Speaker 1: That doesn't necessarily mean that bitcoin doesn't do well when
Speaker 1: gold does well. I think it's a similar sort of
Speaker 1: things benefit both currencies. But if I was to bet,
Speaker 1: I think the next monetary system will still have the
Speaker 1: dollar as a reserve currency. It'll have a bunch of
Speaker 1: other vat currencies, but nations will settle global trade and
Speaker 1: balances in gold.
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Speaker 2: link will be in a description. Hey everybody, welcome into
Speaker 2: the Thinking Crypto podcast. I'm your host, Tony Edward and
Speaker 2: my guest today is Arthur Hayes, who is the co
Speaker 2: founder of bitmex and the CIO and Maelstrom. Arthur, great
Speaker 2: to have you on. Thanks for having me, Arthur, we
Speaker 2: were talking before the recording. I followed you for years.
Speaker 2: I appreciate your views on crypto as well as the
Speaker 2: macro and boy do I have a lot of questions
Speaker 2: for you because it's tariff torim oil out there. It's wild,
Speaker 2: but you know, I want to get your background. I
Speaker 2: usually love to hear about people's stories and how they
Speaker 2: got to crypto. Where did you grow up, how did
Speaker 2: you get into tradfi and how did that lead to crypto?
Speaker 1: So I grew up in a small place called Buffalo,
Speaker 1: New York. It's as industrial city in New York State,
Speaker 1: in New York Canada, in the Great Lakes region of the
Speaker 1: United States. I went to university in Philadelphia, at the
Speaker 1: University of Pennsylvania Undergraduate Business School. And in university I
Speaker 1: made a decision that I wanted to, you know, make
Speaker 1: my mark in China. So I studied Chinese and moved
Speaker 1: out to Hong Kong when I graduated and worked for
Speaker 1: Deutsche Bank and City Bank in the tradi fi world.
Speaker 1: I was an exchange traded market baker marketmaker for both
Speaker 1: firms and helped them go that business in the region.
Speaker 1: I subsequently lost my job at City thankfully, and in
Speaker 1: twenty thirteen read the Bitcoin white paper, got hooked, started trading,
Speaker 1: started bitmes by twenty fourteen with my other two co founders,
Speaker 1: Ben Dilo and Sam Reid, and sort of the rest
Speaker 1: is history.
Speaker 2: And you mentioned you read the Big one white paper.
Speaker 2: How did you learn about Bigcoe and a friend tell
Speaker 2: you about it? Did you see in a forum? And
Speaker 2: when did it click for you? What was your aha moment?
Speaker 1: So I was a big, big zero hedge consumer ethic.
Speaker 1: You know. Actually I think the content was a bit
Speaker 1: better ten fifteen years ago, but whatever, that's just my opinion.
Speaker 1: And they posted an article about this thing called bitcoin
Speaker 1: that it I think surged in price to like tw
Speaker 1: hundred fifty dollars or whatever it was back in spring
Speaker 1: of twenty thirteen, and I thought that was quite interesting,
Speaker 1: and so, oh, let me just read about it and
Speaker 1: see what's what's going on? Because they didn't have a job,
Speaker 1: and I was thinking about what I wanted to do next,
Speaker 1: and sort of the philosophy and the ethos behind sound
Speaker 1: money and the centralization really spoke to me. I was
Speaker 1: a bit of a gold bug, you know. I had
Speaker 1: my you know, little stash of gold coins and a
Speaker 1: safety pots of the box because I thought the FED
Speaker 1: was going to end the world and all kinds of
Speaker 1: shit like that. So the the Satoshi's prophecies and sort
Speaker 1: of teaching sort of really clicked with me on a level.
Speaker 1: I was like, Wow, I could really get it on
Speaker 1: the ground level here and hopefully build something quite impactful
Speaker 1: in this bitcoin cryptocurrency ecosystem.
Speaker 2: And then with bitmac, I mean, I remember you guys
Speaker 2: had amazing volumes, you were doing so well. What happened
Speaker 2: with bitmes and was it more of you know, we
Speaker 2: find ourselves in the ky C a m L world now.
Speaker 2: And then you guys kind of took a hit in
Speaker 2: that way.
Speaker 1: So obviously, you know, we had a bad rap going
Speaker 1: up against the US government. We lost, you know, obviously
Speaker 1: we've been vindicated posts but whatever, and you know, we
Speaker 1: grew really fast, made some poor hiring decisions, and our
Speaker 1: competitors were able to, you know, take what we built
Speaker 1: and the products that we created and build a better
Speaker 1: trading platform. And that's you know, that's hashtag business. So
Speaker 1: but no, bit mix is still around. We're still trying
Speaker 1: to make a comeback here. So the story is not
Speaker 1: over yet.
Speaker 2: And obviously you're an og Arthur when you look back
Speaker 2: to where things were to cipher funk fung days of bigcoin,
Speaker 2: and then you have this entire ascid class that was
Speaker 2: birth out a bitcoin and where we are now with
Speaker 2: tratify getting involved and ETFs and much more. How does
Speaker 2: that feel? What are your thoughts around all of that change.
Speaker 1: I think it's great. At the end of the day.
Speaker 1: What's the point of bitcoin? It's a social experiment. Can
Speaker 1: we create this monetary system in our minds out of
Speaker 1: nothing that's based on computers and cryptography, and can this
Speaker 1: mind virus spread all over the world and get other
Speaker 1: people to believe that these bits of information have value
Speaker 1: and can be used to buy real goods and services.
Speaker 1: So it's amazing that all sorts of people, from governments
Speaker 1: to large banks to asset managers are all you know,
Speaker 1: treating bitcoin, have an opinion about it. Are talking about
Speaker 1: whether it's good or bad. It doesn't really matter, but
Speaker 1: it's in the conversation. I can't imagine there's any serious
Speaker 1: investor out there in the world who doesn't know what
Speaker 1: bitcoin is. Whether they think it's a scam or not,
Speaker 1: it doesn't really matter. But we want to be recognized.
Speaker 1: The worst thing is to be ignored.
Speaker 2: And with the talks of bitcoin being part of a
Speaker 2: reserve now in the United States, and you have other
Speaker 2: nation states and countries that are mining bigcoin like Bhutan
Speaker 2: and so forth, are we are there at the cusp
Speaker 2: of another Breton Woods. Are we going to see bitcoin
Speaker 2: sitting alongside gold backing FIAT?
