Speaker 1: You can see different types of assets that it did
Speaker 1: not necessarily make sense for someone to go through an
Speaker 1: IPO type transaction to offer them. But assuming the SEC
Speaker 1: does start to regulate more in a way that it
Speaker 1: allows for a more fluid and efficient way to do
Speaker 1: those tokenizations that will unlock classes of assets if there's
Speaker 1: not a good traditional market. Analog for.
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Speaker 2: Link will be in the description. Hey, folks, welcome into
Speaker 2: the Thinking Crypto Podcast. I'm your host Tony Edward and
Speaker 2: joining me today's Ashley Ebersol, who is the co founder
Speaker 2: and chief legal office at TX, which is a unified
Speaker 2: operating system and marketplace where real world assets that facilitates
Speaker 2: the digital issuance, trading, and settlement of tokenized assets through
Speaker 2: a global network of regulated partners.
Speaker 3: Ashley, great to have you.
Speaker 1: Thanks so much for having me Tony. It's great to
Speaker 1: be here with you. And yeah, looking forward to our.
Speaker 2: Discussion absolutely, and I'm so excited to dive into what
Speaker 2: TX is doing because tokenization is all the rage right now.
Speaker 2: Many firms and institutions, many of the trad five firms,
Speaker 2: are all looking to tokenize assets. And you also spend
Speaker 2: a lot of time at the SEC. So I have
Speaker 2: a lot of questions for you, But let's start with
Speaker 2: your background. Where are you from and your professional background.
Speaker 1: I am one of the few natives from Washington, d C.
Speaker 1: In the center of the city, and I currently live there.
Speaker 1: I was gone for ten twelve years, including in about
Speaker 1: three years in New York law school, down in Nashville, Norfolk, Virginia, Cleveland,
Speaker 1: Ohio clerking for judges, and then back in d C.
Speaker 1: Since then, so it's uh, it's been and actually in
Speaker 1: almost a year in Mexico City, which was great when
Speaker 1: I was in finance. But yeah, now in d C,
Speaker 1: and it's a great place to be at the center
Speaker 1: of a lot going on in the in this space.
Speaker 2: Now. You spent about over four years at the SEC
Speaker 2: as Senior Council.
Speaker 3: Tell us about your time there and some of the
Speaker 3: work you did.
Speaker 1: Sure it was, it was it was almost five years
Speaker 1: slightly less, but I you know, coming in I had
Speaker 1: been at Scadden for for almost six years and had
Speaker 1: done a lot of SEC regulatory work and defense work,
Speaker 1: So initially it was just the other side of that,
Speaker 1: which you know, was a great learning experience. But pretty
Speaker 1: early on I had the opportunity to work on the
Speaker 1: early world groups there that were looking at crypto assets
Speaker 1: and blockchain technology and how should these assets be treated,
Speaker 1: how was the SEC going to look at them, to
Speaker 1: engage with the technology groups. Members of our working group
Speaker 1: issued the Dow Report in the summer of twenty seventeen
Speaker 1: that established the SEC has jurisdiction over it. If it's
Speaker 1: a security, it doesn't matter or what the underlying technology
Speaker 1: is by which it's being offered. And from there, you know,
Speaker 1: there was a lot of enforcement initially, just sort of
Speaker 1: lay down boundary markers. I candidly thought it would shift
Speaker 1: at some point to doing the prescriptive work of regulation.
Speaker 1: It didn't while I was there. It seems that work
Speaker 1: is finally starting now, which is great. Paul Atkins is
Speaker 1: a visionary leader there and he really sees the potential
Speaker 1: of this technology and is finally leading the hard work
Speaker 1: to modernize the markets.
Speaker 3: So it's been quite a journey for the SEC.
Speaker 2: And you know, you worked under the tenure of the
Speaker 2: two chairs Mary Joe White as well as Jay Clayton,
Speaker 2: and I know this technology was still very young back
Speaker 2: then and everyone who was trying to figure out what
Speaker 2: is it, how does it work? So it wasn't the
Speaker 2: natural progression, you know, over the years that everybody was
Speaker 2: figuring out their regulators and now to your point, under
Speaker 2: a chair Atkins, we're now getting some of the rulemaking
Speaker 2: and guidance and so forth.
Speaker 1: I think that is the natural progression. We're missing about
Speaker 1: four years where the SEC was really no other way
Speaker 1: to put it than other than hostile. Yeah, and that
Speaker 1: was a huge missed opportunity. I was at a law
Speaker 1: firm at that time leading the crypto practice, and for
Speaker 1: about a year you could still engage with the SEC.
Speaker 1: You could talk to them about projects and why you
Speaker 1: thought of certain securities law of treatment applied to you know,
Speaker 1: some aspect of this business and you know, maybe some
Speaker 1: sort of exempt of relief was proper or something. They
Speaker 1: those meetings became impossible to schedule eventually after check Gensler
Speaker 1: got there, and you know, you didn't you couldn't have them,
Speaker 1: So that had two real effects. I mean they yes,
Speaker 1: they lost the opportunity to do the regulatory work, so
Speaker 1: we're way behind where we could be. But also the
Speaker 1: SEC lost all of the expertise and technical know how
Speaker 1: that was in the industry and continue to develop in
Speaker 1: the industry. Had they there been a fluid conversation, the
Speaker 1: SEC would have stayed abreast of all that rather than
Speaker 1: having to read about it. So it was really a shame.
Speaker 1: But you know, we're back on the right track now,
Speaker 1: and yeah, the SEC is is being extremely productive in
Speaker 1: what they're doing.
Speaker 2: Pardon the interruption. Hi, I'm Tony. I'm the host of
Speaker 2: the Thinking Crypto podcast. I wanted to ask you if
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Speaker 3: Now, you are.
Speaker 2: Obviously in the legal field as a you know, counsel
Speaker 2: and these things. What made you decide to or what
Speaker 2: was the moment that you said, you know, I see
Speaker 2: this technology, this is an industry I want to go
Speaker 2: work but also be a founder. You know, what was
Speaker 2: your aha moment?
Speaker 1: I think once I started working with the technology more deeply,
Speaker 1: I left. So I left b CLP the law firm
Speaker 1: in summer of twenty two to become general counsel at
Speaker 1: zero X, the big defive platform. And that was really,
Speaker 1: I guess, sort of the leap of leaving a very
Speaker 1: familiar environment for me by that point of law firms
Speaker 1: to go to a startup and learn all their technology
Speaker 1: as best I could. I mean, don't look at me
Speaker 1: to code neithering, but to understand the technology and what
Speaker 1: it could do. And really that, you know, really just
Speaker 1: cemented my focus on certainly stay abreast of all the
Speaker 1: financial regulatory laws, all the securities laws and developments there.
