The first wave of investors who are coming into this are self directed investors.
Right next, what will happen is the track record of these bitcoin atfs will
get built up. People will see how they track to the underlying price and
bitcoint how the orderly creation and redemption of shares works, how the secondary tradings
of shares works, and they will gain confidence in the instrument. And then
over the coming six months to a year, you will start to see these
products being listed onto the wealth platforms. You'll see them start to be included
into model portfolios, and that's when you'll start to see the next wave of
money coming in. This content is brought to you by Uphold, which is
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No commingling, no lending out your funds. If you'd like to learn more
about Uphold, please visit the link in the description. Welcome to the Thinking
Crypto podcast, your home for cryptocurrency news and interviews. With me today is
Sandy Call, who's the head of Digital Assets and industry Advisory Services at Franklin
Templeton. Sandy, great to have you on. Thank you so much.
It's a pleasure to be here. Yeah, I'm excited to speak with you,
Sandy. I've seen your other interviews. I'm very familiar with Franklin Templeton
and the services and things you offer, so really excited to hear about the
journey of Franklin moving towards a bigcoin, ETF and much more. Let's start
with your background, where you're from, where'd you grow up? I grew
up in Washington, DC area and had moved to New York City right after
college, and I started in the commodity market, so the volatility of crypto
was no stranger to me. Spent a lot of my career really focusing on
very volatile marketplaces and commodities, specifically the soft so I did coffee, sugar,
cocoa, cotton, and frozen concentrate orange juice. It really is a
thing. From there, I went on and I started thinking about technology and
how technology was changing the delivery of financial services. I began to do consulting
around how technology was changing our ability to create portfolios, deliver portfolios, run
investments, provide in superior investment returns, and really started creating thought leadership about
this to advise the big global asset managers and wealth managers on how to think
about their businesses. And so I really came across cryptocurrencies in the early twenty
tens. Wrote my first big report on tokenization in twenty seventeen and took that
out to the industry, really talking about the potential for this to disrupt and
transform the traditional financial markets. And not a very happy, happily received report
back in twenty seventeen, But I think a lot of people really began to
think about it then and those who really seized it. Franklin Templeton was one
of the firms that really seized this opportunity most aggressively. I got to know
the team at Franklin Templeton and over the next few years, was so impressed
with the work they were doing and actually asked to join and joined in twenty
twenty two. So it's been a great experience to really be a part of
not just thinking about writing about through with thought leadership perspective, but actually helping
to make the future happen. Well, Sandy, you were certainly ahead of
the curve talking about tokenization in twenty seventeen when this was all still very new
for a lot of folks. You know, what was the genesis or inspiration
for you to jump to bitcoin? But we can put assets and tokenize on
the blockchain. Yeah. I thought bitcoin was so fascinating because we saw networks
taking over so much of what was happening in day to day activity and commerce,
and this whole network technology was really showing that once you start generating network
effects, there really is this snowball effect and that the community that comes together
through a network is really a vast resource. Right, So that was the
first thing that really intrigued me. I think that my aha moment for the
transition to tokenization and the broader cryptocommunity and the impacts of it would have on
traditional finance came when I started to understand smart contracts and how they work.
Because the biggest issues you have in finance is that in traditional finance, is
that for a lot of instruments, the contract that governs the instrument and the
instrument itself are two separate things, and so you spend so much time reconciling
and trying to keep these two separate items in sync with each other. And
that's where the errors come in. That's where the inefficiencies and the system come
in. And so you know, being able to eliminate those frictions just it
was an AHA moment for me that really opened my eyes as to the combination
of blockchain, the network it builds, and this transferability of assets that can
really start to become very high velocity. That just it made so much sense
to me that this is where the future was going ahead. Now we see
tokenization is becoming a much dominent initiative for many folks that we've seen Larry Fink
and many folks on TV talk about it. What is your outlook for tokenization
and the fact that we're going to have stocks, bonds, real estate fractionalization
and correct me if I'm wrong here. It could have twenty four to seven
trading because of the blockchain, no opening and closing bell, you know,
what's your outlook for tokenization. Yeah, so, I think this is the
most exciting part of what's the crypto domain has really initiated, and I think
a lot of people are missing the big story, and that is the innovation
and the creativity from the crypto exchange is crossing over and for the first time
in fifty years, we're starting to see the core financial market infrastructure that stocks
run on, bonds run on, funds run on, right, the clearing
houses, the settlement organizations, the payment organizations, all of these traditional financial
market infrastructure players are being transformed because now we are seeing the adoption and of
blockchain. We are seeing these new principles of being able to put cash and
assets on the same ledger. We're seeing the emergence of a digital wallet as
a new piece of financial market infrastructure. This is really going to change the
way that the traditional financial markets work, and in doing so, it's making
them completely interoperable with the crypto exchanges and the crypto ecosystem. So it's going
to be this very interesting merger of the two that I think you're starting to
see that level of cooperation. I think it's going to become more advanced,
but what's interesting is whether they agree with the principles of crypto and the opportunity
there or not. The true additional financial market ecosystem is starting to move on
to crypto like rails, and that's going to be a huge transformation globally.