Speaker 1: I don't think so. I think that governments it's in
Speaker 1: their best interest to maintain their power to issue their
Speaker 1: own currency and do the type of things that they
Speaker 1: do without good and bad. And if we're going to
Speaker 1: go back to sort of a neutral reserve asset, I
Speaker 1: think it's going to be gold because central bank managers
Speaker 1: and governments have, you know, thousands of years of history
Speaker 1: of using gold as a commodity form of money. This
Speaker 1: sort of creates some stricture around how much people can
Speaker 1: spend at the government level, so that doesn't necessarily mean
Speaker 1: that bitcoin doesn't do well when gold does well. I
Speaker 1: think it's a similar sort of things benefit both currencies.
Speaker 1: But if I was to bet, I think the next
Speaker 1: monetary system will still have the dollar as a reserve currency.
Speaker 1: It'll have about rather fiat currencies, but nations will settle
Speaker 1: global trade and balances in gold. Mm hm.
Speaker 2: So I guess my question is maybe you touched on
Speaker 2: this a bit, So where does bitcoin fit if that's
Speaker 2: the case, right, and they're putting gold in the blockchain,
Speaker 2: they're going to tokenize gold, So where does bitcoin fit?
Speaker 2: Is it a hedge against all all of that the
Speaker 2: fiata governments, even though it's being part of a government reserve.
Speaker 1: Now well, I mean I think basically the US government
Speaker 1: reserve is literally just you know, they still stole, seize
Speaker 1: a bunch of bitcoin from people and they're not going
Speaker 1: to sell it. That's what the reserve is. Other countries,
Speaker 1: the reserve is, hey, we have excess energy and instead
Speaker 1: of you know, wasting it somehow, we're going to save
Speaker 1: it by mining bitcoin. And bitcoin is our energy saving.
Speaker 1: So you have that in the Middle East, you have
Speaker 1: that in China. You mentioned Bhutan as well as another
Speaker 1: country with excess energy trying to do that as well.
Speaker 1: So that's how I see bitcoin fitting into this. It's
Speaker 1: just another system. It's a purely digital system. But if
Speaker 1: we're talking about the evolution of monetary policy, I think
Speaker 1: we're going to go back to something that you know,
Speaker 1: the people in charge are very familiar with, which is,
Speaker 1: you know, fiat currency is issued by relevant governments, and
Speaker 1: when I trade with another government or system, I settle
Speaker 1: in gold because I don't trust the management of your
Speaker 1: fiat currency.
Speaker 2: Interesting, so settling in gold, do you think then gold
Speaker 2: might back? Some of these stable coins are CBDCs that
Speaker 2: they're going to you know, obviously they're tokenizing the fiat currencies.
Speaker 2: How do you how does that relationship work?
Speaker 1: I have no idea. I mean, I I don't think
Speaker 1: that matters one way or the other. I don't know
Speaker 1: why you want to tree to tokenize version of gold.
Speaker 1: People want to hold gold, right, that's the whole point
Speaker 1: of it. If you want tokenize gold, I mean, it's
Speaker 1: a different thing, but that's what bitcoin is. It's an
Speaker 1: electronic version. It moves faster, it's got a different sort
Speaker 1: of proper set of properties. But if you want a
Speaker 1: whole gold. Tokenizing it means it gets trusting somebody else
Speaker 1: to hold your goal. That's not the fucking point. The
Speaker 1: point is to hold your own gold.
Speaker 2: So let's talk about what's happening in the markets now
Speaker 2: with the macro we got tierff madness happening, right, are
Speaker 2: the give us the lay of the land. How are
Speaker 2: you seeing this play? What is Trump trying to achieve here?
Speaker 2: And how does this impact the markets this year?
Speaker 1: I think that Trump has been very consistent with his message.
Speaker 1: The execution has been iffy on it. But you know,
Speaker 1: when he came into power in twenty sixteen, he kicked
Speaker 1: off the first trade war with China and stuting in
Speaker 1: twenty eighteen, and it's all about his belief and the
Speaker 1: people who voted for him believe that America has gotten
Speaker 1: a raw deal over the past fifty years, that China
Speaker 1: and other countries, specifically China because they're the biggest beneficiary
Speaker 1: of this, have taken advantage of the openness of American
Speaker 1: markets and they've essentially built this amazing manufacturing juggernaut and
Speaker 1: then stuffed America are full of cheap goods, and then
Speaker 1: the American capitalists class have essentially sold out the the average
Speaker 1: American worker by shipping all the best jobs overseas and
Speaker 1: retaining all the profits in terms of high corporate profits
Speaker 1: and shareholder returns at that level. And so that's sort
Speaker 1: of his message. Now, he started out in twenty eighteen
Speaker 1: with the trade ward in China kind of fizzled out
Speaker 1: by the time he finished in twenty twenty. He campaigned
Speaker 1: on a similar sort of promise in twenty twenty four.
Speaker 1: Again similar similar ethos, America's gotten a bad deal. We're
Speaker 1: going to come after all these countries who've been taking
Speaker 1: advantage of us, and I'm going to unveil these you know,
Speaker 1: mind bogglingly amazing tariffs in you know, very quickly into
Speaker 1: my first term, my second term in office. And what
Speaker 1: he do He tasked the people. I don't know which
Speaker 1: cabinet official runs this thing, but he tasked them. They say, hey,
Speaker 1: come up with a tariff plan by April second, and
Speaker 1: they did it. And this is what it was. Now.
Speaker 1: Obviously it was a lot more bombastic and bigger than
Speaker 1: a lot of people thought. But again it fits with
Speaker 1: the goal. There's a current account deficit that's in the
Speaker 1: true llidon of dollars every year, he says, I want
Speaker 1: to close that as quickly as possible. So they came
Speaker 1: up with this formula. I mean, a lot of people,
Speaker 1: you know, try to deride it as sixth grade math
Speaker 1: and all these other things. But if his goal is
Speaker 1: I want to remove this deficit that I have as
Speaker 1: quickly as possible, then slapping on some massive tariff on
Speaker 1: all these countries based on the annual deficit that they
Speaker 1: have with the US makes a bit of sense. And
Speaker 1: so that's what he's doing. Very consistent. The methods have
Speaker 1: changed a bit, but he's very consistent. So I think.
Speaker 1: You know, right now, people are I think, are in
Speaker 1: the denial stage. Oh he's not that serious. If the
Speaker 1: market drops another few percent, inequities he's going to stop
Speaker 1: or what have you. But I don't think so. I
Speaker 1: think he's going for broke on this. It's earlier in
Speaker 1: his first term. The election, least for a lot of
Speaker 1: Republican legislators is not until twenty twenty six in the
Speaker 1: end of the year, so he has some time to
Speaker 1: take some hits politically and economically before engineering what he
Speaker 1: calls a glorious revolution in America. Coming into you know,
Speaker 1: the third quart of twenty twenty six. So I think
Speaker 1: we're in the start of you know, this is just
Speaker 1: another sign post in the unraveling of this post nineteen
Speaker 1: seventy one Fiat regime two thousand and eight was the
Speaker 1: first tremor that was papered over with paid with printed money.
