WEBVTT 1 00:00:00.040 --> 00:00:05.519 And Jeremy. They're using point based custody as the sort of favor provider today 2 00:00:05.639 --> 00:00:12.279 for these ETFs, But again that kind of feels like the only game in 3 00:00:12.320 --> 00:00:16.199 town in many ways. I'm sure if you know b and Y and Melon, 4 00:00:16.320 --> 00:00:20.399 who black Rock is used for all their products over decades, if b 5 00:00:20.519 --> 00:00:23.480 and Y Melon suddenly said they want to get into this game, and you 6 00:00:23.519 --> 00:00:27.320 know it's no secret that these banks are looking at this sort of stuff, 7 00:00:28.120 --> 00:00:33.759 then you can be sure they're not going to follow a subcustody model where they're 8 00:00:33.759 --> 00:00:37.759 basically filling the role custodian, but point base is somehow underneath them. As 9 00:00:37.759 --> 00:00:41.560 a sub custodian, they're going to have someone like b and Y Melon wants 10 00:00:41.600 --> 00:00:44.960 to run everything in the house, have their own tech, have their own 11 00:00:45.159 --> 00:00:57.399 offering, which again they need control them and provide as a service. This 12 00:00:57.600 --> 00:01:00.119 content is brought to you by v chain, which is a leading enterprise grade 13 00:01:00.240 --> 00:01:07.560 Layer one public blockchain spearheading a digital revolution from a sustainable, highly scalable smart 14 00:01:07.560 --> 00:01:11.560 contract platform. The v chain blockchain has many unique features, which makes it 15 00:01:11.599 --> 00:01:18.159 an ideal choice for Web three applications. Vchain is working with many great enterprises 16 00:01:18.200 --> 00:01:23.760 such as PWCGVONCI, BMW, and Walmart China. Most recently, they partnered 17 00:01:23.760 --> 00:01:30.959 with the Boston Consulting Group to build a revolutionary decentralized application ecosystem. I'm a 18 00:01:30.959 --> 00:01:34.599 big believer in this project. I have been since twenty eighteen. I've been 19 00:01:34.640 --> 00:01:38.719 a VET token holder for years, and this blockchain is highly scalable, great 20 00:01:38.760 --> 00:01:44.519 with security and speed, and it has low energy consumption. If you'd like 21 00:01:44.599 --> 00:01:48.719 to learn more about vchain, please visit vchain dot org. Link will be 22 00:01:48.760 --> 00:01:53.640 in a description. Welcome to the Thinking Crypto podcast. You're home for cryptocurrency 23 00:01:53.719 --> 00:01:57.760 news and interviews. With me today is Sebastian Higgs, who is the co 24 00:01:57.879 --> 00:02:01.840 founder and chief operating officer at Cordial Systems. Sebastian, great to have you 25 00:02:01.920 --> 00:02:06.760 on. Thanks so having me Tony. Good to be here, Sebastian. 26 00:02:06.840 --> 00:02:09.120 I'm excited to speak with you. You have a plethora of experience as it 27 00:02:09.159 --> 00:02:14.759 relates to custody in the crypto space, and you guys are Cordial doing some 28 00:02:14.879 --> 00:02:19.080 very interesting things. So definitely have a lot of questions around what you're doing. 29 00:02:19.120 --> 00:02:22.159 But let's start with your background. Tell us about where you're from and 30 00:02:22.199 --> 00:02:28.039 your professional background as well. Sure, thing. So I'm from a town 31 00:02:28.080 --> 00:02:31.360 a few miles out of London in the UK, spent a lot of my 32 00:02:31.439 --> 00:02:36.199 years there growing up and a lot of my professional time as well. But 33 00:02:36.599 --> 00:02:40.479 I'm also our French on my mother's side, so a lot of influence from 34 00:02:40.520 --> 00:02:44.840 that side of the world, and spent some time growing up and living as 35 00:02:44.840 --> 00:02:49.080 well in Belgium and Germany. So pretty much an all around European, I 36 00:02:49.080 --> 00:02:52.919 guess you could say at this point, but yeah, London remains home for 37 00:02:53.039 --> 00:02:58.759 now. And you know, on my professional background, so I guess to 38 00:02:58.919 --> 00:03:04.080 his American terms, I majored in physics when I was at university and quickly 39 00:03:04.080 --> 00:03:07.120 decided during my master's degree that I wasn't going to sign up for a PhD 40 00:03:07.199 --> 00:03:12.360 program. Working with nanotech in a dark lab while hours of the day was 41 00:03:12.400 --> 00:03:16.360 not my idea of fun after all, so decided to quickly jump off that 42 00:03:16.439 --> 00:03:20.639 bus. Whilst my friends were owning a pay check in the city of London. 43 00:03:20.680 --> 00:03:24.639 I sort of followed suit and sold out of the science game and joined 44 00:03:24.639 --> 00:03:29.680 Goldman Sachs in their London office. So trad fire, I guess is my 45 00:03:29.759 --> 00:03:36.439 background mainly in risk management functions relating to GOTC trading business as well as securities 46 00:03:36.520 --> 00:03:42.240 lending and repay desks. And then yeah, after a few years of working 47 00:03:42.280 --> 00:03:46.759 in trad fire and moved on and left that pretty conventional career path to pursued 48 00:03:46.759 --> 00:03:53.479 the crypto thing. This was probably twenty seventeen now, which being a crypto 49 00:03:53.520 --> 00:03:57.080 podcast, I'm sure will spend a few minutes talking about that at some point, 50 00:03:57.759 --> 00:04:00.759 for sure. Yeah. So I'm fascinating about your time at Goldman Sachs 51 00:04:00.800 --> 00:04:06.439 because I know at some point they were all against crypto, you know, 52 00:04:06.479 --> 00:04:10.199 they were all naysayers, but now many of them are on board, like 53 00:04:10.240 --> 00:04:15.360 black Rock and many of the Wall Street banks. So what are your When 54 00:04:15.360 --> 00:04:17.639 you were there, were they exploring crypto, looking at bitcoin and things like 55 00:04:17.680 --> 00:04:24.399 that. So when I was, if they were, I wasn't a part 56 00:04:24.439 --> 00:04:30.720 of those conversations. However, I think my first brush with bitcoin and blockchain 57 00:04:30.759 --> 00:04:34.079 was still when I was at Goldman. So I did sort of put it 58 00:04:34.120 --> 00:04:38.000 to my MD and I said, hey, this this sort of blockchain tech 59 00:04:38.079 --> 00:04:41.560 thing. You know, well, what are we thinking? What's Goldman thinking? 60 00:04:43.199 --> 00:04:46.879 I did get some some version of an answer, so I guess you 61 00:04:46.920 --> 00:04:51.879 could say it was on the radar. I couldn't tell you how much it 62 00:04:53.000 --> 00:04:58.240 was on the radar at that point. I think, Yeah, it was 63 00:04:58.279 --> 00:05:00.879 probably just kind of this this sort of thing in the room which everyone's trying 64 00:05:00.879 --> 00:05:05.480 to make sense of. It was probably after I left, I was still 65 00:05:05.480 --> 00:05:11.040 in contact with a lot of people at the bank who could actually started to 66 00:05:11.120 --> 00:05:14.800 focus more of their time on digital assets. So I don't know if this 67 00:05:15.000 --> 00:05:18.920 was part of a newly created divisional what there certainly seemed to be people around 68 00:05:18.959 --> 00:05:25.040 twenty seventeen twenty eighteen who were definitely kind of more focused on this stuff, 69 00:05:25.079 --> 00:05:30.600 as well as some more traditional securities markets as well, So they were definitely 70 00:05:30.800 --> 00:05:34.040 behind closed doors kind of doing their homework. Show we say, that's kind 71 00:05:34.079 --> 00:05:39.600 of the impression I got, And I'm sure across the street all the banks 72 00:05:39.600 --> 00:05:44.439 were kind of doing similar things for sure. And what was your first encounter 73 00:05:44.600 --> 