Can Cryptocurrency & Forex Trading Help With Lebanese Inflation?
Thank you everyone for tuning in to this episode! In this episode, we'll be talking about cryptocurrency trading and forex trading and whether they can help us tackle the inflation happening in Lebanon. My guest today is Mr. Abdallah Harfouch, financial investment specialist, founder and CEO of Forex Space SAL, and founder of EcoLearn, Cash Flow TV and AH Financial Consultancy. So Mr. Abdallah, if you'd like to tell us about what you do but in general before we move on to our pinpoints for today. -- Sure! Thank you so much Ali for hosting me today. It's a real pleasure honestly.
Bravo for all the effort you're putting in, I've already taken a look at your channel. It's an amazing channel, so that this message reaches as many people as possible inside and mainly, outside Lebanon. It's been a while we've been working and speaking in Lebanon, even before the crisis we had. We started around 2014, working on the issue of financial and investment education.
We warned so much against debts and loans and the extent to which people took them. Also, talked about how we shouldn't opt for being savers. One of my . . . We were talking off the air about Rich Dad Poor Dad by Robert Kiyosaki. who was my mentor, my first mentor in financial education. He always had a sharp saying, "savers are losers."
People who save money lose their money since the bank won't give them more than the inflation rate, which at times can be greater than interest rates or the ROI they gain. We always had this idea that yes, you must have a certain emergency fund, but at the same time have a fund to invest and to diversify your investment. Which is why I launched my E-Book, which is available to everyone for free, "Five Ways to Boost Your Financial Future", how you can, in five ways, boost your financial future. And if someone is unable to answer the questions in it, it means they still have a long way to go to financial education, and they have to get used to it gradually. -- Yeah, exactly. It's amazing.
For anyone interested in getting the E-Book, you'll find the link to it in the description. Just click on it, you can get it. It's for free, so anyone can claim it. Eventually, I'm sad to say, we've reached what we'd been warning about.
We said it's not sustainable, you can't get your loan, you can't live off credit cards, you can't do such things, you have to have a plan. Look, there's a very important point that you may know better than I do, how much do we plan ahead of a party, an night-out, a trip abroad. If one is about to travel, they spend the previous month looking at their destination country, if not three months. And they book their ticket way earlier for a better price, and they even go to Google Earth and "take a walk" in the area they're visiting to check it beforehand. So they go there as if they'd already seen it.
Look how much planning we do for maybe a one-week visit and sadly how little planning for the coming 40 years, which is our life and more importantly, our financial life. This is why most people, when hit by a crisis, will get shocked, "how did this happen? why did this happen? I wasn't prepared for this!" This is the kind of awareness that should be raised and that we're fostering, all of us I believe, and that includes you. We're putting in all this effort so that people can be prepared always for the worst.
If the "worst" doesn't come about, perfect! They'll be getting by very easily. Should the "worst" come about, they'll come through it unscathed, among a minority. We're talking 10 to 20% who pull through. More to the point, they'll make money in times of crisis.
-- 100% true. Exactly. Also here in Lebanon, every time we hear the word "stock exchange", we're terrified. We've developed this mentality, that "stocks, crypto... what for?!" However, on the contrary, some things you can use to protect yourself against inflation. And it's something all Lebanese attest.
The dollar has now reached 15,000 Lebanese pounds. It was 8,000 or so when I first started the podcast. It will keep on jumping higher and higher going forward. We need a solution, and we're here to tell people they shouldn't be afraid especially if they know what they're doing and are managing the risk. These are the two most important words you've uttered: know what you are doing, manage your risk. Today, most people who get into crypto....
Now after the big crypto wave has passed, those who had already bought down below benefited. The recurring problem is when bitcoin for example reaches 50,000 or 60,000 and some say, "come on, it'll go even higher!" and start buying when it's peaking and the market is up, without understanding the logic behind markets, be it forex or crypto. It's happened twice because history tends to repeat itself, and I'll tell you how. So they don't have an understanding of the logic that although it's so high right now, that although it might continue upward, it's at risk of tumbling back down even if only to rise back up. And I believe this is what happened in 2017-2018 when I first got into it.
bitcoin rose from 4000-5000 to 17000-18000 only to fall back at 7000-9000 for three years. Before it recently shot up. Now we saw the same thing happen. Instead of going from 7,000 to 14,000, it skyrocketed from around 10,000 to 60,000. Only to fall back about 50%. It's 50% so far down from 60,000, which is not the norm.
It might reach 20,000 or 15,000, which would be a logical 61% decrease. A Fibonacci sequence that we'd normally do. You must understand when to sell. 60,000 and it headed back down. We were talking about how you sold, how I sold when we saw it head back down based on technical analysis, on a scientific part. If you throw in your lots with those telling you "to the moon", you'll physically hit the moon after losing all your money.
