Speaker 1: And ETF is not good or bad. It is just
Speaker 1: a wrapper, right, It just it's a function of what
Speaker 1: you put in it. And the same way ah, just
Speaker 1: US treasury is not good or bad. It's just a
Speaker 1: function of like what is in it and what do
Speaker 1: you do with that capital. ETFs are like one of
Speaker 1: the most democratizing you know, structures that have been financial
Speaker 1: services has ever created.
Speaker 2: Would you look to explore investing in assets that are
Speaker 2: tokenized on the Avalanche blockchain? Potentially?
Speaker 1: Yeah, again, tokenization is inevitable.
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Speaker 2: visit the link 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 is Bart Smith, who is the CEO
Speaker 2: and chairman of the Avalanche Treasury Co.
Speaker 1: Bart. Great to have you, Thanks, Johnny. Looking forward to it.
Speaker 2: Yeah, Bart, excited to talk about what you're doing in
Speaker 2: building an Avax treasury strategy. I'm an Avax token holders.
Speaker 2: I'm excited to get into the details. Well, let's kick
Speaker 2: it off with your background. Tell us about where you're
Speaker 2: from and your professional background.
Speaker 1: So I've been in you know, in finance for whatever
Speaker 1: twenty five or thirty years almost at this point, worked
Speaker 1: in in asset management and I worked you know, at
Speaker 1: ubs for a while, I was one of the original
Speaker 1: founders of an ETF firm that was eventually sold to
Speaker 1: Columbia Funds. And then and then from there I went
Speaker 1: to work at Susquehanna. I was at Susquehanna for thirteen
Speaker 1: years collectively. Most of the time there I was responding.
Speaker 1: I ran the ETF group. I was also responsible at
Speaker 1: times for so in some international sales and trading stuff.
Speaker 1: I ran our credit trading business. And then since twenty fourteen,
Speaker 1: I was responsible for anything that was digital asset related.
Speaker 1: And then kind of in twenty twenty two, kind of
Speaker 1: giving the regulatory environment, we made the decision to create
Speaker 1: Susquehanna Crypto, which was not part of the Susquehanna group
Speaker 1: of companies. It was a separate entity outside of the
Speaker 1: Susquhenda group. It was based in Bahamas and with offices
Speaker 1: in London Hong Kong, which you know, we were a
Speaker 1: derivative trading shop, proprietary shop, market maker, and we did
Speaker 1: a fair amount of investing into the ecosystem and a
Speaker 1: lot of DeFi so a pretty well rounded business there.
Speaker 1: And then departed in it's late August after thirteen great
Speaker 1: years there to lead this new digitalised treasury. That's incredible.
Speaker 2: You got a pretty strong pedigree. You mentioned twenty fourteen
Speaker 2: you were looking at digital assets. What was your first
Speaker 2: encounter with bitcoin and crypto and when did they click
Speaker 2: for you?
Speaker 1: Well, yeah, it was only one right, twenty fourteen. So
Speaker 1: effectively we were just interested in the concept of bitcoin,
Speaker 1: and you know, we were just you know, we were
Speaker 1: basically just like investing in bitcoin long there wasn't really
Speaker 1: much more to do there, you know, as in the
Speaker 1: ICO boom in the twenty on the teen timeframe, we
Speaker 1: became very active in a limited number of tokens where
Speaker 1: we were quite sure that the SEC was going to
Speaker 1: name you know, certain commodities as commodities and not name
Speaker 1: them as securities, and so we kind of limit our
Speaker 1: approach mostly to those names like cooin, bitcoin, bitcoin cash, ethereum,
Speaker 1: and theorem classic, stuff like that. And then kind of
Speaker 1: as there was that ICO correction in twenty eighteen, you know,
Speaker 1: we went to try to kind of expand and kind
Speaker 1: of set up like a proper OTC desk, and you know,
Speaker 1: we just really couldn't get terribly comfortable with kind of
Speaker 1: the legal and regulatory advice that we were getting and
Speaker 1: others were getting, and so, you know, we kind of
Speaker 1: were very interested in the space. We made a lot
Speaker 1: of direct investments over that time, but kind of there
Speaker 1: was a period there for a while where we weren't
Speaker 1: as active as maybe some of the other kind of
Speaker 1: bigger US market making firms, and then kind of near
Speaker 1: the twenty twenty one kind of run up, and that's
Speaker 1: when we kind of made the decision that if if
Speaker 1: we want to do this, and Susquehanna and my person
Speaker 1: all kind of view of the world is taking a
Speaker 1: very conservative approach towards legal and reguatory compliance, and that
Speaker 1: just meant, you know, doing it offshore. And we knew
Speaker 1: that people were doing it in the US and they
Speaker 1: were using VPNs and you know they which really just
Speaker 1: means they're they're you know, they are you know, they're
Speaker 1: they're not abiding by they're terms of service. But it's
Speaker 1: you know, just in a broader sense, if we were
Speaker 1: going to do this, we wanted to do it in
Speaker 1: the most compliant and effective manner, which meant, unfortunately, in
Speaker 1: that timeframe, you know, going offshore, and that's what we did.
Speaker 1: You know, we set up a global business that was
Speaker 1: in three time zones but just not you know, in
Speaker 1: the US.
Speaker 2: BART things have changed so much drastically since twenty fourteen.
Speaker 2: We went from being taboo and the stigma of this
Speaker 2: being used by criminals to this full blown asset class
Speaker 2: that now Wall Street firms are jumping all in. They're
Speaker 2: going neck deep adopting, launching, crypto trading, custody, tokenizing stable coins,
Speaker 2: and much more. Plus we have some legislation like the
Speaker 2: Genius Act. What is it like looking back and seeing the.
Speaker 1: Growth it, you know it it felt really bleak for
Speaker 1: a while there. And while there has been a tremendous
Speaker 1: amount of progress in the last twelve months, uh you
Speaker 1: clarity Genius Act, you know, and we're not We're not
Speaker 1: through the woods on that. I not to take a
Speaker 1: somewhat more parish view than many people, but like, there's
Speaker 1: still a lot of work that needs to be done,
Speaker 1: and we need to codify clarity, right because you know,
Speaker 1: if you don't create laws that you know that and
Speaker 1: rules to follow that are very clear, well then you're
Speaker 1: just subject to the same kind of you know, regulatory
Speaker 1: arbitrage that has existed historically. So that's something that you know,
Speaker 1: in twenty twenty five, we need to kind of close out.
