Speaker 1: And what I'm hoping is with the new administration, we'll
Speaker 1: see the Marshall's Service relinquish their role and will allow
Speaker 1: Treasury to do the thing that they do. And I
Speaker 1: think that's when we'll start to see things make sense
Speaker 1: and so to account for it's actually really simple, and
Speaker 1: this is one of the things we've done with one
Speaker 1: of the agencies already.
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Speaker 2: more so. If you'd like to learn more about Propy,
Speaker 2: visit the link in the description. Welcome into the Thinking
Speaker 2: Crypto Podcast. I'm your host, Tony Edward, and my guest
Speaker 2: today is Les Boresaid, who's the co founder of Wave
Speaker 2: Digital Assets. Les. Great to have you on.
Speaker 1: Thank you so much for having me. I appreciate it. LUs.
Speaker 2: You have a very fascinating background in the music industry
Speaker 2: and of course in the crypto industry, and I have
Speaker 2: a lot of questions for you and to get your
Speaker 2: perspective on how things are progressing now with crypto, especially
Speaker 2: as the United States is looking to build a bitcoin reserve,
Speaker 2: digital stockpile, and much more. But let's start with your background,
Speaker 2: where you're from and what's your professional background.
Speaker 1: Yeah, so I grew up in Los Angeles and at
Speaker 1: a pretty young age I lef home. I left home
Speaker 1: at sixteen, and I had to figure out how to
Speaker 1: make a living. And the easiest thing I could come
Speaker 1: up with at the time when I was a little
Speaker 1: bit older seventeen or eighteen, was throwing parties, and I
Speaker 1: would borrow warehouses and kind of put a party together
Speaker 1: and charge admission and charged for beer even though I
Speaker 1: wasn't nearly enough to drink at the time. And you know,
Speaker 1: that ultimately rolled into being the first incarnation of what
Speaker 1: the rave culture would become in Los Angeles. And just
Speaker 1: by doing I ended up becoming a concert promoter, one
Speaker 1: of the large concert promotion companies, and it did become
Speaker 1: the rave business. So you know, that's where the music
Speaker 1: business career started. And I kind of moved into every
Speaker 1: facet of it in terms of record companies and artists
Speaker 1: management and a lot of different tech and music was
Speaker 1: a big thing for me.
Speaker 2: Yeah, and in your background, I read here you managed
Speaker 2: Winona Judge and Jason Maraz, which is really cool. I'm
Speaker 2: a fan of Jason. I saw him and play live
Speaker 2: in person. What was that like, you know, managing.
Speaker 1: Artists like that, you know, with Jason, you know, my
Speaker 1: partner at the time was a guy named Bill Silva,
Speaker 1: who's a great guy, still friends today. And Bill Bill
Speaker 1: discovered Jason, and you know, we started a management company.
Speaker 1: You know that Bill wanted to start and Jason was
Speaker 1: a unique person and a unique talent, you know, so
Speaker 1: so far. You know, with most of the artists I've
Speaker 1: ever worked with, you know, there always seemed to be
Speaker 1: something missing that drove the art and drove the creativity
Speaker 1: and the music. And Jason, you know, he wasn't chasing something.
Speaker 1: He was just this nice kid, and you know, it
Speaker 1: was fun kind of exploring, you know, bands he had
Speaker 1: not discovered and watching him grow. But he was. He
Speaker 1: was just talent from the beginning, and it just made it.
Speaker 1: You know. He used to say, all those other bands
Speaker 1: you manage are coffee, I'm tea, and that That's really
Speaker 1: what it was. I mean, it was just a good
Speaker 1: experience with him where others were you know, I tended
Speaker 1: to manage the bands that were really really hard.
Speaker 2: Yeah, he definitely has a different personality and I think
Speaker 2: that's what gravitated. I gravitated to him and his music
Speaker 2: and of course, you know, the vibes from his music
Speaker 2: and things like that. And I was also learning guitar,
Speaker 2: so I was kind of stuttying what he was doing.
Speaker 2: So that's really cool. Now, how did you end up
Speaker 2: going into crypto because I also read you were an
Speaker 2: advisor to Ripple Labs in early.
Speaker 1: Days will Am. So that happened in twenty thirteen. You know,
Speaker 1: like with anything, I always tended to gravitate towards things
Speaker 1: that made, you know, that I had an interest for
Speaker 1: and that I was curious about. And you know, with music,
Speaker 1: it became about tech and music the deeper. I got
Speaker 1: into launching products that you know might have used artist
Speaker 1: content or artist licensing, and you know, blended these concepts
Speaker 1: of you know, new technology, like when apps were launching
Speaker 1: the iPhone store and you know, different ways to digest music.
Speaker 1: And you know, crypto, you know, was a thing where
Speaker 1: I was like, oh, geez, bitcoin six hundred dollars, how
Speaker 1: did I miss that? And I really like had this
Speaker 1: this goal to go find the next bitcoin, and you
Speaker 1: know when I ended up finding was XRP. First, someone
Speaker 1: had built a wallet called peer cover and introduced me
Speaker 1: to Ripple an XRP, and at that time it was
Speaker 1: just a small company. Brad wasn't even there, Chris Larsen was,
Speaker 1: and I think somehow I convinced him I would be
Speaker 1: a good addition as an advisor and and you know,
Speaker 1: later on, you know, I did some things with them,
Speaker 1: So I feel like I finally did provide some value
Speaker 1: because I always felt like I wasn't providing any But
Speaker 1: at the same time, I ended up figuring out how
Speaker 1: to do the theory and presale, So downloading the Jason
Speaker 1: wallet and not really knowing a lot about technology and
Speaker 1: especially you know, blockchain at that time. That was twenty fourteen.
Speaker 1: I you know, you just it was different. You know,
Speaker 1: you could get into those Reddit communities, you could see,
Speaker 1: you know, what coins were coming pre twenty seventeen Ico times,
Speaker 1: and you know, I was just really again just curious
Speaker 1: about what these things were, and I understood them inherently
Speaker 1: because I was always kind of a fan of those
Speaker 1: early cipherpunks, you know, and that culture. So that's that's
Speaker 1: that happened.
Speaker 2: Yeah, to your point of league, the cipherpunks era, maybe
Speaker 2: the web what you would call web one point oh,
Speaker 2: crypto one point oh, right, the early days, like the
Speaker 2: dial up days. It was like I get a bit
Speaker 2: sentimental about Web one point oh because I was doing
Speaker 2: stuff on you trying to take computers apart, and I
Speaker 2: kind of missed that early days. I kind of like
Speaker 2: what you're feeling.
Speaker 1: It was, you know, look the old BBS's and you know,
Speaker 1: you know, the phone freaking and all that. You know,
Speaker 1: like people don't remember if you're old enough, you know,
Speaker 1: you remember, Oh you can get a free phone call
Speaker 1: by messing with the landline, and you know that was
Speaker 1: a big deal. And but you looked at like kind
Speaker 1: of that hack or culture, and it was apparent to
Speaker 1: me that I could never be a coder. But I
Speaker 1: fell in love kind of with the culture of those
Speaker 1: early guys, you know, like David Chalmer, you know, just
Speaker 1: all those I mean, it's funny people don't realize Elon
Speaker 1: was one of those guys way back when, and you know,
Speaker 1: Julian Assam all those guys you know, were part of
Speaker 1: that culture and before that. And yeah, I just kind
Speaker 1: of was really enamored with it. And I think it
Speaker 1: just really fit my ethos of you know, disruption and
Speaker 1: you know, not following this ordinary line that most people follow.
