Speaker 1: We're public company, and you know, we have thousands of shelders,
Speaker 1: and when we set out notices and stuff, it takes forever,
Speaker 1: and like in our case, we even have to you know,
Speaker 1: freaking print stuff. So it would just bankrupt us to
Speaker 1: simply to send paper out to the world, right because
Speaker 1: we're still stuck in them. But to tokenization, you can
Speaker 1: basically sort of create a shareholder register that basically could
Speaker 1: extend to billions of people. You could vote in real
Speaker 1: time on stuff.
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Speaker 2: the link in the description. Welcome into the Thinking Crypto Podcast.
Speaker 2: I'm your host, Tony Edward, and joining me today is
Speaker 2: Yatsu who's the co founder and chairman of Anamoga Brands yacht.
Speaker 2: It is great to have you on.
Speaker 1: Thank you for having me. It's a real pleasure to
Speaker 1: be on your show.
Speaker 2: Yeah, as I was saying before in the recording, I've
Speaker 2: been following Animoga and yourself for many years and I've
Speaker 2: wanted to interview you for a very long time. So
Speaker 2: it's really great to have you. I'm very excited, and
Speaker 2: I love to start with your background before we talk
Speaker 2: all things web three. Where are you from, where'd you
Speaker 2: grow up? And how did you get into technology?
Speaker 1: Yeah? So I mean thank you again. And you know,
Speaker 1: I grew up in Austria and Vienna, so I guess
Speaker 1: in some ways I'm a little bit of an interesting
Speaker 1: product of the of that day and time, just because
Speaker 1: I was born in the seventies. So that probably makes me,
Speaker 1: particularly in the crypto space, one of the slightly older
Speaker 1: people in the room. That isn't to say we have
Speaker 1: people from from from that generation. And I grew up
Speaker 1: in Vienna studying music because my parents were musicians, and
Speaker 1: I actually have a degree in music. That's actually what
Speaker 1: I first started doing. And you know, I think it
Speaker 1: wasn't because I wanted to study music. It was it
Speaker 1: was because in particular that's what my mom knew how
Speaker 1: to do. And it's a classic immigrant story, which is
Speaker 1: kind of like, well, you know, you you know, originally
Speaker 1: from from well actually Tawan and China, so moving to
Speaker 1: a place like Austria in her case because she wanted
Speaker 1: to study music, but also in a way to escape
Speaker 1: what was going on in China. You have to remember
Speaker 1: that in the seventies, China was not a great place
Speaker 1: to be cultural revolution, conflict between what's going on, you know,
Speaker 1: between really Taiwan and China, and to some degree Hong Kong.
Speaker 1: In fact, what interesting story is that my mom's family
Speaker 1: sort of after the culture sort of after the Civil
Speaker 1: War which was in sort of which ended in forty nine,
Speaker 1: they were moving sort of not originally to Taiwan, but
Speaker 1: actually living in Hong Kong, and my great grandfather had
Speaker 1: to sort of evade several assassination attempts at the time
Speaker 1: because he held a certain type of political office in
Speaker 1: China at the time. Well no longer then because at
Speaker 1: the end of the war, so they had to move
Speaker 1: to Taiwan for instance, as a family, right, So that's
Speaker 1: that was kind of the era that people that my
Speaker 1: mom grew up in, to an extension, my father as well,
Speaker 1: and so you know, this was a generation people who
Speaker 1: never thought they'd go back to China, right, and therefore
Speaker 1: they trained their children also to kind of sort of
Speaker 1: never go there. And there's almost like an erasing of
Speaker 1: your Chinese culture because it was kind of a bad thing.
Speaker 1: And we see this same type of cultural sort of
Speaker 1: sort of I guess changes for immigrant stories all over
Speaker 1: the world, maybe with different cultures, whether you're you know,
Speaker 1: from an African nation or maybe Middle Eastern country that
Speaker 1: has gone through a similar situation. You know, they don't
Speaker 1: try to assimilate and maintain their culture as much. They
Speaker 1: try to sort of integrate with that local culture. So,
Speaker 1: you know, we spoke German at home. German is my
Speaker 1: mother tongue, for instance. You know, she really, you know,
Speaker 1: she really tried to sort of integrate me into local
Speaker 1: culture as much as she could. And Europe was also
Speaker 1: an interesting time because it was split really between East
Speaker 1: and West Europe. This is the other thing that maybe
Speaker 1: today's generation might not fully appreciate. So I grew up
Speaker 1: at a time where communism was literally around the border.
Speaker 1: You know, Vienna was at the edge of that. It
Speaker 1: was literally the outer edge, you know, because bordering Hungary,
Speaker 1: and then of course there's you know, what used to
Speaker 1: be Czechoslovakia by now sort of split up, and And
Speaker 1: and Poland, and these were all communist countries. And my
Speaker 1: mom used to work at the eastern side of Berlin
Speaker 1: later on her career, which meant that to visit her,
Speaker 1: I would cross literally across the border through checkpoint Charlie's
Speaker 1: Child and I would basically see my mom, and you know,
Speaker 1: that was fine, but you know, you'd literally cross into
Speaker 1: It's like going from you know, a western democratic society
Speaker 1: in the west side of Berlin and then moving to
Speaker 1: the eastern side, which is like a scene out in
Speaker 1: nineteen eighty four. I mean, it's hard to describe that
Speaker 1: because today you might feel this experience going into either
Speaker 1: horror horror scene set or some kind of you know,
Speaker 1: like like like Disney said, like you would go in
Speaker 1: and sort of experience something completely wild and different, and
Speaker 1: here that was actually reality. That was That was how life,
Speaker 1: like a sort of life is like literally like where
Speaker 1: food was scarce. You know, you had like supermarkets where
Speaker 1: you know, it was wide and you would have literally
Speaker 1: can spread apart roughly half a meter to a meter,
Speaker 1: so the food would be distributed around because you didn't
Speaker 1: have enough food. Like you know that That's how wild
Speaker 1: it was. Anyway, sort of going on a bit of
Speaker 1: often a tangent, but I would say that that background
Speaker 1: shaped me a lot in terms of thinking about I
Speaker 1: guess a little bit about society, you know, capitalism, culture, socialism,
Speaker 1: all that type of stuff, and you know which kind
Speaker 1: of I think to some extent affected my thinking, especially
Speaker 1: today around Web three and the meaning behind it all.
Speaker 1: But the way I got into technology was I wasn't
Speaker 1: really a great musician. I was actually pretty bad compared
Speaker 1: to my peers, because you know, with music, it's one
Speaker 1: of those things where when you have talent, you can
Speaker 1: really really tell second athlete, sorry, you can just run faster.
Speaker 1: You know, there's there's no no kind of equal opportunity. Okay,
Speaker 1: you're not as tall, so let's give you better shoes.
Speaker 1: That type of stuff doesn't happen in sports. It doesn't
Speaker 1: happen in music either, So you know, I had to
Speaker 1: work ten times harder than all my fellow students sort
Speaker 1: of colleagues, who were just simply more gifted, or they
Speaker 1: had better physical attributes, like if we played piano, having
Speaker 1: longer fingers helps. Okay, it's just biology, right, And so
Speaker 1: you know, I did composition, and in order to give
Speaker 1: me an edge in composition, I used a computer. And
Speaker 1: you have to understand back in the eighties at that point,
Speaker 1: you know, the computer was really the atarist that I
Speaker 1: was using at a midiport. So I was basically able
Speaker 1: to play music that would then show up on the
Speaker 1: screen or basically you know, I would write the software
Speaker 1: that enable that and then I can edit that, whereas
Speaker 1: the old way of doing it was literally sort of
Speaker 1: pen and paper, okay, And so there's a kind of
Speaker 1: a disconnect, but that's what people would do, and so
Speaker 1: so that was quite helpful for me. My teacher was
Speaker 1: absolutely not impressed because this was the time when calculators
Speaker 1: were banned in class Can you imagine asking a computer
Speaker 1: to help you. It's kind of like the debate we're
Speaker 1: having to day a little bit with AI. But right like,
Speaker 1: I'm using AI in classroom? Is it okay? So not okay?
Speaker 1: Obviously I'm a generally positive proponent of it, but it's
Speaker 1: one of those things where you know, it was really
Speaker 1: sort of it wasn't disruptive because it wasn't scaling. It
Speaker 1: was just more like I was like the weird or
Speaker 1: bad student. But the software was uploaded on this pre
Speaker 1: internet service called computer, and there I met a community
Speaker 1: of people and it starts to sound all familiar, like
Speaker 1: from you know, community people. And they didn't really care
Speaker 1: where it was from, how old it was, because it
Speaker 1: was basically a teen and you know, frankly what nationality
Speaker 1: I was from, it didn't matter. I just wrote software
Speaker 1: that they appreciated. And so that the aha moment was,
Speaker 1: you know, when people send me money. Now, the way
Speaker 1: you send money in that era wasn't. It wasn't like
Speaker 1: a PayPal or some kind of digital money that didn't exist.
Speaker 1: They literally sent me checks in the mail, and so
Speaker 1: you would open your post office and you'd literally see
Speaker 1: people write you some kind of check. And I remember
Speaker 1: this was like twenty five years dollars. I was like,
Speaker 1: oh wow, because and back then the idea wasn't a
Speaker 1: subscription for people who are writing software, you know, sort
Speaker 1: of what we called shareware, which is kind of a
Speaker 1: category of public domain. It's like, if you like the software,
Speaker 1: you know, send some money to this address if you
Speaker 1: appreciate it. And I didn't do it because I know
Speaker 1: expected anyone to send me money. It's kind of bragging rights.
Speaker 1: It's like if you write software and you put shareware,
Speaker 1: you just do that, right, Like today, nobody puts their
Speaker 1: address by the way, you know, they put in the
Speaker 1: share and they put their sort of a sort of
Speaker 1: contributions online, right, But back then was totally normal. Anyway
Speaker 1: people started sending me money, and you know, twenty five
Speaker 1: years dollars back in the day was a lot money.