Speaker 1: It's kind of difficult right now with the government being
Speaker 1: shut down. So those are things that i'm i'm i'm
Speaker 1: looking at. And then what you're going to need to
Speaker 1: have some sort of harmonization of regulatory rule making around
Speaker 1: the globe, right, and you've seen a little bit of
Speaker 1: like kind of things to be excited about. The US
Speaker 1: is working with the FC in London, which has always
Speaker 1: been like a fairly difficult and slow moving regulator, to
Speaker 1: maybe harmonize some of their rulemaking. But then you have
Speaker 1: all these other money centers you're going to have. You know,
Speaker 1: you have mic ou to for for broad EU, you
Speaker 1: have you know, a lot of people going to UAE,
Speaker 1: and then you have all the money centers you know
Speaker 1: in in in the far East, right, so you have
Speaker 1: like Singapore, Hong Kong, Soul, Tokyo. So there's a lot
Speaker 1: of things for global firms, particularly global banks, to make
Speaker 1: sure that they, you know, that they are harmonizing the
Speaker 1: rules so that they can run businesses globally and they
Speaker 1: don't have to have a different set of rules and
Speaker 1: a different set of groups and and and groups that
Speaker 1: can't really function, you know, globally, because there's different rules
Speaker 1: and reanks in each locale. So I think we've made
Speaker 1: a lot of progress. I think institutions are very interested.
Speaker 1: What we haven't solved for is kind of this, you know,
Speaker 1: banks being able to be kind of prime brokers for
Speaker 1: are for liquidity providers and market makers in the space.
Speaker 1: I think, you know, the events from a couple of
Speaker 1: weeks ago, that was the function of that. Like there's
Speaker 1: just there isn't enough capital that's fungible and and where
Speaker 1: you can arbitraze price differences and different platforms and in
Speaker 1: different in different areas, so that stuff it still needs
Speaker 1: to happen. But like from where we were twelve months ago, yeah,
Speaker 1: it's you know, we're white years, so that that part's good,
Speaker 1: but we still have a lot of work to do.
Speaker 2: Yeah, it's a great point because I've been hearing some
Speaker 2: folks are, for example, not happy with the EU and
Speaker 2: the MECA regulations there and there's some departures. But then
Speaker 2: you know, you have the United States getting ready to
Speaker 2: pass the Clarity Act once the government opens up. But
Speaker 2: to your point, how does this all mesh together? And
Speaker 2: with these big jurisdictions. So, like you said, this is work.
Speaker 1: To be done here. Correct, Yes, I agree.
Speaker 2: All right, let's talk about Avalanche treasury. Cope, give us
Speaker 2: the full rundown, the history, the mission, and much more so.
Speaker 1: So in my previous firm, you know, we were we
Speaker 1: were looking a lot of these digitalistic treasuries, and you
Speaker 1: know there's there's some are good, some are you know,
Speaker 1: we're less attractive to us. We were very interested in
Speaker 1: like different structures. Right, there's a lot of firms that
Speaker 1: are just taking kind of an existing OpCo and they
Speaker 1: just do a pipe into it. And you know, oftentimes
Speaker 1: that company that's pivoting from a you know, a failed strategy,
Speaker 1: whether it's you know, gaming or betting or like it's
Speaker 1: like a hemp manufacturer. There's like, you know, there there
Speaker 1: are you know, the different like medical failed companies, and
Speaker 1: so in my opinion, those are more problematic, right, they
Speaker 1: have they have historical problems you have to address. They're
Speaker 1: operating companies, they're registered, they're regulated, so you have to
Speaker 1: kind of continue to run these often failed businesses while
Speaker 1: the primary business is completely unrelated. And like to me,
Speaker 1: that was always kind of difficult. And so when the
Speaker 1: concept of an Avalanche digitized of treasury came along. You know,
Speaker 1: people reach out to us because in the last round
Speaker 1: of Avalanche raised money, we were one of the largest
Speaker 1: participants in that race. So there, you know, people knew
Speaker 1: that that we were constructive on Avalanche, and I was
Speaker 1: personally constructive. And then as you know, it was kind
Speaker 1: of in the early stage of thinking about what that
Speaker 1: might look like. You know, I had some very strong
Speaker 1: opinions about you know, what would lead to success and
Speaker 1: what you know, the next generation of these debts are
Speaker 1: going to look like. And the more that I was
Speaker 1: thinking about it, the more I thought, you know, this
Speaker 1: might be a unique opportunity to do something different. And
Speaker 1: you know, there's going to be a lot of these
Speaker 1: digitalass of treasuries, and I think, just like in every
Speaker 1: other part of the capital markets, you're going to have
Speaker 1: winners and losers. And you know, if you built one
Speaker 1: that was you know, purpose built to do uh to
Speaker 1: provide you know, exposure to the avalanche ecosystem, but you
Speaker 1: could go beyond, you know, what you might be able
Speaker 1: to get by just owning the underlying spot commodity or
Speaker 1: an ETF. Like I think there's a unique opportunities that
Speaker 1: this type of structure provides. And so the more you know,
Speaker 1: I thought about it, the more excited I got, and
Speaker 1: you know, ultimately I ended up here.
Speaker 2: And there's going to be the question that folks have is, well,
Speaker 2: why not Bitcoin, why not eat? Why not Salona? Why
Speaker 2: avax or Avalanche?
Speaker 1: So I do think that one of the benefits of
Speaker 1: the regulatory clarity that we've had and the excitement they
Speaker 1: have around it is that like, finally, institutions, governments, you know,
Speaker 1: are going to be able to implement blockchain technology to
Speaker 1: make their businesses better, right, and so at its core,
Speaker 1: you know, blockchain technology is is software and so so
Speaker 1: now if you say, okay, well how are businesses going
Speaker 1: to implement blockchain technology? I do feel like Avalanche has
Speaker 1: a very strategic advantage in like a kind of government
Speaker 1: and business vertical that it's you know, it's not the
Speaker 1: mag one, right, the mag seven. So like throughout the
Speaker 1: last couple of decades, there have been many winners in
Speaker 1: technology put through software. They had different approaches and so
Speaker 1: you know, you had you know, telecom, you have Internet,
Speaker 1: you have SaaS, you had all these different areas. You
Speaker 1: could have a winner or multiple winners. I think as
Speaker 1: people look to implement blockchain technology into businesses, one of
Speaker 1: the difficulties they have is that businesses don't want to
Speaker 1: take their private information, all the customers private information, and
Speaker 1: put it in a public blockchain. It's just like it's
Speaker 1: not it's not it's not starter, right, So you know
Speaker 1: what a lot of people have done is is maybe
Speaker 1: looked at like ethereum and building you know, kind of
Speaker 1: an L two. Like the unique structure of the Avalanche
Speaker 1: chain is if they have this kind of three chain
Speaker 1: approach and and one of them, the C chain, allows
Speaker 1: people to build their own l ones kind of out
Speaker 1: of the box in a way that's supported by this
Speaker 1: broader network. And you know, you don't need to have
Speaker 1: like an army of software developers to develop that. So
Speaker 1: you see in companies like Robinhood or uh you know that,
Speaker 1: you know Google, they're gonna build their own They're gonna
Speaker 1: build their own change, which makes total sense because they
Speaker 1: want to implement k y C and a m L.