Speaker 1: That's just necessary. But having this specific application in the
Speaker 1: crypto space, it really introduces problems that are they just
Speaker 1: don't exist anywhere else, and it makes it really interesting.
Speaker 1: That's why I got into it the sec in the
Speaker 1: first place. You know, it's you're back to the early
Speaker 1: days of the securities laws to see a lot of
Speaker 1: the scenarios that have played out in this industry where
Speaker 1: you had read about them in you know, legal textbooks
Speaker 1: and like, well, yeah, but when could that ever happen?
Speaker 1: But it did happen then in the crypto industry because
Speaker 1: it was a technology that was just growing and just
Speaker 1: sort of get in its footing. So yeah, it's it's
Speaker 1: been extremely interesting and continues to be so.
Speaker 2: On that note, the how we test right served its
Speaker 2: purpose for the time period that was in and you
Speaker 2: know the type of products we have, stocks and so forth.
Speaker 2: But with crypto coming along with tokens that are on
Speaker 2: distributed networks across the globe, do you believe the how
Speaker 2: we test needs to be expanded to include tokens and
Speaker 2: coins or its separate test has to be created for
Speaker 2: these instruments.
Speaker 1: So it's just the nature of law. And this is
Speaker 1: not going to be a satisfying explanation for a lot
Speaker 1: of people in the industry, but it's just the nature
Speaker 1: of securities law that it's principles based. So even though
Speaker 1: the Howie test was about orange groves in Florida and
Speaker 1: people investing in them, you can't just say, well, yeah,
Speaker 1: but these aren't oranges. So it doesn't apply. I mean it,
Speaker 1: you know, the ideas apply. At the same time, I
Speaker 1: do think there's a lot that hasn't been clear about
Speaker 1: the way the sec has applied it. A lot of
Speaker 1: damage was done by the very aggressive four years under
Speaker 1: Chairman Gensler, where there were legal theories advanced that just
Speaker 1: did not have any basis in existing law, and it
Speaker 1: was a sort of essentially the best way to describe
Speaker 1: it is they were trying to come up with new
Speaker 1: legal theories of why cryptotokens themselves were securities. There's no
Speaker 1: absolutely no law for that. The law is around selling
Speaker 1: an opportunity to investors. Of you invest in this opportunity,
Speaker 1: we're going to do the work to develop it. You're
Speaker 1: going to reap the proceeds. That's the sort of simplest
Speaker 1: way to explain how we whether you're investing in a
Speaker 1: token based project, whether you're investing in Orange Groves, whatever.
Speaker 1: They tried to come up with things like, well, it's
Speaker 1: not actually just that scenario, it's the token itself can
Speaker 1: be a security because everything that's said in marketing that
Speaker 1: scenario gets somehow physically embody physically embodied in the token
Speaker 1: and travels with the token like that. There's no law
Speaker 1: for that, you know, Like I mean, I you hold
Speaker 1: a physical share of IBM, I could buy it from
Speaker 1: you for five bucks and you give it to me
Speaker 1: like that, you know is not We haven't done anything
Speaker 1: that that violated the law there, you know. And you
Speaker 1: also didn't I mean, I transferred ownership of a security
Speaker 1: because you had to be the share certificate. The share
Speaker 1: certificate itself wasn't the security. If you had told me, hey,
Speaker 1: you know, I'm supposed to become chairman of ip IBM
Speaker 1: tomorrow and I'm going to do all these new things,
Speaker 1: and so you, as an IBM stockholder, are really going
Speaker 1: to profit, you should buy this share from me for
Speaker 1: an inflated price, and that would start to look more
Speaker 1: like a securities transaction because there's you know, promises being made,
Speaker 1: representations about what you're gonna do. You know, my reasonable
Speaker 1: expectation would be like all that stuff sounds good, good,
Speaker 1: And I trust that guy, and you know, I'm going
Speaker 1: to rely on him and to to generate profits and
Speaker 1: I'm not going to do anything. I'm a passive shareholder.
Speaker 1: He's going to do all the work. Sure, So that's
Speaker 1: how he you know, how he is not the piece
Speaker 1: of paper is somehow a security.
Speaker 2: Right, Yeah, it's it's the contract around it or the
Speaker 2: scheme to speak, great, Yeah, exactly, it's the investment scheme
Speaker 2: is yah, which scheme always has a little bit of
Speaker 2: a nefarious contact the investment out of the.
Speaker 3: Plan, right yeah, yeah for sure. So let's talk about
Speaker 3: t X. What is TX and what is the.
Speaker 1: Missione TX is a platform that connects regulated entities globally
Speaker 1: UH for purposes of tokenization. It allows investors to find
Speaker 1: tokenhosed opportunities tokenized asset opportunities that are being issued via
Speaker 1: those regulated entities U in and to you know, also
Speaker 1: should they be entities that want to issue tokenized assets,
Speaker 1: they can find those regulated tokenization providers and they can
Speaker 1: you know, use them to transact. So it's really sort
Speaker 1: of the connective tissue from a technical technological perspective for
Speaker 1: the industry.
Speaker 2: It's kind of like a tokenized asset marketplace that where
Speaker 2: builders can come and launch, but also people looking to
Speaker 2: buy tokenized assets or invests they can come and also
Speaker 2: find those assets or bridge connections.
Speaker 1: Yeah, and think about like Amazon and the Amazon marketplace,
Speaker 1: you have marketplace sellers those would be the regulated entities.
Speaker 1: You have all sorts of consumers, some of which are
Speaker 1: small businesses, you know, like so you've got B to B,
Speaker 1: you've got B two C, you've got issue or sellers.
Speaker 1: So yeah, I mean all different facets are represented.
Speaker 2: That's interesting because I haven't heard of any other platform
Speaker 2: like this. I know there's firms like securitizes which help
Speaker 2: companies to launch, but I haven't heard about a marketplace.
Speaker 3: So this is the first time I'm hearing of this.
Speaker 1: Yeah, I mean, I think the history of this industry
Speaker 1: is best we can decipher it is you had a
Speaker 1: lot of sort of siloed tokenization projects that would be
Speaker 1: really good at you know, tokenizing real estate or you know,
Speaker 1: doing a very specific thing like figure and like tokenizing
Speaker 1: debt like that kind of thing.
Speaker 2: But.
Speaker 1: Not a problem. A lot of those businesses did fantastically well.
Speaker 1: But the issue with that is you may have all
Speaker 1: sorts of liquidity in that specific asset, but it's pretty
Speaker 1: siloed inside that issuer. And so the idea behind TX was,
Speaker 1: what if you had a way to connect all of
Speaker 1: these regulated issuers and allow consumers to be able to
Speaker 1: see all the opportunities that are available to them and
Speaker 1: sort of discover information about about all these regulated entities
Speaker 1: and and what they're what they're issuing.