Speaker 1: So that was what I think. But also too I
Speaker 1: didn't have a bank account because it was a kid, right,
Speaker 1: So that experience also taught me about how to open
Speaker 1: a bank account and how do I cash in basically
Speaker 1: check that's in dollars. Went back then the Austria wasn't
Speaker 1: even part of the EU, or the EU wasn't even
Speaker 1: created back then, it was it was the shilling, So
Speaker 1: it was like a weird thing, and it catapulted me
Speaker 1: in sort of into this era of sort of you know,
Speaker 1: digital communities and an early early version of I guess
Speaker 1: digital commerce, which then led to a job at a
Speaker 1: Tari because Atari appreciated the software I was writing and
Speaker 1: asked for me to come in and say, hey, we
Speaker 1: like what you're doing. It might be an opportunity. And
Speaker 1: I show up and they're like, how old are you?
Speaker 1: But it didn't matter. I still got the job. And
Speaker 1: I think this parallel is true for every technological innovation cycle,
Speaker 1: at least for opportunities for young people. For instance, if
Speaker 1: you're even today, if you're good at what you do
Speaker 1: in crypto and web three, if you can program well,
Speaker 1: it doesn't matter how old you are to be eighteen
Speaker 1: nineteen twenty, you don't need a university degree. If you're good,
Speaker 1: you're hired. You get paid a lot of money for it, right.
Speaker 1: And we saw this in the early days of the web.
Speaker 1: To build a website doesn't matter how old you are.
Speaker 1: I mean, we used to pay a million dollars for websites,
Speaker 1: can you imagine, right? Or if you're doing mobile you
Speaker 1: know mobile apps right, if you know, only mobile apps
Speaker 1: during the era of smartphone growth, didn't matter how you
Speaker 1: were or where you're from. You're hired. You do a job.
Speaker 1: Didn't matter if you're in the Philippines or whether you're
Speaker 1: in Taiwan, or whether you're in you know, in the
Speaker 1: Middle East. You know, you didn't have to have a
Speaker 1: degree in some kind of great local university. You were
Speaker 1: just given the opportunity. And I think that was really
Speaker 1: attractive and that really drew me into sort of the space.
Speaker 1: And then because of Atari, I went to the US.
Speaker 1: They went under that we created a startup that eventually
Speaker 1: led to us doing a business around Silicon Graphics, which
Speaker 1: is basically SGI for those who might remember what that is.
Speaker 1: All the great movies and special effects. It was sort
Speaker 1: of produced with SGI machines if you industrial light and
Speaker 1: magic sort of gives you any kind of sort of reference.
Speaker 1: And we were working in a I guess three metaverse
Speaker 1: type of product category you could call it, which is
Speaker 1: called VRML. And so VRML was essentially the VR version
Speaker 1: of what HTML was at the time. It stood for
Speaker 1: Virtual Reality Markup Language, so literally HTML, except it was
Speaker 1: a it was a virtual reality version, which sort of
Speaker 1: catapulted us into that particular space. And that led me
Speaker 1: to go basically from from you know, the US to
Speaker 1: Asia and I started one of the Asia's very first
Speaker 1: online sort of ISPs caulled Hong Kong Online and anyway,
Speaker 1: I mean, I could go on, but that was kind
Speaker 1: of the initial initial period of my life. At that point,
Speaker 1: I was in my early twenties and and that was
Speaker 1: in the early nineties, so I'm really dating myself now.
Speaker 2: That's amazing. Yeah, thank you for sharing that story. It's
Speaker 2: it's so fascinating your journey, and even I can relate
Speaker 2: to a lot of it being an immigrant kid myself.
Speaker 2: So that's just so fascinating. And you know, yeah, I
Speaker 2: look at you, I look at Mark and Dreasen and
Speaker 2: Mike belchie Jeremy Alric, folks who are building in web
Speaker 2: one point zero. Now are here in Web three. You
Speaker 2: know what do you look back, do you see any similarities?
Speaker 2: Do you still have some fire that building fire in so.
Speaker 1: Many so, I mean Mark and d Reason. It's a
Speaker 1: it's a it's a fascinating topic because I remember when
Speaker 1: when we first sort of were using browsers, We're using
Speaker 1: sing called mosaic, right, this was even pre Netscape. Yeah,
Speaker 1: and then and and I think what what then happened
Speaker 1: was is Mark and Reason basically launch Netscape, and that
Speaker 1: was really the beginning of you know, at the time
Speaker 1: sent the whole sort of portal business and the whole
Speaker 1: idea of the website or presence perspective, and from an
Speaker 1: attention point point of view, you know, my my, my model.
Speaker 1: And I think this is I think why people like
Speaker 1: marketing recent in particular, look at the Web three and
Speaker 1: they sort of and while we're I don't think with
Speaker 1: the exactly the same age, but we're from let's call
Speaker 1: it same or similar web generation because he started, you know,
Speaker 1: building Netscape, and we're basically you know, building a version
Speaker 1: of GeoCities back in Asia roughly during around that time,
Speaker 1: which is called you know, Hong Kong Cyber City, anyway,
Speaker 1: the point being is that we're in sort of different areas,
Speaker 1: but building in some spaces having the same fascination about
Speaker 1: you know what today we call web one, but back
Speaker 1: then was just the Internet, right, and we're just using
Speaker 1: browsers and and and so the fact that he has
Speaker 1: this vision around Web three and he sees the future
Speaker 1: the way that he does to me is completely natural, right.
Speaker 1: I think any person who has experienced what we have
Speaker 1: would basically see Web three as in a way or
Speaker 1: sort of almost like going back to the future type
Speaker 1: of experience. It's like, we see this pattern, and we
Speaker 1: see the possibilities, and we see the way that the
Speaker 1: Internet should have been, because that was a promise of
Speaker 1: Web one, right, this idea that you know, what, however,
Speaker 1: was sort of distributed and decentralized was information and the
Speaker 1: value and the distribution of that information, which was the
Speaker 1: kind of power. Right. And you also remember that in
Speaker 1: the eighties and prior to that, you know, what was
Speaker 1: really powerful was knowledge. Right, So everyone talked about knowledge economies,
Speaker 1: and everyone talked about you know, like, if I had
Speaker 1: certain kind of knowledge, would get certain kind of jobs?
Speaker 1: And what that is to some extent true, Right, The
Speaker 1: most valuable thing today isn't knowledge because that's been commoditized,
Speaker 1: you know, because of the Internet. Is actually what knowledge creates,
Speaker 1: which are network effects inherent, which we see representative of
Speaker 1: things like AI very very sort of viscerally so, but
Speaker 1: even before that, you know what's happening when network effects
Speaker 1: and things like Instagram or Facebook, very social networks, or
Speaker 1: Amazon or Google or Apple. These are all companies that
Speaker 1: have built powerful network effects from our knowledge and information
Speaker 1: from the social graphs that essentially we give to them, right,
Speaker 1: but they are sort of captured in this web to world.
Speaker 1: And so we both witnessed this era where this open
Speaker 1: Internet were really open source and being open was the ethos.
Speaker 1: The standard somehow became sort of closed and sort of
Speaker 1: this walled garden in Web two. And so the parallel,
Speaker 1: I want to sort of give here it and you know,
Speaker 1: we take it, took it from slightly different approaches. But
Speaker 1: the parallel here is when you look at market reasons
Speaker 1: early days on things like Netscape and sort of what
Speaker 1: he was doing on building sort of you really sort
Speaker 1: of a distribution platform with the web. What he was
Speaker 1: doing was essentially looking at how he can generate value
Speaker 1: from the attention that is being generated in this new era. Right.
Speaker 1: And this is also the time when Bill Gates famously said,
Speaker 1: you know, basically what he talked about sort of content
Speaker 1: being king, right, and content being king, because he recognized
Speaker 1: also that in this era everyone could be a content producer,
Speaker 1: and it was no longer you know, just just sort
Speaker 1: of the distribution or the sort of the large publishers
Speaker 1: that had controlled, because everyone could basically become a content
Speaker 1: producer because of the web. Right. And again we're talking
Speaker 1: about these forms of attention, right, It's just you know,
Speaker 1: you had a website and you create attention, whether it's
Speaker 1: a blog or whatever, and then these these forms of
Speaker 1: attention sort of generate value for them. And that form
Speaker 1: of value was advertising, right, And that advertising was the
Speaker 1: proxy for how successful your attention based economy was, whether
Speaker 1: this is a website or maybe a game. And you know,
Speaker 1: in Web two, this type of attention was consolidated in
Speaker 1: platforms like Instagram. So instead of going into this is
Speaker 1: my website, dot com or whatever? Right, remember the dot
Speaker 1: com era, we went into what's your Instagram handle or
Speaker 1: what's your TikTok handle. So we suddenly moved away from
Speaker 1: being in our own independent, decentralized status into some kind
Speaker 1: of centralized environment, and then not recognizing that our contribution
Speaker 1: to this actually enhanced a larger network effect as a whole,
Speaker 1: which then gave the platforms all this power. And we
Speaker 1: see this zeb where now in the Web two world
Speaker 1: and then with Web three with tokens, there is essentially
Speaker 1: the same type of narrative around attention, except now tokens
Speaker 1: are the representation of that attention, but in an ownership
Speaker 1: and capitalistic perspective, So that means that value is distributed
Speaker 1: and descibralized, but attention can now be owned, which wasn't
Speaker 1: really possible before because of the tokenization, so which means
Speaker 1: that you can translate it as well. To the extent
Speaker 1: that we saw, you know, millions and millions of websites launch,
Speaker 1: some big and many small. We're seeing the same thing
Speaker 1: with tokens. It's going to be you know, millions and
Speaker 1: millions of websites, tokens actually already millions, you know, one
Speaker 1: hundreds of millions of tokens launch, of which the vast
Speaker 1: majority will be small but still meaningful for the businesses involved,
Speaker 1: and a handful of them will be really really large
Speaker 1: and important, but in a much more distributed and decentralized way,
Speaker 1: in much way that the early days of the Internet
Speaker 1: as well the Internet was. And I think we're all
Speaker 1: believers that Work three is just the better Internet because
Speaker 1: we can actually own it and we have mechanisms in
Speaker 1: which we can sort of compose of building it in
Speaker 1: the free way, in much the way same way that
Speaker 1: open source built the foundations of the early Internet. So
Speaker 1: I see it as really going back to the real
Speaker 1: principles of what the what the sort of free and
Speaker 1: open internet was supposed to be.
