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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