#436 Leon Wankum - Why Houses Keep Getting More Expensive

I think one of the challenges there is it seems too simple, right? Because the fiat money system and fractional reserve banking and the way inflation works, because all of that stuff is so complex and there's all these different investment vehicles and advisors and types of accounts and so on, it seems like...

I think there's a natural bias for humans to think that, well, if something is incredibly complicated, then that must be better than the thing that's really simple, right? Like, how, how could it be so simple that I just take my money every week or month and I buy a little Bitcoin and I store it? And how c- how can that outperform stock picking and having all these investment advisors and doing all of this complicated real estate stuff? Like, it, it seems to...

I think the simplicity of it is [chuckles] one of the things that make people wanna complicate it themselves, even people who invest in Bitcoin.

I mean, most people, at least, it, it takes many years for most people to realize that you really do just buy and hold, right? People wanna time the market.

People wanna trade.

People wanna, uh, dive into this coin and this NFT and, you know, have a thousand different coins in their portfolio.

And if you actually measure against Bitcoin in almost every situation, with a handful of exceptions, the best thing to do over the last six years, eight years, 10 years, 15 years, would be to just buy, just buy Bitcoin and just hold it.

It's like, I think the HODLing aspect of Bitcoin, it's too simplistic.

Most people think it's good, too good to be true.

You said that Bitcoin is volatile, and that sort of sparked an idea which I don't think I've ever voiced on a podcast, and this is that actually Bitcoin is one of the least volatile things that exists, but human emotions are extremely volatile.

So if you really look at it, I mean, when Bitcoin is going through these price motions against the dollar or the euro or the pound, I mean, it's just the market psychology.

It's psychology.

It's not that Bitcoin is doing something different or doing something wrong.

It's just that the human emotions, right? Like, when it starts going up and it breaks a previous all-time high and people start getting FOMO and people just kind of rush in and start throwing in money and l- using leverage and the price spikes more, and then, you know, people throw in more and it spikes more, and then, you know, it hits a point, the bubble pops temporarily, and people start panicking and freaking out and thinking, "Oh my gosh, it's over.

It's going to zero." And then people start panic selling, and so the price rapidly drops until it eventually calms down again, and the pattern repeats again with different numbers, and this happens again and again.

But if you think of the actual volatility, Bitcoin's just ticking along.

Bitcoin's not doing anything different.

It's just, it's just going, and people's emotions and the narratives and the media reporting, how people feel is what's, is what's changing.

So right now as we speak, as we're recording, uh, beginning of October 2026, I mean, if we were to just go back two months ago, people were in the doldrums, right? People were feeling sad and depressed, and people would think, "Oh my gosh, you know, it's, it's over." People are freaking out.

People are panicking.

And then within the space of just a few weeks, all of a sudden, just generally, people are w- far more optimistic.

People are far more hopeful.

It's gone from, "Oh my gosh, it's over," to, "Yes, we're back," and people are excited again.

And as someone who's been in the market for a decade, you know, you c- you can probably predict what's going to sort of play out, n- you know, not, not day to day, but let's say over the next three years.

We don't have a crystal ball.