YaBonks, for the Animals!

How Alex Walch Combines Crypto, Fitness, and Compassion to Inspire Others

In a recent episode of The Glen Merzer Show, Glen sat down with Alex Walch—better known as YaBonks—a man whose passions bridge technology, fitness, and animal advocacy. While he’s renowned for his YouTube crypto expertise, Alex’s real heart lies with Karma Farm Sanctuary, a safe haven for animals in Micanopy, Florida.

Alex’s journey began 11 years ago when a friend’s athletic progress inspired him to try a plant-based diet. “I didn’t know what veganism was,” Alex confessed. But after watching the documentary Earthlings, everything changed. “I told myself I never want to take part in anything that causes suffering to animals.”

From humble beginnings with hummus and veggies to a high-protein vegan diet featuring tofu, tempeh, and lentils, Alex has proven that plants fuel strength. A passionate bodybuilder, he proudly sets an example for other men: strength and compassion can go hand in hand. “If I can influence others to understand they can be strong and fit on a plant-based diet, then I’ve done my job.”

Karma Farm Sanctuary, Alex’s legacy project, provides a forever home to over 30 animals, including goats, pigs, and geese. “I want it to operate long after I’m gone,” he says, emphasizing his mission to leave the world kinder.

Beyond rescuing animals, Alex uses his platform to connect veganism with his other passions—crypto and fitness—proving that authenticity inspires community.

Looking for a way to get involved? Join Alex in supporting Steps for Sanctuaries, a fundraiser aiming to raise $10,000 for Karma Farm Sanctuary. Every dollar helps animals in need.

Catch the full interview on The Glen Merzer Show for Alex’s insights on vegan bodybuilding, crypto, and saving lives—because real men don’t just eat plants; they fight for the voiceless.

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DISCLAIMER: Please understand that the transcript below was provided by a transcription service. It is undoubtedly full of the errors that invariably take place in voice transcriptions. To understand the interview more completely and accurately, please watch it here: YaBonks, for the Animals!

Here's the transcript:

Glen Merzer: Welcome to The Glen Merzer Show. You could find us across all your favorite podcast platforms. You could find us on YouTube, and please remember to subscribe. And you could find us at RealMenEatPlants.com. I'm looking forward to getting to know our guest today. He is known sometimes as Yabonks, but his name is Alex Walch. He is a YouTuber. He's a crypto educator and Alex, we're going to get to that later because you've got to educate me on this. He is an animal sanctuary owner. He's a software engineer. He is a bodybuilder. I would be too, but I have a hernia and he's an entrepreneur. So Alex, welcome to the show. 

Alex Walch: Thank you, Glen. I really appreciate you bringing me on your show. It's a great honor. I love your show and I've seen Quite a few episodes with many of your distinguished guests, and I am grateful to be here. 

Glen Merzer: Well, you are joining that very honored list, my friend. 

Alex Walch: Thank you so much. 

Glen Merzer: you are a vegan. Yes, I am a vegan. And you started an animal sanctuary. And you're a crypto guy.

Alex Walch: Yes.

Glen Merzer:  Let's try to put this together and later you'll explain crypto to me. When did you become a vegan?

Alex Walch:  I became a vegan about 11 years ago now. So when I was 25 years old and I'm 36 now, so 11 years. 

Glen Merzer: Yeah, 36. 

Alex Walch: I think you've got me beat. Yeah, yeah. How many years have you been? 

Glen Merzer: 36 is getting pretty old. 

Alex Walch: How many years have you been vegan?

Glen Merzer: I've been vegan since around when you were born. I heard you were born 36 years ago and I said, that's it, I'm going vegan. 

Alex Walch: Hey, at least I had a good impact on the world in some way. 

Glen Merzer: Yes. 

Alex Walch: Well, that's amazing. That's incredible. 

Glen Merzer: So what what brought you into the light here to become vegan? 

Alex Walch: Well, I guess I was influenced by a friend of mine at the time. His name is Ethan and we were workout buddies. were running, long distance running together and lifting weights. And he was gaining progress on me very quickly. And I was trying to understand what he was doing differently than, than me. And he's, he just said, I only eat plants at the time. That didn't mean anything to me. I didn't understand. I didn't know what veganism was. My sister, Emily, she, she grew up vegetarian and We always kind of made fun of her for it and stuff, but like it never really meant anything to me. I never actually thought about it. Once my friend Ethan, who I saw him progressing quickly, athletically, I was like, sure, I'll try it. Why not? Maybe I'll get, maybe I'll progress fast like you too. I went vegan for a few days and as part of this, he showed me a couple documentaries just to like help educate me. He showed me Veducated and Earthlings. And as soon as I saw Earthlings, I went vegan forever overnight. As soon as I saw that movie, I told myself I never want to take part in anything that causes suffering to animals like that as much as I possibly can. So to the best of my ability, if I can abstain from anything that causes that suffering. I will obviously none of us are perfect and there are always ways that we don't think about that might have effects but consciously to the best of my ability if I can avoid that stuff I do and I never looked back after that. 

Glen Merzer: So when you went vegan, did you know what to eat? you have, did you? 

Alex Walch: No, no. So I started out just doing the stereotypical vegetables and hummus. I, that's what I, I heard jokes like, vegans eat a lot of hummus. So I jumped on the hummus train, which is great. Hummus is delicious. And I ate a lot of vegetables and produce. was doing smoothies. Eventually, I settled into a rhythm that really seemed to jive well with my body, which was rice, beans, lentils, vegetables, fruit, and a small amount of seeds or nuts. 

Glen Merzer: OK, so that's that's what your diet is like now. 

Alex Walch: It is, except I have. tweaked it slightly with some lean higher protein sources like tofu, tempeh, TVP, seitan, things like that, depending on my particular diet regimen and bodybuilding goals. 