00:05:46.639 with bitcoin? And when did it click for you? What was your aha 74 00:05:46.759 --> 00:05:53.240 moment? Yeah, my first encounter, So I said, that's probably towards 75 00:05:53.279 --> 00:05:57.360 the end of my time at the bank, probably how a lot of us 76 00:05:57.439 --> 00:06:00.360 got inducted into this world. Yeah, and kind of said, hey, 77 00:06:00.560 --> 00:06:03.480 do you know about this bitcoin thing? And you work in a bank, 78 00:06:03.560 --> 00:06:10.000 and you know markets and such, do you have a view. So I 79 00:06:10.120 --> 00:06:13.560 kind of did a quick Google search. I think at some point I just 80 00:06:13.800 --> 00:06:16.240 you know, had a few minutes there. To be honest, I was 81 00:06:16.279 --> 00:06:19.199 initially a bit dismissive of the whole thing, you know, like I guess 82 00:06:19.199 --> 00:06:23.240 like a lot of people might go up feeling well, I was expeculative asset 83 00:06:23.720 --> 00:06:26.279 a lot of risk. You know, you win a lot of money, 84 00:06:26.720 --> 00:06:30.000 probably lose a lot of money as well, which is basically a warning label 85 00:06:30.040 --> 00:06:34.680 you could probably stick on any investment products. In hindsight, there's not an 86 00:06:34.759 --> 00:06:41.079 unreasonable position to hold on the topic. But again didn't really constitute a well 87 00:06:41.120 --> 00:06:44.639 informed or well research argument on my part. It's more just a lot of 88 00:06:44.639 --> 00:06:49.720 snap judgment. So going through the Arha moment, that was more probably during 89 00:06:50.120 --> 00:06:55.879 twenty seventeen, so after Gold, when I took a year out pursuing another 90 00:06:55.920 --> 00:07:00.839 degree at Cambridge, and whilst I was there, was reading a lot of 91 00:07:00.879 --> 00:07:06.279 stuff on blockchain technology, spending some time trading crypto using crypto service providers, 92 00:07:09.360 --> 00:07:12.600 And yeah, that's probably sort of where it clicked with me. Somewhere between 93 00:07:13.240 --> 00:07:19.720 the Bitcoin white paper and hearing address andentinopolists taught so eloquently on the subject and 94 00:07:19.839 --> 00:07:25.160 just trying things out on chain, which I think even until today people still 95 00:07:25.519 --> 00:07:29.160 generally would saying, you know, getting hands on, trying things out is 96 00:07:29.199 --> 00:07:33.360 just a great way to be a student of this nascent space. So I 97 00:07:33.360 --> 00:07:36.000 think that was kind of when I had my AHAD moment, and it was 98 00:07:36.040 --> 00:07:42.600 already clear back then as real innovation, as real use cases already in play. 99 00:07:43.439 --> 00:07:46.240 And yeah, I would generally kind of describe twenty ten to twenty twenty 100 00:07:46.279 --> 00:07:54.399 as that period where experimental digital currencies kind of announced themselves on the world stage. 101 00:07:54.800 --> 00:07:58.399 And now twenty twenty, twenty thirty, we're seeing the results of that 102 00:07:58.480 --> 00:08:01.079 kind of play out now with all these differ of things going on in the 103 00:08:01.079 --> 00:08:05.439 world, whereas black rock or CBDCs and all the rest. So yeah, 104 00:08:05.600 --> 00:08:09.800 it's probably about twenty seventeen was the AHA moment, and since then a lot 105 00:08:09.839 --> 00:08:11.800 of people seem to be having an AHA moment in the man's stream as well. 106 00:08:13.240 --> 00:08:16.800 For sure, that's an understatement, right, they're all here now. 107 00:08:16.839 --> 00:08:20.240 It seems like, you know, you mentioned Andreas Antonopolis, and he was 108 00:08:20.360 --> 00:08:24.600 a big part of how I learned about bigcoin as well, And when having 109 00:08:24.639 --> 00:08:28.560 my AHA moment reading the white paper, but then listening to Andrea's talk about 110 00:08:28.560 --> 00:08:33.799 it, so very similar. You know, a path towards learning about this 111 00:08:33.919 --> 00:08:39.600 that you had now you spent some time at, if I read this correctly, 112 00:08:39.759 --> 00:08:46.039 Genesis Global Training from that mistaken you also started a digital acid custody business 113 00:08:46.080 --> 00:08:50.600 which was acquired by them. Can you can you clarify that please? Yeah, 114 00:08:50.679 --> 00:08:56.720 so this was probably my second job in the crypto world, so joined 115 00:08:56.720 --> 00:09:01.080 a existing could storage custodian in London that was called Bolts at the time. 116 00:09:03.399 --> 00:09:07.120 So I wasn't one of the founders on this particular project, but definitely founding 117 00:09:07.159 --> 00:09:11.360 team and a part of the leadership and all the rest. But yeah, 118 00:09:11.399 --> 00:09:16.759 as you pointed out out, this custodian was acquired back in twenty twenty by 119 00:09:16.519 --> 00:09:22.679 DCG and Genesis Global Trading back when they were the biggest prime broker in the 120 00:09:22.720 --> 00:09:26.320 digital attic space. So we were very much acquired to be a part of 121 00:09:26.360 --> 00:09:30.960 that prime broker strategy. They obviously had the trading desk, the lending desk, 122 00:09:31.000 --> 00:09:35.840 derivatives and everything else, and they just needed to compliment with the custody 123 00:09:35.879 --> 00:09:39.879 side of things. So yeah, we were brought in in twenty twenty two 124 00:09:41.039 --> 00:09:43.960 to help facilitate that. So, yeah, I just meant some time over 125 00:09:45.000 --> 00:09:48.759 there. In many ways it was kind of reminiscent of being back in a 126 00:09:48.799 --> 00:09:54.159 bank. In other ways not so much as well. But yeah, I 127 00:09:54.200 --> 00:09:56.360 was there for probably about a year or say, at the acquire before again 128 00:09:56.440 --> 00:10:01.279 kind of hopping off and getting back to start because builders want to build, 129 00:10:01.960 --> 00:10:05.360 for sure. So that's a good segue into Cordial systems. You know what 130 00:10:05.559 --> 00:10:09.960 led to the creation of Cordial systems and tell us about you know, the 131 00:10:09.960 --> 00:10:16.440 services and the mission and so forth. Yeah, so I would say on 132 00:10:16.519 --> 00:10:20.000 called systems itself. So we are a technology company first and foremost. Again 133 00:10:20.360 --> 00:10:26.240 we focus on digital assets in the cryptocurrency space. Taking the long view, 134 00:10:26.480 --> 00:10:33.480 our mission is to protect enterprise resources in today's distributed environments. So resources there 135 00:10:33.519 --> 00:10:39.159 is a bit of a casual term, covering employees, machines as the users, 136 00:10:39.200 --> 00:10:41.960 as well a variety of digital assets which could be cryptocurrencies, it could 137 00:10:43.000 --> 00:10:48.399 be something else in a more general sense, as there are many digital assets 138 00:10:48.200 --> 00:10:54.960 that's sly protecting as they carry some operational value or intrinsic sensitivity. You know, 139 00:10:56.000 --> 00:11:00.919 it's not just blockchain addresses and the balances that they hold. There's also 140 00:11:00.919 --> 00:11:05.279 a bunch of other things in the enterprise which have an operational sensitivity component to 141 00:11:05.399 --> 00:11:13.120 it. So right now we focus on self custody for crypto and digital assets, 142 00:11:13.240 --> 00:11:20.360 but again this is generally applicable to a wider distributed workflow involving multiple internal 143 00:11:20.480 --> 00:11:24.840 or external parties collaborating on a task to achieve some goal in the world of 144 00:11:24.879 --> 00:11:30.480 trading. So what we have right now is our first