Everybody welcome to digital asset news. My name is Rob and we usually don't do these on a Saturday But I thought it was appropriate and what we're talking about today is there was a story that came out Which took a look at wormhole There was a hack about a year ago and how they actually hacked the hackers and got back a hundred and forty million dollars And at first you're gonna take a look at this story We're like that's fantastic and then when we take a look at how that actually happened you'd be like that's awful and We'll get into that right now and I just want to say thanks to everybody who showed up this Saturday Appreciate it and crypto golfer had a really good statement. He's like wow live show on Saturday I'll be back in a bull market potentially and Really what it comes down to for like live streams. They're just easier to do That's just really what it comes down to when your recording video is an editing and things like that If you're if you're gonna jump in the YouTube game live streams just a heck of a lot easier That's just how it is. So this is the story that came across the desk today And we took a look and I thought hey, this is fantastic because everybody loves a good ending, right? Well, in all honesty, this is just the beginning. So this is from blockworks jump crypto Just counter exploited the wormhole hacker for a hundred forty million dollars again You see this you're like great that hacker got what was coming to him and we got our funds back wait It gets worse so just over a year ago wormhole bridge was attacked one of the largest crypto loss events of 2022 I think there's more to come but That's why we do these shows we can warn you about the things to do and of course just use the The rules below us and they'll do be just fine So those funds were replaced by jump crypto. Everybody was happy about that wormhole offered a 10 million bug bounty And a white hat agreement to the hackers in exchange for returning the funds it appeared that never happened It's amazing some of these these hackers they do it for fun And they actually do return the funds but in this situation the hackers were like we're not going to turn squat And we're gonna try to spend it However, they figured out that was a lot more difficult than what they planned and this is how it went down So Dave Olson jump trading groups president and CIO said hey, we're working in very close consultation with government resources Private resources. There's a lot of firepower that is an expert at tracking down criminals like this and we are in this fight Permanently so this is not something that we will become distracted by Next month or next year. This is a permanent condition and I could say I remember this statement coming out And I was like, yeah, right. Well, this will never happen They'll never get beat these funds back and these hackers are going to get away with it And they didn't it appears that as three days ago those funds have been recovered Jump crypto declined to comment the findings and Oasis did not reply to a request for comment Which I thought was odd because they just did a great thing and you're gonna see why However, Oasis released a statement following publication the article. They said look on 21st of February Re-received an order from the High Court of England in Wales to take all necessary steps That would result in retrieval of certain assets involved with the wallet Address associated with the room hole exploit last year This was carried out in accordance with the requirements the court order as required by law using the Oasis multi-sig and a court authorized third party We can confirm the assets were immediately passed onto a wallet controlled by the authorized third party as Required by the court order. So basically they got them back the transit action history Suggest that jump crypto and Oasis work together To counter exploits in upgradable Oasis contract Securing the stolen funds from the original wormhole exploiters wallets. Everybody's happy Q credits Disney movie fantastic however The exploiter has continuously moved the stolen funds through various ETH applications several wallets were involved in the exploiter at The counter exploit and they just figured out. Hey, we couldn't really do this is very hard They couldn't figure the out how to sell all the ETH that they stole and here is this statement from a waste I read it and I was like, it's weird how this all I'm not gonna read it to I linked in the description You can read it, but I've been on tech said it best and this was a tweet this morning maker Dow complied with a court order the one we just read and Upgraded their contract to allow them to take funds from a hacker wallet Which other big D5 projects have admin keys that can be forced to comply Richard Hart worn this industry of admin keys for a long time. Look love him or hate Richard Hart He's been right about a lot of things and this is one of those things. Yeah, it was totally right on and This is from this is a retweet from Chris black advocate for immutable unstoppable D5 tech Adversary of everything that pretends to be but isn't and he's got a podcast I'm gonna have to follow this guy and he said look it's only matter of time The quarter was D5 product to use multi-sig to steal money back from hacker D5 product says, okay It sounds good uses it multi-sig to exploit its own code D5 users are like what happened. What a total joke and then moving down Ivan says you can just this is more context for maker now and we're just gonna open this up and They just said hey look we upgraded that contract from Oasis and we don't have a problem with it And that's what Oasis did so don't touch us We reiterate maker now smart contracts are not controlled by or in control of the Oasis front-end smart contracts Here's why this is a big issue if you haven't Figured it out right now There's gonna be good projects. It's gonna be bad projects doesn't be projects I think they know what they're they think they're doing the good thing and There's other products that just step by and when you see these types of projects and they can go in there And that's great, you know, some people say that's great They were able to take that money back and good for them and and now we got our funds back But in all honesty What's to stop them from a government coming down and saying hey, we want you to change Your contract here and we want to be able to dip into all these people's accounts and take their money back Because we think they're terrorists and then it comes out Oh, maybe they weren't terrorists or maybe they were money laundering and then they weren't money laundering Maybe they actually were money laundering. I don't know how it's gonna work out But the thing is is that when you have these d5 projects in any project for crypto The whole point of it is self-custody and mutable and you can do with it whatever you want to So when I see these type of projects just go okay You can do whatever you want to upgrade it use the information that you have use white hackers and take those funds back It's a slippery slope and that's the that's the problem with With crypto and digital assets. It's all about where you think things are. What are you here for? So for me, I take a look at this I think this is bad news and I think we're gonna see more of this coming on the pipe And that's what we have for that project. So let me know what you think about that In the comment section because I'm sure it'll be spicy, but that's just how I see things and also A couple of things about why we did this this livestream on Saturday. Like I said, my stream is just easier to do Right. I'm not to edit any of this stuff out. I try to make it as fast as I can but we go a little bit over But there was another thing that I had mentioned. We did a video about The Solana stores closing down in Miami in New York and I told everybody that that's a great That's a great deal because good for them. They're saving funds. They're you know Contracting a little bit so they can make things happen in the bull market. I don't hate Solana I just don't own much of it anymore. I don't dollar cost average it But one of the parts of that story As I said, you know, they're gonna close down these in real life places and they're they've got a pretty good Other part going which is drip dot house and they said that for all the the live Places that they have they have the same if not more foot traffic To their online presence So why wouldn't they just put all their effort into that and one of those things they did was drip house? And this is where you can get free NFTs and they just airdrop you the NFTs Into your Solana wallet like you got a phantom wallet like me then it'll happen The problem was is why did that video? I didn't connect my wallet because I had two other things up going on But when you do that you need these things You need these reservation codes. So if you don't have those codes, you can't do it. So I reached out and I said, hey People are asking For these reservation codes that they can get some free NFTs in Solana So can you hook us up and they reached it back out to me said sure they gave me 30 So I did a tweet and I said look this is the video is what it is Here's all you got to do retweet this tweet follow Solana spaces follow news asset Watch Saturday's live stream and I forgot about it and I'm like shoot I can do a live stream and it worked out just great So what we're gonna do right now? We're gonna draw Those 30 winners and if you're like, ah Rob, I didn't get it because I don't follow you on Twitter Well, maybe you should follow me on Twitter might help you So that's all I can say for it. So let's see so I'm gonna use Twitter picker So I'm gonna do it live. So everybody's like I give it to your buddies and your cronies. All right, whatever So let's load the tweet Hopefully this works. I've done this a couple times and it hasn't failed me yet winner count 30 must follow at news asset Oops Solana spaces Right make sure that's the one of spaces cool and Perfomance have a picture. I don't really care description. I don't care either Account age at least a month well any latest tweet any We'll make it simple Because you got to hit all that and let's see who made it continue. Oh Look at all these people 48 entries and 30 of you are gonna win so Well, there's Neville. There's meme Let usual suspects continue and Let's begin the draw But but but but but but all look at all these winners today Let's see entries one. Oh, there's only 10, you know, why because not everybody Followed followed or play in the rules. So this is the 10 are I've got 20 more codes, so we'll do this again next time I tweet this Make sure you do those things and that's it. So I'm gonna leave this up Don't worry about reaching out to me because I'll reach out to you and I'll give you those codes and If you're I every time I do this There's always some some hack or some scammers like I won and there's my here's my it's my My profile might know you didn't so I'll reach out to you. Don't worry about all the work and that's it That's it for today So, uh, look, I'm gonna be kind of busy next couple of weeks to a month. I Had ten winners set. No, I didn't maybe I did Hold on Bad damn it. I did do this again. Okay. Load the tweet. Did I not put 30? Oh, it doesn't do it Because you can only do 10 what? Twitter picker. That's you gonna need to upgrade Yeah Let's see. Well, that's a bummer Well, we'll do it again But then it's still gonna work. Why doesn't it? Let's see Huh? Well, how about this one two three four fives?  So I'll reach out to everybody individually and give you your own fair code That's fair and that's what's up.  