Speaker 2: Oh absolutely, you know, and here saying that I thought
Speaker 2: of you know, you mentioned attention, and then you have
Speaker 2: network effects metals law, and it seems like historically, I
Speaker 2: think you alluded to this. You know, there was religious
Speaker 2: network effects, government, politician network effects, celebrity network effects. But
Speaker 2: now an average Joe can create network effects around themselves
Speaker 2: through personal branding and the Internet and possibly create a
Speaker 2: token of maybe tokenizing their business or tokenizing themselves. If
Speaker 2: that's the future we're headed in. Do you does that
Speaker 2: make sense? And do you see that happening where it's
Speaker 2: more yeah, you know, more multipaceted on that front.
Speaker 1: Yeah, absolutely, So let me just quickly sort of go
Speaker 1: into sort of a little bit on the topic of
Speaker 1: tokenization as a whole. So tokenization can manument can can
Speaker 1: be many things, right, So you can you know, that
Speaker 1: can be used for our WA's and you can sort
Speaker 1: of tokenize real estate or some I don't know, some
Speaker 1: some some some some precious art or you know that
Speaker 1: that's that's one example, right, And then if you look
Speaker 1: at stable coins, right, I mean, that's that's one of
Speaker 1: the most sort of I guess sort of obvious of
Speaker 1: our w is in a way that it takes a
Speaker 1: construct that is from the physical world, right in this
Speaker 1: case of currency like the dollar, and you basically translate
Speaker 1: that very directly into the digital world with as a
Speaker 1: stable coin. But the sort of one that's really growing
Speaker 1: is this sort of network asset. And so this is
Speaker 1: where it's interesting because you know, technology has had a
Speaker 1: way in which it opens up new paradigms in which
Speaker 1: you can do things you can do before. Right, like
Speaker 1: before we you know, its idea of digital ownership was
Speaker 1: just not possible because actually you know who owned it
Speaker 1: was really the platform. But what made it possible was
Speaker 1: a database. So I think when you really go down
Speaker 1: into the very fundamentals of you know, it doesn't mean
Speaker 1: why it's blockchain or whatever, that the whole data paradigm
Speaker 1: only works and the construction of the networkers only works
Speaker 1: because we invented this thing called the database. But the
Speaker 1: question becomes who owns that database? And so for the
Speaker 1: longest of times, all the data in the database owned
Speaker 1: it was owned by a central platform, and that wasn't
Speaker 1: necessarily by its intentional design. It was just that there
Speaker 1: was a limitation of that technology. And of course businesses
Speaker 1: never thought of sort of you know, like when you
Speaker 1: talk about building a database and only the data. That
Speaker 1: wasn't the early in the WHEB one era, wasn't really
Speaker 1: a construct other than a tool to facilitate, you know,
Speaker 1: the navigation of the web. It wasn't really thought of
Speaker 1: us as it was today, where you can basically suddenly
Speaker 1: build these knowledge graphs and create these network effects that
Speaker 1: have become much more powerful. And because of that technology,
Speaker 1: the sort of network effects business became possible. Now you
Speaker 1: mentioned Metcalf's laws. So Metcalf's law is a great example
Speaker 1: of I guess the traditional telecom example of the network effect,
Speaker 1: which is, you know, it is designed that way and
Speaker 1: then as a theory because of basically the telephone line. Right,
Speaker 1: so you know you're and you know, measuring societies. If
Speaker 1: I have X number of telephone lines, I can kind
Speaker 1: of measure how many more telephone lines that could grow
Speaker 1: and what the value of that business could be. Right.
Speaker 1: But it was very linear in a way. Although they
Speaker 1: added some kind of sort of sort of curve to it,
Speaker 1: it was generally a fairly linear curve because you know,
Speaker 1: there's only so many connections you could make with one
Speaker 1: single phone call between other people. Right. But you had
Speaker 1: the sort of new extension around this one which was
Speaker 1: you know, known as Read's law. And Read's law is
Speaker 1: sort of this added version where they basically didn't just
Speaker 1: take metcal law, but they say, okay, here's Medical's law.
Speaker 1: But actually under this new construct with the Internet, you
Speaker 1: had the ability to create networks within networks that might
Speaker 1: be even larger than the main network, except like a
Speaker 1: telecone infrastructure for a phone line can't be bigger like
Speaker 1: like my home, like my phone in my home wouldn't
Speaker 1: be bigger than you know, you know, like a phone
Speaker 1: network in and then like a city or something. It's
Speaker 1: just it's it's it's directly correlated by where the phone
Speaker 1: line would be for the most part. But for online
Speaker 1: network effects, you know, for instance, if you take something
Speaker 1: like you know, Reddit subgroups, right, or Facebook or Instagram,
Speaker 1: you'll have a collection of groups or people that might
Speaker 1: represent maybe eighty percent of the traffic, right, But then
Speaker 1: they add to the whole, and then you benefit from
Speaker 1: that type of growth, right. And that's basically the kind
Speaker 1: of explosive growth that was happening in the online community
Speaker 1: is frankly in Web one and then the Web two
Speaker 1: because of the data paradigm they managed to after that.
Speaker 1: And then of course the other thing is is that
Speaker 1: we never really valued data until much later because we
Speaker 1: couldn't harness it, we couldn't create network effects for it,
Speaker 1: because our systems and compute wasn't powerful enough, Right, So
Speaker 1: I liken it a little bit too, like, oh, you
Speaker 1: discovered oil, but you didn't know what to do with it,
Speaker 1: so you just kind of left it there. That was
Speaker 1: actually Web one data. It was spilling all over the place,
Speaker 1: but there was no way that we could process it.
Speaker 1: And then we started getting a little bit better with
Speaker 1: the AI and compute started getting a little bit more powerful,
Speaker 1: and around two thousand and five two thousand and six,
Speaker 1: we started to be able to mine that data more
Speaker 1: productively and suddenly there was value. But because it happens
Speaker 1: behind the scenes, we didn't really know what was going on.
Speaker 1: And now these companies that own these network effects and
Speaker 1: our power in these values are actually the most valuable
Speaker 1: companies in the world. You know, whether this is Google,
Speaker 1: but this is Facebook, we even Microsoft or Apple. Right,
Speaker 1: they are the biggest and richest companies in the world.
Speaker 1: And of course the ones who provide the compute like Nvidia. Right,
Speaker 1: these are the most powerful value company in the world.
Speaker 1: What are they actually selling us? They're selling us entirely
Speaker 1: virtual goods. There's nothing physical about their value proposition. I mean, yeah,
Speaker 1: Apple sells phones, sure, but the reason why you buy
Speaker 1: an Apple phone is because of their virtual ecosystem. You're
Speaker 1: not buying an Apple phone because you can make great
Speaker 1: phone calls with it, right, You're buying it because there's
Speaker 1: the app store, and there's social applications on it, and
Speaker 1: there's ways for you to connect people. That it's entirely
Speaker 1: virtual value and it comes from owning these monopoly effects
Speaker 1: in their own network effects. So today the most valuable.
Speaker 1: So let's call it acid class. That is a new
Speaker 1: asset class that didn't exist. Is the sort of is
Speaker 1: a network and the ownership of a network effect. But
Speaker 1: who owns a network effect? Are the richest companies in
Speaker 1: the world today? You know, Apple knows three trillion, you
Speaker 1: know Meta ad like I know, two trillion, like whatever,
Speaker 1: like like crazy crazy figures. I mean, you know, I
Speaker 1: think fifteen years ago the biggest company was maybe half
Speaker 1: a trillion company and it was and that was like
Speaker 1: I think egg egg on mobile. It's like an energy company, right,
Speaker 1: And so it just kind of shows to you sort
Speaker 1: of where we've come today. And so this is a
Speaker 1: long winded to say to say, there's this new as
Speaker 1: a class now that can be available to be owned
Speaker 1: by the end user, and that is essentially a network
Speaker 1: asset and that basically is represented through tokenization. And you
Speaker 1: look at this, for instance, whether you own bitcoin or
Speaker 1: whether you own ethereum, or where you own any kind
Speaker 1: of token that's out there, You're not buying it because
Speaker 1: of its pure yield that they generate, right, That's not
Speaker 1: why you buy the token. You buy the token because
Speaker 1: it gives you an ownership in a network, and if
Speaker 1: the network grows in whatever facet of that network effect
Speaker 1: that it may be, then its value will sort of
Speaker 1: increase commensurately. And network effects have a powerful thing where
Speaker 1: they embed amongst them. So the most obvious network effects,
Speaker 1: and you talk about before things like religion and politics, Yeah,
Speaker 1: I mean they're kind of network effect. In fact, money
Speaker 1: is a kind of network effect. There's an interesting parallel
Speaker 1: around money, by the way, where you know, you have
Speaker 1: to give away money in order to give it value,
Speaker 1: but if the same kind of money is used by
Speaker 1: a lot of people, then it has value. Right. It
Speaker 1: increases the chility and actually increases its network effect, which
Speaker 1: can be seen by things like the dollar. Right. And
Speaker 1: I think tokenomics is very similar as well. Like you
Speaker 1: don't give out the token. If the token isn't used
Speaker 1: by a lot of people, it doesn't matter that you
Speaker 1: own all of it. If you own all of it,
Speaker 1: it's worth nothing right to kind of like a little
Speaker 1: bit like like art. If you have you might have
Speaker 1: a piece of art that you know, it's super rare,
Speaker 1: that could be thousands of years old. If nobody knows
Speaker 1: about it, it's worth nothing. Right. You need to you
Speaker 1: need to you need to. It needs to be distributed
Speaker 1: in form because everything inherently has value because of its
Speaker 1: network effects. It just hadn't been really able to be
Speaker 1: represented across the board. And again tokenization enables that.
Speaker 2: Yeah, in your journey to discovering bitcoin and blockchain, when
Speaker 2: did that happen? And what was your aha moment to
Speaker 2: where you got to the point of understanding all of
Speaker 2: these laws and all these problems being solved with this technology.
Speaker 1: Yeah, so maybe before I go into that, I think
Speaker 1: one of the big things we hope and we believe
Speaker 1: that Web three and blockching technology was solved is ultimately,
Speaker 1: you know, what Web one solved really was around information
Speaker 1: distribution and the fact that knowledge was broadly available as
Speaker 1: a whole, right, and that really revolutionized things. And if
Speaker 1: you think about it, you know, from my own experience
Speaker 1: as in the pre Internet era, right the knowledge I
Speaker 1: had was distributed to the rest of the world in
Speaker 1: some form of fashion, they appreciated and I received value
Speaker 1: for that, Right, That was that was kind of you
Speaker 1: know what happened. What happened there in Web three, I
Speaker 1: think is the problem we have in the world to
Speaker 1: some extent as well. It extends that into digital property
Speaker 1: rights because now everything that you have digitally, you now
Speaker 1: own it represented through a token or through toganization, so
Speaker 1: you basically have ownership of that kind of property, which
Speaker 1: is the foundation of capitalism. Right. You know, the fact
Speaker 1: that I own a house is the ability for me
Speaker 1: to maybe leverage it or do a mortgage or for instance.