Speaker 2: So what type of institutions are leveraging your platform.
Speaker 1: Well, the regulated entities that are within the network, broker
Speaker 1: dealers in the US and analogous platforms all over the
Speaker 1: world are using it to Yeah, I mean to reach
Speaker 1: you know, investors, consumers, that kind of thing. And so
Speaker 1: they're sort of the both think of them as both
Speaker 1: the endpoints of of some inbound you know, people looking
Speaker 1: for you know, whatever it is that that that issuer
Speaker 1: is selling, but it's also outbound because obviously you know,
Speaker 1: they're trying to distribute to to investors and they sort
Speaker 1: of depend on that in terms of consumers. Then yeah,
Speaker 1: I mean it's you would use it the same way
Speaker 1: use Amazon. You know, you're I use it for a
Speaker 1: lot of things. But you know, you say, I, you know,
Speaker 1: I want to invest in Latin American real estate, like
Speaker 1: I want to find an issuer who from whom I
Speaker 1: can purchase tokens like that, or you know, with Solo
Speaker 1: techs our joint venture with US broker dealer, I want
Speaker 1: to invest in US stocks. That's actually kind of a
Speaker 1: big opportunity for a lot of people who have, you know,
Speaker 1: digital wallets, they haven't previously had a chance to buy
Speaker 1: actual stocks that come with voting rights, come with dividends,
Speaker 1: are backed one for one by a share of stock
Speaker 1: that at the time of purchase, a token's mented that
Speaker 1: you can hold in your wallet, but a share of
Speaker 1: stock is also acquired that is held at the at
Speaker 1: the custodian level, the clearing broker. So you know, it
Speaker 1: opens up different asset classes to folks who you know,
Speaker 1: want to transact out of their digital wallets. You know,
Speaker 1: and studies show that for certain age cohorts, they may
Speaker 1: not have a traditional financial account when they get to
Speaker 1: the mindset of I heard I should look at buying stocks.
Speaker 1: I heard the stock market is a good place to be.
Speaker 1: Maybe they'll go and set up traditional financial accounts somewhere,
Speaker 1: but if they have the opportunity to buy solo tech
Speaker 1: stock tokens in their digital wallet, you know, we uh,
Speaker 1: we're happy to uh to serve that need.
Speaker 2: So it sounds like it's an international platform, so folks
Speaker 2: in different parts of the world, institutions as well as
Speaker 2: customers can come and participate.
Speaker 1: Yes, I mean, we're expanding the network of regulated entities
Speaker 1: as fast as we can. So it's a little bit
Speaker 1: dependent on that, sure, because you know, we don't want
Speaker 1: to and or should we hold the uh the registrations ourselves,
Speaker 1: the regulatory red strations ourselves. But we depend on the
Speaker 1: regulated entities because in the United States and in most jurisdictions,
Speaker 1: the process of tokenizing, you know, whatever the real world
Speaker 1: asset is is a regulated transaction. So we're not going
Speaker 1: to be engaging in that. We're not going to be
Speaker 1: doing the work of uh you know, the legal work
Speaker 1: around it. We're not going to be doing the issuance
Speaker 1: of those assets and then on the consumption. And you know,
Speaker 1: if it's in the United States, our broker dealer partner
Speaker 1: would be overseeing that. If it's abroad, uh, you know,
Speaker 1: let's say you're in in in the Middle East, you're
Speaker 1: in Dubai. Uh, you know, a VARA regulated entity would
Speaker 1: be ensuring that people who want to come in on
Speaker 1: the ground in Dubai and buy assets from one of
Speaker 1: these other markets. That's all done in compliance with the
Speaker 1: applicable local laws. So it's again we're sort of the
Speaker 1: technology layer connecting these various users, issuers and that sort
Speaker 1: of thing.
Speaker 2: And what are the common assets being tokenized on your platform?
Speaker 2: You mentioned real estate? Is it stocks, money market funds
Speaker 2: and things like that.
Speaker 1: Yeah, so the solo tech stock tokens, real estate investment
Speaker 1: funds both from the United States and abroad, other sort
Speaker 1: of more esoteric assets like vintage cars and that kind
Speaker 1: of thing that needs to be a little more at
Speaker 1: scale than Sure, it's a lot to do that for
Speaker 1: a single car.
Speaker 2: Right, So sorry enemy theater, But where does a liquidity
Speaker 2: come for something like that when it's that small and
Speaker 2: it's not an asset that has broad reach so to speak.
Speaker 2: That not a real estate you know people, Oh, I know,
Speaker 2: I can get a house in disc region and a
Speaker 2: lot of people around the world may want to do that,
Speaker 2: but a car.
Speaker 3: I don't care about cars.
Speaker 2: So how do they find the liquidity and build that market?
Speaker 1: Well, I guess two things are we have market makers
Speaker 1: for these assets. But also yeah, I mean, just like
Speaker 1: you know in the traditional financial markets, there's not a
Speaker 1: buyer for literally every asset. So you know, some some
Speaker 1: issuers are going to be frothier maybe as a way
Speaker 1: to put it, so, or the markets and their assets
Speaker 1: will be frothier than others, And yeah, there will not
Speaker 1: be I do not think there would be a an
Speaker 1: individual car. It would be you know, the end issuer says,
Speaker 1: I've got a collection lead. Yeah, I would think. But yeah,
Speaker 1: I mean, and then there's currency instruments. There's four domestic
Speaker 1: debt intellectual property rights including you know, like streaming rights
Speaker 1: and the rights to revenue streams associated with streaming that
Speaker 1: kind of thing, which starts to look more like a
Speaker 1: structured finance deal. But yeah, I mean, it's really anything
Speaker 1: that that the issuer wants to put on chain.
Speaker 2: And you mentioned you know, you don't get involved with
Speaker 2: the issuance and the laws and support based on jurisdictions.
Speaker 2: So is it up to the Let's say I want
Speaker 2: to go invest in a certain asset as tokenized on
Speaker 2: the platform, and it comes from an institution in China
Speaker 2: or in whatever country. Just the thing EXA's probably not
Speaker 2: Okay or Hong Kong. Let's say let's put another Singapore.
Speaker 2: Are there like verifications that are done so I know
Speaker 2: this is indeed this institution, here's what the assets custody,
Speaker 2: what goes through that process of how do I verify
Speaker 2: these things?
Speaker 1: So in the United States, and it's going to be
Speaker 1: in in each market, but in the United States, the
Speaker 1: broker dealer has to do due diligence on each of
Speaker 1: these offerings. And there are analogous systems in every major
Speaker 1: market where you know there they have to verify that
Speaker 1: what is there, what they say is there is there?