Yeah, exactly and then So ask your questions and I'll answer in the best of my ability then we'll get out of here and then just so everybody knows I'm gonna be busy for a while. Let me work on this project here so we're gonna be bringing a flappy bird to web 3 and And it's a it's a process man. It's a process. It's a process to go through Apple and Android to get the web 2 part going and then the different platforms that want to do this and Go through Binance Launchpad and Tencent Launchpad and all those things But we'll get it gonna get it done. It's gonna be interesting see how it goes and I'll let you know how that works out Let's see. So Jade today says when is NFA next week not financial advice with me and guy from coin Bureau and Ben from the crypto worse. It should be every Thursday It's just that last couple times We've had some some things going on guy had to do something in the metaverse some kind of deal with Binance and Like a shark tank type thing sounds interesting But it was on the exact same day and time. So that's done. So we're gonna be it should be every Thursday at 9 a.m. Eastern time and it'll be on guys channel and coin Bureau clips next week Yeah, it's probably true Rob I think you can hammer out a lot of these crypto regulation issues if you just sit down with Gary at a cafe over some Cricket powder tea. I don't I probably it's it's probably very simple. I gotta tell you between us. It's no one's it's just us right now nobody's watching I Think that they're dragging their feet on purpose Call me crazy, but I'm pretty sure that they could make this all very clear very quickly and Just move forward, but it's like for some reason they don't want to have clear regulation and that's it No, it's nice Welcome Vicki says I have a new interview channel. I will let us interview in a month. Absolutely You know how to get a hold of me. Yeah, that's right. Hello T&D Do you hold chain like yes I do and There was this great article Let me see if I can pull it up. Did you guys know? Let me show you this Couple things I want to show you This dynamic NFTs so chain like is This is update on January 23rd, so that's already it's coming into fruition, but a dynamic NFT What is that? Well, NFTs are pretty static, you know, they don't really change too much I mean upgrade a bowl and stuff like that But you mean you have to do that manually, but I don't this is all metaverse stuff So like it would be like all like later in game Like if you go into a certain section of a game and you conquer some boss Automatically you level up and then your NFT levels up and it's like an automatic type of thing Which is on chain stuff, but what about off-chain and I thought it was interesting So chain link of course is an oracle and it brings an outside data into On into the blockchain, right? So let's just say that in the future We have an NFT that represents a house. Well, how do you know what that house? what the value is what's happened to it in the past good and bad and Everything kind of like information that you want to get especially if it's on an NFT So what it does is it'll update it automatically without having to put things in it's kind of like Think of like Carfax but on the blockchain and it's for houses and it could be for cars and it could be for any kind of Acid that you really have and you could just see like all the data on the blockchain for anybody and So like let's say like in this example, let's say it replaces the roof You're like well, you know, that's good to know and and then of course We can we can put that in and take a look at comparables other houses as far as like new roofs in a certain section And and what is that the price per square footage or let's say that they did new doors new new windows knew something Or and also let's say that there was a massive foundation crack and they had to fix that and it would all be in the NFT data So why is that important? I think it's important because like if we want to use these types of things In the future it makes our lives a heck of a lot easier to do. So if you're an assessor And you're trying to look at or a real estate agent You're trying to look at like like give me these houses and these properties and and this type of price and there's no, you know Wacky information that that comes out on closing. Well, this will be where it is I know some people will say well, that seems kind of I mean don't we have people to do that? Yes We do we do all those things and of course That's the whole points of technology is to make things a lot faster easier simpler and cheaper and cutting out middleman We can do that that will be fantastic. So to answer your question I do own chain like and especially it's interesting that they're doing these types of things. So, yeah Interesting also, I wanted to talk like That story, you know, just took up a whole lot of a lot of time frame, but Hold on. Let's see here I'll answer this What's your opinion of the Celsius new co-plan? Sounds like an awful plan with retail clawbacks And those are the five can the platform get half back compared to those with less than 5k So people have been like asking me to cover the Celsius plan what things are going on with Celsius and how's this thing with Celsius and I haven't done much of it because First of all, so everybody knows, you know, I promoted Celsius I talked about it quite a bit as a matter of fact and I have six figures stuck on that platform So I'm right with you and on on Celsius and Celsius was it was a project that worked until it didn't And it's the same thing with Voyager Voyager worked until different when tell it didn't tell me this off awful mistake of owning six hundred forty million to three rows capital uncollateralized geniuses so This with this Celsius plan to cover it I Don't think I can cover it But it's a lot of minutiae and the back and forth and it seems like the only people that know what's really going on to me and my What I see is Simon Dixon so follow him Aaron Bennett Tiffany Fong and Cam Cruz These four people know exactly what's going on and you can follow others and you know to see what's happening But they they really keep up with the details of what's happening I was asked to get to cover it when there was this thing called a Celsius squeeze going on And I sat in on on a Twitter space is live and I listened to everybody Complain and throw mud back and forth and nothing got accomplished whatsoever And now those same people the Celsius squeezers are talking about how great Celsius still is I mean some of them are there was a report that came out that basically said that Alex Mishinsky and Celsius was a Ponzi and they said we can't say you know The exact words but it operated as a Ponzi and these people looked at that and go wow. It's fantastic They didn't call it a Ponzi. I'm like did you not read the report? so The things that are going on and there's like I forgot the name terror wolf or something like that is coming in They're like we're gonna, you know make this thing great and it's gonna be awesome and and I'll let you know If that is really what it comes down to it, but right now There's really in my personal opinion It's not like there's a huge amount and people would say but Rob What about these retail clawbacks and things like that? Well, look we try to fight Kirkland and Ellis for them to make The crypto that we had on that platform to not allow them to classify that As Celsius's property and that failed miserably and they were able to do that and then for everybody who has it in you know And loans and custody and of course we can fight them But really what it's gonna come down to is just time and what happens me personally I would just rather liquidate and Just move on because I have a much better feeling that I can Use my funds a lot better than a new company coming in and saying, you know, we're gonna do this great stuff and it was great stuff I don't trust anybody involved with it and I'll go out of my way to To make sure I Don't want to talk about honestly, that's just it I mean why can bring some people on I asked Simon to come on to probably be here next week We'll talk all about it quite honestly. I Think it's I'm just kissing that six figures. Goodbye So All right, do you think Celsius plan will not I don't know because Well, first of all this new place. They're like, we're not going to be there They they say it's a funny cuz like they say that it's not going to do like the old ways And they're not gonna bring in the old Management team and it's gonna be totally new and it's gonna be totally awesome Basically what it is is they're getting they're getting your assets on the cheap and they're going to fire up this Bitcoin mining platform And everything's gonna be fantastic. Look Maybe a will I just reserve judgment, but I Mean from from here on out like I'm just tired of people saying like you should get behind Celsius and those are things like Celsius is a bunch of Fraudsters and and people would say well Robbie don't stand there They're doing this this great Bitcoin mining operation And then if you take a look at all the financials, you'll see that they were hemorrhaging money left and right They were actually losing money This Bitcoin mining operation when they should have been making money So if this new company comes in they're like, oh, this is gonna be great. I'll reserve judgment. So that's it I have no faith in ever anybody who is around that project the Yeah, follower and Bennett Tiffany Tampong They're great Please tell us citizens when we might get sweat coin probably never No, it's gonna be let's see Gary Gensler gets out of office in 2026 probably around then So I don't know man. How many times it wanted to be burned before they really sell these are a bunch of frauds I don't know Like I said, I mean Simon Dixon has much more faith and in this new company than I do so maybe he can talk some sense into me But I just don't Yeah, I just don't You know what it would be great is if they do liquidate what's what's people like I lost my mind. It's awful Well, you know what? When they liquidate and all these things happen Now you can actually claim this on taxes as massive losses So like right now, you know, you can't because everything's up in the air in chapter 11 They could come out and it could be this or could be that I mean talk to your CPA. I'm not a CPA But I mean, I just brother and wife right of off and I can have massive losses and I can carry those over for years to come so I don't see I don't see it Thank you Jeff. We all got played moving on Let's see. I think that's it. There was a couple things that Tansor there's a couple questions. Yes, I'm still DCA and I still I Still have big plans. I think we're gonna see I mean this this year is gonna be pretty rocky We talked about this yesterday and on NFA, but 2024 around the Bitcoin having I think we'll start to see more a little more stability Hopefully if we don't go and go into a major recession But I think like here's a here's the thing if we go into a recession I Think it'll be I'm hoping Q3 or Q4 this year and The thing about recessions they last about a year, right? Depending maybe 14 months, maybe 10 months about a year or so and it's a natural progression So if we extrapolate that out Then where are we? Well, we're in towards the end of 2024 After the Bitcoin having what happens after the Bitcoin having usually we see some major price increases and a little bit more of like a Stare step action not that it goes straight up, but looks a lot better So I think it's just perfect timing. I'm just hoping It works out like that. If we don't get a recession, we don't get a recession, right? Yeah, to me, it doesn't really matter too much because I just put my money away I dollar cost average and I take a look at some factors of what I'm gonna sell There's a link in the description of the video of when I'm gonna sell 80% of my crypto and I take a look at multiple of data points and you can put that into your plan or not Do whatever you want to do So Noah says are you worried at all about I trust's custody program? So we had we did an interview From I trust for their new custody program and they're moving so the thing was is that They're still they were using Coinbase custody and fire blocks and the person that set that up was their custody provider And then