Can you hear me Eugene? Yeah, I can hear you just fine and I'm like to hold on let me connect to my Bluetooth
But do you miss that punk be honest?
Yeah, I do. Actually. Yeah, it was that it's actually awesome to see it again. Yes
So we did the I can't remember that there was a strategy behind it
Roundtable account from the mic to the punk and then I use it sometimes to speak from this account rather than a host account
Just to avoid connection issues at times
But yeah, I miss the punk as well
That's the cool thing about punks like we're talking about the value of a digital identity
Is that it's linked to a person but I could then unlink it from a person. We just did that
I just realized that we unintentionally did that you unlike it
So the punk was linked to me, but then obviously I had to do political spaces
So I unlink myself from the punk at least on my profile photo
And then what I use the punk for is that to use what represented me?
To now represent the brand that we've built instead. So digital identity gives you that flexibility and which is really cool. I paid off. Well
I think it's pretty awesome. How are you by the way?
Yeah doing well doing well the market and a lot of the news a lot of things going on
so yeah, I'm also physically attending or was going to be attending Sundance the film festival, so it's been a
Pretty cool, but actually talking a little bit about crypto blockchain and how that could help with media and AI attribution
So somewhat related to today's discussion at some degree nice
Today was a pretty crazy day on our end
I think a lot of people in the audience kind of get an ID
So there's a few things in the last couple of days that I call that
One obviously I've talked about is the space we did yesterday on a token that
Got a lot of attention initially for the right reasons and kind of for the wrong reasons
and then it evolved that was a space that got a much bigger audience than I expected evolved into a discussion on the
whole ideal landscape a token launch landscape the good the bad and the ugly and
Incentive model that was there so that was a space that was onyx
I was walking up for to cover and that was he we did the crypto town hall
There's also the there's a TV show that I've talked about a lot called killer whales
It's a probably the best reality show done in crypto. I'm so impressed by their production. They put out a new trailer
I saw by accident yesterday. Let me
Find it and I'll pin it at the top. I think you'll enjoy it
And then people can have a look at it. So they put out that new trailer
And that's coming out in like a couple of months working pretty closely with them and I'm happy to be a judge on the show
As well, so let me pin that as well for everyone to check it out and let me know what you think of the trailer again
Then they're not sponsoring the show
I'm just part of the show and and we're working together and I'm a big fan of what they've done
But it's an incredible reality show like a shark tank show. So that's that
What else? That's what they'll be more of those like these crypto these crypto focused shows than like me quote mainstream
Media or mainstream media outlets that will focus more on crypto. Do you think people are still you know, it was a wary
It will it's actually I've asked the question to the panel in the previous
What I like about the crypto town halls pretty much all our spaces about especially the town hall ones
it's it's not an echo chamber of crypto bros where
Like everyone's talking about the ETF house the next best thing to hit crypto and everyone's expecting it to happen
But when you get people from c5 from centralized finance traditional finance to come in they're like, hey
People in our world don't even talk about the ETF. There's not that much hype behind it
even though the numbers are pretty impressive and
Before the ETF approval everyone thought that it's imminent what people outside of crypto didn't know was imminent
so what's funny is that the sentiment outside of the crypto ecosystem is
It's hard for us to remember that it even exists and I asked I can't remember one of the the the ETF spit wise
So the one of the analysts at bitwise did a research paper or the sentiment around the ETF
Within traditional finance and that was a paper that everyone was talking about yet
No one had them had the person that wrote it on their stage until we did a couple of days ago
It was an incredible space and that's a paper that said that it was like what 30 percent 30 something percent of
Did not you know didn't think an ETF was going to get approved now
We're talking about days or weeks before the ETF approval and we knew it was imminent
And then a majority of them come up with a number 70 something 80 percent, whatever it is and we're planning to allocate
Their funds under management into Bitcoin once the ETF gets approved
So these numbers were discussed a lot in crypto and I asked the question to them
How's the sentiment in that world? He's like Mario is actually moving slower than he's moving in the right direction
But still slow like they're just coming out of the SPF era the FTX era
And they're just trying to come around to that with Larry Fink playing a big role and and black lock praying it a big role
So when it comes to your question, do you do I think there'll be more shows that will follow?