Speaker 1: They don't want to put their their customers you know,
Speaker 1: private information on public lock chain. But most importantly, like
Speaker 1: they want to own the entire financial stack, right like
Speaker 1: they want to be able to customize it and so
Speaker 1: but then at the end they want this kind of
Speaker 1: base layer, you know security, and that's where you've seen
Speaker 1: Ethereum have success. Right There's all these L two's that
Speaker 1: are building on top of the Ethereum and they're basically
Speaker 1: just paying for THEEUM level one, you know security. And
Speaker 1: so for me just looking at all of the companies
Speaker 1: that have already been building on Avalanche because they have
Speaker 1: the capacity to customize an L one, but then you know,
Speaker 1: into a the security of the Avalanche, which is also
Speaker 1: EVM capatible, so you can you can connect out for
Speaker 1: the rest of the world like KKR, Polo, Toyota, FIFA,
Speaker 1: like big brand names are utilizing Avalanche today to build
Speaker 1: for a myriad of reasons. Avalanche team has really built
Speaker 1: in Japan and in Korea and other parts, Like they're
Speaker 1: kind of market leaders in a lot of these spaces,
Speaker 1: and you know, I just don't think people really understand
Speaker 1: how differentiated AVAX and Avalanche is. So like when I'm
Speaker 1: looking at kind of an opportunity, you know, it's it's
Speaker 1: you have all of this stuff here and really you
Speaker 1: just need to be able to package it and market it.
Speaker 1: In a way that people can understand the opportunity, and like,
Speaker 1: what a better way to do that than to create
Speaker 1: a regulated public company that's audited that you can go
Speaker 1: out and basically reboot, you know, the marketing, you know,
Speaker 1: in in partnership with all of people from the ecosystem
Speaker 1: to kind of make people aware of like what's going
Speaker 1: on in Avalanche and why they might want to own
Speaker 1: a little bit of exposure to the ecosystem in their
Speaker 1: investment portfolio.
Speaker 2: Yeah, that absolutely makes sense. And uh, obviously I'm an
Speaker 2: AVAC tookenholders. I'm very much aware of all the adults.
Speaker 1: But I don't mind the bias. I don't mind the bias.
Speaker 1: It's okay.
Speaker 2: Yeah, but I wanted to make sure that question was
Speaker 2: answered for people who don't hold avacs already, having they
Speaker 2: don't know much about Avalanche. So I think it's important
Speaker 2: to outline now which you did. So you know, you
Speaker 2: mentioned that this this is not only about holding AVAX
Speaker 2: but also participating in the ecosystem. Let's double click a
Speaker 2: bit into that, like, how what are some of the
Speaker 2: initiatives you'll be doing as far as supporting the ecosystem?
Speaker 1: Right, so you know we're going to take a lot
Speaker 1: of keys from the regulators. Right, So there's there's been
Speaker 1: a wave of these dead Lasha treasuries and so we
Speaker 1: you know, we're as we're going through our own s
Speaker 1: four and we're our goal is in the first quarter
Speaker 1: of twenty twenty six to successfully merge with Mountain Lake
Speaker 1: Acquisition Corp. Will be a listed company. We are going
Speaker 1: to There's a lot of things that we can do
Speaker 1: and that I believe we're going to be able to do,
Speaker 1: but we have to also just kind of go through
Speaker 1: this process and make sure that that everything that we're
Speaker 1: doing is aligned with the you know, the SEC and
Speaker 1: other regulators. So I think that's an important point that
Speaker 1: you know that we are going to continually evaluate that.
Speaker 1: So let's putting that aside. There's a lot of things
Speaker 1: that happen in an ecosystem that have value that doesn't
Speaker 1: fully or a majority kind of a crewe down to
Speaker 1: the token. So like so if you think about Ethereum, right,
Speaker 1: which is you know, the largest non bitcoin blockchain, and
Speaker 1: I always have kind of thought, like, you know, bitcoin
Speaker 1: is digital gold, right, it's over here, and there's a
Speaker 1: world where people might build applications on bitcoin but it
Speaker 1: feels like pretty far away from that. So excluding that
Speaker 1: in Ethereum you've had, you know, it's the largest blockchain,
Speaker 1: it's the oldest, and there are a lot of applications
Speaker 1: that have built on top of Avalanche right Ave Right,
Speaker 1: it's worth four billion dollars, it's seen one of the largest.
Speaker 1: It's not the largest lending protocol you have like Uni
Speaker 1: swap right, which is a trading platform decks that it's
Speaker 1: on top of the built primarily on top of Ethereum.
Speaker 1: That's worth a four million dollars. You know. A lot
Speaker 1: of the value of those companies doesn't go down to
Speaker 1: the Ethereum network. Some does, but like it wasn't as
Speaker 1: if if you owned you know, Uni swap, or if
Speaker 1: you owned ave, you know, you've got a different kind
Speaker 1: of return than would trickle down to Ethereum. You know,
Speaker 1: the the value of you know, fully diluted value of Ethereum,
Speaker 1: you know, give or take, you know, rounding broadly, it
Speaker 1: is probably like five hundred billion dollars. Right. A lot
Speaker 1: of the excitement around Ethereum is stable coin usage, right,
Speaker 1: and Tether's the bigges stable coin in the world. Teather's
Speaker 1: worth five hundred billion dollars, right, So like teather being
Speaker 1: you know, and and some of that crews down to
Speaker 1: Tron because you know, there's a lot of tether on TRON,
Speaker 1: So like some value accrue down to ethereum from tether,
Speaker 1: but like how much you know, and like how much
Speaker 1: accrued from AVE and how much accrued from uh, you know,
Speaker 1: all of these other platforms out for the unisops of
Speaker 1: the world. So like there's definitely a network effect that
Speaker 1: will happen that will creue more value. So if you're
Speaker 1: looking to get exposure to implementation and growth of the
Speaker 1: avalanche ecosystem, you can own AVAX and like that should
Speaker 1: work to some degree. But all of these l ones
Speaker 1: that are being built on top of avalanche, where you
Speaker 1: have these kind of private companies or governments or different
Speaker 1: you know, uh kind of news, like builders that are
Speaker 1: building applications on top of avalanche, some of that will
Speaker 1: crew down because there will be a network effect. But
Speaker 1: if you could get a little piece or you could
Speaker 1: invest in, you know, some of those companies, that probably
Speaker 1: gives you a much better exposure to the growth of
Speaker 1: the ecosystem. So you know, we're going to own evacs,
Speaker 1: We're going to stake it. You know historically, you know,
Speaker 1: very conservatively, you know that's gotten you know, mid single
Speaker 1: digits to like high single digit kind of yield returns
Speaker 1: from from you know, taking the AVAX and using it
Speaker 1: to secure the blockchain. So we can do that. There's
Speaker 1: other things that we would love to be able to do.
