Speaker 1: We're seeing lower rates of scams and losses, and fraud
is a real goal of ours. The biggest barrier to
entry when it comes to crypto in America is the
knowledge gap. People just don't get it and they're overwhelmed
trying to learn it, all turned off by the hype
and the jargon. And that's exactly what we're here to
solve for.
Speaker 2: Crypto has matured and with Tradify companies offering the assets,
it does make it easy for a lot of consumers.
Accessibilities becoming easier with ETPs and all these blockchains.
Speaker 1: That's exactly right.
Speaker 2: This episode is brought to you by go Mining. Go
Mining is the all in one bitcoin app that makes
it simple and secure to earn, use, and benefit from
bitcoin every day. Bitcoin is the future of money, and
go Mining brings the future into the present, regardless of
your country, income, or level of knowledge. The app brings
together a growing ecosystem of Bitcoin products. This of course
includes mining, which is the core of go Mining's business.
Traditional bitcoin mining usually requires buying expensive equipment, managing electricity
and maintenance, and setting up technical infrastructure. Go Mining removes
this complexity. Instead of running hardware at home, users can
access real mining infrastructure located in professional data centers through
the app. Now it's important to distinguish that Go Mining
is not a cloud mining app. All mining power is
backed by real equipment in their data centers. You can
verify this yourself directly in the app. They also offer
what's called mining Wars, so this is a competitive mining
game where users can battle for greater rewards. So it
gives you another option to be able to earn and
makes it a bit fun as well. In addition, they
offer a great crypto wallet, a building crypto wallet to store, deposit, withdraw,
and convert supported assets directly in the app. And it's
easy to manage your go mining initiatives within their dashboard
where you can view your rewards and all the mining
active of these that are taking place. And they also
have a great academy that helps you to get started
and answers all your questions with courses, guidelines, and much
much more. So you have to check out Go Mining
go to the link in the description to learn more.
Hey folks, welcome into the Thinking Crypto podcast. I'm your
host Tony Edward and joining me today's Ali Tager, who
is the vice president of External Affairs at the National
Cryptocurrency Association, which is helping everyday Americans and businesses to
understand and use crypto with confidence. Ali, great to have.
Speaker 1: You, Thanks for having me, Tony. Lovely to see you.
Speaker 2: Yeah, longtime, we'll see you.
Speaker 1: Right, It feels like only yesterday for.
Speaker 2: The audience of Ali and I met in person in
New York? Was it Ali three weeks ago? Was it? Yeah?
Speaker 1: Which, actually, now that you say it feels like a
lifetime ago. But I will be back in New York
very soon and look forward to seeing you in person.
Speaker 2: Absolutely so. Ali, tell us a bit about yourself. Where
are you from and how you make a way into
the crypto industry?
Speaker 1: Yeah, of course. Well, as you know, Tony, I am
actually from Long Island, New York, so grew up not
too far from you, and I make it back East
pretty often, which I'm very fortunate about. But about a
decade ago I did trade coasts and I live in
Los Angeles, California. Now I'm so sorry to hear about
the heat wave for all of my East Coast friends
and for you as well, because as you can see,
I'm in a blazer because it is actually aba me
morning in California. But yeah, my professional background, I kind
of grew up in the traditional public relations and communications
agency world. So I actually started my career in healthcare,
working for pharmaceutical companies on things like Parkinson's disease drugs,
and it was there that I started working with patient
advocates directly and really loved the end user focus, right,
So much of what we do, no matter who you're
working with, it's not always the case that you get
to work directly with the people who were being impacted
by your products and whose lives are really making a
difference in And so it's a little bit of a
preamble of what brought me to the MCA. But I
sort of went from healthcare to health tech and working
with things like wearable devices, and then ultimately found myself
purely in the technology space, working with consumer tech brands
like Adobe and then fintech companies like PayPal. So that's
a little bit of how I started to slowly into
my way towards crypto. I was working with PayPal in
twenty seventeen to launch their cryptocurrency wallet, and at the time,
if you can imagine almost a decade ago, it was
even newer and seemingly scarier than it is now, and
so I kind of dabbled since then, you know, working
a little bit in the AI space and getting a
little bit into crypto as an individual investor myself. But
it really wasn't until I began working with the NCA
over the last two years that I fully understood the
the power of digital assets and what they can do
for real people and businesses.
Speaker 2: So Alie, you are an og if you are working
with PayPal to develop their crypto whilet back in twenty seventeen,
which you know, back then many of these institutions didn't
really want to touch crypto, so it's pretty incredible that
you were doing that back then.
Speaker 1: Yeah, thank you, And I'm always amazed when I meet
people who've been in the space even longer than I have.
I think that, you know, working with Adobe in the
AI space, working in biopharmaceuticals, I had a lot of
experience seeing the early fear and confusion whenever a new
innovation came along, be it a drug for a disease,
be it even I was working with McDonald's and their
digital team and we launched at the time, if you
can believe it, Uber eats delivery, which was revolutionary in
like twenty fourteen, But there's always this this sort of
uncertainty of I don't get it, what is it, how
does it work? What does it mean for me? With AI?
