Speaker 1: Have you seen sentiment this bad or was it worse
Speaker 1: in FTX.
Speaker 2: The sentiments it's not someone said it's bad, it's a
Speaker 2: bit whiny. It might just be the case that the
Speaker 2: days of one hundred x gains in crypto or over
Speaker 2: the returns are not as asymmetric as they used to
Speaker 2: and the new opportunity for those types of returns or
Speaker 2: in prediction markets. Maybe it doesn't mean that this isn't
Speaker 2: something that is going to continue to accelerate from a
Speaker 2: growth perspective, but the easy money might have been made.
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Speaker 1: be in the description. Hey, folks, welcome into the Thinking
Speaker 1: Crypto podcast. I'm your host, Tony Edward, and we're recording
Speaker 1: at Station three in New York's Financial District. And joining
Speaker 1: me today is Frank Jhaparo, who's the head of Content
Speaker 1: and Special Projects at GSR. Frank also has an extensive
Speaker 1: experience in the crypto market, covering the industry as a
Speaker 1: reporter at the Block. Frank, great to have you.
Speaker 2: Great to be here, so nice to get to try
Speaker 2: out the new mic system. I'm loving this area. This
Speaker 2: is super good. I didn't know this existed. I know
Speaker 2: the whole fruits exist, I didn't know this little space
Speaker 2: existed and it's all crypto.
Speaker 1: I guess yeah. Majority crypto web three companies, a lot
Speaker 1: of startups and folks building in the industry, by the way,
Speaker 1: just so folks know, you and I first met and
Speaker 1: shout out to Anthony Pompleano at Anthony Pompleana's Christmas crypto
Speaker 1: party in twenty nineteen. I remember mark Uska was there
Speaker 1: and that's where we first met.
Speaker 2: It feels like a different time, doesn't everybody was younger.
Speaker 2: I guess that might be.
Speaker 1: I don't think both of us had to as many grays, right,
Speaker 1: definitely not. And it's like that meme the Interstellar.
Speaker 2: It was at that big club, right, what was the
Speaker 2: jay Z Club or something that's right.
Speaker 1: I can't remember the name, but I know what you're
Speaker 1: talking about. The name escapes me. It was a pretty
Speaker 1: pretty nice place. Yeah, those were wild times though, because
Speaker 1: bigcoin was tumbling down to three, but it was more fun.
Speaker 2: It felt like, isn't it crazy how at ninety thousand,
Speaker 2: you know, people are losing their losing their mind over
Speaker 2: over you know, the sentiment's not as good, Yeah as
Speaker 2: when it was maybe at nine or ten.
Speaker 1: It was rough.
Speaker 2: It's rough leverage, that's what leverage will do to people.
Speaker 1: Well, the biggest leverage wipeout on October tenth, right, and
Speaker 1: it seems like that cut the legs out from the market,
Speaker 1: you know, for the time being, at.
Speaker 2: Least, it feels like I was just I was visiting
Speaker 2: my grandparents on October tenth. I was down there and
Speaker 2: I was just like so funny. I was like, cryptos,
Speaker 2: it's really exploding, and my Grandma's like, that's great. No,
Speaker 2: it was like exploding in the bad way, and she's like, oh,
Speaker 2: that's too bad. But yeah, this market, like we were
Speaker 2: talking about before we turn the mics, has been really
Speaker 2: unique in a number of ways. Obviously, the price is
Speaker 2: you know, I never would have thought we'd be at
Speaker 2: ninety k when we were at nine care when I
Speaker 2: started covering this asset a reporter when it was at
Speaker 2: nine hundred dollars or a thousand sure or whatever it was.
Speaker 2: But the one thing that is interesting is that it
Speaker 2: is nothing, really is. It's not getting a bit on anything.
Speaker 2: And it seems like bad news is really bad and
Speaker 2: good news is bad or ma when it comes to
Speaker 2: bitcoin and crypto right now?
Speaker 1: Do you feel there's some manipulation happening? Look, this market
Speaker 1: is not fully regulated. It's the first truly global market
Speaker 1: that trades twenty four to seven. And we see the
Speaker 1: New York Socock Exchange and other folks are trying to
Speaker 1: follow that. But maybe it's a manipulation, right, and they
Speaker 1: could be the market makers could be waiting to I
Speaker 1: don't know, wait for the crypto market structural legislation or
Speaker 1: things to get into better position politically, I don't know.
Speaker 2: I think that it's probably just a market structure issue,
Speaker 2: like the market has grown to trillion's and but if
Speaker 2: you look at like the patchwork of market infrastructure providers
Speaker 2: and trading firms and liquidity providers, it's probably the same
Speaker 2: amount of players as there were five years ago when
Speaker 2: the market was just approaching a trillion, right, And you
Speaker 2: have to think after FTX, there's still a massive liquidity gap,
Speaker 2: or at least a big liquidity gap in terms of
Speaker 2: two of our largest liquidity players excuse me, liquidity providers
Speaker 2: are out of the market FTX or their sister company
Speaker 2: ALMDA gone and Genesis right, which was at the center
Speaker 2: of our market. Credit. Our credit infrastructure is still looking
Speaker 2: at its wounds, or at least it's still pills in
Speaker 2: comparison to the size that it was in twenty twenty one,
Speaker 2: which again was really a credit crisis, and that was
Speaker 2: twenty billion dollar book that Genesis managed, which is now gone.
Speaker 2: So when you have you have effectively a very you know,
Speaker 2: we took we took a few steps back after that,
Speaker 2: and so we still have a relatively nascent or at
Speaker 2: least sophomoric market structure, Waltz being three times as big,
Speaker 2: and so that makes sort of that makes for you know,
Speaker 2: the liquidity issues that we see on a day like
Speaker 2: ten ten, and then after something like that, it does
Speaker 2: stand to reason. I think we get a little anxious,
Speaker 2: and we get a little ahead of ourselves in crypto.
