The Nauseating Truth About Crypto Newsletters With Crypto’s ‘Uncle V’

🔥Crypto Fireside #40 — Interviews with crypto people.

The Nauseating Truth About Crypto Newsletters With Crypto’s ‘Uncle V’
Uncle V (Vigilante).

🔥Crypto Fireside #40 — Interviews with crypto people.

🔥Hello! Who are you, and what do you do?

UV: My name is Todd Pitner and live in Tampa, Florida. I head up Partnership Development for Loeb.NYC, a venture-collective based out of New York City — we have 22 tech-disruptive portfolio companies that share one mission in common, “Hello Problem. Meet Solution!” We’ve successfully invented, acquired, incubated, nurtured, developed, and exited a dozen companies over the past 25 years (including priceline.com, Synapse Group, ScriptRelief, and SingleCare, to name a few) that have enjoyed billion-dollar+ exits.

That’s my day job.

The reason why I’m being interviewed here is that I have a side hobby that’s food for my soul. I’m the host of YouTube’s The Uncle Vigilante Show.

Todd Pitner.

🔥What’s your backstory, and how did The Uncle Vigilante YouTube channel come about?

UV: If I go all the way back to the beginning, you could say I was quite the athlete — I out-swum 28 million competitors to my mother’s ovum. (Wait, too far back?)

In all seriousness, we’ll rewind less.

I’m “that guy” in your family who most would consider a conspiritard. I’ve always been skeptical of the mainstream narrative. Mainstream news always seemed to be a TV reality show — entirely scripted to be one giant, orchestrated infomercial for the agendas of the powers that be (whom I refer to as “Druid Babylonian Bastards”).

Well, rewind to March of 2020 and the supposed “pandemic”. My bullshit detector went up right away and I noticed inconsistency after inconsistency in the narrative. To me it was crystal clear, “These Druid Babylonian Bastards are actually making their move! They’re hijacking flu season right before our eyes and rebranding it as this boogie virus.”

[Disclaimer: I fully recognize that my point of view might be off-putting to others. If so, I’m sorry. You’re likely here for crypto. Hang in there. We’ll get there. I’m just setting the table related to HOW I arrived at crypto.]

Well, I decided to start talking about it. I launched a YouTube channel called “The Uncle Odd Show” in April of 2020. (Why Uncle Odd? My nephew could never enunciate the ‘T’ in Todd so in my family, I’m (still) affectionately called Uncle Odd.) I went from a standing start to almost 10,000 subscribers within 6-weeks. People were picking up what I was putting down because it was all such a cartoon — so painfully obvious. This was no pandemic, it was a PLANDEMIC.

It didn’t take long for YouTube to begin censoring me. Strikes 1, 2, and 3 came very quickly. So, I launched Uncle Odd 2…then 3…then 4, 5, and 6. Each time my subscriber base diminished. By the end of the year, my Uncle Odd 7 had barely 200 subscribers. I put a fork in the initiative.

Then in early January 2021, I had a friend call me saying, “Pitner, you have to invest in XRP!” I told him I didn’t know what XRP was. “It’s crypto.” I shared I didn’t know anything about crypto. He insisted, “Well learn! You must invest in XRP!”

Thus began my journey into crypto. I had to figure out how to buy XRP. My friend gave me a few bread crumbs…pointed me to Coinbase Pro. Ended up investing $30,000 into XRP at $.18. And then…it got delisted! Insert face-palm emoji here.

XRP doesn’t have a horrible ending, though. It did go on a run, and I exited at $1.20. In between my initial acquisition and exit, I decided that I would pivot my channel and begin talking about crypto. It was still the Uncle Odd show — except instead of talking about Druid Babylonian Bastards, I decided to share my journey as a crypto newbie with the world.

🔥Describe the process of launching or preparing to launch The Uncle Vigilante Show.

UV: After making the decision to pivot, I did two to three shows per week. What I learned was, “Crypto is really, really hard. Until it’s not.” Investing in cryptocurrencies (and all that goes with it) is not for the faint of heart. It’s absolutely anxiety-inducing. Every step of the way is unknown. Most newbies don’t have crypto mentors. But, the fact is, you learn by doing. You just must start ugly and, “Lean in!”

🔥Take us through your daily process of what it is that you do.

UV: Week in and week out I just shared my journey. It was truly Crypto 101 because it HAD to be.

Each last experience was my new high-water mark.

You soon realize one thing — that you truly, “don’t know shit!” But you’d better learn…because in crypto, you are your own bank. When you need to call customer service (because you sent one of your digital assets to an unknown place), the person who picks up the phone is yourself — and the customer service experience will likely suck!