Glen Merzer: Now, you do a lot of bodybuilding. Yes. On your Instagram account, people can see those pictures. Yes. I'm going to challenge you. to an arm wrestle next time I see you. 

Alex Walch: Okay. 

Glen Merzer: But it has to be post hernia surgery. 

Alex Walch: All right, deal. You're on. 

Glen Merzer: So tell us how you got the name. YaBonks. 

Alex Walch: Okay. Great question. I get asked this all the time. So for those who don't know, my YouTube channel name is called your bonks. Why a B. O. N. K. S. And Bonks was the nickname of one of the first animals I ever rescued. A goose named Godric, and his nickname is Bonks. I have a crocheted likeness of him here by one of my very special YouTube fans who crocheted this. They love Godric. They love Bonks. They even put a name tag on him that says Bonks. And on the other side, it says Godric. So this was sent by Wild Angel, one of my YouTube fans and supporters. Thank you, Wild Angel. But that's where my name came from. This goose that we rescued named Godric, AKA Bonks, was what was on the top of my mind when I was trying to decide what to name my YouTube channel. Bonks was taken. So I'm like, how about, yeah, Bonks? That was available. So. I created a YouTube account called Yubonks, started posting crypto educational content. Next thing I know, my YouTube channel takes off and now I'm stuck with the name Yabonks four years later and I'm just rolling with it.

Glen Merzer:  Do a lot of your friends call you Yabonks? 

Alex Walch: Yeah, you know, I have a lot of friends online now. You know, this day and age, we meet a lot of people through social media and a lot of people that I end up meeting in the fitness scene. the vegan space, the crypto space, they've already seen some of my content. So they already know me as Yabonks when they meet me. So they'll call me Yabonks and I'm just, I guess used to it now.

Glen Merzer: Well, I've noticed that the baseball cap is part of your look, so I'm wearing mine in your honor. 

Alex Walch: I love it. Thank you. 

Glen Merzer: What about the software engineering? You started out as a software engineer. Do you do any of that anymore? 

Alex Walch: I do. Yes. So I have been a software engineer professionally for over 15 years. And I have a computer science and engineering degree from the University of Toledo right out of college. I jumped into the corporate world as a software engineer. I've worked for multiple industries, healthcare, finance, telecom. I've written all sorts of interesting software applications and I've always done it on the side as well. Freelance as a contractor to make some extra money. And I still do my freelance software development contracting work to just keep my skills sharp and bring in extra money. The pay is great. I'm really good at it. So there's always demand for it. And if I can keep a couple hours of that a week in my regimen, helps me support the sanctuary and keeps my skills sharp. So I always have those opportunities.

Glen Merzer: All right, let's talk about this sanctuary. It's called Karma Farm Sanctuary. 

Alex Walch: Yes.It's in Florida. 

Glen Merzer: What town in Florida? 

Alex Walch: So Karma Farm Sanctuary is in Micanopy, M-I-C-A-N-O-P-Y. Mikanopi, Florida. It's a Seminole Chieftain's name. It's a tiny town of about 600 people. It's had about 600 people for the last 50 years. It doesn't seem to ever change. It's very quaint. If you've ever seen the movie, I think it's Doc Hollywood with

Glen Merzer:  Michael J. Fox. 

Alex Walch: That movie was recorded in McAnopy and that we have one downtown road. It's just old antique buildings and it's very quaint and picturesque. That's where that whole movie was filmed. That is where the sanctuary is. It's about 20 minutes south of Gainesville, Florida, smack dab in central Florida. 

Glen Merzer: So if it's got 600 people, how many animals does it now have?

Alex Walch: Karma Farm Sanctuary. About 30 extra animals, thanks to us. any time. At any time we have about 30 animals that call it their forever home and it fluctuates and slowly increases year after year as we build out more infrastructure.

Glen Merzer:  OK, so total population of the town, six hundred thirty. 

Alex Walch: Yes, that's right. That's right. 

Glen Merzer: So what kinds of animals do you have on your sanctuary?

Alex Walch: Right now we have. Dogs, cats, goats, pigs, geese, ducks and chickens, so. Quite a few species and we're involved with rescues of many other species, but those are the ones we have currently at the sanctuary. So we've assisted with cow and steer rescues. We've assisted with horse and donkey rescues and things like that. A lot of those ones go to other sanctuaries that have the infrastructure in place for handling those larger animals. We just assist with those rescues when we can. And at the sanctuary, at Karma Farm Sanctuary, we have goats, pigs, geese, ducks, and chickens right now. Yeah. and dogs and kittens.

Glen Merzer:  All right. So you have a friend who's an athlete. He's plant based. He inspires you to go plant based. You see the documentary Earthlings, then you're vegan. And now you got a farm sanctuary. 

Alex Walch: Yeah.

Glen Merzer: So it doesn't stop. This is a lifelong journey for you now.

Alex Walch: It's snowballing. It seems it's it's only speeding up. And I plan to just go full bore with this thing as long as I can and grow it to be part of my legacy for whenever I retire from this earth. I want Karma Farm Sanctuary to be well funded enough to operate in perpetuity after I'm gone and be able to maintain a board of directors and a team of volunteers long after I'm gone. 

Glen Merzer: All right. Well, you're not going to be gone anytime soon. You're 36. 

Alex Walch: Hopefully I'm gone a while. 

Glen Merzer: Now you have a friend named John Thomas, the bodybuilding vegan. 

Alex Walch: Yeah, that's my best friend, John. Yeah. 

Glen Merzer: All right. And so are there a number of bodybuilding vegans in Florida? know Geoff Palmer is another one. 

