For Episode 2 of the Nova Money Mindset Podcast, Sam is joined by veteran trader Clemen, who self-learned the secrets of the markets and became a millionaire by the age of 30. He’s now the founder and CEO of Spiking, a social trading platform providing market information about publicly listed companies.

Clemen shares the good and ugly sides of trading, he talks about trading risk-taking, and what’s going on in the crypto world.In this episode, we talk about trading, risk taking. We take a look at his bitcoin journey, how he felt when he became a millionaire, and why he chose to trade BTC.

Clemen started trading when he was at university with his goal to become a millionaire by 30. He mentioned that Options trading changed his life.

What is Options Trading

Options are contracts that allow you to either buy or sell an amount of some underlying asset at a predetermined price at or before the contract expires.

Clemen mentioned that there are 58 different options trading strategies. All of which he studied in depth.

If the price goes up, a straight call gives you 10 times the profit of what you buy for the same amount of money. But the challenge is what if the stock price decides to go down? Now, this is where the beauty of options kicks in which allows you to salvage a losing position, get out in style and still make money.

Clemen started trading with his own savings of $10,000 and after he graduated, he went on to start his own business.

‘As an entrepreneur, this is something I want to encourage everyone to do. Even as I take on the role of an entrepreneur, I still stay invested in the market. I went into the market with a single objective. I want to learn about all the great companies that are publicly listed in the US market.

How do you define trading versus investing?

From the money Clemen makes from his business, He will put it into the stock market.Through repeating this process he realised the only way to accelerate and answer the question about the difference between a trader and an investor is how fast can you get to the top of the wealth management pyramid

The concept is clearly defined. Today, if you are at the top of the pyramid, you are already a millionaire which you can then take at a slower pace and become a long term investor. You can take your time because you’ve already been there, done that, and reached the top. But if you are at the bottom of the pyramid and you tell yourself that you will take your time, Clemen thinks you can’t get there. You’re going to find ways much faster to accelerate, to get up to the top as soon as possible before slowing down because the accumulated experience and wisdom of reaching the top allows you to preserve your wealth. That’s the difference between investing and trading.

Cryptocurrency

‘The breakthrough then discovered is called cryptocurrency. Today 700 million people worldwide have evolved into Bitcoin which has empowered the ordinary man. Suddenly a whole bunch of them became wealthy overnight. And this is the major shift.’ Clemen stated.

With the rise of Gen Z, who are known to truly live for the moment because unlike before when it was much harder, they are able to travel into different remote cities and work remotely, they are able to get away from the traditional notion that you must own a house. That’s why AirB & B is doing so well. They just ran through their whole life and did not incur any substantial debt with the banks.

And that’s the breakthrough. And because of this whole generational breakthrough, they are looking at things completely different.

Clemen recommends millennials and GenZs to start looking into crypto. He talks about that within our current generation, there are three important points for us to consider.

Firstly, no other company or product or service can capture a trillion dollar market cap in just 12 years.And who is this guy Clemen is talking about? That’s Bitcoin. Bitcoin has demonstrated that it is able to win the hearts and minds and monies of so many people and traditional companies like Amazon, apple, they are thinking like double or triple the amount of time to get to the trillion dollar market cap.

Secondly, if we ask ourselves what would dominate the world 10 years from now, then very clearly, you know, everyone wants to have a fair chance, a transparent chance, an equal opportunity. And this is what blockchain is all about. Blockchain is about truth. Blockchain establishes trust. So moving forward, we know 10 years from now, things will be run by blockchain.

Then the third concept regards the concept of traditional money which we hold in our hands and keep in our wallets. Clemen thinks that decades from now nobody will be touching dollar notes anymore because the future that we see is a future of digital currency.

People buy Bitcoin because they are going to keep it as a store of value, you’re holding on only for the next generation, similar to the mothers passing jewelry to the daughters.

People want to keep passing on Bitcoin to their family because the value keeps going up.

Should companies invest in crypto?

Success often comes from having a game plan. So the question to the companies today is why are you accepting Bitcoin?

If your reason is because you want to be part of this current fashion trend, then you are in the wrong space. But if you’re doing it for a very clear structure, that will increase not just the value of Bitcoin itself but also increase the value of your stock price then that’s a double win.

Michael Saylor bought Bitcoin first using his own cash before he informed the company to use the company’s cash to buy more Bitcoin. So that is a triple win for him.If you are investing your money, you must be able to connect your own dots and live by your investment thesis. Then you will not be swayed by the people around you.

And that’s perhaps the reason why Clemen could sustain 20 years investing in the market, he said, because he always pushes himself to find the ultimate reason : why am I putting money into this guy? Can I explain it to my children? Can I sleep well at night? If the answer is yes, go for it.

Clemen also mentioned the only guide as legitimate at current date today is Coinbase. The only company approved by the securities exchange commission as a public company. So if you want to take advantage of that, Coinbase is available. The second company that you want to take part in is the approval of the Bitcoin ETF.

For more insights into Crypto and trading, check out the podcast episode with Clemen here!