Speaker 1: And I think crypto offered a lot of that same
Speaker 1: kind of solution in a strange way.
Speaker 2: So, man, you less you're an og because I mean
Speaker 2: an advisor to Ripple got into the Ethereum pre sale, right,
Speaker 2: and then tell us a bit more about your crypto
Speaker 2: journey from there, Oh, how did that evolve?
Speaker 1: Well, I think, you know, with the music business for
Speaker 1: a long time, I realized it was complex and it
Speaker 1: wasn't a business in a lot of ways, and you
Speaker 1: were really fighting for scraps and you were fighting for
Speaker 1: your artists, and the resource was just never there when
Speaker 1: tech emerged. I remember I talked about this before, but
Speaker 1: you know, south By Southwest was a really big deal
Speaker 1: for musicians, and there was a moment in time where
Speaker 1: south By Southwest became interactive and I always loved the
Speaker 1: dichotomy of that because the musician portion was really pretty
Speaker 1: bare bones, but when you got to the interactive portion.
Speaker 1: This is in the early days, it was blown out
Speaker 1: like this spent so much money because tech, you know,
Speaker 1: was a force, and it was kind of like in
Speaker 1: that moment you realized, okay, I know where all this
Speaker 1: is going. And getting out of music was was important
Speaker 1: for me because you know, after a long period of time,
Speaker 1: you know it's not just a business. It's something where
Speaker 1: you're connected to people in a personal way. And if
Speaker 1: you spend too much time kind of in that space,
Speaker 1: you realize a couple of things that you know, if
Speaker 1: you want to work harder than the artist, it's very
Speaker 1: difficult to find success, and you know, sadly that was
Speaker 1: the case with some of the artists that I worked with.
Speaker 1: So I wanted to get out and I was fortunate
Speaker 1: because I had a friend, David Seemer, who was in finance.
Speaker 1: He was one of the early guys to build venture
Speaker 1: up in Southeast Asia. He was an m and a banker,
Speaker 1: and you know, when the two of us kind of
Speaker 1: figured out that we wanted to do Wave, it just
Speaker 1: made a lot of sense because we had such different
Speaker 1: skill sets. He was, you know, conservative, he understood the
Speaker 1: numbers really well, he understood the products, he understood finance,
Speaker 1: and I just sometimes had a different way of thinking.
Speaker 1: So when you put those two elements together, you can
Speaker 1: really do some magical things. Ben, our third partner, you know,
Speaker 1: came from traditional finance and it really kind of rounded
Speaker 1: everything out. Now the market didn't. So there's a long
Speaker 1: story of you know how we kind of survived during
Speaker 1: those times because to your point, we were really really early,
Speaker 1: staying incredibly regulatory compliance the whole time.
Speaker 2: So tell us a bit about Wave Digital assets and
Speaker 2: the work you guys are doing. What's your mission?
Speaker 1: Well, I mean when we started the company, you know,
Speaker 1: the mission was was pretty clear. You know Dave, you know,
Speaker 1: his background was investment, so we were investing in lots
Speaker 1: of different kinds of blockchain companies at that time. But
Speaker 1: the thing we really kind of moved into was treasury
Speaker 1: management for high net worths and protocols. We never did
Speaker 1: anything that touched retail. We just didn't think it was
Speaker 1: the right path to take, and for us, it wasn't.
Speaker 1: We were immediately in oria with the state of California,
Speaker 1: and then when we had enough, aum you know, adhere
Speaker 1: to the sec and we also created products. You know,
Speaker 1: we were very early doing you know, structuring of traditional
Speaker 1: finance products that other people weren't doing. I mean, we've
Speaker 1: always tended to do the thing that was a little
Speaker 1: bit more complicated, a little harder, and I don't know
Speaker 1: if that's just because we wanted to challenge, but you know,
Speaker 1: we saw ETF's coming and we said, wow, everyone's going
Speaker 1: to do those. You know, you're going to see the
Speaker 1: Vanguard ones or the Fidelity ones or whatever. So why
Speaker 1: don't we do something more complicated and token is whiskey
Speaker 1: barrel or you know, create a bitcoin option product. And
Speaker 1: you know that's how the business really really evolved over time.
Speaker 1: You know, those were kind of that was the core business,
Speaker 1: and then it changed over time because we changed with
Speaker 1: the market. And I mean it's an important thing to
Speaker 1: realize that in twenty twenty one where everything imploded because
Speaker 1: we were conservative, we didn't believe the returns that a
Speaker 1: lot of these promises, you know, that were being made
Speaker 1: through FTX and others. Dave, to his credit, created really
Speaker 1: great risk mitigation and we didn't get blown up by
Speaker 1: any of it.
Speaker 2: That's great. I mean, you guys survived those cycles because
Speaker 2: it was pretty rough in twenty twenty one to say
Speaker 2: the least. Obviously, going into twenty twenty two, what are
Speaker 2: your thoughts on how things have changed? I mean, obviously
Speaker 2: the industry has gone through an incredible maturation. Wall Streets here,
Speaker 2: Tradswise here right, all the names, black Rock, Fidelity. Just
Speaker 2: this week, Bank of America's CEOs as we want to
Speaker 2: launch a stable coin cityel Security say they want to
Speaker 2: get involved and provide market making capabilities and so forth.
Speaker 2: What are your thoughts on how things have changed?
Speaker 1: Well, I mean, I think it's the thing we've always
Speaker 1: been waiting for, because you know, when we set up
Speaker 1: the company, it was always meant to be something that
Speaker 1: touched traditional finance. You know, this administration in particular, having
Speaker 1: been in digital currencies as long as I have, it's
Speaker 1: really pretty amazing to see in a matter of months
Speaker 1: embracing you know, digital currencies changed everything. I mean you
Speaker 1: may not think that today because of where the market is,
Speaker 1: but you know, we've seen a lot of fluctuation in
Speaker 1: the market over a decade. But what has changed is,
Speaker 1: you know, with the former regime and Gary Gensler kind
Speaker 1: of cracking down so hard. I was always incredibly concerned
Speaker 1: about innovation being driven out of the country, and that's
Speaker 1: exactly what happened. I mean, even with us, we were
Speaker 1: incredibly quiet about what we were working on and how
Speaker 1: we were working on it because we just didn't want
Speaker 1: to be a target. So you know, by being quiet,
Speaker 1: it really benefited us. Now you see with this administration,
Speaker 1: innovation staying here. You know a lot of opportunity opening up,
Speaker 1: and that's really what you want. You know, you come
Speaker 1: from tech. You know, if you embrace you know, a
Speaker 1: technology in the Silicon Valley or elsewhere, then a lot
Speaker 1: of people will dive into it. And I mean, look,
Speaker 1: what's happened with AI. I mean, it's incredible technology, but
Speaker 1: now it's a staple, and digital currencies should be the
Speaker 1: same thing, you know, just based on all of the
Speaker 1: different verticals you can have with them.
Speaker 2: Yeah, for sure. And then you mentioned you guys were
Speaker 2: more institutional and focus versus retail. So what type of
Speaker 2: institutions were you working with, like family offices, hedge funds,
Speaker 2: things like that.