Hello labs footsteps killer whales footsteps. I think so. I think
Unfortunately, they will follow the markets performance people flood everyone cares about crypto and they can make money
No one cares about it when they cannot make money. I think that trend will continue
So I think they're launching in two months of literally at the beginning of the bull run
So they're well positioned. I think there'll be a lot of copycats that will that will try to do the same thing
There's already a bunch but their production is not even comparable. These guys raised a few million
But it's gonna be interesting to see what they did that's cool
Is that they focused a lot on the project rather than the crypto aspect of the project?
I'm now I don't want to say this without really just sitting there promoting them. It's it
It's like there's a lot more to crypto than the crypto aspect of it
So web 3 game is about ownership within the game is about interoperability within games
It's not about a web 3 game with a token and I think positioning projects as such positioning and
Anyone in the media space positioning your show as such and we try to do the same thing
Now focusing on the non-crypto aspect use cases
Really resonates and we have a gaming show and we do that it resonates and AI is the same thing
Like I was just chatting someone yesterday a few days ago
But what does decentralized AI really mean that what aspects of AI are you decentralizing instead of just talking about?
Hey, we're an AI platform with a token. Now. What do you think you host the AI show Eugene? What are your thoughts on this?
Yeah, yeah, actually this is exactly what I was speaking with the Sundance Film Festival
So I'm a alum there director filmmaker and they invited me to speak about AI officially the festival did
So, you know obviously one of the biggest festivals of the year and the thing I brought up was crypto
I think I think people were like why are you bringing crypto and AI into you know
This thing and there's a lot of distrust among people and I like the way you put it just now
It's like there's a difference, you know, it's like if we just said money money is used for lots of things, right?
You know in the world I'm talking about just fiat and it's not like we just lump money into hey, it's just dollars, right?
Well use dollars for paying for your hotel buying your groceries you use it to you'll use it to gamble
You know countries use it for all sorts of things, right?
So I like the idea that crypto isn't just crypto this one monolithic thing but to think about all the different use cases and
Whether it's real-world assets or in my case when I was speaking to this audience that frankly, you know
Isn't is a bit of crypto skeptic and AI skeptic, you know, I was up there talking about hey crypto
You know decentralized AI could be used for example AI rights attribution, right?
A lot of these artists are saying hey, you're stealing my life's work. I'm not getting paid
Well, there's some decentralized blockchain out there that could pay you for your work if for example, you said hey
I want to do a Grimes AI song and Grimes very forward-thinkingly is actually allowing people to use her
As allowing people to use her AI voice and image to do so
So I think that's a really good way to put it and you know
I'm just looking forward to I don't call it acceptance
But people being a little bit more open-minded
About the possibilities because I think there is a lot of value to be created to be created here
Yeah, I think we've got pretty pretty pretty interesting panel
The way I want to structure this is I wanted to get David's thoughts on that particular point regarding the sentiment around it
Within traditional finance on crypto then get a market overview around Gareth
I don't know why when Gareth speaks again, I get that relaxed feeling of hey
I know everything's gonna happen in the markets and and dig into the the markets reaction on the ETF news
I think we've talked a lot about this already
But maybe getting a quick recap from the voices on stage
There's a few new voices that we haven't had on the panel in a while. You know Justin is here
And we got a coach is here and a Jack as well
And then dig into real-world assets what it means and really explaining to the audience that this different narratives different use cases
And what's really interesting and as we get into the small market. We've talked about it already
I think it's a topic that's worth discussing again along with web 3 gaming and AI
They're some of the things that I think decentralization makes makes sense obviously defy etc
But first I want to go to David before going getting a market update on with Gareth like a detailed update Gareth since the ETF launch
And the markets performance afterwards, but before that David want to ask you the same question that gonna mean Eugene we're discussing is
You know you've got a copy going public again
Thanks for partnering with a show as well and with orthogonal, but what is the sentiment within traditional finance when it comes to crypto?