product, which is 145 00:11:30.519 --> 00:11:33.720 called Your Treasury, and it helps institutions to run software in house for the 146 00:11:33.799 --> 00:11:39.519 purposes of holding crypto and assets across thirty five public blockchains. So all the 147 00:11:39.559 --> 00:11:45.240 bitcoin and the Bitcoin foks, the EVM chains which are out there at to 148 00:11:45.279 --> 00:11:48.600 our Slana, you name it, we've probably got it covered. So this 149 00:11:48.799 --> 00:11:54.480 product, whilst being self custody, yeah, it's kind of a label, 150 00:11:54.559 --> 00:11:58.960 I guess that's been around for a while, but we sort of approach it 151 00:11:58.919 --> 00:12:03.840 in a very different way, and we are kind of the first solution out 152 00:12:03.879 --> 00:12:07.960 there that's a sort of custody product that doesn't have all the risk associated with 153 00:12:09.039 --> 00:12:16.080 being SaaS hosted or vendor side hosted, which has been problematic in many ways 154 00:12:16.159 --> 00:12:22.879 for institutions engaging in our world with the blockchain, particularly those who are more 155 00:12:22.919 --> 00:12:28.000 of a traditional background, who like to maintain a lot of control and keep 156 00:12:28.039 --> 00:12:33.960 things in the house. They don't like to outsource as much or delegate things 157 00:12:33.000 --> 00:12:37.639 that they perceive to be critical to the functioning of their business to just some 158 00:12:39.440 --> 00:12:43.679 you know, some startup or newcomer. They generally like to retain all that 159 00:12:43.759 --> 00:12:48.519 in house. So yeah, we help to facilitate that in a way that's 160 00:12:48.600 --> 00:12:52.879 a little bit different to us on the market. So let's do like a 161 00:12:52.919 --> 00:12:56.080 Marx scenario here. So let's say black Rock, right, they have a 162 00:12:56.080 --> 00:13:00.799 big one etfter they issue, they're tokenizing on ethereum. They are in the 163 00:13:00.919 --> 00:13:03.840 running for any etherorem's body TF as well. In the United States. They're 164 00:13:03.879 --> 00:13:09.559 currently using coin based custody for you know, their bitcoin et apps and so 165 00:13:09.600 --> 00:13:15.279 forth. But let's say they use Cordial, they would be able to essentially 166 00:13:15.320 --> 00:13:20.799 build that in house self custody and potentially be able to hold those funds. 167 00:13:20.879 --> 00:13:24.480 Right, that's essentially what you're enabling these institutions to do. Yeah, I 168 00:13:24.519 --> 00:13:28.759 mean that is that is one aspect of it. So exactly right, a 169 00:13:28.799 --> 00:13:35.159 traditional player could come in and use Cordial and kind of have their own means 170 00:13:35.159 --> 00:13:41.120 to internally manage their their cryptoia or their digital assets. Specifically for the ETF 171 00:13:41.200 --> 00:13:45.399 side and black Rock, I think with the launch of the Bitcoin ETF, 172 00:13:45.600 --> 00:13:50.200 you know, we've seen that they're following a very traditional framework in that exchange 173 00:13:50.200 --> 00:13:56.480 traded products as kind of a value chain with multiple actors, and they all 174 00:13:56.480 --> 00:14:01.639 have that kind of separation of roles or response abilities. So you know, 175 00:14:01.840 --> 00:14:05.879 black Rock might be the issuer, there'll be someone else as the authright participant, 176 00:14:05.320 --> 00:14:09.600 someone else's a market maker or transfer agent and all the rest. So 177 00:14:09.240 --> 00:14:15.559 it's probably less likely that we see someone like a black Rock go down that 178 00:14:16.440 --> 00:14:22.000 go downstream and custody assets themselves. But you know, you could equally just 179 00:14:22.039 --> 00:14:24.960 look at, well, who do they use today for the custody side, 180 00:14:24.000 --> 00:14:30.440 and Jeremy, they're using coin based custody as the sort of favorite provider today 181 00:14:30.600 --> 00:14:37.120 for these ETFs. But again, that kind of feels like the only game 182 00:14:37.159 --> 00:14:41.159 in town in many ways. I'm sure if you know bing ye Melon, 183 00:14:41.240 --> 00:14:45.480 who black Rock is used for all their products over decades, if b and 184 00:14:45.600 --> 00:14:48.559 y Melon suddenly said they want to get into this game, and you know 185 00:14:48.600 --> 00:14:52.360 it's no secret that these banks are looking at this sort of stuff, then 186 00:14:52.600 --> 00:14:58.720 you can be sure they're not going to follow a sub custody model where they're 187 00:14:58.720 --> 00:15:01.559 basically filling the role because agent, but point bas is, somehow underneath them 188 00:15:01.600 --> 00:15:05.799 as a self custodian, they're going to have someone like being my melon, 189 00:15:05.279 --> 00:15:09.559 want to run everything in the house, have their own tech, have their 190 00:15:09.639 --> 00:15:16.039 own offering, which again they control and provide as a service. So that's 191 00:15:16.080 --> 00:15:18.519 a good example of someone that might come in and maybe use our use our 192 00:15:18.720 --> 00:15:22.960 products and say, hey, we're basically partnering with someone in industry, but 193 00:15:24.320 --> 00:15:28.080 we've got this as a as a standblone business line which they themselves can can 194 00:15:28.080 --> 00:15:31.919 operate. Oh yeah, that makes sense right, building that digital asset, 195 00:15:31.960 --> 00:15:37.000 crypto arm or segment of the business and they can use your technology to help 196 00:15:37.360 --> 00:15:41.600 the self host have the self hosted custody, right am I saying that right? 197 00:15:43.080 --> 00:15:46.480 Framing it right? Yeah, self hosted self custodial. I mean there's 198 00:15:46.519 --> 00:15:50.759 a lot of Yeah, crypto has always lads of labels and then buzzwords, 199 00:15:50.799 --> 00:15:54.480 but yeah, yeah, with our product, you can self host it and 200 00:15:54.720 --> 00:16:00.679 you would be self custody and that you own the underlying assets. Control over 201 00:16:00.679 --> 00:16:07.159 the underlying assets. Now, obviously you're doing this on an institutional level as 202 00:16:07.200 --> 00:16:11.120 a retail investor. In many of the retail folks who are listening, we're 203 00:16:11.120 --> 00:16:15.159 dey're familiar with the self hosted retail wallets, right, whether it be Meta 204 00:16:15.240 --> 00:16:18.080 mask or point base wallet or whatever it is. Is it kind of the 205 00:16:18.159 --> 00:16:25.360 same setup where there's private keys or is it much more complex? Yeah, 206 00:16:25.399 --> 00:16:29.639 I mean there's a lot of over that in terms of you're kind of solving 207 00:16:29.720 --> 00:16:34.440 similar problems. Like you've pointed out the private key, that's first and foremost. 