Speaker 2: But after an event like that, you could see why
Speaker 2: the market might be cautious and why most rallies are
Speaker 2: quickly sold off, and we haven't. You know, it keeps
Speaker 2: bringing us back to that, to that floor. We you know,
Speaker 2: I was hoping that one forty would create a new
Speaker 2: baseline for Salon. About here we are one twenty seven,
Speaker 2: and I think it's going to take you know, it's
Speaker 2: going to take a bit of you know, we were
Speaker 2: saying before we turn the mics, it's it's not like it.
Speaker 2: It doesn't like anything bad. So like you know, the
Speaker 2: Trump knew anything around tariffs that spooked the market, anything
Speaker 2: around macro or the fed that spooks the market. Crypto
Speaker 2: just can't take it. It can't take it. So you
Speaker 2: know what it really needs is some stability, right, but
Speaker 2: that's not something that can be promised.
Speaker 1: And do you see that maybe the likes of or
Speaker 1: maybe it could be frustrating.
Speaker 2: It's frustrating because you know, think about it, a few
Speaker 2: years ago, in twenty twenty one, we were told that
Speaker 2: this was you know, this is this is almost existential
Speaker 2: without being dramatic. Right, this was supposed to be the
Speaker 2: fastest horse in the inflation race, yes, as per pul
Speaker 2: tutor Jones, And this is what a lot of folks
Speaker 2: within crypto expounded. And that's not the case. Right. Gold
Speaker 2: is experiencing this this breakneck rally, while spitcoin is like,
Speaker 2: you know, withering in the duldrums, and that's really bad.
Speaker 2: And the longer that that happens, the worst it is.
Speaker 2: So it's definitely a wake up call and you can
Speaker 2: you can imagine that the sentiment it's such as you know,
Speaker 2: people have cognitive dissidence and just can't wrap their head
Speaker 2: around it. And that's coupled with the fact that you know,
Speaker 2: we're at a point right now where nothing really could
Speaker 2: from a from an adoption perspective, obviously you could have
Speaker 2: more app usage and there could be more traction there.
Speaker 2: But from an adoption perspective from Wall Street, everything that
Speaker 2: we thought could happen is happening. And stable coins are
Speaker 2: real and Teather is a multi billion dollar company tens
Speaker 2: of billions of dollars in valuation and hundreds of billions
Speaker 2: of dollars or what does it maybe sub two hundred
Speaker 2: billion and assets multiple billion dollar publicly created companies. Yeah,
Speaker 2: and stable coins have been accepted as something that's important
Speaker 2: across Wall Street. And that's it. And then so it's like, why,
Speaker 2: what's what's missing? And that's a that's a tough place.
Speaker 1: It's a tough place of being. Yeah, I think everybody
Speaker 1: is kind of scratching their heads as to what's going
Speaker 1: on because you have the four year cycle believers and
Speaker 1: then the self fulfilling prophecy. Oh no, it crashed on
Speaker 1: ten ten. That must be the top of the market,
Speaker 1: even though that felt very manipulated. I don't know if
Speaker 1: that's the right word. But at the same time, like
Speaker 1: you're saying, adoption is on an amazing level. We've never
Speaker 1: seen anything like this, we're at the cusp of getting
Speaker 1: crypto legislation. You have ETF inflows. I mean, you look
Speaker 1: at the black rock et fastest growing each have ever,
Speaker 1: So what is happening? You know, is this indeed the
Speaker 1: top of them or has the market top or just
Speaker 1: like a mid cycle pullback.
Speaker 2: You know what it is? It might be just it
Speaker 2: might just be that. I think there's another question, at
Speaker 2: least in the conversation that I have, that puts into
Speaker 2: question the value of tokens or where value ac cruise? Right,
Speaker 2: And it's very clear that stable coins work and blockchain works,
Speaker 2: and that's why you have interactive brogers working on settlement
Speaker 2: with USCC, and why you have the New York Stock
Speaker 2: Exchange saying that they're going to move to twenty four
Speaker 2: to seven tokenization, tokenized trading excuse me. And it's why
Speaker 2: you know all these things are happening is because it
Speaker 2: works better. But where does the value of that efficiency accrue?
Speaker 2: Does it a crue to Solana and ethereum, or does
Speaker 2: it crew to equities? Does it accrue to the companies
Speaker 2: that are facilitating that transformation they're building on top of
Speaker 2: those projects. And so what we've seen in the past
Speaker 2: quarter is the value a crew to equities in the
Speaker 2: form of well a crew. And we've seen it a crew,
Speaker 2: and we've seen it, you know, abandon the market as
Speaker 2: quickly as as it got there with the DAT fallout.
Speaker 2: But we saw it a crew to equity businesses. And
Speaker 2: that's that was the main story of Q four And
Speaker 2: so now we're in a part of the story where
Speaker 2: it's like it's not when to you know, it used
Speaker 2: to be when token. Now it's why token, so to speak,
Speaker 2: and we're trying to figure out where that value a crew, right, Yeah.
Speaker 1: But do you think it's also just the natural sicklecality
Speaker 1: of the market. And if you go back to the
Speaker 1: Trump presidency and him getting voted in, you had incredible euphoria.
Speaker 1: A lot of old coins did move and Bitcoin clearly
Speaker 1: move right breaking one hundred k. But were we so
Speaker 1: euphoric and this sentiment is so much agreed that we're
Speaker 1: still feeling the Affri effect?