Speaker 1: Can we you know, buy a validator and run our
Speaker 1: own notes and you know, could we lend our avax
Speaker 1: to builders and applications and l ones that are building
Speaker 1: on avalanche right, and can we work with them to
Speaker 1: help them kind of with their staking, you know, with
Speaker 1: their their the avax they need. Can we work with
Speaker 1: them to make their businesses better? Can we do you know,
Speaker 1: DeFi activities in the space. Can we there are derivatives obviously,
Speaker 1: you know, coming from Susquehanna, like, there's a lot of
Speaker 1: driven activity that you do with options and future strategies
Speaker 1: that can generate diversified and maybe in some cases higher
Speaker 1: levels of income. So what you end up getting is,
Speaker 1: you know, this this diversified pool of of exposures that
Speaker 1: should do better. If the ecosystem does really well, then
Speaker 1: if you just owned the token seuth so like you
Speaker 1: know that that that is the thesis that we're going after, sure,
Speaker 1: is that we can provide a much better kind of
Speaker 1: holistic exposure for value accrual for uh for individuals in
Speaker 1: a way that is the access they want, right Like
Speaker 1: many you know, many high net worth individuals and institutions
Speaker 1: like they just they're either can't or do not want
Speaker 1: to buy you know, spot commodities, digitaliztic commodities on unregulated exchanges.
Speaker 1: That's it's not how they want to interact. So if
Speaker 1: I can create you know, a public company where people
Speaker 1: can invest through convertible bonds or through preferreds or through
Speaker 1: straight equity, and they can hold it in the brokerage
Speaker 1: account and they can they can invest in it just
Speaker 1: like they invest in everything else. And then you have
Speaker 1: this exposure where we can take you know, that capital
Speaker 1: and then we can put that into the enterprise that
Speaker 1: is avalanche and you know, you would imagine that that
Speaker 1: that capital coming in should provide you know more you know, uh,
Speaker 1: you know, gas for the fire, so to speak. Right,
Speaker 1: You're gonna you're gonna help to like to to implement
Speaker 1: more capital into the ecosystem, which should you know, you
Speaker 1: would hope help the ecosystem grow. So that's kind of
Speaker 1: like the dual nature, right, So like you you allow
Speaker 1: regulated exposure for people in the way that they want
Speaker 1: to invest, and then you take that capital and you
Speaker 1: invest it into the ecosystem, which you would hope benefits
Speaker 1: the growth and is mutually beneficial for for for the whole,
Speaker 1: you know, for both parties. So that that's the concept
Speaker 1: as I think about it.
Speaker 2: And then for this thinking rewards and the DeFi yield
Speaker 2: and so forth, will that be potentially paid out in
Speaker 2: dividends or reinvested.
Speaker 1: Again we you know, we haven't gotten that far in
Speaker 1: the strategy. And mean I would think I think that
Speaker 1: you know, dividends and paying out dividends is something that
Speaker 1: you know companies do when they're kind of in a
Speaker 1: later stage of growth. Right. So like typically when you
Speaker 1: have kind of you know, growth companies, particularly like you
Speaker 1: know high growth companies, like, the best use of that
Speaker 1: capital is to continue to reinvest it because your kind
Speaker 1: of expected rate of returns are going to be higher.
Speaker 1: So I would my guess is that the best use
Speaker 1: of you know, whatever capital we have would be to
Speaker 1: continue to try to find the best returns. But like, sure,
Speaker 1: if it you know, if there are certain situations where
Speaker 1: you know, it would make sense to pay a dividend
Speaker 1: or a special dividend. But yeah, I think you know,
Speaker 1: right now, we're, like I said before, we're going to
Speaker 1: kind of take the cues from the SEC and make
Speaker 1: sure that we you know, we're disclosing risks and we're
Speaker 1: and we're setting this up in a way that is compliant.
Speaker 1: And then yeah, well as a lot of just Trypto
Speaker 1: in general is like not being overly prescriptive and and
Speaker 1: just kind of taking what the market gives you. And
Speaker 1: so you know, we're gonna we're you know, Lane Littman
Speaker 1: is my CEO, who he was the president Hidden Road
Speaker 1: and and spent many years you know, working at ad
Speaker 1: Vertue and and and you know Coleman and but banks,
Speaker 1: like we've seen a lot of iterations of this, and
Speaker 1: so you know what we're gonna do is we have
Speaker 1: a strategy. We're going to communicate, you know, owning and
Speaker 1: staking Avax is going to be a very large portion
Speaker 1: of it. And then to the extent that we can
Speaker 1: have other additive sleeves of our strategy that are smaller,
Speaker 1: but we we believe would offer a diversified, better exposure
Speaker 1: and you know, hopefully provide kind of risk adjusted you know,
Speaker 1: good rates of returns for investors. Like that's that's the plan,
Speaker 1: oh for sure.
Speaker 2: And as far as your au M, I read that,
Speaker 2: uh looking to buy a billion dollars of AVAX tokens,
Speaker 2: Is that right?
Speaker 1: I mean yeah, Ultimately, you know, we have we close
Speaker 1: a private placement and then we have this you know,
Speaker 1: pending business combination with Mountain Lake ac Position Corp. You know,
Speaker 1: at that point, depending what the market does, that that's
Speaker 1: going to be somewhere in the mid hundreds of millions,
Speaker 1: if not higher. But yes, the idea is to as
Speaker 1: the as avalanche continues to grow, is to continue to
Speaker 1: try to seek out capital again in ways that people
Speaker 1: want to invest in the market, to help inject more
Speaker 1: capital into the space. The thing that's interesting to me
Speaker 1: is that and you know if over time, you know,
Speaker 1: sometimes you'll hear me save this over and over like
Speaker 1: every other industry was allowed to grow this way, you know,
Speaker 1: software SaaS, you know, telecom, the Internet, and that you
Speaker 1: created a public company and you wrote you raised money
Speaker 1: through debt or through converts or through equity, and you
Speaker 1: took that money and invest in the enterprise. The enterprise
Speaker 1: did well, bondholders and equi holders did well, and this
Speaker 1: industry was specifically not allowed to do that. And so
Speaker 1: this digitalized a treasury structure allows for that to happen. Right,
Speaker 1: you can go, you have a public company and you
Speaker 1: can raise money in you know, in the public markets
Speaker 1: in a variety of ways, and that could be issuing equities,
Speaker 1: but that you know, there's other things that you can
Speaker 1: do that might be attractive to both a different type
Speaker 1: of investor and we might be more attractive in trying
Speaker 1: to generate more AVAX per share for our shareholders. And
Speaker 1: so that to me is what I find most exciting
Speaker 1: about this structure. And then obviously because you know it's
Speaker 1: not a mutual fund or an ETF, like, you don't
Speaker 1: have to prepare yourself for the possibility of deploying money
Speaker 1: on any given day that you weren't prepared for or
Speaker 1: having to redeem money. Right, so if you if you're
Speaker 1: open to a mutual fund redemption or an ETF redemption
Speaker 1: and having get any given day, that's very limiting in
Speaker 1: what you can do to provide exposure to you know,
Speaker 1: your yes, because in theory, you know you hope this
Speaker 1: doesn't happen, but on some given day, everybody could come
Speaker 1: and rush to want a redeem and so you need
Speaker 1: to be able to meet those redemptions. And that is
Speaker 1: very limiting in what you can do to try to
Speaker 1: maximize a longer term strategy. So yeah, I think I
Speaker 1: think that's the I think that in the evolution of
Speaker 1: kind of these digitous of treasuries, I think that's the
Speaker 1: most compelling argument that people will come to realize with like,
Speaker 1: this is just a better structure to invest in an
Speaker 1: early what is still, in my opinion, a very early
Speaker 1: emerging technology.