Speaker 1: Then we had COVID, and now we have had this
Speaker 1: and again it's a trend that was going to happen anyways,
Speaker 1: Like I think that the US and the China will
Speaker 1: decouple in a two different systems and then every country
Speaker 1: will just kind of choose which said they're on.
Speaker 2: Interesting, So do you think we might see the FED
Speaker 2: use the same playbook it did in two thousand and
Speaker 2: eight as well as twenty March twenty twenty where they
Speaker 2: have to cut rates asap and also start the money
Speaker 2: printer again.
Speaker 1: Absolutely, I don't know what the trigger is going to be.
Speaker 1: When you have, you know, this amount of carnage in
Speaker 1: the trad fire mark, it's somebody's going to go bust.
Speaker 1: And obviously we know that the system cannot allow any
Speaker 1: of its vested interests, banks, large asset managers, interconnected hedge
Speaker 1: funds to ever suffer catastrophic losses, and so the federal
Speaker 1: step in, and maybe it won't be quy or money
Speaker 1: printing as we traditionally understand it. Every time was a
Speaker 1: bit different because internally, the Fed believes that they're fighting
Speaker 1: the good fight, that they are you know, great stewards
Speaker 1: of the United States dollar, that they are going to
Speaker 1: make sure that inflation is contained, unemployment is low, and
Speaker 1: you know, they are not going to engage in money
Speaker 1: printing when inflation is above their two percent target. So
Speaker 1: it might not be called q it might be something else. Right,
Speaker 1: the twenty twenty three regional banking crisis, they created the
Speaker 1: SINKLE the bank Term Funding Program, which I said was
Speaker 1: a four trillion dollar money printing exercise. Now they didn't
Speaker 1: call it quite a to the easing because technically, under
Speaker 1: the economic definition how they define it, it's not so
Speaker 1: they could said, no, I didn't print any money. I
Speaker 1: just you know, supported the banking system. But it's all
Speaker 1: the same thing. And obviously bitcoin sniffed through all that
Speaker 1: bullshit and we went from twenty thousand to you know,
Speaker 1: seventy thousand pretty quickly after they enacted that bailout. So
Speaker 1: again we're going to get a bail out. I don't know,
Speaker 1: what it looks like. But we know that it's going
Speaker 1: to provide some sort of printed money in some way,
Speaker 1: shape or form. But they're not going to call it
Speaker 1: like they call everything else.
Speaker 2: So is this you know what you're experience in tried
Speaker 2: fy and much more? Is this the only playbook they
Speaker 2: have there? There's no other solution, And until something changes,
Speaker 2: I don't know, maybe in a one hundred years because
Speaker 2: we're all in some super digital world where money and
Speaker 2: everything is on the blockchain, I don't know. They have
Speaker 2: another solution, and it's not for your currency.
Speaker 1: So there is another solution. The solution is you had
Speaker 1: a business, you made bad decisions, you went bankrupt, and
Speaker 1: we allow you to go bankrupt and the creditors take
Speaker 1: off your business. That is how capitalism is supposed to work.
Speaker 1: They tried a bit of that in nineteen twenty nine.
Speaker 1: Nobody really liked it. That's hard to get re elected
Speaker 1: when you actually let the vested interests go bankrupt. And
Speaker 1: so they said, Okay, every time the system has to
Speaker 1: reset and expunge credit from it, we're going to make
Speaker 1: sure that it never happens, and we're going to backstop
Speaker 1: the system. And that is what the Federal Reserve in
Speaker 1: the US Treasury Department has done ever since, if it's
Speaker 1: been created in nineteen thirteen, there's never apart from the
Speaker 1: Great Depression, which you know was a little bit of that.
Speaker 1: You know, the Treasury Secretary at the time, Andrew Mellon,
Speaker 1: had a famous quote saying, liquidate labor, liquid a capital,
Speaker 1: stop people from living on the hot, living high, make
Speaker 1: them be more responsible kind of thing, right, That is
Speaker 1: not a great way to get re elected. Argentina is
Speaker 1: trying it, but they've been doing money printing in the
Speaker 1: most egregiously aggressive fashion since you know, Peronne and Kitchener
Speaker 1: for the last five years. So that's a reaction to that.
Speaker 1: But you know, look at the rhetoric from Trump and
Speaker 1: she and the leaders of the EU and Japan. No
Speaker 1: one's saying, hey, we spend too much money, we borrow
Speaker 1: too much in the future. So I'm sorry people today,
Speaker 1: we're going to have to take a bit of some
Speaker 1: harsh medicine and retrench of it. Now they're saying, I
Speaker 1: have an answer. It's you know, more government, it's money printing.
Speaker 1: It's all these different types of things. Even Trump, who's
Speaker 1: not exactly the most more government types of person. His
Speaker 1: plan is to move from a seven percent budget deficit
Speaker 1: by to a three percent budget deficit by twenty twenty eight.
Speaker 1: His plan is not to move from a seven percent
Speaker 1: budget budget deficit to a government surplus because that would
Speaker 1: require a lot of cutting of government spending. So again,
Speaker 1: even Trump, the most you know anti government, you know
Speaker 1: he's got elon swinging a head sledgehammer with his Apartment
Speaker 1: of Government efficiency thing, is not even saying he wants
Speaker 1: to move to a primary surplus and his domain so austerity.
Speaker 1: This notion that we're going to reduce the amount of
Speaker 1: credit fiat within the system is not the policy. It
Speaker 1: is money printing, both in different ways depending on the
Speaker 1: cultural sensitivities of your particular nation state. But that is
Speaker 1: the only answer they have because the other answer of
Speaker 1: credit destruction, means that all of them won't be in
Speaker 1: power anymore.
Speaker 2: So in addition to that, right being close to the
Speaker 2: money printer, whichever president they're a Democrat or Republican, Right,
Speaker 2: there's a temptation there, right, print our way out. It
Speaker 2: puts Jeck. Liquidity solves the problem I get re elected.
Speaker 2: In addition to that, is it also the world we
Speaker 2: live in everybody's retirement is tapped into the stock market
Speaker 2: would leverage, and if you let the collateral go down
Speaker 2: too far, people lose faith in the system and they'll
Speaker 2: be rioting in the streets. Like I just think about
Speaker 2: the boomers, right and all their retirement and everything like that.
Speaker 2: They can't let this thing go to zero. I mean,
Speaker 2: but do you care of a bunch of geriatrics around
Speaker 2: the street. What are they gonna do? But you know
Speaker 2: what I mean, not just.