Alex Walch: There are a few. So it's a growing trend, it seems. And, you know, Tampa, Florida, for instance, is a hub for bodybuilding. Like last year's Mr. Olympia, Derek Lunsford, he's in the Tampa area. And I've actually worked out with him at a gym in Tampa. So that's really cool. He's top bodybuilder in the world at that time. And I got to work out with him. So yeah, Florida and Tampa area, especially big bodybuilding hubs and, the vegan thing really is spreading, especially with people like John Thomas, the bodybuilding vegan out there, Brooke, Miss Meatless Muscle, Robert Cheeke, who you know, he's one of the ones who influenced me early on when there wasn't much information on this stuff 10 years ago. I found his information and his website and it showed me that it's possible. It can be done. And I actually got to meet him in 2017 at the animal rights conference when I was a baby vegan. And I was like, my God, Robert Cheeke, I'm a huge fan. I want to be just like you someday. want to get big and strong as a vegan. And he's like, you can do it, man. He like, he gave me a great motivational speech in a parking lot. Super nice guy. was a total stranger to him. And, you know, we're friends now to this day and He's a big supporter of our sanctuary and a lot of the stuff we're doing. So it's just a wonderful community. The vegan space and the bodybuilding space, it's full of great people like that.

Glen Merzer:  Now have you reached a limit that you could lift as much weight as you want to be able to lift or do you, are you trying to be able to lift even more? 

Alex Walch: I'm always trying to push the limits. 

Glen Merzer: So how much do you bench press now?

Alex Walch: Good question. I don't know. So I have a hand injury that prevents me from maxing out on bench press. It's a tendon injury. So, you know, I don't do much, I guess I would say ego lifting where I'm just seeing how much weight I can lift. I'm very strict with my form and I, yeah, so I don't even push the weights that heavy really. I focus more on volume and specific reps and sets that have the most hypertrophy. So muscle growth activity versus just pure strength gains. Now strength gains have come over time. I've been doing this for 10 years now and slowly I've gotten stronger on a lot of these exercises. But for most of those years, I was lifting at home with just a set of dumbbells and a pull-up bar on my doorframe, just doing push-ups and then holding dumbbells and doing squats, bicep curls, doing pull-ups on the bar. Only recently did I get my first gym membership, surprisingly. So mostly I've just been doing at-home workouts, like, I don't know, prison-style workouts at home. And now I've got access to all these fancy machines and I'm trying to get my form perfected on those before I start pushing the… the weights up heavy. 

Glen Merzer: How long are your workouts?

Alex Walch: Between 45 minutes and an hour, maybe an hour and 15 minutes at most. I try not to go past that because I feel it's counterproductive to my overall fatigue levels and recovery. So I also like long distance running. So that's kind of counterproductive to pure mass gaining, if you will. So I kind of a hybrid athlete where I balance trying to enjoy my long distance running, which I love for my mental health and running along the beach here in Florida and out and it's so nice here. So I love running, but it really zaps my system. And I have to make sure to incorporate enough rest days and recovery days with my bodybuilding regimen.

Glen Merzer: So because of the bodybuilding, you want a good supply of protein. So you eat, as you mentioned, tempeh and tofu and TVP. Do you watch your diet in terms of trying to avoid oil and sugar? 

Alex Walch: So only when it comes to calories. I try to remain within a calorie range or whatever my current goal is, for instance. If I'm in a bulking phase, I will try to get my calories to 250 to 500 calories surplus over my daily maintenance calories. Anything above that. And I'm just getting super fat very quick. 

Glen Merzer: What's your daily maintenance? 

Alex Walch: About 1600. 

Glen Merzer: that's all.

Alex Walch: I don't weigh much. I'm 160 pounds. Yeah. Now, I can eat a little bit more than that and be fine. Like a 2000 calorie diet, I'm not going to get super fat or anything if I'm active. But if I'm not doing any activity at all and I eat 1600 calories, I'll just stay the same weight forever. If I'm moving, walking, exercising, I have to eat more than that to maintain our gain. If I'm trying to lose weight and I'm in a cutting phase, I try to be in a 250 calorie to 500 calorie deficit below my maintenance calories. And that maintenance calorie number, it does change as my weight changes. So I have to, it's a long spectrum, it's long a curve. If I get, if I bulk up to 170, 175 pounds, my maintenance calories are a little higher. If I'm down at 150 to 160 pounds, my maintenance calories are a little lower. And I just try to maintain a healthy body fat percentage. If I find myself going above 20 percent body fat, that's when I start reeling it in and cutting cutting weight until I can get back down to 10 to 15 percent body fat, which is ideally where I feel the best. 

Glen Merzer: OK, now you're a lot of your following is because of crypto. 

Alex Walch: Yes. 

Glen Merzer: And Yabonks YouTube channel is mostly a crypto channel, believe. me if I'm wrong. With the occasional farm sanctuary, karma farm sanctuary, you know, mention here and there, video here and there. And so does crypto have anything to do? Can you connect it at all to veganism and bodybuilding?