I mean, I think it depends on who you talk to and I think it depends on you know
the subjectivity of what people want I
I think that in my view as we've taken a company public that has approval for crypto and AI
And blockchain is that tri-fi and this free economy?
You know the last free economy of digital assets is coming together
and I think the seed was planted with Bitcoin and
There it's like the electric car. I explained it to somebody
It's like when I got my first Prius and then you go from something that is gas and electric to all electric
And there's going to be an evolution of how these two spaces come together
And that's kind of the metaphor. I look at now. I think we're we're in early innings of
These two spaces meeting at a real liquidity level where you know big board
Exchanges and platforms are offering these ETFs
Gareth for the market overview on that point where he'd
You've been through the up. I think you were the perfect example of traditional finance getting into crypto
You got into the bull market, you know, you're in the private equity space again
He's he is also invested in us like a friend as well
But from a business perspective you got into the space we incubated your project your first crypto project you saw the hype
I know you came in like it literally at the end of the bull market, but you saw the hype phase where you know
How crypto does things how VCs follow each other how token prices on port then you saw the bear market
How the bloodbath that happens afterwards and I seen the market recover
When you speak to your network that doesn't understand anything about crypto. Maybe a bit about Bitcoin. Are they starting to get around to other standard understand
The use cases different use case different narratives and as they confidence picked up since ETF approval
So, let me first great here to be here and it's great to all see David and I'm a huge fan
You know what David's actually doing is kind of reminding me of traditional markets, right? So you you IPO you you
You know you raise capital et cetera and then you long to be part of an ETF, right? And and what are sauna
orthogonal is doing is basically it's sort of the
Small cap emerging company
Equivalent of ETFs, right? So if anyone wants an ETF, that's how I like to think of it. If everyone wants
exposure to a lot of emerging companies
There's a single way of doing this
So the reason why I love the show and I've invited a lot of people on it is because I belong to this real world
That's the theme and I've been waiting very patiently for years
First the NFTs and then the metaverse which of course impacts fashion which we're in
But it's just like a small smitten of what we do. And then you know, there is
You know, there's the Bitcoin ordinals and everything and then finally finally with the bitcoins on set onto an ETF
On a spot basis and having folks like BlackRock really push it, you know, what's black we're gonna talk about
They're gonna talk about real-world assets hence liars thinks big speech, right?
so because that is where the big players AC the volume and are able to
Create a lot of value. And so yes, I never saw actually the last of the bull market. I
we launched on the day of the first day of the bear market, it was actually the Ukrainian invasion and
Everyone told us to delay the launch
But we're a 24 year old company. We've been through 9-11. We've been through, you know, COVID
We've had our factories shut down and everything and we survived so why not survive this?
But what is it that we did in in in going on to a crypto landscape?
It's very simple. We took an old age problem of scale and money
You know, we are has that have you seen a shift when the ETF launched?
