Discussing Bitcoin's Future, ETFs, and Spain's Growing Crypto Hub with Megan Nilsson | S3 E25 (at Web Summit)

Megan: 0:00

Because in these 200 days, historically has been the best time to buy Bitcoin throughout all of the cycles, this period before the run- up.

Joeri: 0:10

Hello everyone, and welcome to the Web3 CMO Stories Podcast. My name is Joeri Billast and I'm your podcast host, and today I do an interview here at the WebSemit, and my guest today is Megan, Megan Nilsson. Megan is a high-end crypto and NFT portfolio and Web3 Statistical Consultant for companies, investors, and celebrities, and also an investor in crypto and NFTs, now on a world tour as a Web3 keynote speaker and podcast host, the Crypto Megan podcast. Hello Megan, how are you?

Megan: 0:47

Hi, great. Thanks so much for having me.

Joeri: 0:50

It's been a year that we have been recording our first podcast episode together at WebSummit, and today we are again at WebSummit and so many things are happening. I'm following you a lot on social media and on your telegram, but, Megan, tell us a bit about all the exciting things that happened for you in the last 12 months.

Megan: 1:12

Wow, it's been quite an incredible year. I mean, there's been a lot of changes that have happened. I'm super excited because tomorrow I get to do a keynote opening speech for the crypto stage, and last year I did the same thing. It was the first time they had the stage in four years. But what happened next nobody could anticipate. It was about one week after I hosted the stage here at WebSemit last year, the crypto stage, that FTX, collapsed, and so it was one hell of a year, to put it like that. But a lot of things happened in this year and a lot of important shifts have occurred. So I don't know if you've noticed some of those things.

Joeri: 1:51

Yeah, I had one of the interesting episodes Also. My podcast was with Mark Fidelman at the moment that the Ripple decision came. That was really just that. I was just recording the podcast with him and just at the moment he said just I see it now, the Ripple decision. So that was a really important one, I would say, with the XRP. But yeah, lots of other things are going on. It's sometimes hard to see what's not real, because that's also something you have also seen that a lot of fake news coming out. Yeah, what are your thoughts about that?

Megan: 2:24

That's actually one of the major narratives of, as you know, and we see each other around the world and I see you're doing fantastic and you're also speaking around the world. As you know, in- person speaking is very. I believe it's very important to get the message out there directly to the audience, but the problem there is that not everybody can be there to attend these amazing events and hear it in person, so they get a lot of their information from the news and they have podcasts, like my podcast, your podcast but once the news, the mainstream media news, comes in, it's kind of like who do we believe? And so I started this daily YouTube session to kind of like I called it 200 Days to Halving, because in these 200 days, historically has been the best time to buy Bitcoin throughout all of the cycles, this period before the run- up. Evidently, you could have bought it a lot cheaper earlier, but in this time it's been proven to be the best time before the having, before the run- up. So it's an interesting time and I just thought, okay, I'm going to take this initiative, really educate people.

Megan: 3:22

And one of the things that I say is the BlackRock ETF narrative has been floating around for years, years, and years and years. So I often say, show me the charts and I'll tell you the news, and I just want people to start shifting their mentality. Although it is important that Bitcoin is getting plugged into Wall Street, it's I mean, we just went through Bitcoins kind of like adolescent years from 2020 to 2023. Now, coming into 2024, it's blossoming and flourishing as an asset, but it's important not to get sucked up in all of the news and hype and euphoria.

Joeri: 3:53

I know, but it just means for people if they see that companies like BlackRock are investing.

Megan: 3:58

Big big.

Joeri: 3:59

So this for people looking at this at the market and you know, maybe we're a bit like full of doubt Is this real? But BlackRock does it and we'll be coming with ETF. You know they need to invest in the market. There will be a lot of liquidity, and so this should have a big impact, I imagine. Do you have an idea about timing, about that, because other ETFs also? You know people ask you that because sometimes it comes out oh, it has been approved, right, and then suddenly it's not approved.