Speaker 1: The other form of property right which is virtual, which
Speaker 1: is you know, very relevant I think today in the
Speaker 1: conversation because people like Jack Dorsey and Elon are like, oh,
Speaker 1: you know, kill IP rights, but IP rights are actually
Speaker 1: foundation are really one of the very very first sort
Speaker 1: of sort of virtual property rights, which is the which
Speaker 1: is the fact that hey, because I invented this, or
Speaker 1: I created this, or I made this music or I
Speaker 1: wrote this book, I have a certain type of right
Speaker 1: for a certain limited period of time to monetize and
Speaker 1: benefit from my original creation and just to sort of
Speaker 1: sort of put a sort of number on it. In
Speaker 1: the US, almost half of the US people, of the
Speaker 1: youth population is employed by companies whose primary business is
Speaker 1: in the intellectual trademark or copyright type of business right
Speaker 1: where it's technology, whether it's art, music, US on right
Speaker 1: and the global market for IP rights as it were,
Speaker 1: is about sixty eight trillion dollars, last estimated by Whippo.
Speaker 1: So that's that's sort that's just actually again, you know,
Speaker 1: that is the most valuable thing. That is the most
Speaker 1: valuable thing that exists out there. So the foundation of
Speaker 1: property rights and the fact that we can own that
Speaker 1: right is actually foundation of how wealth can be created
Speaker 1: and how we can take a share in that. And
Speaker 1: and you know, I'm sort of explaining this little background
Speaker 1: story there because it's very relevant for today in terms
Speaker 1: of how we should think about token edition and then
Speaker 1: sort of the thinking we have with this, because the
Speaker 1: foundation of copyright law actually started really one hundreds of
Speaker 1: years ago in this thing called the Statute of Ann
Speaker 1: And the Statute of Ann was really one of the
Speaker 1: very was really the first way in which you sort
Speaker 1: of tried to sort of encapsulate actually that authors. It
Speaker 1: was really for books, because you know, books was the
Speaker 1: presiding medium. And by the way, the books became popular
Speaker 1: because of technological innovation called the Gutenberg Press. But the
Speaker 1: Gutenberg Press actually enabled everyone suddenly to cheaply make books
Speaker 1: because back then, if I wanted to read a book,
Speaker 1: someone had to write it by hand. Okay, So they
Speaker 1: had a real limitation as to how many books you
Speaker 1: could publish. So then when the Gutenberg Press came out,
Speaker 1: sudden everyone could write books. But who were the ones
Speaker 1: that actually ended up having monopoly over it. It was
Speaker 1: the publishers because they controlled the printing presses, so they
Speaker 1: were the ones who could print those books. If I
Speaker 1: was an author, I had to work to the publisher
Speaker 1: and they controlled everything. And so the Statute of van
Speaker 1: basically wasn't so much about just the property rights around
Speaker 1: the authorship of the content. It was also to be
Speaker 1: very clear to say the author the rights of the
Speaker 1: content belonged to the author, they didn't belong to the publisher, right,
Speaker 1: which basically took away power from the publisher and essentially
Speaker 1: gave agency to the authors, decentralizing that power and also
Speaker 1: creating what you could say a kind of cultural revolution
Speaker 1: of book writing. And it was around that period of time,
Speaker 1: basically fifteen sixteenth century, where there was an explosion of
Speaker 1: philosophers and book writers and content creators of that generation
Speaker 1: that emerged because now there was an economic reason for
Speaker 1: me to take a risk to maybe write something a
Speaker 1: little bit subversive or controversial, because I could earn income
Speaker 1: from it as opposed to publisher who actually would censor you.
Speaker 1: And I say this example because we're kind of in
Speaker 1: that similar era because you know, we were very open
Speaker 1: and then we started getting into Web two, which created
Speaker 1: these walled gardens who were our publishers. I mean, Facebook
Speaker 1: is our publisher, right, Instagram is our publisher. And what
Speaker 1: were they doing, as we know today, they were doing censorship.
Speaker 1: They were deciding what you can and cannot see based
Speaker 1: on things that they thought they would benefit, right, because
Speaker 1: essentially authors have no right in their content, like you
Speaker 1: have no rights on Instagram, right that you don't need,
Speaker 1: they decided for you. And even with YouTube, if there's
Speaker 1: something they don't like or someone else with powers as
Speaker 1: you don't like, you give to get the platform, right,
Speaker 1: So that's kind of very similar. So so we're kind
Speaker 1: of seeing itself history repeat itself, which comes back down
Speaker 1: to sort of you know why I share this is
Speaker 1: because I think there's a lot of lessons in history
Speaker 1: that we can study about sort of you know, human
Speaker 1: behavior and the patterns that get us there. So many
Speaker 1: of the things around you know, capitalism or even if
Speaker 1: you take a look at some of the early works
Speaker 1: from from from John Locke or even Adam Smith. I mean,
Speaker 1: these are obviously in many ways dated, but the principles
Speaker 1: around what they were trying to solve is actually not
Speaker 1: that different from what we're trying to solve in a way,
Speaker 1: because you know, they were still grappling with the changes
Speaker 1: of their time and thinking about sort of you know,
Speaker 1: what is the way in which we can have some
Speaker 1: you know, in this case freedom, right, And the basis
Speaker 1: of that freedom is that you need to have ownership
Speaker 1: in something, and you need to have ownership in you know,
Speaker 1: back then the labor theory value. But it still has
Speaker 1: the same principle, which is that hey, I need to
Speaker 1: I need to have ownership in something that is protected.
Speaker 1: And what is the role of government? And here it's
Speaker 1: interesting because things like blockchain actually start to take over
Speaker 1: what philosophers have passed used to think were the role
Speaker 1: of government, right in terms of the consistency and the
Speaker 1: laws and the rules applied. Blockchain actually basically automates that
Speaker 1: in a very open and transparent manner, in a manner
Speaker 1: that governments simply can't because you still have human error involved,
Speaker 1: as we see time and time again. Right, So those
Speaker 1: are the things, and so I think, you know, studying history,
Speaker 1: being interested in philosophy, being a humanist is so important.
Speaker 1: And I think this is even more important today than
Speaker 1: it was before, because again we came from an era
Speaker 1: where my generation certainly was an era of specialization. You're
Speaker 1: an engineer focused engineer, your medical doctor going to medicine
Speaker 1: that you're really really focused on the one topic and
Speaker 1: of course, in classic sort of Asian tiger parenting, that's
Speaker 1: what they would want to do as well. And do
Speaker 1: you want to to really really focus on the thing
Speaker 1: that you're supposed to be super good at? But today,
Speaker 1: with AI and technology and information, you're you're kind of
Speaker 1: better off being a bit more of a generalist, using
Speaker 1: the tools around you to help you, and a mass
Speaker 1: as much kind of different knowledge. And what is the
Speaker 1: kind of knowledge that you know you would be better
Speaker 1: at and that you can harness better than what a
Speaker 1: computer can do? I mean, computers can better than your math.
Speaker 1: Let's just face it, okay, I mean, you know, maybe
Speaker 1: there's some crazy genius, but for the most part, we're
Speaker 1: better off having the computer do the math us, right,
Speaker 1: So what are we better at? We should be better
Speaker 1: things that relate to our human experiences, things like you know,
Speaker 1: you know what makes us human, you know, whether it's
Speaker 1: love or emotions or feelings, our passions, our interests, you know,
Speaker 1: and these are things that we didn't have time to
Speaker 1: explore because we're literally sort of worried about being machines.
Speaker 1: I mean, that's what we've trained in traditional schools. And
Speaker 1: now in a way, you know, we should try to
Speaker 1: liberate ourselves, in a way to sort of step back
Speaker 1: a little bit and say, Okay, how does the world
Speaker 1: really work? And I think this is even more relevant
Speaker 1: right now because so much of the sort of fake
Speaker 1: news and and sort of of categorizations we see around
Speaker 1: the world comes to the fact that they don't know
Speaker 1: what's happening in the world, Like you know, one one
Speaker 1: side of the argument. I see this like in colleges,
Speaker 1: and I think this is where a lot of American politics,
Speaker 1: particularly in the Republican side, are so sort of you know, horrified.
Speaker 1: But there's this you know, how it's cool to talk
Speaker 1: about Marx and how communism is suddenly in vogue right
Speaker 1: and you know, you know, if you understand why it's
Speaker 1: in vogue because of the fact that what caused communism
Speaker 1: was inequality in society. Right then, you know, back looking
Speaker 1: back in history, then maybe you need to address it
Speaker 1: that way. So there's obviously from a sort of diagnosing
Speaker 1: the symptoms, you know, Marx was actually correct, and if
Speaker 1: you just look at that part, you know, we're seeing
Speaker 1: history repeat itself. His solution is a disaster. So let's
Speaker 1: not go there, but the but the but but but
Speaker 1: we have lessons that we can learn from all of
Speaker 1: those people, because you know, these these things were going
Speaker 1: through you know, we were experiencing and even with authors
Speaker 1: and science fiction writers, I mean, you know, they also
Speaker 1: kind of sort of have a view of the world
Speaker 1: that it gives us a little face in the traces
Speaker 1: as to what the world could look like and think
Speaker 1: about that. So so I would say, you know, my
Speaker 1: interest in the humanities and my interest in those eras
Speaker 1: really shaped me. And having then had the I guess
Speaker 1: in some ways privilege of growing up in really a
Speaker 1: split world, you know, so I was as shared I
Speaker 1: was in the Western world. Then I would visit my
Speaker 1: mom and let's see what was you know, East Eastern
Speaker 1: East East Berlin like was like which is basically communist
Speaker 1: as a communist and it was but but Europe was
Speaker 1: still a socialist democratic framework, so it was capitalist with
Speaker 1: socialist essentially sort of rails, shall we say. And then
Speaker 1: I went to America and there it was like you know,
Speaker 1: it was there's completely sort of open capitalism. I mean,
Speaker 1: then I went to Hong Kong, and for those who
Speaker 1: don't really know Hong Kong, you know, Hong Kong is
Speaker 1: is like capitalism on steroids, right, and it's and and
Speaker 1: it's so bad that they didn't even have social security
Speaker 1: when I got there. So this is the this is
Speaker 1: the capitalism gone totally bad where you had extremely wealthy people.