Alex Walch: That's an interesting question. I've never been asked that before. Ha. How do I tie it all together? I guess it's me. I'm the connecting part there. These are my passions and my interests and my Yabonks's channel. The brand is just me, right? I don't have a specific brand based on an industry or an interest specifically. It's whatever I'm interested in. And I'm interested in making money in crypto and DeFi and exploring that beautiful intersection on the forefront of decentralized finance and computer science. I think it's fascinating and the opportunities are unbelievable. It's rife with scams and it's treacherous. Be careful. Okay, do your research, get educated. Don't just throw all your money into this and think you're gonna be rich overnight. I have seen and heard horror stories, but get proper education first. and test out the waters with small amounts of money to play around and really learn the ropes on all this stuff. Anyway, so crypto is my interest. So is animal rescue, veganism, and so is bodybuilding and fitness. And, you know, I have consulted with YouTube experts and stuff trying to get better at this. And they're always like, you need to niche down, niche down. It'll be better for your engagement values and your growth. And I'm just I heard some, what's his name? I forget the guy's name, Gary Veechek. Gary Veechek, he's a popular social media expert and guru and motivational speaker. And he said this one thing that stuck with me a few years ago. It's like, the brand is you, right? The brand is you. You don't have to niche down or this and that. People are coming to watch your content because they like you. And you can post about whatever you like. and they'll watch it because they like you, right? And I always stuck with that. And it helped me not be too self-conscious about the content I post. If I want to post a goofy video of me and my friends lifting weights and you know, goofing around in the gym, just having fun, like I'll post it. If I want to post a video of me frolicking in a field with some goats, I'm going to post it. Like if I want to post a video about some weird crypto play that I'm in, I'm going to post it with plenty of disclaimers, whenever money is involved, I always have to give disclaimers. But that's how it all ties together on the Yabonks channel is it's just me and what I'm interested in. 

Glen Merzer: All right. So speaking of crypto. Yes. Let me ask you some questions about this because I don't understand this stuff. So that's my disclaimer. I don't understand this at all. So explain to me the whole concept. There are these crypto coins. Yeah. Bitcoin yes, and you have to mine it Yes, so let's start with that. 

Glen Merzer: What the hell is mining? 

Alex Walch: So mining is a proof-of-work algorithm for Bitcoin and other proof-of-work protocols that Forces people to put in a certain amount of work to mine the rewards that are emitted with each block of this blockchain. So every certain amount of time, a new block is created. 

Glen Merzer: What does that mean? A block is created. 

Alex Walch: So imagine an accounting ledger, like a spreadsheet or a database with all the data of financial transactions on the Bitcoin financial network. Every you know this user's wallet sent this amount to this user's wallet on this time There's this amount all of that is recorded in each block now each block is a snapshot in time of the entire blockchain and then when the next block happens at a certain epoch or Unit of time a time period later. The next block is minted with any updates since then plus all the history of the previous blocks. So it creates a chain. So here's a block and it's connected to this past block, past block, past block. And you can actually use blockchain explorers to go look at any block in time and see exactly what happened. It's a public ledger. It's not good for money laundering. Contrary to what you might've heard from politicians in the past, cash is great for money laundering because you can't trace cash. you a hundred dollars for drugs, nobody knows. Nobody's going to know about that. But if I gave you a hundred dollars in Bitcoin for drugs, I am going to jail at some point. That is public record. That is a public ledger that is forever there in time. It can never be destroyed or deleted. It is immutable. So that is one of the core concepts of crypto, of Bitcoin is immutability. You cannot mute it. You cannot censor it. It's out there forever. So anybody trying to do criminal activities on the Bitcoin blockchain, they're confused because they are leaving a public footprint. But eventually you're smart enough and you're forensic accountant or a software algorithm or AI system that is good enough at tracing back through the blockchain, this public ledger, you can see where all the money flowed. So all these people who did all these like early Bitcoin scams or stole Bitcoin, they almost always eventually get caught. Now there are other block, there are other networks out like their blockchain or Bitcoin is just one blockchain network. There are other ones like Ethereum and, Monero. Now Monero is a privacy centric blockchain. So that one is used on the dark net for doing illicit activities. It's untraceable. And they're really big about privacy and untraceability, anonymity with their banking and finances, which has its merits. OK, but it can also be utilized for illicit activities to make it harder. 

Glen Merzer: What are the merits? 

Alex Walch: Privacy like, is it the Fourth Amendment where like we shouldn't have the government rifling through our papers and our desk, looking through our bank statements and stuff? privacy and banking. Now, the banking privacy act, a few decades ago, kind of took that away from a lot of us. But like, don't want the government to know every single thing I ever bought, right? So there's that aspect of it, privacy and our banking and financial transactions. But again, I'm more about Bitcoin specifically, and that's a public ledger. That's super public, very hard to launder money through it, but that is from the public perception in the day to day. you say Bitcoin, think, you know, I've heard people use it for scams or this and that, but that's not the case at all anymore. These days, this day and age, Bitcoin is becoming more prominent than ever. And it's because of the principles of hard money, sound money. So gold used to be the gold standard when it came to hard money, sound money that is hard to print. You can print dollars with a touch of a button. The federal reserve can print off a trillion dollars, just dump it into the money supply and we all get diluted and the value of our dollars goes down even more and we can purchase much less with the dollars we have. Hooray! Right? That is a form of taxation through dilution. Now, Bitcoin is the solution to this. This is the solution to the 1913, December 23rd Federal Reserve Act that was passed that has forever really messed us up long-term and our kids and grandkids and their grandkids. But Bitcoin is the solution to that. It is a wrecking ball that will completely smash the old system from 1913 that has been, in my opinion, a parasite onto all of our wealth and our ability to maintain and generate wealth for us and our families. So Bitcoin, cannot, no government agency can just print new Bitcoin. There will only ever be 21 million Bitcoin in existence ever, ever. So it's a mad rush to get one of those 21 million Bitcoins.And because of this supply and demand, theoretically the price of Bitcoin is going to just approach infinity in terms of US dollars or whatever other fiat currency that you pair against it. It's really the US dollar is approaching zero. It has been for a long time now and Bitcoin maintains its value. So the value of one Bitcoin in terms of dollars as the price of dollars go down, the value of a Bitcoin in dollars just goes up theoretically infinitely. And that's why we're at a hundred thousand dollar Bitcoin right now when, you know, a few years ago it was a couple dozen dollars, a hundred dollars or less. And that's how a lot of people made big fortunes because they believed in these principles and they bought and held.

Glen Merzer: Now, I remember hearing a story of some guy who put something like 50 million in Bitcoin and then he lost his password and he 50 million dollars.