Is it going to take over the world with crypto?
Like is it just magic happening behind the scenes? And
so I think that that has always been what really
motivates and inspires me, is like helping take these complex
topics and make them feel really accessible for normal people
like us. You know, I think about where we're at
with crypto right now, and I like to say the
NCAA isn't here for the crypto bros and the crypto pros,
like they know what they're doing, they get it. We're
here for the Joe's and the schmos, the normal people
who were left behind by the early wave of crypto
who maybe think they've missed the boat or maybe think
it's not for them, and we're here to show people actually,
this tool can be for everyone and anyone. And it's
like learning any new skill, new tool, whatever it may be.
You just got to start small, stay curious, and not
overwhelm yourself.
Speaker 2: Absolutely, and education and awareness is so important for the
adoption of this technology. And you know, I don't envy
people who are not tech savvy, and you know, they
have to go through the Internet phase, then the smartphone phase,
and then computers of course, now digital currency and you know,
tokens and all these things running on a blockchain. It's
like drinking from the fire hose with all these technologies
plus AI as well.
Speaker 1: It really is. And I think that, you know, let's
be honest, the crypto industry has not done ourselves many
favors by sort of positioning it as this other thing.
You know, I think about digital assets as an evolution,
not a revolution, And when you really break it down,
it's not that dissimilar to anything else we already know
and love. Right If you can use a Chase app,
you can set up a PayPal or Venmo account, you
can use the coinbase account. I think that the tools
are getting so much simpler and more seamless, and the
user interfaces are getting much better. Then you don't need
to be a tech wizard or a coder or developer
or math genius to understand it. It really is sort
of starting to feel much more familiar and integrate with
the tools and systems we do already know and love,
including banks, including PayPal, and so many other places.
Speaker 2: Pardon the interruption. Hi, I'm Tony. I'm the host of
the Thinking Crypto podcast. I wanted to ask you if
you can please support the podcast by hitting the like
button subscribing. If you haven't as yet, you can leave
a comment below as well. And if you're listening on
a podcast platform such as Spotify, Apple or wherever you
get your podcasts, please be sure to follow and hit
the five star rating. I'll let you get back to
the content. Thank you so much. Yeah, to your point,
crypto has matured, and with Tradify companies like your paypals
on the others coming in and offering the assets, it
does make it easy for a lot of consumers. Now
there's still the education piece of what is a blockchain,
why are these tokens important? Why do they exist? But
the accessibility is becoming easier with ETPs and all these.
Speaker 1: That's exactly right. I actually just spoke at a digital
asset conference in Dallas right before I saw you in
New York, and it was an interesting mix of people
who were there. It was mostly traditional financial advisors and
they were talking a lot about some of the things
you just described, you know, tokenization of real world assets,
token ized stocks. ATFS there was a lot of conversation
at the event about how people may have crypto in
their portfolios and they might not even realize it, for example,
if it's a part of your four oh one K
or your pension fund. You know, when I meet people
in the wilds who are like, I don't get crypto,
I don't know what's in it, I say, oh, you know,
totally respect that if I can be nosy, what's in
your four oh one k? And people always have a
four oh one K, but they almost never know what's
in it. And so, you know, we don't want to
scare people by thinking you're investing in something that you
don't have visibility into. It's more the point of we
grew up with four oh one k's as an investment vehicle,
and so it's sort of just expected that if you
have a job that offers it, you're going to do it.
But who's really doing the homework to dig into the
portfolio specifics and where the investments are. And I think
with crypto, we want people to be educated enough to
understand what it is, how it works, where valuation comes
from the different role of different types of tokens, what
it even means to invest in crypto. But they don't
need to get so bogged down with the terminology and
the jargon that they sort of lose the plot and
you know, just dismiss it because again it can feel
a little bit overwhelming with all of the fun terminology.
Speaker 2: We like to say, yeah, absolutely, So, how is the
NCAA helping average Americans across the country to learn about
crypto and blockchain tech? What are some of your initiatives?
Speaker 1: Yeah, absolutely, there's a lot of things we're doing on
this front. We really are laser focused on consumer education,
starting to get a little bit more into B to
B education and policymaker education as well. Really meeting audiences
wherever they are. People are curious about crypto, we want
to be that safe space to help them make sense
of it. And so three resources we've launched in the
last year or so. The first is the Crypto Explained
podcast that I host. Would love to get you on
as a guest very soon as well. But it's really
just me, you know, explaining simple simply what crypto is,
what blockchain is, what an ETF is, what a stable
coin is. Again, no jargon. We use very relatable analogies
of you know, think about a blockchain like a railroad
and think about the different cryptocurrencies as train cars that
run on top of those railroads. We really want to
help people understand how these concepts are not that dissimilar
to other, again, concepts that they are much more familiar with.