-- Exactly. After every up there is a down. This is something people ought to wrap their heads around before getting into anything, that after every up there's a down. One must be cautious and wait. Ethereum also whipped up so much fizz that people would say it's going down, and it'd shoot up. "It's about to fall", and it shoots up.
I watched the market and didn't set foot in Ethereum because it soared so high, so steeply. I thought it would soon tumble, "this is surely taking a nosedive." People started loading up on Ethereum. I didn't, because I knew it would fall sooner or later. And it fell. -- The most important part is to figure out how exactly it'll fall. It's just that you get certain signals that it's about to fall, or certain levels.
We had expected the fall of Bitcoin, and it's on our live stream on YouTube. I'm not saying it now after it's happened. I said it before it happened, it's there on the record, that there are certain levels: if it hits 50, it'll reach 43, and if 43, it'll reach 35-30. So if one still has them at 50, they should get rid of them, not retain them. And most people have this problematic belief, that they never lose. "I don't want to show that my account has lost."
Stop losing at one point or another so you can spare yourself all this fall, and later, you can resume at the bottom, or as they say, "buy the dips." -- True. There are resistance and support lines which you probably offer in your course. Let's explain to people what is the difference between the concepts of cryptocurrency trading and forex trading. What's the difference? Why do some people prefer one over the other, and which do you think is the best platform to trade on? -- Honestly, it's a big difference. They're not to compare even as I believe cryptocurrencies are technically part of the forex market because after all it's a type of digital currencies.
Forex stands for foreign exchange: an exchange of foreign currencies. When we say foreign exchange, foreign means abroad, and exchange means swapping. Now cryptocurrencies are foreign currencies, they're international, but they're purely electronic.
Note that when exchanging bitcoin, you change it to US dollar. You're conducting a forex transaction. When it's Bitcoin to Ethereum, or to liquidity, you do it against Euro or others. The difference is there are centralized currencies that are tied to states and their economies. These are normal, national forex currencies, that are analyzed, and swayed by central banks' news. It's also determined by supply and demand of international trade, its legal part. You have something certain and clear to draw on.
Besides, these are historical, there's some historicity to them. Currency has been around since times gone by. It's true that floating currency began after Nixon abandoned the Gold Standard system.
And this currency thing came afterwards. People who trade in the forex market, and this is my own opinion -- this is something I'm involved in, are trading in something consistent, clear, that one can build upon. As a real business, you can make consistent profit out of it. Provided you do it conscientiously, just like we've been doing for the last 7 months As we've shown in our live streams, where one can see the results going steadily up for 7 months, one or two years.
Now on to cryptocurrencies. Cryptocurrencies are nicknamed "new arrivals", as in a retail shop. Items that arrived just recently. The problem with cryptocurrencies is they're not centralized, but rather decentralized.
They pose a problem chiefly to nations: however, many people say they're better because we can factor out banks. So it's better that it's decentralized. We can cut out the middle man and exchange freely, without fees and so on. However, I'm referring to trading in cryptocurrencies in particular. The problem is you can't make out whether it's up or down easily. Elon Musk came out and said he's no longer doing Bitcoin. Puff, it went down by a lot.
If a country places a ban on it, it goes down. And there are other coins I have no idea where they come from. Coins are now breeding, and every now and then they say, "this is the next bitcoin!" And these can be a means of scam. I don't mean Bitcoin or Ethereum, which are older. They already have a history. I'm saying to what extent it can scam people into thinking they'll make 200%, 500%, 700% profit.
And this is usually people's mindset: They always search for fast money. They don't aspire to make profits in a consistent, normal way, as in a normal business. You say to them that forex will make you 5% to 10% monthly, and they say, "this much only?!!!" Man, 5% to 10% a month means 50-100% a year, if it's not compounding. No bank would give you that much. Banks will give you 3-4% the whole year, not every month.
Because those who did crypto say they've made 500% over four months, in bitcoins for example. And I was one of those. I did it at $10,000 a bitcoin, and it reached up to 60,000. "Wow! This is 500%!" However, my mindset tells me this is not durable. Anything that yields high return involves an equally high risk. The same way my capital rose, say I'd placed at 50,000 imprudently, it would've been cut by half. So if I had $50,000, I would've wound up with $20,000.
This is serious stuff. So this is the main difference between the two. The first [forex], in my view, can be a very safe place. Although you can gamble with forex if it's your intention, but you'd be a gambler in this case, not the business as such. One can start an account with $5,000, and get into lots as if they had $500,000. So they jack up their risks.