Speaker 1: But also people on a zepic in the street, what
Speaker 1: are they gonna do? Like the young it's the young
Speaker 1: people who you know, they're watching their parents are like,
Speaker 1: oh wow, I can't buy a house. You know, my
Speaker 1: job sucks if I can get one? What is this
Speaker 1: life that I busted my ass to go to university for?
Speaker 1: And yet my parents on all the assets and are
Speaker 1: the richest generation in human history. So I think there's
Speaker 1: a generational conflict going on. And yes, if you let
Speaker 1: the system collapse or retrench to a more sustainable level,
Speaker 1: I bet the gen z and younger would feel hopeful
Speaker 1: again about their future, that they had something to look
Speaker 1: forward to, something to build a family for, rather than
Speaker 1: this abject just sort of like dystopia, lying flat, all
Speaker 1: these different things. Every single culture has a manifestation of
Speaker 1: this ire against the boomers and what they've constructed. So yes,
Speaker 1: if they let the system collapse, I think the younger
Speaker 1: generation would cheer it. Mm hmm.
Speaker 2: I guess this goes out into bigger things. But that's
Speaker 2: probably why you're seeing the decline in birth rates and population.
Speaker 1: Right.
Speaker 2: The boomer was was, I believe, the biggest boom and
Speaker 2: babies and things like that. That economy was driven by
Speaker 2: that demographic, but then it started ramping down and we're
Speaker 2: getting the bad end of the stake, so to speak,
Speaker 2: with the boomer economy and folks begetting disenfranchised.
Speaker 1: Yeah. Absolutely, I think there's generational warfare going on. And
Speaker 1: if you look at who's in charge of every major
Speaker 1: you know government, that's you know Gen X and boomers
Speaker 1: who are the ones in charge.
Speaker 2: Now? Are there? With this macerel uncertainty and fear and
Speaker 2: what's happening in the markets, do you see the bigcin
Speaker 2: cycle and even the bull market cycle extend further into
Speaker 2: twenty twenty six? Last year we were ahead with the
Speaker 2: ETF launch, Bitcoin hit a new all time high before
Speaker 2: the having but it seems like things are slowing down.
Speaker 2: Do you think it pushes into twenty twenty six.
Speaker 1: So first, I think we're still in a bull market.
Speaker 1: Right We've had a thirty ish percent correction from the
Speaker 1: all time high, perfectly normal for bickad. We'll see if
Speaker 1: were you're able to hold the seventy thousand market. If
Speaker 1: we continue to get another downdraft in the price, I
Speaker 1: think we will let TBD on that. And again I
Speaker 1: try not to get sucked into this. Bitcoin must have
Speaker 1: this four year cycle and the having being the starting
Speaker 1: of the of the run upwards. Yes, it's worked in
Speaker 1: the past, doesn't necessarily mean work in the future. I'm
Speaker 1: more concerned about global liquidity. We know that bitcoin is
Speaker 1: now more entrenched and more believed to be the only
Speaker 1: true free market where I can know what does the
Speaker 1: world think about how much units of fiat are slashing
Speaker 1: around and will be slashing around in the near future.
Speaker 1: That is bitcoin. It's straight twenty four to seven. No
Speaker 1: sypral bank controls that, no government control That's why, that's
Speaker 1: why it exists. And so I think if we believe
Speaker 1: that we're at this moment where we're transitioning into a
Speaker 1: different monetary system, different trade system, and we know that
Speaker 1: every single major leader wants to cushion the blow to
Speaker 1: their population by doing some sort of fiscal or monetary
Speaker 1: accommodation money printing. Then I think we're at a moment
Speaker 1: where we could see, you know, the cycle extend, possibly
Speaker 1: passes four years, or maybe we just get a really
Speaker 1: really intense, compressed run up to a million or some
Speaker 1: ridiculous number that no one could imagine it as possible,
Speaker 1: is at a short period of time, because Bitcoin is saying, yes,
Speaker 1: there's going to be so much money printing compressed in
Speaker 1: such a short period of time because we're moving to
Speaker 1: a new system, and therefore the price of bitcoin should
Speaker 1: be some ridiculous number.
Speaker 2: Hmm. If the Fed does go back to some sort
Speaker 2: of a qui right and whatever they call it, do
Speaker 2: you see kind of a march or a's say, twenty
Speaker 2: twenty after March, that strong run up like what you're saying,
Speaker 2: like maybe to one fifty by the end of Q
Speaker 2: two or Q three, and then but it's not following
Speaker 2: maybe the normal four year cycle. We we don't have
Speaker 2: a true bear market like we've seen historically.
Speaker 1: I mean, there definitely will be a bear market for sure,
Speaker 1: because our expectations of what the future amount of FIAT
Speaker 1: growth outpaced what actually happens. Right. But I think if
Speaker 1: we're talking about what's going to really going to reignite
Speaker 1: bitcoin from this you know, seventy to one hundred thousand
Speaker 1: chop that we've been in for the last few months,
Speaker 1: I think it's the FED capitulates. Then the you know,
Speaker 1: PBOC allows you on to weaken or at least stay
Speaker 1: consistent with the FED. They can print as much money
Speaker 1: and you know, stay tread water. You have the EU
Speaker 1: printing money to build bombs, and then you have Japan.
Speaker 1: The bog might stop its normalization of rates exercise and
Speaker 1: go back to printing money so that Japan can regain
Speaker 1: some export competitiveness against China. So again, I think that
Speaker 1: that is what can take us into the two fifty
Speaker 1: and above levels for bitcoin.
Speaker 2: Very quickly, let's talk about Mailstrom. What are you and
Speaker 2: Mailstrom investing in? Are you guys holding bitcoin all coins
Speaker 2: are investing in crypto companies as well?