So do you see certain markets or asset classes that are let's say specific to
the United States becoming truly global that I can be in any part of the
world. If I have Internet connection and I have access to the platforms,
I can buy a fraction of a real estate in a building in Manhattan,
and I don't know, I feel like the possibilities are endless here. It's
exponential, I guess it's the word, because you have capital coming in from
every part of the world and a truly global market. And it could be
secondary markets off this because if I hold those fractionalized shares or if you want
to call it, that, I can lend them out or do types of
DeFi activities. Am I off base there? Not at all? In fact,
I think that this is definitely the way we are headed it. The
one thing I will say that we need to get there right is right now,
what limits a lot of financial transactions is the need to do almost manual
know your customer anti money laundering review of the counterparties to a transaction to make
sure that this isn't an illegal transaction being used for illicit purposes, and that's
a very manually intensive process. Still today, I think the opportunity with digital
wallets is going to be to begin to attach the digital identity to the wallet,
so that once I have that digital identity that allows me to be properly
identified and my credentials to be checked, then the vision you painted is going
to become completely possible. Anywhere I live, anywhere in the world, any
place where I have an Internet connection, I should be able to access any
marketplace that is of interest to me, and the asset that I purchased should
become much more leverageable in terms of being able to loan them, stake them,
use them in define transactions. There's going to be I think, a
lot more personal ability to take the assets in your possession and make them much
more utile and make them something that you can really use in many different ways
to get more benefit from. Now, you mentioned digital identity, and certainly
that's the direction we're headed in, and like you said, there needs to
be kycaml and all these things involved as we head into this brave new world,
and I wonder if our identities on the blockchain will be interoperable with different
platforms. And here's an example. I can use the exchange to buy the
token ice stocks and so forth. But that's same identity is also tied into
my social profile, so that the one hundred people who are trying to impersonate
me is eliminate as well, and people can actually verify that's me on x
or LinkedIn. And then does it tie into what we're seeing in the supermarkets
where I go in my palm or I don't know my eye or something to
verify that is indeed me. Do you see a connection with all these things
because of the blockchain? Yeah, I think that's going to all come together.
I mean, I'm not exactly sure. There's a few different technologies that
people are experimenting with to get us to that point, but the intent on
all these technologies is the same. My digital identity is something that should be
able to be verifiably unique to me. It's something that should be able to
be exchanged in a transaction so that there is certainty that I am the one
initiating or receiving that transaction, and I should be able to then take back
my identity and all the data that is linked to it, to have control
over that data and make my own terminations about what to do with that data,
including selling it through data brokers and data marts to bring in additional income
for myself. So I see all of that coming together. We're probably still
a few years from finding the winning technology there, but there's so much innovation
happening in that space in particular, and you're already starting to see this idea
of accredited investors being accredited on the blockchain and being able to check that accreditation
much more easily. So we're already seeing, I think, the first steps
in that direction. It's fascinating, And I think of the movie Minority Report
where the character walks into the store and through his retina scad hello Jack or
what I forgot his name, would you like to check out this product or
whatever it is? And it's like fascinating, it's incredible, but also it's
almost a little bit draconian. And maybe it's just the change element, right,
human beings don't like change. What are your thoughts on that look I'm
a huge sci fi fan, so for years have been waiting for this world.
