the house. Technology took me out of Clarksville, Tennessee, a poor kid, and made me into what I am today, just technology. I know I can see that we're in a transformative time from the late '90s to about maybe 2030, '35. It's almost I feel like the industrial revolution in the early 1900s. It has the power to transform a lot of people's situations, to transform entire communities, transform entire ethnicities to a whole different level. If people would just pay attention and learn, That's my because. I scream from the top of the rules. As 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, where to invest, where to grow, where to build your business is at. Because But 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. I'm selling these widgets and I can make them for $20 and I sell them for 50.

Let's say I sell it for $100. That's a big profit, $80 profit for each one. In order to increase my production, 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. My profit is still linear. It's the same no matter what. It may go that up a little bit based on the math of scale, 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. As users come on to that out spending money, the chart looks more like a hockey stick, because the amount of money you can make on technology is exponential. That's why stocks reflect the profit, and tech stocks like that. 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. 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, which is one 5-10 year execution on a set of ideas or an idea.

I love it, brother. I love it. I know we're pinched for time today. I love for you to tell people, what does Armando have going on? And then following up with, where can they find and connect with you? I already gave them in the opener, but I want you to tell it yourself.

I'm available on all social media platforms, Tallgout 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 me and Robert Croke talk about what's happening this week in crypto, and we try to predict where things are going. It's a very popular, I think it's the biggest right now, the biggest crypto podcast on Spotify. Reach out, make sure you guys listen to that. That's it, really. I would appreciate if you guys would follow me.

I will make sure we have the description both on YouTube and on the audio versions. We'll have everything in the show notes. Man, just honored to have you here. Really quick rapid fire with Armando. So grew up in Clarksville, tall guy tycoon. How tall is Armando, for those that don't know?

6'6.

6'6. Ken Armando, hoop.

Yeah, I used to be good. I messed my knees getting bad now, though. But I played overseas. I played in Puerto Rico, Provo.

So still hooping.

As soon as my knee gets better, I'll be going through physical therapy. I was still ducking before that, so off to catching them off the rim and everything. All right. Hopefully, I get back to it. That was eight months ago.

All right. That's the new YouTube channel, Armando Getting Back. Armando Getting Back. All right, man. Again, appreciate your time. I know you're a busy guy. Truly honored all the nuggets and wisdom that you dropped for the viewers and listeners. Appreciate you more than you know, brother.

I appreciate it, man. Thanks so much.

You got it. For all the viewers and listeners, remember, your because is your superpower. Go unleash it.

Thank you for tuning in to Mic Unplug. Keep pushing your limits, embracing your purpose, and chasing greatness.

Until next time, stay Unstoppable.