Speaker 1: I could say we were more focused there, but I
Speaker 1: didn't say it was successful, you know, sadly. You know
Speaker 1: where we had a lot of success was managing protocol
Speaker 1: treasuries and it's because we did take a regulatory approach.
Speaker 1: You know, they didn't want as an issuer in many cases,
Speaker 1: they didn't want to manage their own treasuries, so we
Speaker 1: could do that. We you know, DeFi as a big
Speaker 1: focus of Dave's so we could generate returns in a
Speaker 1: way others couldn't. And it was better than sitting, you know,
Speaker 1: on these treasuries and not doing anything. So you know,
Speaker 1: today we manage a lot of those treasuries from the
Speaker 1: different kind of Layer one protocols. For me, it was
Speaker 1: again a next step in understanding of what I'd want
Speaker 1: to do with government and you know, before government bankruptcies,
Speaker 1: which is a whole other, big, chunky part of the story.
Speaker 1: But what happened in twenty one that really opened my
Speaker 1: eyes is, you know, we wanted to go bid on
Speaker 1: this company called Voyager that had went bankrupt. Yeah, and
Speaker 1: you know, we lost to FTX, and I thought, jeez,
Speaker 1: how that happened? And that FTX imploded and we bid
Speaker 1: again and we lost to Binance and this was Finance USA,
Speaker 1: and I'm just like Jesus, you know, we saw the
Speaker 1: writing on the wall, so you know, it imploded again,
Speaker 1: and I just really thought to myself, it's interesting that
Speaker 1: the states are you know, doing okay, but it's the
Speaker 1: receivers and the lawyers and everyone else that was, you know,
Speaker 1: extracting a lot of value because the more you did
Speaker 1: the process, you know, the more everyone kind of got paid.
Speaker 1: So I got really frustrated after that. And with a Voyager,
Speaker 1: we went back a third time and we wanted to
Speaker 1: buy the bankrupt assets only, meaning the alt coins, and
Speaker 1: that's what we did. So we bought them outright at
Speaker 1: a discount. And you know, we had already been pretty
Speaker 1: good at understanding alts and liquidating and learning, you know,
Speaker 1: a lot of the nuanced detail because there's so many alts,
Speaker 1: So it really, you know, became our one of our
Speaker 1: superpowers for a minute to do these bankruptcies, and we
Speaker 1: did them all. We did everything from FTX to prime trust.
Speaker 1: So bringing in back full circle while the market imploded,
Speaker 1: you know, we found a way to kind of go
Speaker 1: the other way. That's really where a lot of my
Speaker 1: government thinking came from. All the bankruptcies weren't government. There
Speaker 1: were a lot of aspects to the court system and
Speaker 1: how you dealt with it, and how you dealt with
Speaker 1: alternative currencies that could be applied to you know, the
Speaker 1: direction we were headed with government.
Speaker 2: So how are you guys custoding the assets that you hold?
Speaker 2: Are using a third party custodian? Do you have your
Speaker 2: own customer services?
Speaker 1: So as I read sent Investment Advisor, we have to
Speaker 1: use qualified custodian, although because you know we have some
Speaker 1: venture exceptions, we could self custody, but that's not our business.
Speaker 1: There are plenty of qualified custodians who've built up good
Speaker 1: secure systems that we use. When we did the RFI
Speaker 1: and the RFP to win the business of the US
Speaker 1: Marshals Service, we had we actually partnered with several companies
Speaker 1: and one of them was a qualified custodian uh TO,
Speaker 1: and that was a big kind of part of the
Speaker 1: approach we took with the Marshals. There's so many so
Speaker 1: to be clear, it's complicated. Coinbase one what they call
Speaker 1: Class one, which is under protests now, but those are
Speaker 1: for kind of bitcoin and the big coins. And then
Speaker 1: there was Class two through four, which were all the
Speaker 1: alternative currencies. So what we were competing for was not
Speaker 1: what Coinbase was competing for. We were competing for the
Speaker 1: alternative currencies in Class two to four. The other difference
Speaker 1: is Class one had to be a large business or
Speaker 1: Class two to four could be a small business. And
Speaker 1: if you go back and look at the dysfunction of
Speaker 1: the Marshal since twenty nineteen, you'll see that there were
Speaker 1: companies like Anchorage that won it and then lost it
Speaker 1: because of a small business exclusion because it turned into
Speaker 1: a large business. It's just such an archaic, ridiculous process,
Speaker 1: you know, when we get started going down that rabbit hole.
Speaker 2: Yeah, that's it's wild. So you guys worked with the
Speaker 2: US Marshals. Have you been advising the different ways?
Speaker 1: No, so here's you know, kind of what happened. So
Speaker 1: I decided I wanted to work on government, and government
Speaker 1: for me, you know, was more than just the US.
Speaker 1: It was you know, there's an international component to it.
Speaker 1: Then there was the federal component, and then there was
Speaker 1: a state level, and then there was kind of a
Speaker 1: local level. And so we did we did a handful
Speaker 1: of things. I've spent a lot of time meeting with,
Speaker 1: you know, some attorney generals at the state level, and
Speaker 1: because of that, we were able to get some contracts
Speaker 1: to educate different states. So that was like cryptocurriculum that
Speaker 1: we could build out because there was really not a
Speaker 1: baseline understanding. And you know, if I care about this industry,
Speaker 1: the first thing I want to do is make sure
Speaker 1: everyone has a good understanding of what this industry is about,
Speaker 1: what these assets are about, because they're complex. So we
Speaker 1: built an education curriculum and literally give it away, like
Speaker 1: I have no desire to earn money off of that.
Speaker 1: And we were fortunate, we know, did educate some government
Speaker 1: agencies as well. So I was already into government for
Speaker 1: about two and a half years before all of this
Speaker 1: happened with the new administration, you know, and The second
Speaker 1: part is we did some software licensing and kind of
Speaker 1: redeveloping to help with the accounting of digital currencies. So
Speaker 1: that was the second thing that we did. And then really,
Speaker 1: you know, the ultimate goal from a you know, I'm
Speaker 1: not some charity. You know, I do want to make money,
Speaker 1: but that's where you know, as a registered investment advisor,
Speaker 1: we have the opportunity to do so. You know, so
Speaker 1: as we get into the reserve conversation, you know, I
Speaker 1: can explain that a little bit more. But you know,
Speaker 1: where the US Marshall is concerned. They've been putting out
Speaker 1: this RFP to have someone handle cryptocurrency since twenty nineteen.
Speaker 1: The way it started was who's going to custody it?
Speaker 1: Who's going to track and trace it? And they never
Speaker 1: really thought about the management of these assets. And you know,
Speaker 1: if you have to follow a regulatory process to manage
Speaker 1: these assets, there's a good argument that you should probably
Speaker 1: be licensed to do so and have an idea of
Speaker 1: what these assets are. And you know, they really hadn't
Speaker 1: thought about it that way. No one has. I recently
Speaker 1: spoke at the United Nations in front of Europe poll
Speaker 1: in Austria and it was the same thing. It was.