the new one I shoot was the name scaling not scale Fortress and Fortress they're more of a of a Not a better But they use the same they they use fire blocks for custody service and a couple of different ones and it'll allow us to like do Not anything fantastic. Just a different way. They want to they want to move or they want to grow So for me as far as like the custody thing The big thing that I liked about that Was the documentation with the terms and conditions which talked about they don't intermingle funds and we took a look at Okay be okay X the crypto exchange They just were blowing up a couple of weeks ago And I was like I don't understand why this is going on because in terms of conditions It basically said we can co-mingle your funds and we can label it as okay X's funds Watch the video. I'll show you it. So for Fortress and for I trust they said they say toy different Like we keep everything separate. It is in your name under your account If something happens with us, we just switch custody providers and that's pretty much it So am I concerned? I'm not I'm not like 100% sleep easy. There's always a concern everywhere There's always risk for every type of investment you do great thing about But I trust and Roth IRAs is that you can't put You know, you can't take your life savings and sell your house and your kidneys and your kids and go okay, I'm put it all on black and then You know gambling it away like essentially what you could do Well, I could see those are or actually any stock that's out there. So for me I'm not as concerned with it as I say like these DeFi plays or these centralized exchanges That's it So meme says but in pr if you don't pay capital gains under the grant How can we have capital losses? So I moved here in 2021 And the majority of my crypto was purchased in 20 because I dollar cost average in 2018 2019 And well actually every single year I didn't sell all my crypto So for my cpa what they tell me is even if you moved here The crypto that you had before It doesn't automatically hit like that the day that you move here and become a resident and file for uh act 60 It needs to be 21 and 22 Moving from that point forward You won't have any losses as far as like my losses are capital gains But the so that you accumulated beforehand that's still Uh detrimental to you because you're gonna pay capital gains in that And that's how it goes. So that's it So for I guess that would be for me for everybody else who's not in Puerto Rico It's a little bit different. You have capital gains to pay Huh Coquino says how long do you plan to stay in Puerto Rico? We Well, we'll live here our entire lives But uh, we'll be traveling We actually go back to texas uh end of march. So you have to go back there for business. So Hmm Beardy says Rob can get a wound back lesson, you know, that's all I did for five years I just instructed uh nurses practitioners and surgeons how to use the wound back I it's been a while, but I could still do it Uh Let's see Rob. What are you buying at the moment as much as I can I got uh bitcoin ethereum the blue chips Um Cardano chain link near polka dot Avalanche I'm always forgetting some and some other ones and there's a couple of risky ones. I don't talk about but yeah, that's it So mtb says what do you think of blur? So blur just did uh, there was an act not an acquisition, but they're like They're the nft platform that is uh kind of going against open sea And their big thing is correct me if i'm wrong is not about The royalties for the nft creators They tried to cut that down or cut that out And that went against what uh open sea did and they were doing so well I think that the volume of nft that was uh nfts are being bought Rivaled that of open sea and now you got more of blur Now blur did a big air drop and a lot of people that were buying and selling nfts got a bunch of tokens So looks good me personally. I don't really get into uh nfts right now So it's not a big big thing, but for me it just kind of comes down to this People will always use a platform that is uh faster and cheaper and really cheaper That's what it was down to as long as the as the quality is somewhat there. So who knows blur might be the next Big open sea. I don't know Hmm So noa says cool. My only concern is that with the crypto is not subject to security regulations What insurance we have that our crypto is safe in the event fortress goes bankrupt. So again And you can look in the terms conditions At fortress and also what I trust and you should also reach out to the the folks that I trust and ask them The specific question because i'm just the guy Who is talking to his computer On a really decent pretty good green screen And uh again the video we talked about it said quite specifically No co-mingling of funds and again, there could be other other parts of that that i'm not privy to But that's what I saw in the terms of conditions and if there's not a co-mingling of funds That means that your account and your crypto doesn't get mingled in with everybody else's so they can't use your funds to buy condos In the Bahamas like sand bakeman free did the ftx people That's it James says stay with the one true crypto. I gotta tell you I should just do that. It's much easier I never defy was always a like everybody said it's like the next big thing It's gonna be awesome and it very well could be but there's a lot of bumps to get there So I don't know me personally. I just Like I don't know where things are going, but that's why I like layer one solutions. That's why like, you know That's why you hear it like ethereum and avalanche and cardano and Poke it out chain link solutions because like what's built on ethereum? Darn near everything is built on ethereum If you take a look at how many years you 20 tokens are is a lot So does that mean it's gonna keep being that way? Who knows? But uh, you've got other players in there. That's why I do those things. So even if like So like people build them a theorem they do defy projects or they do nft So they do play their own gaming. It's all built on one thing, right? Layer one solution. So you can try to pick those winners, but it's tough Yeah, who bring up blood? No, that's right Yeah, fame mma Let's see. You better load up on mattock before zk evm release You know somebody said like steven over at uh, sam one smokeout said he believes that uh, because coinbase They're working on uh on the optimism platform and they released this layer two solution called base He said that's gonna kill Polygon and I was like, I don't know because I mean Coinbase also came out with their nft marketplace. I don't know how good that's doing, but I don't really hear too much about it. So Who knows? Not for sure, but you know, polygons got so many so many partnerships and so many things are I mean It really Does pretty well with the gaming sector. That's for sure. So Who knows? I don't know Is cardano still a ghost chain? Nah There's a link in the description. It's called cardano ghost chain. It's a slideshow. It shows you. I don't think Cardano is a ghost chain per se onwards and upwards yeah, johnny says Please try to people trying to play the blur Farming game maybe where they are playing against 150 people who are controlling the platform. So do your due diligence before bidding Yeah, that sounds risky to me Like, you know think about it this way I don't know how risky people are and people are some are risky some are not just remember this like You know, there's great gains to be had so First of all, does anybody gamble here like in a casino? Raise your hand I've done it before. Yeah and uh, I think Most people don't take their entire life savings and and gamble the majority right will say 95 percent, right? But there's that one to five percent of degenerates who just cannot stop gambling. That's just how it is. So like For these these plays. I think the majority of people I think i'm not sure are not degenerates. They just kind of want to like well, maybe I'll make a little money and I'll you know, I'll take 20 bucks or 100 bucks or $10,000 or whatever Whatever is not big money to you and just kind of play the game see what you do I think there's no problem with that, right? No problems with that I just have a problem when people like they're sitting there and they're they're they're gambling on leverage And they're going I can make it and they can't pay bills. That's the problem. But again, not your dad So you got to make that decision for yourself No, J. H. Says well, Rob's only my dad. No one else what he does isn't what you should do Don't trust anyone after sell fdx, etc. Exactly, right? Ooh, that's pretty good.  They're fantastic at it.  I think it's gonna hopefully go away, but you're gonna hear a lot of it Diamond hands, bro Robby looked into real-world assets on chain rwa is the next big narrative and this is low-key White base launch with black rock in on it. That's interesting black rock and base Black rock and base it'd be interesting Yeah, real-world assets on on chain. You know who wants who was doing a lot of that A couple years ago and still doing is is bosson or boson protocol b o s o n protocol they were they were So you could take your real-world assets and put them in the metaverse and move back and forth, but we'll see Bnb is a scam chain.  I'll take on a saturday Um Yeah, just look at how much was lost unsuperable. Well on the ads and things like that, of course Oh, uh real quick impromptu poll I don't do many Many live streams anymore Just don't so I might do some more later, but probably not But uh people like the conversation to to keep going and I think I by me not doing the live streams I kind of took that away from people. So I have a question for everybody and lucas brought this to my attention What would be better for everybody? telegram or discord To get a conversation going And the problem I've always had with telegram and discord is the amount of scammers and spammers there But what I'm gonna do is whichever one that we decide to launch on I'm just gonna the people who are wrenches Here will probably be the admins over there So we can do the same type of talking and they can protect people And that's the that would be the thing and then of course The link that you get to sign up will be private and uh There's a way to get it, but I first I had to figure out who's gonna be is gonna be telegram or discord Yeah, today is saturday. Can you believe this? There are some houses open. There's some houses open Yeah If only we could sell from the hard wall without fees, you know that but you know who's you know is making a killing Is the moon pays and the different plate and the different uh companies Wire or whatever else it is That allow you to To trade and sell in your wallet. They're making fat fee like five percent six percent four to six percent for sure like Visa doesn't even cost cost that much paypal doesn't cost that much, but those guys They're raking it. They're raking that money in So yeah, let's see telegram discord discord discord discord i'll do a I'll do a poll like a real poll discord Discord to give me a wrench. Why does everybody like discord? I gotta ask you guys. Why do you like discord? Moon pay is awful. He says I have discord open all day every day No way. Solana's down. Huh? Yeah Easy to use and everyone uses it. Can you? Like I use discord on my on my uh on my um computer I don't really on my mac. I don't use it on the on the mobile device, but I really shouldn't start doing that Hmm. This goes a better layout less scammers on discord really uh Will Shaw says patreon now patreon is But then I got a charge You know Come on, just save your money and put it into crypto bill bones. That's probably the thing about celsius retail clawbacks bad news I mean I will say like this like The clawbacks for the people that were A part of management. They should do retail clawbacks I don't I don't think they should do but they probably will and again. I think this is again like Like people are like robbie should cover this you cover this I just think it's gonna go really ugly for a while and uh that clawback will probably happen And what will be interesting is that you know If that clawbacks if those clawbacks do happen, I'm pretty sure the the new company that tarah wolf, whatever it's called they're gonna Come out of that pretty happy because now they have all this crypto to play play with and uh good news for them They got edited a massive discount.  