Speaker 2: So on that note of being an early emerging technology,
Speaker 2: I wanted to get your take on this trend and
Speaker 2: how long you think it lasts. You know, where this
Speaker 2: asset class grows and there's maybe less volatility, but there
Speaker 2: is this staking and the you know, DeFi component where
Speaker 2: you can do a lot more with the asset right.
Speaker 2: But you know, let's say a bear market or a
Speaker 2: market downturn rolls around. How are you preparing for that?
Speaker 2: And do you see other dats failing you know, maybe
Speaker 2: some consolidation and things like that.
Speaker 1: Yeah, I mean, I can't speak to how other people
Speaker 1: are thinking about it. But like the thing that I
Speaker 1: found most surprising about that, you know, that sell off
Speaker 1: you know whatever at this point, it was like three
Speaker 1: Fridays ago. Was how surprised that people were right? Like,
Speaker 1: it's like these asset classes are very volatile because their
Speaker 1: early stage, all good new ideas are volatile, right, and
Speaker 1: so you know, you have to have the expectation that
Speaker 1: that you know, when volatility or when you know, a
Speaker 1: sell off happens, like you need to be prepared that
Speaker 1: that could be, you know, a pretty meaningful sell off
Speaker 1: and it could last for a long time. My first
Speaker 1: job out of college, I worked at Payne Weberg, which
Speaker 1: was later acquired by UBS. And you know, the market
Speaker 1: was at the very end of the like the internet
Speaker 1: dot com bubble, and so for the first like four
Speaker 1: or five six months i work there, the market just
Speaker 1: went up, right, and then it went down for three years,
Speaker 1: so you know, two thousand and two thousand and one,
Speaker 1: two thousand and two, all negative years de s and P.
Speaker 1: Five hundred. So that was like a very formulative experience
Speaker 1: for me. So like you have to you know, we're
Speaker 1: thinking about these this vehicle as a long term vehicle,
Speaker 1: but like it's the idea here is not to try
Speaker 1: to take incremental risk that is unwarranted. The idea is
Speaker 1: to take a long term approach that is prudent, that
Speaker 1: provides kind of the best exposure you can for your shareholders.
Speaker 1: And so as we're thinking about in this, you know,
Speaker 1: this strategy going forward, you always in the back of
Speaker 1: your mind have to keep thinking like, well, you know,
Speaker 1: like if you have this massive people are coming into
Speaker 1: the space because they think they have a one, two, three,
Speaker 1: five X. You know, I don't have any forecasts of
Speaker 1: of you know, where the market capitalization is going to go.
Speaker 1: But it's like it's you know, if you're buying this
Speaker 1: is because you think that there's an opportunity for to
Speaker 1: go meaningfully higher like that. There's no free lunch, right
Speaker 1: like that that's going to come with periods of doubt
Speaker 1: and periods of fear, and that's when you're gonna have
Speaker 1: you know, market selloffs and the and the best thing
Speaker 1: that you can do is to position yourself to benefit
Speaker 1: from those moments and not to be the person who's
Speaker 1: being harmed by those moments. So, you know, I think
Speaker 1: that that will be a key component of of how
Speaker 1: we think about it. And then yeah, you have like
Speaker 1: you said, there's there's all of these digitals of treasuries
Speaker 1: out there. They're gonna have to distinguish themselves, right, They're
Speaker 1: gonna have to. They're gonna have to you know, they're
Speaker 1: gonna have to capture mind share from people, and they're
Speaker 1: gonna have to be able to communicate like an effective
Speaker 1: strategy and and then deliver on that. So like the
Speaker 1: capital markets, if nothing, are very efficient and so over time,
Speaker 1: I think you will see kind of winners and losers
Speaker 1: that that that kind of show up, you know, over time.
Speaker 1: And you know, I think that that we're excited about
Speaker 1: our ability to to to navigate that.
Speaker 2: Yeah for sure. And uh, I'm just curious to see
Speaker 2: how things play out. And and uh I believe in
Speaker 2: the digital asterid treasuries of course, and I think it's
Speaker 2: a great approach, great a hybrid approach of crypto and
Speaker 2: the trad fire world and you know, allowing folks to
Speaker 2: get exposure. But you know, I guess, as with all
Speaker 2: things in the free market, you're going to have companies
Speaker 2: that are well run and some that are poorly run.
Speaker 2: And uh, you know, the tips are going to fall
Speaker 2: with a fall in the volatility hits or at the
Speaker 2: bear market, so we'll have to wait and see.
Speaker 1: Yeah, I mean, I think that was part of the
Speaker 1: reason why we went the route we did, which is
Speaker 1: to kind of set up a purpose built company from scratch.
Speaker 1: Right so you know, when when you when you you know,
Speaker 1: when you look at the company, it's called the Avalanche
Speaker 1: Treasury Company, right, Like, there is no doubt in kind
Speaker 1: of what we're doing. Our sole focus is going to
Speaker 1: be on delivering kind of value to customers and in
Speaker 1: shareholders in a in a in a way that that
Speaker 1: you know, we feel like can better represent the growth
Speaker 1: of the ecosystem. And and yeah, and I think that
Speaker 1: you know, we we like there's gonna It's not like
Speaker 1: I'm not worried about well, you know, an alternative investment
Speaker 1: per se. It's just like there's a whole world of investments.
Speaker 1: Like they don't need to own crypto at all, right,
Speaker 1: they don't need to own blockchain technology. So can we
Speaker 1: effectively communicate a value proposition of owning you know, this
Speaker 1: asset versus any other asset? And now, and I think
Speaker 1: if you're listed, you know, on a public stock exchange
Speaker 1: in the US, you are now competing against basically every
Speaker 1: asset in the world. And so I think that that's
Speaker 1: what we're focused on, is providing you know, a structure
Speaker 1: and a company and an exposure that people are interested in,
Speaker 1: and then being able to communicate that effectively. Yeah.