Speaker 2: You know, it wasn't that like well in terms of price, right,
Speaker 2: like Ethereum only returned to its previous all term high,
Speaker 2: Salona only went to like three hundred. Maybe that was
Speaker 2: like I think it's previous all the time I was
Speaker 2: like two something or other And there's dilution obviously.
Speaker 1: But what about the mean coins ripping?
Speaker 2: Yeah, Trump deaf coin I and you definitely had like
Speaker 2: a lot of people got burnt on that. But you
Speaker 2: know what's crazy is that's a lot of down fifty
Speaker 2: percent since Trump got elected. Yeah, Trump is down ninety percent,
Speaker 2: bitcoins down something like I don't know, thirty percent or something.
Speaker 1: Man, It's it's pretty crazy. So I'm curious.
Speaker 2: I fand to cover though it's fun to watch.
Speaker 1: Watch, right, Yeah, how does it from like GSR handle
Speaker 1: those market volataty items? As a market maker, you know,
Speaker 1: is it just business as usual or is crypto like
Speaker 1: its own beast where you guys have to pivot and
Speaker 1: make sure you cover all your bases and things like that.
Speaker 2: That's a good question. I mean, like, we run a
Speaker 2: very uh diverse business, right, So there's obviously liquidity that's important.
Speaker 2: There's market making, there's OTC, systematic OTC, there's venture and
Speaker 2: so when there's events like ten ten, obviously on the
Speaker 2: market making side of the house, that's where we're most active.
Speaker 2: But the demand ebbs and flows with with where the
Speaker 2: market is and you know we ran we operate asset
Speaker 2: managements during the dat dat camera explosion. We were very
Speaker 2: active as a partner there, as an asset management partner
Speaker 2: and as an investor. So it just depends. I mean,
Speaker 2: there's always something to do. We think about effectively acting
Speaker 2: like similar to Goldman sacks as as almost like a
Speaker 2: merchant or investment bank. Right. When you think about Goldman,
Speaker 2: which is not too far from we're recording, actually you
Speaker 2: know you have them investing in the founder. Uh. Then effectively,
Speaker 2: maybe that founder goes on to go public, they underwrite
Speaker 2: that IPO, and then maybe that company, after their IPO
Speaker 2: goes on to acquire companies that compete with it for
Speaker 2: inorganic growth. Sure, and Goldman facilitates that via M and A.
Speaker 2: And then of course the stock of that company that trade.
Speaker 2: Goldman might serve as the designated market maker for that
Speaker 2: company's stock. And then for that founder that I mentioned
Speaker 2: at the beginning, he might have amassed a lot of money,
Speaker 2: and Goldman, through its wealth management business, will then manage
Speaker 2: that I forget what the kids call it, gs G
Speaker 2: SAM right anyway, so we are doing that but for crypto, right,
Speaker 2: and crypto is not that different that's a lot. That's
Speaker 2: something that people don't really understand it. It has a
Speaker 2: similar market structure, but just different words, right, instead of
Speaker 2: and so we have a token market making business, which
Speaker 2: is best thought of is like facilitating that process that
Speaker 2: I just described with the Goldman entrepreneur. Let's call that
Speaker 2: guy Mark Zuckerberg in that company Facebook, right, You know,
Speaker 2: we may invest in the start, we may invest in
Speaker 2: the token project, and then we see it through that
Speaker 2: life cycle of help it go to market, find a
Speaker 2: footing in the public markets, help its token trade and
Speaker 2: mitigate volatility by providing ample amounts of liquidity and then
Speaker 2: potentially providing services that help manage the treasury of that
Speaker 2: of that project, and then potentially even maybe one day
Speaker 2: I don't think we really do much of this now,
Speaker 2: providing some sort of and concierge wealth management to these
Speaker 2: you know, to the cryptos ultra rich and helping them
Speaker 2: something that actually we were just starting to see this
Speaker 2: build that happened before the fall out of FTX, and
Speaker 2: it's happening again, but it's more slow, slow, more slowly.
Speaker 2: A lot of people don't remember this, but at the
Speaker 2: time Barry Silbert's DCG was working on expanding a company
Speaker 2: called h Q. It was kind of under the reps
Speaker 2: for a long time. Yeah, A lot of people don't
Speaker 2: know about this. That sounds very Trump of the Trump
Speaker 2: A lot of people don't know. I knew, and that
Speaker 2: was going to be like a ultra high network concierge
Speaker 2: situation where the crypto ultra wealthy would get support on
Speaker 2: a wide range of things from you know, chartering a
Speaker 2: private jet to a state planning and wealth management services.
Speaker 2: And you know, it's it's a need in the market
Speaker 2: doesn't really exist. But anyway, that's I think you asked
Speaker 2: me how we uh, how the process of market making
Speaker 2: works or when things get busy. Obviously we've got to
Speaker 2: be twenty four to seven. We've got people staffed at
Speaker 2: the desk at all times, and it's really just I mean,
Speaker 2: it's a it's a computers game, right, It's making sure
Speaker 2: that our risk systems and our algorithms are firing on
Speaker 2: all cylinders and in having the balance sheet to sort
Speaker 2: of go out to market and be reliant and able
Speaker 2: to counterparty. Yeah, but it's so much more. I mean,
Speaker 2: like I think, not just for us, but for the
Speaker 2: market overall. Like people don't understand or have visibility. Rather,
Speaker 2: I shouldn't say they don't understand. That's pejorative. They don't
Speaker 2: see the full scope of I didn't see it right either,
Speaker 2: of how much sort of work goes into making our
Speaker 2: markets function and there's a lot still missing, right.
Speaker 1: Like, yeah, the infrastructure is still being built. Still need
Speaker 1: crypto market structure legation to maybe get some of those
Speaker 1: things in place. Yeah, definitely, pardon the interruption. Hi, I'm Tony.