Like I know your experience I've been through that journey with you and I know how it was in the bear market
I remember the calls I have with you like Mario people are giving you you know
Obviously my company's media and crypto so like Mario people don't want to hear about crypto investors
I want to hear about crypto
No, we're working on going public as well and I've I've had those tough calls where I believe in Australia
I believe in the open metaverse. I believe in what I believe in in the Bitcoin ecosystem
Just I'll make Terrence happy on stage
But then the investors just don't want to hear about it and we had those fights in the bear market
Is that changes now? Is that changing with the ETF approval? We're still so early Mario. I'm telling you
You know, we're smaller than these Bitcoin ETFs and obviously we don't have the money of BlackRock
But we're all still dealing in tri-fi in these on ramps and off ramps at the end of the day
You can't go to every platform and be able to buy the ETFs right now with our stock
we are limited because there are gatekeepers and
Again as I go back to this is we're in very very early innings
Things are gonna change, you know as more money pours into this industry people are gonna jump on
It's it's it's always the hype machine
So at the end of the day as you're experiencing trying to take a company public
There are still these gate people keepers that are you know
Sort of they're deciding who comes in who comes in and who doesn't and you know
Sometimes I go to them and I'm like listen galaxy digital is you know, a certain type of company. They're listed
They're raising money. Why can't we also have the access that they have? So this is where
people buying into this ETF and Bitcoin being
Bitcoin's gonna do well and these gatekeepers things will open up and that's how I look at it is like a critical math theory
Going Gareth. I want to link this to the price action. The price action did not reflect these enthusiasm
We had by the way, we're here. You've got a lot of background noise and a lot of echo on your end
Gareth the price action did not reflect
But he did not meet people's expectations at least most people's expectations
The numbers on the ETFs in those is you know debatable at the beginning
I think we can all agree the ETFs were a success yet the markets just dumped
Was that expected that is because it's below expectations is
Below the hype that was there, you know by the rumors tell the news and is that GBTC offloading?
Why did the markets react as they did I would love to get Gareth the sports Jason and I got adjusted and coke
Yeah, so so you're exactly right. It was a sell the news event which which to be honest if anyone looks at the history of Bitcoin
That's exactly what it does. And to be honest, it's not unusual for any asset class that runs into big news
It's kind of the hype just builds and builds and builds
It's kind of like hanging on the edge of your seat and you finally get the news and it's like, okay now it's done
Remember in 2017 that's when the futures were launched. That was the high of the market and and actually the Bitcoin price corrected
What 80% from that level by no means do I necessarily think that's gonna happen here
But even in 2021, we had the coinbase IPO debut. That was your 65,000 top
We dumped to 30,000 then we had the ETF for the futures that launched in late 2021
Which we then saw the dump from 69,000 down to 15 and change and so so again, it's a lot of its human psychology
It's definitely somewhat of the GBTC situation as well
Where well a lot of players had bought on that at the discount and then basically by the time it launched
It was no longer discounted. They said okay
It's time to take some profits now and that kind of offset the the all the buying that these ETFs were doing
As people bought into those ETFs. So so I think for the most part, you know, it's it's an expected move
I know a lot of investors didn't expect it
But if you look historically at what happens it was very much on on point for what what ultimately did happen
So Gareth if you were to look into your crystal ball, where do you suspect we go from here? Oh goodness
I wish my crystal ball worked worked better. But um in general
I'm in the camp where so so just on the short-term price action, right?
We've pulled back to this, you know, 38,000 area, which was my downside first target of support
What I'm not liking right now is the fact that we're not bouncing higher significantly
We're kind of starting to hang out here and on a psychological or investor basis when you hit support
You're supposed to have buyers rush in and the sellers should be exhausted and if buyers rush in and sellers are exhausted price
Shoots right back up pretty quickly at least back into the low mid 40s. We're not seeing that we're stuck at
39,600 what that's telling me is that the amount of buyers that are buying here are equal to the amount of sellers right now
And ultimately the pattern of sideways chop is what's known as a bearish pattern of consolidation
So so I'm a little concerned right now with the price action that that there might be a little bit more downside to go first
But ultimately if we do break here
35,000 would be your next big area of support followed by the 30 the 30 to 32 level is where I'm
Zoned in on where like if we get there, that's where I start buying pretty heavily at that 30 to 32,000 level
Interesting Jason, I want to bring you in and comment on what Gareth said
I mean how much of this we've been touching on GPTC a little bit. They had about 10,000 BTC of outflows
Recently at their daily max. I think a lot of market participants think this is going to taper pretty soon
And that might imply that the bottom is kind of close. Do you agree with that disagree or have another perspective Jason?