And in this case, they might lose the total of the $5,000, due to high risk. But once you conduct it with solid risk management as you said, and at the same time in a system that demonstrably gets you results of 80-90%, then you can get into it safely and consistently, and within your own mindset. However, this doesn't apply to cryptocurrencies. I believe that to this day, as Abdallah, and I might be wrong, but it's my opinion, I still don't get how the crypto market is rising and falling, what's the factor behind this that is sending it up and down by this much, with such volatility. Without understanding the very basis underlying these changes. You might get lucky and key into these changes.
So if you're expecting a rise, and you buy at $10,000, and it shoots up to 20-50 grands, that's great. But if in other scenarios, you buy at 50-60 and you see it might keep going up to 100-150 then it drops suddenly by 30-50%, and I mean suddenly . . . -- Free fall. -- You're sleeping at night and you wake up to find out half your account has vanished overnight. -- I've been through this, but with management of risk of course.
So I don't pine for it too much, "look how much I've lost!" you know?! -- I think the main cryptocurrencies are emerging to become just like forex because they're drawing on them in technical analyses; they've started to analyze them. And to be honest, in Forex 80% of the time I'm doing technical analysis, more than news. This is why I'm saying it. If you apply technical analysis on cryptocurrencies along with solid risk management, you can possibly make money out of it. By riding the wave, as they say. Even if you lose the first couple times, once it's set in motion you'll follow suit.
But surely it's a whole difference. The first is tied to nations and centralized, whereas the second is not. -- Exactly. We have this concept---and many memes have talked about this, and to anyone watching, I'm a crypto investor and enthusiast myself and all, I'm into crypto.
However, the idea that once one gets into crypto they say, "when do I get rich?" Or, "where's the Lambo?" and, "to the moon!" This isn't the proper way to think about crypto. Because although it's possible some "shitcoins", which is how they call really low-market coins, rise by 500% in two days, it'll eventually fall by -500%. Not necessarily 500%, you know? This will be followed by a steep decrease. Which is something you won't people post online. There's an influencer I follow that has a coin---I don't if it's really his---that rose by 10,000% 10,000% in two days. And he's posting about it, all hyped up. So I kept an eye on it.
I only watched it, tracked it. He never posted about it when it tumbled. It steeply rose, fell back down and continued steadily. -- This is what happens normally. -- No one said a word about it later on, as if nothing had occurred. So this other side of the story people don't see.
Another thing to consider is enthusiasm. When the market is up like this, many people make money from the buying and selling of cypto. Understandably. Usually it's brokers. Someone who acts as go-between and reaps a percentage. So even if they don't invest in crypto themselves, they encourage people into it, "Look at this coin!" This one's on the rise!" and they receive tuitions. -- Like the Wolf of Wall Street.
-- Yes, this is one such example! I liken Bitcoin to penny stocks people used to do. Penny stocks are stocks of about 20, 5 or 30 cents. They say that there's enormous potential here. If you watched The Wolf of Wall Street,
you'll get the idea. It mushrooms out of proportion and hell breaks loose. "You'll become a millionaire, even a billionaire!" He makes them live the dream. And sometimes, by mistake--because, known as shitty companies, they have a 10% success rate, someone hits the jackpot and they're held up as an example, one of their success stories, while the majority places 10, 20, 30 or 50 grands, expecting 200, 300, 400%.
And then all of a sudden the company goes bust. A similar danger lies in crypto, which is that anyone can create a crypto. I, for example, have Forex Space; I can issue an FS coin.
I would tell people we only deal in FS coins and tell people to buy it and that this coin is "to the moon." We're still getting bigger, the community is getting larger, it'll go up!" People will start investing, funding my own company, like shareholders with these coins. All the while I'm creating coins, mining coins, only to tell people it didn't work out, in two years.
I'll have gathered the amount of money I need. The FS coin has failed. So what happened? It's not there. Another problem with crypto is that it's not watchdogged. Watchdogging cuts both ways. But at some point, for an investor, capital is "craven" usually.
And I'm referring to real investors, not those who risk their money in a roll of the dice. We're talking investors, big investors. They always make sure they're investing in the right place, and that it's safe at some point. Nothing is 100% safe.
Still, at some point this is the case in any investment you make. The problem is that in crypto there's very little safety, besides the risk management you can make. -- Exactly.
This takes us to . . . like, what do you think of crypto or forex trading in the long term? -- Personally, I think crypto or Bitcoin, which was the first currency, has been around since 2009-2010. To this day it's still alive and well, on planet Earth. So to me if it really were a dead loss, it would have come to nothing already. There are always ups and downs. However, no one bought bitcoin, waited two years, and then lost money.