Speaker 1: I'm the host of the Thinking Crypto podcast. I wanted
Speaker 1: to ask you if you can please support the podcast
Speaker 1: by hitting the like button subscribing. If you haven't as yet,
Speaker 1: you can leave a comment below as well. And if
Speaker 1: you're listening on a podcast platform such as Spotify, Apple
Speaker 1: or wherever you get your podcasts, please be sure to
Speaker 1: follow and hit the five star rating. I'll let you
Speaker 1: get back to the content. Thank you so much, Frank.
Speaker 1: I am really curious about your time of the block
Speaker 1: and first question would be have you seen sentiment this
Speaker 1: bad or was it worse than FTX.
Speaker 2: The sentiments It's not someone said it's bad. It's just
Speaker 2: like it's just a little it's.
Speaker 1: It's a bit.
Speaker 2: Whiny, okay now, and it's like, come on, like you're fine,
Speaker 2: Like it might just be the case of the days
Speaker 2: of one hundred x gains in crypto or over the
Speaker 2: returns are not as asymmetric as they used to and
Speaker 2: the new opportunity for those types of returns or in
Speaker 2: prediction markets maybe and that's just that could be the reality. Sure,
Speaker 2: it doesn't mean that this isn't something that is going
Speaker 2: to continue to accelerate from a growth perspective, but the
Speaker 2: easy money might have been made anyway. So people are
Speaker 2: really upset about that, naturally, because people will want easy money.
Speaker 2: I mean, who doesn't. After FTX, I think it was
Speaker 2: really a bit more existential is now right where?
Speaker 1: Or fear and like, oh my god, is this the ear?
Speaker 2: And and you know, people really got out, especially the
Speaker 2: you know, all these venture funds that were these generalist
Speaker 2: funds that had you know, put money into what what
Speaker 2: effectively was the issue was you had a number of
Speaker 2: centralized financial services companies basically FinTechs with with crypto offerings
Speaker 2: X blow up incredibly so and people outside of crypto
Speaker 2: couldn't really tell the difference between that and crypto itself.
Speaker 2: And so you had this exodus and that was a
Speaker 2: huge blow and that resulted in like pretty bad sentiment
Speaker 2: for you know, a few quarters and then we kind
Speaker 2: of rebounded.
Speaker 1: What was that the craziest story you covered or were
Speaker 1: there are other things that happened maybe on the regular side,
Speaker 1: regulator side, like Genser or anything else, or was that
Speaker 1: that was the big pinnacle moment of disaster in the industry?
Speaker 2: You know for the Block it was. It was really
Speaker 2: insane because we were entangled in the entire thing and
Speaker 2: you know, we we had a CEO who had borrowed
Speaker 2: millions of dollars from Sambankuin freed Wow, and we those
Speaker 2: loans were never disclosed until there was this blow up
Speaker 2: and you know, he stepped down and there was this
Speaker 2: major transition and it was pretty intense, right yeah, I
Speaker 2: mean he brought there was a it was a massive
Speaker 2: there was a massive domino effect across the market. I
Speaker 2: sometimes think about how insane it is that the Block
Speaker 2: survived that that those those times, because after that there
Speaker 2: was a trust gap that needed to be filled, and
Speaker 2: you know, sponsors weren't as keen to work with us
Speaker 2: after that because they maybe not less maybe not just
Speaker 2: because they didn't trust us, but because they didn't know
Speaker 2: where the market was going, and so you want to
Speaker 2: be conservative with your spend, right, But it was very
Speaker 2: intense times and personally as well too, right, because you
Speaker 2: don't know if the place that you know you've been
Speaker 2: working at for a number of years will we'll go
Speaker 2: under and and you know there's a sunk costs in
Speaker 2: that where you know, you think, I dedicated so much
Speaker 2: time to this that you know you want to stick around,
Speaker 2: And so I did, despite tons of people told me
Speaker 2: to leave. And you know, they weathered the storm and
Speaker 2: we got through it, and now the company is in
Speaker 2: a very like stable place and is under new ownership.
Speaker 2: But I mean there was a time where like I think,
Speaker 2: all right, is this the day that we uh finally die?
Speaker 1: Right? No, I had those thoughts too, And you know,
Speaker 1: I was then working at a crypto exchange. I think
Speaker 1: it was okay Coin, which is backed by Okay okay X,
Speaker 1: and I'm like, oh my god, that I'd make a
Speaker 1: big mistake here because it looked like the entire industry
Speaker 1: was going to collapse, And of course you think about
Speaker 1: your livelihood and career. It's like, man, this really sucks.
Speaker 1: But you know, I was also doing a podcast on
Speaker 1: the side, and I stuck it through, and you know,
Speaker 1: we got better days after.
Speaker 2: That, got a better on yourself.
Speaker 1: Yeah, but uh boy, that was a rough time.
Speaker 2: And I was I mean, but but during the whole
Speaker 2: FTX saga, it was just endless, endless work, sure, endless chasing,
Speaker 2: because you know, part of it was like I need
Speaker 2: to understand this for myself, right, it became a bit
Speaker 2: of an obsession. I mean I remember, like in those
Speaker 2: first few weeks, constantly on the phone, I probably talked
Speaker 2: to everybody you can imagine, just what do you think,
Speaker 2: what do you know? Who do you what were the signs?
Speaker 2: You know. Sure, it was really intense, but it was
Speaker 2: also a lot of fun. I mean yeah, because it's
Speaker 2: like it's like it's like my own like I'm in
Speaker 2: my own like mini series.
Speaker 1: Yeah, you know, yeah, that's a crazy time. And I
Speaker 1: you know, one of the things that I like to
Speaker 1: remind people of, and it's not the boats, but just
Speaker 1: you know, there's a saying I think Warren Buffett said,
Speaker 1: by the when people are greedy, be fearful. When people
Speaker 1: are fearful, it'll be greedy. I remember in November decembery.