So we've got the podcast and new episodes come out
every Wednesday on YouTube, Apple, Spotify, wherever you get your podcasts.
But then we also have more interactive resources. So podcasts
are great. We all love to listen in the car,
listen on the go, right, But for people who want
more practical experience, we've got sort of I like to
think of it as a duo lingo for crypto. These
one oh one courses that are little animated cartoons that
guide you through a journey of Main Street USA, where
you go to a bank vault to learn about cryptosecurity,
you go to a carnival to learn about volatility, and
so really the idea is you could watch these modules
and videos and take these quizzes with your whole family.
It's meant to be sort of at an age appropriate
for anyone if you're ten years old. The goal is
you should be able to fully understand all of our content,
as should my eighty year old mother, who by the way,
does review our content sometimes if I'm not sure, if
something is a little too tech savvy. And then, last,
but not least, for people who are like okay, they
go through the quizzes, they think they get the basics,
but maybe they're still nervous to try it. We get
a lot of people who say, what if I click
the wrong button in all my money goes away, which,
by the way, probably never gonna happen. I don't know
in what world that could happen, but we understand the concern,
and so we built a risk free simulator, and it's
basically it's on our website at NCAA dot org, and
it basically looks and behaves just like you are picking
a crypto exchange, setting up your wallet, making your first
crypto purchase, trading your coins. But it never connects to
your real bank account, so it's really just practice in
a very safe sandbox to build that confidence over time
before you take your first step into a crypto.
Speaker 2: I love that the simulator is such a great tool
because to your point, it just gives you that hands
on kind of real world experience versus Hey, go, if
I just verbally tell you or I send you an email,
go do these four steps. But unless you've actually gone
on a platform, on a crypto exchange, it can be
you know, intimidating. So I love the similater tool.
Speaker 1: Awesome. I hope you use it. I hope your listeners
do as well. And you know this is obviously crypto
focused podcast. I imagine a lot of your listeners are
in the crypto space. And when I have conversations with
folks in the crypto space, I say, you might not
need the NCAA, but surely your friends, your families, your neighbors,
your coworkers do, right, Like who in the crypto space
has not encountered skeptics in the wild who think that
we're either all scammers or being scammed, And those are
the harmful stereotypes that we're really trying to break by
education at scale.
Speaker 2: Yeah, I've absolutely come across those stereotypes, and you know,
I have to spend time explaining here's the technology. Yes,
are there bad actors, you know in the crypto indergy, Yes,
but there's also bad actors in every other industry trying
to take advantage of people. So but to your point,
like people are so comfortable in the existing realm of
the traditional markets, they almost have blinders on to the
bad things that happen. It's almost like, oh, yeah, that happens.
But if it happens in a new acid class technology,
it's like, oh my god. It becomes this hyper focused
thing that becomes sensationalized. And I'm almost you know many
times out there remind people like, hey, you know this
is happening in the banking industry as well, right.
Speaker 1: It's like, yeah, I completely emphasize with that. Again. I
saw this with Adobe back in twenty fourteen, twenty fifteen,
where all anybody knew about AI at the time was
deep fakes. And that was you know, early bad actors
that were using these tools for nefarious purposes to like
photoshop Obama's head, you know, on the bodies of other
people that were doing bad things. And that was just
one mainstream example of that was you know, the story
that you saw in the New York Times every day
was deep fakes, deep tape, deep fakes, deep fakes. This
is all AI is. It's so scary, right, and the
fear mongering, and now you can't open the New York Times,
no disrespect without a hit piece on crypto, and a
lot of it is the same tired narratives we've heard
of exactly, like you said, the bad actors, the fraudsters.
I mean, the example that comes top of mine, I
think first for everyone with crypto is FTX and Sam
Bankman freed, and let's be honest, that was just traditional fraud.
It happened to be a crypto company, but that was
the same the methodology of fraud, and you know, pulling
the wool over the eyes of your investors and doing
this sort of shell game like Bernie Madoff did you know,
did the same thing. Like this is just the way
that bad actors do exploit systems. And so our perspective
is like fraudsters and scammer's greatest weakness is an informed public,
people who are really plugged into the warning signs so
they can avoid them. And so that's what we're doing.
We're trying to help people navigate this space as safely
and responsibly as possible.
Speaker 2: Absolutely, and I often, you know, like to remind people
too that Birding made Off did this in a regulated market,
while sam Beg and Freed and FTX did it in
an unregulated market, but not because of the technology. The
regulators didn't act fast enough, and we're still trying to
figure that out. And if the regulations were in place,
they wouldn't be in the Bahamas. They would be here,
tied into US, you know, regulatory geofensis, so to speak.
And that's where you know, the regulators have to catch up.
But you know, we're getting there.