Speaker 1: There were a lot of law enforcement folks there. There
Speaker 1: were a lot of people that understood how to track
Speaker 1: it or hold it, I mean track and trace and
Speaker 1: you know, custody have been around since twenty thirteen, but
Speaker 1: there was no one to manage it. And think about
Speaker 1: it from a financial perspective of you know, if you
Speaker 1: have these assets, can they generate returns for the federal government,
Speaker 1: for instance? And those are the things that the government
Speaker 1: does with traditional finance companies every day, So why shouldn't
Speaker 1: they do it with digital currency?
Speaker 2: Absolutely? And you know, with that in mind, Just this
Speaker 2: past week there was a report from coined as that
Speaker 2: the US Marshall Service they don't know how much of
Speaker 2: biitcoin to actually hold, and they were saying this could
Speaker 2: be a roadblock in the United States getting a bitcoin
Speaker 2: strategic reserving place because it would be two part holding
Speaker 2: the existing assets they have reserve, but also buying. What
Speaker 2: are your thoughts on that report?
Speaker 1: Yeah, so I was in that article, and you know, again,
Speaker 1: it's not because I have any competitive advantage here, it's
Speaker 1: just been I've been doing it longer. The part of
Speaker 1: that article that's incredibly true is they don't actually know
Speaker 1: how much they hold because there's complexities and value, so
Speaker 1: you know, you have to ask yourself, are they checking
Speaker 1: So let's be clear, you know they know how much
Speaker 1: bitcoin they kind of have. But if you look at
Speaker 1: the way the US Marshal Service works, and we're talking
Speaker 1: about seizures right now, criminal seizures, well, criminal seizures that
Speaker 1: kick up to the US Marshal Service come from Secret Service,
Speaker 1: Homeland Security, and IRS Criminal Investigation Unit, and the IRS
Speaker 1: Criminal Investigation Unit is probably the biggest percentage of what
Speaker 1: seizures are today in the federal government. Silk Road is
Speaker 1: part of that. And you know, then you have another side.
Speaker 1: You have the FBI and at F and DA. You know,
Speaker 1: a lot of that kicks up to DJ. The DJ
Speaker 1: has a relationship with the Marshall Service. So okay, so
Speaker 1: now you have five or six seven agencies that are
Speaker 1: all doing seizures. So you also have pre forfeiture post forfeiture,
Speaker 1: so that the Marshal was tasked with making the decision
Speaker 1: on liquidation and who's going to manage the process, so
Speaker 1: they have no one in place to manage the process.
Speaker 1: So with the way they do things, because you have
Speaker 1: all these agencies sending their assets to the Marshal Service, Well,
Speaker 1: how are they going to account for it all? Because
Speaker 1: we're not even counting the states. The states also do
Speaker 1: federal seizures. So again through those agencies, they do these seizures,
Speaker 1: they send them to the US Marshal in some cases,
Speaker 1: some cases elsewhere. And you know, there's something called equitable
Speaker 1: sharing that happens with the states, meaning on a federal case,
Speaker 1: they're doing splits with federal government. Those splits are different
Speaker 1: per case. Do you see how it gets complex when
Speaker 1: you're trying to figure out, well, what am I holding?
Speaker 1: When certain states don't even know if the wallets are
Speaker 1: empty or not empty. They'll go into court and say,
Speaker 1: I need to get a seizure order, or you know,
Speaker 1: I need to freeze these assets. I'll freeze them in court,
Speaker 1: and they think that that might have froze them, which
Speaker 1: it of course did not. It's digital currency. And so
Speaker 1: when you have all of these different things that take place,
Speaker 1: and then it's landing, you know, at an understaffed agency
Speaker 1: that doesn't understand money in the first place. The true
Speaker 1: answer is that it needs to be moved to Treasury,
Speaker 1: and Treasury they have an agency and Treasury called t
Speaker 1: OFF Treasury Executive Office Asset Forfeiture, and that agency has
Speaker 1: an MoU with the US Marshal Service to allow the
Speaker 1: Marshal Service to do this. And what I'm hoping is
Speaker 1: with the new administration, we'll see the Marshals Service relinquish
Speaker 1: their role and allow Treasury to do the thing that
Speaker 1: they do. And I think that's when we'll start to
Speaker 1: see things make sense. And so to account for it's
Speaker 1: actually really simple, and this is one of the things
Speaker 1: we've done with one of the agencies already. And again
Speaker 1: we're not charging for it because I don't necessarily care
Speaker 1: about making money off creating a foundation. But if you
Speaker 1: are actually tracking the criminal cases with what they're seizing,
Speaker 1: you'll be able to account for it because you can
Speaker 1: put all those splits in and it's not that complicated
Speaker 1: to say, you know, these are the fees that they're taking,
Speaker 1: this is what the value is, and you know, you
Speaker 1: get into a whole other thing, which is thoughtful liquidation.
Speaker 1: So this administration doesn't want to liquidate. They want to
Speaker 1: create a reserve. And that's great, But what was happening was,
Speaker 1: you know, the Marshall Service was just sending you know,
Speaker 1: these assets out to liquidate them and really not asking
Speaker 1: anyone's permission. One thing that so we're in a protest
Speaker 1: with Marshall right now over this, and there's a protest
Speaker 1: and Class one of a coinbase, and the one thing
Speaker 1: that's happened is those protests have actually frozen the assets.
Speaker 1: And I know this president doesn't want these assets to
Speaker 1: be liquidated, So good news they're not being liquidated at
Speaker 1: the moment. While some of this can be figured out, if.
Speaker 2: You were advising a Trump administration on setting up this
Speaker 2: bigcoin reserve or digital stockpile, as it relates to security
Speaker 2: and custody, what would you tell them, like which custodians
Speaker 2: should they use? Or should they split their funds up
Speaker 2: or the treasury specifically, like or should I use I
Speaker 2: don't know, bny mellon which may be launch crypto custody soon.
Speaker 1: I mean, look, there's a lot of great custodians obviously,
Speaker 1: you know coin based can custody, you know the assets
Speaker 1: that they hold. But the problem is with Class two
Speaker 1: through four, they don't hold all those assets. There's many, many,
Speaker 1: many other assets. And you know, when you start to
Speaker 1: get into liquidations of complex assets, there's nuance. One of
Speaker 1: the nuances that exists is you know an issue or
Speaker 1: may actually want that inventory back where there's no lookquidity
Speaker 1: on a coin that isn't that successful, but you can
Speaker 1: actually extract value. Another thing that's happened in the past,
Speaker 1: and this is terrible, but the US liquidated bitcoin at
Speaker 1: the same time that Germany did and they tank the
Speaker 1: market about sixteen percent. And you know that is just
Speaker 1: basic communication and actually having a liquidation plan instead of
Speaker 1: just doing it all and not being thoughtful about how
Speaker 1: much your liquidation. You know how much you're going to
Speaker 1: liquidate and what the impact in the market's going to be.
Speaker 1: So those are just really simple, basic things that is
Speaker 1: a dumb record guy you know, could figure out. And
Speaker 1: again that's why the education part of this is so important,
Speaker 1: because you know to not have structures in place. So
Speaker 1: I guess what I'm saying is there's lots of great custodians.
Speaker 1: That's not going to be an issue to hold it secure.
Speaker 1: What is more of an issue is how you're going
Speaker 1: to ultimately handle it. Because the mistake doesn't necessarily happen
Speaker 1: with what's being held. It usually happens with what's being moved.
Speaker 2: With that in mind, and all the things we just
Speaker 2: discussed and some of the complication.
Speaker 1: I'm sorry that was a lot.