Speaker 1: I think at the time when to Hong Kong in
Speaker 1: the in the nineties, I think it had like the
Speaker 1: highest density of Rolls Royces in the world. It's a
Speaker 1: little bit like what maybe Dubai is today. Right at
Speaker 1: the time, right, you know, it was it was that
Speaker 1: kind of stuff, like everyone had a role. It was
Speaker 1: just really wild and crazy stuff. But then you had
Speaker 1: also you know, you know, seventy or eighty year old
Speaker 1: grandpas and Grandma's literally pulling up trash on the other side, right,
Speaker 1: So that was the and in some ways looking at that,
Speaker 1: you can also see, yes, capitalism was really positive, but
Speaker 1: if left unchecked in a certain way, it can go
Speaker 1: in this direction. And you know, if you look at
Speaker 1: how Hong Kong developed in the early periods before they
Speaker 1: started introducing some form of social safety net, it's kind
Speaker 1: of what was happening in the Western world today between
Speaker 1: sort of you know, the one percent and the rest
Speaker 1: of the world, right, And it creates the same kind
Speaker 1: of tension and conflict. So observing your environment and studying
Speaker 1: I guess history, I think is really important.
Speaker 2: So yeah, on that note, how do you see this technology?
Speaker 2: And I feel we're in the fourth Industrial Revolution because
Speaker 2: you have AI, blockchain, crypto, robotics, space exploration, right, but
Speaker 2: blockchain and crypto can help police AI and bring more
Speaker 2: transparency and trust among government and people. For example, there's
Speaker 2: been talks of putting government spending on the blockchain so
Speaker 2: you can know where your tax dollars are going. Do
Speaker 2: you see this technology solving some of those old world
Speaker 2: capitalism or whatever economy you're running inequalities, not solving everything,
Speaker 2: but making it better.
Speaker 1: Yeah. So the reason why I love Web three is
Speaker 1: because I think it solves so many problems. I don't
Speaker 1: profess that it solves everything just because you know, for
Speaker 1: technology also will introduce new problems. I mean, you know,
Speaker 1: I would broadly say that the Internet was a very
Speaker 1: very important innovation for us sidly humanistically and for the world.
Speaker 1: But of course it has also introduced new problems and
Speaker 1: challenges that we did have before. Right. So, but on
Speaker 1: a net basis, are we better? I would say so? Right,
Speaker 1: I think I think most people would agree with the
Speaker 1: fact that we're we've seen progress, right, you know, less
Speaker 1: people are hungry, you know, you know, all that kind
Speaker 1: of stuff. So I think I think we're in a
Speaker 1: broadly better space because of it. Now that leads me
Speaker 1: sort of into sort of some of the specifics around
Speaker 1: Web three. So I had shared earlier on the fact
Speaker 1: that sort of, you know, Web three's innovation is around
Speaker 1: you know, basically a value and bund bridge of property rights.
Speaker 1: What it really does is, if we succeed in sort
Speaker 1: of getting people onto Web three, is that it teaches
Speaker 1: you about financial literacy, right, And that's the one area
Speaker 1: of value sort of knowledge that has been kind of hidden.
Speaker 1: And our contention is that the reason why we have
Speaker 1: this sort of really large gap in the world for
Speaker 1: the most part is because there's a percentage percentage of
Speaker 1: the world, which is very small, that understands money and
Speaker 1: investing and value in you know, a capitalist society, and
Speaker 1: so they understand capital formation. You know, whether they were
Speaker 1: trained or inherent doesn't really matter. They kind of understand it, right.
Speaker 1: And then there's the rest of the world, partially because
Speaker 1: of the education system and also culturally that don't understand
Speaker 1: money because money was really just used as a means
Speaker 1: to a certain end, but they don't actually think of
Speaker 1: it as you know, investing or building capital. And they're
Speaker 1: still stuck in a labor world. And when you look at,
Speaker 1: for instance, labor, if you look at where labor was
Speaker 1: and where capital is, you know, if you had, like,
Speaker 1: for like invested your labor value and your capital value,
Speaker 1: capital far exceeded that of your labor value over the
Speaker 1: last twenty years, right, and so and so this whole
Speaker 1: idea of well, you work hard and you make money
Speaker 1: and you're fine, it's all gone. It doesn't work, right,
Speaker 1: But that's what we're being told. And by the way,
Speaker 1: we're still being told that, right, you know. And again
Speaker 1: this is not to say don't work hard, of course,
Speaker 1: but and I don't want to sort of taste this
Speaker 1: trope about work smart because you know, it's kind of
Speaker 1: it's a little bit demeaning as well, what do you
Speaker 1: mean by that, right? But rather it's to say that
Speaker 1: you need to have the right kind of knowledge, and
Speaker 1: this in this case, it means you need to have
Speaker 1: financial literacy. But financial literacy is one of those interesting
Speaker 1: things where it's a very specific subsector. But because we
Speaker 1: acknowledge that we live in a capitalist world, therefore you
Speaker 1: must be financial literate to succeed in a capitalist world. Right,
Speaker 1: And this is the irony. Right, you're saying, we endorse capitalism,
Speaker 1: we want promote it, but you don't teach it in school.
Speaker 1: So you go, I mean, we don't learn anything about
Speaker 1: capitalism when you're in primary school. And I have three kids,
Speaker 1: so I've seen this and I had to teach them
Speaker 1: about it because you know, basically going from primary school,
Speaker 1: middle school, high school. Frankly, what's your first experience with
Speaker 1: with you know, really real capitalism. It's you know, for
Speaker 1: a lot of people, it's you know, a student debt, okay,
Speaker 1: and your face with the really the other side, which
Speaker 1: starts to feel a little bit like indentured servitude. Suddenly, right,
Speaker 1: And so are we really surprised that things like topics
Speaker 1: like Marxism and communism are becoming popular, particularly in the
Speaker 1: younger generation. Like if you just think of it this way,
Speaker 1: we're creating indentured servants. They have to pay back, you know,
Speaker 1: some kind of you know, basically virtual debt. You don't
Speaker 1: understand anything about money. They have to pay that back
Speaker 1: in many cases for maybe the first ten or twenty
Speaker 1: years of their life, whatever it is, you know, they
Speaker 1: have to take a job to pay back the debt. Right,
Speaker 1: Like all this stuff, right, and it starts with this
Speaker 1: idea that they don't understand even basic things like compound
Speaker 1: interest and how it works, or for instance, you know,
Speaker 1: money supply, right, you know, like when when you know,
Speaker 1: especially during COVID, but actually you know, during the you know,
Speaker 1: basically Leman banking crisis, you know, in two thousand and
Speaker 1: two thousand and nine, you know, which was really the
Speaker 1: birth of bitcoin. Right, that was kind of the whole
Speaker 1: thing of we we reject basically this betrayal of the
Speaker 1: monetary system. How many people really understood what governments were
Speaker 1: doing to our money? Right? They have? Very few really
Speaker 1: understood the one percent of the world did, and so
Speaker 1: they did. They did the right strategies. Whether they invested
Speaker 1: in certain assets but real estate, bought bitcoin, doesn't matter.
Speaker 1: They understood what was going on. The rest of the
Speaker 1: world doesn't understand what's going on, right and so and so,
Speaker 1: and so they lost out because they had a lack
Speaker 1: of knowledge that was necessary for financial literacy. So that's
Speaker 1: kind of that's kind of the fund sort of let's
Speaker 1: call it, I would say, the sort of the base
Speaker 1: foundation that imagine a world where most people are somewhat
Speaker 1: financially literate, like in the same way that most people
Speaker 1: had some but had more knowledge through the Internet. Now
Speaker 1: we had more knowledge and understanding money and investing. You've
Speaker 1: completely changed the framework of the world, and you'd also
Speaker 1: create much more equity. And so this comes down to
Speaker 1: some of the constructs now, which is that, for instance,
Speaker 1: to tokenization, we can now actually embrace in something that
Speaker 1: we like to call stakeholder capitalism. Capitalism has a bad
Speaker 1: name in large part because the structure of particularly the
Speaker 1: share of the capitalism experience today is very concentrated. So
Speaker 1: take a look like a company like Apple. I think
Speaker 1: Apple has about eighty thousand shareholders. Okay, or you know,
Speaker 1: which means eighty thousand shareholders. Sure, some of our mutual
Speaker 1: funds and they're distributed, so maybe the indirect holding is larger.
Speaker 1: But the point is it's a very small number of
Speaker 1: people that essentially own the world's most valuable company in
Speaker 1: the world, which is basically what three trillion or whatever
Speaker 1: whatever day we look at between three to three point
Speaker 1: three trillion dollars. But that's it's time, right, So, how
Speaker 1: many people who buy an iPhone actually have an interest
Speaker 1: in the success of Apple, right, you know, scarcely anyone?
Speaker 1: Or call it Facebook, or call it pull at Google,
Speaker 1: doesn't matter, right, And so so how do you create
Speaker 1: a framework where both the customer and the company are
Speaker 1: actually true stakeholders. It means they have to have a
Speaker 1: stake in with you too, but even administratively, imagine if
Speaker 1: every Apple owner, Apple, Apple, MacBook owner or something was
Speaker 1: also an individual share Facebook. Well, first of all, it's unmanageable.
Speaker 1: You'd have like hundreds of millions of shareholders, which you
Speaker 1: can't manage, right, And we're a public company and you know,
Speaker 1: we have thousands of shareholders, and when we set out
Speaker 1: notices and stuff, it takes forever and like in our case,
Speaker 1: we even have to you know, freaking print stuff. So
Speaker 1: it would just bankrupt us to simply to send paper
Speaker 1: out to the world, right, because we're still stuck in that.
Speaker 1: But through tokenization, you can basically sort of create a
Speaker 1: shareholder registrar that basically could extend to millions of people.