Speaker 1: So you know, our fund which is basically not basically
Speaker 1: is all of my money, So we're not really a
Speaker 1: traditional venture capital fund in that sense you don't have
Speaker 1: external wipes. We write small checks for early stage projects,
Speaker 1: fifty one hundred thousand dollars checks. We do a lot
Speaker 1: of advisory. So obviously the best project we've advised so
Speaker 1: far has been Athena, a standout project in the synthetic
Speaker 1: dollar stable coin field. And then we do a bunch
Speaker 1: of liquid trading. And so right now we've slowed down
Speaker 1: on the early stage token stuff. We believe the prices
Speaker 1: are too high, the thing that we're seeing are not
Speaker 1: that compelling. Obviously, we're still advising projects like Athena and
Speaker 1: Aptose and those sorts of things. And some of the
Speaker 1: money that we've made we've harvested probably in early first
Speaker 1: quarter because I believe that there was going to be
Speaker 1: a large sol off due to Trump's inauguration as sell
Speaker 1: the news type of situation, and so right now we've been,
Speaker 1: you know, steadily redeploying that capital, mostly into bitcoin. I
Speaker 1: think that bitcoin dominance, which is the percentage of bitcoin
Speaker 1: relative to the entire crypto market cap, will continue to rise,
Speaker 1: and we're going to go somewhere close to seventy percent
Speaker 1: right now, so I'm like sixty two sixty three percent
Speaker 1: and so once we get up there instead of maybe
Speaker 1: bitcoins at one hundred and ten, one hundred and fifty whatever,
Speaker 1: some level much higher, then we start to see a
Speaker 1: real all coin season. And then for projects that have
Speaker 1: already been listed, we were very interested in projects that
Speaker 1: have product market fit, that have protocol revenue, and have users,
Speaker 1: which is a very small subset of projects, many of
Speaker 1: whom we've already invested in and we've seen them grow
Speaker 1: over the last few years, will double down on the
Speaker 1: liquid side because their token prices have gotten so destroyed
Speaker 1: because everyone just gravitating towards the highest quality crypto, which
Speaker 1: is Bitcoin. And then obviously I think we'll get back
Speaker 1: into whatever the shittiest of shit coin theme is for
Speaker 1: this next leg of the cycle. I don't know what
Speaker 1: that'll be.
Speaker 2: What we think is meme coins, of return to meme coins.
Speaker 1: I don't think the meme coins will return to the
Speaker 1: same extent that they were, you know, six to nine
Speaker 1: months ago. Yes, there'll be some meme coins that retain value,
Speaker 1: and some of Murad's whatever thing will probably go open value.
Speaker 1: Most of them will not. They'll just be stuck in
Speaker 1: mumbo because I think the retail trader they did the
Speaker 1: mean coin thing. They lost a bunch of money. There'll
Speaker 1: be a new new thing that's shiny and new with
Speaker 1: no history, and so everyone I'll gravitate towards that and
Speaker 1: we'll be trading that. I don't know what that's going
Speaker 1: to be, but we'll participate as well, because you know
Speaker 1: when music is playing and got a dance?
Speaker 2: Yeah, well, said Arthur. Is there any hoper etherorem I'm
Speaker 2: an eth holders, It's I'm too. It's painful. Look at
Speaker 2: that chart.
Speaker 1: If you think about layer ones, and I try to
Speaker 1: frame this as if I had a fresh unit of
Speaker 1: FIA capital today and I was had to invest in
Speaker 1: a layer one, which one would it be? Now? I
Speaker 1: think Eth is the best relative performer, possibly for the future,
Speaker 1: because it's the most it's the most hated layer one.
Speaker 1: Everybody's dogging on it, saying, oh, they haven't done anything
Speaker 1: in gears and blah blah blah. But if you look
Speaker 1: at what theory is, it's the number two largest cryptocurrency
Speaker 1: by market cap for a proof of steak system, It's
Speaker 1: the most secure because it has the mouse amount of
Speaker 1: value stake securing its network. It has the most amount
Speaker 1: of developer activity and talent. Yes, you know, salon On
Speaker 1: some other blockchains are catching up in that, but still
Speaker 1: theorium is still the largest developer community for DeFi. Every
Speaker 1: single major DeFi primitive began on ETH. So if you
Speaker 1: want to think about the new developers creating the new
Speaker 1: primitives that are going to derive the next you know, ave, compound, Uni, swamp,
Speaker 1: those type of things, I think they're going to happen
Speaker 1: on Ethereum versus any other other blockchain. Not to say
Speaker 1: some of those other ones aren't good trading vehicles. That
Speaker 1: is why I think. And then the only thing we
Speaker 1: have people are mad is think, oh they have the
Speaker 1: layer two sort of feet issues and the prices down.
Speaker 1: You know, let's say if eth is rallying faster than
Speaker 1: Solon or some of the other layer ones, everyone forgets
Speaker 1: about all that shit and they remember, oh, yeah, it's
Speaker 1: the biggest, it's the most secure, and then that's what
Speaker 1: they start touting in their mind as the reason why
Speaker 1: they need to own ETH. So again, I think if
Speaker 1: you're looking at it from now to in the future
Speaker 1: and on a risky war basis, I want to create
Speaker 1: the thing or own the thing that's the most hated
Speaker 1: of the previous cycle ethereum versus the thing that was
Speaker 1: most loved, something like Solana. That's not to say that
Speaker 1: Solana is not going to rip, you just won't rip
Speaker 1: as much as eth.
Speaker 2: Do you think what you usually we see like narratives, right?
Speaker 2: Do you think a strong narrative and it's not really
Speaker 2: a narrative would be a factual thing. But the SEC
Speaker 2: is looking to add ether or staking to the etherorem
Speaker 2: et aps and that could attract a lot of inflows.
Speaker 2: Get the narrative out there that you can earn this yield.
Speaker 2: Here's the mainstream folks, come on in, you know, earn
Speaker 2: your yield, YadA YadA. But also the upgrades that are
Speaker 2: going to be coming to native to the layer one
Speaker 2: versus the layer two scaling solutions.
Speaker 1: Maybe, but I don't think that TraFi doesn't set the narrative.
Speaker 1: Retail DJ and set the narrative, and so the price
Speaker 1: will rally well before if it does any of that stuff,
Speaker 1: that'll just be icing on the cake. The Coimbra's rallying
Speaker 1: well into the ETF, the black rock ETF and all
Speaker 1: the other being launched. And then it became another reason
Speaker 1: why people wanted to be long Bitcoin. It wasn't the
Speaker 1: primary reason. So I don't I think that's a icing
Speaker 1: on the cake.
Speaker 2: Oh for sure. Now there's been a lot of talk
Speaker 2: between Ethereum and Solona and the battle there. Do you
Speaker 2: I see a lot of enterprise adoption happening around ethere
Speaker 2: I mean black Rock they launched their tokenized fun on Eth.
Speaker 2: Fidelity just came out and said we're going to watch
Speaker 2: a stable coin and Eth. We're also going to tokenize
Speaker 2: the fun on Eth as well. But Solana seems to
Speaker 2: be more of the retail I want to launch NFTs
Speaker 2: or meme coins. That's where I go. Is it is
Speaker 2: it that you know? As far as the dichotomy between
Speaker 2: the two.