Speaker 2: Sorry, no, no, no, no, that's great because I think it's
Speaker 2: a good segue into will a bigcoin reserve get a
Speaker 2: proof this year? Because you know, we got to go
Speaker 2: through all the details and dot our eyes and cross
Speaker 2: our t's. It's not just simply sign a bill, but
Speaker 2: can you executing right around? Don't it doesn't seem that way.
Speaker 1: Well it does, and I'll tell you why. So there's
Speaker 1: two ways that the president on the federal side can
Speaker 1: do a bitcoin reserve. He can buy it, or he
Speaker 1: can take what has been forfeited and he can hold it.
Speaker 1: So buying it's more complicated. That's going to require, you know,
Speaker 1: all sorts of different kinds of approvals, you know, whether
Speaker 1: that's congressional or not. But taking seized assets that are
Speaker 1: forfeitted you have more kind of unilateral control. So solving
Speaker 1: that problem with the amount that they're holding is a
Speaker 1: really good start, you know, And I actually do know
Speaker 1: the amounts because I went to the individual agencies to
Speaker 1: figure out what those were. And you know, when we
Speaker 1: mix in the state element, the states you know, there's
Speaker 1: twenty states right now that are doing legislation for either
Speaker 1: still reserve or a bitcoin reserve, and I actually have
Speaker 1: a pretty good solution of how that can accelerate versus
Speaker 1: you know, the companies out there that are going to
Speaker 1: buy for the business or talking to the treasury of
Speaker 1: each state. So what we have is something that's a
Speaker 1: little bit disjointed right now in terms of all of
Speaker 1: the different states that have legislation, the products that they're
Speaker 1: going to try to put through. How are they going
Speaker 1: to try to do it? And you know, it's the
Speaker 1: same thing. You know, those states have mechanisms where they
Speaker 1: can buy assets, or they have mechanisms where they can
Speaker 1: make a unilateral decision on forfeited assets. And the stuff
Speaker 1: that's really interesting to me is, well, what about pre forfeiture.
Speaker 1: Why not generate returns on that? Because they do that
Speaker 1: with FIAT, They'll put FIAT into t bolls, generate a return,
Speaker 1: and allow that return to go back to good causes
Speaker 1: and the agency or the state. And you know, with
Speaker 1: crypto being kind of so much more robust in terms
Speaker 1: of what return profiles look like, you can do all
Speaker 1: the same stuff.
Speaker 2: Do you think I think I heard I can't remember
Speaker 2: it was Jersey City in New Jersey, but they had
Speaker 2: mentioned possibly buying through the ETFs route. Do you think
Speaker 2: that's a possibility for some of these states or it
Speaker 2: makes sense for them to actually hold go buy the
Speaker 2: actual asset versus the ETF wrapper.
Speaker 1: Well, I mean, look, a lot of these states already
Speaker 1: have relationships with you know, whether it's through their pensions
Speaker 1: or other kind of vehicles that they have that they've
Speaker 1: been doing that for a long time. So they already
Speaker 1: work with black Rock and those folks, so you know
Speaker 1: that's what they understand. So no, I don't think it's
Speaker 1: it's beyond our imagination to think that they're going to
Speaker 1: take an easier route as it relates now. The thing
Speaker 1: that is more interesting though, is in the executive order
Speaker 1: that President Trump put out, he didn't say bitcoin reserve.
Speaker 1: It was a digital currency reserve, right, And I think
Speaker 1: you know, Boha, who's incredible, if you don't know him,
Speaker 1: had a lot to do with that. People don't realize
Speaker 1: that he has been around digital currency for a pretty
Speaker 1: long time. He's a very ambitious guy that really you know,
Speaker 1: I met him long before he got this appointment, and
Speaker 1: I was fortunate to meet him, and I was always
Speaker 1: amazed because he was like such a young guy that
Speaker 1: he cared about, you know, the overreach of the government
Speaker 1: at the time that innovation was being squeezed out of
Speaker 1: this country over digital currency and I was just like, dude,
Speaker 1: twenty five, that's not what I was thinking about. And
Speaker 1: you know, so a lot of people, you know, don't
Speaker 1: know who he is, but I think you know, his
Speaker 1: fingerprints on it. Being a digital reserve versus a bitcoin
Speaker 1: reserve is really telling. So if it's a digital currency reserve,
Speaker 1: it gets a lot more complicated.
Speaker 2: Now with the buying, right, I can't imagine the US
Speaker 2: government's going to buy let's say that the legislation gets
Speaker 2: put into place, they're going to buy it top of
Speaker 2: the market. I'm assuming they would look to buy.
Speaker 1: I don't know why they did. Why they buy. They
Speaker 1: hold twenty billion dollars in crypto today.
Speaker 2: Oh so let's say, but beyond bitcoin, let's say ethereum
Speaker 2: or other stuff, right.
Speaker 1: Yeah, I mean, look, you got to remember too, there's
Speaker 1: there's lots of different pools of capital in government, so
Speaker 1: you know, and there's lots of different kinds of strategies
Speaker 1: you have to remember though, with government, they're not that
Speaker 1: concerned about the upside. What they're concerned about is the downside,
Speaker 1: you know, depending upon how they're going to approach this.
Speaker 1: And you know, I don't know the history of Fort
Speaker 1: Knox and the Gold Reserve very well. You know, I
Speaker 1: don't know how all of that, whatever is left was accumulated.
Speaker 1: But the way government works is they take mechanisms that
Speaker 1: they understand and they redeploy them. And that's a good
Speaker 1: way to look at this. This is just another asset class,
Speaker 1: the same you know, selling real estate or or you
Speaker 1: know boats, you know from seizures. This is just another
Speaker 1: asset class. So what they'll do is what they know
Speaker 1: how to do. And you know they have enough kind
Speaker 1: of people around them, and David Sachs and and you
Speaker 1: know Treasury has brought someone in. You know, you see
Speaker 1: all of these different agencies gearing up with professionals that
Speaker 1: are pro crypto, and that'll have an impact.
Speaker 2: Yeah, for sure, it's amazing. I still have to pinch
Speaker 2: myself that we have a pro crypto president, the most
Speaker 2: pro crypto Congress, Like you said, Secretary Treasury Scott Persent,
Speaker 2: White House, cryptos are on and on and on. It's incredible.
Speaker 2: It seems like everybody recognizes that blockchain is the future. Yes,
Speaker 2: we talked about bitcoin and the assets that run on them,
Speaker 2: but it's the blockchain infrastructure and we're going to be
Speaker 2: in a multichain world. They're launching stable coins, you're gonna
Speaker 2: put well, the US dollars already on the blockchain, but
Speaker 2: they want to make it more prominent because that could
Speaker 2: help in the US dollar reserve currency status maintaining that status.
Speaker 2: What are your thoughts on the boom of the stable
Speaker 2: coin market and you know, legislation possibly coming this year.
Speaker 1: I mean, again, all of it was well, I won't
Speaker 1: say it was expected. I think we just hoped for it.