Alex Walch:  It happens. Yeah. 

Glen Merzer: That's pretty stupid, isn't it? I if all your wealth is you need to have the password and you lose the password, you lose all the wealth. 

Alex Walch: Not financial advice, but diversify people. Diversify. 

Glen Merzer: OK, that is like diversify into a few different passwords. What do you do?

Alex Walch: Diversify into multiple assets if you know, but that the case 

Glen Merzer: you lose your password you lose your money 

Alex Walch: So yeah, that's one of 

Glen Merzer: the that's insane. 

Alex Walch: That's one of the benefits of Cryptocurrency is self custody. You are your own bank. So for some people that's great for other people that's not good because they Can't remember their Netflix password let alone their their Bitcoin seed phrase and if they lost like say their cold wallet here, this is a Ledger Nano S, and if they lose their seed phrase, they cannot access their wallet anymore if they were to lose it. Now, that is one of the big security benefits of Bitcoin. can't... 

Glen Merzer: If I put my money in the bank... And, you know, I forget my, you know, I forget where I put the bank records or something. I still have my money in the bank. yeah. You know. But in this case, you forget your password. There's no other way you ever see that wealth again. Now, with a bank. Where does it go?

Alex Walch: It's on the blockchain. It is still there in that account. 

Glen Merzer: there isn't like a Mr. Bitcoin who can say, I'll find your money for you? 

Alex Walch: It's completely decentralized. So you are, you are the... 

Glen Merzer: You're totally screwed if you lose your password.

Alex Walch: You are the custodian of your own tokens. And if you lose them, that's on you. 

Glen Merzer: Why can't they have a company that also keeps a record of them? 

Alex Walch: So there are companies that are centralized more like a bank. So with a bank, can walk in and say, Hey, I forgot my PIN number. I can't get to the ATM. Can you help me access my money? And there'll be like, yeah, sure, sure. And you'll go through the KYC process. You'll show your identification, verify it to you.

Glen Merzer:  other words, normal stuff. 

Alex Walch: The normal stuff what we're used to. And there are central exchanges that act as that intermediary before you go full decentralized finance. Now decentralized finance is hardcore. You have to be vigilant. Right. And you have to really, use best security practices and, best self custody practices. Now with a central exchange like Coinbase or Binance, they have customer support and they actually custody your tokens. So your tokens aren't in your own wallet per se. It's in like an account, like a bank account, like an account at Coinbase. And if you run into some issues, you can reach out to Coinbase and say, hey, help me. And they'll verify it's actually you. And they'll let you reset your password and use two factor authentication and let you back in. So a lot of people use central exchanges as that stepping stone. The risk there is trusting your tokens, your Bitcoin and whatever other cryptocurrencies to a central exchange, a centralized authority that governs and custodies your funds. And that theoretically goes against the founding principles of Bitcoin and other cryptocurrencies, is independence. 

Glen Merzer: All my life when I had money, I put it in the bank and there was never one time when the bank said, we know where your money is and they took it. Right. mean, 

Alex Walch: that's happened in other countries like Greece and other countries. Governments have confiscated people's bank accounts because the government needed money and a lot of people lost. 

Glen Merzer: happened in the United States, I don't think. 

Alex Walch: Banks have gone under in the United States. 

Glen Merzer: Well, when the banks go under, though, if your money is federally insured, you don't lose money. 

Alex Walch: Up to one hundred thousand dollars. 

Glen Merzer: Higher than that. 

Alex Walch: But yeah, there's a. Is FINRA higher than a. 

Glen Merzer: Is it higher than a quarter million? think. 

Alex Walch: OK, so I'm still thinking about it 10 years ago or whenever. But OK. Up to a certain limit though, yeah. But if you have 10 million in Bitcoin in a wallet, the only person that has access to it is you for better or worse. But if somebody comes to try to rob you or steal that Bitcoin, they have to get your seed phrase, essentially, which is a 12 to 24 word phrase. And the only way they can get it is if they get that phrase out of you somehow. So if you're trying to get money from one country to another, say, and you're in a hostile theoretical environment where, you know, as you're crossing the borders, the government border agents are stealing all your gold and cash before they let you through. This has happened in the past. in Germany and other places, right? And this was a big issue where people lost their entire generations of wealth trying to get out of the countries with their gold. And it's hard to transport gold across borders or physically anywhere in space and time, but Bitcoin is different. You can have millions and millions of dollars in 12 to 24 phrases that you memorize or give half the words to somebody else and half the words to somebody else. And then you put them together and it can access. 

Glen Merzer: So if I wanted to steal your money in Bitcoin, I would have to try to guess your seed phrase. 

Alex Walch: Yes, and it's basically... 

Glen Merzer: I might guess I am a vegan named after a goose. 

Alex Walch: no, I'm screwed. no. 

Glen Merzer: That's it, huh? 

Alex Walch: man, I'm ruined. I got to change that. Right.

Glen Merzer:  Now, I was watching your one of your YouTube videos. You had a...fellow on I think his name was martini and you were he had a a a kind of coin I guess called osmium mancy yeah

Alex Walch: yeah so mancini and his team are developing a new blockchain called the osmium blockchain and it is a fork of another popular blockchain

Glen Merzer: So I'm going to read to you what he said. I wrote it down and we'll see if it can make sense. I'm sure it makes sense, but not to me. We believe that if we could create the ecosystem and if we figure out a smart way of linking the Osmium blockchain to that ecosystem, it might be really interesting for everyone involved.So one, grab those coins. You could either mine them or you can buy them on the exchange. You could get a few coins really cheap in our community from time to time. We do various giveaways and we do contests. And of course you could get even more coins if you decide to stack them in master notes and get master note rewards, which is probably the most efficient way of getting more coins if you already have a few. Does that make sense? and how does that work? 