Speaker 1: I started buying bitcoin when it was crashing on like
Speaker 1: fifteen sixteen K and that worked out. I was a
Speaker 1: good bet and and that's so I'm also trying to
Speaker 1: remind myself of that now, like right now everybody, there's
Speaker 1: some people who are fearful. Some people that's it, it's done,
Speaker 1: it's boring. Crypto is dead, even though we have incredible adoption,
Speaker 1: but the sentiment and the price action seems to be dead.
Speaker 1: But it'll return. I think. I think it's there's gonna
Speaker 1: be rotational liquidity from precious metals. They're going to top
Speaker 1: out at some point.
Speaker 2: And you believe in the catchup trade.
Speaker 1: I do it to a bit because if you again,
Speaker 1: if you're looking at it from like two to three months,
Speaker 1: four months, yeah, but if you're looking from a yearly standpoint,
Speaker 1: you put the gold chart with bitcoin. You see when
Speaker 1: gold is cooling down, bitcoin runs. That's it a lot, right, Yeah,
Speaker 1: So I'm hoping. I mean, well, how do you feel
Speaker 1: do you feel that this is.
Speaker 2: A market year? Oh? Well, yeah, I mean look at it.
Speaker 2: I mean we're i mean October, you know, it's it
Speaker 2: was a little bit before October. That's just when it
Speaker 2: really like really shit the bed. But I mean we're
Speaker 2: getting to a year, we're down off the highs, like
Speaker 2: you know, some coins eighty seventy percent, so like this
Speaker 2: is but bitcoin is a little bit of a different story.
Speaker 1: Yeah, it feels like bitcoin had a decent bull market,
Speaker 1: but all coins did not. Yeah right, bigcoin kind of
Speaker 1: did it very short lived.
Speaker 2: Yeah, oh thanks to Malania.
Speaker 1: Coins.
Speaker 2: I did make some money on that beach, not a lot.
Speaker 2: I made enough. I went to costco and I got
Speaker 2: a new TV from trump coined.
Speaker 1: So I have to ask, Frank, you live in New York,
Speaker 1: tell me you own some NYC tokens issued by Eric
Speaker 1: Adams recently.
Speaker 2: No, I don't. I don't. I uh, I can't believe
Speaker 2: that Eric Adams is funny though. You know I interviewed
Speaker 2: him ten years ago. Really yeah, when he was Brooklyn
Speaker 2: Borough president. I forget about what though. You know he
Speaker 2: was really bigger that back then. You know he got
Speaker 2: They told me he was going to get diabetes, and
Speaker 2: he went totally keto and he reversed his diabetes. Wow.
Speaker 2: A lot of people don't know that.
Speaker 1: Maybe he should have put the you know, he's funny though.
Speaker 1: The mission behind his token is make New York is
Speaker 1: healthy again versus No.
Speaker 2: He's a funny guy but obviously very But who isn't
Speaker 2: controversial these days? You know, everybody's controversial. Oh my god,
Speaker 2: my thumb's controversial.
Speaker 1: But I guess if the president can do it, Milania
Speaker 1: can do it, Barron can, Eric Adams can do it.
Speaker 2: Eric Adams can do it.
Speaker 1: What do you? What are your thoughts about meme coins? Look,
Speaker 1: I know it's like human nature online and on chain,
Speaker 1: and you can't stop some of these trends. Right, you
Speaker 1: have the virality, but now people can speculate on it.
Speaker 1: Do you think this is something that continues moving forward?
Speaker 2: I don't know. I get into these arguments with my girlfriend.
Speaker 2: They're not really arguments with these discussions rather sure where
Speaker 2: she wants me to change my She suggests that I
Speaker 2: change my headshot for some things, from my pudgy penguin
Speaker 2: to my actual headshot. She comes from traditional finance, traifying.
Speaker 2: She thinks that, like, you know, people might want to
Speaker 2: meet me at this conference. I want to take me seriously,
Speaker 2: and I think that it's funny and that you know,
Speaker 2: I see her side right, like you know, makes you
Speaker 2: people aren't gonna know that's you if it's a pudgy penguin.
Speaker 2: But anyway, this is all to say that I've always
Speaker 2: been a firm believer in the power of mimetics and culture,
Speaker 2: and I think it's important. And I think the sort
Speaker 2: of financialization of humor, which is something that we all
Speaker 2: share and as one of the greatest gifts we can
Speaker 2: give someone else is the gift of laughter. I think
Speaker 2: financializing that's really powerful and interesting, but it can also
Speaker 2: be really dangerous, as we've seen, yes, and so I
Speaker 2: think that, like, I don't have a great answer for
Speaker 2: it in terms of like how do we capture sort
Speaker 2: of the There's been so many memes and history from
Speaker 2: like you know, the cats on the Internet to whatever
Speaker 2: it might be. And I think like folks are part
Speaker 2: of that and contribute to that. To see some financial
Speaker 2: gain from that is cool and it's an interesting new
Speaker 2: form of capital formation, right, you know, and and people
Speaker 2: can participate on it. But that's one side of the sword.
Speaker 2: And so I think, just like anything else, there should
Speaker 2: be some uh guardrails, some some guardrails or something, But
Speaker 2: I don't think they're inherently bad like some of right people.
Speaker 1: Yeah, No, I'm gonnagree with you. I'm a I believe
Speaker 1: in the free market. If you want to go to
Speaker 1: casino and throw it all on Runner black, yeah yeah.