Megan: 4:28

So I'd have several answers to that. The first is always zoom out to take a look at where we are at in the cycle. That will help tremendously. I'm expecting anywhere from a 20 to 50% correction in Bitcoin within the next six months, and we've had this throughout Bitcoin's history. So for me, I'm not going to be caught off guard by that, I'm ready for it, and so but the timing actually, we just entered an eight- day window that we could potentially get those all 12 ETFs approved. We're now on day five, I believe.

Megan: 4:58

So we have three more days that I don't know when your listeners will get this, but maybe by then, they'll know. We have three days that it could officially get approved. Probably won't, and in that case, the deadline for the absolute deadline is in January, which was for the ARG Invest one. So anywhere from now until January. And so then, if you're sitting on the sideline wondering when should I get involved in this, I mean, my whole thing is let's you know, get prepared before this happens, because you made a really good point. It's the liquidity coming in, and the difference between the futures ETFs and the spot ETF evidently is that they have to back it one to one, and how many Bitcoins are on exchange. They could literally with less than 1% of their assets under management by all Bitcoin off- exchanges. Think about that.

Joeri: 5:39

Yeah, yeah. And also, you mentioned looking at the charts. So I'm also looking at the chart. So I had, before I went into Web3 I did a technical analysis of stocks, and I'm also looking at Bitcoin, obviously. But then you see, with this fake news coming up, you see, like these scandals that come and then they so meet, a bit careful for that too, not just jumping on hype or something.

Megan: 6:05

I mean you saw yesterday the scam work on XRP. Yesterday there was fake news that BlackRock filed for an XRP ETF and XRP shot through the moon. All the people chase the green candle, which I tell everybody never to do. Please don't do it. I mean, if you just get prepared slowly, dollar cost averaging, before all of the euphoria and the media and all this, you will be set. You won't have to let your emotions run dictate how you invest, right. But like, yeah, you saw, people got really kind of messed up on that wake yesterday from XRP and it'll continue to happen because there's a lot of hype and a lot of emotion and excitement in the market right now.

Joeri: 6:40

Yeah, ok, XRP, Bitcoin, Bitcoin is obviously what people know, but there are these Altcoins that will move a lot. Is that also something you're following and you, because there are so many people, can get confused?

Megan: 6:54

Absolutely. I mean, I started my whole career by investigating the altcoins I thought would be the ones to stand the test of time, by reading white papers when nothing was going on, the hype was totally gone. It was just me and in my thoughts and my research. And so that's when I invested in Cardano under five cents, and it was around this same time in the last cycle, this same timeframe, and that's what I'm telling people Like. Maybe it's not the same exponential return possibility, but we're right now at the precipice of this mega bull run that's evidently coming because it's baked in code of the having the Bitcoin having.

Joeri: 7:27

So yeah, obviously. So if you look at charts and also history, this is actually a good moment to do it. And you know, and just be now, I'm looking at that all the time. You know, from time to time, investing in Bitcoin and like these coins and trying to get educated, and I get also information. Like you mentioned, podcasts, but they're also like this Tik Tok channels for people that you're yourself. I think you also are active, maybe not so little bit so, because that's obviously I get a lot of inspiration from that. Those are like for everything, because where do you get your inspiration from or your insights?

Megan: 8:05

I think this is an important question because people often say I think it's an art to be able to find people that have accurate information, first of all, and that can lead you in a good direction, because there's a lot of different intentions and a lot of different priorities among different content creators, and so that is an art in itself. But I would say, like you take what you like and you leave the rest, so you find, you find data through many sources. I do. I get my through interviews, usually directly to founders, even of the coins. I'm in touch with the teams through people like you reporting on their podcast through many different sources, and then I put all those points together to help develop my thesis on what I'm going to invest. And so, as far as the macro scale, we should think about that, because people are having trouble understanding the world stage. I think that's where we can zoom out and say, hey, this is what's happening, here's what's coming up.