Scary business is this cryptoverse!

So you ultimately arrive at a point where you’d rather lean on others to tell you which projects to invest in…and you subscribe to this service or that service. I subscribed to about a half-dozen services and during that time (the first half of 2021 when it seemed everything was going up) I subscribed to The Crypto Vigilante. Really liked these guys. Loved Jeff Berwick.

I ended up having Rafael LeVerde on my show — he’s THE Crypto Vigilante. During that show he christened me “Uncle Vigilante” … thus, my rebranding: The Uncle Vigilante Show.

🔥What has worked to attract and retain viewers and subscribers?

UV: First, I’m very committed and consistent. I do two shows per week, often more. I have great guests on, and rumors have it, that I’m a likable guy. Moreover, I have a strong track record in business and partnership development with my day job. I work with an amazing group of entrepreneurs and believe I bring a different perspective to the world of crypto because of my experience. I think my audience “gets” that and respects my points of view. Mostly, though, my viewers trust me. I’m a straight shooter, being the first to praise and encourage someone who advances the ball downfield, and the first to call bullshit on someone who is harming the project.

Now, a little about my YouTube subscriber count. I’ve been at this for 18 months now. A huge portion of my Uncle Odd base followed me over to my new channel. Since then, my subscriber base has grown from 2,900 subscribers to 2,910 subscribers. Impressive, right? Added 10 subscribers in 18 months? Well, it’s obvious that my prior YouTube sins carried over — I’m what they call “shadow banned.”

That’s okay — I know my subscriber count is a lot higher. I couldn’t care less what the stats show. I’ve never monetized my channels, nor would I ever. Not what I’m here for. If all readers here subscribe to my channel I’m confident I can get to … 2,910 subscribers! Woot-Woot!

🔥You have chosen to focus a lot of your video content on Epic Cash. Why?

UV: Great question. Fair warning, this will be a lengthy answer.

I mentioned that my crypto newbie path led me to multiple subscriptions where other parties told me what to think. All of them provided monthly or quarterly picks to their subscribers. Some, like Mike Newton with his Moonstream service, also told you when to sell. I respect that. Others just told you when to buy and if the asset retraced, there was never a word on suggesting selling the asset…even if it was destined to fall even further.

One of the services I subscribed to was a combo of The Crypto Vigilante and The Dollar Vigilante. I hung on their every word. TCV was the crypto analysis side of the equation and TDV was the promotion side. My first pick with them was Pirate Chain (ARRR). My entry basis was $4.25 and I was on top of the world when it quickly went up to over $15 in a day and then it rapidly retraced. But, I held on because Jeff Berwick beat into our heads it would soon be $50, $500, or even $5,000.

I held my ARRR for a long while. Currently, it’s trading at $.41.

The next pick was DERO. For the three weeks prior to the pick, Jeff Berwick was hammering into his viewer's head that, “Remember, those who act first, profit most!” All signals were, “When the pick comes out, have your BTC ready to ape in FAST!” Which is precisely what I did.

I was on a three-way conference call with two subscriber friends — all of us had our BTC on TradeOgre (which is where all TCV’s picks trade). One of us was monitoring our email in case the pick first came out by email, one was monitoring the members-only website and I was monitoring the members-only Telegram chat.

“BOOM!”

The “new” pick was out. It was DERO (which was odd because they featured DERO in a newsletter several months prior). I had two BTC at the ready — at the time BTC was trading above $40K. Once I knew it was DERO, I begin hitting buy, buy, buy. Why? Because Jeff hammered home, “Those who act first, profit most.”

Now, within the one minute, it took for my buy orders to settle, the value of my two BTC became just one BTC of value in DERO! I was like, “WTF just happened?!” My two friends experienced the same thing. The pick came out at $5 (supposedly) and once I did the forensics on my buy orders, my basis was $22! Half of my BTC investment just vanished. And right before my eyes, the charts showed an immediate pump up to $24 and then it quickly settled back to $8. It’s currently trading at $3.36.

I was entirely confused. I immediately started monitoring the Telegram chat and realized I was not the only one inquiring, “WTF?!” Everyone was in that chat trying to reconcile what just happened.

Now, I could and would have gone to bed that night never saying a word…chalking it up to tuition — UNTIL…

Until I started seeing Rafael LeVerde admonishing all inquirers telling them, “You should have READ THE REPORT! Only idiots would ape in without READING THE REPORT!” The abuse got worse. It really pissed me off. Here you had Jeff chumming the waters three entire weeks prior to the pick being announced, touting how “those who act first, profit most” (I did the forensics here).