Speaker 1: You know, in the US, a regulated uh qualified custodian
Speaker 1: has to be holding titled to the assets and that
Speaker 1: kind of thing. So you know, there is a lot
Speaker 1: of legal infrastructure around around that. Got it?
Speaker 3: Got it?
Speaker 2: Can an individual like myself if I have a rare
Speaker 2: basketball rookie card Michael Jordan rookie card example, and I
Speaker 2: want to tokenize that, Can.
Speaker 3: I do that as an individual? I have to go
Speaker 3: through an institution.
Speaker 1: You would need to go through the institution. I mean,
Speaker 1: it would be a little expensive to do that for
Speaker 1: a rookie card. I think I have not traded in
Speaker 1: the cards market since I was a much younger. I
Speaker 1: wasn't a man in my you know, adolescent years. But
Speaker 1: were there to be something sufficiently valuable, you could do
Speaker 1: it as an individual. You would work through the regulated
Speaker 1: identity so you would work through the broker dealer as
Speaker 1: the individual who holds title that asset and wants to
Speaker 1: tokenize it.
Speaker 2: Right, and which blockchains are you supporting that these institutions
Speaker 2: can tokenize on.
Speaker 1: Initially, we have our own layer one TX chain and
Speaker 1: it has a bridge to the XRP ledger. We are
Speaker 1: open to other bridges and we probably will be adding
Speaker 1: those in the near future. But the reason we're most
Speaker 1: comfortable for now sticking with the TX chain is that
Speaker 1: t X tokens, so this will be all of the
Speaker 1: tokenized assets initially that are issued on TX are smart tokens.
Speaker 1: We presented this to the SEC during our meeting with
Speaker 1: Crypto Task Force a month or two ago, and what
Speaker 1: smart token means is that they can be routed by
Speaker 1: smart contracts, just like most other cryptotokens. But the token
Speaker 1: itself on the TX chain also has the ability to
Speaker 1: be programmed, so you can program into that token. This
Speaker 1: token can only be transferred to an address that's on
Speaker 1: this white list, or this token cannot be held in
Speaker 1: a jurisdiction that's on this sanctioned country's list, like that
Speaker 1: kind of thing. Sure, so you know, some of that
Speaker 1: can be done purely natively on chain. Some of it
Speaker 1: requires interaction with oracles. But it's one of the really
Speaker 1: cool aspects of txchain that I think, you know a
Speaker 1: little bit of a laundeerd and maybe you know thinks
Speaker 1: that's really cool because of like, oh, that would take
Speaker 1: you know, checking the jurisdiction of all these people. Otherwise
Speaker 1: you have to put in IP blocking and stuff, you know,
Speaker 1: but if you can have it natively in the token,
Speaker 1: that solves a lot of problems. And that's why we
Speaker 1: were talking to the SEC about it, presented it to
Speaker 1: them just because we think it has a lot of
Speaker 1: applications and from a regulatory perspective too.
Speaker 2: I know the SECA if I'm not mistaken, they're currently
Speaker 2: working on tokenizing or rules for a tokenization of assets.
Speaker 3: Do you have any insights there.
Speaker 2: Anything that you know of and when we may see
Speaker 2: that and is it kind of related to what you
Speaker 2: were asking them for.
Speaker 1: We weren't really asking them for them. We were more
Speaker 1: presenting to them. But the reporting around the innovation exemption
Speaker 1: that was talking about, you know again about a month
Speaker 1: or two ago, was that they were close to allowing
Speaker 1: trading in you know, some blockchain based uh stocks and
Speaker 1: that kind of thing. But again the reporting was that
Speaker 1: there were concerns around the ability to police things like
Speaker 1: restricting transfer of tokens to you know, certain defined parties
Speaker 1: or walling off certain jurisdictions, that kind of thing. So
Speaker 1: I I'm not close enough to the agency to know
Speaker 1: precisely where that stands currently, I will say t X
Speaker 1: tokens could solve a lot of those problems. So you know, maybe, uh, well,
Speaker 1: we're open to another conversation if if we could be helpful.
Speaker 2: Absolutely, can those tokens be used in DeFi or is
Speaker 2: it still too earlier? We need you know, the regulatory
Speaker 2: clarity who determine.
Speaker 1: That you're talking about like the solar tech stock tokens. Yeah,
Speaker 1: so we're really early on stock tokens and those need
Speaker 1: the green light from the SEC. But specifically they also
Speaker 1: need the cooperation of FENRA, the Financial Industry Regulatory Authority,
Speaker 1: the broker dealer self regulatory organization, because certain exemptions are
Speaker 1: needed to allow for trade the way that crypto trades
Speaker 1: and trade settlement and that kind of thing does not match.
Speaker 1: No surprise, when the way the laws were written, you know,
Speaker 1: decades ago or even you know a few years ago,
Speaker 1: so you need to get certain exemptions to allow for
Speaker 1: you to in the correct way issue you know, tokenized stocks.
Speaker 1: So you know our broker dealer partner tech Exture has
Speaker 1: had those conversations. But the end of those is that
Speaker 1: in the initial phase, these you know, the stock tokens
Speaker 1: can be sold, held in your digital wallet, you can
Speaker 1: redeem them back to Solo techts. We believe that in
Speaker 1: phase two of the Solo Texts project and of tokenization
Speaker 1: in general, additional secondary market trading maybe possible, but that's
Speaker 1: probably not going to be there right at the beginning.
Speaker 2: So talking about the overall aspect of tokenization and where
Speaker 2: we're headed in the future of finance, do you see
Speaker 2: that the current assets that are in the market, that
Speaker 2: are listed in exchanges will all be tokenized, or maybe
Speaker 2: it will be seventy percent of them, because not necessarily
Speaker 2: everything needs to be tokenized.
Speaker 1: I'm going to give you two answers. To me, it
Speaker 1: makes logical sense that you will have an entire class
Speaker 1: of tokenized assets that are things that it doesn't make
Speaker 1: sense to your example about the individual car, assuming you
Speaker 1: could find a way for it to make sense to
Speaker 1: do it on chain because of the efficiencies that brings
Speaker 1: that kind of thing I mean, you would still need
Speaker 1: to do the regulatory side of it, and that's often
Speaker 1: the costly part. But if that's difficult, trying to do
Speaker 1: that in the traditional space is doubly difficult. I would say. So,
Speaker 1: I don't know that it's going to be the individual car,
Speaker 1: but you can see different types of assets that it
Speaker 1: did not necessarily make sense for someone to go through
Speaker 1: an IPO type transaction to offer them. But assuming the
Speaker 1: SEC does start to regulate more in a way that
Speaker 1: allows a whether it's the innovation exemption or whether it's
Speaker 1: additional regulations being issued, that allows for a more fluid
Speaker 1: and efficient way to do those tokenizations that will unlock
Speaker 1: classes of assets that previously you know that there's not
Speaker 1: a good traditional market analog for you then have what
Speaker 1: the question you just asked all of the existing traditional assets.