Right. I do think that the piece that people miss in all of
this is that once my identity is linked to me and my data is linked
to me, I choose what to share. One of the reasons we're bombarded
today and one of the I think core expectations in that movie Minority Report is
that it was the the companies, the corporations that own your data, and
so they could identify you and start to match all their data to you.
And that is indeed what is happening in Web two today. But I think
that with Web three, what starts to happen is privacy gets put back into
place and I can choose. So if it's a store I really love,
maybe I want those discount coupons, or I want that greeting when I come
in, but I might not want it in public, or I might not
want it as I'm walking down the sidewalk. Right, So, I think
that you're going to start to be able to have much more individual control,
and you yourself aren't even going to have to administer. And I think all
this new AI is going to allow us each to have our own digital assistance
that are much more personal than today's kind of Siri or Elektra Alexa. It's
going to be Sandy's digital assistant, and I'm going to be able to have
shared with my digital assistant the levels of privacy I want around different types of
transaction categories in my life. That's such a great point because to your to
what you're saying. You know, there's been a lot of oh no,
here's all the downfalls or the pitfalls, or to watch out for this,
you know, be worried about this. But it's like you said, it
will help us to take back control of our privacy because right now, I
mean, it's ridiculous right keys today, Yeah, I mean it's crazy,
and I you know, even as a content producer, I have so many
people impersonating me and messaging people and they can't verify you know at first gland
sometimes is that really Tony or is that someone else? So it's and then
you have all these data breaches out there from different companies, I mean even
some in the crypto space hardware wallets, and it's like, oh when will
this end? We need to get it on the blockchain. Yeah, And
that's where I think this merging of my biometric data with my digital data,
with my blockchain verified data, all linked to the only transaction mechanism that I
have authorized, which is going to be my digital wallet. I think that's
where this comes together in such a new way, and that digital wallet will
hold the documentation that actually verifies my digital identity and can be checked, right,
And so I think that's going to be the key, and I think
that that is where we're heading. And the point is that it's not going
to be a central authority that checks it. It's going to be me that's
controlling the access, and only when I choose to give access can people see
it. Yeah, that's credible and I can't wait for that. And I'm
sure it's going to tie into government services and voting will be regardless of what
side of alier on. I think we want to make sure we have fair
elections and there's no problems, but like the digital identity on the blockchain will
solve a lot of that. And yeah, it's just an incredible feature.
Anyway, I need to get back to the bitcoiny tail. Tell us about
Franklin Templeton. For those who don't know history and the financial services, you
offer. Yeah. So, first off, Franklin Templeton is a seventy six
year old company, and I really want to stress that because you know,
you don't exist in a marketplace for seventy six years if you can't innovate.
And I think that's a really important point. Sometimes people think traditional finance and
they think, oh, old, boring, stodgy, but they've got to
remember these firms have had to face technology challenges decade after decade after decade,
right, And so the only way you survive in an environment like that is
to be able to innovate, right. And I think that that is important
to keep in mind when you think about the Bitcoin etf because this new opportunity
has come along, right, Bitcoin itself is only fifteen years old. Most
of the digital ecosystem is ten years old or less. Yet these traditional financial
managers, particularly Franklin Templeton, spotted this opportunity built down our capabilities. We
started working on blockchain in twenty eighteen. We actually are running our own node
operations and we're acting as transaction verifiers. We are participating. We hold coins
in our own wallets, we stake those coins on the networks that require proof
of state. We have our own research teams that are engaged in doing research
on coin level opportunities. We're putting together multi coin portfolios. So we've really
embraced this space and sought to be a participant and really understand and how it
operates. And now with the Bitcoin ETF, we've been able to bring this
new pool of expertise around our digital asset unit together with our market leading ETF
franchise where we have over twenty billion in assets under management. So we've been
able to bring together these two pools of expertise from our trad FI world and
our digital world and create this new Bitcoin ETF offering. And for us,
it's a great gateway for those who are interested and trying to understand the exposure
they might get to the new what we're calling protocol economy that we think bitcoin
was the originator of. But it's also a way for them to do that
in a wrapper that can sit inside their brokerage account that they're familiar with,
that they know the sec backs right. So we think it's a perfect blending
of different expertise and we think that the traditional financial firms, particularly Franklin Templeton,
work quick to notice this opportunity, because you don't survive if you don't
innovate, and embracing new marketplaces and growth opportunities is our responsibility as an asset
manager looking to help our clients capture the best investment returns we can possibly provide
them. So I'm very proud of the firm. I'm very excited about what
we're doing, and I think that we will continue to iterate and build our
product suite and create more ways both digitally native and through traditional rappers for people
to access and really enjoy the growth and the innovation happening in this space.