Speaker 1: And or you want to buy part coin, just not
Speaker 1: a risk. You know, to be smart, be do your
Speaker 1: research and just know you're gambling to a certain degree there,
Speaker 1: and then you know to your point of this is
Speaker 1: a new model for capital formation. So I'm more interested
Speaker 1: in how this is used by enterprises like Amazon or
Speaker 1: even entrepreneurs who are looking to raise capital to build
Speaker 1: their business, and how they can use this technology to
Speaker 1: do things.
Speaker 2: You just you just do what Eric Adams, Trump and
Speaker 2: Lania were able to do. That's like insane, Like that's
Speaker 2: insane capital formation. Sometimes it takes to raise that much
Speaker 2: money like a team of bankers and a tank and
Speaker 2: it's like I just came up with an idea and
Speaker 2: a ticker and I put out an address and I've
Speaker 2: raised tens of millions of dollars. Like that's like, you know,
Speaker 2: that can bootstrap a lot of different things, right, you know,
Speaker 2: So that's what's the speed is what's interesting. But then
Speaker 2: you can just see there's also the flip side of
Speaker 2: that is that you know, the rug poles are oft
Speaker 2: an omnipresent, right, But ultimately I think it the burning
Speaker 2: of people that that like resulted, that resulted in a
Speaker 2: lot of people being weary of crypto, and now they
Speaker 2: have all these different options, right, Like crypto when you
Speaker 2: got into the market, that was the casino and perps
Speaker 2: were the casino product, and offshore exchanges were actually the
Speaker 2: physical casinos. Now there are at folks fingertips a myriad
Speaker 2: of options to participate in the casino, from prediction markets
Speaker 2: to obviously they had access to options, but you know,
Speaker 2: the growth of robinhood and the accessibility of financial products
Speaker 2: via Robinhood, and then just the change in the market
Speaker 2: to be more casino ficcated has given a new playing
Speaker 2: field outside of crypto, and in some ways it's becoming
Speaker 2: more crypto than crypto is and that sucks a bit
Speaker 2: of the oxygen out of the room. I mean, who
Speaker 2: would have thought, like, you know, typically it's it's like,
Speaker 2: you know, drop the ticker of the coin and it
Speaker 2: was all these weird dats. So crypto doesn't get to
Speaker 2: be the only only weird, volatile gambling toy in the
Speaker 2: markets anymore.
Speaker 1: That's true. It is probably one of the catalysts as
Speaker 1: to why less action or liquidity and crypto for alts
Speaker 1: and things like that. You know, you mentioned dats. What
Speaker 1: do you think about the future of thats there is.
Speaker 1: It seems to be a lot of risk because they're
Speaker 1: raising debt and you're adding, you know, a volatile asset
Speaker 1: to your balance sheet, and some of these businesses don't
Speaker 1: actually have a business model is just simply buy the
Speaker 1: asset and do the arbitrage with the stock price. You know,
Speaker 1: I'm concerned for like micro Strategy. I'm not concerned about
Speaker 1: Tesla taking some of their cash and by bitcoin. I
Speaker 1: think that's fine, But the amount of debt and leverage
Speaker 1: that's been used. Do you think we see a big
Speaker 1: collapse at of some of these companies.
Speaker 2: Yeah, definitely. I think you're gonna see a massive wave
Speaker 2: of consolidation. I mean the str I mean I'd always
Speaker 2: thought that it didn't make a lot of sense, but
Speaker 2: if you look at micro Strategy right, like, it's one
Speaker 2: of the most successful stocks and over the last five
Speaker 2: years relative to many of the big tech companies. So
Speaker 2: the strategy no put intent worked. But yeah, like you
Speaker 2: can't have there's a cap like this is relatively speaking
Speaker 2: of a zero's own game, Like you can't have thirty
Speaker 2: Salana deaths, like you probably literally can have one, you
Speaker 2: can have a few Bitcoin deaths. And so there's gonna
Speaker 2: be a there's gonna be a massive shakeout of these things,
Speaker 2: and then the bankers are gonna make a ton of
Speaker 2: money because they made fees on the raising of these
Speaker 2: things millions of dollars. No one's really talked about how
Speaker 2: much money. These guys have made a lot of money,
Speaker 2: and they're gonna make money on the cleanup, on the consolidation,
Speaker 2: and on whatever craziness happens as these things kind of unferral.
Speaker 1: Speaking of banks, big drama last week, banks are trying
Speaker 1: to find fight stable corn yield and rewards on exchanges. Yeah,
Speaker 1: they don't want to obviously lose the big bonuses and
Speaker 1: the amount of the interest they keep and just give
Speaker 1: you zero point zero one percent. What are your thoughts
Speaker 1: in that situation and the bacle is happening in DC.
Speaker 2: I think that even if you know, it'd be nice
Speaker 2: to get that headline of this being kind of sorted,
Speaker 2: but I don't think it's going to be the panacea
Speaker 2: that that that's gonna kind of that's not why we're
Speaker 2: in the market position that we're and that's retail fatigue. Sure,
Speaker 2: that's the hangover from the data era. It'd be nice
Speaker 2: if we get some clarity no pun intended around in
Speaker 2: the next few weeks. But there's still going to be
Speaker 2: open questions. There's still going to be open questions for
Speaker 2: policymakers and for legislatures, legislators. The banks obviously had a
Speaker 2: lot of their dirty work done for them by previous
Speaker 2: administration under chair Genzler, so they could sort of rest
Speaker 2: on their laurels and sit on their hands knowing that
Speaker 2: they were going to take care of these things for
Speaker 2: them and not allow crypto to grow any bigger or
Speaker 2: to offer customers interesting product. The bottom line is stable
Speaker 2: coins is a better alternative to the existing financial infrastructure.