Let's not claw back So that's all I need to know about that about them Maybe i'm wrong. I had a rough night Now this is good Ben and guy are both on telegram. That's true. I'm in ben's uh that little telegram group. It's quite interesting Sure, let's show.  I don't do anything So like I haven't worked for anybody since 2014 2015 somewhere around there and uh now like I got into online education And I was helping nursing students pass their clinical exam and this website What allowed me to not Work for anybody else was pretty great And then I got into real estate and that helped out a lot. It was uh more long-term rentals and things like that and then I That worked out pretty well from the money I got from the website and then did that and the money if we did that We got into uh an amazon business Amazon business is uh extremely boring, but it's quite profitable if you know what to do. It's very simple. You just Essentially reach out to distributors and say I'd like to give you a spreadsheet of the things that you have And I'll pick which ones I want to buy so like let's say you buy like a thousand 10 000 remote controls for An air conditioning unit and then you just profit off the difference You have them ship it to amazon warehouse and they sell it for you under your under your name And then uh also sports facility in el paso. It's just all sand volleyball courts and uh Now we do more of uh the short-term rentals and air bnb So this thing is that's why like I told everybody like on the next bull run When we hit the parabolic bull run and I saw that video in the link in the description Where I talk about how I'm going to sell like 80 of my crypto Once those parameters are hit I'm stepping down And that's it for me.  Well, most people suck at selling and I think once it goes up and goes down people like Let me ask you guys this how many of you out there are like boy I wish I would have sold some more when bitcoin was at 69 000 and the three was almost 5 000 and codona was three dollars Or has everybody sold the top? Yeah, exactly So to drive this point home of you know at some point we have to sell because things don't go up forever Once I get to that point I'm just going to step away and just like I sold everything and that's it So what I'll do is I won't do any more videos in the bull market because it gets crazy And I'll be a reminder that you really should think about selling not that you have to But I won't come back until things crash So I got two years left And then that's it It'll be good and I can do some other things. But yeah, like like these days. I feel like I feel like I should do it So, yeah, but that's it. All right, buddy coming up on an hour. I think that's good for a saturday. So look That's all we have for today. It was supposed to be an impromptu thing, but that's it So thanks so much for stopping by. I appreciate it time to go to the beach play a little volleyball That's a couple hours. That's it for me. So enjoy the rest of the day. We're over at adios


So the frontline quadruplet treatment with Isotuximab carphosomeblenolidomide and dexamethasone was investigated in the concept trial, a trial for newly diagnosed high risk myeloma patients, only high risk patients, however, both transplant eligible and transplant non-eligible. And I had a great pleasure and privilege to present the data today, virtual. And so this combination of a monoclonal anti-CD38 antibody, the Isotuximab with carphosomeblenolidomide and dexamethasone is in the trial given in induction, consolidation and also maintenance, however, the maintenance is without the dexamethasone. And transplant eligible patients undergo also a high-risk myeloma or pathological sensor transplantation. So here at the ESCO meeting, we reported of the first 50 patients on response during the six cycle, I said, KRD induction. And what we saw is that we had in those 50 patients 100% over response rate, 90% of patients achieved equal amount than a VGPR and 46% of patients achieved a CR or stringent CR. We had also done an MRD assessment in 33 patients during induction in the transplant arm. And of those 20 were at this time at this early time MRD negative. We think that these are really promising data. The trial just completed recruitment and we will continuously work on the data and report on the data, but we are very encouraged also by the feedback of the colleagues. So the Isotuximab KRD rate and we saw very favorable toxicity profile. The main toxicities were hematologic with a predominant neutropenia full of balumphopenia and leukemia. However, grade 3 or 4 thrombocytopenic events were rare with over 14%. Regarding non-hematological toxicities, we saw only very few grade 3 or 4 toxicities, especially peripheral neuropathy, which is often a hamper even in VTD or VRD arrangements. Those rates were low. We had an overall rate, all grades of peripheral neuropathy of 16%. We had no death on study so that the toxicity profile was really favorable. We don't know. I personally think that all the data now coming out on quadruplet treatment are really showing that what we currently know, it should be the standard of care. Because we see that we can induce high rates of MRD negativity and we know that we can translate MRD negativity in a better progression free, but even more in a better overall survival in our myeloma patients. I think we have the unmet need to establish that and I think it hopefully justifies also the effort. Belanta Maffodotin is an immuno conjugate. It's directed against the BCMA, the B-cell maturation antigen, as also other constructs are, especially the CAR-T cells. The drug was first investigated in very refractory patients and showed promising results, especially regarding induction of deep responses in a late stage of the disease. Here, the first combination data are shown with a combination with Bordesumab and Bexamantazone. As it is usual, there has to be found a dose and this is a dose escalation trial of this combination treatment. The patient population is still limited in a number, but we see very encouraging results with an over-response rate of close to 80%. In the cross trial comparisons as complicated as they are, is that superior to Bordesumab and Bexamantazone alone? What we know from a long, long time. As many patients are now receiving the immunomodulatory drugs, especially Lidomite during first line and very long, we have a need for an imit-free treatment combinations which are effective. I think we have to expect here very promising data when we oversee more patients. I personally also treated now a number of patients with Ballantemab and Bexamantazone. It's a very distinct and unique toxicity of this drug, or Brexmas also. But we learn very much to handle this with fixed eye drops, can't use supportive care. The good news is that the corneal toxicity normally is absolutely reversible. The impact on life quality varies. Some patients who have objective changes when they are examined by an ophthalmologist don't even have any symptoms, other have symptoms. So we learn that the drug can be paused and can also be reduced. So I think overall it's a new toxicity, but it's normally very well to handle. So this tourmaline trial investigates the exasomab maintenance in transplant non-alligable patients, whereas we have already the full publication of investigating the drug after transplant, Hytosmethylalananthotoloxidate. So those were non-transplant-alligable patients having had a fixed time treatment as a first-line treatment and then underwent exasomab or placebo in this randomized trial. So it's a placebo control trial which makes it unique. And the exasomab maintenance resulted in a 34% reduction in the risk of progression, and this was statistically significant. However, we have now also to consider that most of the novel regimens as standard of care regimens in treatment of newly diagnosed transplant non-alligable myeloma patients are continuous treatment regimens. So in this whole context, this is an important trial with an important message. However, we have currently many different treatments available and fixed duration treatment is normally not anymore performed regularly in this setting. Honestly, I don't know if it will in the transplant-alligable setting. It seemed to be less effective than the linalidomide maintenance. However, there are patients who do not tolerate linalidomide and there are countries where linalidomide is not available. So per se it would be good to have an alternative. How that will be translated in the real life, this will be the decision of the authorities, the competent authorities and currently I do not know what we have to expect in this manner. This is a very interesting rack. It took us all a long time to understand what the immunomodulating agents are doing and the full mechanism is still, I think, not fully understood. However, we do know a lot and we do know the cascade or the main signal cascade where they are acting in the cell. And the cell modes are drugs where it was possible to enhance the affinity of the drug to the target so making them more effective and without adding toxicity per se. So this makes it very attractive. And the trial now presented that were the first trial of the CC480 cell mode with very promising overall response rates of close to 50% in a pre-treated patient population show that the drug is effective, that it's well tolerated. And I think it's a natural thing that we are dealing now for more than a decade with teledomide and nanolidomide. And this is now the next generation which was just made more effective like we have this in chronic myeloid leukemia when we have the second generation tyrosine kinase inhibitors. And we now have to establish those treatment combinations and do the appropriate trials and we will see if they then will substitute the first generation of immunomodulating agents. So the Boston trial is a randomized trial, one-to-one randomization between salinexor, bordesum and baximetazone versus bordesum and baximetazone in the well-known established relaxed treatment scheme. And the trial showed with a primary endpoint of progression-free survival including roughly 400 patients that the addition of salinexor, so the extension of the bordesum and baximetazone doublet towards a triplet increased the efficacy so that the progression-free survival in the salinexor group was close to 14 months compared to 9.5 months in the standard arm which was the hazard ratio of 0.7, so a clear superiority. What is very interesting is that the once weekly application of bordesum in this experimental arm and the once weekly application of salinexor was not only convenient but resulted also in a market and significant reduction in perperoneuropathy. We know that salinexor has some side effects which are nausea, fatigue, other potential non-hematologic side effects. In this once weekly schedule they were mostly mild and so that the tolerability obviously is better as in the first published data on highly refractory multiple myeloma patients. Again, here as I said before this is an important image-free triplet when images are given regularly during first-line treatment for a long time. I personally think that the CAR-T cell data were again very intriguing and as we saw at the ASH meeting, we saw here also great data especially out of the CAR-D2 trial but also with the other CAR-T constructs there were three oral presentations and I think this is still a great achievement and these treatment strategies will definitely bring us forward in treatment of multiple myeloma.