Speaker 1: You could vote in real time on stuff. For us
Speaker 1: to get a vote going, we need at least twenty
Speaker 1: one days, actually more like twenty eight days, right because
Speaker 1: people have to be informed and stuff. And I don't
Speaker 1: know whether you own the shares because I have to
Speaker 1: verify it through some central register as supposed to. I
Speaker 1: own the token, so I know I can vote and
Speaker 1: I can make a decision, Like we can change governance
Speaker 1: where you can literally you know, govern if not you know,
Speaker 1: you know, if you want to do it even daily, right,
Speaker 1: So there's things you can really really do in through tokenization,
Speaker 1: and that to us, you know, we believe in capital,
Speaker 1: so we believe that we need to spread property ownership
Speaker 1: or what property ownership can be spread broadly. You know,
Speaker 1: it's not physical, it's virtual, it's digital. Right, In the
Speaker 1: same way that IP rights has really become that growth
Speaker 1: opportunity which is an early form of virtual property rights.
Speaker 1: Sort of this type of digital property rights that we
Speaker 1: see through token addition to these new network sort of
Speaker 1: states can extend broadly throughout the world. And so that
Speaker 1: means that, you know, what would the world look like
Speaker 1: if every Instagram user actually also had a stake in
Speaker 1: Instagram as an example, Right, that would be very different.
Speaker 1: Or you know, what would Uber drivers feel like if
Speaker 1: they were you know, if there were also shareholders in
Speaker 1: Uber the company for instance, Right, even if it's just
Speaker 1: you know, like a relatively small percentage compared to the
Speaker 1: people built it doesn't matter, right, they would feel very differently.
Speaker 1: They'd be like, oh, okay, in the future, AI is
Speaker 1: going to take my job. But that's okay because my
Speaker 1: contribution helped basically build this company, where then I have
Speaker 1: an income stream and secured into the future because I
Speaker 1: own a stake in a company that I helped build
Speaker 1: through my labor, because I am a stakeholderness. Right, So
Speaker 1: those are the models that would we think would create
Speaker 1: a fair or society. And the last point I want
Speaker 1: to sort of find. Sorry, I guess just rambling on
Speaker 1: a bit, but I guess the last point I just
Speaker 1: wanted to add was one thing that blockchain does really good,
Speaker 1: does really well is and that again is the foundation
Speaker 1: of property rights. Is the rules of the game are known,
Speaker 1: right and they're open, and they're transparent. And so you
Speaker 1: see this in nations and countries, in nations and countries,
Speaker 1: or we have this right now through our legal system.
Speaker 1: If you have a consistent legal system that you can
Speaker 1: trust and protect your rights, then this is where property
Speaker 1: rights can flourish. This is a capitalism and flurish because
Speaker 1: I can now build business and trust and build stuff
Speaker 1: for the long term, because there's the kind of stability
Speaker 1: that exists. If I arbitrarily change the rules whenever I
Speaker 1: want to, which you happen to see in fairly sort
Speaker 1: of corrupt systems, then nothing works, right and and and
Speaker 1: you can't build anything except for the next five minutes
Speaker 1: because and also nothing nothing can build to last. So
Speaker 1: for blockchain, this is all on chain. And so while
Speaker 1: not everything can be done this way, the rules of
Speaker 1: the game on the virtual side will be known. Like
Speaker 1: if I buy your bitcoin, it's your bitcoin. It's like
Speaker 1: and no, and and maybe the rules are super simple,
Speaker 1: but on that basis of that foundation, there's a trust
Speaker 1: that can build on top of that. And so with
Speaker 1: smart contracts, which is essentially a virtual way of creating
Speaker 1: legal rules, right you. Basically I think of every every
Speaker 1: blockchain or every token that's out there literally applying forms
Speaker 1: of mini constitutions of their own, and they evolve and
Speaker 1: every time someone does an improvement, you know, improve improvement
Speaker 1: sort of a sort of proposal. Actually, what they're doing
Speaker 1: is they're really adding an additional amendment to the constitution
Speaker 1: of that particular blockchain, and that gets voted along, right,
Speaker 1: and so it grows from that and so and so.
Speaker 1: So there's constant improvement that's happening, but it's all chain
Speaker 1: and transparent, and that's basically the stuff nations, right, So
Speaker 1: so I see that essentially virtual nation sort of building,
Speaker 1: but with the community in mind.
Speaker 2: So, yeah, with all those things you said in mind,
Speaker 2: what is the timeline that you and the folks at
Speaker 2: nimoka are looking at for adoption? I know adoption takes time, right,
Speaker 2: We've seen it with web point oh one point zero
Speaker 2: and two point zero. You know, people going from dial
Speaker 2: up to broadband to smartphones. When do you see that
Speaker 2: I on a wallet that is interoperable in many different blockchains.
Speaker 2: I have my digital identity, my driver's license, my passport,
Speaker 2: I can pay, make payments or credit excuse me, cryptocurrencies
Speaker 2: and stable coins at a coffee shop if I want to,
Speaker 2: And I can control my data and sell it to
Speaker 2: publishers or advertisers and earn it in that way. How
Speaker 2: far away are you from that?
Speaker 1: So there is this interesting study, and I think this
Speaker 1: is true for a lot of areas from Chenoweth that
Speaker 1: sort of studied how revolutions are made, right, and what's
Speaker 1: the ratio of a population where a revolution really starts
Speaker 1: to sort of catch fire and becomes unstoppable. And the
Speaker 1: number that was sort of calculated from that, and you know,
Speaker 1: we can argue whether it's less and more, but came
Speaker 1: up to about three point five percent. So it means
Speaker 1: that if any given population somewhere around the world roughly
Speaker 1: three point five percent or more engage in some common direction,
Speaker 1: let's say in this case, you know, for a leadership
Speaker 1: change or something, it tends to have a revolutionary outcome
Speaker 1: that basically topples governments and that kind of stuff. And
Speaker 1: they saw this things like Arab spring and whatever. They
Speaker 1: did some numbers around that, right, So you know, I
Speaker 1: don't know whether it's two point five percent, but there
Speaker 1: is a tipping point number where suddenly it becomes really inevitable.
Speaker 1: And to be clear, I think we've hit that number
Speaker 1: for crypto adoption already because you know, there's about four
Speaker 1: or five hundred million people that own crypto around the world,
Speaker 1: mostly bitcoin or some version of that, and that is
Speaker 1: and if you look at it from a global population standpoint,
Speaker 1: basically at least for the ones that is in the
Speaker 1: connected space, right, you know, that puts it out around
Speaker 1: five percent, give or take, right, or maybe maybe actually
Speaker 1: a little bit more, right, because depending on how people
Speaker 1: are online, right, so maybe five or six or maybe
Speaker 1: even eight percent, right. So, so and I think we
Speaker 1: can see this inevitability feeling of owning crypto. But what
Speaker 1: we care about is one step sort of deeper, which
Speaker 1: is on chain activity, right. And so the on chain
Speaker 1: activity is important because you know a lot of people
Speaker 1: own crypto are just using it for speculation, for holding
Speaker 1: an asset. There's a value attached to it, but they're
Speaker 1: not actually using it, right, And so what we care
Speaker 1: about when we talk about sort of future web three
Speaker 1: is what are you doing on chain like when you're
Speaker 1: playing a WORB three game, you know you have to
Speaker 1: do it on chain. That's the value of it, right,
Speaker 1: So how do you create that kind of adoption? And
Speaker 1: right now on chain sort of active users is probably
Speaker 1: around fifty sixty million, right, maybe a bit more, but
Speaker 1: generally speaking, and I think you know, if you took
Speaker 1: channel with number, then you would say it would be
Speaker 1: roughly one hundred and thirty one hundred and fifty million people.
Speaker 1: So that kind of gives you a way to sort
Speaker 1: of look at the delta, say, okay, we're at sixty
Speaker 1: and we need to hit around one hundred thirty two
Speaker 1: hundred and fifty to get there, so twice the number.
Speaker 1: But of course, as we know with network effects, even
Speaker 1: with classic things like Metcals law and of course Reads law,
Speaker 1: you know you know one plus one isn't just two
Speaker 1: when you have a network, right, so they start to grow,
Speaker 1: and it took us a long time to get to
Speaker 1: the number we have today, but every day it's growing
Speaker 1: larger and larger and larger. And so we think that
Speaker 1: that kind of inflection point is going to happen somewhere
Speaker 1: in the next eighteen to twenty four months, where on
Speaker 1: chain utility is going to be reaching you know, one
Speaker 1: hundred twenty hundred thirty million plus users, which then basically
Speaker 1: draws everyone in because there's a lot of value being built.
Speaker 1: And you know, we see this a little bit in
Speaker 1: the space of things like you know, TVL and eterium
Speaker 1: and whatever, but it's mostly still building on a financial
Speaker 1: sort of basis. And just to sort of elaborate a
Speaker 1: bit in that, because the people who appreciate crypto tend
Speaker 1: to be more financially literate, it draws amongst the base
Speaker 1: of people who understand money, which it tends to be
Speaker 1: a minority of the world. Right. It's also interesting by
Speaker 1: the way that it draws the kind of societies that
Speaker 1: are also less secure about it. So it's much more
Speaker 1: common for immigrant societies to have crypto in whatever country
Speaker 1: that they're in, for instance, than incumbent societies, because it's
Speaker 1: not just hey, I can send crypto back to my
Speaker 1: family at home. It's also a form of security, right, right,
Speaker 1: And so as a ratio, you see that developed. So
Speaker 1: it tends to build from these fringes and then basically
Speaker 1: sort of extend beyond that.
Speaker 2: Do you see any specific industries like or the entertainment
Speaker 2: industry that may use NFTs for concert tickets and things
Speaker 2: like that. Yeah, the leaders in ushering in the next
Speaker 2: billion people or millions, I should say.
Speaker 1: Yeah. So, first, we always felt and we still think
Speaker 1: that's true, that gaming is a natural onboarder for Web three.
Speaker 1: But I need to sort of translate a little bit
Speaker 1: into what it means for token prices, because I think
Speaker 1: this is where the conflation and the we think misunderstanding happens.
Speaker 1: So let's let's talk about that a little bit in
Speaker 1: terms of stats. So when you took it, look at
Speaker 1: that last year, gaming tokens haven't done very well. Okay,
Speaker 1: so we've we've you know, we're we're one of the
Speaker 1: biggest investors in gaming, about five hundred and forty companies
Speaker 1: we invested in one hundred and six year in gaming.