Speaker 1: I mean, I'm cripping something. That guy, the founder of
Speaker 1: a penis aid the trad FI doesn't give a fuck
Speaker 1: about later one blockchains and which one it is. They
Speaker 1: care about where the users and if I'm a salesperson. Okay,
Speaker 1: there's a big user base on Eath. I launched their
Speaker 1: first Boom. I launched on Eth. Oh there's some lo
Speaker 1: Solana who want my product boom a lotch on Slana.
Speaker 1: People on Aptose, Yeah, launch on Aptose people on Sonic Lab. Yeah,
Speaker 1: a lot, it's there, right, Like pick your layer one blockchain.
Speaker 1: If you've got a differentiated instead of users, the end
Speaker 1: product originator will issue there. They don't care about security
Speaker 1: and all these decentralization, all these It doesn't matter because
Speaker 1: it's a centralized product that they're selling anyways. They just say,
Speaker 1: if somebody wants to buy my product and I can
Speaker 1: integrate that, Okay, here's the cost of integration. Here's how
Speaker 1: many people I can potentially sell this product to. If
Speaker 1: the math makes sense, then I do it. It doesn't
Speaker 1: matter what the blockchain is. So you might have chosen
Speaker 1: to eat first, but they'll be on Solona pretty quick
Speaker 1: and all the other ones down the line. So I
Speaker 1: don't think that should be a reason for against investing
Speaker 1: in a particular blockchain, because a traify asset measure does
Speaker 1: not care what it is. Are there more people that
Speaker 1: can sell this stuff too?
Speaker 2: That's a great point because recently Securitized the announced that
Speaker 2: black Rocks miiddle Fund moved to Solona as well. So
Speaker 2: are they? Do you see the future being multi chain
Speaker 2: and that there's going to be a good maybe twenty
Speaker 2: blockchains running around the world and it will be consolidated
Speaker 2: to that.
Speaker 1: I mean we already in a multi chain, You're already
Speaker 1: in the future, right, and there'll be infinite number of
Speaker 1: it will be as many layer one blockchains. Other are
Speaker 1: VC muppets willing to fund these things, right, So we've
Speaker 1: got the barrier chains and the monads and the mega
Speaker 1: eth and all these these other layer one things. Why
Speaker 1: because you know, somebody in Western Europe and San Francisco
Speaker 1: had a fuck ton of money and they had to
Speaker 1: do crypto. So let's just throw these guys a bunch
Speaker 1: of money to build the next fastest da da da
Speaker 1: da da layer one blockchain with no fucking clients. Right,
Speaker 1: So we're gonna have many more of those because once
Speaker 1: this market recovers, and this is one of the best
Speaker 1: performing subjects of asset management, guess what, all the money's
Speaker 1: gonna flow over here and you're gonna have these mega funds.
Speaker 1: With all this money, you need to deploy it. And
Speaker 1: one of the best ways to deploy money very quickly
Speaker 1: is a massive layer one project that aims to fix
Speaker 1: it Ferium or fix Alana, or fix one of these
Speaker 1: other you know, pick your later one blocking that they
Speaker 1: want to fix and then they just get a hundred
Speaker 1: few hundred million dollars from the usual suspects and they
Speaker 1: go and build something that nobody needs. So again we're
Speaker 1: gonna keep having that not gonna go away. And then
Speaker 1: if they're a great party, so who am I at
Speaker 1: a thairy shade, I'll keep kicking the free booze.
Speaker 2: So on that note, right, is this the best macro
Speaker 2: trade right now? And how long do you think these
Speaker 2: type of returns stay in play? Is in the next
Speaker 2: two bowl markets or just one more twenty twenty eight?
Speaker 1: I mean, I think that this is the if you
Speaker 1: want to talk about what is going to perform the
Speaker 1: best when the people in charge reflate the system to
Speaker 1: fight the change that's happening the global macro perspective, I
Speaker 1: think crypto is the best place to be. Bitcoin as
Speaker 1: restart the risk. The upside is, We've seen how bitcoin
Speaker 1: is performed over since two thousand and eight until the
Speaker 1: present with the FED to value the dollar effectively byranting
Speaker 1: all that money. We've seen how bitcoin has performed when
Speaker 1: the Chinese yuan has depreciated. We've seen how bitcoin has
Speaker 1: performed in a global pandemic when the authorities flooded the
Speaker 1: system with liquidity. Again, it's always been the best performing
Speaker 1: asset relative to stocks or even gold, although I think
Speaker 1: goal is going to have a great run as it's
Speaker 1: reintegrated as a global neutral reserve currency. But at the
Speaker 1: end of the day, Bitcoin has been the best performing
Speaker 1: asset since two thousand and eight period. There's nothing else
Speaker 1: has done better, and it will be continue to be
Speaker 1: so because it's a small door relative to the gargantuan
Speaker 1: infinite amount of FIA that needs to find a home
Speaker 1: and a real asset, and it's portable. I get take
Speaker 1: it anywhere, I can store it in my head. Right,
Speaker 1: It's just one of those things. It's got the best properties,
Speaker 1: and so as more people realize that, I think that
Speaker 1: this is going to be the best expression of that trade. Yeah,
Speaker 1: you can pick some stocks and maybe there's a few
Speaker 1: commodities that will do well. Of course, if that's your thing,
Speaker 1: there'll be definitely ways to earn so over average returns.
Speaker 1: But again I think bitcoin does the best.
Speaker 2: And of course the scarcity aspect, right, it's hard cap gold.
Speaker 2: They're going to continue to mine more gold and stocks
Speaker 2: and all that. You know, it's not hard cap like
Speaker 2: like bitcoin, of course.
Speaker 1: Yeah.
Speaker 2: I want to get your thoughts on the ETFs and
Speaker 2: do you see that as a good thing or is
Speaker 2: it a bit of a trojan horse tratify taking over
Speaker 2: bitcoin right where the majority of the public or population
Speaker 2: may go to black rock in fidelities and they don't
Speaker 2: have the self custody aspect of bitcoin. Obviously, it doesn't
Speaker 2: trade on the weekends and things like that. And I
Speaker 2: don't want to. I don't think the United States would
Speaker 2: try to do this like they did with gold, you know,
Speaker 2: in the early days of confiscating it. But if they
Speaker 2: wanted to, it's there in the ETF rapper. What do
Speaker 2: you think about that?
Speaker 1: So? I think an ETF is not bitcoin, it's a
Speaker 1: it's a financial asset. It's a I want to trade
Speaker 1: bitcoin to earn more FIAT. That's my goal, and which
Speaker 1: is a perfectly fine goal. That's what people who own
Speaker 1: the ETF are there to do. And Larry Fink and
Speaker 1: his ILK are they are to provide a service which
Speaker 1: is going to custody. Yet when to give you this
Speaker 1: rapper that trades on these tradify markets you can put
Speaker 1: into your retirement account and blah blah blah, we were
Speaker 1: completely within the trad five fiat system, but giving you
Speaker 1: a return that's coming from outside the system. And that's fine.