Speaker 1: I think so as well. I certainly hope. So if
we can manifest anything today, let's let's manifest that there
is positive momentum. I think on the on the clarity front,
you know, I when the NCA first launched the Genius
Act hadn't even come to fruition, and so that was
the first meaningful step towards more clear smart rules of
the road for digital assets. Obviously that was very focused
on stable coins, whereas now clarity is more market structure broadly.
And what we're hearing from from consumers from voters in
America is they want clear smart guardrails and protections. They
want to understand when, where and how they can engage
with crypto legally and responsibly, and I think there's still
this also pervasive narrative that crypto is like the wild
wild West, and maybe the industry doesn't want regulation, which
I think you and I know could not be further
from the truth. The reality is the crypto industry is
begging for regulation, and I really hope that we get
some smart policies very soon so that more people have
even greater confidence with how they can start embracing the technology.
Speaker 2: Yeah, and look, in the twenty twenty four election, we
saw how to play out with crypto investors and you know,
voting according to their asset holdings, which is pretty incredible.
I don't know if I've ever seen anything like that
where an asset class had such a big cohort of voters.
And maybe I need to study more history, but that
was pretty incredible.
Speaker 1: Yeah. My boss, Stu Alderotti, the president of the NCAA,
actually just wrote a whole op ed that ran in
real clear markets, I think earlier this week, and it
was basically, there's been a lot of polling happening right
now that's indicating that you know, only a fourth of
Americans see crypto is sort of a single issue voting block,
right like there's only a quarter of US adults who
are holding digital assets, who care about crypto, and who
care about this when it comes to the election season,
And the op ed was all about the fact that
like hold on a quarter of US adults, that's sixty
seven million people. That is a lot of people. And
our new research did find exactly that that, yes, one
in four US adults is are holding crypto. That is
not fringe, that is not a novelty. That's pretty normal.
And by the way, when we ran our big crypto
survey last year to see how many US adults are
holding crypto, it's the biggest annual study of crypto in
the US. Because there's so much conflicting information and misinformation
out there, so we decided, let's do the biggest possible survey.
So we surveyed ten thousand crypto holders. And last year
we had to survey fifty five thousand people to get
to the ten thousand holders, which is how we knew
that around one in five were holding crypto. This year,
we had to survey just less than forty thousand people,
which is how we know that now one in four
is holding crypto. That's a really big jump year over year,
especially as you said, you know, in a market that
is still relatively unregulated, and you know, the headlines will
have you believe that again, this is all scammers, fraudsters,
and fringe kind of hypee bros trying to go to
the moon. And so I'm excited to run this report
again next year because what if it's one in three.
You know, if we keep increasing at this rate, I
think it really is becoming increasingly mainstream, and I get
to I imagine we'll get to a place where it's
so commonplace that we kind of stopped talking about it.
I hope you and I still get to do our podcasts,
but I think it'll become so boring and baked into
everything that we do that the idea of crypto and
blockchain probably won't even be such a hot topic anymore
because it'll just be expected.
Speaker 2: Yeah, it'll become the norm, kind of like the existing
markets that have been around for a long time, where
they're like, yeah, you don't have to second guess it
or think about it. It's just like, yeah, it's in
my portfolio exactly.
Speaker 1: I was on an interesting call with somebody in the
industry yesterday who made the point that you know, what
we're seeing right now is traditional finance increasingly embracing digital assets,
offering stable coins, offering access to crypto markets through things
like token ie stocks, ETFs and so on. But actually
their prediction, which I think is I hadn't heard this before,
but I think it makes a ton of sense, is
that imagine crypto companies then start to offer traditional financial
institution products like brokerage accounts. So I do think we're
seeing the integration increasingly between sort of the track in
DeFi worlds, and I think it's super exciting, and that's
actually one of the biggest unlocks for people who were
previously crypto curious, the people who come on chain this year,
the new crypto holders told us that one of the
biggest driving forces and factors for them to start trying
crypto was seeing banks and businesses start to embrace and
integrate with digital assets.
Speaker 2: Absolutely, because you get like the social proof of well
firms I'm already banking with or investing with, whether it
be Fidelity, Black Rock, JP Morgan, they're now adding crypto.
It breaks down that barrier, and you know, maybe the
lack of trust they may.
Speaker 1: Have had before exactly even working with companies like PayPal.
We're seeing this at my Zabanya, the head of crypto
at PayPal, is on our advisory board, and so she
and I have talked a lot about this. What does
it mean for an everyday American who sees that you
can now use crypto directly through your PayPal account, no
need to download anything else. What does it mean when
you go to the grocery store and you can tap
and pay with crypto the same way you can with
PayPal or with zell or whatever else it may be.
So I think we're seeing it as an emerging option.
You know, it's not here to take down traditional systems.