That's incredible, great insight because I wouldn't have thought that Franklin Temple and you
guys are staking tokens and doing all these things in addition to the bigcoins body
TF You mentioned that you are self custodying your own crypto assets. Are you
also using the outside custodians or you're fully custodying your own assets? Oh no,
no, we're using outside custodians. We're not custoding our assets. We're
holding assets in our treasury to be able to operate on the blockchains. We're
operating across multiple public blockchains at this point, and so to be able to
operate, you need to have the coins to pay for your transactions to be
recorded. So we need those coins as part of our treasury and part of
our treasury management. So that's why we hold our coins. But our coins
themselves are held in custodial wallets, and we think all assets should be held
in safe keeping like that. Oh absolutely, that's incredible. Now, what
were your thoughts on the etf launches and how the inflows have been going so
far? Seems historic. I couldn't believe it, you know, and the
billions already coming in just after what is it two weeks now? And in
addition, I saw the bitcoin etf au M surpassed Silver's etf au M,
and I'm like, wow, that's it's a big hurdle that cross. There.
Hi, everyone, part of the interruption. I'm Tony Edward, the
founder and host of the Thinking Crypto podcast. I have a you favor to
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It allows me to bring great quality content to you. Thank you for
your support, and I'll let you get back to the content. It's been
an incredibly successful launch across the board, and it's been super exciting because there's
never really been a situation like this where so many people launch a brand new
product at exactly the same time. Again, it always invites comparisons to a
horse race, But what I always try people to get them to understand is
that this is going to come in waves. Right, the first wave of
investors who are coming into this are self directed investors. Next, what will
happen is the track record of these bitcoin ETFs will get built up. People
will see how they track to the underlying price and Bitcoin, how the orderly
creation and redemption of shares works, how the secondary tradings of shares works,
and they will gain confidence in the instrument. And then over the coming six
months to a year, you will start to see these products be listed onto
the wealth platforms. You'll see them start to be included into model portfolios,
and that's when you'll start to see the next wave of money coming in.
So I think that You've got a lot of excited self directed institutions and individuals
who have been quick to jump on the Bitcoin ETF, and I think there
will be a whole other wave of money that starts to come in as people
gain confidence in this new instrument and sy that is working as people have hoped
and expected it to work, and as it has been working, Oh for
sure. And tell us about Franklin Temple's's marketing plan or a brand awareness plan
around the ETS in educating rias and wealth managers. Yeah, so we have
three levels of education that we're working on in rolling out right now. We've
been in the space for so long. We already had a very robust primer
that's available publicly, a glossary that's available publicly to help people get oriented to
the space. But in particular now we're preparing education for self directed investors on
neo broker and wealth platforms that are looking to have short, digestible bits of
information to start to learn the space. So this should be very accessible for
people who are used to social media platforms and used to very quick learning videos.