Speaker 1: And you know, if you take a look at you know,
Speaker 1: the stable coin, I mean, it's just a natural thing
Speaker 1: to think about, and you know, how it all comes
Speaker 1: together and how it all plays together is really the
Speaker 1: part that fascinates me. Because you're also seeing that at
Speaker 1: the state level, you know, So the fascinating part is
Speaker 1: you know, where's it going to be approved of the
Speaker 1: state level. I mean, stable coin is greater than any
Speaker 1: single state, So you know, I've been much much more
Speaker 1: focused kind of on the operational process of how all
Speaker 1: this is going to happen. And I think that's a
Speaker 1: little bit of a different because, you know, coming from
Speaker 1: a business like the music business that had so much
Speaker 1: chaos and you had to make sense of it, this is,
Speaker 1: you know, my bread and butter. I love how broken
Speaker 1: everything is because with a pro crypto administration you're now
Speaker 1: able to hopefully figure out solution. And there's just so
Speaker 1: much opportunity out there that people, you know, aren't thinking about.
Speaker 1: And I don't know that there's there's lots of companies
Speaker 1: yet that are seeing these new opportunities because look, we're
Speaker 1: talking about stable coin, you know, legislation, we're talking about
Speaker 1: criminal seizures. You know, we haven't even really moved into
Speaker 1: civil seizures yet. And the assets, the digital assets that
Speaker 1: are going to be seized from you know, non payment
Speaker 1: of taxes and things like that, and you know, how
Speaker 1: how's that going to play into what the government holds.
Speaker 1: And then you have global perspective on all of this,
Speaker 1: and not just competitive nature globally, you know, bring innovation back,
Speaker 1: but you know you have these huge seizures all over
Speaker 1: the world too that need to be dealt with, and
Speaker 1: the more it's dealt with, the more important those currencies
Speaker 1: will become.
Speaker 2: You know, you mentioned in music industry. I want to
Speaker 2: get your thoughts on how you think Web three blockchain
Speaker 2: tech can help improve things and maybe give some power
Speaker 2: back to the artists where they can control more of
Speaker 2: the rights, get more rev share all those things, because
Speaker 2: a lot there's a lot of streaming online and with
Speaker 2: blockchain tech you can do micro payments and maybe these
Speaker 2: artists are launching through a platform that's blockchain enabled and
Speaker 2: there's more transparency, accuracy, and more visibility for everybody on
Speaker 2: what's happening.
Speaker 1: You know, in theory, all of that sounds wonderful and is,
Speaker 1: and there's been plenty of you know, let's just say,
Speaker 1: there's been plenty of people over you know, throughout the years,
Speaker 1: going back to things like top Spin that Rogers had done.
Speaker 1: You know that that created better solutions for artists, and
Speaker 1: every single one of them failed other than the streaming services.
Speaker 1: And you can argue that the economics of the streaming
Speaker 1: services don't serve the streaming services. And when there isn't
Speaker 1: you know, an even kind of opportunity for economics with
Speaker 1: technology being built, then you know that that imbalance creates
Speaker 1: lots of problems. So the gatekeepers of copyrights are still
Speaker 1: you know, publishers or you see all these big publishing
Speaker 1: catalog sales you know for licensing, and you know the
Speaker 1: labels still have a lot of ownership, and you know
Speaker 1: the problem is is if the artist doesn't own it,
Speaker 1: then then what you know, you're still going to all
Speaker 1: these third parties that are writers on compositions that you
Speaker 1: require approvals from to do a lot of this. So
Speaker 1: if you can't get the approvals, then how are you
Speaker 1: going to deploy a technology. If the technology you're deploying
Speaker 1: isn't going to the person that cares about it, the artist,
Speaker 1: it's going to someone who owns those assets, that it
Speaker 1: may not be in their best interest to be transparent,
Speaker 1: It may not be their best interest to find a
Speaker 1: way to look I mean, I'm not saying that those
Speaker 1: folks don't want to make more money for the artists.
Speaker 1: Of course they do as long as they can make
Speaker 1: more money. And anything that is worth it takes investment,
Speaker 1: time and innovation and commitment. And sadly, you know, if
Speaker 1: an artist doesn't own what, they're going out there to
Speaker 1: try to innovate on they may not have the passion
Speaker 1: to do it. And by the way, only you know,
Speaker 1: when we looked at the launch of Title for instance,
Speaker 1: remember all the artists coming together. Yeah, well, I mean, okay,
Speaker 1: I ended up being another streaming service with higher resolution files.
Speaker 1: You know, I love using Title, but that's because I
Speaker 1: love music and at a higher rate of you know,
Speaker 1: kind of with the audio that I listened to. But
Speaker 1: you know, when we look at the broader scope, you
Speaker 1: really we back up the thing that Steve Jobs did
Speaker 1: that people don't give him enough credit for it. That
Speaker 1: was so amazing is he brought the labels and publishers
Speaker 1: together to launch you know, an iPod, and without that
Speaker 1: it doesn't work. So it's not that they wouldn't adopt
Speaker 1: great new technology with digital currencies or blockchain or you know,
Speaker 1: using treasury, you know, from a crypto launch to redeploy
Speaker 1: you know, in a democratized fashion to artists. That'd be great.
Speaker 1: But who's the guy that's going to put all these
Speaker 1: people in a room that are the major copyright holders
Speaker 1: and artist owners to say, let's do this collectively. You know,
Speaker 1: even when you license out a simple composition that multiple
Speaker 1: publisher zone, there's problems with the splits. You know, you
Speaker 1: have this thing called most favored nations. Everyone wants the
Speaker 1: same amount. So you really see a business that follows
Speaker 1: templates that have been in place for a long time
Speaker 1: versus innovation and kind of out of the box thinking.
Speaker 1: I mean, what's the last innovation we've seen from a
Speaker 1: record company?
Speaker 2: I can't think, right, yea, So there was.
Speaker 1: A time where the record companies did vertical integration and
Speaker 1: they were the technology, They were the artists, they were
Speaker 1: the recording, and they were the distribution. We don't see
Speaker 1: that today. We see third party companies building technology and
Speaker 1: we really haven't seen much since the streaming services and
Speaker 1: that changed a lot. But you know, where's innovations and music?
Speaker 2: Do you think though? Like? And I just think of
Speaker 2: it myself as a creator right where I create this content,
Speaker 2: I'm interviewing you, I own it. I'm not going through anyone.
Speaker 2: I'm just publishing on a platform that I can monetize
Speaker 2: the sponsors and things like that that twenty years from
Speaker 2: now when the web monetization model has changed and kind
Speaker 2: of like what the Brave browser is doing, right, you're
Speaker 2: getting rewarded with a token for your activity, kind of
Speaker 2: flipping the model on its head that I'm a new
Speaker 2: artist because we're in a social environment and more digital environment,
Speaker 2: I don't need to go through a label or anyone,
Speaker 2: not saying that they shouldn't, but just it's just the
Speaker 2: way the things are. Because of the disruption of the technology.
Speaker 2: I can publish directly the streams and everything. All the
Speaker 2: tokens go back to me. I own the IP and
Speaker 2: all that, and then I can sell NFTs and other
Speaker 2: things or whatever it is that give you access special
Speaker 2: access NFTs with utility, and I can earn that way
Speaker 2: like I'm talking twenty thirty years from now.
Speaker 1: No, there's no question. But again, you know there is
Speaker 1: going to be power in the company that allows you
Speaker 1: to do that. And what we see is you know,
Speaker 1: you know for what you do, you look your unique voice,
Speaker 1: you don't have co writers, you don't have you know,
Speaker 1: lots of different investors in what you do. So as
Speaker 1: an individual, sure you can go do all of that
Speaker 1: and really monetize. But the thing that makes music so
Speaker 1: great is catalog. And if I sit for a day
Speaker 1: and listen to music, I can listen the whole day
Speaker 1: and not get through everything I want to listen to.