Speaker 2: It's seamless, it's it's easy to use, it's simple to
Speaker 2: you to send money and then to earn rewards. And
Speaker 2: so that terrifies them because since at least the financial crisis,
Speaker 2: there's been very little that banks have had to do
Speaker 2: or had to give customers on deposits, and you know,
Speaker 2: that's that's a huge, huge threat, and especially because they
Speaker 2: can't just roll this stuff out overnight. They can't just
Speaker 2: get into stable coins in a few years, let alone
Speaker 2: a few I mean, let alone a few months. This
Speaker 2: is something that would take that they weren't able to
Speaker 2: do in a few years. So they're scared. They're scared,
Speaker 2: but I don't think they'll I think that they I
Speaker 2: think they're kind of screwed, to be honest, Like it's
Speaker 2: it's just gonna happen regardless, you know.
Speaker 1: Well to your point, I mean, look, they could bump
Speaker 1: up the interests for consumers to compete that way, but
Speaker 1: we know that they probably won't. But with their stable coins,
Speaker 1: like you said that maybe years away, maybe would they
Speaker 1: with the Clarity Act pass and I saw I think
Speaker 1: it was David Sachs said this morning, you know, we
Speaker 1: could see a lot of mergers and acquisitions and and
Speaker 1: things like that. Maybe the banks go buy some of
Speaker 1: these stable coin companies and that could fast track them.
Speaker 2: Yeah, they could, but I think that you know a
Speaker 2: lot of these companies are getting quite sizable. Sure it'd
Speaker 2: be cool to see, Yeah, maybe Coinbase by patchwork of
Speaker 2: like regional banks and just yeah offer services through them.
Speaker 1: Well, they're already working with like P and C, City
Speaker 1: JP Morgan. So they've they've really got their position really well,
Speaker 1: and they can white label some of their services. So yeah,
Speaker 1: it would makes sense for them to purchase somebody's banks.
Speaker 1: You know, do you are you anticipating or we see
Speaker 1: a lot of IPOs this year, you know, depending on
Speaker 1: the market condition.
Speaker 2: We're seeing on tomorrow, who's going to public? But oh
Speaker 2: there's yet another one.
Speaker 1: Oh boy, I didn't even realize you were going tomorrow.
Speaker 2: Yeah, New York Soccer Exchange. Oh no way, yeah, wow.
Speaker 1: I some reason I thought that was in February. I
Speaker 1: don't know why.
Speaker 2: Oh February's right around the corner.
Speaker 1: Yeah, okay, wow, Yeah, I'm hoping, you know, with someone
Speaker 1: them looking to go public that I know rallies the
Speaker 1: market up a little bit, and anythink I think that.
Speaker 2: I think we'll see more. I think more we're going
Speaker 2: to hit the market. I mean, you've got securitize this back.
Speaker 2: There's you know who else is looking cracking. I think
Speaker 2: was looking Ripple was looking too.
Speaker 1: There's talks about it, but they keep saying they're not.
Speaker 2: They're like, we don't want to do it now. But
Speaker 2: I think there's a huge there's probably at least ten
Speaker 2: more that in the short to medium term will tap
Speaker 2: public markets, right, and that's just further further meshing of
Speaker 2: the of the two.
Speaker 1: It'll be interesting to say, yeah, what are your thoughts
Speaker 1: on a tokenization market. There's a big race there, all
Speaker 1: these stratify institutions looking to get equities or whatever it
Speaker 1: is on chain.
Speaker 2: A lot of people don't understand that. You have to
Speaker 2: think that it's really the asset, right, Like, tokenization doesn't
Speaker 2: make an asset better, you know. And so what we've
Speaker 2: seen with a lot of these plays is for funds
Speaker 2: that these financial institutions are having a hard time selling,
Speaker 2: they'll typically partner with a crypto firm to tokenize it
Speaker 2: for the marketing and brand exposure of the underpinning blockchain
Speaker 2: so that they can then push it. Now it's kind
Speaker 2: of lipstick on a pig type deal.
Speaker 1: For now, for now, okay, for now.
Speaker 2: And that's at least my opinion. I'm not sure there
Speaker 2: are people who would disagree with me that work at
Speaker 2: a lot of these companies, but that's the impression that
Speaker 2: I have. And you know, it's not going to really
Speaker 2: stick until everything's end to end, because right now it's
Speaker 2: sort of just you know, it's it's siloed, right, like
Speaker 2: you know, you think of something like biddle. It's like,
Speaker 2: really just this one product that's engaging with like one
Speaker 2: type of one type of client, which is really a
Speaker 2: crypto client that wants to be able to seamlessly engage
Speaker 2: between crypto and treasuries. But it's not like you can
Speaker 2: operate throughout the you can't. You can't operate end to
Speaker 2: end throughout black rock on chain, right, And until that happens,
Speaker 2: things are kind of just slightly insignificant. Pointing is something
Speaker 2: more significant.
Speaker 1: M I appreciate that perspective because we only get one
Speaker 1: view of it where it's like, oh my gosh, you
Speaker 1: know this is all going. But it's good to have
Speaker 1: a balance view. And to your point, as you said that,
Speaker 1: I was thinking, yeah, I can see how some of
Speaker 1: these things are like marketing and just hey, our chain
Speaker 1: is being used by this institution to tokenize X. But okay,
Speaker 1: what's happening after We don't usually hear the results or
Speaker 1: you know, the performance metrics. We just hear it got
Speaker 1: built on whatever. Yeah, yeah, exactly interesting. So Frank, what's
Speaker 1: on your roadmap for this year man GSR and well, yeah, I.
Speaker 2: Mean it's been well, there's a lot of work to do,
Speaker 2: work to be done, you know, there's a lot we
Speaker 2: can do to further support the client and the portfolio.