It's here to make them work a little smarter, a
little safer, a little faster, a little more efficiently. Help
people keep more of their assets at their fingertips twenty
four to seven, help small businesses keep more of what
they make and earn. Help employees, you know, be able
to access their funds quicker anywhere around the world and
without any as many intermediaries taking a cut. And even
nonprofits are opening up to crypto donations. You know, we're
working with November and the Giving Block and seeing how
they're able to reach younger donors, especially digital natives who
grew up with everything being digital and done by their phone,
so digital assets are just kind of the natural next
step in that. So I think that's that's to me
what's most exciting. You know, of course crypto is an
investment vehicle, is a very popular use case and is
how most people know about it. But seeing how people
are sending, spending, shopping, donating, paying, getting paid, and just
seeing this as a quicker way to move value and
gives you more ownership.
Speaker 2: Absolutely. So if we double click on the demographics of
crypto adoption in the United States, what do you who
are you seeing? Who's leading right now? Is it boomers, millennials,
gen z what show?
Speaker 1: This is actually my favorite question, So we let's let's
also be real about the fact that when many people
still picture crypto holders, they picture the bros right, younger male,
maybe living in a coastal city, working in tech or finance, again,
trying to get rich quick, go to the moon by
a lambo. No disrespect to those bros. Do you whatever
works for you. But what was really exciting from our
newest survey that we found is that a third of
crypto holders are women, and so the bros stereotype I
think is finally starting to die off. But to your
point about age, we expected to see younger generations driving
the biggest adoption, and what we actually saw was that
more crypto holders are over fifty five years old than
under twenty five years old. And so I think what
we're seeing year over year is an increase across pretty
much every age demographic of more people coming on chain.
But what's really unique to double click further is how
they're using digital assets. So when we look at older generations,
they are holding crypto more for saving retirement, long store
longer sort of store of value with the hope of
you know, financial gains. Younger generations, those digital natives, millennials
and Gen z, they're the ones that are really doing
the most shopping, spending, sending, and donating with crypto. So actually,
we partnered with PayPal to do some more research around shopping,
gifting and merch and spending merchant acceptance, and what we
found was that when it comes to small businesses in particular,
they're seeing an incredibly high demand from younger consumers to
be able to pay with crypto at checkout.
Speaker 2: It's very interesting and This is something I want to
keep a track on because I'm very fascinated by different
demographics and how they interact with technology and how they
adapt to it. So it's very interesting and it's great
to hear that there's a lot more female crypto holders
because to your point, there's always been that you know, stigma.
All it's old guys, young guys, as you alluded to.
But it's great to see that that's branching out and
you know, crypto's casting a wider net.
Speaker 1: Yeah, And actually to that point, one of the other
really interesting demographics that emerged from our survey is more
blue collar workers are getting into crypto. So I think
there's this sort of historical narrative that maybe crypto is
just an asset for the super wealthy or again like
people who have finance degrees or developers. But what we're
seeing is construction workers and manufacturing workers are making up
a larger and larger share of this, and I think
it's really interesting to look at that in the context
of what's happening across across those industries in general, things
like supply chain manufacturing, yet construction more like sort of
the industries that have a lot of like manual labor involved,
they're starting to integrate technology and how they work already
and get smarter and be much more tech forward. And
so seeing that this is now trickling to the individual
level is really really reassuring to us, and I think
we do see crypto as a sort of an opportunity
to level the economic playing field. Crypto doesn't care what
you look like. It doesn't care about your race, your gender,
your profession, your income level. It really is for everyone.
And seeing different people from different walks of life sort
of open their eyes to that and start to be
more open to this is really inspiring and I think
what gets me kind of out of bed every morning.
You know, we've been traveling all across the country for
the last few years meeting with the people and businesses
who were using crypto in their everyday lives. Everyone from
we just met with a plumber, a master plumber in Arizona,
to a small business construction owner in San Francisco, to
a single mom in Texas who she was actually one
of my biggest aha moments when I since I've been
working in the crypto space, where she the way she
put said she was an unbanked middle class housewife in America,
and she was in a relationship for twenty years. They
had four kids together, and she thought everything was you know,
fifty to fifty shared accounts, shared finances. And she went
to the bank to pay the mortgage one day and
the bank tell her couldn't accept her cash and told
her that her husband had taken her name off of
their shared bank account a decade prior. And she had
no idea. And that's an example of, you know, a
traditional system failed her. And what she did was she
taught herself how to trade crypto, and she built herself
a little nest egg so she was able to save
up her own money and give her her self financial
sovereignty and freedom. And the way she puts it is
that for the first time in her life, she had
something that no one could take away from her. And
so I'm so I actually just talked to her this morning,
So I'm so proud of her. She's like going to
law school now and her and her ex are divorced,
and she's really found her confidence through mastering kind of
digital assets and something that was seen as a boys club.
Speaker 2: Wow. Such an incredible story of how the technology helped
her in that situation. These are stories people need to
hear of and understand the benefits of the technology. So
that's really really great. You mentioned may from PayPal is
one of your advisors, if I'm not mistaken. Who else
is a part of your partners team of partners and advisors.