Speaker 1: We also have projects like ourselves at the Sandbox for instance.
Speaker 1: And while you know there worth billions of dollars, So
Speaker 1: don't get me wrong, you know we're not hurting. They
Speaker 1: are certainly not outperforming the market when you look at,
Speaker 1: for instance, things like AI agents and and AI AI
Speaker 1: tokens in the Web three space. Right, But what but
Speaker 1: at the end of last year went close to seven
Speaker 1: million daily active players on worb three games. That's up, like,
Speaker 1: you know, like seven times from where it was like
Speaker 1: three years ago. So it's massive growth, right, And there's
Speaker 1: definitely many more people playing Web three games than using
Speaker 1: Web three AI agents, I think for users that So
Speaker 1: why is it that AI agents have done so much better?
Speaker 1: And that has to do with meta market sentiment, as
Speaker 1: in the market's broadly and so what's powerful about the
Speaker 1: whole sort of global liquidity and because of how crypto
Speaker 1: and tokens function is that they're basically doing what the
Speaker 1: markets have always done, which is their market information. Like
Speaker 1: pricing is market information, right, and it tells you something
Speaker 1: where things are, and tokens just exemplify that even more.
Speaker 1: And by the way, this is also why mean points
Speaker 1: are interesting. Again, I'm not an endorser of certain mean points,
Speaker 1: but the point is that meme coins are indicators of
Speaker 1: market interest. Like I found out about and became momentarily
Speaker 1: cool because of my kids because of the token, not
Speaker 1: because I'm on TikTok or something right, right, because it
Speaker 1: showed some kind of attension that was happening in the world,
Speaker 1: and I got to learn a little bit about that, right.
Speaker 1: And so when when you have this type of mechanism
Speaker 1: that tokens represent, which we kind of think of like
Speaker 1: an open polling market, right, then you know, if an
Speaker 1: industry is broadly doing well, because the tokens in that
Speaker 1: space are doing well as well. And we've experienced this,
Speaker 1: you know, for instance, when when Facebook renames of meta
Speaker 1: and it was covid and everyone was talking about the metaverse, right,
Speaker 1: you know, things like our own Sandbox and one of
Speaker 1: our other portfolios like the Center Land and of course
Speaker 1: Axieinfinity again another one of our portfolios, really exploded in value.
Speaker 1: And while they were doing really really well, don't get
Speaker 1: me wrong, they didn't have one hundred million users, okay, right,
Speaker 1: you know, and yet and yet they they had these
Speaker 1: incredible market cap evaluations precisely because of the whole way
Speaker 1: that tokens work in terms of the meta market aspect.
Speaker 1: So that means that the utility, which is one measure
Speaker 1: of growth, is connected also with the market sentiment, which
Speaker 1: is another measure of growth in the token, because it
Speaker 1: a token has both the network utility and the financial
Speaker 1: utility in mind. And we have not reached the stage
Speaker 1: yet where the network utility is the predominant use case
Speaker 1: of the token, and therefore pricing marketing information becomes more
Speaker 1: relevant to that. Right, So from a mass adoption standpoint,
Speaker 1: you know, more people have joined Web three in gain
Speaker 1: in the gaming world, and in large part this is
Speaker 1: again one of our sort of portfolio is because of
Speaker 1: tone as in Telegram, right, Telegraph has really opened up
Speaker 1: basically the floodgates for a you want to do Web
Speaker 1: three stuff, you can use a network and you do
Speaker 1: to the tom blockchain, which is why we're supported them.
Speaker 1: So they've onboarded a lot of people in that in
Speaker 1: that way, and so we've seen that already happen because
Speaker 1: for instance, like NFTs in games are not allowed at Apple,
Speaker 1: right Apple, Well, Apple basically has rules that restrict you
Speaker 1: from using NFTs in a certain way, which makes it
Speaker 1: impossible for a Web three game to really succeed on
Speaker 1: Apple for the time being. Right, So that's why you
Speaker 1: have to rely on other platforms that have kind of
Speaker 1: sort of stunted growth. But again I go back to
Speaker 1: the portion of those Web three users that they play
Speaker 1: worb three games but did not know much about money.
Speaker 1: It's the portion of them that became interested in money
Speaker 1: that then migrated down to the rest of the area
Speaker 1: of DeFi and suddenly started thinking about the space. We
Speaker 1: saw that with Axinfinity in the Philippines and so on. Right,
Speaker 1: Not everyone, you know, basically continued on, but those who
Speaker 1: understood what was going on became more financially literate and
Speaker 1: started to invest, and suddenly they built that space out.
Speaker 1: So I think that's what we're seeing. We're seeing a
Speaker 1: trickle down effect where it's not only about the utility.
Speaker 1: You could have millions and millions of people play a
Speaker 1: game and they could not know that it's Web three,
Speaker 1: but it's only a portion of them that will then
Speaker 1: trickle further down to say, oh wow, I own this asset.
Speaker 1: I could do something with it. And so that's why
Speaker 1: it feels slower. But you know, mass consumer scale opportunities.
Speaker 1: And of course the other one is of course generating
Speaker 1: wealth opportunities. That's another one, right, and of course that's
Speaker 1: a major driver of course as well.
Speaker 2: What do you think those wall gardens of Apple and
Speaker 2: Facebook are going to break down where they allow these
Speaker 2: technologies and NFTs to be powered and they're even themselves
Speaker 2: powered by blockchain to help push bass adoption.
Speaker 1: So I think in a typical fashion, you can't expect
Speaker 1: the incumbents to nessly embrace it because there's a it's
Speaker 1: a threat to them, so it has to be big enough.
Speaker 1: So look at bitcoin. Bitcoin was basically sort of ally
Speaker 1: shut down by the financial institutions, right, they were, like,
Speaker 1: you know, partially because there's a threat, but also because
Speaker 1: a lot of funny money, you know, isn't more than anything.
Speaker 1: Where are we now, right? You know, mass institutional adoption.
Speaker 1: Every financial group is not talking about it, and you know,
Speaker 1: banks possibly are going to start issuing their own stable coins,
Speaker 1: you know in the US, you know, with the upcoming
Speaker 1: stable coin not who knows. But the point is that,
Speaker 1: you know, we're we're a little bit in that phase
Speaker 1: when it comes to media, entertainment and gaming still. So
Speaker 1: Apple is not going to do it until they're forced too,
Speaker 1: because everyone else is sort of moving and growing in
Speaker 1: that space. And I think, you know, I think the
Speaker 1: fact that the US regulatory framework is of course much
Speaker 1: more friendlier today than it was before it may ease things,
Speaker 1: But that doesn't mean policy wise, Apple would like to
Speaker 1: do it. Because Apple is very very protective of you know,
Speaker 1: the way it generates revenues, right, And and so if
Speaker 1: I want to issue NFTs, are they going to They're
Speaker 1: probably going to say, well, if you launch NFTs inside
Speaker 1: inside Apple, we want to make sure that we get
Speaker 1: a cut of everything outside of Yeah. Sorry, And you
Speaker 1: know that's that's that's something that you shouldn't be able
Speaker 1: to do. But that's basically what they'll try and do.
Speaker 1: So you have a little bit of that sort of
Speaker 1: you know, push and poll. But our belief is that
Speaker 1: because the economic opportunity and the value generated from you know,
Speaker 1: blockchain games, you know web three games or just generally
Speaker 1: digitalizted ownership is still large, that you eventually just circum
Speaker 1: bend or choose another product to be able to participate
Speaker 1: in that. And so you when that choice happens, that's
Speaker 1: when Apple has to make a decision as to whether
Speaker 1: they can really be a walled garden like this or
Speaker 1: they'd have to open up or else they will lose
Speaker 1: market share. Right. So, so I think we'll get to
Speaker 1: that point. We're not quite there yet.
Speaker 2: M hm, yeah, I know we're coming up in time here.
Speaker 2: I did want to ask you about your thoughts on
Speaker 2: Hong Kong's approach to crypto. I know, we know kind
Speaker 2: of what's happening in the United States here. I have
Speaker 2: this thesis. I believe Hong Kong is a testing bed
Speaker 2: for mainland China, and I believe they're going to ETF
Speaker 2: investing to mainland China citizens. What are you hearing in
Speaker 2: that region?
Speaker 1: Yeah, so a couple of things. So, first of all,
Speaker 1: just to be clear, it's not just for crypto. Hong
Speaker 1: Kong has always been the test fit for financial services
Speaker 1: and sort of you know, inproduct sport basically for China. Right,
Speaker 1: It's always been in that role, you know, if you're
Speaker 1: in the traditional markets. Right, if you look at things
Speaker 1: like for instance, remy B sort of clearing houses, Hong
Speaker 1: Kong is the largest by far. I think something like
Speaker 1: eighty to ninety percent of if you know, international remen
Speaker 1: b clearing is happening in Hong Kong, you know, to
Speaker 1: the tune of like I think it's like, you know,
Speaker 1: two hundred to two hundred and fifty billion dollars a day, Okay,
Speaker 1: So that that just kind of gives you an indication
Speaker 1: sort of how important Hong Kong is essentially the Chinese economy,
Speaker 1: which by the way, is also the reason from a
Speaker 1: geopolitical standpoint that the US has decided because Hong Kong
Speaker 1: used to have this from a US perspective, used to
Speaker 1: have a special trading status, and they basically said, no,
Speaker 1: we're not giving you that status anymore. And they used
Speaker 1: a sort of you know, human rights excuse as a
Speaker 1: way to do it, but it was really just really
Speaker 1: what they wanted to do was contain China from a
Speaker 1: financial standpoint because Hong Kong was that international sort of
Speaker 1: financial clearinghouse for them. I don't think it's worked well,
Speaker 1: but anyway, that's that's the reasoning. So, and you've seen
Speaker 1: that Hong Kong has now given licenses to many more exchanges,
Speaker 1: so again very open, much more open to to so
Speaker 1: and you know, we ourselves, together with Stantish Arder and
Speaker 1: Honggo Telecom, have been given essentially a sampbox sort of
Speaker 1: a stable coin license and we're experimenting that hopefully we'll
Speaker 1: be able to launch that later in the year. And again,
Speaker 1: I mean, you know, Standish Harder is a note issuing
Speaker 1: back in Hong Kong, So that's pretty significant partnering up
Speaker 1: with a web three company in Hong Kong. I mean,
Speaker 1: just imagine like this, like imagine if that if this
Speaker 1: happened somewhere else around the world, that would be that
Speaker 1: would be quite unusual to have sort of best kind
Speaker 1: of tie up. And so it kind of shows you,
Speaker 1: I think, how progressive Hong Kong has gotten into the space.