Alex Walch: So that type of blockchain that they're building is I believe a proof of stake blockchain. So I explained proof of work earlier where you're mining with a computer that is crunching an algorithm as fast as it can. And that proof of work is through basically the amount of electricity and hashing power that it is crunching. Now with proof of stake, is theoretically a more energy efficient way to verify and find consensus on a blockchain. And what you do in this instance would be you buy a certain amount of the coins and then you stake them in a node or a master node in this case, and that mines or mints new tokens over time. say you need to buy five. So those are the rewards that the stakers receive for staking and validating the blocks in the blockchain. So that is how it's done in terms of the blockchain governance. the nodes reach consensus on each new block that is formed and block the different block chains out there. They can do these consensus algorithms differently. it like a good book would be like Vitalik Buterin, proof of stake. He's the super genius who developed the Ethereum blockchain and the Ethereum blockchain moved to proof of stake a few years ago and basically you would buy a bunch of Ethereum and then you could stake it. you had enough, you could become a node owner and a node would, a node, N-O-D-E, like a 

Glen Merzer: What is a node?

 A node is a point in a network. So like if you imagine a graph, network. Each node is like a dot and they're connected by lines, vertices. So vertices connect each node in the network. Now node in blockchain terminology would be in this case somebody who has staked a certain amount of Ethereum tokens and they are running a node which is a piece of software that validates the blockchain and they are an official node owner that can do these validations if they have a certain amount of the token state and for their work validating the blockchain they get a certain amount of Ethereum in return as rewards. So you get you can technically farm or earn tokens by staking them in a node based system. So crypto and DeFi.

Glen Merzer:  And DeFi stands for decentralized finance. 

Alex Walch: Decentralized finance. So this stuff, I mean, it can take hundreds of hours of research. 

Glen Merzer: But should ordinary people be forced to do a PhD to understand where they're putting their money? 

Alex Walch: Well, no. mean, if they don't understand it, they should not put their money in it in anything, right? It's always best to do your own research and thoroughly understand anything before you invest money in it. 

Glen Merzer: all the energy it takes. I've heard statistics that it's like all the energy of Denmark or something goes into Bitcoin. Is this a good use of energy? 

Alex Walch: Yes, it's better than our current monetary system and is more energy efficient than our current monetary system. 

Glen Merzer: Why is it more energy efficient? 

Alex Walch: All of the energy it takes to run the fiat system, all the banks, everything we run on right now takes more energy than the Bitcoin network. So Bitcoin network eventually will replace it and be more 

Glen Merzer: So I'm going to have to have a password? 

Alex Walch: Eventually. Now, the thing is, this stuff's getting so sophisticated that most people at some point won't even realize they're using it. It'll just be the, it'll be layers underneath.

Glen Merzer: I got to tell you, you know, with the Apple stuff, I've got an Apple password and I store it in, you know, seven different places. And then the next time I need to sign on to Apple, I put in my password and they say, no, that's not your password. If that happens to me with my money, I'm going to be screwed. 

Alex Walch: Well, I think for a lot of people, they will be using centralized exchanges where it's very similar in terms of what they're used to dealing with a centralized entity like a bank. Now, when will this paradigm shift completely overtake? I don't know, it could be decades, could be a hundred years, but eventually this is superior technology financially and will replace our current monetary system. That is my personal belief. we've been witnessing it for the past 15 years. 

Glen Merzer: Well, you're a vegan, so if it takes 100 years, you may be here to see it. 

Alex Walch: Hey, there we go. 

Glen Merzer: There's the connection.

Alex Walch:  I hope so. And if that's the case, and I've got some of these coins tucked away, hopefully in 100 years, I'll be a billionaire and can create the biggest animal sanctuary on earth. 

Glen Merzer: Now, if you want to cash out of Bitcoin, can you do it like that? 

Alex Walch: Yeah. Yeah. So.I use. 

Glen Merzer: And then do you what do you get when you cash out? Do you get a check in dollars?

Alex Walch:  It just goes straight to your bank account in dollars. In dollars. Yeah. 

Glen Merzer: So doesn't that mean that the dollar is the superior currency because you don't cash out of dollars into Bitcoin. You cash out of Bitcoin into dollars

Alex Walch: in terms of current usage? Yes. But in terms of principles, Bitcoin is a far superior money. than anything else. The current fiat currency system that we're using, it is ingrained in our day-to-day lives. It's going to take time to replace that. And we are seeing even like the Federal Reserve and other central banking systems developing central banking digital currencies, CBDCs. These are going to be their versions to try to co-opt the Bitcoin movement and say, look, we're in a digital currencies too, except it'll still be centralized. And it's going to be their Hail Mary and we'll give them an incredible amount of control and invasion of privacy over all of us for beyond what we already have. But Bitcoin will eventually and the other decentralized financial networks will eventually overtake. those as well. 

Glen Merzer: Now, is is this space of crypto enthusiasts enthusiasts more male than female? It seems like I'm always seeing young men getting excited about this. Not a lot of women. Am I right? 

Alex Walch: So. Early on, it was very heavily male dominated, but you know, in the investor groups I'm in and different crypto groups, there are a lot more females nowadays. So I would say it's really, it's becoming more female friendly for sure. But it was kind of like a boys club. seemed like, like I'd be in all these chat rooms on Discord and Telegram. And it was just a lot, and Twitter and it was very male dominated. And if there were females there, they would kind of fly under the radar because, you know, you get a bunch of males. who are anonymous in a chat room, going to be, they could be inappropriate or weird. And I run big communities at Discord and Telegram for crypto. And I've had to deal with people like that and ban them from my servers just because they were being inappropriate towards other members. But there are a lot of females there nowadays, actually. 

Glen Merzer: Well, the vegan skew female, as you know. 

Alex Walch: That is true. Lucky for us.