So we have a whole set that's coming out there. We have a
set of much more traditional education content where you go through a whole court,
you take knowledge checks at the end, you really help people get certified in
understanding these new asset classes. That's going to be what we're preparing for wealth
platforms and for advisors, and then for the institutional space, we're also really
looking to roll out this education of how these new opportunities are changing the ecosystem,
where it fits into how it might transform their portfolios, because institutions look
to hold portfolios for twenty thirty forty years, right, and they think in
those timeframes, and that's a very different way of educating people about what's going
to happen with their assets. So we're really coming out with those three tiers
of education to really help people get what they need to be participating safely and
knowledgeably in the space. There was a question that came from the community because
I had published that I was interviewing you, and it was besides the different
fees that the ETFs charge, what should investors look at when deciding which bigcoin
ETF to invest in. I think you may have touched on some of it,
you know, your pedigree and crypto and so forth, but if you
can summarize that, yeah, I think, Look, I think there's a
few things that you need to think about with the bitcoin ETF is you need
someone who understands the ecosystem and understands the mechanics of how bitcoins work. Because
the issuers of these ETFs are going to become some of the largest owners of
bitcoin in the world, right, so you want to have confidence that they
understand how the ecosystem operates and that they are engaged in the ecosystem. But
by the same token, these are also ETF vehicles. This comes down to
the strength of your relationship with your market makers, with your authorized participants,
with your liquidity providers, with your custodians. There's a whole network of people
that are engaged in making an ETF operate safely, and you want to make
sure that the firm that is choosing this is a firm that also understands the
traditional finance aspects of running the ETF successfully. So it's a kind of unique
blend that we would tell people to look for, and I would tell them
to also really watch the tracking error right because there's a difference always between the
index that people are using to base these ETFs off of and the actual spot
price of bitcoin, and that tracking error can be managed. But those who
really understand the relationship between the ETF and the bitcoin will manage it the best
and get you the best return. So those are the things that I would
look at. Oh yeah, that's great, now, Sandy, hard question
for you. There's the eighty twenty investment portfolio rule. With these ETFs entering
the market and bitcoin growing in UH, I would say, adoption and awareness
and now it's accessible in retirement accounts and so forth. Do you anticipate maybe
in the next five to eight years that we see a sixty thirty ten portfolio
split, where ten is allocation to crypto and digital assets. I think that
you'll probably start to even see that sooner, but I think it will be
sub elected. Right. You always think of these portfolio configurations as conservative,
moderate, and aggressive, right, So I think in the aggressive portion of
the portfolio, you'll probably start to see those types of configurations emerge fairly quickly.
I think for the more moderate you might see a one to two percent
type of allocation initially, and then for the conservative they will still kind of
keep away from these assets because of the volatility. But as we're already seeing
with bitcoin, Once this money starts to come in and these market mechanisms around
keeping the relationship between the spot asset and the index et in sync, volativity
tends to go down. So I think that as the volatility in the whole
ecosystem goes down, it will become more and more included as a regular part
of portfolios. And what do you think about the dynamic layer of not to
get more of it, but just it is life. The changing demographic millennials
and gen zers more into digital. They they're not so much into gold,
but they're into bitcoin, crypto, NFTs and things along those lines. And
as the generation shift takes place in the next ten to twenty years, it
could be a ten percent or higher. Right for as a standard, it
won't happen overnight. But what are your thoughts on that? Well, I
think, you know, it's inherent in what we use to actually describe these
generations. We call them digital natives, right, and digital is the way
that they view the world. They carry their world around in their phone.
All of us do, but for digital natives, this is what they perceive
to be a standard way to operate and live, right. And so you
know, I'm older, I went through the process of could I trust this
internet to pay for things over the internet to can I trust us to use
these payment vehicles like Venmo? To can I trust it to pay with crypto?
Right, I've had to go through a journey, But other people who
have grown up in younger generations, this is their world right. So holding
these assets in their wallet, having them digitally accessible, expecting there to be
embedded benefits for holding these assets. All of these are going to become commonplace
expectations, we feel in the next ten years, and it will transform the
way that portfolios are built and the way that the immediacy of using the portfolio
as part of your day to day living starts to permeate the thinking today,
investment portfolios tend to be something that sits off to the side of your life.
We think, because of the utility of tokenization, it will be something
that you can actually use every day in your life and still achieve those longer
term goals. M As you're saying that, I'm thinking about tomic settlements and
like we were talking about before tokenization, fractalization, secondary markets, like you
said, being able to lend out and these different assets. So yeah,
it could be so fast, not and real time that Yeah, in the
daily life you could be using it. It's just fascinating. Yeah, I
think you're going to see more and more of this digital this crossover between digital
and physical items and being able to move seamlessly between the digital and the physical.
