Science
Is Bitcoin a store of value during a financial crisis? What role does it play in a portfolio? Scott Melker, a successful trader and one of the leading voices of Cryptos discusses the origins of bitcoin, its uses, and what the future may look like. *This episode was originally released on March 25, 2020.* TRANSCRIPT: Intro (00:01): Inventors and their inventions. Welcome to Radio Cade the podcast from the Cade Museum for Creativity and Invention in Gainesville, Florida, the museum is named after James Robert Cade, who invented Gatorade in 1965. My name is Richard Miles. We'll introduce you to inventors and the things that motivate them, we'll learn about their personal stories, how their inventions work and how their ideas get from the laboratory to the marketplace. James Di Virgilio (00:38): Today, we are joined by Scott Melker. He is a leading voice in cryptocurrency. He's a trader he's an advisor. He formerly was a DJ and at times like these discussing cryptocurrency is more than just whether or not Bitcoin is an investment. It's actually an indictment on where we are as a society, monetarily, fiscally. What does all of this mean? Scott, welcome to the program. It's great to have you. Scott Melker (01:04): Thank you so much for having me. I'm truly honored. James Di Virgilio (01:06): Now, Scott, I know your background really for the first 15, 20 years of your career was as a DJ. In fact, you gained a significant amount of fame doing that. Then at some point in time, you got into dealing with the cryptos. Tell us about that transition and how that happened. Scott Melker (01:20): As you said, it was about two decades of DJ and music with a million other projects. On the side, I was always superficially interested in trading and investing. My parents gave me a pretty good base and understanding of money and finances and how to save. But as a trader, I was pretty much an amateur and actually pretty terrible at it, especially riding through the recession of 2008 and all of those things. But as I began to feel like I was aging out of music, I'm in my forties. Now I was deejaying to kids that were twenty, just became very awkward. I started to look for other things, but at the time when, if you were trading anything, crypto became just absolutely huge. You couldn't stop hearing about it. It was at the end of 2016, beginning of 2017 and so I put a little money into it. I started trading it and just by virtue of being in the right place at the right time, it quickly became something that could sustain and become a career. So I sort of fell into it to some degree. And then interestingly, at the same time, my daughter who's now five was born and alongside, already feeling like I was too old for a music production and deejaying having her really took me off the road and put me back in front of my screens to trading. So she was born and I had to go to South by Southw