Megan: 8:54

Us recession potentially, or already has been right. The Bitcoin ETF rolling out the Bitcoin having, and also an election year in the US, which has always typically been bullish. They want to remain in power. Stimulus. I think Rao Powell puts it the cowbell is inevitable, right Like more cowbell, more money printing, and coming into that type of an environment is kind of just like the perfect world stage ad for crypto and Bitcoin.

Joeri: 9:21

Yeah, yeah, politics is, of course, always something that's there. One of the things when I saw that, like the Binance case, like suddenly I'm in Europe, okay, but still there, but still I'm wondering, you know, what do I do with this? Because it's it's, you know, it's easy you know right right to use.

Joeri: 9:40

And then you have these cold wallets which I have to, which is sometimes a bit more harder, or sometimes you don't have, and you don't have choice that you want to do, would you still like? I don't know? What are your views on the Binance story?

Megan: 9:52

The Binance.

Joeri: 9:53

Yeah.

Megan: 9:54

You know, I think that this is just going to go on, on and on and on in crypto, because there are so many gray zones, there are so many kind of like points of their hurdles. We in the crypto sphere, we've had to jump through hurdles and go around, you know, obstacles since the beginning of time, since it was accepted, basically. So what I would say to that is I would use exchanges as an on and off ramp. You get your money and you, you get what you need and you get out, and that's it. And they, they're there with their air for which is to facilitate that fiat on ramp. And then you know you've got sources like decentralized exchanges and things like that, but it's just that initial point of getting your money in crypto. That is a pain point. And as we progress and as, like I said, wall Street plugged into Bitcoin I mean, there you can just buy Bitcoin with a click of the button yeah, is it the best way to buy it? Absolutely not, but it's the easiest way, so it's facilitating more adoption in the end.

Joeri: 10:45

Yeah, maybe it's a good way to get more people you know into crypto, into Web3, buy. They will see this. Yeah. They say oh, I know this. This is like you know something on the market.

Megan: 10:56

Yeah, it's a familiar to them.

Joeri: 10:58

Yeah, the trust, they trust it and then from there learn to know more. You travel a lot. Do you see any differences in how people approach crypto in countries around the world?

Megan: 11:12

Yeah, you know, I think the US stage is much different than Europe and even more different than Asia. Like, I just came back from a tour in the Philippines and it seems that in different countries where there are or actual use cases that are almost necessities that actually improve their quality of life, it's advancing in a better way and a stickier way than in countries where it's kind of like there's a lot of hype, hype-driven things and going for that profit exponential factor, and so I'm not saying that that's the only thing, but I think that a lot of times amazing projects because I also consult for funds and I help startups as an advisor and a lot of the projects I see in Europe go under the radar because they're not in a hype-driven scene, which has its benefits.

Joeri: 11:57

But yeah, that's also something I think I'm not really in. Okay, and crypto is the basis of everything, but I'm more in the NFT, Metaverse, and Web3 marketing side of things, and then when talking to people, they are like a bit hesitant when is this going? Depending on who you talk to. I came back from Dubai. Yeah, that was like you know, not even if you just darted a field, because I was never there, right? See, there are no limitations.

Joeri: 12:25

They're all about it in Dubai and you're like you know, like I'm in Belgium, like more like, what are you up to so convincing people to look at it and know other? Anyways, are you explaining it to people if they just ask what are you doing? Or whatever? What is crypto? Any tips how you can convince people? Yeah, you should have a look at it.

Megan: 12:47

My pitch used to be give me 30 minutes and I'll change your entire life, like honestly, because. But now I'm trying to refine it down even to like 10 minutes, because I really want them to get the importance of this in a quick way without losing interest, and so I'm kind of like refining my I don't know you even call it pitch, I guess. But for me, like people are like what are you a Bitcoin marketer? And it's like no, obviously not. Like you know, it's just funny that they think of it that way.