That's going to become also, I think, very commonplace, and it
sounds fantastical today, but I remember when they told me that I would be
able to buy tickets for a concert and choose my seat over the internet,
and I thought that sounds fantastical. So, you know, the speed with
which these things get integrated into our day to day lives is sometimes amazing,
But when you look back on it, it was very clear that it was
headed in that direction. Oh absolutely. Now we I mentioned earlier that the
bitcoin ETF AUM surpassed silvers, we got gold as the next target. Do
you think that happens this cycle or maybe it's the next cycle that you're around
twenty thirty or so it surpasses Gold's AUM. I'm not sure, but I
do think that, you know, with the having coming up and with the
new ETF as an access vehicle, you've got this odd kind of collision of
supply tightening at a time when demand is rising and you just don't know how
volatile that set of circumstances might become. And so, you know, I
think it's going to really We're going to have to watch and see. I
think a lot of the fomo or the fear of missing out that many people
felt during the last big having cycle rally that in part was harder to get
over because you had to go through all the mechanics of accessing the bitcoin in
the digitally native ecosystem. Now with the ETF, it might be much easier
for just average investors who don't want to take that extra work to get into
the ecosystem to access it. So you might see something extraordinary, or it
might be much more orderly because you've got now all this management of the volatility.
I think it could really go in either direction. Yeah, for sure.
I'm curious to see how things play out as well, because the ETF
is such an interesting factor, and I'm already seeing in my network of family
and friends that the psychological barrier around crypto and bigcoin is being broken out.
The fear or it's so hard? What is a wallet address? And how
do I do this? I had a cousin call me, hey, I
saw you see approved in ETF and how do I believe Yeah, bringing that
performing as a class in eight of the last ten years. I mean,
once people start to understand that and understand it can be access through a vehicle
that they understand and are familiar with, right, I think that that could
be a very powerful combination. Now with the Bigcoin's body TF approved, there's
talks of possibly an Ethereum's body TF also coming up sometime down the line,
maybe this year, maybe next year. But there are some complications here.
Look, the sec UH was not we're happy to approve this. The courts
made them do it. What are your thoughts? Could we see an Etherorem's
BODYTF in in near future? Look, I think that you know, as
you think about the growth of any product set, right, you know,
we started in the ETF world with very simple S and P five hundred ETFs,
right, because that was an easy index to get to, and then
it's grown from there to thousands of different equity ETFs. Right. So it's
unrealistic to think you're only going to have one aspect of an ETF in the
crypto space. We will eventually have huge product sets of etf single asset ETFs
like Bitcoin or Ethereum, and multi coin ETFs that represent more blended indexes,
which is actually better from a diversification and investment perspective. So you know,
we're at the beginning of the journey. It might be a few more hurdles
to get the ether ETF out. You have to also think about the fact
that there is staking in that ecosystem, and that there's rewards being paid out,
and is it possible to pass through those awards to the underlying investors.
These are new complications that ethereum offers that Bitcoin did not. But I think
it's absolutely realistic to think over time that you will see Ethereum and many other
coin and even multi coin ETFs. That's a great point you brought about steaking.
I don't even know how that's going to work, but yeah, how
how is that? I mean, well, I guess if you want to
or it could be an ETF that's no staking involved, and maybe there's one
with staking. I don't know what to tbd tv D. Yeah, Now
I'm curious what other crypto initiatives Franklin Templeton has on its roadmap for twenty twenty
four as much as you can share, because I'm sure many things are under
you know, pr release and NDAs and so forth, but what can you
share there? Well, we have already been rolling out a number of products
in our In our digital asset unit, we have our tokenized US government money
market fund that sits on blockchain, and that is a separate product that we
offer and we have already been building AUM and we've been running that product now
for over two years now on blockchain, so that's a very stable product.
As part of our growth, we have separately managed accounts that we offer to
advisors that have multi coin portfolios available to be traded as a discretionary basis,
and we have a whole range of eleven model portfolios from fully discretionary to fully
systematic. We have a venture capital fund that we are trading in blockchain and
Series A early and Series A investments where we're looking to really spot how do
we continue to see the ecosystem build out and find the winners in that ecosystem.
And we have patented our own wallet technology that we're thinking about how do
we then start to bring more fund choices from the traditional fund world into that
wallet infrastructure for those individuals that want to be able to trade in a digitally
man native manner in their regular real world asset portfolios. So we have a
whole number of initiatives going on that we have been developing for quite some time.
We're excited about their growth and we're excited to see what twenty twenty four
brings. I'm fascinating by the wallet as much as you can tell us.