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Breaking news, baby. He's back. JK Dobbins is officially back with the Baltimore Ravens. Let's read it straight from Adam Schefter. He said sources, well, sources could be Marlon Humphrey. But anyway, he said sources. Raven's running back JK Dobbins who has not yet practiced during training camp is being activated today after physically unable to perform less. So it's official. Whatever it was, if it was him watching that preseason game and he was watching how Keaton Mitchell was running and he was like, oh, I don't know if my spot's so safe. JK Dobbins is back. If it was Gus Edwards looking like he wanted to truck somebody in that preseason game, even though I think he shouldn't have played. But hey, he played and he came out good. And maybe Gus Edwards, some people in the comment section suggested, hey, maybe Gus Edwards, he just told the coaching staff, he wanted to knock the rest off. I'm like, oh, okay, I get it. That makes sense. Maybe that was it, but JK Dobbins is back. Maybe it was Melvin Gordon leapfrogging people. JK Dobbins got motivated by that and said, you know what, I need to try that. I'm coming back. If it was Justice Hill looking like it was about to be a loss or four and it ended up being a big game and him cutting back around, whatever it was, JK Dobbins is back. It's official. And you know what was funny? With this whole JK Dobbins thing, I actually forgot that he was on the physically unable to perform less. He was on the pup list. So he had to be activated and he had to pass the physical in order to practice. I forgot that it just wasn't a holdout. So Ravens, they took the initiative with this thing because when this whole dispute started, Ravens were like, look, JK, they acted like they were the parent. And they're like, JK, you're not about to embarrass me. You're not about to embarrass us.  Why are we doing training camp?  No, no, no, no, no. We'll take care of that for you. You're going on the pup list. But now he's back. Now it's official. Now JK Dobbins will practice for the first time in a long time. And that's a beautiful thing. And now we can get back. I know a lot of Ravens fans are looking at this year like it's something special. And I really think it could be. Ravens stay healthy. I really, I've been saying it all off season. I really do feel like they could go all the way, all the way if they stay healthy. Because the way that this team has been assembled, I know cornerback still, we'll see what happens there. But the way that the majority of this team has been assembled, they got some pieces. And even with cornerback, once Rock Your Scene comes back, that'll be a lot better. And then of course we're gonna get the guys, Kyle, Hamilton and Marcus. Cause again, a lot of us looked at the pre-season game and we like tripping out about cornerback when it came to that. But again, it wasn't the starters playing. So we gotta keep that in mind. But regardless, they do still need some depth at the cornerback position. But anyway, the way that the majority of this team has been assembled, the way that this roster has been put together by Eric DeCosta, it's pretty good. It's pretty good. I think the last time that we really like, he really did a good job of assembling the roster was in 2021. 2021, that was the year that everybody got hurt, right? I think it was 2021. Or was it 2021? No, 2021, 2021. That was it. Cause that was a nice roster too. But then everybody started getting hurt and well, you know the rest of the story. Anyway, JK Dobbins being back, it gives the Ravens even more quality depth. They get their guy back. And essentially, JK Dobbins a couple of years ago, they were giving him the keys. They were giving him the keys. I know we talk about a lot how the Ravens do running back by committee. But a couple of years ago, the year that he got hurt, unfortunately, that year was the year where it really looked like the Ravens were like, all right, JK Dobbins, it's you. It's you.  That's pretty high to just be a contributor running back. No, you don't draft the runner back in that high to just be a contributor. You want him to be the guy. But when they were gonna hand him the keys to be the guy, that's when that week three preseason game against the Washington commanders, that's when that happened. And I mean, coincidence, the Ravens are gonna be doing joint practices with the commanders this week. So we'll see how that goes. And maybe this will be the week because the Ravens will be able to get to look at Chase Young up close and personal. But anyway, we'll talk about that later. But with JK Dobbins, that's when he was essentially gonna be the guy. But all that got changed in one play, one play. And what made it even worse, it was behind the starting offensive line at that time. Wasn't even backups. See y'all know, I was frustrated with the Ravens the other night. When they play Gus Edwards, who is a sort of 1A1B type starter, when they played him behind a backup offensive line, and even if he wanted to get the rust off, I do that behind the starters, not behind the backups, but he was fine, so it's okay, it worked out. But with JK Dobbins, his situation a couple years back when he got injured, that was behind the starting offensive line. So it's like, ooh, everything that could go wrong on that play, it did. So that's when, I guess, that's when it happened where he couldn't, he wasn't gonna be the guy anymore, because he was hurt. And it's still continued to be running back by committee ever since. But now with JK Dobbins being back, I would expect him to be the feature back, still gonna be running back by committee. They're still gonna use different guys, different ways. But I would expect JK Dobbins, I think we should all expect JK Dobbins to be their main running back. And now it's important that JK does practice. It's important that he does get involved with training camp, because like we spoke about in the previous video from today, looking on an iPad is one thing, but actually out there practicing, it's a completely different ball game. But now JK Dobbins can participate in that completely different ball game. And we talked about the quality depth. Now you got your one A starter back.  Because if it's based off of just that first pre-season game alone, you gotta wonder if you're gonna keep four. You really do. You gotta wonder if you're gonna keep four running backs. Now, with again, with my expectation, we'll see what happens. But with my expectation of the way that the offense is going, it should be a lot more passing than we're used to. But you still gonna run a ball. So if it's gonna be a lot more passing than we're used to, would they keep four running backs? Cause you're obviously gonna keep at least three. You're gonna keep at least three regardless of what the offense is. But we've seen them keep four in the past, but that was when the offense was more run oriented, more run heavy and whatnot. So we'll see. And if I had a guess right now, ooh, but it'd be so tough. Because if I had a guess right now, based off of the way that the Ravens do things, then I would say it would be JK Dobbins, Gus Edwards, Melvin Gordon and Justice Hill, Keith Mitchell practice squad. If it was up to me the way I do things, JK Dobbins, Gus Edwards, Justice Hill, Keith Mitchell. But then it's like, man, you gotta find a place for everybody. Keith Mitchell could be a special teamer. He could be a return man. He could also be a running back too. Justice Hill, we already know he's on special teams, but he could also get in the game as well. And JK Dobbins and Gus Edwards, they don't play special teams because they done made it. They done worked their way up.  And it ain't no offense to special teams, special teams are a big part of the game too, but they didn't bring JK Dobbins in with the intention of him playing on special teams. But yeah, they got some tough decisions to make, real tough decisions to make, but I'm glad that JK is back to make their decisions that much tougher. I'm really glad that he's back. So many Ravens fans throughout this whole JK debacle with the Baltimore Ravens, with this whole dispute. So many Ravens fans have been like, JK, come back, come on, we doing something special. JK, you got the opportunity of a lifetime, man. Hey, we going all the way this year. JK, we need you. We want you back in the building, man. JK, come through. And JK, hey, he's continued to express, despite the business side, he loves Baltimore. Loves the team, loves the fans, loves all that stuff, but he's trying to handle his business. And like I've continued to say, and I will always say, I got no problem with that. JK, get your bread, get your money as you best can, man. Somebody asked me in a previous video, like, what do you mean by when you say JK should go out there and just really try to get all the money that he possibly can. He should try to maximize his earning potential, try to maximize the money that he can get. And I explained it, what I meant when I said that, is that with JK Dobbins, again, say for instance, Raven's giving him a contract right now, he get a little raised, he get a nice little chunk of change, but it's not gonna be as much as he could possibly get, whether it be from the Ravens or whether it be from another team, it's not gonna be as much as he could possibly get if he goes out there and he kills it.  This is me, completely healthy. This is why I can be one of the best running backs, not in the AFC North, not even in the AFC, but in the NFL. If he goes out there and shows that, despite free agency running back, getting even more crowded, if JK Dobbins can put together some nice film this year, some nice tape for teams this year. And again, whether that film is for the Baltimore Ravens or whether that film ends up being for somebody else, that film is going to be of JK Dobbins out there crushing it. And it is so important that he got back. Again, the leverage, he didn't have any leverage in the situation. Talked about that too extensively. The position that he's in, the way that the running back market is right now, doesn't play in JK Dobbins favor at all, at all, like not one bit, especially with the whole, everything going on with all the running backs around the league. We talked about earlier, we remember Joe Mixon with the pay cuts. We know about Ezekiel Elliott, still a free agent. He had had a visit last week, but still a free agent. We look at Dalvin Cook. Dalvin Cook, one of the best running backs over the past couple of, one of the best running backs over the past couple of years. Still a free agent till this day. Still a free agent. He's still out there. So the market is tough, man. That's why JK Dobbins, his leverage was so low because the market is rough on running backs right now.  