This why you hear them say "huddle", hold your coins and so on. If you ask me, the best strategy is to buy on the ebb and "huddle" and wait two or three years while regularly doing dollar-cost averaging, to see how spare money one has about every month without straitjacketing themselves, and place it in bitcoin or some other high-market cap coins. I think this is the best strategy and it yields the best returns. What are your thoughts? -- We're on the same page. I've always talked about gold first. When we were still at 1200-1300 about four years ago. I made a study and it's still there.
That gold was heading towards 2,000 as initial phase before settling, as is the case now, and it did by 61.8%, and it will predictably resume up to 2,500, and so forth. The same goes for Bitcoin. I'm for bitcoin in the long term. "The main coins", as I like to call them. Not just Bitcoin, but also Ethereum, Cardano and others. There are some pairs that are long in the tooth, as you've said. One can see that this is a project that is resuming up until now. Unless, of course, the whole world agrees on a ban on crypto, that's a whole different story..
I'm speaking in general. These ones, yes. You can hold them in the long term as an investor. Be it gold or Bitcoin.
As for forex, it's short to medium term mostly. When I trade on a daily basis, I do it for one month or two, see what I mean? Not for years to come. You cannot hold in my view, unless you're getting them as physical money. Then you can hold it for two or three years. But after all, it's countries and economies we're talking about. I prefer that one does it in the short term in order to make some money daily. Last week we made a fair amount. You can see the live stream.
We ceased operation, took our money. You can withdraw it and spend it on daily matters. Of course, I make yearly assessments. I look at how much money I made in a particular year. How much in terms of percentage and monthly average.
I don't do it every month. Trading-wise, I do it in terms of swing and scalp trades. Scalp is trade on a daily basis. It's done quickly,
whereas swing trade can go on for days, weeks, or in some cases, a couple of months, if it's a trade that picks up over time. It might have a larger time frame, but not languishing for years. This is rather the case with position traders. These are people who have money and hold a position for a few years because, in their estimation, the dollar will rise in 2023 for instance, so they bet on the dollar. And they go out in general once it happens.
But personally, the forex market is a place to make money consistently, and you can make a living out of it if you do it in the real sense of the term, the normal way. You can make ends meet and do it as a cushy job. It tides you over the year. The same way an employee makes $2,000 a month, which is $24,000 a year. So if you make $24,000 over a year from forex trading, you're making $2,000 a month for example.
On that basis, you can work in it. However, holding a position for a long period of time is something I do in gold and Bitcoin markets. Another market is silver. I'll drop it here. Silver is so underestimated and will be the next boom. Look at us here in Lebanon. They cut off electricity. --- Yeah I wondered why . . .
-- So it will be a boom going forward. -- Honestly you've whipped up my enthusiasm for forex trading. I'm not that into it. I have some knowledge about forex, but I've never set foot in forex trading. I'm all into crypto. You've made me excited to delve further into the world of forex trading
and see what kind of opportunities I can find. -- It's really one of the best. I've been there for twelve . . . I've been saying twelve for three years now. Time stopped for me. I've spent fifteen years in this business.
From when I was almost eighteen. Before the age of eighteen. And I put so much work into this industry. I've been through massive loss during my first six years because I didn't have a mentor, I didn't know how to trade, fiddled around aimlessly. This is why when someone says forex trading is gambling, I can understand their point of view.
Do you know what my first question to this person would be, Ali? "What's your story? Tell me what happened with you." They say it's gambling or swindling. And this means that he either has a relative who lost their money out of ignorance and mediocracy, or has gotten into it himself and pulled a stunt somewhere the way I did or learned it from the wrong people and wound up losing. Or he just gambled his way through it. When they say, "I tried it but it didn't work out," I say tell me how you did it exactly, what system you applied. Once I know their system, I know why they lost.
It's impossible to burn through your money in forex trading, unless you do one of two things: you either raised the lock too much, increased risk, or didn't set a stop-loss to minimize loss. Or they might've done both. There's no way that someone who work the way we do within our community, and again, you can access our Forex Space content for free on YouTube, every day from 4:30 to 6:30PM.
I trade there in front of our followers online. I focus on not losing more than 0.5 to 1% in every trade in capital. With 0.5 to 1% risk. Once you have a system with 80-90% success rate like ours, where 8/10 operations are money-making.
Even the losing 2/10 have pretty solid risk management. Eight pay off lastingly and growingly. This is how you always secure a profitable total with this approach, with a sustainable mindset going forward.
If you score some gains, you shouldn't say, "well, now let's do a stroke of luck and make my fortune." There's no such thing as "hitting the jackpot" in forex trading, it doesn't happen. This would be like driving at 300km/h with the brake off, hoping not to crash into something. This is absurd.