Speaker 1: Yeah, of course. So in addition to my on our
advisory board, we sort of focus on four core pillars
when we think about where the NCAA can make the
greatest impact. So utility is one of them. How is
crypto being used in the real world, So that's why
we work closely with my and paid Pal. Also a
safety keeping people safe online, helping them spots scams. We
have Joanne Barefoot, who's the head of Alliance, the Alliance
for Innovative Regulation, on our advisory board, and she shared
with me some really incredible work that her team has
done over the years to actually dig into the blockchain's data.
You know, we know the blockchain is a permanent, public,
immutable ledger, right, you can kind of look for things
if you know where to look and what you're looking for.
And she partnered with the Canadian Mounties and real and
law enforcement up and I believe it was Washington State
to actually find patterns in blockchain transactions that ended up
helping law enforcement catch a human trafficking ring. Incredible. And
then a few more heavy hitters on our board. We've
got Cam Harvey, doctor Cam Harvey. He is a professor
of Finance and DeFi at Duke University, and he is
our expert when it comes to education, so helping ensure
that everything we're doing is very apt, demic oriented, but
still one percent accurate. We're not, but that we're making
it simple and not like losing the nuance if that
makes sense right, because it's you're taking these really complex
topics and you need to boil them down in very
simplistic ways. But we never want to lose the intent
of what we're trying to say or muddy the waters.
And so Cam's been a great resource as we build
out all of our educational content and programs and unless,
but certainly not least on the policy front. You know,
we're apolitical. We're not lobbying, we're not trying to get
out the vote, but we are educating policy makers on
who their constituents are and how they're using crypto to
help them make the most informed regulatory decisions. And so
we have Christian Carlow, the former chairman of the CFTC,
and I actually saw he was on your podcast recently
and he and I will be speaking actually with the
with Karen how The How, former housewife that I mentioned
at Money twenty twenty this year, on a panel. Karen
goes by Crypto Mommy online and as you probably know,
Chris's book is Crypto Dad. So I'm moderating a discussion
with the two of them, Crypto Dad meets Crypto Mommy
from the Hill to the Household, and it's going to
talk about everything from policy to how that trickles down
to how normal everyday people at parents are thinking about
and using digital assets.
Speaker 2: That's great. I love that. I'm going to have to
catch that panel, whether it be virtual or you know,
in person. I'll talk to you offline about the event
and things like that. But that's really great.
Speaker 1: Definitely we'd love to see you there and if not,
well we'll talk in New York again soon.
Speaker 2: I love the initiatives you guys are doing, because, yeah,
education is such a big piece for adoption of this
technology and for people to understand all the benefits and
you know, are you planning to take this model, so
to speak, and go beyond the United States to other
countries to spread education as well.
Speaker 1: That's a great question. We are a nationally focused organizations,
so as of now, no plans to expand beyond the US.
But what we're actually doing right now now is our
first year. You know, we launched last year. Our first
year was very focused on widespread sort of mass awareness,
reaching as many people as possible. Now that we've done that,
we're starting to be able to go a little bit
deeper and focus on more quality in addition to quantity storytelling.
So for example, of our big State of Cryptoculter report
that we do every year, we released the national numbers
of you know, sixty seven million hold crypto a third
or women more over fifty under twenty five. But what
we're doing right now is actually looking at specific use
cases and specific demographics, so for example, lower income individuals.
Of course, as we talked about with crypto being this
like leveler of that of the playing field economically, it's
it's really important that lower income individuals you understand the
power of this tool to break down those barriers and
to give them kind of unparalleled access and inclusion in
a way that they've never really had before. And so
what we're doing is another one of our partners is Coinbase,
and we've been working with Coinbase to help scale and
evolve our educational resources, our crypto one oh one learning
tools for Operation Hope, which you might be familiar. They
are a nonprofit that's helping people break cycles of poverty
upskilling them with things like financial literacy tools, and so
we just launched the courses with Operation Hope to their
coaches and communities a few months ago. So excited to
see how that's all going. But our goal is to
continue to scale that and look at other more maybe
more vulnerable populations or more historically excluded populations, for example,
older generations. So we know that, you know, on the whole,
older Americans are targeted at a higher rate for scams
in general. However, what we found from our survey of
crypto holders is that it's kind of happening across the
board at more equal levels, and older folks actually aren't
falling for the scams as much as maybe younger folks.
And so what that signals to me is they're curious,
but cautious. They're doing their homework, which is great, exactly
what they should be doing, and they're being very careful
before they make any moves, which is regardless of your age,
regardless of your gender, regardless of anything about you, you
always want to do that. And so yeah, we're looking
at where we can have the greatest impact, and I
think where we plan to go even deeper is storytelling
focused around safety. So we're going to be launching some
one oh one modules and courses more dedicated to safety
and security. And then we're also looking at as we've
talked about the traditional finance world, and you know, how
are banks and asset managers and insurers and credit unions
thinking about digital assets? Do they understand them? Are their
customers asking about them and figuring out how we can
help them sort of get over any humps or barriers
so that they can be really smart resources and allies
for their clients as well.