208 00:16:34.720 --> 00:16:37.600 If you spend any time in the crypt said, well, do you 209 00:16:37.600 --> 00:16:41.120 know that's something you need to absolutely keep safe. And that's true whether you're 210 00:16:41.519 --> 00:16:47.759 on the institutional side or retail user. Again, there's going to be a 211 00:16:47.879 --> 00:16:51.120 range of products out there, like you pointed out metal mask, these browser 212 00:16:51.159 --> 00:16:55.639 wallets, or even you know, maybe using something like a leisure or a 213 00:16:55.639 --> 00:17:00.960 treasure if you have something a bit more offline in your sort of personal capacity 214 00:17:00.960 --> 00:17:07.839 and managing your crypto. But again, it's a very different set of requirements 215 00:17:07.000 --> 00:17:14.319 or needs that a individual will have versus an institution. So you know, 216 00:17:15.000 --> 00:17:18.359 on the institutional side, we're looking at not only is the key secure, 217 00:17:18.680 --> 00:17:23.279 and there's a bunch of questions attached to that and sort of scenario planning in 218 00:17:23.920 --> 00:17:29.480 determining is it secure or is it potentially open to you to some risk, 219 00:17:29.920 --> 00:17:33.240 But there's also everything above that around or who has access to the key, 220 00:17:33.599 --> 00:17:41.920 or how do you manage any sort of authentication and authorization of a user that 221 00:17:42.000 --> 00:17:45.240 might be interacting with that key, because again, these institutions are going to 222 00:17:45.279 --> 00:17:52.119 have teams or people across multiple teams with different interests in interacting. You know, 223 00:17:52.119 --> 00:17:55.960 it could be a compliance person, it could be an operations person or 224 00:17:56.000 --> 00:18:03.319 a trader. So you need to balance in a much bigger, a much 225 00:18:03.359 --> 00:18:08.839 bigger context from institutional side in providing this sort of product versus retail, where 226 00:18:10.480 --> 00:18:11.599 you know, you're kind of saying like, well, I want my funds 227 00:18:11.640 --> 00:18:15.759 to be safe, but I also want them to be usable in terms of 228 00:18:15.359 --> 00:18:18.319 I need to send them from A to B, but equally, I want 229 00:18:18.319 --> 00:18:23.799 to sign stuff on DeFi if I'm you know, maybe interacting with like UNISWAP 230 00:18:23.920 --> 00:18:30.680 or putting things into liquidity pools and earning some yields, you know, that's 231 00:18:30.759 --> 00:18:36.000 kind of where you may want to find that there's a lot of utility as 232 00:18:36.039 --> 00:18:40.240 well, versus you know, you could have on institutional side. Again, 233 00:18:40.279 --> 00:18:44.599 depending on institution and how well verse they are of crypto or how comfortable they 234 00:18:44.599 --> 00:18:48.440 are of crypto, they might just say I just want to secure my assys 235 00:18:48.480 --> 00:18:51.400 at rest. And also when I move them from A to B, I'm 236 00:18:51.440 --> 00:18:57.240 not yet looking at staking or interacting with UNISWAP and these other things. So 237 00:18:59.079 --> 00:19:06.200 it is quite a different landscape and versus the retail world. But again that 238 00:19:06.319 --> 00:19:08.920 they will kind of benefit from each other. So we have this thing like 239 00:19:10.279 --> 00:19:15.839 multi party computation on the institutional side, you have a countrabstraction. On the 240 00:19:15.839 --> 00:19:19.960 retail side. There's a lot of projects happening in that space now, so 241 00:19:22.039 --> 00:19:26.079 they do kind of inform each other somewhat. But again I think on the 242 00:19:26.079 --> 00:19:33.440 retail sides, you know, there's just less less boxes to tick and less 243 00:19:36.039 --> 00:19:38.640 less needed as far as bringing a power tools to the market, which an 244 00:19:38.640 --> 00:19:45.200 institution is going to want. Yeah. Absolutely. Now is your product on 245 00:19:45.519 --> 00:19:49.720 chain? Is it like on a specific blockchain? And you mentioned there's interoperability 246 00:19:51.079 --> 00:19:55.480 and you support many different coins, but is the product itself on any specific 247 00:19:55.480 --> 00:20:02.519 blockchain? So interestingly, with our product, there is a blotchain component to 248 00:20:02.640 --> 00:20:06.279 it, which is as far as I know, not something that exists on 249 00:20:06.319 --> 00:20:11.279 the institutional side today. So we use for if we have any cosmonauts out 250 00:20:11.319 --> 00:20:17.799 there who might be watching, we actually use the COSMOSSDK and the tendement consensus 251 00:20:17.839 --> 00:20:23.480 algorithm for certain parts of our system, and that enables us to kind of 252 00:20:23.519 --> 00:20:30.920 have like a custody app chain. I guess to use crypto terminology, but 253 00:20:32.000 --> 00:20:37.119 it lot a lot of benefits, so namely a lot of other solutions on 254 00:20:37.160 --> 00:20:41.519 the market today is as I said, it's sort of standard SaaS model. 255 00:20:41.920 --> 00:20:47.480 You're a customer. You're doing API calls to this vendor to use the thing 256 00:20:47.559 --> 00:20:49.519 that they host and that they offer, and you're very much kind of on 257 00:20:49.559 --> 00:20:56.400 the outside. Whereas with our products, this is a software you can run 258 00:20:56.440 --> 00:21:00.440 on the customer side on their own servers, and so those servers can act 259 00:21:00.960 --> 00:21:07.559 effectively like nodes for your own custody Cosmos blotchain. So that gives you a 260 00:21:07.599 --> 00:21:12.559 bunch of benefits around well, not having any privileged act to have access to 261 00:21:14.000 --> 00:21:17.880 any of the keys. So we'll have a key share on each of these 262 00:21:17.920 --> 00:21:21.839 nodes, so you can have four those deploy you can have ten. It's 263 00:21:21.960 --> 00:21:26.960 entirely up to the customer. And each of these nodes runs the software, 264 00:21:26.119 --> 00:21:29.759 so they don't have to trust each other. They all kind of have the 265 00:21:29.799 --> 00:21:33.880 same thing under the hood. They're all running the processes and they kind of 266 00:21:33.920 --> 00:21:36.920 say, well, right, I understand the answer to be A, and 267 00:21:36.960 --> 00:21:40.079 then they can look at each other and go, I have A. That's 268 00:21:40.119 --> 00:21:44.720 where the consensus model comes in. So if anyone is malicious or a node 269 00:21:44.799 --> 00:21:48.880 is corrupt or failing, you know, it kind of gets excluded from that 270 00:21:51.000 --> 00:21:56.599 consensus round. And you basically get to a point where these nodes not only 271 00:21:56.680 --> 00:21:59.759 have a key share themselves, but they also have the policy engine, which 272 00:21:59.759 --> 00:22:04.759 is in because traditionally in the institutional custody side, that policy engine sits with 273 00:22:04.839 --> 00:22:10.680 the vendor, which is a single location. You trust them to keep it 274 00:22:10.720 --> 00:22:15.640 secure, to sort of manage access around it. But again, if that 275 00:22:15.680 --> 00:22:19.319 gets tampered with or interfered in any way, you'll quickly discover that not my 276 00:22:19.440 --> 00:22:23.039 policies means not my keys, and therefore not my key is not my crypto 277 00:22:23.240 --> 00:22:27.640 kind of things. So there are a lot of institutional learnings around. It's 278 00:22:27.680 --> 00:22:33.480 not just about solving for the private key it's also about solving for distributing the 279 00:22:33.519 --> 00:22:37.880 policies which determine how these keys ultimately get used. And we found a great 280 00:22:38.039 --> 00:22:45.559 solution to do that, which is kind of using this cosmossitk blockchain component is 281 00:22:45.559 --> 00:22:49.039 certainly part of it. So that's another kind of bit of security innovation that 282 00:22:49.079 --> 00:22:53.480 we brought to to the custody world. That's awesome. Are you able to 283 00:22:53.519 --> 00:22:57.599 share maybe any institutions you're working with. I know sometimes these things are under 284 00:22:57.599 --> 00:23:03.079 wrapped in NDAs, but need that you can if that names maybe the types. 285 00:23:03.079 --> 00:23:07.759 Yeah, sure things. So, I mean at the moment, we've 286 00:23:07.759 --> 00:23:11.880 announced kind of back in March that this called little Treasury product is live. 287 00:23:12.599 --> 00:23:17.920 So we kind of took it to market with our early cohort of customers. 