Glen Merzer: So, you know, my attitude is, you know, I think that the fact that vegans skew female is yet another proof that it's the best diet, because it's usually the women who are right and the men who are wrong. 

Alex Walch: I found that out in my first marriage. 

Glen Merzer: In your first marriage. 

Alex Walch: my only marriage, but my last marriage, yeah. The woman is always right. I learned that one. Apparently not well enough though. 

Glen Merzer: do you have any vegan related goals beyond the sanctuary?

Alex Walch: So any way I can help animals and people and the people that help animals is what I will do in the ways I find most effective for my own personal set of skills and talents. So whether that's influencing others to understand that they can be strong. and fit on a vegan diet or lifestyle, plant-based diet and a vegan lifestyle, then I think being that role model is a great way that I can influence a lot of people. And I try not to be too pushy with it. I try to just set a good example and just make it seem cool and fun. I don't shove it down people's throats. If they ask me about it, I'll tell them whatever they want to know. and then I'll just live my best life and set a great example of being a plant-based athlete and a vegan entrepreneur and philanthropist.

Glen Merzer: Well, good for you on that. And do you do you feel that it's building? If you are you meeting more and more vegans?

Alex Walch:  it's crazy. I'm sure you noticed it, too. Since I became vegan. When I first went vegan, it was my life, my social life was like a ghost town. Where'd everybody go? Right. And meeting other people in the vegan community back then was tricky. I would go to vegan meetups in Ohio, where I'm from, and there would be like five or six people, and that was it. And I would drive 45 minutes to the next biggest town and there would be like a dozen people. And that was it. Then social media really became a bigger part of my life. And once I got into the online communities, I started seeing how many other vegans are out there doing really amazing things. Like you, your podcast, all the superstars you've had on your show. It's amazing to see how many champions there are in this community. And it seems every event, we have these veg-fests down here, and I table these now sometimes to raise donations for the sanctuary or to help out friends and their businesses. They grow every single quarter. So every year I'll go to maybe four or five or six of these and every one is bigger than the last. I'm having trouble finding parking now, Glen. Like it's incredible. There are more vegan businesses than ever. And this is just the beginning. This is we're still right at the beginning of this. And to see this rate of growth, which is explosive, is incredible. And I think over the next decade or so, we're going to see a complete shift where this is going to be more and more mainstream. 

Glen Merzer: So what do you think the path is to ending animal agriculture and turning the world vegan?

Alex Walch:  If I knew the answer to that. I don't know if we'd be sitting here having this conversation, right? 

Glen Merzer: You'd be doing it, huh? 

Alex Walch: Yeah. mean, that's the big question. And I think the answer is it takes time. Any movement or paradigm shift takes time. Nothing happens overnight. And something as big as replacing a system based on traditions, cultural traditions, and personal habits takes time. So it might take a few generations for us to see the tides completely shift and these systems be replaced. 

Glen Merzer: what happens first? Give this some thought. What happens first? Everyone gives up eating meat and starts eating tempeh and healthy foods, or everyone pays for the tempeh with Bitcoin. What happens first?

Alex Walch:  The first one. The first one. 

Glen Merzer: Yes.

Alex Walch: That's good for me, man, because I don't want to lose my password and then I won't be able to afford the tempeh. Yes. And I'm going to get hungry because I forgot my password. I don't want people to go hungry because they forgot their password. 

Glen Merzer: Some of the richest people in crypto forgot their seed phrase and then found it five or 10 years later and realized they were now multimillionaires because if they had their seed phrase…

Alex Walch:  just wacko.

Glen Merzer: If they had their seed phrases and could access their crypto, they would have sold when it 2 or 3x'd, right? They would have been like, wow, I doubled or tripled my money, I'm going to sell. But since they lost their seed phrase, they couldn't access it. It went up 1,000x instead. And then they got $100 billion now. 

Glen Merzer: Well, let me ask you this. If you hide your seed phrase, let's say under your shoe in your closet. Yeah. and I break into your closet and lift up your shoe and find that seed phrase. Can I steal your Bitcoin? 

Alex Walch: Absolutely. Yes. man.

Glen Merzer:  It isn't so safe. There are somebody into someone's computer if they've got it stored there and do not store it on your computer.

Alex Walch:  Do not do that because you can't it your computer. No, store it in your house.Somebody could break into your house. 

Glen Merzer: I don't see how this is as safe as money. 

Alex Walch: You want to stamp it? You want to stamp your C phrase onto metal plates? 

Glen Merzer: so I you want to have it tattooed onto your ass is what you want to do. Then your next partner is going to run off with your money. Suppose there's a risk there too. see, it makes no sense. is a good idea. 

Alex Walch: So put half of it, stamp half of it onto a metal plate, stamp the other half onto another metal plate. and put one in one bank in a bank lock box in some bank, go open another bank cap somewhere else, put it in a bank lock box in a different bank. 

Glen Merzer: OK, one of those banks burns down and you're screwed.

 Alex Walch: No, it's a titanium plate. It'll survive the fire. 

Glen Merzer: But somebody may find it and they'll have half your seed money and they'll try to make a deal with without the other half. Yeah, they won't be able to take your money, but you won't be able to either.

Alex Walch: Yeah. So I recommend making multiple copies on titanium plates. You can get them on Amazon for like eight, nine, 10 bucks. Get a few of them and you can get the little stamps and just, or the little things to etch them in and they will survive super high temperature fires. They're corrosion resistant. won't rust. They'll last hundreds or thousands of years. and put like even a third of the words on one, third on the other, third on the other, and get a few sets of them and have one set with a family member here, have another set in a bank lock box over here, and keep the other third with you, and have duplicates, have redundancies, but never in any way that somebody could get all the pieces of the puzzle.