Speaker 2: So, Ali, we kind of touched briefly on it earlier.
We're in the cusp of potentially getting the Clarity Act pass.
So let's say that does happen this month or maybe
later this year. You know, are you guys playing to
launch any awareness campaigns around that? Hey, the United States
has regulated crypto. This is a regulated asset class and technology.
Here's here at the top hits of that regulation. And
you know, kind of a spread awareness because I feel
like if it does pass, majority of mainstream people might
be like, huh, what is the Clarity Act?
Speaker 1: Yeah, great question. Actually, when when the Genius Act passed
last year, we did a quick social post on it
of just like this is what happened and this is
what it means for you, and that post actually went
viral on Twitter. So to me that and to us
that really demonstrated like there is a real need and
appetite for this type of information to be broken down
really simply and translated into human language. But also like
the again the end user impact of what does it
mean for me as an everyday person that's thinking about
using crypto or using crypto case stable coins. So short answer, yes,
as policy momentum moves, we are here to help everyday
Americans understand what it means for them. And so we're
doing that and we'll continue to do that on the
Crypto Explain podcast, through our learning courses, through our research,
through our real human storytelling, and then certainly through things
like blogs, social media posts really anywhere and everywhere. I
think that the way that I've really been trying to
boil down NCA to people we encounter in the wild
for the first time is like, think of us as
that translator. If you need help making sense of these
topics or what is happening the technology, the use cases,
the policy momentum, the safety and security concerns, let us
help you. We're not you know, we have no skin
in the game. We're not here to sell anything. We're
agnostic to companies and protocols and tokens. Our goal is
to just help as many people understand how they can
benefit from this tool. And so what success looks like
is more people not just coming on chain and adopting crypto,
but doing so safely and responsibly. So at the same time,
we're seeing lower increases or lower rates of scams and
losses and fraud is a real goal of hours. So
some of the content that we have coming soon in
campaigns will be more geared towards that. And then also
just confidence with your knowledge. You know, the biggest barrier
to entry when it comes to crypto in America is
the knowledge gap. People just don't get it and they're
overwhelmed trying to learn it all turned off by the
hype and the jargon. And that's exactly what we're here
to solve for. And we really took that data and
insight to build everything that we've done, from the podcast
and the courses to all of the content that we
put on social and just consumer awareness campaigns, adds sort
of the basic traditional methods. We really want to reach
people wherever they're at at a time when they probably
have a lot of questions and every time they look
for answers, they just end up with more questions.
Speaker 2: I love it. I love it, Ali. It's much much needed.
And maybe Ali, in a couple of years, your name
won't be National Crypto Association, will be Global Crypto Association
because you'll be educating many people across the world.
Speaker 1: I hope.
Speaker 2: So.
Speaker 1: I love to travel, and so it always breaks my
heart when I don't get to go to things like
Paris Blockchain Week. But also I think just being you know,
begetting to speak at the Bitcoin conference and consensus, and
being on these global stages US hosted conferences, but global stages,
global audiences. I'm often on panels or in conversations with
people from different parts of the world, from the Cayman
Islands to Venezuela to you know, Mexico to even Switzerland, Sweden,
all of these places. And I'm so blown away by
the innovation that's happening around the world. And it's so
interesting seeing how different countries are navigating the regulation around it.
And you know, three quarters of voters do want the
Wes to become the crypto capital of the world, and
so that means that we need to ensure that it's
not you know, the innovation isn't moving offshore and a
lot of that has already started happening. And so not
trying to create fomo for any policy makers out there
and say like, if we don't regulate, you know, we're
we're going to be in trouble. But the reality is
we are a country that's known for innovation and for
like you know, let's be honest, having a good amount
of funding. So it does bob on my mind a
little bit that we've been so slow to pick up
the to take a stance on what policy should look like.
But I will say that cross border payments remittances Americans
sending money back home, that is an incredibly popular use
case and I think there are entire countries where you know,
ninety percent of people are on chain, and I think
we will ultimately get there where it's kind of not
an if, but a when the genies out of the bottle,
these tools are here, more people are sort of waking
up to what they can do for them and so
I think that this is again just going to become
so normal and boring that we you and I are
going to need to look for new topics for our podcasts.
Speaker 2: Yeah, well said and fingers crossed. Ali, we can get
that Clarity Act on this year, and I think that
would kick off a wave of innovation and investment in
this technology and create a lot of new jobs too,
because there's this is an industry that has a lot
of potential and that could benefit a lot of folks
right whether they're coders or even regardless if they're marketing
or if they're a legal feel they can come work
in the crypto industry.