You do this and then pray that you get to your destination safely. You might be heading to a turn you can't take. Same with forex. If you're going high-lot and high-risk and the market turned against you, say goodbye to your account. You can no longer control it. And this is where the emotions part comes. Especially with starters who hit the ground running and get above themselves thinking they're the next George Soros or Warren Buffett.
They're still in their first operations and they luck out. Even worse are those who keep goofing up until they lose more that they've won. Others start off on the wrong foot, and they become undecided as to whether to go into it or not. They start talking with themselves.
"If I go any further, I'll lose out." So they call their friend, "I'll buy some euros. Why don't you sell? And their friend says, "what's going on? Why would I sell?" "Because every time I buy it goes down, so at least I will have done you some good and you won." He start saying things that have little to do with trading and the science behind it. When in fact, it's much simpler than this. -- Yes, I see. From your perspective, who can invest? Whether it's cyrpto or forex trading.
How much can they invest from their portfolio, in your view? In my view, and this is something I've always said, and people don't believe it, but our community serves as example of it. Any person. Okay? Any kind of person that makes money and holds down a job can get into this field. An engineer . . . We have ITs, engineers, doctors, computer scientists, salespeople, you name it. Men and women from all walks of life. It's something that you can learn.
Who among us here on Earth knew everything when they were born? No one. We've learned all the things we've done in our lives. We are now doing an interview on Zoom. You had to learn how to use Zoom. No one's born knowing how to use Zoom.
I had to learn how to be on YouTube, how to turn on the computer and click. Anyone with the willpower to learn and the mindset to build themselves a business, anywhere, any time, without being tied down to something. One good thing about our business, crypto or forex, which sets it apart from all other businsses, is that you don't need to sell anything to anyone in order to make money. I always stress this. Many people say they don't like sales.
If you tell them you have a project in a network marketing company, they immediately say no because they don't like sales, to sell something so that people pay them. Or that you have something in drop shipping, in sales, in marketing, they say, "I can't be bothered" because it involves sales. This is the only place where you can start with as low as $400 or $500, just to get a sensation of profit. Surely, some companies out there say you can start with $10. They're duping you to get you hooked. Or with $30-50. You don't last long, not even one operation.
I always tell people who work with me that the ideal should be around $1000. As a start. Though one can start off with $400-500 as a first phase. I call it "low capital business," meaning you don't need $40,000 and a location to set it up. Plus, it is international, worldwide. Anywhere you go with your laptop and your trading account, you can trade, you can make money. Anywhere you are. You can do it in the metro with free WiFi.
This is worth noting. Thirdly, also important, and I can't stress it enough, you don't need to sell anything to anyone. You can sit down, keep an eye on the market, come up with a strategy system, buy and sell currencies and make money.
Even with zero sales skills, you can establish yourself in the business. It might be the only business you can conduct with zero sales skills. -- Exactly, exactly! So you think, first and foremost, one ought to have patience and start even with little, if one doesn't have a lot of money. He should have patience because, as you said, the return of investment in forex isn't very high since you should manage your risk. And little by little, one can build it up. They have to give themselves a year or two, to build their trading empire.
Honestly, it used to take two years. Now with professional help, communities, with all the things that you can surround yourself with, which weren't around when we started, you need between six months and one year at least. Just to get an idea of how the market is behaving, fast or slow, some events might take place . . . to get a grasp on it and become skilled enough. Think of it as one university year. As you've said, the goal of low capital at first isn't to make money.
At college, you pay to learn a profession. And you don't learn a profession; you study theories. It doesn't make much sense. It costs money to learn a profession. Suppose you're not paying any money as such.
You dedicate a year, you place a small capital, and the goal is to look back after a year and see how consistent you were, how well you did, how much you've learned. And then, you'll find the way on your own. I bet you'll find the way to increase your capital and consequently you increase your return. You have two schools: the first tells you to raise risk and return will follow albeit with low capital, and I don't subscribe to it, I'm more with low risk because low risk equals stress-free.
High risk equals high stress. So I do it low-risk, and in order to raise my yearly return, I increase my capital. If I'm making for example 10% per month at $500, I'll also be making 10% at $5,000. At $50,000 I'll make 10%. So if I want this 10% to make more money, I have to increase my capital more and more.
This is the safest way of doing it. This way you can consider it a business. Now if you want to try your luck in forex as we were saying, with high risk, it can work out well for a while, but not consistently in the long run. Especially when your ego is boosted, "all my trades come off", and boom: down it goes. Here comes the waterworks.
-- Sadly! We talked at length about forex trading. You've said that you entered crypto in 2017, and also during the peak a few months ago. What do you believe would be some crypto projects you'd be interested in, or you'd re-invest in? Or that you think hold good value for investors over time? Honestly, I'm not so much into it; however, I focus on the most known ones: Bitcoin, Ethereum, etc.