Speaker 2: I think providing them with a platform through the podcast
Speaker 2: is one vehicle because there is a lot of noise.
Speaker 2: I think this is the biggest challenge that founders in
Speaker 2: this space space is the fact that you're competing for
Speaker 2: airtime with malania Coin and driump coin, and so you know,
Speaker 2: when I think about what we can do in twenty
Speaker 2: twenty six is to help the client kind of peak
Speaker 2: out through the noise, and so we'll continue to grow that,
Speaker 2: We'll continue to grow the platform and a lot of
Speaker 2: travel this year for me, which yeah, I try to
Speaker 2: take a break in twenty twenty five, but twenty twenty
Speaker 2: six shaping up to be busy.
Speaker 1: Well, hopefully the more cold dude, Well, you want to
Speaker 1: get out of New York, go go sound you gotta
Speaker 1: get to the Caymans.
Speaker 2: It's freezing out.
Speaker 1: Yeah, yeah, it's crazy. Plus snow. More snow. Well, I'm
Speaker 1: in a bit in Jersey, so I get more snow.
Speaker 1: It's lots more shoveling I feel like I've been shoveling
Speaker 1: every day.
Speaker 2: Make sure to leave your heat out, dude, my heat
Speaker 2: bell for my house. My gas bill. I guess don't
Speaker 2: put this in the show, but it was five hundred dollars.
Speaker 2: Is that normal? My house is drafted? I guess I
Speaker 2: was asking.
Speaker 1: I was like, well, it depends on the size of
Speaker 1: your house.
Speaker 2: It's huge. No, I'm just it's reasonable. It's reasonably size.
Speaker 1: All right, Frank, I got some wrap up questions here.
Speaker 1: For first, if you could create your own metaverse, what
Speaker 1: would the theme be?
Speaker 2: The theme would be very low gas bills.
Speaker 1: No one knows Star Wars no.
Speaker 2: Oh, if I had a oh, probably Sopranos themes I've
Speaker 2: been I'm just restarted. Oh wow, yeah, I'm on episode
Speaker 2: four of season season one. Maybe I.
Speaker 1: Have to rewatch that myself. Rapid fire questions. Favorite food.
Speaker 2: It's a good question. I mean, you know what I've
Speaker 2: been into, like the past six months, just like my default.
Speaker 1: Yeah, I'm gonna tell you.
Speaker 2: Tacos. I've been obsessed with tacos. Uh Santos in the
Speaker 2: in the city. Uh do loves tacos? All right, what's
Speaker 2: that one that's like everywhere there's one down here and
Speaker 2: find I loves Tacos Tacoma or Tacoby's, Okay. I used
Speaker 2: to go there a lot back in the day for
Speaker 2: the burritos. And then I was in Mexico over the holidays.
Speaker 2: I was too really were Oh I was in Tuloom
Speaker 2: It's so funny.
Speaker 1: Yeah for New Years other it was there for Christmas.
Speaker 2: Yeah, or you just there for Christmas.
Speaker 1: Yeah. We we went from the twentieth through to twenty
Speaker 1: sixth at SLS player and then we went to like
Speaker 1: Islam Muies took the ferry over drove.
Speaker 2: Did you do you know about this train that they have,
Speaker 2: the Maya Trained Maya.
Speaker 1: I think my wife had mentioned it to me.
Speaker 2: It's sick. It's really clean and fast.
Speaker 1: I checked that out.
Speaker 2: Yeah, that's cool man Tacos. Yeah, yeah, just cause recently too.
Speaker 2: It was never a.
Speaker 1: Big doco guy meant the favorite musician or band.
Speaker 2: Oh, that's a good question. I mean I feel like
Speaker 2: being from New Jersey, like Bruce Springsteon hard not hard
Speaker 2: not to pick him.
Speaker 1: Sure, Oh, favorite book?
Speaker 2: You know, I like this probably isn't my favorite book,
Speaker 2: but I mostly read like biographies. Nonfiction is my preference.
Speaker 2: But probably the book I read quickest would have been
Speaker 2: The Bad Blood Bad right about there there in Us.
Speaker 2: Oh yeah, yeah right, it's bad Blood the Elizabeth Holmes.
Speaker 1: Yeah yeah, but when you said bad Blood, I thought
Speaker 1: of Taylor Chef.
Speaker 2: Yeah, because I don't think it's actually bad blood. It's
Speaker 2: something else, but that that one.
Speaker 1: And when you're not working, Frank, what are you doing
Speaker 1: for fun?
Speaker 2: I work out a lot, you know, like most days,
Speaker 2: that's fun.
Speaker 1: I love to cook.
Speaker 2: I don't make tacos though, that's like an exclusively for
Speaker 2: that going out endeavor for me. I've made tacos once.
Speaker 2: I I went to Costco and I got probably ten
Speaker 2: pounds of pork shoulder and I cooked that let's marinade
Speaker 2: two three days or something, and I made like sixty
Speaker 2: seventy tacos over the holidays.
Speaker 1: Wow.
Speaker 2: But yeah, I like to cook. I like to work out.
Speaker 1: Tweet Yeah, fintech Frank, Yeah, follow follow Frank, Frank pleasure.
Speaker 1: Thanks glad we finally got around to do it.
Speaker 2: Yeah, we'll see again soon. Yeah.
Speaker 1: Yeah, Well we'll bump each other at a conference or something,
Speaker 1: because I hope so this year we see a rally, Frank,
Speaker 1: we get some life back in this market. Yeah, Hi,
Speaker 1: thank you man, thanks for having me. Thank you so
Speaker 1: much for tuning in. Please hit the like button subscribe
Speaker 1: if you haven't as yet. If you're listening on a
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Speaker 1: and leave a five star rating. Thank you so much,