Speaker 2: Absolutely, And then on the communication of communicating that effectively.
Speaker 2: You know, you have ETFs out there, right, there's going
Speaker 2: to be a vx boty tfs and so forth. So
Speaker 2: I'm curious, you know, how would you'll be what would
Speaker 2: be your elevator pitch to say, hey, this data is
Speaker 2: better than just buying an ETF.
Speaker 1: Well, you know what's funny is that, you know, treasuries
Speaker 1: as like every kind of uh, you know, anytime there's
Speaker 1: like a new vehicle or something that's in favor, you know,
Speaker 1: there's a lot of criticism that comes with that. Back
Speaker 1: in like the two thousand and eight time frame, two
Speaker 1: thousand and seven, two thousand and eight, there was a
Speaker 1: ton of criticism about ETFs. The ETFs provided like a
Speaker 1: systematic risk and that the creation redemption, uh, you know,
Speaker 1: mechanism was going to fail under a massive amount of
Speaker 1: like market drests, and that you know that that ETFs
Speaker 1: were creating it impossible for small and mid capitalization companies
Speaker 1: to seek capital that can differentiate because people were just
Speaker 1: buying the index. And there's just like there was a
Speaker 1: lot of fun around ETFs and how was it was
Speaker 1: a you know, this like this really risky, dangerous, unproven
Speaker 1: structure and then here we are, you know, fast forward
Speaker 1: to twenty twenty five and people are saying, oh, these
Speaker 1: digitalts of treasuries, you know, have all of these shortcomings.
Speaker 1: You should have been putting it into a ETF, right,
Speaker 1: And so it's just funny how like things evolve over
Speaker 1: time as people become familiar with structures. And ETF is
Speaker 1: not good or bad. It is just a rapper, right,
Speaker 1: It just it's a function of what you put in it,
Speaker 1: and the same way a dies US treasury is not
Speaker 1: good or bad. It's just a function of like what
Speaker 1: is in it and what do you do with that capital.
Speaker 1: ETFs are like one of the most democratizing you know
Speaker 1: structures that have in financial services has ever created. Right,
Speaker 1: It Like it allowed people to get exposure to gold
Speaker 1: and to a whole host of things that in average
Speaker 1: small you know, institution or high not worth investor didn't
Speaker 1: have access to and so if people want to use
Speaker 1: ETF to get exposure to avax or any other crypto like,
Speaker 1: that is net positive and I'm very supportive of that.
Speaker 1: I would argue to the points I made earlier that
Speaker 1: just owning the avax token itself and then staking that
Speaker 1: for whatever amount that they're going to be able to stake,
Speaker 1: given the fact that they're going to have to respond
Speaker 1: to to you know, daily creation redemn requests, and then
Speaker 1: the ability to trade that asset and keep that in
Speaker 1: line you every day in the marketplace, like it could
Speaker 1: be an expensive proposition. I think by and large, market
Speaker 1: makers in the competitive marketplace will figure it out. But
Speaker 1: it's not totally clear to me how efficient a vehicle
Speaker 1: you're going to have for uh, you know, avax or
Speaker 1: some of the other tokens that aren't Bitcoin and aren't
Speaker 1: ethereum right, And so to me, I think that there's
Speaker 1: you know, we've seen these digitalish treasury structures over you know,
Speaker 1: the last couple of years, and so there's like I
Speaker 1: think in my mind, there's probably more certainty in my
Speaker 1: in my from my position of of what, you know,
Speaker 1: what that looks like day to day, and less so
Speaker 1: in all of these new ETFs that are coming out,
Speaker 1: like managing that asset day to day and having market
Speaker 1: makers keep that price in line with Spot like could
Speaker 1: be problematic. And and then again you're just kind of
Speaker 1: because you have to have daily redemption and creation requests, like,
Speaker 1: you're just going to be very limited as owning the
Speaker 1: spot market. And so our hope is that for people
Speaker 1: who would like to get you know, a differ, a
Speaker 1: different exposure and maybe something that I would think would
Speaker 1: be hopefully more of a true exposure of the growth
Speaker 1: of the ecosystem. I think you put those two things
Speaker 1: side by side, and I feel very good about the
Speaker 1: value proposition that that we put forth. And and for
Speaker 1: a lot of people that might just seem too complicated
Speaker 1: and that can buy the ETF and that's fine, right,
Speaker 1: you know. I I don't know over time if that
Speaker 1: will get them what they're looking for, but I certainly
Speaker 1: understand why people would want to own it, and people
Speaker 1: in general buying a BAX is good for the ecosystem,
Speaker 1: and you know, we're obviously very supportive of it. So
Speaker 1: you know, like I'm you know, I spend a lot
Speaker 1: of time in that industry, you know, and I like
Speaker 1: you know, a lot of my friends are still working
Speaker 1: at you know, all of these firms. Bit Wise are
Speaker 1: three guys that I've known for you know, over a decade,
Speaker 1: if not longer, And so they're gonna bit Wise is
Speaker 1: going to launch an avax ETF And if you want
Speaker 1: to buy an a bax ETF, you should the bit
Speaker 1: wise etah for any of these other companies that are
Speaker 1: listing them. So yeah, I think I think we're We're focused,
Speaker 1: like I said, on putting our strategy together and putting
Speaker 1: forth the best strategy we can and then making sure
Speaker 1: we're doing it in a prudent way gives people the
Speaker 1: best exposure. And you know, there's gonna be a lot
Speaker 1: of other investment opportunities beyond crypto that we're also competing
Speaker 1: for mind share. And so I'm in reality, I'm probably
Speaker 1: more thoughtful about how do we distinguish the opportunity versus
Speaker 1: like the field versus you know, a comparable passive exposure
Speaker 1: or you know, owning spot on you know, coinbase or
Speaker 1: robin Hood or something like that.
Speaker 2: Yeah, yeah, that definitely makes sense. I'm curious. You probably
Speaker 2: can't talk about it. You mentioned go other investments. I'm
Speaker 2: assuming that's under wraps right now.
Speaker 1: Right yeah. I mean again, we're like we're still going
Speaker 1: through kind of the registration process, and so you know,
Speaker 1: we will be in communication with with the regulators about
Speaker 1: you know what what we'd be interested to do. You know.
Speaker 1: The the the wonderful thing about the SEC and EDGAR
Speaker 1: is all these filings are public, so you know, we
Speaker 1: also get the benefit of people who started before us,
Speaker 1: and so you know, every time you know there's another filing,
Speaker 1: you know, an updated regulatory uh kind of response to
Speaker 1: another one of the digitalist of treasuries, it's just an
Speaker 1: opportunity for us to kind of clean you know, what
Speaker 1: is you know, what is in the gray area and
Speaker 1: what is not and then you know, like I said,
Speaker 1: like we're going to take a very conservative approach towards
Speaker 1: regulatory and legal compliance and we're not gonna go anywhere
Speaker 1: near gray areas. I feel pretty confident that the the
Speaker 1: from from what I'm seeing in the market to date,
Speaker 1: like the these structures will be won't be very limited.