Even if their return begins to dwindle. Now for example, if one buys bitcoin at $30,000, to make the double, it must reach $60,000. Before, a jump from $5,000 to $30,000 means you've gained fivefold. See what I mean? This is why many people go after smaller coins. I don't.
I'm not into this. I'm holding Bitcoin mainly. I sell at peaks, buy at bottoms, these kind of things. I accept Bitcoin payments. Our payment solution includes Bitcoin in large sums. I hold it. I keep my eye on it. To make it stress-free personally, I include it as payment solution.
Same as other currencies. I'm paying it. If it goes down, my purchasing power follows it. If it's up, I rake in the profit and leave the rest in solution, the initial amount. If I have $4,000 in solution and it becomes $10,000, I'll take out $6,000 and leave the initial amount. I rake in the profit.
If god forbid it goes down by 50% to $2,000, I'll have already taken out $6,000. I'm making profit even if the whole $4,000 vanishes for example. Psychology-wise, this is a way to stay relax, not depressed. You can't jump into the market angry, and when you lose, you can't do "revenge trade."
Because as you've said, they didn't share their failures. Yet, I came across it somewhere and I shared it with our community, on how around 300,000 accounts vanished during the recent free fall of cryptcurrencies worldwide. This means money was lost, capital ceased to exist. This is something they won't mention since it's against the brokers' interest.
They mostly mention the rises, which is why we hear so much about people making fortunes. This doesn't mean one cannot make money out of it, and both you and I are living proof. I did it twice, and it was a success twice. However, most people have a chance of failure.
-- Yeah, 100%. People also have to get that when they watch a video saying "bitcoin's up to 100,000 this year," which might happen, but if so, from 30 to 100 it'll triple, so if you place $100 . . . because people think $100 will turn them into millionaires, but in this scenario, $100 will become $300. -- True. This is what happens with what you'd call "shitty coins." Now they got smarter at fooling you, they'll say it's 0.003%.
They say that if it goes up to 1% . . . without understanding how it will reach 1%. The idea is that even if it someone tells you such a project, nothing guarantees it will reach 1%. Get the point? It might go up to 0.005% or 0.1%, who's to say it'll be 1%, or 0.9%? This leaves room for confusion.
-- Yeah, exactly. Some people get into it without knowing the total supply, which might be 100 quadrillions, in which case this token never gets to 1%. Its market has to rise higher than that of Bitcoin in order for it to reach 1%.
It's not like, oh it's still 0.000-- so it has likely prospects. It might be that its total supply is so high that it's still at 0.0001. So this is also something people should understand. Did you want to say something? -- No I wanted to say it's true. -- I think this is was it . . . I'm I blurring on camera?!
-- A little, yes. -- Now it's fine. We've covered a wide range of topics. We've explained forex trading, cryptocurrency trading. -- There's still something I want to say.
-- Yes, go on. -- What about applying it to Lebanon. -- What's your take on it? To be honest, it helped a lot. As you know, there has been a collapse of the whole banking system here in Lebanon. The system went bankrupt even though this hasn't been declared. When a country declares bankruptcy, catastrophes ensue, economic catastrophes on Lebanon.
Even the money being transferred over stops as banks close their doors. To date, no bankruptcy has been acknowledged, even though it's widely understood that if you demand money from someone and they say, "I don't have it," they're bankrupt. Or maybe they hid or stole it. They're either thieves or bankrupt. No third possibility.
I'm sad to say, we are both. They embezzled what they could, and then they went bankrupt. The idea is that this has helped the Lebanese. There's always a way to liquidate dollars here. It's role will get bigger once they shut Western Union, OMT, or other bank transfers because we still have something called "fresh accounts," or something we call Western Union. The role, shakeup of Bitcoin in Lebanon will boom once we can no longer get dollars into the country. Just like we see in Syria or other countries where the dollar cannot make its way.
They opt for Bitcoin, something decentralized and unrestricted. We can't deny that in Lebanon, in the wake of this crisis, many people tapped into Bitcoin. They were able to use it as means of transferring money or even investing.
The dollar soared, and many people invested at 10 grands in Bitcoin, Cardano, Ripple. Even though the Ripple was apprehended because of the lawsuits that went after it. Later on, however, these profits that people made raised the dollar's purchasing power. I hope, even though I don't have the proper statistics, not many entered at 50-60,000, since the brokers didn't let up: metatrader 4, metatrader 5, with a margin.
I was in Dogecoin groups and others, and I saw some people getting written off. Others also lost dollars. This is to always present the two cases. In some cases people made money and benefited largely, while in other cases, people lost the little dollars they had put on shitty coins out of enthusiasm. Some people faced dire repercussions. This is why I always emphasize something: Here in Lebanon, the dollar has become almost too expensive for people.