288 00:23:18.599 --> 00:23:26.119 And the two that we named of that cohort were Jump Trading Group, which 289 00:23:26.200 --> 00:23:33.039 is a propriety trading firm kind of mentioned alongside typically like DRW or Citadel or 290 00:23:33.160 --> 00:23:37.519 Jane Street. You know they're they're off that ILK. So Jump Crypto they 291 00:23:37.599 --> 00:23:41.599 use our products for all of their dish lasted trading flow. Now, another 292 00:23:41.720 --> 00:23:48.000 name we mentioned is Backpack Exchange, which if you're on crypto Twitter, which 293 00:23:48.279 --> 00:23:49.680 a lot of the audience are going to be very maim on crypto Twitter. 294 00:23:51.000 --> 00:23:53.200 You know, you probably witnessed their own incredible growth story. You know, 295 00:23:53.240 --> 00:23:59.559 they're one of the largest centralized exchanges now, particularly on the Salana side of 296 00:23:59.559 --> 00:24:04.200 things, that Slana community. So yeah, there's just two examples of customers 297 00:24:04.279 --> 00:24:10.640 we work with, but generally speaking, total treasury is therefore prop traders, 298 00:24:10.880 --> 00:24:17.960 market makers, exchanges and in techs as well that's want to offer a crypto 299 00:24:18.000 --> 00:24:22.440 product to their customer base. Now, I know we kind of touched on 300 00:24:22.519 --> 00:24:26.720 it earlier that you know, maybe depending on the jurisdiction, and like you 301 00:24:26.759 --> 00:24:30.200 know, we talked about black Rock as example and with the ETFs. But 302 00:24:30.599 --> 00:24:37.200 do you see the future of crypto being from the institutional standpoint more self custody 303 00:24:37.279 --> 00:24:41.319 kind of using your systems given that the technology is much more advanced, is 304 00:24:41.359 --> 00:24:45.359 better security layers and so forth, there's more advances like what you guys are 305 00:24:45.440 --> 00:24:52.240 essentially doing, making it easier providing all the bells and whistles with this service. 306 00:24:52.240 --> 00:24:56.720 Do you see it that more of these folks are going to self custody 307 00:24:56.799 --> 00:25:02.240 using technology like yours. Yeah, so I guess the answer is yes. 308 00:25:02.279 --> 00:25:07.079 And though so maybe just to kind of give them more context around that. 309 00:25:07.359 --> 00:25:12.960 How the institutional side has progressed so far today is you know, I mentioned 310 00:25:14.079 --> 00:25:18.640 starting off at this cold storage custodian. So the cold storage model or offline 311 00:25:18.680 --> 00:25:25.759 storage was very much the first first way that institutions were keeping their private key 312 00:25:25.880 --> 00:25:32.640 safe, and that necessitated a fully outsourced relationship. You would basically have a 313 00:25:32.680 --> 00:25:37.480 custodian or someone trying to be a custodian would basically look after your keys and 314 00:25:37.599 --> 00:25:44.119 provide all this security guarantee and you have to maximally trust them with that. 315 00:25:44.160 --> 00:25:48.319 So it requires a lot of due diligence and all the rest to properly evaluate 316 00:25:48.720 --> 00:25:55.000 those providers. However, there was also another sort of friction or difficulty, 317 00:25:55.440 --> 00:25:59.480 which is when the assets are offline, then it comes sign that you want 318 00:25:59.480 --> 00:26:04.519 to withdraw them. That process can take a little while, so if you're 319 00:26:04.519 --> 00:26:10.160 an active market participant, and again slows a relative term, but if you're 320 00:26:10.240 --> 00:26:14.960 very active in the market, it is slow to the point where it's just 321 00:26:15.000 --> 00:26:18.160 not really usable because you're maybe moving out of positions on a regular basis, 322 00:26:18.240 --> 00:26:26.119 or you need to fund your activity on an exchange. So these NPC wallets 323 00:26:26.240 --> 00:26:30.799 or multi party computation wallets came along and said you could have similar security guarantees 324 00:26:30.839 --> 00:26:36.640 to cold storage, but with the instant access of a hot wallet, so 325 00:26:36.720 --> 00:26:40.880 you don't have to suffer this lag time when it comes to withdrawing your ASSSS. 326 00:26:40.880 --> 00:26:45.160 They're a lot more usable. It isn't some like security brick where yes 327 00:26:45.200 --> 00:26:49.000 it's secure, but the trade off is you don't have the speed of access. 328 00:26:49.079 --> 00:26:53.799 So NPC wallets helped strengthen the signing operations and give a bit of power 329 00:26:53.839 --> 00:27:00.240 back to the end customer. And again they were kind of the first self 330 00:27:00.279 --> 00:27:04.160 custody type of product because they gave a key share to the customer and then 331 00:27:04.160 --> 00:27:10.319 the other key share typically resided on the side of the vendor in their service. 332 00:27:10.480 --> 00:27:14.839 So this was kind of the first movement towards self custody. And again 333 00:27:14.920 --> 00:27:18.400 that's obviously accelerated as well with the likes of FTX collapsing. People are a 334 00:27:18.400 --> 00:27:23.440 lot more aware of kind of counterparting risk or leaving assets on exchange, so 335 00:27:23.480 --> 00:27:30.640 there's just a lot more motivation towards self custodying, and that's kind of where 336 00:27:30.680 --> 00:27:36.319 we decided to step in as well as cordial systems with this treasury product, 337 00:27:36.880 --> 00:27:41.960 because again, the NPC wallets give some signing power back to the customer, 338 00:27:41.359 --> 00:27:45.359 but you still rely on the vendor to run the other ninety five percent of 339 00:27:45.400 --> 00:27:51.240 the custody processes. And we decided to really flip that on its head and 340 00:27:51.279 --> 00:27:53.440 said, well, can we make it safe that the customer can run ninety 341 00:27:53.480 --> 00:27:59.000 five and we run five percent and effectively that's that is what we've done. 342 00:27:59.279 --> 00:28:03.440 So as a partner to these customers on an ongoing basis, Cordial Systems is 343 00:28:03.559 --> 00:28:08.400 just doing code maintenance, code updates. It's a true software supplier relationship. 344 00:28:10.079 --> 00:28:14.200 You know, we don't need us to be online to sign stuff or have 345 00:28:14.319 --> 00:28:18.319 our databases working or whatever it is. You know, that can all run 346 00:28:18.400 --> 00:28:22.799 locally on the customer side, which is again extending the definition of or what 347 00:28:22.920 --> 00:28:26.680 is self custody. And if I want to have maximal control myself, I 348 00:28:26.680 --> 00:28:30.400 don't trust anyone, I don't want to rely on anyone or have dependencies. 