Ladies and gents, we need to have a real talk. We gotta have a serious conversation. It has been less than 48 hours since I came back from my five-week trip in Korea and it seems like within this short time span, the most amount of activity happening within the crypto space. The craziest things unfolded right in this time: I Just needed to have a conversation with you guys regarding FTX because they are a platform that we worked with. Not only that, I had a lot of my funds with FTX I actually had half a million dollars within that exchange and uh, yeah, this has probably been the most stressful time for me in this last week. All right. So since I've returned back from my trip in Korea which by the way was my first ever trip that I've taken. uh, the last time I was in Korea I was only just three years old. Anyways, I returned back for my trip in Korea and all of this has been unfolding and to my knowledge, the most recent update regarding the FTX situation is just the fact that they have now filed for chapter 11 bankruptcy and I'm sure for anyone who has no idea of what Chapter 11 is now, you'll know. And the reason is because we've had a lot of companies throughout this past recession. a lot of different crypto exchanges filing for this exact type of bankruptcy and a lot of them have not been able to recover or give those funds back to anyone who has had money stuck on their exchange. Even more crazier with this whole FDX situation, we're getting even more reports about how Sam Bakeman Freed is just weirdly connected with the SEC Gary Gensler and the whole Almeida CEO was living with him and there was like this weird hugging session happening out there I don't even know, it's just a lot of weird stuff I Believe at this moment in time if you do have funds on FTX Global website which we didn't work with a global site, we worked with the Ftx.us which had a pretty long lead waste since the culmination of all these events where you would have been able to pull out your money I'm not sure about Ftx.us anymore I'm not sure if you're able to get your funds out at this point which is the worst situation right now to unfold out of everything now as a Creator I'm seeing a lot of different things here, you know I'm seeing coffee, Zilla doing his thing and I'm seeing a lot of the other personal finance creators who have continued to work with FTX getting a ton of backlash and most importantly, I'm seeing the comments from you guys I'm seeing the hurt from the people because a lot of people didn't have the flexibility of being able to lose these funds throughout what we're going through. Probably one of the worst recessions up to date. To make matters worse, on top of inflation, on top of just the markets going down, some people cannot have access to their funds anymore because this company this exchange has been outright lying to everyone within the space. It's to my knowledge that FTX is not going to get any better. I don't know if they're going to be able to raise the capital in order to get out of this situation and I know Binance right now is working just fine. Binance.us I Heard Coinbase is still fine. Crypto.com CEO has been very vocal online and coming out with the assets that they own and the backing that they have and even other platforms like Gemini and a Weeble sent out an email notification and they allow you to buy stocks in crypto too. So out of all the ones that I've worked with within the past one to two years, it looks like FTX is just one of the I would say. they are literally just the only ones that I've ever worked with that has now gone under. Luckily enough, and this didn't happen because I knew that they were gonna shut down and they're this Shady company. No, I I really had no idea. but luckily enough. Anyways, for our Channel we stopped working with them back in June that was our last contract with them and since June the partners that we work with are all not in solvent meaning they all have backing Regardless, FTX is a partnership where this is probably the biggest kicker that I've ever gone through it just finding out how bad of a situation they were in. I Just remember how much money they were putting out during the Super Bowl I Remember the Partnerships that they had and I always figured you know if they're working with Steph Curry and uh, Tom Brady and then they have backing from BlackRock and a lot of these huge institutions that have had a very good course of a track record. Well, a lot of lessons have been learned. You cannot trust any of these exchanges and basically I think it all comes down to the principles of crypto. and I've had a few crypto videos that have popped off on YouTube Most of those videos. One of the key points that I always mention is just the fact that when crypto is on an exchange, you don't have access to those keys if that exchange ever happens to be insolvent, if they ever get hacked, if they ever lose custody, for whatever reason, your assets are gone, not your crypto. I Think the new saying is not your cheese Now it is more than true than ever before in this situation. and even though there are many other exchanges right now that look like they are okay, I would always take the precautionary steps throughout these times to ensure that you move your assets over into your cold storage wallet. I Mentioned at the beginning of this video, I had half a million dollars stored into FTX Luckily enough, there was a feeling I had no idea I didn't even hear any word about this whole just shut down happening until I was over there on Twitter going through the feed but back I believe it was on the fifth. That is when I decided to withdraw some of my funds out of FTX and this is because I have a lot of payments coming up I have a house that I'm building that's underway and as you guys know, tax season is quickly approaching too. And I realize that the pace that the market is currently headed at and all the points that I've mentioned in our previous crypto update videos that I'm spreading out a lot of my investments and I'm taking an alternative approach, especially with the current climate of the macroeconomic circumstances Rising interest rates and the Market's not looking any better I withdrew my full amount luckily on the fifth with ACH deposit which was limited at fifty thousand dollars