He ain't have no choice but to come through. And I think with Ravens, they are psychological team too. They obviously a business, but the psychological part plays a big role too. Reason being because they had their choice at a lot of other running backs that they could have brought in. They had their pick of a whole lot of veteran, free agent running backs that they could have signed. But they chose Melvin Gordon. They chose Melvin Gordon. I remember before there was past stuff that said they had been interested in Melvin Gordon before. That was a long time ago, but they chose Melvin Gordon. Is it a coincidence? Hey, it could be, but I think this played a factor. But is it a coincidence that Melvin Gordon also went through this holdout situation too? Cause teams, businesses, y'all know it from personal experience. I know it from personal experiences too. Businesses will, they'll play the psychological game when they try to send you a message. They can try to send you a message in so many different ways. And they just really wanted to click for you to be like, ah, okay, you get it now, don't you? I bet you do. And I hope you do. They'll do that type of stuff. It's business, it's the game within the game, within the game. Cause this could be on a whole nother level. Or hey, maybe I'm thinking too deep into it. Who knows? But regardless of whatever it is with Melvin Gordon, whatever it is with the other running backs, J.K. Dobbins is back. I'm sure, I know y'all are sure too, that the pre-season game, just watching them. You know that motivated J.K. Dobbins that much more, man. You know it, you know it did. It had to. Because if you sitting back and you watching other people who could essentially take your job. And this could happen to any of us. We sit back and we having problems with the company that we work for. We frustrated with the company that we work for. We wanna raise from the company that we work for. But the company ain't budging. Frustrating. And then if we ain't got no leverage too, even more frustrating. But then if we watching people in our same position for the company that we work for, we watching them and they look good too. We could be like me. All right, maybe I'm gonna just have to, I'm gonna have to ride this one out. I ain't gonna be able to get what I want right now. It's not gonna work in my favor right now. But you know what? So I don't end up coming away with nothing.  Let me show up. And I think that's what it is with JK Dobbins right now. Cause had he held out, had he stayed on the physically unable to perform lists, be right back in a situation a year later. Right back in a situation a year later. So this is a smart move in my opinion from JK Dobbins. And I hope he goes out there and he just, he shows us the best JK Dobbins that we done ever seen on the, as a Baltimore, no, no, no. I hope he goes out there and shows us the best JK Dobbins that we have ever seen, ever. Better than Ohio State, better than Baltimore Raven, just the best JK Dobbins we've ever seen because the potential's there. It's just a matter of putting it all together, putting it all together. JK Dobbins reminds me of the running back version of Rashad Bateman to where the potential is right there. And we've seen it, we've seen it plenty of times. But now it's about just putting it all together. And JK Dobbins, I would assume that he's gonna be the Baltimore Ravens number one running back, even though they'll still do by committee, but he's gonna be their main guy. And the same way with Rashad Bateman, I think he's gonna be their number one receiver. And both of them, by the week apart from each other, they returning, they back, they activated off the physically unable to perform less. And this is beautiful news, this is wonderful news, this is great news. Cause both of them major contributors to what the Baltimore Ravens can do. That they can be major contributors and their roles are extremely important because they play essential roles in Ravens getting this thing done. Ravens got all the potential in the world, but potential don't mean nothing unless you unlock it. So I'm happy for Rashad Bateman. Happy for Paracord too. But most importantly, this video centered around JK Dobbins and we extremely happy for him that he is no longer out.


Welcome to the latest edition of Telehealth in Hawaii. I'm your host, Vikram Acharya. I'm the Chief Executive Officer of Cloud Well Health, an all virtual telemedicine provider based in Hawaii. We have a very exciting show for you today, a very educational show for you today. We have my colleague, Curtis Yee. Curtis Yee is the Operations Manager at Premier Benefit Consultants located in Hawaii. How are you doing today, Curtis? I'm doing great, Vikram. How about yourself? I'm doing good. I'm doing good. Thanks a ton for being on. This is gonna be a real good one. Awesome. I look forward to it. Thank you very much for having me on and representing Premier Benefit Consultants Day. Oh, you're most welcome. To get things started, Curtis, tell me a little bit about yourself. Where you're from, we'll got you into working as a broker. We'll go from there. Okay, yeah. It's kind of a funny story. Back in 2000, well, I'll just go back. I actually got my health and life insurance license in the 1990s. And honestly, I didn't really care doing life insurance. So I got out of that. And then in 2005, I got a call from a friend of mine who was in the life insurance business that told me, hey, Kurt, get your license again. We're gonna do Medicare. And I was like, what's Medicare? I didn't even know what it was, right? So I trusted him. So I got my license and that started me down this path in 2006 as a broker representing companies that provide Medicare Advantage plans. And here we are today in 2022 and it's been a great journey helping our seniors and people on disability, maximizing the plans that are out there and that's available to them. And it's been great. And a little bit about myself. Born and raised in Hawaii, grew up in Makakilo, which eventually turned into Kapolei and very happily married for 29 years. I have two sons and two grandchildren. But yeah, that's just a little bit about myself. Excellent, excellent. Curtis, you hear in the news about Medicare Advantage, can you break these down for us for people who may not know? What are the different types of Medicare options available to people over the age of 65 perhaps? Sure, really there's two options that Medicare beneficiaries can go with. The first option would be a Medicare supplement plan. So a Medicare supplement plan is actually a secondary insurance to original Medicare. So, original Medicare is actually a insurance program, a fee for service that has deductibles. And it's basically 80, 20 plan with Medicare picking up 80% of the cost and the beneficiary paying the 20%. And if you were to purchase a supplement plan or also known as Medigap plans, it fills in the costs or pays the cost that Medicare doesn't cover. These plans are, they do have a premium and they do provide great coverage. Plan G, for example, if somebody enrolls in it, they will just pay the Medicare Part B deductible, which this year is 233, but any other Medicare covered services, they would have a zero copayment. The plans do not cover their drugs. So we would help somebody get onto what's called a standalone prescription drug plan that would cover their medications. And then the other option, which is very popular in Hawaii are Medicare Advantage plans. And you can kind of think of a, it's like a all-in-one medical plan that's provided through a private health insurance company, you know, like HMSA or Kaiser, UnitedHealthcare is just to name a few. And basically they cover your inpatient, outpatient medical services and they do cover your drugs. Most of them cover your drugs. These plans started what we call zero premium. And when I first got into business, it was pretty funny when I would do appointments and I would tell people that there's no cost to the plan. They would basically kick me out of the housing. There's no way you're trying to rip me off somehow. But in reality, the federal government will pay the insurance carriers to manage your plans. And basically they have to cover everything that Medicare covers. They provide some additional benefits like dental vision, gym membership. And again, they cover your medications. And for those people that don't need a medication or a drug plan, there are what's called MA only plans also available for people that are, say, tri-care or VA beneficiaries that pick up their medications to tri-care the VA. And there are just Medicare advantage medical plans only also available for them. Excellent. Now, you said that Medicare advantage plans are popular in Hawaii. Why is that? I think because these plans started a zero premium and a lot of times the beneficiaries are looking for the additional benefits that original Medicare doesn't cover. So if somebody were to enroll in a supplement plan, basically original Medicare is their primary. Original Medicare doesn't cover vision benefits. The only time they do cover glasses is after cataract surgery. And then when it comes to dental, there's no dental plan coverage whatsoever under original Medicare. So when you look at a Medicare advantage plan, cost-wise they're gonna start off cheaper in a sense that they start at a zero premium, meaning that the Medicare beneficiary still has to pay their Part B premium. Everybody has to pay that to have Medicare's A and B. But the plans would not charge you anything above and beyond what social security charge for Part B. And you have reasonable out-of-pocket costs. For 2023, majority of the plans have a zero co-payment for their primary care doctors. For those people using telehealth, it's a zero co-payment. Specialists probably range around $30, $40. And then they do get those additional benefits, dental coverage. Some of the plans have up to $3,000 in additional dental. They cover up to $300 in vision benefits for your annual eye exam. And if you need either glasses or contacts, gym memberships where they can go to the YMCA, 24-hour fitness, things like that. And chiropractor and acupuncture. So some holistic type medicine is also available on those plans. And I think the other thing too is that being on an island and we're isolated, I noticed in the mainland a lot of times people do go on supplement plans because they may travel more or there's no birds and they need to, they're gonna go from say the East, the Northeast to like Florida or somewhere down South. And I would say in that situation, supplement plans are a little more easy to use. But they're more user friendly because there's no network with original Medicare. So I think if you take all that together, majority of people in Hawaii do wanna be on a Medicare Advantage plan. It sounds like the Medicare Advantage plans are more comprehensive. Yes, they definitely are. Yeah. Now, if I'm over the age of 65 and I have pension coverage, a benefit plan, let's just say UnitedHealthcare, can I still get Medicare or Medicare Advantage as a supplement to my pension insurance? If you're retired and you're getting employer retirement benefits, especially if it's through a union, I'll say that. If it's through a union, then I'd be very cautious. I would always tell people to call their plan administrator because union plans and retirement, they do actually get some money from the federal government to help with the plans. And you can only be on one plan that gets federal subsidies. And so if somebody were to enroll in a Medicare Advantage plan, then there's a great possibility that they'll get disenrolled from their union plan.  