Speaker 1: And this also a little bit depends on the SEC,
Speaker 1: but it also depends on the industry. So there's been
Speaker 1: a lot of stories about DTCC in a lot of ways.
Speaker 1: The ultimate sort of traditional finance player, the New York
Speaker 1: Stock Exchange NASDAK and others doing pilots to explore how
Speaker 1: they can use blockchain to explore how they can experiment
Speaker 1: a little more with with crypto assets and technology because
Speaker 1: they see its potential obviously, So you can see two
Speaker 1: different potential worlds happening. One in which yes, you want
Speaker 1: an on chain representation of every traditional financial asset that's
Speaker 1: out there, because you want those to be available to
Speaker 1: everyone who's transacting on chain, which opens up, you know,
Speaker 1: the potential for Marcus to trade, you know, twenty three,
Speaker 1: twenty four hours a day, five days a week, seven
Speaker 1: days a week, whatever it is, so a lot more liquidity.
Speaker 1: But if the SEC goes the route of n DCCC
Speaker 1: and the stock exchanges go the route of you know,
Speaker 1: this technology does bring a lot of efficiencies, and we
Speaker 1: think it is worth investing in overhauling our markets a
Speaker 1: little bit to modernize them and bring in technology in
Speaker 1: a way that we haven't before, and that does it
Speaker 1: performs functions that have impossible before. Then you can see
Speaker 1: it becoming the legal record, of legal authoritative record for
Speaker 1: all financial transactions, in which case, yeah, you're going to
Speaker 1: see movement of everything on chain in a much more
Speaker 1: full scale way than they currently is.
Speaker 2: So in the process of building this infrastructure out, you're
Speaker 2: going to have some leaders and some laggards, right, some
Speaker 2: folks will have tokenized versions of let's say SpaceX, Tesla,
Speaker 2: Apple and so forth, but you may have the traditional
Speaker 2: assets still out there. How do we and this may
Speaker 2: be something the SEC is thinking about, how do we
Speaker 2: avoid different price and I don't know, different issues that
Speaker 2: may come up because you have two separate markets.
Speaker 1: Almost so in the initial stage, every tokenized asset needs
Speaker 1: to be backed by a traditional asset. So with SpaceX,
Speaker 1: you know, the issue with SpaceX was there was massive
Speaker 1: demand and limited supply. All of that was going through
Speaker 1: traditional rails. It's not like there was an on chain
Speaker 1: supply and a traditional market supply and there were problems,
Speaker 1: different problems with each it was the same problem. All
Speaker 1: of them were drawing on the traditional market. So, you know,
Speaker 1: I think that in terms of assets, you know, being
Speaker 1: backed and not having a dislocation between prices, as long
Speaker 1: as there's an actual share underlying each of these tokenized representations,
Speaker 1: the market makers should be able to sufficiently keep the
Speaker 1: price within an acceptable ban of each other. Possible that
Speaker 1: things come up that were unforeseen, but you know, as
Speaker 1: long as the underlying share is still there, it's difficult
Speaker 1: to see. I think if we do get to a
Speaker 1: world where you've got on chain traditional stocks, and then
Speaker 1: the tokenized representations still there in a parallel market, and
Speaker 1: the on chain can now settle as quickly as the
Speaker 1: as the tokenized representations. I don't know, it'd be interesting
Speaker 1: to watch. We're not there yet. I think if we
Speaker 1: get to a world where we do really have parallel markets,
Speaker 1: you know, probably you're going to start to see one, yeah,
Speaker 1: potentially being priced more as a as a derivative. I
Speaker 1: don't know, it'll be interesting to watch and and to
Speaker 1: think through.
Speaker 2: I'm sure some people are going to try to arbitrage trade.
Speaker 1: As the arbitrage isn't there already.
Speaker 2: Yeah, yeah, yeah, it's like decided, but the arbitraged trading
Speaker 2: you can write event contract Like, there's a lot you
Speaker 2: can do now.
Speaker 1: That you couldn't previously do. But from a legal perspective,
Speaker 1: that makes it makes it exciting and makes it really interesting,
Speaker 1: you know, just getting your mind around all these new
Speaker 1: products that are coming on and they're all still viewed
Speaker 1: through the same law, but applying that law to them,
Speaker 1: knowing having that at a regulator or having worked with regulators,
Speaker 1: you know, how the regulator is likely to look at this,
Speaker 1: you know, and then making judgment call. I mean that
Speaker 1: that's what a lot of this is. But it's a Yeah,
Speaker 1: it's an interesting place to be.
Speaker 2: And with tokenized assets, it seems the direction we're heading
Speaker 2: in is truly global markets, real time running on blockchain,
Speaker 2: instant settlements and things like that. Do you see these
Speaker 2: assets being brought to people around the world who couldn't
Speaker 2: access them before, Like they couldn't buy a SpaceX stock
Speaker 2: or a fraction of.
Speaker 3: It or whatever it may be.
Speaker 2: But maybe in countries in Africa, South America, other parts
Speaker 2: of the world through tokenization, they can access these assets now.
Speaker 1: Definitely, and there's massive interest abroad. We have these conversations
Speaker 1: with regulated entities outside the US all the time, and
Speaker 1: one of the things the most interested in is how
Speaker 1: do we get access to solo techs? How do we
Speaker 1: get access to US stocks? Yeah, because to your point,
Speaker 1: you know, it's not like a citizen of wherever, Argentina
Speaker 1: or something you can call out a broker dealer in
Speaker 1: New York and say, hey, I want to open a
Speaker 1: I mean, it's just maybe it should work that way,
Speaker 1: but it doesn't doesn't. So you know, this allows for
Speaker 1: or exposure for them to get exposure to the US
Speaker 1: stock market through a regulated product.
Speaker 2: Are there any risks that you can think of or
Speaker 2: that you know could potentially be a risk for tokenization
Speaker 2: of assets, not when it's fully completed, but during the
Speaker 2: process that concerned you.
Speaker 1: During the process of bization or saying where the industry.
Speaker 2: Is, where the industry is going, you know, because to
Speaker 2: your point, no rules officially yet from the sec might
Speaker 2: be around a corner. But you know, there's always bad
Speaker 2: actors in markets, right, in every every industry, every market.
Speaker 3: Bad humans will be humans.