Speaker 1: But at the end of the day, an asset manager
Speaker 1: is a passive institution. They don't do anything with any
Speaker 1: of the assets that they hold. So is Blackrock going
Speaker 1: to sponsor core developers, you know, get involved in protocol upgrades,
Speaker 1: have an opinion on these on these types of things.
Speaker 1: Most likely No, it's going to be individual holders or
Speaker 1: people who own businesses within the ecosystem. They're the ones
Speaker 1: who are going to drive the chain change and make
Speaker 1: sure that bigcoin stays relevant going into the future. So
Speaker 1: it's great for the fiat price of bitcoin that you have,
Speaker 1: you know, this massive horde of people wanting to get
Speaker 1: that fiat return. Again, it's an open system, that's a
Speaker 1: whole point. This is what the too she created. So
Speaker 1: I don't think it's a good or bad thing. I
Speaker 1: just think it's another facet of the market. And I
Speaker 1: don't think people should say, oh, we need to ban
Speaker 1: the ets or anything like that, but this is the
Speaker 1: whole point.
Speaker 2: Is an open system, yeah, for sure. And I think
Speaker 2: I was talking to Mark Usco about this. He was
Speaker 2: saying if anything like that happened anyway, because it's all
Speaker 2: in an open system on the blockchain, we could blacklist
Speaker 2: that bigcoin, so to speak. And I don't know only
Speaker 2: the ones that under what circumstance if they try to
Speaker 2: confiscate the bigcoin so to speak.
Speaker 1: If that was it sounds a bit sounds a bit
Speaker 1: suspect for sure.
Speaker 2: Okay, US crypto regulations and this favorable environment we're in.
Speaker 2: What are your thoughts on this one to eighty from
Speaker 2: what happened under Biden with Genser and Elizabeth Warren, and
Speaker 2: do you see a boom companies returning to United States,
Speaker 2: maybe bitmax opening up more in the United States and
Speaker 2: things like that.
Speaker 1: I think ultimately, if you take a look at what
Speaker 1: was happening with the FTX and Sam bankmin Freed fiasco,
Speaker 1: if he hadn't if you know, this is always the
Speaker 1: if you hadn't of when you have a massively over
Speaker 1: leveraged trade, which he that's what he did. If he
Speaker 1: if he hadn't stolen all the money and the market
Speaker 1: went against him, you know, he would have gotten all
Speaker 1: the licenses. He is poised to get a license to
Speaker 1: issue a stable client. He was poised to get a
Speaker 1: bunch of other licenses from the SEC. He was poised
Speaker 1: to get some licenses to do derivatives with the CFTC
Speaker 1: all predicate it on the massive amounts of campaign donations
Speaker 1: and money he was spending politically in the United States. Now,
Speaker 1: obviously he was a complete fraud and he was stealing
Speaker 1: people's mind. And when that came out, everyone who he
Speaker 1: was dealing with felt embarrassed and had to basically do
Speaker 1: a one eighty and they said, oh no, we hate crypto.
Speaker 1: We're not a bunch of like on the take politicians.
Speaker 1: And I think that was sort of the main you know,
Speaker 1: one ady thrust that either the Biden administration and all
Speaker 1: the other you know, downstream Democrats took after f checks
Speaker 1: because they were embarrassed. And there's pictures they've done with
Speaker 1: Sam and shaking's hand and going on stage of them
Speaker 1: that conferences and all this kind of stuff. Right, And
Speaker 1: so the you know, Trump and his brand of Republicans
Speaker 1: saw an opportunity. His an ecosystem. They've got material wealth,
Speaker 1: they've been abused by the Peters administration. Let's use his
Speaker 1: cohort as a great fundraising mechanism. And as you know, voters. Right.
Speaker 1: Supposedly fifty million people in America whole crypto right. So
Speaker 1: I'm sure some of those are marginals, swing voters, and
Speaker 1: they helped bring Trump and a lot of Republicans into
Speaker 1: office in twenty twenty four. And so now there's a
Speaker 1: lot of talk about what sort of crypto regulation the
Speaker 1: United States should have. I've been pretty vocal on record
Speaker 1: that I think that the best you know, if I
Speaker 1: was in the issues, I am not. I'm just a
Speaker 1: private citizen out here, and you wanted to have the biggest,
Speaker 1: most robust crypto ecosystem within your particular country, you should
Speaker 1: do what the United States did in nineteen ninety six
Speaker 1: with the Internet platforms, which they basically said you can
Speaker 1: do whatever you want. The things that happen on your
Speaker 1: platform is not your responsibility. If somebody commits a crime
Speaker 1: using email or AOL or Google, that's their thing. They
Speaker 1: committed the crime. It's not up to you Google or
Speaker 1: platform operator to police that police set activity and prevent
Speaker 1: it from happening. Right. And so if we adopt a
Speaker 1: similar sort of situation to crypto, it's basically saying, you know,
Speaker 1: bitcoin is free speech, it's private, We're not going to
Speaker 1: touch it. You know, if you defraud somebody or steal
Speaker 1: someone's money, we're going to come after you, and you
Speaker 1: know all that, all that kind of stuff. But you
Speaker 1: are free to do to centralize finance and build an exchange,
Speaker 1: and we're not going to put any rules or regulations
Speaker 1: or licenses around that. Watch how many people move to
Speaker 1: the United States to open up a crypto business. It
Speaker 1: would be you know, insane, the amount of activity that
Speaker 1: would happen in America, similar to the way that all
Speaker 1: this activity happened in Silicon Valley with the mega platforms
Speaker 1: like the Googles, Amazons, Facebooks, Microsoft, all those all those
Speaker 1: sorts of players who all benefited from the nineteen ninety
Speaker 1: six Communications Act, Section two thirty for those of you
Speaker 1: who are into that. Yeah, so I think something similar
Speaker 1: should happen with crypto. What's going on right now is
Speaker 1: more of more of the same, you know, traditional politics.
Speaker 1: It says, Okay, there's a bunch of different people who
Speaker 1: have invested interests are all speaking into Trump and his
Speaker 1: advisor's ears, and then it's up to them to come
Speaker 1: up with what is this bill or slated bills that
Speaker 1: they're going to put forward and what do they get enacted.
Speaker 1: Who knows what that'll be. I have no idea. I'm
Speaker 1: not really on you know, the different stable coin acts
Speaker 1: or licensing and all that kind of stuff. But that's
Speaker 1: just more of the same politics. It could be good,
Speaker 1: could be bad. I don't know. But if you know,
Speaker 1: if they really wanted to do something, I wouldn't say radical.