349 00:28:32.119 --> 00:28:34.519 You know, That's that's really where we come in and that's the strength that 350 00:28:34.559 --> 00:28:40.160 we offer. So yeah, big institutions which are highly regulated or just very 351 00:28:40.200 --> 00:28:44.160 security conscious with all these things going on in the market, they're very much 352 00:28:44.240 --> 00:28:48.400 looking to take control of their assets. So that's very much where we can 353 00:28:48.400 --> 00:28:52.160 step in. Yeah. Absolutely, And what's on your twenty twenty four roadmap 354 00:28:52.240 --> 00:28:56.039 or the remainder of twenty twenty four. Yes, I mean lots of things 355 00:28:56.079 --> 00:29:03.559 going on. I mean, we're obviously always adding more and more blockchains as 356 00:29:03.599 --> 00:29:07.960 the market just moves so fast. There's main net launches every year, and 357 00:29:07.000 --> 00:29:12.160 there's some pretty big network's going live later in the year, so we've got 358 00:29:12.240 --> 00:29:17.160 an eye on that and sort of being one of the first to support them 359 00:29:17.240 --> 00:29:21.119 as an institutional wallet. That's another strength of us, just being able to 360 00:29:21.160 --> 00:29:25.720 add any new blockchain in the space of about a week, which again is 361 00:29:25.799 --> 00:29:30.480 very important for our market makers and prop traders out there. But it kind 362 00:29:30.480 --> 00:29:38.000 of besides that. We're also we've spoken so far about Oil Treasury as a 363 00:29:38.000 --> 00:29:42.519 as a product for the self custody. So all of our customers today are 364 00:29:42.599 --> 00:29:51.759 running this software in house on multiple service There is a world we're also working 365 00:29:51.799 --> 00:29:56.079 towards where you know, if you're maybe a mid size or a smaller shop, 366 00:29:56.160 --> 00:29:59.200 you might say that's that's great, but I can only run on two 367 00:29:59.240 --> 00:30:04.960 servers and I want to have Bodial or someone else run the other part of 368 00:30:06.000 --> 00:30:11.119 the software on some other servers externally, which is a very reasonable deployment model 369 00:30:11.160 --> 00:30:15.799 to have more of a kind of co hosting type of relationship. So we're 370 00:30:15.799 --> 00:30:23.799 also working to have commercial partners that can kind of host our software for institutions 371 00:30:23.839 --> 00:30:30.440 as well. And then there's even a third model, which is where things 372 00:30:30.480 --> 00:30:37.440 get a bit more interesting again. That is, do we explore having the 373 00:30:37.519 --> 00:30:42.200 software run on servers at different entities which are kind of connected in some way 374 00:30:44.039 --> 00:30:48.319 by some sort of trading agreement, shall we say so? At the moment 375 00:30:48.319 --> 00:30:52.519 today I mentioned you know FTX collapsing, that's led to a lot of what's 376 00:30:52.599 --> 00:30:57.519 known as off exchange trading now, so exchange is now more of a pure 377 00:30:57.559 --> 00:31:06.319 execution venue. Your assets there, and a lot of institutional traders are actually 378 00:31:06.880 --> 00:31:15.079 leaving assets in a cell custody or custodial account and then trading directly with those 379 00:31:15.119 --> 00:31:18.440 assets being held there, trading directly with an exchange. So there's becoming more 380 00:31:18.480 --> 00:31:25.160 and more of a divide in the responsibilities of who does what. But at 381 00:31:25.160 --> 00:31:30.039 the same time, these bits of marketing infrastructure are becoming more and more interconnected, 382 00:31:30.279 --> 00:31:34.440 which is mirroring the traditional finance world in many ways, and we sort 383 00:31:34.440 --> 00:31:40.440 of wander with our sort of unique approach of having this kind of blockchain style 384 00:31:40.720 --> 00:31:45.200 product. You can almost have nodes running, say one at the exchange, 385 00:31:45.880 --> 00:31:49.079 one other custodian, or one at the customer side, or whatever the case 386 00:31:49.160 --> 00:31:55.880 might be, and they have some sort of legal relationship that governs how they 387 00:31:55.960 --> 00:32:00.759 do for trading between them. But rather than trusting someone to you hosts things, 388 00:32:00.759 --> 00:32:04.359 they can kind of have this shared bit of software, but they all 389 00:32:04.359 --> 00:32:07.880 have transparency and they can see exactly how things are done, and it really 390 00:32:07.079 --> 00:32:13.359 opens up, It really opens up that trading relationship in a way that's not 391 00:32:13.400 --> 00:32:17.119 been possible so far. So yeah, constantly trying to improve the self custody 392 00:32:17.160 --> 00:32:22.799 thing, but equally being mindful of that a lot of our customers are active 393 00:32:22.079 --> 00:32:28.279 traders and participants in the market, so we also need to extend our product 394 00:32:28.559 --> 00:32:32.400 into other areas. Now, a question I thought I came to mind when 395 00:32:32.440 --> 00:32:39.039 you were talking about some of the upcoming things. I'm assuming that anything on 396 00:32:39.200 --> 00:32:45.359 chain, whether it's an NFT or tokenized stock or real estate, you can 397 00:32:45.359 --> 00:32:49.519 support because it's on chain, right, Yeah, exactly. From a sort 398 00:32:49.519 --> 00:32:52.400 of technical standpoint, we could support anything, you know, any sort of 399 00:32:52.480 --> 00:32:58.559 VRC twenty token, or could be a token on SOLAA or issued on some 400 00:32:58.599 --> 00:33:01.799 other chain as well. So yeah, very much from a technical standpoint, 401 00:33:01.920 --> 00:33:07.559 super easy. I guess the question always comes down to maybe the classification of 402 00:33:07.640 --> 00:33:10.440 the asset itself, to say, hey, is this a representation of a 403 00:33:10.480 --> 00:33:15.519 security or is this thing itself the security? In which case do you maybe 404 00:33:15.559 --> 00:33:21.319 need some you know, appropriate licensing regulation to permissively hold this thing? But 405 00:33:21.400 --> 00:33:24.839 yeah, you're right. So I think a good segue because one of my 406 00:33:24.920 --> 00:33:29.839 lists of stuff was to ask you about cryptoregulations. Now I'm in the US, 407 00:33:29.880 --> 00:33:34.279 you're in the UK. The US is despite some headwinds, you know, 408 00:33:34.519 --> 00:33:37.119 we've got some ets, you get some things going, but there still 409 00:33:37.160 --> 00:33:40.160 isn't clarity. I know the UK has some clarity, the EU has some 410 00:33:40.160 --> 00:33:45.640 clarity. How are you feeling about the regulations that have been put out by 411 00:33:45.640 --> 00:33:52.480 the UK and the EU? Yeah, I guess in general, all the 412 00:33:52.519 --> 00:33:59.599 regulators and different jurisdictions are kind of going at their own paces, and it's 413 00:34:00.079 --> 00:34:07.559 long time been a bit of a patchwork of different frameworks to contend with. 414 00:34:07.680 --> 00:34:12.199 So back when I was doing the Prestogian thing a few years ago. In 415 00:34:12.239 --> 00:34:14.960 many ways that was a bit of a nightmare because you're trying to be compliant 416 00:34:14.960 --> 00:34:17.960 to going to different markets, but you know, you almost have to do 417 00:34:19.079 --> 00:34:22.480 like specialized word for every market you're trying to go into, where it's US, 418 00:34:22.800 --> 00:34:28.079 UK, Europe, Hong Kong and all these things. So it still 419 00:34:28.199 --> 00:34:31.440 very much feels like that's the case, and at least in the UK there 420 00:34:31.519 --> 00:34:42.639 is a rather slow approach still to regulation. The FAA didn't roll out the 421 00:34:42.800 --> 00:34:50.320 registration component, which was more of a anti money laundering style of you know, 422 00:34:50.519 --> 00:34:54.320 just checking that you're doing your st basic compliance requirements under the money of 423 00:34:54.400 --> 00:35:00.440 ordering regulations. So that was a very obvious and a good first step in 424 00:35:00.519 --> 00:35:07.599 terms of not binding off more than they could chew and kind of making very 425 00:35:07.639 --> 00:35:12.679 difficult asks of the different providers out there, which are maybe in the context 426 00:35:12.679 --> 00:35:16.280 of CRITTO, can be just not possible and it can show a lack of 427 00:35:16.360 --> 00:35:21.480 understanding on the part of the regulator. So there's been you know, some 