Would that like tie into the existing of Franklin Templeton app platform? And is
it a self custodial wallet where you own the private keys? What can you
share there? Yeah, So we're a transfer agent and in order to actually
bring out product on blotchain, we developed our own transfer agency stack working with
the SEC, and we were able to demonstrate to the SEC that we could
keep good control over all of the digital assets that we administered through this.
So to do that, we needed a wallet solution that could be tied into
kycaml into this transfer agency process. And so that's why we develop this wallet
infrastructure, and we as the transfer agent, are able to keep the keys
and the personally identifiable information UH safe off chain, but tie it to the
on chain wallet so that we are we are able to not only administer the
coins effectively, but if someone were for whatever reason to lose their coins,
to lose their key to their personal holdings, we have all the information that
we would need to be able to recreate those coins for them. So it's
you know, how do you operate like a true transfer agent in the digital
space. And that's what we have built and that was really the start of
our digital asset journey. Wow, I really want to learn more about that.
I'll have to have you on maybe back again to have a conversation specifically
about that, because I'm so waiting it into patient for a proper solution.
Not that there aren't you know, great options right now, but for the
masses that makes it easy. For the average Joe and Jane walking down the
shoot, there is not you know, the lives are busy, they're not
focusing on crypto. But if they want to participate, it's it's easy,
it's not it's intimidating, it's not scary. And then waiting for that,
Yeah, well, I think the biggest thing that's standing in the way of
that is really we need clearer regulation here in the US, and that regulations
would open up a lot I don't think that the limitation at this point is
the technology. I think that if the if the regulations were to become you
know, clarified, and we knew exactly how we could co mingle these crypto
assets with traditional assets in the same wallet, that wallet infrastructure could be made
very available, very quickly and very easily to individuals, and you could even
tie it to you know, the platforms that you used and most frequently in
your life. But I think we still need the regulators to come together and
make decisions and give us the framework so that everyone is operating with legal clarity.
And I think that's what's going to take to get us to that point.
But I don't think it's far off. Since we're talking about cryptoregulations,
we get a couple of bills in the House to insenate we are moving in
the right direction. For sure, one can argue the government moves very slow.
But what else is now? Do you think despite the presidential election year,
that maybe we see something this year the two bills move out the House
or this is maybe a twenty twenty five thing. I think that with an
electioneer upon us, you never will see anything too transformational. I think people
get very nervous ahead of elections. My hope is that with the election out
of the way, this could become a very top of my twenty twenty five
agenda item. Yeah, and I know there's some level of urgency because,
for example, the SEC has been taking some losses in court for example Ripple
Gray Scale, they're battling coinbase right now. So hopefully Congress can act soon
and put all these things to rest. I know we're up on time,
so uh, let's do the wrap up questions. If first, if you
could create your own metaverse, what would the theme be? Oh? I
think that the theme would have to be uh gosh, that's a hard one.
In my own metaverse, I think the theme would have to be great
concerts. I love going to concerts, so I would love to be able
to see all my favorite music and all my favorite plays and all my favorite
aret live and make it feel like I'm really there in the room with everyone.
Yeah, that would be great. I think that's in the works.
We're seeing some of it pop up here and there for different places, but
it needs more iterations to make it more realistic and immersive. Rapid fire questions.
Favorite food, Oh, I love Buffalo Chicken Wings. Favorite musician or
band Pearl Jam. Oh, yeah, favorite movie probably the original Blade Runner.
Oh, Sandy, you and I share some similar in finnies, like
I love Blade Runner, I love pro Jam. Favorite book that's a really
tough one. I think one of the books that transformed my thinking the most
was snow Crashed by William Stevenson, and that was really my first introduction to
the metaverse and it just blew my mind this idea that you could have this
whole virtual life, and it was very transformative for me. So I'd have
to say that's one of my absolute favorites. I'll have to check that one
out. And finally, when you're not working at Franklin Temple and what are
you doing for fun? Oh? I played very competitive scrabble with my friends
nice and go to a lot of concerts and I like to Sandy, absolute
pleasure chatting with you. I got to have you back on because you have
a great understanding of this technology and a great outlook and perspective. Thank you
for joining me. Thank you. It was such a fun conversation. I
really enjoyed it.