Megan: 13:12

But the more we can spread the message, the more we can develop communities, and the more we can get people listening to podcasts like yours, you know, the more we grow. And so, for me, I sit them down and I kind of like explain the world stage. I explain the big players. The big players like BlackRock. They validate the space in the eyes of the mainstream. So, you know, some people call it a double edged sword. Maybe there'll be a lot of more manipulation and things, but it's what happens when you're maturing as an asset class.

Joeri: 13:38

So yeah, the maturing aspect, because of course, we have had to the bull run. We have the NFTs, we have, you know, we have also in marketing, like you know, the everything wanted. You just wanted to sell out as soon as possible. Create high people oh, you need to buy the newest altcoin or newest project.

Joeri: 13:55

So this is actually one of the problems that people either lost money, or they see a scam going on, or I think, yeah, it's like with a hype cycle that Garners always show, as you have this hype and then it goes up and down.

Megan: 14:09

The only consistent thing in human history is emotions.

Joeri: 14:12

It's emotions and so you know it's not easy to just go back, take some distance and look at maybe projects of things that you really understand, I guess.

Megan: 14:23

Yeah, and that are fundamentally, you know, driving this market forward. I call it, set it and forget it, like a stress-free approach, because this doesn't have to be hard. But people get sucked into like I need this sense of like FOMO and urgency and stuff. But this can be very, very simple. As long as you study right and as long as you have a strategy, then you don't have to stress, you don't have to like wonder if you have enough here or you don't have enough, like that's so stressful to the average person, they just give up. So, and on the education front, I just launched a brand new initiative in Spain to allow, basically, crypto investors around the world to convert their crypto into property in Spain, and so I'm partnered with an exchange that is working with the central bank and all of the biggest financial establishments in Spain and they have like Spanish AML and KYC and stuff, so they actually do that for the buyer and it's really cool because now I'm trying to make Spain a hub, following Portugal's success.

Megan: 15:17

Right working on pushing the regulation for better crypto regulation, possibly golden visa, because I think these European countries need to step up. The US is not the only country in the world doing things and I can say that I'm American right Like there are other countries in the world that can now step up and start to innovate and start to do things to get ahead.

Joeri: 15:36

Yeah, if you know you can have the climate and create these projects, and you have always need some drivers, people that take initiative and do something like the Web summit here. So it was just started, you know, from zero and now it grows and now it's sold out every time.

Joeri: 15:51

Yeah, like you know, you and I were talking last year with my podcast, when I was just, you know, changing instead from digital marketing subjects into more only web three. And now I see the podcast has just grown so much in that one year, just because I was because of that shift of focusing on it. Yeah, yeah, so it's, it's really why you put your energy, of course.

Megan: 16:15

That's incredible. And as far as the affiliate, so you're in marketing, right? I just spoke in a show that's highly focused on affiliate traffic and for me, when I'm working with people and I have a contract that's a smart contract on the blockchain that is triggered exactly when I send somebody there, it's a lot better. It's just a lot more transparent. Like, literally, when that person signs that contract, the money goes straight into my account If it's an affiliate of mine, and it just cuts out the friction of when are they going to pay you, are they being transparent with how many people have purchased, and etc. It's just an amazing system.

Joeri: 16:48

That sounds really amazing, but because I had this problem, of course everybody is on this problem. So you fill it in so that it works, and then sometimes you just know that some I bought a product and you don't see it, and it's like like show me the list, show me the list, tell me where this is coming from.

Megan: 17:05

Like there's no transparency in that world and also it takes forever. So if you have it baked into the smart contract code, literally in the same second, I will see that in my account and I'll understand it's working and it'll be like you can see it by tracking the wallets and tracing everything and it's just powerful, right?

