Article written by: John "JAYEL" Lasak

The Kanye West documentary is really inspiring. I'm 34 minutes into the first episode and it's awesome to see the hustle and grind that a lot of these legendary artists had when they were younger.

The documentary, jeen-yuhs: A Kanye Trilogy is a great watch for motivation. Kanye was a really driven individual, clearly, he's also very driven now. Separate your assumptions of him and just appreciate being able to watch the start of a legendary career. The entire thing is filmed with real footage from the early 2000s.

"Everything that anybody ever said in life would be a disadvantage to me. Imma make it my advantage." - Kanye West

Nothing in this letter or its subject is financial advice. I am simply giving my perspective and sharing current actions. I will always think long-term investing is the best kind of investing.

💰 I'm starting to liquidate most of my crypto

It's unfortunate timing with the current market conditions, but I'm getting into a new investment and need to secure U.S. dollars. I started making big sales of my holdings this month. I need to have my liquidity secured in the month of March. Luckily, since the focus has been long-term, I'm still able to take these sales with gains. I sold enough for taxes at some of the all time high levels.  I obviously wish I could hold onto these assets longer but I just don't know where the end is for this current down-turn. I won't be surprised if ETH goes below $2k and lands on the $1.5-1.75k area. But, just like everyone, I really don't know anything--it could go lower or it could bounce back up whenever it pleases. As of writing this, ETH has gone up 2% in the past hour (5:52 PM EST on February 20th).

It's usually not good to try timing the market, but when you are focused on liquidating positions that you've built over time, you really need to be conscious of short-term movement and momentum. It's been exciting, albeit stressful to sell through this crypto market volatility that has been rocketing in a downwards direction. Trying to time the market with short bursts of upward movement of 3% gains before hammering back down to finish the same week 7.5% down (February 13th thru February 20th). However, these short upward bursts are overshadowed by the general down movement of 38% through the past three months. The one year trend still holds a 43% gain in green. In a previous letter of mine, the one year trend of ETH was 79.36%; This was on January 23rd, 2022. In less than one month, the one year gains of ETH have lost 36% of USD value. Yet, it's hard to come to terms with selling everything at once--I'm still hoping for an upturn in the near future (lets please get to $3.5k again 🙏 ). There is a reason I wouldn't sell everything all at once, right? Let's all hope that I made the right decision to sell incrementally. I've already liquidated over 50% of my cryptocurrency assets.

I want to hold onto some of my crypto but I will likely need to part with all of it. I will be back when the price is right--or maybe I'll just have to buy back in when it's much higher 🤷‍♂️

Remember that all investing perspective is unique to the individual's situation. I need to liquidate because I am in need of the money. Are you in the need of the money right now? If you take the money out, where are you putting it? I'm not saying it's a bad thing to hold cash but, you should know what you're doing with your money. Listen to advice and learn, but at the end of the day, only you can make your financial decision: Know what you're deciding on.

🛩 Charlie Munger's inversion solution

Charlie Munger is Warren Buffett's right hand man. He has shared a brilliant perspective for investing and solving life problems. He uses inversion to solve complex problems. Inverting the problem is just how it is in mathematics: If you are trying to solve for something, what is the opposite thing to solve for?

Charlie Munger gives an example of this in the past when he was a weather forecaster for the U.S. air corps. How could he help these pilots? Well, how could he kill those pilots? By figuring out how to hurt the pilots, Charlie was able to figure out the best ways to keep them safe--by avoiding the freezing of their wings or running out of fuel.  

It's a great way to try looking at complex problems from a more simple and alternative viewpoint.

Check out his quick three minute clip in the below YouTube video. The clip is from the New Money channel, who makes great content on investing and has its philosophy deeply routed in Buffett and Munger principles. I highly recommend it! I've watched many hours of content from the channel.
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💿 Kanye West (Ye) sells Donda 2 via Stem Player; Makes +$1m sales in first day

Kanye West's newly realeased album, Donda 2, is available for purchase and listening via $200 Stem Player. The Stem Player is a handheld device that allows users to separate songs and beats into their own stems.

This video gives great example of the Stem Player's capabilities.

I never considered buying this, until I actually saw that the Stem Player could be a cool thing to have. I did enjoy the idea of making my own beats and breaking up parts of songs for my own use, but $200 is a little steep of a "fun" investment.

However, is it all that "fun"? This might be more of a serious investment, if you play your cards right. There is already one Stem Player listed on StockX for $283.

The Stem Player seems like it could easily be Kanye West's entrance into the NFT world. He has publicly decried NFTs and his involvement in them. Although, each one of his Stem Players has a unique ID, much like NFTs. If he wants to take a turn in this direction with his community, he will be able to do so with the Stem Player. There is already a Discord community with thousands of members.

Besides the NFT factor, this could be an investment as a Kanye West collectors piece. I don't think there is much doubt that Kanye West will be able to claim an icon piece as big as Prince and Michael Jackson. His career is far from over and he is an innovator, no matter in what light you see him in.

“Today artists get just 12% of the money the industry makes. It’s time to free music from this oppressive system. It’s time to take control and build our own.” - Kanye West

What do you think? Should I buy 100 Stem Players for $20,000? They're available--for now.

🤔 Some other things before saying bye

The below article that talks about the Canada sanctions is worth a read. The country recently enacted new regulations that allow them to really do whatever they want with "suspecting" crypto wallets. This act against the trucker rally seems to be their first time making use of it. Give it a read and let me know what you think about it.

🇨🇦 Canada sanctions 34 crypto wallets tied to trucker rallies

In my opinion, the situation between Ukraine and Russia has a direct correlation to the cryptocurrency market. It makes it scary to see the situation be very poorly reported on in the states and international reporting seeming to be pretty bleak. I don't know if it's going to get any better there in the near-term. Check out the below article to read about Putin's latest speech today (February 21st). He pretty much publicly announced his allegiance and friendship to Russian separatists (polite way of saying terrorists imo) in eastern Ukraine. The regions include Donetsk, which is a very major city of the country. Shout out to all my soccer and futbol fans that know of the legendary FC Shakhtar Donetsk. Anyway, maybe all of this is wrong, but remember, I need to be short-term focused as I am liquidating my crypto and need it reserved by March. I can see things getting a lot worse than better in Ukraine.

🇷🇺 Putin recognizes Ukrainian separatist regions as official allies

If you want to support Counter Nature and our Counter-Strike team, we have a big match tonight (February 22nd). The team is currently 3-2 in a very competitive league. We play against Philadelphia Liberty at 9 PM EST if you want to get a feel for what present day esports are about. You can tune into our Twitch channel around 9:15 PM EST to watch the match with a professional announcer casting and streaming the play-by-play events.

Until next time, ✌️

PΞ/\CΞ
John, JAYEL

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