Speaker 1: You know that they that that you know, as long
Speaker 1: as you're disclosing and you are doing all the things
Speaker 1: that you're supposed to be doing, you know, from from
Speaker 1: that perspective that you should have a you know, the
Speaker 1: ability to do whatevery other corporate treasury in America has
Speaker 1: been able to do. And I think sometimes people act
Speaker 1: like these are new vehicles, right Like Berkshire Hathaway and
Speaker 1: Apple and Microsoft are like the largest corporate treasuries in
Speaker 1: the world. They just have this massive operating business alongside
Speaker 1: of it. But Berkshire Hathway doesn't. Berksure Hathaway just buys
Speaker 1: companies and they invest in other companies and then they
Speaker 1: have this huge pile of cast they use. So like
Speaker 1: the concept of a corporate treasury and corporate treasury management
Speaker 1: is not new, It's just it was taken and kind
Speaker 1: of implemented by Michael Sailor and micro strategies, and the
Speaker 1: benefits from being able to use that capital structure to
Speaker 1: invest with a whole slew of people who today have
Speaker 1: not been able to access you know, this asset class
Speaker 1: the way that they wanted to. And I think everyone said, wow,
Speaker 1: that's that's actually that's a great evolution of something that
Speaker 1: already existed. I would like to apply that to this
Speaker 1: ecosystem and see if I can provide, you know, a
Speaker 1: better you know return or a better exposure for investors,
Speaker 1: and so that's that's kind of how you know, we
Speaker 1: ended up here today.
Speaker 2: Byway, that's a great example that you gave with Berkshire,
Speaker 2: Hathaway and Apple because of to your point of their
Speaker 2: corporate treasury, right, it's loads of cash they're sitting on.
Speaker 2: So's that's a great, great example in regards to your
Speaker 2: timeline and roadmap, what are you expecting for the remainder
Speaker 2: at the end of this year excuse me, and going
Speaker 2: into twenty twenty six.
Speaker 1: So the next step for us is obviously to you know,
Speaker 1: our registration in this business combination with with m LAC
Speaker 1: that we are you know, we're working through and the
Speaker 1: hope is that that would be you know effective or
Speaker 1: closed in the first quarter of twenty twenty six. We
Speaker 1: absously need the government to open for that to happen,
Speaker 1: and so you know, I don't expect at this point
Speaker 1: in time to have to adjust that that timeline. But
Speaker 1: we're you know, we are subject to you know, the
Speaker 1: things that are out of our control. And so once
Speaker 1: that that, you know, once that business combination, uh, you know,
Speaker 1: hopefully gets approved and closes, and then you know, then
Speaker 1: it's it's you know, the strategy will go from there.
Speaker 1: And at that point we had, like I said, this
Speaker 1: permanent capital vehicle where you know, our investment timeframe is
Speaker 1: just way longer, right, and so you know we're looking
Speaker 1: at you know, the opportunities that are in there that
Speaker 1: could supplement just owning AVAX and staking it, which again
Speaker 1: is going to be you know, a large portion of
Speaker 1: what we're doing. I just want to you know, I
Speaker 1: don't want to think that this is going to be
Speaker 1: like you know, a venture funt right. You know that
Speaker 1: this the idea is to have that at its core,
Speaker 1: you know, is trying to return more avacx per share
Speaker 1: for you know, our shareholders. And then if we could
Speaker 1: have sleeves that are diversifying or a creative or provide
Speaker 1: different exposures, you know that I think that is going
Speaker 1: to be the differentiator. So you know, I would I
Speaker 1: look at it kind of in a two step process,
Speaker 1: like we need to meet the obligations of of our
Speaker 1: regulator and and and hopefully have this close you know,
Speaker 1: that requires the government to reopen and then and then
Speaker 1: beyond that, I think then you know, then we're taking
Speaker 1: this kind of longer view, Okay, Okay, how do we
Speaker 1: how do we represent the opportunity set? Uh, you know
Speaker 1: that that this ecosystem provives, you know, in this vehicle.
Speaker 2: Something came to mind as you were talking about you're
Speaker 2: making those statements. We've seen a massive race kicking off
Speaker 2: with the tokenization market where a lot of firm looking
Speaker 2: to put stocks and different assets, money market funds and
Speaker 2: so forth on the blockchain. Would you look to explore
Speaker 2: investing in assets that are tokenized on the Avalanche blockchain potentially?
Speaker 1: Yeah. Again, that's that's something that's been you know, a
Speaker 1: big point of discussion over recent weeks and months, particularly
Speaker 1: as you know in the digital ass of treasury world.
Speaker 1: You know, I think that there is a lot of
Speaker 1: discussions about like, you know, what is security and what
Speaker 1: is not a security? And so if you do it
Speaker 1: on an L two is it is it actually security
Speaker 1: because it's not really decentralized Versus if you do it,
Speaker 1: you know, in a broader ecosystem, you can you can
Speaker 1: demonstrate sufficient you know, decentralization and that would meet different
Speaker 1: rules for the SEC Like I think, I think tokenization
Speaker 1: is inevitable and so you know, having worked in traditional
Speaker 1: finance for all you know the bulk of my career,
Speaker 1: Like even today it is it is insane to me
Speaker 1: how manual stock trading is right. And so, you know,
Speaker 1: I think that there are certain parts about you know, blockchain,
Speaker 1: moving things on blockchains that requires like a very specific
Speaker 1: set of skills and make sure like you're very you're
Speaker 1: being very diligent at how you how you manage things
Speaker 1: on chain, you know, because in in in you know,
Speaker 1: the trictional finance world, if you send Google to the
Speaker 1: wrong you know, broker dealer, like you're getting that, you're
Speaker 1: that back, right, you know, like they will they will
Speaker 1: reverse that back. And so the thing to me that
Speaker 1: is shocking is that how dated the infrastructure is in
Speaker 1: in traditional equities, you know, globally, and like just how
Speaker 1: much inefficiency there is there. And so I think just
Speaker 1: from like a basic like just modernization of the underlying
Speaker 1: structure and plumbing of of traditional finance like bond trading
Speaker 1: and equities, it's like it's really just like this cobble
Speaker 1: together kind of plumbing. That's that it's existed for over
Speaker 1: one hundred years. And like you have this opportunity to
Speaker 1: like start clean and like start you know, if you're
Speaker 1: going to build the best way for people to exchange value,
Speaker 1: you know, over a blockchain, Like, I think that is
Speaker 1: a tremendous opportunity and an avalanche. The community has been
Speaker 1: focused on toganization, you know, you know from from the outset,
Speaker 1: that was kind of the the like the core motivation
Speaker 1: of launching of this chain. So yeah, I think I
Speaker 1: think that kind of antiquated plumbing mixed with like people
Speaker 1: want twenty four to seven everything, and so you know,
Speaker 1: in many cases we are limited to the trading hours
Speaker 1: that we have in all of these different old money
Speaker 1: centers because of this plumbing, right, and so you know,
Speaker 1: the as people are going to demand a higher layer
Speaker 1: level of access and liquidity, it just seems inevitable that
Speaker 1: it goes to tokenization.