So we're very cautious when it comes to people that have union, especially union benefits, that we would wanna talk to their plan administrator. And I'll be honest, most likely, they wouldn't wanna be on a Medicare Advantage plan. Now, the one exception to the rule would be federal government employees. They will have a retirement plan that actually works with Medicare Advantage plans. And in retirement, the Medicare plan will be the primary and their employment plan, employer plan will be the secondary plan. Got it, that's very helpful. Now, if I have a menu of Medicare Advantage plans, I can choose, what kinds of criteria should I look at if I wanna make the best choice for me and my family when it comes to, what are some of the main things to look at? So I would say the most important thing to look at would be the doctors that you see on a regular basis and the medications you cover. So whenever I meet with somebody and I'm gonna do a needs assessment, the first thing I do is I take a look at their doctors, make sure that they're in network with the plan. And then I take a look at the medications and check the formulary to make sure that the plan does cover their medications. And then after that, then we kinda take a look at the bells and whistles of the plan to see if dental is important to them. Another thing is if they travel or maybe stay in the mainland for a while, choosing a PPO plan that has a network in the mainland may be very important to them. So that's really, I would say the core of it though is that you wanna take a look at the doctors and medications and make sure that that plan is gonna cover all of it and is cost-effective for the beneficiary. Yeah. Now there's a lot in the news about hospital pricing, transparency, people getting unexpected bills in the mail. What advice can you give to people when they're in this situation? I have this bill. I thought it covered more than what it did. I can't understand it. What advice would you give to people who are in this situation? So with people that receive a bill and they don't think that that's a correct bill, what they do is there is an appeals process that every Medicare Advantage plan has to offer to their beneficiary. So you would wanna call as soon as possible customer service and then you can file the appeal and then the plan has to research that bill to make sure that everything is correct and then report back to you on what their findings were. And then I think another important thing is just understanding your benefits when you do enroll. When it comes to say like inpatient hospitalization, most of these plans will actually, for a set amount of days, and I'll give you an example for 2023 UnitedHealthcare, it's 395 per day for the first four days. And then it says zero thereafter for unlimited time in the hospital. So you wanna take a look at the plan to understand, so if you're in for one day, you're gonna pay 395. If you're in for two days, basically this could be about 800 or 790. So understanding your plan benefits and what the costs are would be the first step. And again, if you disagree with what they are, then you should do that appeals process and call customer service. And they do actually have three days, I believe to respond back to you if you do submit the appeal to acknowledge that what they're doing as far as working on it. Yeah, so there are specific channels that beneficiaries can pursue to address their concerns. That's good to know. There are. Yeah. Now, we're across the country. There's an important period of time right now. It's called open enrollment. And it's right around the corner. It's a busy time for folks like yourself, especially during open enrollment. What exactly is open enrollment? And what is the role of someone like yourself during this process? So real fast though, actually Medicare calls it annual enrollment. They confuse everybody because they do have an open enrollment. Okay? No, they do. So the annual enrollment period starts on October 15th and it goes to December 7th. So during this timeframe, anybody that's on Medicare can change their plans and they can change their plan as many times as they want to. It's just whatever they sign and date last will start on January 1st of the following year. And so now is the time for beneficiaries to go ahead and take a look at what's available for 2023. If they want, they can definitely give us a call and we do free reviews for people of their plans for what they have this year, what it's gonna be like for next year. So it's incredibly busy for us. We're doing a lot of events at all the different retail outlets. We're doing formal presentations at hotels or restaurants to get the word out. But right now is the time for all of you that have Medicare to take a look at what's going on in 2023 and then go ahead and make sure you're on the right plan. And this is the time to do it. So October 15th is when you can start enrolling into a plan and that'll end on December 7th. And then since you brought it up, I'll speak a little bit about open enrollment. So open enrollment actually is the first quarter of the year. So from January to March, Medicare allows anybody on a Medicare Advantage plan to make a change. I would basically say it's kind of like a buyer's remorse period or I didn't do what I needed to do during annual enrollment and I'm on a Medicare Advantage plan. And so they allow them to make one change. Unlike annual enrollment where you can make multiple changes during open enrollment, if you're on a Medicare Advantage plan, you can either decide to go back to original Medicare or maybe get a supplement plan and a prescription drug plan or you can change to another Medicare Advantage plan. And the difference is that if I change in January, my plan will start February, if I change in February, March, and if I change in March, it'll start in April. That would be open enrollment. Okay. So it sounds like there's two sequences. Number one, the one that's about to start now. Yes. And then one for people who are signing up for the first time in the beginning of the year and that is a different track then. Yeah, so the one in the beginning of the year that's open enrollment, it's anybody that's on a Medicare Advantage plan. So if I'm on original Medicare, I cannot do anything in the first quarter of the year, but if I'm on a Medicare Advantage plan, then I can make the change. So let's say somebody decides they're on an HMSA plan and they decide to enroll in United for annual enrollment. And in the first quarter of the year, they think, okay, you know what? I think I made a mistake here. Then basically they can switch back to HMSA or to any other plan. So that's really what that open enrollment period is to help people that may have made a switch to a Medicare Advantage plan, give them an option at the beginning of the year to either go back to what they originally had or change it. Interesting. That's good to know. When you're doing outreach in the community, what are some of the most common questions you get and how do you address some of the concerns? Are there some common themes? Yes, I would say the biggest common theme would be dental care. Interesting though, but that's what we get asked a lot, like does the plan cover dental? And it's regrettable that original Medicare doesn't cover dental. But if I understand the story correctly, when they were designing Medicare, for some reason the dental association, they didn't want to participate. So it never became a benefit, but dental benefits are so important for our senior beneficiaries, you know, because it does really affect their health. So they're really looking at dental. Another one we always get asked about would be the vision for eyewear to get that because it's not covered under original Medicare. And then a lot of times after that, it's costs, unfortunately a lot of seniors do live on a fixed income and they're worried about what their expenses are. And then one thing with these Medicare Advantage plans that I would like to mention is that they all do have maximum auto pockets for their Medicare covered medical services. So it's kind of like a stop limit as far as what your auto pocket expenses would be in a calendar year. So if something really serious happens and your bills are hundreds of thousands of dollars, these plans do cap your costs. It'll start as low as $3,400 in a calendar year and may go up to as high as 6,700 depending on your plan. So there's also financial protections available in Medicare Advantage plans for the beneficiaries. But I would say dental and vision is the biggest questions we always get out there. And I'm sure with the provider access challenges in Hawaii, that's even more of a challenging. There might be coverage plans under Medicare Advantage, but the provider shortage is also coming up. Yeah, so that's really important. And when somebody comes to us and they say, oh, I don't have a primary care doctor, then it kind of gets a little challenging finding them one and then also getting an appointment. Cause a lot of times appointments seem to be maybe two, three, maybe as far as four months out for a new patient. So that's important. And I think with the advent with telehealth and Cloudwell, that's something that I think we would like to work more because when we do have people that need appointments right away, I can say it's very difficult. And then the other thing too is you are correct. It seems like a lot of primary care doctors are getting older, they're looking to retire. And then if somebody's not gonna take over their practice, then we'd have to kind of help all these people find a new primary care physician. So yeah, it's getting a little more difficult in Hawaii in regards to finding doctors, yes. At your point, this is where telehealth can be a valuable asset because the ability to see patients pretty much morning, daytime, evening, open 24, 7, 365, it really opens up the book to get patients, especially over the age of 65 who might have some chronic conditions, might have some challenges getting to a doctor. Easy access. Yeah, and I found a lot of the health insurance carriers are really going electronic. So the one thing good that I'm finding is, especially a lot of the younger beneficiaries, they're so used to email, they're so used to Zoom meetings at work because of all the shutdowns that they're a little more tech savvy and some of the older seniors are kind of getting that way too. So hopefully they're gonna be able to take advantage of those benefits to have their, see their doctors faster. More availability would be great for a lot of the seniors out there. Yeah, and telehealth under the Medicare Advantage Plans is a covered benefit, it sounds like. It is, yeah. And most plans with telehealth, it's gonna be an actual zero co-payment for the beneficiary, which is great. That's excellent.  