428 00:35:21.559 --> 00:35:24.599 good discussion and four fall progression i'd say from the UK and EU, and 429 00:35:24.679 --> 00:35:30.480 I'm maybe not as close to the US side, but like everyone else has 430 00:35:30.480 --> 00:35:36.320 been watching their legal battles, and yeah, seems to be you know, 431 00:35:36.760 --> 00:35:42.039 endless memes going around about how SEC offers investor protection and where it has not. 432 00:35:42.599 --> 00:35:45.800 So I think I think we're all in touch with that and we're all 433 00:35:45.880 --> 00:35:50.719 kind of watching whether it's in the US or from AFAR, because again, 434 00:35:50.800 --> 00:35:53.000 the US kind of leads the way in a lot of this stuff, at 435 00:35:53.119 --> 00:36:00.280 least from a long term perspective. So when we saw the coin base against 436 00:36:00.280 --> 00:36:05.639 the SEC and effectively now having case law cementing that self custody wall its does 437 00:36:05.679 --> 00:36:08.639 not mean you operate as a broker and that the wallet really is just a 438 00:36:08.679 --> 00:36:13.159 piece of technology. I think that was a huge, huge win, which 439 00:36:13.440 --> 00:36:17.480 it got some it got some air time a few weeks ago, but I 440 00:36:17.480 --> 00:36:22.039 think just in the kind of league and compliance as well, that's kind of 441 00:36:22.079 --> 00:36:27.360 given a very solid foothold to a lot of a lot of providers out there, 442 00:36:27.800 --> 00:36:30.760 and it's a really big win. So coin based are doing great things 443 00:36:30.800 --> 00:36:34.679 on that front, kind of fighting the good fight and trying to advance with 444 00:36:34.800 --> 00:36:39.559 discussion in a way that it can kind of get things to be sustainable and 445 00:36:39.719 --> 00:36:45.639 work work for everyone on the kind of a business friendly regime rather than this 446 00:36:45.679 --> 00:36:50.440 little hostility that might be a bit more prevalent in the last few years and 447 00:36:50.559 --> 00:36:54.920 all the rigmarole we had to go through to get ETF approved and the greatest 448 00:36:54.960 --> 00:37:00.039 scale doing their part on that as well. So yeah, I'm sure a 449 00:37:00.039 --> 00:37:05.559 little bit more. Yeah, and I'm hoping our Congress here acts and you 450 00:37:05.559 --> 00:37:10.280 know, get something past hopefully maybe not this year, but by next year 451 00:37:10.320 --> 00:37:15.679 at least after the election. I would love to get your thoughts on the 452 00:37:15.719 --> 00:37:19.880 bitcoin et aps. You know, in the United States. Obviously we've got 453 00:37:19.880 --> 00:37:22.880 to approve a lot of the big institutions. We saw incredible inflows this week. 454 00:37:22.960 --> 00:37:28.440 Hong Kong launched their big one in spot at APSU. There's talks about 455 00:37:28.679 --> 00:37:32.519 London where you're located, near where you're located, looking to launch in May, 456 00:37:34.039 --> 00:37:37.280 and then there was news of Australia looking to list big one in ether 457 00:37:37.400 --> 00:37:40.840 ETFs on their stock exchange. So lots happening globally with et aps. What 458 00:37:40.880 --> 00:37:47.079 are your thoughts on how things are progressing so far and the performance. Yeah, 459 00:37:47.119 --> 00:37:52.159 it's really been the narrative that's dominated twenty twenty four and I think with 460 00:37:52.320 --> 00:37:55.880 good reason, and there's been the tail went to a lot of the price 461 00:37:55.960 --> 00:38:00.960 increases we've seen over course of the years so far. So yeah, I 462 00:38:00.960 --> 00:38:06.000 think bitcoin supot ETF in the US has been a long time coming. In 463 00:38:06.159 --> 00:38:08.840 Europe, they've already been a number of exchange traded products, So if you 464 00:38:08.880 --> 00:38:15.079 want to get exposure to bitcoin throughholding securities, that's been possible for a while 465 00:38:15.159 --> 00:38:17.119 now. And then again, like we were just saying, you know, 466 00:38:17.199 --> 00:38:21.199 in many ways, US can sort of lead the way, so it's not 467 00:38:21.280 --> 00:38:27.159 surprising we're seeing other jurisdictions that have not been as quick to move. I'm 468 00:38:27.159 --> 00:38:31.320 now sort of following suit, So yeah, I mean I'm not on the 469 00:38:31.360 --> 00:38:36.519 financial market side as much anymore and certainly not giving any investment of advice, 470 00:38:36.559 --> 00:38:38.199 but I can't imagine anyone buying the ETF at the start of the year is 471 00:38:38.239 --> 00:38:44.719 unhappy about that decision, particularly if they were kept out of the market before 472 00:38:44.840 --> 00:38:49.960 due to various constraints. So I think by all means, it's it's been 473 00:38:49.960 --> 00:38:53.079 a success so far. And I'm sure you and others watching have been tracking 474 00:38:53.119 --> 00:38:59.559 the inflows and outflows over the last several weeks and just kind of how that's 475 00:38:59.599 --> 00:39:07.440 prepared to being the most impressive ETF performance in history. So by all means 476 00:39:07.480 --> 00:39:10.679 it's been a great success, right, And I think the second order effect 477 00:39:10.800 --> 00:39:16.599 here is that there's still plenty of institutional capitals sitting on the sidelines, which 478 00:39:16.639 --> 00:39:22.400 maybe said, oh, we will wait and see what the product track record 479 00:39:22.440 --> 00:39:25.280 is after six months, then maybe we'll be comfortable going in and buying some 480 00:39:25.400 --> 00:39:30.519 ourselves. Equally, if you're a portfolio manager, you know some of your 481 00:39:30.559 --> 00:39:35.880 peers are buying and getting exposure to bitcoin more so than they have in the 482 00:39:35.920 --> 00:39:39.840 past, then you don't really want to be left behind from an investment performance 483 00:39:39.840 --> 00:39:45.880 perspective if those holding bitcoin are up and you had no exposure. So you 484 00:39:45.880 --> 00:39:49.159 know, maybe that's just a long way of saying you don't want to be 485 00:39:49.920 --> 00:39:52.119 the first one through the door, but also you don't want to be the 486 00:39:52.159 --> 00:39:57.840 last. So the launch has been good and Blackgrock just has this massive scale 487 00:39:57.960 --> 00:40:02.840 distribution which is unparallel, well, then we could well start seeing a second 488 00:40:02.880 --> 00:40:07.559 wave of buyers that have kind of been tracking this thing and seeing how it's 489 00:40:07.599 --> 00:40:13.920 performed. And yeah, other markets following suit with exchange traded products in other 490 00:40:14.280 --> 00:40:20.159 more vocal jurisdictions. So I don't expect that narrative is done and We're going 491 00:40:20.159 --> 00:40:22.400 to see more of it and taking on crypto Twitter. Everyone's kind of like 492 00:40:22.599 --> 00:40:28.480 you know when e FtF now, so there's more to come for sure, 493 00:40:29.119 --> 00:40:31.159 for sure. Yeah, I'm excited. I know right now we're in a 494 00:40:31.159 --> 00:40:35.320 little bit of a cool down, a bit of a pullback, but I 495 00:40:35.360 --> 00:40:37.639 still think we got another leg up, So I'm excited to see what the 496 00:40:37.679 --> 00:40:43.719 top looks like. Awesome, Really quick before we hit the wrap up questions, 497 00:40:43.719 --> 00:40:46.480 I'd love to get your thoughts on you know, world governments are building, 498 00:40:46.519 --> 00:40:52.360 like Central bank digital currency cbdc's certainly a lot of pros, but also 499 00:40:52.440 --> 00:40:54.760 people are worried about the cons. I'd love to get your thoughts