Shawn Owen from Salt Lending explains how blockchain and AI are reshaping real estate lending, collateral, and the future of global financial systems.

In this episode of RealDealChat, Jack Hoss interviews Shawn Owen, founder and CEO of Salt Lending, to discuss how Bitcoin, blockchain, and artificial intelligence are changing the way we think about money, lending, and real estate.

Shawn shares his story of discovering Bitcoin in 2011, how it redefined his understanding of wealth, and how Salt Lending bridges crypto and traditional collateralized lending. From crypto-backed loans to AI automation, Shawn explains how these innovations will soon affect property title transfers, liquidity, and even how entrepreneurs build businesses.

You’ll learn:

• What Bitcoin and blockchain really are in plain English
• How blockchain lending compares to real estate collateral
• How Salt Lending raised $124M in crypto-backed loans
• Why Bitcoin’s volatility is misunderstood
• How real estate and Bitcoin will merge in the next decade
• What smart contracts mean for real estate investors
• How regulation is evolving in crypto and blockchain
• Why AI + blockchain could reinvent every major industry
• The rise of “one-person billion-dollar companies” powered by AI

📍 Learn more at SaltLending.com

💡 Want to scale your business with AI and automation? Visit https://realdealcrew.com

Timestamps:

00:00 – Discovering Bitcoin in 2011 & the future of money

00:51 – Introducing Shawn Owen & Salt Lending

01:16 – How Shawn entered FinTech & blockchain

02:00 – From restaurants & real estate to futurism & tech

03:00 – Getting obsessed with digital scarcity & Bitcoin

03:48 – The “aha moment” with blockchain & single ledgers

05:07 – Blockchain explained in simple terms

07:09 – Bitcoin as digital gold & programmable scarcity

07:31 – How crypto-backed lending works (in plain English)

08:00 – Using Bitcoin as collateral like real estate

09:00 – Why Bitcoin + real estate is the future of collateral

10:00 – Unlocking liquidity, better rates & velocity of money

11:09 – Why real estate pros lag on blockchain adoption

11:32 – Early struggles educating banks & lenders

13:00 – Why technical jargon makes blockchain harder to grasp

14:31 – Breaking down Bitcoin for business owners

15:14 – The volatility myth (Bitcoin vs dollars)

17:29 – Why real estate & Bitcoin have more in common than you think

18:06 – Long-term mindset: 10-year rule for investing

19:27 – Diamond hands & long-term conviction

19:29 – How real estate investors can get involved with Salt

21:00 – Salt’s mission: wealth building for tomorrow

21:33 – The journey from 2014 to building a real company

23:21 – Biggest challenge: educating regulators

25:10 – Government misunderstanding & slow regulation

25:29 – Blockchain, government inefficiency & outdated systems

27:44 – Kids today know more about crypto than regulators

28:20 – TikTok, social media & attention engineering

29:19 – Attention economy & tech addiction

29:28 – Brave Browser & Basic Attention Token experiment

30:00 – Smart contracts & automated agreements

31:00 – Network states, decentralized ownership & the future of protocols

33:35 – Disrupting banking, government & real estate at once

34:12 – Crypto = “dog years”: moving at 24/7 speed

35:49 – AI’s exponential growth & feedback loops

36:13 – AI doubling every 6 months & intelligence explosion

38:15 – AI vs humans: who adapts faster?

38:50 – How Jack uses AI receptionists in real estate

39:53 – Situational awareness in AI phone systems

41:07 – The nightmare of legacy phone trees & bad automation

42:48 – Self-correcting AI systems & agent loops

43:23 – Why small businesses can now outpace giant corporations

44:00 – One-person billion-dollar companies are coming

45:06 – AI empowers anyone to build a product in a weekend

46:55 – Vibe coding: Lovable, Cursor, Claude & the new dev workflow

47:25 – Doing in days what used to take years

47:32 – Closing thoughts before rapid fire

48:27 – Rapid fire begins: biggest lie entrepreneurs tell themselves

49:23 – Advice to his younger self: never sell Bitcoin

49:59 – Books? He reads differently now—AI & YouTube changed everything

50:57 – Are “books” disappearing? New ways of learning

51:14 – Jack’s method: uploading PDFs to a GPT project

51:42 – The future: apps replaced by conversational agents

52:00 – GPT-5 demo: game development in minutes

52:41 – Are LLMs at risk of collapse?

54:00 – Shawn’s real fear: censorship & loss of open-source models

54:44 – Final thoughts & invitation to talk again

54:55 – The #1 time-saving tool: ChatGPT, Bolt, Lovable & AI coding

56:22 – Why AI is the biggest multiplier for entrepreneurs today

56:34 – Final sign-off & where to connect with Salt Lending

#RealEstateInvesting #Blockchain #Bitcoin #ShawnOwen #SaltLending #RealDealChat #FinTech #CryptoLending #AIForInvestors #SmartContracts #PassiveIncome #FinancialFreedom #FutureOfWork #Automation

RealDealCrew.com

We empower real estate investors by optimizing your business processes through customized automation and system integration. From lead management to deal closure, we help you build a scalable and efficient operation. Learn more at RealDealCrew.com

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