You know, when we work with beneficiaries, especially when they're new, I think the one thing that is, I would say difficult for them is that majority of people are working, they're getting their employer group coverage, they have a HR department. They usually have maybe one, two choices as far as their healthcare insurance coverage is. And when they're looking to retire, then it's like they don't have anybody to turn to. And so that's where we actually come in and we help them because there's a lot of moving parts when somebody's gonna retire. And the first thing is a lot of people may not have their Medicare turned on yet or they may have their Medicare Part A turned on. And then when they're ready to retire, they don't know the timeline. So generally when I meet with somebody, I let them know about two months before you retire, you wanna make sure we turn on your Part B. And we do help people turn on that, fill out the forms, they're gonna need two forms. Basically one is the application, one is goes to the HR department to confirm that they had medical coverage so there's no penalties. And then from there, we go through like a needs assessment to help them understand the different plans out there because they're gonna have a choice of anywhere from five to six plans to pick from. And usually with your employer group, you're only having one or two usually. And so it's definitely a different process for them. So what we do is we kinda just help them through the process, let them know what each step is and what to do. And I can say a lot of people at the end of the day are very happy that they had somebody to guide them through the process because it is definitely different when it comes to what you're doing with your employer group plan and what you do at Medicare. So I kinda like to say, just think of us as your HR department for Medicare and we'll definitely walk you through everything you need to do to make sure that you have the correct coverage. Yeah, I like that being the HR department because that's truly what it is. Yes. There's been a lot that's come out in the news and in the literature, especially because of the devastating impacts of COVID, many people have gone at least a couple of years without getting a checkup. And this is more significant of an issue with the senior population folks above the age of 65. So it's not only the point of getting everything activated to your, like what you mentioned, but also for purposes of getting yourself checked out. And making sure everything's okay. Yeah, you're right. And I think telehealth is gonna be a big part of it in a sense that we really had to pivot when there was the shutdowns because of COVID. We weren't sure how it's gonna affect us. Unfortunately, you know, I mean, fortunate for us in a sense, but unfortunately for people, they were deciding to retire early. They were losing their healthcare because they were losing their jobs. So we were really busy and then we had to pivot because nobody could meet in person. So, you know, we started learning how to do more of everything over the phone or electronically. And hopefully that, you know, with seniors understanding, you know, how to use the technology nowadays that they can definitely at least, you know, do their checkups with their doctors, get their wellness visits done so that they're on top of their healthcare because it's very important. Yeah, yeah. And telehealth is that unique ability to do annual wellness visits, annual wellness exams, where we go actively check in on you, see how you're doing, when was the last time you got your labs drawn, your cholesterol checked, et cetera. And that can be a great way to get the process started to make sure people are okay. Yes, yeah. And just the convenience of it all. I mean, I do know some people that do telehealth Medicare beneficiaries and they're very happy with the way everything is going. You know, they don't have to drive to traffic or they don't need to hop on a bus or whatever their means of transportation is or rely on a child that needs to take a day off to help them or something like that. So I think the convenience of it is remarkably remarkable for the seniors to make sure they're getting all their healthcare needs taken care of. There's probably some trepidation to use it at first, but once they do start to use it, they're like, oh, this is better than that. I'm gonna use it all the time. Yeah, exactly. Yeah, yeah. Well, Curtis, I know that you're a very busy person and I know this is a very busy time for you and the premier team. And I wanna take a moment to thank you for coming on the show. Oh, awesome, thank you. Yeah, this is a very important subject. A very important subject that can be very complicated to people who are new to it or for people to fully understand their options and you broke it down really well. And I appreciate that. And the community appreciates that. This is definitely something of significant value to everyone and thank you. You're welcome. And I would just like to say that if anybody or any beneficiary out there or that is on Medicare, if you do need help, we're here to help you and we never charge for our services. You can go to our website, which is www.PBCHawai.com or you can always give us a call in our office at<PHONE_NUMBER>.  There's a lot of people that give us a call that I know we can't service them because of their situation in regards to maybe being on a union plan or whatever it might be, but we'll definitely help you no matter what. So, and once we do help you with the plan, I just have to say that that's really, we understand that's where the servicing starts. I think you brought it up earlier in this conversation when we talked about appeals and things like that or calling customer service, but what we do offer is another layer of servicing to our members. So we always tell them, if you have to make a change as far as your address or need a new card, then please call customer service because we are not able to do that. But anything else, please make us the first call and we do service our members because we understand it's very important for them to get their right healthcare coverage. So thank you. That's great Curtis. That's extremely helpful and an example of you and your team providing care for the community of Hawaii and that really means a lot and we appreciate you being on the show. Oh, thank you so much. Mahalo. Thank you so much for watching Think Tech Hawaii. If you like what we do, please like us and click the subscribe button on YouTube and the follow button on Vimeo. You can also follow us on Facebook, Instagram, Twitter and LinkedIn and donate to us at thinktechhawaii.com. Mahalo.


second part of the book, we talk about four hooks, which are aspects or features or qualities of what we're shown that we find especially attractive. The first one is consistency. Again, we can go back to the Madoff story for this. We're attracted to symmetrical patterns, smooth lines, basically the absence of randomness, noise, anything. It's almost like a fundamental property of the visual system. We recognize objects by using properties like symmetry and smoothness and curves and so on. It turns out when people show us things that look like that or give us data that conforms to those patterns, we tend to believe them more. What Madoff did was it's often said that Madoff ran a Ponzi scheme, and that's true, but it was really a new form of Ponzi scheme. The original Ponzi scheme promised people 50% back in six months, 50% return, not just 50% back, 150% back essentially in six months in the 1920s. By the way, Charles Ponzi was not the original Ponzi schemeer. People had tried similar things before, but he was the first one to be so successful that he got the naming rights. Madoff came along like he did something a little different. He did not promise anyone anything. He said, here's by track record, people do well. If you looked at the statements people got in the mail and so on, every year they gained between 8% and 12% in their accounts. They never even gained less than 7%. There might have been one year when it went down to 7% and the financial journalist Diana Enriquez, who wrote the best book about Bernie Madoff, told us that customers were very upset when it went down to 7%. Bernie, yeah, exactly. He kept it in the 8% to 12% band, which is not unrealistic for the long run average. If you invest in the stock market for 30 years, you might be up 10% per year on average by the end, but there will be some negative 20% years and some positive 30% years and some close to zero percent years. Too much consistency. People liked that. First of all, there were no losses. Second of all, it was just a smooth upward trend. It's a beautiful look for your bank account and there was nothing to worry about. Consistency is one of the main hooks that people use, another one which is, I think, equally valuable as familiarity. Repetition, because of the way memory works, makes us more likely to remember things but also believe that they're true. This is sometimes called the illusory truth effect. You take a statement which has no truth value at all, but just say it enough times and it starts to sound true. I've experienced this myself. I've sometimes felt like there's a piece of political propaganda, which I recognize as propaganda the first time, but like the fifth time I hear it, it seems like it might be true. It's hard to describe the feeling, but it feels different from the first time you heard it. Once something's in the environment, once it's common, once it's familiar to us, we become more accepting of it. There are lots of ways this can work. Familiarity can be based on similarity to things you already know. For example, there's this phenomenon called ghost candidates where political parties will run candidates with the same last name as an existing candidate that they want to siphon votes off from because if you voted for Rodriguez last time, maybe you'll vote for Rodriguez again this time and not notice there are two Rodriguez's on the ballot and you voted for the wrong Rodriguez, that's actually happened. If elections are close, you only need to siphon a small percentage of votes off with a third party candidate to maybe tip the balance. That's just a very simple familiarity hack, basically. It wouldn't work if you ran someone with a totally different name from Rodriguez, but if you find someone with that same name, then you might be able to do something with it. The last two are precision and potency. Precision is just our attraction to precise claims, concrete claims, as opposed to vague approximations. This happens, I wouldn't say everyone uses this, but when someone does tell you that you're going to get some very precise quantity of improvement or something like that, and when you do something, you should worry because almost everything is variable in life. It's not the case that everybody recovers from a disease in exactly the same number of days. There's huge variability around there. It's not the case that everybody responds to a medication the same way. The more precision people put in their pitches, unless it's some kind of technical engineering thing and you're already an expert or something like that and you understand what those numbers mean, the more you should be on guard. Potency is our desire to see big effects from small causes. I think I mentioned this earlier. This is the basis for ideas like a lot of fraudulent medical scams. You don't need surgery. You can just have some simple complementary medicine procedure will solve your cancer. You don't need surgery, chemo, radiation, all that complicated bad stuff. There's something much simpler that can do much more. In the realm of psychology and social science, there's a vogue lately for the idea that very simple interventions like having students do a one-hour exercise at the beginning of college will have a dramatic effect on the grades they get for the next three or four years. Often when you dig into this kind of research, you see that there's one very small study that found this and then we get back to the problem we were talking about earlier. Has anyone else replicated that? Does it work at any other colleges? Does it work when any other researchers administer the same thing? All of these things, consistency, familiarity, precision, and potency, they draw us in and get us on the hook in the first place. Then once our attention has gotten, we can perhaps be sold. That's why we have to be wary of those ideas and tend to ask questions like, why does this sound familiar? Why have you seen something like this before and so on? Recognizing the patterns of when these things happen, that's important.