on that, 500 00:40:54.880 --> 00:40:59.480 and maybe you know also the rise in stable coin usage as well. 501 00:41:00.119 --> 00:41:06.079 Yeah, so I think you know, on the stable coins in general, 502 00:41:06.119 --> 00:41:10.079 I mean they've been one of the massive success stories of crypto. You're just 503 00:41:10.119 --> 00:41:16.880 having twenty four seven dollars on chain and being able to access that, and 504 00:41:17.519 --> 00:41:22.639 that obviously because the central banks to kind of kind of jump to it and 505 00:41:22.679 --> 00:41:24.320 also decide, well, we've got to figure this one out. They kind 506 00:41:24.320 --> 00:41:28.719 of have something I sort of compete with that they don't want to have. 507 00:41:28.880 --> 00:41:34.880 Donaldis just siphoning off into USDC or whatever it might be, and you know, 508 00:41:35.039 --> 00:41:38.360 just quickly maybe circling back to Andreas Antonopolis, we spoke about the beginning 509 00:41:38.360 --> 00:41:42.440 of the court. I think he had a very good way of looking at 510 00:41:42.480 --> 00:41:47.039 this when it started happening and saying, well, you're going to have money 511 00:41:47.039 --> 00:41:51.239 of the state, You're going to have corporate money, and then money of 512 00:41:51.239 --> 00:41:55.519 the people. So obviously cbdc's being state money, and then corporate circle with 513 00:41:55.599 --> 00:42:00.199 the USDC would be an example, and then bitcoin as kind of many of 514 00:42:00.239 --> 00:42:05.280 the people in Andreas as well. So I think that's a useful taxonomy, 515 00:42:05.480 --> 00:42:12.559 and we'll continue to see his stable coins are getting more and more adoption and 516 00:42:13.719 --> 00:42:17.480 that's just going to carry on as well. And the CBDC thing, well, 517 00:42:19.920 --> 00:42:24.119 that's still kind of in a pilot mode for now, and there are 518 00:42:24.159 --> 00:42:30.599 concerns around I guess, you know, not to go to your tinfoil hat, 519 00:42:30.679 --> 00:42:34.000 but government overreach and these kind of things like, well, if they 520 00:42:34.239 --> 00:42:39.079 control the Ledger with kind of a even more control than they've had in the 521 00:42:39.159 --> 00:42:44.119 past, you know, least cash was this kind of better asset you could 522 00:42:44.119 --> 00:42:45.960 exchange and they one can tell you what to do with your cash. But 523 00:42:46.079 --> 00:42:52.360 if the government has full programmatic control over your bank account or what you're spending 524 00:42:52.360 --> 00:42:54.119 your money on, you you can quickly go down a bit of a dystopian 525 00:42:54.760 --> 00:43:02.480 path. So who knows if those end up being realized, and there's maybe 526 00:43:02.519 --> 00:43:06.800 not so much a question of do they or do they not. I think 527 00:43:06.920 --> 00:43:13.960 just CBDCs are great for the general broader conversation and we'll probably, yeah, 528 00:43:14.119 --> 00:43:20.239 may inadvertently be a great marketing campaign for white people should have a bitcoin or 529 00:43:20.280 --> 00:43:25.199 some other commission less stable coins. So yeah, I think they all kind 530 00:43:25.199 --> 00:43:30.039 of have their place, and it's all just going to kind of help with 531 00:43:30.280 --> 00:43:35.119 seeing how things pan out over the next several years. Yeah, for sure, 532 00:43:35.519 --> 00:43:38.760 I like what you said about you know, it could actually be beneficial 533 00:43:38.800 --> 00:43:44.360 to crypto because on one hand, you know, when these governments put out 534 00:43:44.400 --> 00:43:46.679 these things like CBDCs, they're going to educate the public more about blockchain, 535 00:43:47.159 --> 00:43:53.920 so right away it breaks down a barrier of people not understanding or trusting blockchains 536 00:43:54.000 --> 00:43:57.840 or what it may be or the technology. And then to your point, 537 00:43:57.920 --> 00:44:00.039 if they see that, wait, there's even more control, I'll just use 538 00:44:00.119 --> 00:44:05.719 a permissionless stable coin or bitcoin. So yeah, that definitely makes sense. 539 00:44:06.519 --> 00:44:08.039 All right, you got some wrap up questions here for you. First, 540 00:44:08.360 --> 00:44:14.039 if you could create your own metaverse, what would the theme be. That's 541 00:44:14.039 --> 00:44:21.400 a great question. That's a tough question as well, my own metaverse. 542 00:44:22.400 --> 00:44:29.159 I mean, I'd be quite happy for metaverse that was something like a giant 543 00:44:29.400 --> 00:44:32.320 day festival. You know, you kind of turn up blue skies, it's 544 00:44:32.400 --> 00:44:37.519 warm, great music playing on different stages in the backgrounds or whatever, and 545 00:44:37.599 --> 00:44:44.559 in between you're just walking around a bunch of different tents or stools and kind 546 00:44:44.599 --> 00:44:50.559 of having these like little mini experiences or whatever. The users or the citizens 547 00:44:50.559 --> 00:44:52.400 of this metaverse want a set up and kind of bring their own thing to 548 00:44:52.480 --> 00:44:59.239 it. So yeah, it gives me something like performance arts creating something really 549 00:44:59.280 --> 00:45:02.239 wacky as a fun of expression as well, just a good bit of escapism 550 00:45:02.320 --> 00:45:07.400 overall, just to have good vibes taking in some music. You know. 551 00:45:07.719 --> 00:45:13.559 I kind of find that's my happy place anyway, when I'm just kind of 552 00:45:13.559 --> 00:45:15.960 going to the gates in the summer and just kind of enjoying a beer in 553 00:45:16.000 --> 00:45:20.159 the sun and just taking it easy with friends, you know. So a 554 00:45:20.360 --> 00:45:23.480 metaverse in that, in that way of thinking, would probably be pretty cool 555 00:45:23.480 --> 00:45:27.880 for me. Yeah, for sure, I agree with you. I'm big 556 00:45:27.960 --> 00:45:32.440 on going to like live music events and I enjoy that for sure. Rapid 557 00:45:32.440 --> 00:45:38.639 fire questions. First, is food? Favorite food, something a bit of 558 00:45:38.639 --> 00:45:44.280 spice, Korean street food. I would say nice. Favorite musician or band, 559 00:45:45.719 --> 00:45:49.280 so back to the day fest stuff, you know, bluesy rock. 560 00:45:49.599 --> 00:45:55.840 I'm going to go with guns and Roses. Nice, favorite movie Gladiator, 561 00:45:58.159 --> 00:46:04.800 favorite book picture of Dorian Gray by Oscar Wilde. H And when you're not 562 00:46:04.880 --> 00:46:08.440 working at Cordial, what are you doing for fun? Yes, if it 563 00:46:08.480 --> 00:46:14.280 isn't going to the gigs, I just spent a lot of time outside doing 564 00:46:14.840 --> 00:46:19.360 a lot of running and endurance events. Done a few ultramarathons, a bit 565 00:46:19.440 --> 00:46:22.800 of mountain climbing and such, so you know, generally you'll see me, 566 00:46:23.800 --> 00:46:28.800 yeah, going full escape as them into into the forests or going on a 567 00:46:28.880 --> 00:46:31.760 hike something to that, to that effect. And we've got a pretty large 568 00:46:31.760 --> 00:46:35.480 dog at home as well. He loves to kind of get outside. So 569 00:46:36.159 --> 00:46:39.840 time with the family and being active awesome, especially in pleasure chatting with you. 570 00:46:40.159 --> 00:46:43.760 I got to have you back on in the future. As you know, 571 00:46:43.760 --> 00:46:45.480 things progressed with Cordial, But I love what you guys. Are doing, 572 00:46:45.519 --> 00:46:50.440 and thank you so much for joining me. Thanks Tony, enjoyed it. 573 00:47:00.800 --> 00:47:06.079 The bot tak