Speaker 1: Could they already did it with the big Internet platforms,
Speaker 1: or another country wanted to do something similar. If they want,
Speaker 1: if they really wanted crypto and these really smart people
Speaker 1: to be within there made up jurisdiction called the nation state,
Speaker 1: then they could do something like this as well.
Speaker 2: Yeah, I hope they do that sooner than later, and
Speaker 2: they get these these bills through and we got to,
Speaker 2: of course make sure they're good and balanced, because you
Speaker 2: never know. The devil's in the details. Stable coin market,
Speaker 2: we're seeing everybody in their grandma launching stable coins now.
Speaker 2: I think Ripple, you got PayPal circles about to ipo.
Speaker 2: We've seen their file to do that. Tether still king
Speaker 2: of the hill though. How do you see the stable
Speaker 2: coin market playing out? Are we like at a trillion
Speaker 2: in market cap by next year? Banks getting involved? Now
Speaker 2: that the restrictions are being loosened than things like that.
Speaker 1: So I think this when you say stable core revolutions
Speaker 1: is mostly just a bunch of American companies or people
Speaker 1: in America who now want to issue stable coins for Americans,
Speaker 1: and I think they're missing the point. The reason why
Speaker 1: Tether is the most successful sale point and will continue
Speaker 1: to be the most successful stalle coin is because it
Speaker 1: offers US dollar banking to those who do not have
Speaker 1: US dollar banking, which is everyone outside of America America
Speaker 1: to have US dollar banking. They have instant settlement of dollars, Venmozelle,
Speaker 1: cash app, PayPal, all these type of thing, right, they're
Speaker 1: not perfect. I'll give you that they're centralized. Who cares,
Speaker 1: But if you're a random American, I can send you
Speaker 1: dollars and I even not using the banking system. So
Speaker 1: I'm not exactly sure what a circle or Ripple or
Speaker 1: all these or a GP Morgan or a Bank of
Speaker 1: America they what's this product? They're gonna they just gonna
Speaker 1: make a better version of Vemo. Okay, great, but all
Speaker 1: you guys can go and raise one hundred million dollars
Speaker 1: and then go compete on advertising dollars to convince this
Speaker 1: person to save once sent on their transaction fees or
Speaker 1: doll another app on their on their smartphone to send
Speaker 1: money between each other. Great, go and do that. I
Speaker 1: don't want to be anywhere near that business because that's
Speaker 1: just a money losing exercise for most of these individuals.
Speaker 1: And the under in the client already has access to
Speaker 1: the product. They don't need another dollar banking solution. Can
Speaker 1: I already have one? Now? Talk about the Chinese person
Speaker 1: or the exporter in Africa or somebody in Argentina they
Speaker 1: need dollar making? Is anyone trying to solve their problems? Well,
Speaker 1: tell their solve their problems. USTT works great. When I
Speaker 1: travel to Argentina into go skiing, I pay everybody in USDT.
Speaker 1: It works right. There's a reason why Athena has such appeal.
Speaker 1: I can earn an above average yield over treasuries getting
Speaker 1: this basis yield, and I don't need to have access
Speaker 1: to the US Treasury market or access to the centralized changes.
Speaker 1: I can just buy this, you know, at stake USD
Speaker 1: and earn this yield. This is who this is for.
Speaker 1: That that is why these businesses have done so well.
Speaker 1: Everyone also is saying, oh, this is there's this new
Speaker 1: bill in the US that's sort of code of codifying
Speaker 1: how stable coins are done. Therefore I can launch a business.
Speaker 1: I'm looking at tether. Oh, Teather is like one hundred
Speaker 1: and forty billion mark circular supply. Oh, of course, America
Speaker 1: is the biggest place in the world. I should be
Speaker 1: able to do that. So I'll can follow rules and
Speaker 1: you know, raise much money and then boom, I'm gonna
Speaker 1: I'm gonna go off to each other. But you're not
Speaker 1: going up to the Tether is not in America. I meanah,
Speaker 1: of course it is, but it's not. That's not their
Speaker 1: core customer. The core customer is outset of America. So
Speaker 1: I think everyone is fundamentally missing the point here of
Speaker 1: why certain stable coins are successful and ultimately they're just
Speaker 1: you know, lose all the investors' money.
Speaker 2: All right, final question for we hit the wrap up
Speaker 2: items are the best prediction by twenty thirty, how do
Speaker 2: you see us interacting with Web three and crypto? Is
Speaker 2: a lot more usage of stable coins? Do we have
Speaker 2: digital identity on the blockchain? More people holding bitcoin? But
Speaker 2: what do you seem I.
Speaker 1: Mean, honestly, I don't know what the thing will be.
Speaker 1: I think will be better at payments. I would imagine
Speaker 1: possibly hopefully more integrated into consumer stuff. Now. Obviously I'm
Speaker 1: an advisor of avaptos, and I think they're working very
Speaker 1: diligently on bringing extremely low cost, fast payments, you know,
Speaker 1: obviously outside of America for things that people actually want
Speaker 1: to do. So they build the system for Facebook and
Speaker 1: that is a sort of client base that they're going
Speaker 1: after with these payment systems, and I would love to
Speaker 1: see something like that more ubiquitous, so I can just
Speaker 1: take my smartphone, n FT tap and boom, there is
Speaker 1: you know, some stable coin transferred over the aptose network
Speaker 1: to the merchant and I can go and spend my
Speaker 1: crypto that way because it's fast and cheap enough for
Speaker 1: that kind of use case. I think we're going to
Speaker 1: see somebody do that quite well by the two thousand
Speaker 1: and thirties, and that'll probably be a massive revolution in
Speaker 1: sort of consumer payments, especially outside of you know, the US,
Speaker 1: Western Europe.
Speaker 2: Do you see like NFT technology powering contracts, deeds, vehicle
Speaker 2: titles and things like that, concert tickets and stuff like that. Maybe,
Speaker 2: I don't know, it could be all right, first wrap
Speaker 2: up question. If you could great your own metaverse, what
Speaker 2: would the theme be? Oh, House music, rapid Fire questions,
Speaker 2: favorite food.
Speaker 1: Uh, favorite food.
Speaker 2: Chicken, favorite musician or band, daft Punk, favorite movie, Dune,
Speaker 2: favorite book, three Body Problem series. When you're not doing
Speaker 2: working in crypto, what are you doing for fun?
Speaker 1: Playing tennis and skiing?
Speaker 2: Arthur pleasure chatting with you. Appreciate your insights and we'd
Speaker 2: love to have you back on. But thank you so much.
Speaker 1: Absolutely post post to post, the two post post