Speaker 1: And I think it's also pretty apparent that Hong Kong
Speaker 1: isn't going to do this without at least, you know,
Speaker 1: the approval of China. Right. It's like, you know, and
Speaker 1: the thing that I tell people about is like I
Speaker 1: think I think it was during Fintech Week, and I
Speaker 1: think it was last year or maybe the year before,
Speaker 1: I don't remember when Fintech Week sort of launched in
Speaker 1: Hong Kong and they were talking about all their web
Speaker 1: through policies. CCTV, which is essentially you know, national broadcaster
Speaker 1: in China, had a show about bitcoin in Hong Kong.
Speaker 1: So it's not that they're saying, hey, you can buy
Speaker 1: bitcoin in China, but they were telling people about bitcoin
Speaker 1: on the Chinese show on national television about what's going
Speaker 1: on in Hong Kong, right, So you know, so so
Speaker 1: so you know, is this a coincidence? You know, Like
Speaker 1: I don't know, but but you know, it's it's like
Speaker 1: it's like a pretty coordinated coincidence if that was the case. Anyway,
Speaker 1: The point being that there are many tactical reasons why
Speaker 1: China wants, you needs Hong Kong to be a web
Speaker 1: three and block chain hub. You know, it's it's it's
Speaker 1: the next generation of of as financial services. Hong Kong
Speaker 1: needs to be relevant to that if China wants to
Speaker 1: partake it. China is not going to you know, has
Speaker 1: capital controls, so China is not going to be you know,
Speaker 1: an open market. I think a lot of people are saying, oh,
Speaker 1: you know, China's going to start trading crypto, not going
Speaker 1: to happen in the way that you think it is, right,
Speaker 1: But in Hong Kong you can do it. So to
Speaker 1: your point, you know, Hong Kong already has you know,
Speaker 1: basically a bitcoin ETF and ethereumy tfs, but they're not
Speaker 1: allowed for mainland buyers. But basically could they do in
Speaker 1: the future, We think that's much more likely. Or when
Speaker 1: you have a stable coin and for international trade through
Speaker 1: Hong Kong, will you probably be using some kind of
Speaker 1: stable coin probably, right, So, so I think of that
Speaker 1: as an extension. I think you know, you should expect,
Speaker 1: let's call it official Chinese flows into crypto to happen
Speaker 1: through Hong Kong. Certainly, that's what we think will happen.
Speaker 1: And we shouldn't forget, of course that Chinese all around
Speaker 1: the world are you know, amongst the largest percentage of
Speaker 1: holders in crypto generally speaking. Right, it's you know, and
Speaker 1: when you think about you know, a lot of the
Speaker 1: activities in some of the biggest exchanges in the world,
Speaker 1: they are very much influenced by sort of global Chinese investors, right,
Speaker 1: So so I would say, you know, it's kind of
Speaker 1: already there. And for sure China knows that this is happening.
Speaker 1: I mean that's you know, if there's one government or
Speaker 1: world the world that has a pretty good insight as
Speaker 1: to what its population is doing, it will be China.
Speaker 2: Now, hm, great insights there. Yeah, I wish we had
Speaker 2: another hour. Is I want to ask you more, but
Speaker 2: we'll have to do a part two. Maybe when you're
Speaker 2: in New York we could do it in person. I
Speaker 2: got some wrap up questions here for you. If you
Speaker 2: could create your mataverse, what would the theme be?
Speaker 1: Oh? I mean, I mean, I mean so many but
Speaker 1: you know, if I had to pick one at this
Speaker 1: era of time, you know, I would I would focus
Speaker 1: it around financially interesting mm.
Speaker 2: Hmm, rapid fire questions.
Speaker 1: Favorite food, Oh, probably probably Japanese subpace. It's it's it's
Speaker 1: you know, yeah, sort of sushi is probably one of
Speaker 1: my favorite foods out there. I've had to sort of
Speaker 1: stick out loud.
Speaker 2: Favorite musician or band.
Speaker 1: That's terrible. I just I don't have such a thing
Speaker 1: as a favorite musicians, just because I love all sorts
Speaker 1: of music. But if I you know, it's that's a
Speaker 1: really hard one. That's a really hard one. Because but
Speaker 1: I would say, you know, like because it's very momentary,
Speaker 1: like you you have a favorite musician right now and whichever.
Speaker 1: Right But but right now I think I am. I'm
Speaker 1: actually quite you know, just because of my upbringing and
Speaker 1: because of the fact that I, you know, we tokenized
Speaker 1: the violin with with the strata arras earlier, uh, and
Speaker 1: so the interest in that, and so so I'm currently
Speaker 1: quite into Tchaikowsky just because of just because of that.
Speaker 1: But again, it's thematic and momentary, you know, Like again,
Speaker 1: I like all sorts of music. So so ask me
Speaker 1: this question next month. It's gonna be something else.
Speaker 2: Awesome favorite movie.
Speaker 1: Ah geez, yeah, ah, I don't know any of the movie. So,
Speaker 1: you know, again, this is one of those things that
Speaker 1: changes over time. And I remember when I was younger,
Speaker 1: I used to love movies like you know, Kaga Musha
Speaker 1: or whatever, which is just way too heavy for me
Speaker 1: to watch right now. I just can't handle this, right, So,
Speaker 1: you know, now, I kind of like the sort of moral,
Speaker 1: whimsical fun movies. And the one movie that I remember
Speaker 1: enjoying a fair bit it was actually Edge of Tomorrow,
Speaker 1: you know, with Tom Cruise and and and and again.
Speaker 1: It's it's not a it's not a deeply intellectual movie
Speaker 1: or anything in this, but it's kind of interesting thematics
Speaker 1: around sort of you know, changing the future. The action
Speaker 1: that's the action piece and uh and so yeah, I
Speaker 1: mean but yeah, I mean I'm a big fan of
Speaker 1: Lord of the Rings as well. From a movie standpoint,
Speaker 1: I tinkets it's it's a masterpiece. But but you know,
Speaker 1: if there's a movie that I sort of like popcorn
Speaker 1: like that I kind of just sort of shut off,
Speaker 1: it would be something probably like Edge of Tomorrow. Yeah.
Speaker 2: Edge of Tomorrow is one of my favorites. I love
Speaker 2: the time travel movies and the concept.
Speaker 1: Yeah, exactly. And it's it's and it's sort of a
Speaker 1: little bit of comedy but a little bit of seriousness
Speaker 1: as well, you know, it's it's it's good fun. Favorite book,
Speaker 1: oh so hard, So so hard. I mean, I would
Speaker 1: say probably one of my favorite books that I keep
Speaker 1: coming back to probably nineteen eighty four. I think of
Speaker 1: it as something quite sort of you know, especially in
Speaker 1: this era, particularly sort of cleary on in some ways,
Speaker 1: and so again a great example of history repeating itself.
Speaker 1: But you know, like I do read a lot of
Speaker 1: sort of philosophers and I'm i, you know, sort of
Speaker 1: going back into sort of you know, books from mess
Speaker 1: or Highek. Like again, I just I just like to
Speaker 1: cover them, but I don't necessarily read them end to
Speaker 1: end because they're not as digestible, right, So so although
Speaker 1: I did do that once before, but I like sort
Speaker 1: of reading passages, right, and so I don't think of
Speaker 1: it as reading a book end to end anymore. But
Speaker 1: I like going back to sort of all things and
Speaker 1: then discovering new things as a result. Like for instance,
Speaker 1: most recently I started really sort of and again as
Speaker 1: a topic I understand I did study before, but I
Speaker 1: started going back into sort of you know, bordieous forms
Speaker 1: of capital. And the reason why that became relevant is
Speaker 1: because of the work that we're doing with NFTs, right
Speaker 1: and understanding different forms of capital, be it you know,
Speaker 1: cultural and economic and social and symbolic, which is kind
Speaker 1: of what we do in real life. And so so again,
Speaker 1: this would not have been a relevant book of interest
Speaker 1: before because of the work that we're doing. Suddenly becomes
Speaker 1: relevant and and the aha moment starts to click now
Speaker 1: that didn't click before even though you read it before, right,
Speaker 1: So so again, I think books are also reflections a
Speaker 1: little bit of sort of where your attention is at
Speaker 1: this moment in time, oh for sure.
Speaker 2: And when you're not working anamoga, what are you doing
Speaker 2: for fun?
Speaker 1: So it depends where I am going to do. Travel
Speaker 1: a lot, but you know, when I'm back in Hong Kong,
Speaker 1: like to sort of walk the dog in the mountains.
Speaker 1: I'm a big hiker, you know. I used to be
Speaker 1: able to cycle a lot less, So it's because of
Speaker 1: the time. But if I can, I love, I love
Speaker 1: I love sort of riding blicycles for a long, long
Speaker 1: times into into the mountains. Generally, I enjoy the mountains
Speaker 1: a lot. I think there's something spiritual and something sort
Speaker 1: of something grand about them. It's a little bit also
Speaker 1: like a reminder of sort of you know, your place
Speaker 1: in nature and society and and the role that you
Speaker 1: should you should be playing, not in the kind of
Speaker 1: diminutive way, but more in terms of there's a bigger picture,
Speaker 1: and there's a bigger role, and there's something you know
Speaker 1: important here, right, and you just look at that and
Speaker 1: people interpret it in different ways. But I find that
Speaker 1: kind of piece that that comes from that, and it's
Speaker 1: you know, quasi meditative. So I do I do. I
Speaker 1: do love nature a lot.
Speaker 2: Yeah, I'm the same and I use nature to escape
Speaker 2: from the technology and reconnect a bit.
Speaker 1: Yeah.
Speaker 2: Absolutely pleasure. And like I said, I have to get
Speaker 2: you back on I think maybe in person in New York.
Speaker 2: I record in you know, Wall Street, and we'd love
Speaker 2: to have continuous conversation about Web three and data ownership.
Speaker 2: But thank you so much for taking the time to do.
Speaker 1: This, thank you for having me. It's been a great pleasure.