Speaker 1: That's why we have the securities laws in the first place,
Speaker 1: right because people were being sold, you know, investment schemes
Speaker 1: around all sorts of things didn't exist, weren't, you know,
Speaker 1: so right, So.
Speaker 2: Is there anything that you think could be a risk
Speaker 2: in the process of tokenizing these assets.
Speaker 1: I'm sure that there are risks, But if you think
Speaker 1: about look at SpaceX, it's actually a decent example. You
Speaker 1: did have a scenario there where do the massive demand.
Speaker 1: You know, there were a cohort of traditional broker dealers
Speaker 1: who users had put in orders for to buy IPO
Speaker 1: stock of SpaceX, and they couldn't fulfill those because of
Speaker 1: the massive demand. It was you know, two to one oversubscribed.
Speaker 1: That happened on the crypto side too. The crypto side,
Speaker 1: a lot of it was dependent on you know, a
Speaker 1: broker dealer having access to those shares and they pre
Speaker 1: sold you know, participation in those shares on the expectation
Speaker 1: that they'd be able to access the actual underlying shares
Speaker 1: and we'd be able to fulfill those orders. It was
Speaker 1: done a little bit differently on the traditional side. The
Speaker 1: way that usually happens is you put in a conditional order,
Speaker 1: like an indication of interest. It's like a conditional order
Speaker 1: that says, you know, if I can get twenty shares
Speaker 1: of this, I would like to buy that, and you
Speaker 1: know your usually your money stays in your account. If
Speaker 1: they can fulfill the order, your money moves and that
Speaker 1: transaction is executed. The reporting is that some platforms on
Speaker 1: the token is stock side had actually pre sold and said,
Speaker 1: you know, get participation in SpaceX stock, and they actually
Speaker 1: collected investor money, so you know, when they didn't get
Speaker 1: the shares to underlie those stocks and issue them, the
Speaker 1: investors were disappointed. Understandably, they had to refund the investors
Speaker 1: money and stuff, So it's not like people lost money.
Speaker 1: To me, it's sort of an informational lesson to be
Speaker 1: learned of. Sure, investors have to know exactly what they're buying.
Speaker 1: They have to do reading or let you know, Claude
Speaker 1: do reading for them on exactly what they're what they're
Speaker 1: buying and what the risks are. And you know, am
Speaker 1: I one to get these shares? Hopefully it'll tell you no,
Speaker 1: you know if that if that's there, and the disclosures,
Speaker 1: but you know, all that money was refunded, so it
Speaker 1: wasn't like it was a scandal. It was just a
Speaker 1: little bit exposed that some of the token ized stock offerings,
Speaker 1: the differences among them and what you're actually buying. Are
Speaker 1: you buying a synthetic asset that just has price exposure.
Speaker 1: Are you buying something that purports to actually have a
Speaker 1: share of stock behind it? You know, with the Solo
Speaker 1: Tech stock tokens, you don't get the token until you
Speaker 1: select to buy that stock through our broker dealer and
Speaker 1: the stock is purchased, and at the same time, a
Speaker 1: token is meanted that you can hold, so you're never
Speaker 1: going to have one without the other. And so I
Speaker 1: think you know, with an IPO like this and transacting
Speaker 1: in advance of it, you know, things might have gotten
Speaker 1: a little ahead of themselves. But you know, I don't
Speaker 1: see I see that there's more a lesson than some
Speaker 1: sort of tragic occurrence.
Speaker 3: Right, Yeah, poor execution maybe that type of thing.
Speaker 1: Well, and maybe it's tragic you didn't get into SPACEXIT
Speaker 1: at that price. I mean I think it's below that price.
Speaker 2: Well, on that note, do you see in the future,
Speaker 2: you know, given that all these assets are coming on chain,
Speaker 2: that companies are going to IPO on chain versus the
Speaker 2: traditional way.
Speaker 1: I think you're likely to have actually sort of initially
Speaker 1: what we talked about. You're likely to have companies in
Speaker 1: the same way that you can have an IPO and
Speaker 1: you can have it i PO in the US and
Speaker 1: also simultaneously have like an ad R depository receipt issued abroad,
Speaker 1: you know, or have a representation of an issued abroad.
Speaker 1: You know, you might see things like that where these
Speaker 1: two different markets. I said ad R eight R is
Speaker 1: actually for foreign companies to be excess the US market.
Speaker 1: But you can have you could go public on you know,
Speaker 1: the London Stock Exchange, New York Stock Exchange, if you
Speaker 1: were sufficiently big.
Speaker 2: But.
Speaker 1: I think you will have, you know, pools of equity
Speaker 1: reserved for on chain, pools for traditional and we may
Speaker 1: get to a world. You know, we talked about if
Speaker 1: the institutions and the major markets all moved towards on
Speaker 1: chain infrastructure. Yeah, I mean, then exactly what you said
Speaker 1: on chain i pos will be how you do an
Speaker 1: i PO initially, you would think, and the movement is
Speaker 1: likely to be a little bit more of on the
Speaker 1: on chain component is kind of a sidecar to the
Speaker 1: other I P O. Maybe that becomes the main IPO
Speaker 1: and the traditional is you know, so we'll see how
Speaker 1: it plays out.
Speaker 2: Do you think individuals, let's say an Elon Musk decides
Speaker 2: to tokenize himself, that that might be a thing her
Speaker 2: ownership or it's like you can bet on on him
Speaker 2: in a certain way.
Speaker 3: Maybe it's more on the meme coin side of things
Speaker 3: versus it.
Speaker 1: Sounds like a prediction market.
Speaker 2: Yeah, thing, but but in a whirl of tokens can
Speaker 2: be issued and and you know, things can be monetized.
Speaker 1: Why not, Yeah, I mean, look you could. I mean
Speaker 1: I joked about prediction mark like, sure, I'm sure there
Speaker 1: is there's probably is a contract out there is Elon
Speaker 1: Musk gonna do X next week next week like that.