Joeri: 17:22

But yeah, like at the moment that we are recording this podcast. You know they will be giving collectibles to people who have been on the podcast and this will really be amazing. It will be 3D VR AR, like you know, and it will be minted, you know, on the blockchain. So it will be really unique and I like to have this kind of initiatives to combine, like Web 3, and all the advantages with marketing and with awareness. That's very exciting and showing to people what is working. The same thing with the metaverse events that I'm organizing, trying to be digital identity will also be something on the blockchain, amazing. So, Megan, obviously now you have the Websum mit, which is the biggest thing.

Joeri: 18:11

What is on your schedule? Like you talked about the project in Spain, probably this will take a lot of your time, right?

Megan: 18:18

Well, it's an initiative that is live now and we've actually partnered with publicly traded companies, massive developers, so I have, just like, created the system that they can go ahead and implement so that, like, the education is being done by the team, by the exchange that I partnered with. It's a crypto bank that has Spanish, like all Spanish law and regulation, works with the central bank. It's been there since 2015. And it's actually the off ramp for the Spanish crypto the country.

Megan: 18:43

So that's just running in the background and I'm really ramping up my education front Because now that we're like speaking on a world stage to companies and to investors and things, I want to help the retail people get in on this movement with this massive opportunity that they have.

Joeri: 18:58

Yeah, so that's also what I'm trying to do, yes. Podcast and getting people in. So there is a part, of course, educating, showing everybody's possible, inspiring them, getting them motivated and then getting them to take action.

Megan: 19:11

Oh, that's the hardest part, isn't it?

Joeri: 19:13

Yeah, therefore, this is at the moment so my hurdle a little bit like people are excited, but why do I know?

Megan: 19:20

Put it off a now. It's a little bit tricky.

Joeri: 19:24

And there needs to be a deadline or something happening, but I you know, when I'm giving my presentations, I'd say like a surfer, you need to catch the wave and not miss the wave. And then I use AI, just you know that's cool.

Megan: 19:37

Catch the wave and ride it yeah.

Joeri: 19:39

Right yeah, are you using or looking at AI anyway, regarding the stuff that you're doing?

Megan: 19:46

I am, you know. I think it plays a huge role in education and enhancing the way we educate and the different things we can do. So I'm looking at it a little bit from that perspective right now, mainly education- focused, yeah.

Joeri: 20:00

For me, of course, from marketing perspective, there are lots of possibilities, but I also see these worlds of Web3, Crypto, Blockchain, NFTs, Metaverse, you know all coming together Like I was in Dubai and I was a speaker talking already about Web 3.5. And this world is coming.

Megan: 20:19

No, Dubai is a crazy place, but you know Kia, the car manufacturer. They're like selling cars in the Metaverse through AI chatbots and that is like one of the coolest. I did a speech about it in Dubai, actually, because I had an AI keynote and they're like selling these cars in the metaverse just purely using AI salesman chatbots to answer questions and help them with the car they want. It's really crazy. I mean, that's how it's going to be.

Joeri: 20:46

That's how it is going to be. I like this positive picture of the future that you're giving us, Megan. Well, I know here at the WebSummit we are limited in time, so thank you so much for being on my show for the second time. It was a pleasure, yes.

Megan: 21:02

Thank you so much for having me.

Joeri: 21:04

So, guys, this is the first episode I'm recording at the WebSummit with Crypto Megan, like last year, so if you want to hear more about Megan, I will put all the links in the show notes. She also has her own podcast. She's speaking around the world. If you think that this episode is really useful for people around you, be sure to share it with them. If you're not yet subscribed to the podcast, this is a really good moment to do that and, of course, I would like to see you back next time. Bye. Web3 can take your biz to new heights and you're ready to harness its power, but feeling lost and overwhelmed. Therefore, join my W3X Web3 mastermind. Send me a personal message for more info. You can find me everywhere on social media. There's only one person with my name, Joeri Billast. Talk soon.