Speaker 1: I couldn't agree more. And I don't want to scoop
myself here, but we're actually working on some research around
job opportunities and economic impact in America created by crypto.
So I hope to be able to share those numbers
with you very soon. I have some I can't say
anything yet, but I've seen some early updates and it's
it's pretty impactful. So I think that the world, the
world is our oyster. And you know, the opportunity is
tremendous for people, for businesses. Really, I can't think of
anyone that doesn't stand to benefit from being able to
have more ownership and access over there. Just not even money,
just anything of value. It can be artwork, it can
be live stock. We're working with a rancher in Wyoming
who's tokenizing livestock on the blockchain. He told me yesterday
he just added seven hundred new cows and it took
thirty minutes, something that used to take weeks. And you know,
if there's a disease outbreak, you can trace the source
in seconds instead of days, and you can validate humane
treatment claims of the beef you're eating and vaccines. I mean,
this is real. It's not like we're not talking about
the potential and the future. We're talking about what's happening
in America today.
Speaker 2: Wow, that's pretty incredible. And we're seeing the race for
moving a lot of data assets and other things on
chain on blockchains of course, and tradify. Boy, they are
in a race right now. Everybody's trying to go twenty
four to seven to put assets on chain has mentioned
real estate, goal stocks, equities, money market funds, and much more.
It's pretty incredible.
Speaker 1: It really is. I think, you know, when I have
people ask me if I'm all in on crypto, I
always answer the question by saying, like, do you mean
do I have one hundred percent of my investment portfolio
and money in crypto? The answer is no. And again
I don't even necessarily recommend that. It's not my job.
I'm not a financial advisor, but I do see crypto
as an option and not. You know, we never want
to put all of our eggs in one basket, I think,
just as a general rule of thumb. But do I
believe that the future of everything is digital and will
be tokenized? I genuinely do. We're already seeing it is.
It is a no brainer. Why when if there's any
industry that has instances of fraud, if you have supply
chains to manage, if you have people who need to
get paid around the world, I mean, the list is
endless of the problems that this tech solution solves for so,
it's really promising to see a deeper and deeper integrated
with everything we already know and use and are familiar
and comfortable with.
Speaker 2: Absolutely, So, Ali, I got some wrap up questions here
for you. First, are you an early bird or night owl?
Speaker 1: Early bird? Absolutely, I'm up with the sun and I'm
sometimes asleep with the sun.
Speaker 2: Windows seater, aisle window.
Speaker 1: Definitely want to curl up and not have to get
up for the duration of the flight.
Speaker 2: A text, email or call.
Speaker 1: Text for friends and family, email for work, and call
if for anything really urging or serious. Otherwise I'm just
gonna send it to voicemail.
Speaker 2: What's one company outside of Crypto you admire?
Speaker 1: Duo Lingo is absolutely on a pedestal in my mind forever.
They took sort of a boring topic and category of
literacy and made it so fun and engaging and instead
devised it and gamified it to the point that I
don't know anyone who's not talking about Duo Lingo. But
as a communicator and marketer, I actually think their marketing
is so culturally brilliant. I'll never forget when they partnered
with Kat's Deli in New York when they launched their
Yiddish course, and people who successfully completed the course are
ordered in Yiddish. I believe it was got free bagels
and shmeer. I mean, how smart and Taptain is an
idea like that. I'm excited to hopefully launch campaigns about
Crypto that are sort of incite the same reaction.
Speaker 2: Love it. And if you could have dinner with any
person living or dead, who would it be.
Speaker 1: I'm going to go to Taylor Swift. She just got married.
I don't know if it's Taylor Kelsey now, but you
know I'd grown up with her. I'm a nineteen eighty
nine gal, and I've always admired her as not just
a masterful storyteller, but again from a communications perspective, she's
always reclaimed her narrative and she's never let anyone else
tell her story before her. And she's also a master
at time management. I don't know how many hours in
the day she has to do all the things that
she does.
Speaker 2: And finally, best advice you've ever gotten, I.
Speaker 1: Think golden rule. If something seems too good to be true,
it is. This is true with everything from people or
restaurant recommendations to deals and investment opportunities. I think that's
something that I try to keep front and center for
everything from my day job with crypto to how I
live my personal life, and definitely encourage your listeners to
keep that in mind as well, especially if they are
new to crypto or anything.
Speaker 2: Ali, absolute pleasure, love what you and the folks at
NCAA are doing, and everyone links will be in a description.
Go check out the NCAA's website and all the great
resources they have. But thank you so much, Ali, and
I'm sure we're going to be doing more of these
interviews as you guys continue to get more data about
crypto adoption and much more. But thank you so much.
Speaker 1: Absolutely, I can't wait. Thank you, Tony. Always a pleasure.
Speaker 2: Thank you so much for tuning in. Please please hit
the like button subscribe if you haven't as yet. If
you're listening on a podcast platform such as Spotify or Apple,
please follow and leave a five star rating. Thank you
so much,