Look, I’m a 57-yo adult. Don’t speak down to me or others like a child. Due to Jeff’s successful marketing, TCV gained 25% ADDITIONAL subscribers the last week alone (based on the growth of their members-only Telegram chat). So, you’re obviously dealing with at least 25% NEW MEMBERS who were never told or trained to “read the report” first. So that defense doesn’t hold water. No, we were trained to “act first to profit most.”

Those who know me will share that I’m really, really nice…until I’m not.

I was so pissed off at Rafael’s condescending treatment of the members who just lost a tremendous amount of money, I decided to use my YouTube platform to call bullshit on what just happened. I encourage readers to watch my raw commentary here — judge for yourself if I managed my messaging professionally.

It didn’t take long for TCV to learn that I pushed back using my platform. I was immediately banned from the members-only Telegram chat, and they canceled both my TCV and TDV subscriptions (only to auto-renew them a year later without my permission — I’m sure glad I caught those charges within my banking statement).

Now, upon forensics, what I learned is that many of these services make their REAL money on the backs of their subscribers via what’s called “front running”.

And, when you think about it, outside the ethics of such a practice, it makes sense. They’re fighting human nature which is, at bottom, greedy AF. They obviously know the pick they are going to choose months in advance. That gives them time to acquire large positions months prior. Then, they set up sell orders at increments going all the way up to where they think the price could go on the initial pump. Thus, the subscriber base is buying into the sell wall of the subscription provider.

It’s actually brilliant. Unethical? I think so. But, at this point, I merely look at my loss as tuition.

I will never subscribe to another newsletter in my life. No, from that point on I was determined to think for myself and DO THE WORK to understand what the attributes are within a crypto project that would warrant me to invest my hard-earned investment dollars.

That became my quest. Thus, my SHITCOIN TRIALS!

You asked about, “Why Epic Cash?” Click the link above and you’ll find out why.

Uncle Epic.

🔥Through launching The Uncle Vigilante Show, what is something you have learned that surprised you?

UV: After making the decision to “think for myself” and deciding to invite leaders of projects (especially those focused on privacy) to come on my show to endure a “Shitcoin Trial”, I learned about an undiscovered cryptocurrency called Epic Cash. Max Freeman, founder of Epic Cash, took me up on the shitcoin challenge and humored my wig-wearing, gavel-smashing ‘Judge & Jury’ theater.

What did I learn that surprised me? That “I didn’t know shit!”

Allow me to share a bit of context. The idea behind my shitcoin trials was that I would declare “said project” a SHITCOIN at the beginning of the show. Then, the guest would have 45-minutes to convince me otherwise. By the end, I would be judge and jury to decide if the project was truly one worthy of investment, or if it remained a shitcoin. I had eight questions that required an answer to help me determine which way I would judge.

If you watch my shitcoin trial with Max Freeman (Epic Cash), within 15-minutes you will visually see me go from being “in character” to taking off that silly wig, putting down my gavel, grabbing a notebook, and going into “student mode”. I recognized I had a genius of sorts on the other side of the conversation. What was intended to be a 45-minute interview turned into 2–1/2 hours of crypto education.

That’s where my TRUE quest to go from being crypto-curious to crypto-savvy began. I asked Max if he would be open to coming back on my show the following week to teach more. He graciously said yes. I asked if he would return the following week. Yes. Everyone loved these Max livestreams and it just became a recurring thing. The more I began to understand, the more I realized that my portfolio of 25 assets needed attention. So, I decided to ask Max for some personal coaching.

Uncle Judge’s Shitcoin Trials.

🔥Mistakes were made. What were they and what did you do?

UV: A few things. Upon reflection, my primary mistake was thinking “others knew shit”. I submit that most crypto subject matter experts really don’t. They were mostly just early adopters who have both charisma and the good fortune of market timing. Almost all crypto is marketing. Pump and dumps are a real thing. Remember, we’re all fighting human nature. Greed is a dominating bitch. I’m now super skeptical of almost all influencers out there. It’s a pay-to-play world, I’ve learned that. BitBoy charges $50k to do a video on your project. $50k!

Secondly, I bought into the standard investment ideology that diversification in crypto is good. It’s not. It’s actually a horrible idea (see price chart below). The greatest gift Max ever gave me is the time investment where he walked me through each of my 25 assets and went through a thought experiment. I won’t provide all his assessment factors, but the one that hit home most was the following:

Let’s take BTC for example. BTC’s market cap is currently $370 billion. At $20,000, it looks like a steal in comparison to its all-time high of $67k. Right? Well, war game this. For you to 2x your money, BTC would have to attract another $370 billion in NEW investment! Now, look at Epic Cash. Epic Cash’s market cap is currently $10 million. For you to 10x your money requires just an additional $90MM in NEW investment. Epic Cash is still an undiscovered coin. That said, we’re just now starting to get the world’s attention. Mike Mumola represented Epic Cash in two recent interviews airing on Newsmax, Fox Business News, and Bloomberg TV.