Speaker 1: You know that's probably probably you could probably buy into
Speaker 1: that if you need to want to. But yeah, I
Speaker 1: mean I think celebrities, certainly David Bowie, the Bowie Bomb,
Speaker 1: and this is I don't even know if I was
Speaker 1: alive when when those were issued, but you know I've
Speaker 1: read about it. You know, you could have a lot
Speaker 1: more celebrities, artists you know that say hey, you know,
Speaker 1: I don't want to wait till after I'm dead and
Speaker 1: my catalog gets you know, securitized. I want to do
Speaker 1: it on still alive and raise money and so people
Speaker 1: you would quote unquote get a piece of them, yeah,
Speaker 1: you know, in terms of what they're producing and the
Speaker 1: revenue from that and that kind of thing. And I
Speaker 1: think the Bowie, I mean, he had to sell if
Speaker 1: memory serves, that had to be done through an SPV,
Speaker 1: you know, special purpose vehicle, and he had to sort
Speaker 1: of the rights had to transfer to that, and then
Speaker 1: they were issued out of that. So you'd probably see
Speaker 1: something analogous happening now. I mean a lot of tokenized
Speaker 1: assets are done via an SPV like structure because yeah,
Speaker 1: I mean there's not for for several reason, for legal
Speaker 1: removal from the actual a set for ease of actually
Speaker 1: just saying this is what is being fractionalized because we
Speaker 1: set up this SPV and you're just selling interest in
Speaker 1: the SPV rather than something getting really messy. And if
Speaker 1: it's real estate, you're saying, we're gonna sell direct interests
Speaker 1: in this building. Okay, the disclosure document for that's going
Speaker 1: to be prohibitively large cause you gonna have zoning and
Speaker 1: like everything. I mean, if you're buying the actual build,
Speaker 1: you know, so rather than an entity or structure that
Speaker 1: you know holds rights to that kind of thing. So yeah,
Speaker 1: I mean a lot of really interesting permutations of this
Speaker 1: I'm sure will be coming.
Speaker 2: Yeah, it's fascinating. And that's a great example with David Bowie's,
Speaker 2: you know, with his catalog and things like that. A
Speaker 2: lot of artists could do that and maybe they could
Speaker 2: get more money because they'll be able to bring in
Speaker 2: liquidity capital from across the globe.
Speaker 3: Versus just in.
Speaker 2: The United States and specifically it to a record label
Speaker 2: or things like that.
Speaker 1: Yeah, I mean I think so, you know, it's I mean,
Speaker 1: in that industry, really is. Specifically, there's already a lot
Speaker 1: of interesting stuff going like Taylor Swift and having like
Speaker 1: Taylor's version, you know, because everyone went with her, right,
Speaker 1: I mean, I didn't know what that was. My wife
Speaker 1: eventually explained to her that she's also a lawyer, so
Speaker 1: she was like, oh, that's interesting. That's cool. But you know,
Speaker 1: you've got fan bases following the artist. You've got the
Speaker 1: artist saying you may have bought all of this stuff
Speaker 1: in this version, but there's a new version and you
Speaker 1: should buy, you know, and they want to support it. Yeah,
Speaker 1: you can definitely see things like that being on chain
Speaker 1: and UH and really having a lot more UH distribution
Speaker 1: and liquidity on chain.
Speaker 2: Now we're in the cusp of getting the Claritiact pass.
Speaker 2: It's we actually get some good news today that you know,
Speaker 2: the bill is going to make its way to the
Speaker 2: Central Floor in July. Obviously we got to wait for
Speaker 2: it to pass. We don't know what's going to happen.
Speaker 2: But when that passes, do you think that unlocks more
Speaker 2: innovation with tokenization, allowing more institutions to you know, dive in,
Speaker 2: even though they may be dipping your toe right now.
Speaker 1: I think it will help to a degree. I do
Speaker 1: think Clarity is an apt name for it, because I
Speaker 1: think it's a lot about clarifying existing law, not about
Speaker 1: making new law necessarily. It's a lot about putting down
Speaker 1: in writing what lawyers who've been in this space for
Speaker 1: a while have been able to discern around where is
Speaker 1: the SEC and CFTC boundary lines, where do they fall?
Speaker 1: But it has always been, you know, a big gray
Speaker 1: so you have had to make judgment calls and that
Speaker 1: sort of thing. And I do think Clarity will make
Speaker 1: hopefully live up to his name and make that a
Speaker 1: little clearer, and we'll also make it clearer get lawyers
Speaker 1: for everyday people to be able to understand, you know,
Speaker 1: what is what asset wise, what's the security, what's the commodity?
Speaker 1: Who's a regulator? Who have to worry about, Uh, don't
Speaker 1: worry about who I need to engage with, you know
Speaker 1: on this that kind of thing. I think the missed
Speaker 1: opportunity for Clarity is that you don't have a lot
Speaker 1: that's prescriptive of saying how you can move from assets
Speaker 1: that are currently in the physical world to get on
Speaker 1: chain representations of them and to allow that to happen
Speaker 1: in a more efficient way. I think that'll be coming.
Speaker 1: I think there are institutions that perhaps not perhaps I
Speaker 1: mean it's you know, reported publicly that there's institutions that
Speaker 1: have been hesitant to get as involved in the crypto
Speaker 1: space as they might have because, yeah, maybe they hold
Speaker 1: a a broken dealer license, but what they want to
Speaker 1: trade looks like it might actually require a CFTC registration.
Speaker 1: They don't hold that, or they don't want to go
Speaker 1: through the process of getting it, or they don't have
Speaker 1: a contractual relationship with any will allow them to access
Speaker 1: that market or something. So it's not black and white
Speaker 1: for them, so they're not not going to do anything
Speaker 1: right now. Hopefully it will clarify. Thanks for institutions like that,
Speaker 1: But I think the big unlock will come once you
Speaker 1: have law out there that says you take an asset,
Speaker 1: you take an asset, and whether it's an innovation exemptionure,
Speaker 1: whether there's prescriptive legislation and regulations that then come that
Speaker 1: say this is how you can tokenize an asset and
Speaker 1: have it on chain rather than needing to seek an
Speaker 1: exemption from FENRA for how settlement's going to happen. You know,
Speaker 1: that's now law, and you don't need to go one
Speaker 1: by one and seek exemptions. You know, this is the law,
Speaker 1: and there's going to be sec regulations around it. So
Speaker 1: I do think that there will be an unlock coming
Speaker 1: once we get to the more prescriptive side of how
Speaker 1: do you tokenize things? How do you make this easier
Speaker 1: rather than having people having issuers need to go and
Speaker 1: seek exemptions and that kind of thing, which if all
Speaker 1: the exemptions are granted, great, but that's still an additional step,
Speaker 1: and that's friction that doesn't allow a market to grow
Speaker 1: to the potential that it otherwise would.
Speaker 2: So Ashley, ten years from now, twenty thirty six, what
Speaker 2: do the markets look like with tokenization in place?