Speaker 1: You don't have that scale with individual creators, you know,
Speaker 1: doing these models because the ownership of most of that
Speaker 1: catalog that I've listened to is owned by someone else.
Speaker 1: It's not just indie artist. And that's where it gets
Speaker 1: problematic because you need to have the scale for it
Speaker 1: to be successful. And yeah, I mean there's lots of
Speaker 1: technology throughout the years that really were focused on the
Speaker 1: community of indie artists that owned all their rights, but
Speaker 1: you didn't get the stuff you wanted to listen to.
Speaker 1: That's what made it so hard because it wasn't connected
Speaker 1: to it.
Speaker 2: Yeah, that's a great point. Yeah, the catalog aspect, it's interesting.
Speaker 2: I'm fascinating to see how these industries get disrupted with
Speaker 2: this technology and what happens. And oftentimes, you know, like
Speaker 2: we have ideas of what it may look like, but
Speaker 2: it just depends what the consumer wants, right and what
Speaker 2: they gravitate to.
Speaker 1: Well, and the consumer continues to listen to catalog, you know,
Speaker 1: because consumer feels nostalgic. So as long as that catalog
Speaker 1: and ongoing catalog is owned by someone else, it again
Speaker 1: becomes incredibly problematic. I mean, I mean, music is one
Speaker 1: of the only mediums. I can think of where an
Speaker 1: actual song has split ownership based on you know, what
Speaker 1: that master recording is and what that underlying copyright is,
Speaker 1: and you take that a step further, and that underlying
Speaker 1: copyright split many times. You know, when we look at
Speaker 1: a lot of the hip hop that's come out, or
Speaker 1: you know, there's so many writers that all on a
Speaker 1: piece of a song, So to get everyone kind of
Speaker 1: on the same page at a level of scale becomes
Speaker 1: incredibly difficult. So you know what has to happen is
Speaker 1: the innovation has to be brought in house. You know,
Speaker 1: I did this article and Spin, so I write for
Speaker 1: magazines once in a while, I guess if you can
Speaker 1: call it a magazine anymore. And you know, when AI
Speaker 1: came out, I was really fascinated with this idea that
Speaker 1: an artist should write with himself, meaning create an AI
Speaker 1: version of himself that can be an ongoing writer, because
Speaker 1: this artist that's still alive will have trained that AI model.
Speaker 2: A ghost writer, right.
Speaker 1: And what I really loved about that concept was the
Speaker 1: rights afterwards. Who owns it? You know, is his version
Speaker 1: once he's passed, you know, is it the AI that
Speaker 1: owns it? What's the publishing going to look like, how's
Speaker 1: those fights going to happen? You know, and you can
Speaker 1: really kind of go down interesting rabbit holes, you know,
Speaker 1: as that emerges, because it'll change legacy in the way
Speaker 1: things are written if the writing process is literally adopted
Speaker 1: from the actual artist.
Speaker 2: I know we're coming up on time, so I want
Speaker 2: to get your thoughts also on crypto legislation. Do you
Speaker 2: think crypto legislation makes it through this year? And you know,
Speaker 2: are we about to see a boom economic boom around
Speaker 2: crypto and blockchain with all these things in line?
Speaker 1: I hope so, and I hope so. You know, as
Speaker 1: someone that cared about regulatory process from day one, all
Speaker 1: we ever really asked for was more of it, so
Speaker 1: we knew what lines looked like. But government's slow, not
Speaker 1: this administration. This administration's fast. But you know, it really
Speaker 1: is going to depend on the fights that take place,
Speaker 1: and hopefully there's not a lot of them to see
Speaker 1: you know, what gets past and kind of what doesn't
Speaker 1: get past. So if we continue to see kind of
Speaker 1: you know, this real kind of embracing of digital currencies
Speaker 1: at the government and kind of traditional finance level. No,
Speaker 1: I mean, there's a bright future ahead. You know, you
Speaker 1: can talk to Michael Saylor about that and he'll say, yeah,
Speaker 1: there's a bright future ahead for bitcoin, which I understand,
Speaker 1: you know what his sentiment is. But I really like
Speaker 1: the idea of alternative currencies and what they represent and
Speaker 1: how they can change future businesses and economies. And I
Speaker 1: think the music business ultimately will be changed when they
Speaker 1: figure out how to use those treasuries in an appropriate
Speaker 1: way and they're able to share more. So that's going
Speaker 1: to be a really interesting time.
Speaker 2: You mentioned the alternative currencies. You know, there's a race
Speaker 2: now for all coin et aps, XRP, Salona, light Coin, dochecoin,
Speaker 2: h bar, there's a lot of Apple filings with the
Speaker 2: SEC moving so fast, dropping tons of crypto cases, they
Speaker 2: dropped coin based Robinhood, all these things. Do you think
Speaker 2: we get more all coin ETFs this year?
Speaker 1: Oh? Yeah, for sure, you know, and it's because you know,
Speaker 1: the black Rock bitcoin ETF was one of the fastest
Speaker 1: ETFs in history, if not the fastest, you know, for Blackrock.
Speaker 1: So what they're what's going to happen is there's going
Speaker 1: to be this kind of real need for innovative different
Speaker 1: differentiation and products. So you have it from both sides.
Speaker 1: You have the issuers and layer ones that you know,
Speaker 1: have issued these tokens that want it because again it
Speaker 1: gives them more credibility and a wider audience to distribute to.
Speaker 1: And you know, you have the distributors that need more product.
Speaker 1: So these things are all global and it becomes really really,
Speaker 1: uh pretty interesting how how this plays out. We we,
Speaker 1: I think put an E t P. I think it
Speaker 1: was a Cardano E t P on the Vienna Stock Exchange.
Speaker 1: Now at the time that we did it, you couldn't
Speaker 1: really do it anywhere else. The world's going to change
Speaker 1: and we're going to see you know, other outlets that
Speaker 1: we can create these interesting projects for and put them
Speaker 1: out and that's going to be fun.
Speaker 2: Wow, that's pretty cool that you guys were able to
Speaker 2: get that Cardano et F. Oh, that's that's amazing.
Speaker 1: And E T Y.
Speaker 2: Remind me because I know the terminology is a bit
Speaker 2: different outside US, right, A lot of people call it
Speaker 2: et F here, but outside it's et P, right.
Speaker 1: You know, it's so funny what it's an electronic traded
Speaker 1: fund versus you know, I think an electronic traded Yeah,
Speaker 1: probably product, but we'll have to ask Dave that question.
Speaker 1: That's his that's his baby. You can talk to me
Speaker 1: about music all day long. You know, E T E
Speaker 1: t F versus E t P. But it's probably product
Speaker 1: now now now I want to like grab chat GPT
Speaker 1: and and look, I don't remember what it is. All
Speaker 1: I know is it's pretty much the same thing in
Speaker 1: a different format on you know, uh, the stock exchange
Speaker 1: for sure.