Speaker 2: Absolutely. You know something I forgot to ask you earlier
Speaker 2: as far as the purchasing of these tokens and the
Speaker 2: custody of them, which institution or platform are you going
Speaker 2: to be using?
Speaker 1: So we're going to be using a myriad of different
Speaker 1: of different solutions. At this point, everything we're using is
Speaker 1: a qualified custodian. You know, in crypto, you know, we
Speaker 1: don't talk too much about custody. So what I would say,
Speaker 1: is like, we are expecting that the the regulators in
Speaker 1: the US are going to demand, you know, a very
Speaker 1: regulated solution, and so our strategy has been to utilize
Speaker 1: that as such. So everything we're using now are you know,
Speaker 1: qualified custodians. And I would imagine over time, you know,
Speaker 1: if we were to deviate from that, it would come
Speaker 1: after you know, a pretty exhaustive, uh set of conversations
Speaker 1: with you know, our regulators.
Speaker 2: Oh for sure, Bart, great stuff. Looking forward to the
Speaker 2: future updates around the Avalanche Treasury co. But thank you
Speaker 2: so much for joining me. I got some wrap up
Speaker 2: questions here for you. First, if you get great Drown metaverse,
Speaker 2: would the theme.
Speaker 1: Be, Oh boy, you know, I'm a big sports fan,
Speaker 1: and so I have like a college sports team, and
Speaker 1: I have you know, professional sports teams in the US.
Speaker 1: My my my son is a is a a big
Speaker 1: Liverpool fan, and so you know what you're seeing and
Speaker 1: particularly on Avalanche right now, one of the areas of
Speaker 1: growth in Avalanche has been uh, you know, the FIFA
Speaker 1: World Cup in twenty two twenty six. They're they're they're
Speaker 1: trying to build ticketing solutions and fan engagement on top
Speaker 1: of Avalanche right now. So that so that you have
Speaker 1: this situation where you know, you go to sell a
Speaker 1: ticket and some bot buys it up and it's a broker,
Speaker 1: and they post out two hundred and three hundred percent
Speaker 1: you know, above the price they paid with consumers paying
Speaker 1: this excess price right And so you know, blockchain technology
Speaker 1: where you can obscure private, you know, customer information, but
Speaker 1: you can still verify that person is like a verified
Speaker 1: purchaser and user of the ticket. That that's one technology
Speaker 1: you know that that Avalanches is implementing with with with FIFA.
Speaker 1: And then fan engagement tokenizing you know, your rewards or
Speaker 1: you know right now they have a there's a partnership
Speaker 1: they have with the LSU football team, and so if
Speaker 1: you go and you're using your card and you can
Speaker 1: like get you know points that a crew for like
Speaker 1: a Tiger token, they call it a go token. You know,
Speaker 1: you can spend that on you know, memorabilia or like
Speaker 1: you know, a team T shirt or something like that. So,
Speaker 1: like if you could go into a metaverse where you
Speaker 1: combine the ability to purchase ticketing right in a safe
Speaker 1: place where you know you're buying you know, the actual
Speaker 1: ticket from someone that's verified, and then you're also you know,
Speaker 1: crewing all of these other tokens that you can use
Speaker 1: kind of in a metaverse to to purchase memorabilia or
Speaker 1: other kind of you know, fan things, and you have
Speaker 1: this like world where I could go from like one
Speaker 1: team to another in a different sport, in a different league.
Speaker 1: That to me would be like a pretty cool start.
Speaker 1: So there's probably people out there who could come up
Speaker 1: with something a little bit more imaginative than that, but
Speaker 1: just being able to kind of go into one kind
Speaker 1: of metaverse where I'm surrounded by, you know, all the
Speaker 1: sports teams and I can engage in them in a
Speaker 1: in a different way. I can purchase tickets, I can
Speaker 1: purchase memorabilia in a safe way. That to me would
Speaker 1: be would be pretty cool.
Speaker 2: Yeah, as a sportsman myself, I would love that. So
Speaker 2: I'm all for that. Rapid fire questions, favorite food, steak,
Speaker 2: favorite musician or band.
Speaker 1: Over time, I'm I'm I'm a little i' a little
Speaker 1: older than a lot of people in crypto. I'm still
Speaker 1: a pretty big youtwo fan. Oh yeah, favorite movie, favorite movie,
Speaker 1: Shawshank or Goodwill Hunting. I'll go Shaw Shank.
Speaker 2: Yeah, Shawshank's great favorite book.
Speaker 1: Oh there's a great book that I was given when
Speaker 1: I first came into working in finance, and it was
Speaker 1: a book that was called Never Eat Alone. And it's
Speaker 1: a lesson that I've learned over the years of like
Speaker 1: when you know, people come in and they work really
Speaker 1: hard and they kind of like wake up, you know,
Speaker 1: thirty years later and they've wasted all this time. And
Speaker 1: so you know that nothing is replaced by by you know,
Speaker 1: interpersonal kind of relationships. And so it's it's it's taught
Speaker 1: me like a lesson over time to like the interactions
Speaker 1: you get from just having sitting down and having a
Speaker 1: meal with someone just kind of provides like a you
Speaker 1: know a wealth of different benefits. And so that was
Speaker 1: a book that I learned on, you know that that
Speaker 1: I learned from very early on in my career.
Speaker 2: And when you're not working, what are you doing for fun?
Speaker 1: I don't I'm working a lot. I spend time with
Speaker 1: my kids, you know, I have my kids sports and
Speaker 1: that takes up, you know a lot of my time.
Speaker 1: If I'm going to get out and do a little leisure,
Speaker 1: like I'd like to be on the water, So like
Speaker 1: being out on a boat is great, or you know,
Speaker 1: the you know, the few times where I can get
Speaker 1: you know, a four or five hour window, maybe I
Speaker 1: can squeeze in around the golf, but in general, you know,
Speaker 1: when I have some free time, I just kind of
Speaker 1: want to be out in a in a nice kind
Speaker 1: of stream place. So a lot of times that's kind
Speaker 1: of on the boat.
Speaker 2: Awesome, Bart, pleasure chatting with you. Looking forward to the
Speaker 2: future updates. Thank you so much for joining me.
Speaker 1: All right, Tony, congrats on being an AVAX holder.
Speaker 2: Yeah for sure.
Speaker 1: All right,