Speaker 1: We'll absolutely have I don't know, twenty four hour a
Speaker 1: day trading, but probably twenty three hour a day, five
Speaker 1: seven days a week trading. You know, we're not going
Speaker 1: to be constrained by market hours anymore. I don't think
Speaker 1: things are becoming too global for conventions like that. I
Speaker 1: think to continue to hold. But you know, so I
Speaker 1: think that that innovation, I mean that has already been
Speaker 1: coming to a degree, but it's been sort of forced
Speaker 1: also by what's available on chain now and just how
Speaker 1: quickly settlement can happen in that context. So I think
Speaker 1: that there will be efficiencies like that. I think that
Speaker 1: you're going to have markets that will have a plethora
Speaker 1: of assets beyond what's currently available in UH to a
Speaker 1: mass market audience. I think you're going to have You're
Speaker 1: gonna be able to go to t X or other
Speaker 1: markets and be able to transact in almost anything, whether
Speaker 1: it's a physical you know, an r w A, whether
Speaker 1: it's an event contract, whether it's traditional I mean, inequity
Speaker 1: is r w A because unless you've got an equity
Speaker 1: already on chain as it's sort of you know where
Speaker 1: it natively was issued, but you know, equities, derivatives, all
Speaker 1: of that, you know through our regulated partners are are
Speaker 1: going to be available and UH, and I think it's
Speaker 1: going to produce a lot of liquidity that, like I
Speaker 1: said at the beginning and we discussed, is currently siloed
Speaker 1: into this is where you go for this specific market.
Speaker 1: This is where you go for this specific market, both
Speaker 1: geographically and in terms of product.
Speaker 2: Going to be very fascinating to see how that plays out.
Speaker 2: And I'm assuming AI is going to be a big
Speaker 2: part of it. In helping manage and markets when we're
Speaker 2: sleeping and things like that.
Speaker 1: Yeah, I mean, I was actually just messaging some of
Speaker 1: our engineers earlier about this of you know, AI is
Speaker 1: a really interesting technology to come about in parallel with
Speaker 1: crypto markets and tokenized asset markets, because one can't really
Speaker 1: exist without the other if you think about it. I mean,
Speaker 1: I guess it could. But if you've got AI and
Speaker 1: you have agents that are ready to transact in or
Speaker 1: transact or transfer money or whatever it is, it's difficult
Speaker 1: to think that they're going to do that over like
Speaker 1: ach rails, or that you know, they're going to only
Speaker 1: operate during market hour, you know, like whatever it is. Like,
Speaker 1: it's difficult to see AI fitting into a lot of
Speaker 1: the traditional ways of doing things. But what it seems
Speaker 1: tailor made for is to transact on chain because it
Speaker 1: can talk to the un chain systems. They can interact.
Speaker 1: They can you know, if it's solo techs, stock tokens
Speaker 1: or other TX network tokens. The AI can see the
Speaker 1: programming there and read the restrictions there, and I mean
Speaker 1: it almost obviates the need for like an oracle. If
Speaker 1: it's an AI agent and the aigent knows when I
Speaker 1: read this programming, I am not allowed to do this
Speaker 1: with that. I should do this with that, you know,
Speaker 1: whatever it is, whether it's a restriction or a mandate,
Speaker 1: I think it'll be a really big efficiency transformation. Oh absolutely.
Speaker 2: I'm excited for the day when I can have an
Speaker 2: AI agent trading my assets twenty four to seven and
Speaker 2: make me more money, hopefully. Hopefully.
Speaker 1: Yeah, I would probably still, I don't know. I'm sure
Speaker 1: that people who check the market to an obsessive degree
Speaker 1: would still check the market. Okay, and they're holding to
Speaker 1: an obsessive degree, but for sure, my mom is that way.
Speaker 1: It's fine, it is what it is.
Speaker 3: You know, absolutely, actually great stuff. I have some wrap
Speaker 3: up questions here for you. First, early bird or night out.
Speaker 1: Get up around six, get a better around midnight. So
Speaker 1: I'm not sure what camp that fits into. I'm not
Speaker 1: like a four am person, sure, but you know, I
Speaker 1: kind of Yeah, kids have to go to school, so
Speaker 1: I got to get up at a certain period of
Speaker 1: a certain time, or the stuff that has to happen
Speaker 1: before they leave doesn't happen.
Speaker 2: Yeah, exactly, I'm in the same boat, and I do
Speaker 2: have sometimes have to work a bit late, so I'm
Speaker 2: moked HT midnight sometimes windows seater or aisle aile, text
Speaker 2: email or call text. And if you could have dinner
Speaker 2: with any person living or debt, who would it be.
Speaker 1: I think it would be Jeff Bezos.
Speaker 3: Yea Besos, that's a good one.
Speaker 2: I always think about that photo of Jeff where he's
Speaker 2: in the old Amazon office.
Speaker 3: Would have spray painted.
Speaker 1: Yeah. I just think the like I remember when Amazon
Speaker 1: first came into being, and I, you know, I was,
Speaker 1: I don't know, in high school maybe, and I was
Speaker 1: like books. I was like, all right, you know, I
Speaker 1: can go to Barnes and know what you know. But
Speaker 1: my dad was like, yeah, but it's much bigger than books.
Speaker 1: He's building a distribution networked. Like, I just think it's
Speaker 1: really interesting and I think he's uh. Having some time
Speaker 1: with him would would be a really interesting uh dinner
Speaker 1: or lunch whatever what the question was. But sorry, I
Speaker 1: know you have other stuff.
Speaker 2: Favorite city in the world, Mexico City, and best advice
Speaker 2: you've ever gotten.
Speaker 1: I think the best advice is know what you want
Speaker 1: and get it, Go get it. And I think that's
Speaker 1: true in in any regard. If there's something that you
Speaker 1: think is right and do you think has potential and
Speaker 1: do you think that to the exclusion of other things,
Speaker 1: pursue it. If there is a person you think you
Speaker 1: should be with, and don't break any laws, but make
Speaker 1: it happen, you know. If there's something like a house
Speaker 1: that you think you should get, you know, find it with.
Speaker 1: I mean, life is too short to have regrets, and
Speaker 1: it's too short not to work on trying to make
Speaker 1: everything a reality.
Speaker 2: Great advice, Ashley, Absolute pleasure. Love what you and the
Speaker 2: folks at TX are doing. Thank you so much for
Speaker 2: taking the time.
Speaker 1: Thanks so much. This is a lot of fun and
Speaker 1: I'm really excited to have another conversation once TX is
Speaker 1: up and live and we can show you everything. The
Speaker 1: app's supposed to be out this week, so I have
Speaker 1: it on my phone already. It's cool and I can't
Speaker 1: wait for everybody else to see it.
Speaker 2: So we're recording this on Wednesday, June twenty fourth, So
Speaker 2: the app you mentioned will be going live this week,
Speaker 2: so I'll put links in a description for folks to
Speaker 2: check it out. Thank you so much for tuning in.
Speaker 2: Please hit the like button subscribe if you haven't as yet.
Speaker 2: If you're listening on a podcast platform such as Spotify
Speaker 2: or Apple, Please follow and leave a five star rating.
Speaker 3: Thank you so much.