Glen Merzer: Now, the other thing is there must be, I don't know, hundreds or thousands of these coins now. There was Bitcoin and Ethereum and this fellow has Osmium and all these coins. And it all has no worth unless other people think it has worth. 

Alex Walch: Right. 

Glen Merzer: So you're putting your money into something. And if it turns out that other people decide to buy it because it's marketed well or something, then it has worth. And if other people don't buy it, it has no work. Yes, it's a very high And that's a system? 

In terms of investing, it's a high risk, highly volatile investment sector. And I would caution anybody who is trying to get in here to make fast money to rethink things, to think things over slowly and don't go all in on anything because A lot of people out here will try to peddle romantic notions of fast money, get rich overnight schemes. And those are almost always scams or pump and dump schemes. Be careful. Don't go all in, diversify your assets. Do not use the mortgage or the rent payment in crypto. I've seen people do that. They are like, it'll be fine. I'll double the money. Then Doesn't work that way. If you're chasing get rich quick schemes, you're going to lose it. You're going to lose your money. I don't give financial advice. I just say what I do. I am mostly in Bitcoin. I am about 70 % in Bitcoin. I'm about 15 % in layer two network coins or layer one network coins, about 10 % in layer two network coins. And then about 5 % in other alt coins, are very, which are a lot smaller market cap. I only 5 % in these more speculative coins that might 20 or a hundred X, but they could go to zero overnight. And if I only have a half a percent of my portfolio in one of these and it goes to zero, I'm not, you know, jumping out a window or anything like that. and so I keep most of my crypto portfolio in the bigger, more stable, more time and community vetted and trusted coins like Bitcoin and then like Ethereum, BNB, Solana, SUI, AVAX, things like that. And also, I mean, there's a lot that goes into this, right? I have people with multimillion dollar portfolios that hire me to… to coach them in DeFi and to just go over what they're doing and let them know if they're exposing themselves to extra risks. you'd be surprised. I've seen people with tens of thousands of dollars in the dumbest coins you've ever heard of. 

Glen Merzer: mean, meme have no value unless anybody… When somebody buys a stock, it's a claim on the company's earnings. In this case, you buy a coin that doesn't really exist in the real world and it has no value unless somebody else thinks it has more value when they buy it. they call the greater whole theory is it has it's been called. 

Alex Walch: And there are other potential pitfalls. If you don't know how to look into a research, different tokens, maybe the founder or the team has access to 90 % of the tokens and at some point they just dump all their tokens on the market take all the actual value tokens like if it's paired against Ethereum or something they dump all their crap tokens take all the Ethereum out everybody goes to zero overnight. pull right there are so many ways developers and teams can rug pull these projects unfairly so beyond just general market supply and demand like you were talking about these psychological phenomena. There are also ways that people are scamming, rug pulling, and stealing and defrauding people out here. And that's one of the things I have made videos about early on about how to identify these, how to evaluate a project before you buy their tokens, just to see if there are any red flags that might be a potential risk vector for some kind of a rug pull later on.

Glen Merzer: All right. Well, Alex, I could say that it's a pleasure getting to know you an hour later now. I understand you better. I know what you're doing. I appreciate what you're doing for the animals and for the vegans. And I admire the bodybuilding and I still don't understand the crypto stuff. 

Alex Walch: We're early. We're early to the space. Most people don't understand it. So. You just got an early glimpse into what's to come in that industry. We're on the beginning of that S curve, that hockey stick of the adoption of a new technology, just like veganism. We're at the beginning of the S curve. Eventually it's gonna go exponential with adoption and then level out as it becomes 

Glen Merzer: you don't think there's gonna be a crypto crash? 

Alex Walch: There will always be bear markets. So there will always be corrections. and in crypto especially because of its highly volatile nature these can often be severe and drastic. So what goes up oftentimes must come down and we have seen 70 percent 80 90 percent corrections from a bull market to a bear market in crypto assets every four years. I mean it's almost like clockwork so if you can time the cycles relatively well with dollar cost averaging, dollar cost averaging, dollar cost average out at the right times. It can be lucrative. But if you're like most people and you are driven by FOMO or the fear of missing out, a lot of people end up buying high and then selling low and getting wrecked. So be very careful of the market cycles and crypto. They are extremely volatile. 

Glen Merzer: Tempeh, on the other hand, will hold its value, especially if you keep it in the freezer. 

Alex Walch: Yes.TBP even better, shelf stable. I buy 25 pound bags of it. It lasts me a month. It's great. 

Glen Merzer: So that's our advice. Stick with the vegan stuff. Alex, we will put in the... do you want to talk about your event on December 14th? 

Alex Walch: Thank you. I would love to. So right now we are doing a big fundraiser for Karma Farm Sanctuary, which as you heard is our 501c3 nonprofit charity here in McAnopy Florida animal rescue and animal sanctuary and we are doing a fundraiser right now called steps for sanctuaries and me and my good buddy John Thomas the bodybuilding vegan are going to live stream us walking over 100,000 steps all around the Tampa, area Going to a bunch of different vegan restaurants and businesses that are helping sponsor this fundraiser It's going to be amazing. The fundraiser is going on now through December 14th. So please donate and every dollar donated now through the 14th will be added up towards our goal of $10,000 for Karma Farm Sanctuary. Every dollar goes to animals in need that came from animal cruelty cases. Nobody takes salaries at Karma Farm Sanctuary. It's all volunteer and donation driven. It's a huge community effort. We would love for you all to be a part of that community too.

Glen Merzer: All right. Thank you, Alex. We will put links to your accounts, including Yabonk's YouTube channel in the show notes. And let's stay in touch, my friend. 

Alex Walch: I would love to. Thank you so much, Glen. It's been a real pleasure. 

Glen Merzer: Take care. 

Alex Walch: Thank you.