for anyone who is Ky seed. but but if you wanted to get your full amount, if you had six figure, seven figures, eight figures in order to get that, you would have to wire it out, you would have no limit. but with ACH you would have 50k, it only take about two to three business days. I got my ACH delivery in just a few days after I heard the whole CZ of Binance making his announcement on Twitter I'm still worried because you know I had a lot more money still coming in I decided to withdraw my money out of wire and it ended up not coming in. It ended up not coming in for multiple days I was sweating bullets because I realized the direction that FTX headed right now I would most likely not be seeing this. It would be the same thing that we saw with Voyager and Celsius and I would not be wanting to fall victim to another exchange going down as well. I don't know how to put into words, but I got so lucky because that money eventually did enter my account. but then I Also heard just so many horror stories on Twitter where people were not able to get their funds out at the moment. I'm playing things a lot more conservatively and even with the current state of the market, there's a lot of directions we could have gone at and you know I could have even told myself man looking back if we knew that FTX was going to go under or they were this completely scam Ponzi scheme that with information is coming up now I there was no way I would have ever worked with them I think at this point, even though all my money is still spread out amongst different exchanges, I am actively just moving them over onto my cold storage wallet. Uh, the company that I've been using for the past four years is ledger In the very beginning of this company, you're only able to move over What? like just Bitcoin Ethereum and maybe like Usdc or USD tether. Now you can actually download different apps on there so you can accept more cryptocurrency. As an example, I have an account with Crypto.com and in order for me to move my assets over I can actually just download the crow app token onto The Ledger device so you can have all of your different cryptocurrencies. If you got any other meme coins or something that you may not have heard of, chances are it is available on The Ledger All you do is you download it, then you get the wallet address and then you just transfer it out of there. So the big lesson out of all this is something that we've mentioned countless times on this channel. and it's just the fact that you can't ever rely on one single exchange. Please take extra precautionary steps. Please make sure that if you do have money on other exchanges that you are able to move it within your own wallet if you don't have your own wallet. Ledger Announced that they're actually recently selling within Target stores within the US I don't know which Target stores they are I don't know if it's all of them worldwide. To be more on the safe side, I would just buy it directly from Ledger I Don't even trust Amazon or Ebay or any other website that is, uh, where you have wholesale sellers selling the actual product because we have seen before in the past where people bought up Ledger devices they had some malware, they had some hacks on it, then they would resell it on Amazon and you just don't want to risk anything with this. So make sure if you guys still don't have a cold storage device that you pick one up. ASAP You can always pick up a hot wallet for free. This is just like a metamask wallet or or a coinbase wallet something that is not on a cold storage device, but you can at least get it off of exchanges now. I Personally don't think that we're going to be seeing any other huge exchanges going under, but like I said, I Have no idea during these times because I never expected Ftxv doing this either. In terms of the direction of this channel where we plan on going next, Crypto has been slow I Already announced like four months ago I was planning on making these type of pivots, but crypto is something that I've always been wanting to do I Always wanted to do at least a weekly market update or come out with more educational crypto videos to at least make sure that people are still getting the information throughout these bear Market times. So for me, even though it seems like right now, Crypto is in its worst state ever, I Don't plan on ever putting a pause onto crypto entirely I Personally still believe in the future of crypto and I'm seeing a lot of conspiracy theories right now too that Sam Bankman freed. you know he was the second biggest donor for the Joe Biden Administration There's people saying that he was a paid actor like his whole role within this space was for him to do this so that eventually the government can put even more regulation on just the crypto markets. Basically, I'm just going to save this whole information for a more put together video. Uh, coming this week while we get more information. So much is happening. So much news is coming out that I feel like if I put out a new video last week on the whole FTX situation, it would have became irrelevant like immediately. I want to make so much content on what's going on, but at the same time I want to be more patient too and trying to get all the facts and the information before presenting to you guys with anything but at least with just this update video. y'all can hear from me on what's going on the direction of this channel how this all impacted me, what I suggested that you guys do. Anyways, if you guys have been affected by the FTX situation or you know if it didn't affect you at all like you were able to get your money out of there you saw this coming. Let me know. Down Below in the comments. in the future, we're going to be doing a much better job on just trying to vet these companies. but you know with FTX I it's just like I don't know I don't even know as just this whole thing is crazy man. Anyways, we'll be coming out with our regular tuned schedule of uploads. It's good to be back in the States It's good to be back home and unfortunately it sucks hearing about this whole entire situation. Yeah, I don't even know what else to say from here. guys. just stay protected during these times. Take the precautionary steps and we'll be coming out with a new update soon. Crazy times. We live in crazy times.