If someone has dollars aside, they shouldn't recklessly place them here and there any time someone promises them this coin will shoot up, or that they'll make fortunes in forex Before spending any penny, any dime, we must know where we are investing it because now we can't make up for a lost $2,000 as easily as before. -- 100% true! With the ongoing inflation, the dollar has reached 15,000 LBP, it'll exceed 20,000 it'll keep going up because there's no longer an upper limit. And as the dollar rises, prices are following suit. -- At some point, but not proportionally. -- Yeah, exactly. At some point, the Lebanese with little dollars are having a tough time.
Anyone who's not making dollar money is in trouble, which is why we're mainly focusing on crypto, on forex trading, ways of getting money from abroad. In dollars. Because now those who make dollar money have it easier in Lebanon. Unlike before. Before, Lebanon used to be one of the most expensive countries in the world. Now, no matter how much prices go up, you go to a restaurant where a burger used to cost 25,000 LBP, now it's 60,000 LBP. It doubled even as the dollar rose much higher. 60,000 LBP, we're talking $4. Before, 25,000 LBP made $17.
So in terms of dollars, it's cheaper now. Restaurants, pools. As we're speaking, electricity is paid at 1,500 LBP, same for the internet. Now we're at 15,000 LBP per dollar. When you pay a 300,000LBP electricity bill, it's $20 actually. This was beyond our wildest dreams. Even if it's not 300,000, still, 300,000 made $70 before. There's a big difference between $6 and $70. This is why you feel that people are upbeat while the country is collapsing.
This is the denial we're seeing. Some are getting their dollars from their companies or from people abroad. Even if it's $300. Aside from the fact they're working and making dollar money. They feel that the country is getting cheaper for them. They're having fun. While the Lebanese who get paid in LBP are bearing the brunt of this travesty. These are the ones we're telling, "if you have additional income, or some dollar money aside, start working toward making dollar money."
Because a time will come when gas, electricity, water, the internet are no longer subsidized, and everything is in dollar. Even if it's a little cheaper, it's still in dollar. So if you make LBP money, it'll be more expensive. You won't have a chance. -- True 100%. Your advice for those who have income or money aside is to find ways of making dollar money. This can be achieved through forex trading, but you'll have to manage risk, and most importantly, with a stop-loss lest they lose their capital.
All this information you have in your book, and the link to it is in the description for everyone. By the way, many people also tapped into mining. I forgot to say it. More so because electricity in Lebanon is still at 1,500 LBP, it's still low-price. Many people benefited from mining although setting it up costs money.
And this yields consistent returns by the way. It's wholly separate from investing in crypto. This is something you can make money out of. I know people who've done it. I haven't, but I know people who are making $500-600 or even $700 monthly, only by mining. -- For those who don't know, mining means to mine bitcoin, through computers, through GPUs. You can mine it and then sell it to the market, and get some dollars.
Sure, you need investment because you need to pay for the GPUs. Their prices might fall after the China ban on miners, which can be a good thing because they'll resume anyway. There are so many ways to make extra dollars on a monthly basis, and I hear many people are struggling to escape this category; this video might be of help.
On a last note, would you like to tell us more about the entities you have? About how they can help Lebanese people inside Lebanon? Anything you'd like. I'll put all your links down below: to the communities, forex trading, everything. -- First, I want to thank you for this amazing interview because seriously, it's eye-opening for many people.
It's been a while we're working on financial education, which most important to me. Financial literacy. It's a whole mindset, a way not only to make and retain money, but also to reinvest it. People think the goal in life is to make money. This is wrong because even if you make money but don't know how to keep it -- I always say this, I have it as quote by Shaquille O'Neal: "It's not about how much money you make. It's about how much money you keep and grow." The problem is that some people make a million but spend two. These people are broke.
Others who make two grands but spend one are gaining. You have to know how to balance-sheet yourself and manage your cash flow effectively, how to look for opportunities, and these opportunities -- I'll saying against my own interests, it's not just about forex or crypto. The world is full of opportunities: in real estate, in businesses, online, anything.
But do something at least. Don't be an onlooker, saying there are no opportunities. This is the biggest lie is human history, that there are no opportunities. Sometimes when I'm walking down the street, opportunities pop up in my head, a million things. I say I have no time to put them into action.
I find it strange when someone tells me they haven't found a single opportunity throughout their life. I tell them straight away that opportunities aren't mosquitoes that you see with you eyes. It's something you see in your mind. This mind of yours has to work until it finds them. What we do, and I have a program called How to Manage Your Money, this will be exclusive to you, and I'll tell you about it. We were discussing it just today on Teams to bring it back to life.