Upon studying Epic, you will understand that Epic Cash is the original Bitcoin design, yet engineered using more advanced tech. Imagine if Satoshi had a Mulligan and could relaunch Bitcoin’s original 2008 protocol using 2019 technology that enabled true privacy and multi-algo, eco-friendly mining to secure the network. If Satoshi had a Mulligan, he would have launched Epic Cash — which could withstand the brutality of this crypto winter we’re currently all experiencing.

Now, over the past two years, Epic is up 1,300%. Over the past year, we are up 45%. To put that in perspective, let’s view a paired comparison:

epic.tech (https://www.youtube.com/c/UncleVigilante)

So when I went through my crypto holdings with Max, we carefully analyzed each asset and determined what it would take (considering each market cap) to 2x or 10x my money? He then walked me through the charts from the inception of each asset comparing them all in BTC terms. We did the same with Epic Cash. After assessing each asset, Max asked, “Okay, which is more likely?”

It became immediately obvious what I needed to do. I remember it was SO PAINFUL for me to sell my ARRR at $2 when my basis was $4.25. Ouch! But I did. I plowed the converted BTC into Epic Cash which was trading at $.18 at the time. I did the same with the rest of my portfolio. I chose to go “narrow and deep” versus “wide and shallow”. Scary fact, to fund my 25 crypto assets, I liquidated ALL my 401k’s and IRA’s, and Whole Life insurance policies. I bet the farm on crypto. Had I not pivoted to holding just Epic, I would be, like others, absolutely REKT.

Lesson learned? “Never catch a falling knife”. ARRR is currently trading at $.41.

🔥What have been the most influential things in your life that affected your project? This can include books, podcasts, or people?

UV: Max Freeman is single-handedly my greatest influence within crypto. If you told me in five years that he’s Satoshi Nakamoto, I’d believe you. My channel has hundreds and hundreds of hours of Max Freeman interviews where he drops knowledge on our community like no other crypto project leader worldwide. If you doubt anything I’m writing here, my body of work speaks for itself. Feel free to verify before you trust. That’s the smart thing to do, regardless.

Additionally, Epic Cash’s lead tech engineer is Todd Lewis and has been a tremendous influence. He’s an outstanding individual. I love Todd Lewis. He’s not only a brilliant cryptographer, but he’s also a normal dude. Great sense of humor. He and I are just wrapping up a series called “The Quest for Superior Money”. I encourage all readers to see our most recent episode for context and then go back to the beginning of the series where we take a deep dive into all the necessary attributes that “would” make up money that was truly superior to all other forms.

🔥Do you have any advice for other creators, entrepreneurs, or developers who want to get started or are just beginning?

UV: Yes, start ugly.

If you have an itch needing to be scratched, what are you waiting for? Scratch it.

Many have great intentions to begin a podcast or a YouTube channel or a blog — and wait and wait and wait until everything is perfect in their mind. “Don’t pull the trigger until you have all your shit together!”

Nyet.

Screw that. Just 3, 2, 1…GO!

Perfection is the enemy of progress. #LFG!

The fact is, water finds its own level. If you told me when I began my YouTube journey into crypto that I’d one day be considered the leading talking head for an undiscovered coin that truly has the potential to change the world, I’d think you were out of your mind. Why? “Because I don’t know shit!

🔥Where do you see the blockchain, cryptocurrency, and decentralization space going in the next 5 to 10 years?

UV: It will be good versus evil. Centralization versus Decentralization. The Goliath BTC is absolutely compromised. It’s the bankster’s bitch now. I submit that within 5 to 10 years the Epic ecosystem will be the world’s David.

David vs. Goliath — I think we know how that story ends.

– One Uncle’s opinion.

🔥Where can we go to learn more?

UV:
1. Follow me on YouTube at The Uncle Vigilante Show.

2. Be sure to visit Epic.Tech.

3. Begin your journey down the Epic Cash rabbit hole here.

4. Join the Telegram Epic Cash Community.

5. For a deeper dive into crypto education, please join Telegram’s Freeman University.

6. Would love to engage with you further my Telegram Uncle Vigilante Lounge.

Thanks, Uncle V!

Read also:

Beware: You Are Entering The World Of Shitcoins

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