Speaker 2: What are your thoughts on meme coins? Obviously, dosee coin, sheiba,
Speaker 2: some of these meme coins that have been established for
Speaker 2: a long time, have a community, have developers, right, no
Speaker 2: problem with that, but we've seen kind of the abuse
Speaker 2: of the meme coin system. I can launch a meme
Speaker 2: coin right now unless and I can rug somebody we
Speaker 2: got I feel we've got to put a stop to that.
Speaker 2: What are your thoughts on that and how it's got
Speaker 2: out of control?
Speaker 1: Yeah, I mean, look, I think it's a it's an
Speaker 1: exchange traded product. Is what an ETP is? By the way,
Speaker 1: Oh yeah, just just close that topic out. Look, I mean,
Speaker 1: the meme coins are funny, you know, they're not securities.
Speaker 1: There's no intrinsic value to them. They're essentially just collectibles
Speaker 1: that you throw out there without any promise of anything.
Speaker 1: I always kind of say the same thing. The people
Speaker 1: that tend to get hurt and rugged are you know,
Speaker 1: I'm not saying this is the rule, but you know,
Speaker 1: it's funny. The meme cooin culture is so different than
Speaker 1: other product launches because the people that are investing in
Speaker 1: these things, they understand the liquidity, they understand the percentages,
Speaker 1: you know, and where those percentages are going. They can
Speaker 1: see a rug really quickly. The fact that you take
Speaker 1: a look at at the libri coin and what number
Speaker 1: in terms of the market cap it went to and
Speaker 1: how quick it went there. You know, I think people
Speaker 1: just have to be really really careful about what they're
Speaker 1: investing in and understand and the context of it and
Speaker 1: who's behind it. And you know, in every industry we've
Speaker 1: ever had or you know, seen e merge, there's scams,
Speaker 1: there's bad actors, there's criminals, and you know, I don't
Speaker 1: know that that meme coins are you know, uninteresting. I
Speaker 1: think they're kind of interesting. And I think the underlying
Speaker 1: dynamics behind DEXes that list them, like Mediora and you know,
Speaker 1: radium and pumped up fun I think those are really again,
Speaker 1: interesting innovative businesses that have merge, you know, in the
Speaker 1: decentralized aspect of it is also interesting. So you know,
Speaker 1: it's terrible that people are getting hurt and there's bad
Speaker 1: people out there and there's confusion. But at the same time,
Speaker 1: you know, it's not that different than twenty seventeen when
Speaker 1: we saw the icos. A lot of people made a
Speaker 1: lot of money and a lot of people got hurt.
Speaker 1: And that's not good that people are getting hurt by
Speaker 1: any stretch of the imagination. But you know, I think
Speaker 1: you just see that where there's opportunity and lots of money,
Speaker 1: you're going to see people get hurt.
Speaker 2: It's a great point. I was actually talking to someone
Speaker 2: earlier that this is this generation's penny stocks the boiler
Speaker 2: room guys. Right, it happened in the stock market. It's
Speaker 2: just it is what it is. Bad actors coming in
Speaker 2: every asset class in industry.
Speaker 1: You remember, like when the Internet launched, you had all
Speaker 1: of these domain squatters. Yeah, and they were making fortunes
Speaker 1: stealing you know, big domains and selling them back. I
Speaker 1: mean it was like a form of like electronic blackmail.
Speaker 1: And you know, you're just always going to see it
Speaker 1: when when there's new businesses that you know are emerging,
Speaker 1: and it's really unfortunate. But I don't think you can
Speaker 1: kind of stay hard and fast, you know. I have
Speaker 1: lost money and lots of scams, not lots, you know,
Speaker 1: a handful over the years. I've been pretty careful, you know,
Speaker 1: but there's been the occasional email I've clicked on where
Speaker 1: I'm like, shit, they've just dumped that NFT and there's
Speaker 1: no getting it back, and an email that looked perfect,
Speaker 1: you know, and it's like, oh, Okay, I'm gonna be
Speaker 1: twice as careful next time. And I mean that's that
Speaker 1: sophisticated a lot of these scams have gotten.
Speaker 2: Yeah, I think we're just educating people is a big
Speaker 2: part of it. So hopefully the industry can start ramping
Speaker 2: up on that front. In regards to meme coins. All right, last,
Speaker 2: I know we're really up on time, But so I
Speaker 2: got some wrap up questions here for you. First, if
Speaker 2: you could create your own metaverse, what would the theme be?
Speaker 1: Oh, I mean I think I'd probably incorporate AI into it.
Speaker 1: You know, I think I have an easier time with
Speaker 1: you know, technology and machines than I do with people,
Speaker 1: So it would probably be surrounding myself, you know, with
Speaker 1: companionship through AI and my metaverse and a lot of
Speaker 1: alone time.
Speaker 2: Would you be like the first us in the order
Speaker 2: at Tesla Loot?
Speaker 1: Yeah, you know, I don't know. Maybe so yeah, I
Speaker 1: had a couple of Tesla's and I kind of shifted
Speaker 1: gears on Tesla's. But I can't keep thinking about you
Speaker 1: know that I'm old. So there's this television series called
Speaker 1: The Twilight Zone, and I keep thinking about the one
Speaker 1: guy who ends up in the world by himself with
Speaker 1: all of the books and he breaks his glasses, and
Speaker 1: I'm thinking that's kind of my metaverse probably with the world.
Speaker 2: Yeah, I love the Twilight Zone. I shouldn't have probably
Speaker 2: been watching some of them when I was younger, but great,
Speaker 2: great show, rapid Fire questions.
Speaker 1: Favorite food, oh boy, favorite food that is so tough
Speaker 1: kids meals? I you know, like little hamburgers or spaghetti
Speaker 1: and meatballs.
Speaker 2: Favorite musician or Bend.
Speaker 1: I really like a lot of the British stuff at
Speaker 1: the jam is someone that you know, Paul Weller's kind
Speaker 1: of prolific songwriting. I'm also really kind of inspired by
Speaker 1: some early blues lately. There's a guy named Brownie McGee
Speaker 1: that influenced Bob Dylan that I like a lot. They
Speaker 1: used to play with the guy named Sunny Terry, so
Speaker 1: a lot of kind of yeah blues and funny enough.
Speaker 1: The Jam kind of was influenced by that.
Speaker 2: Nice for every movie.
Speaker 1: I like The Usual Suspects a lot. They had this
Speaker 1: really evil Hungarian character, and because I'm Hungarian, I think
Speaker 1: I kind of relate to it.
Speaker 2: Nice book.
Speaker 1: That's tough. You know, if we're talking you know, universe
Speaker 1: and spiritual, it's probably Untethered Soul by Michael Singer. If
Speaker 1: we're talking about nihilism, it's probably Choke or Fight Club
Speaker 1: by Chuck Plaanyac.
Speaker 2: And then when you're not working at Wave, what are
Speaker 2: you doing for fun? As a.
Speaker 1: You know, it's not like specific. Usually it's usually I
Speaker 1: get focused on something and that's the hobby, whatever it
Speaker 1: is that I'm focused on, and I think computers are
Speaker 1: great for that to go down those rabbit holes. So
Speaker 1: I'd say it's a rabbit hole that's the actual hobby
Speaker 1: and not the hobby.
Speaker 2: Less pleasure chatting with you. I really appreciate your insights
Speaker 2: and knowledge and we'll have to have a part two
Speaker 2: of this as things progress with Web three and music
Speaker 2: and much more. But thank you so much for joining me.
Speaker 1: I appreciate you doing this. Thank you