It's been on the back burner for two years through the pandemic because we focused entirely on the Lebanese and the whole world, that they focus on making money. Because this was the need of the market: People needed to make money. We got into this and it did us well, our community is growing.
Now we are bringing back this How to Manage You Money program, which has nothing to do with forex. It's purely about personal finance, about how to manage your money. Say you make a $100; what should you do with it? Or $500. If you don't make any money, what are the opportunities to start doing so. So we offer a whole range of opportunities, three kinds of assets to make money. It will launch soon. I'll do it live, unlike the Forex Mastery Program, which was recorded,
in order to have more interaction with people. This will be very important for people who care about financial literacy and financial education. It will enable them to set their own road maps. It answers all the questions in the free E-book 5 Ways to Boost Your Financial Future. It touches on all five ways from A to Z in detail. The E-book already talks about them and clears out some issues; however, the program will have details and an actionable plan.
This the financial education part. As for the forex part, it is my way to have people make money, and then, they can manage as they wish. If someone has another way of making money, I'll show them the way. This is why we yearly hold the Eco-Learn Summit. This year, it'll take place in September. It teaches people how to build different entities.
Last year, it was called Build It From Home. We laid out all the ways you can build your business from home. Since we were at home, quarantined. So how could you make money from home? It was a big success.
It was the third version, for three consecutive years. We'll hold it for the fourth time this year. So this is it mainly. We'll be focusing on financial education, forex and on the financial market. We're grouping to expand this with partners worldwide, so that the opportunities reach them and they can help other people we don't have access to. -- This is amazing. By the way, about financial education, when I started my course I didn't have money.
I had nothing. I had a small tripod, because I didn't have the money to buy a larger one. I fixed the camera on the tripod, which I then placed on the bed. I had no room for it. Yet, I believed in myself, in my idea, in the opportunity, and I did it. You know?
I followed through. I totally agree, that there are opportunities out there every day. Not one, but many. And every day, you have the chance to make money somehow. -- Ali, I have a question: Where are you now? -- In Germany. -- I'm in Lebanon.
How much opportunity did we have to do this interview in the past, with each of us in a country? Unless we had TV channels going from one country to another to hold the interview. Why am I saying this? This shows that our world is so much more than that of our parents. This will be the same going forward.
It's teeming with opportunites. You can turn anything you find into an opportunity. You only need the mindset to spot it, and to work on it enough, even without money at first to keep going. This is when the real entrepreneur mind plays its part. Not one who prints a business card to say they're an entrepreneur.
It's the order of the day now. When you ask someone what they do, they say entrepreneur. "What do you do as an entrepreneur?" He says, "graphic design." You're like, "you're a designer or an entrepreneur?" He says, "an entrepreneur graphic designer." I'm like, "graphic design is a skill and can be self-employed. "Entrepreneur means business owner."
You can't, as a graphic designer or anything, compare yourself with Grant Cardone, or with someone who has billions. You can't make this comparison. It's the very concept of entrepreneurship people don't understand. Entrepreneurship is something really big. You should have the mindset of it, as Robert Kiyosaki, who worked three years for his friend's father for free to learn entrepreneurship, says.
He was asked if he wanted to learn entrepreneurship. He said yes. "You'll have to work three years for me for free," he was told. At first, Kiyosaki felt he was being exploited and fooled, as he himself says now. This is something most people don't have. They refuse internship saying they won't get paid.
You do internship for yourself, not for the company. Even worse, others say they'll do it negligently since there'll be no money. You are killing your skills, shooting yourself in the foot. You're not doing the company any harm.
If anything, your employer kicks you out. People go to college and pay money to learn, to learn "in theory." When it's time to learn business on the ground, you should be the one to pay. You should walk in and say, "here's some money, will you teach me the tricks of the trade?" instead of complaining because you're not getting paid.
This is exactly the shift in mindset that no one is understanding. Because our system tells us, "go to school, go to university, get a job!" Not a word about entrepreneurship. Even those who major in business don't get taught how to start a business. -- 100% true! And hey, if you really have an entrepreneurship mind, you can make money with only this. With this only, you can make money. So it's all about the mindset and thinking outside the box.
This is what entrepreneurship is, really. -- I really want to thank you for doing this interview with me. -- Thank you as well.
Would you like to add anything to this podcast? -- No, that's it. -- Perfect. Thank you everyone for watching this podcast.
Should anyone be interested or like to know more about forex trading, the link to Abdallah's Instagram will be in the description. Just go over there, give him a follow. Along with his YouTube link where you can see the trades he does. If you have anything, you can reach out to him by email.
I'll see you guys in the next one! Hope you enjoyed this! SEE YOU LATER!
2021-07-25 17:47