Yeah, I think broadly I agree
I mean look there's a finite amount ultimately and which is a turn that applies to all Bitcoin transactions generally anyway
But we have a finite amount in grayskull. I'm I'm gonna be honest
I'm annoyed to say to these people, you know in these spaces recently
I have to eat some humble pie because I was the one I was one of the people going around saying we would see
a big increase at the point the ETFs would
Would would happen and I wrote a few articles about this as well
So there's no point denying it because it's out there in black and white
And that's because I think you know as certain regards were saying we had this whole kind of sell the the news event
And which of course I've been around for a while as well and knew this was a possibility
But I really thought the maths would win out
Immediately on this and I hadn't really factored in the whole GPTC thing
So I did get that completely wrong and I've had to go around and just confess everyone that that is the case
And so where we go from here
Well, look that is gonna continue to bleed out for a while
I think we've just seen the numbers grayskulls and is it another is it another 10,000? I've gotten ready
Yeah, yeah, so so it's gone already so, you know, it is gonna taper but it's obviously not gonna taper yet
That means I think we are gonna trade rather choppily is gonna be sideways is gonna be messy and pretty uncertain
I think it market just feels uncertain right now
And that's gonna carry on until this process of finish. I mean look Bitcoin is a global commodity, right?
It's traded all around the world
But right now the focus the whole narrative is based around these ETF buyers and sellers and that is just
Dominating everything and until that sort of settles down, you know, we're probably not going to get a breakthrough one way or the other
What percentage of the activity that we're seeing do we attribute the price movement to GBTC and the outflows there? I
Don't know what the maths is on that actually, but I suspect it's quite considerable
I've been trusting as you know, the members of the panel have got any more insights into it than I do
Yeah, maybe I'll go to Justin or if anyone else hasn't signed into that, please feel free to jump in but Justin
What do you what do you think of all this?
Sure, I don't have an insight on the on the on the math side of the the quantitative side of the
The ETF and obviously regardless of you know, maybe my criticisms of BTC
I think it's really really important to realize the the big picture here and why this is so significant and as someone who's been
For over seven years now on a very consistent basis like hundreds of you know
Large investors as part of you know organized investor events and so forth and I've always made a lot of resistance
It's this kind of resistance that it's like well
It's this it's for criminals or it's like oh, no will never work and it's like oh the the government is going to shut it down
This is a lot of the fear that like a lot of large investors have in mind because they're very conservative
A lot of them and I think it's really important to understand that the SEC approval
Like what this does over the longer run is it just adds to the legitimacy of
cryptocurrency as a whole and it's and and every event is just adding is piling on piling on until people just cannot deny the
Reality that that cryptocurrency is really here to stay and is and is really a serious thing that they have to consider and can't just ignore
Right. So and in that regard in terms of my experience things are warming up, you know
The more I'm talking to these
institutional parties the more
Accepting the more willing to learn the more knowledgeable
I even find people to be sitting on the other side of the table to me
How many when you say institutional you mean to trad five institutional, right? Are you seeing a shift?
This is an earlier question. I think Mario talking about it
Are you seeing a shift in sort of the attitudes among the truth at five investors?
Yeah, yeah, is it the ETF that's been driving that and what's the shift been like in conversations?
Yeah, ETFs are part of that and and to be very specific like pension funds
I think will still be many years away from accepting crypto because they're a lot more conservative, but I've noticed a lot of
Interest from family offices. So there's a lot of wealth
Globally locked up in these family offices
these are these are private offices that are managing the the money of say a
A a very wealthy family that say owns some major companies. Let's say or founded major companies
And and what I found with these is they also have pressure from the younger generation now that also wants to get into crypto
and and and the pushback is from the older generation as part of these families where they
You know where they where they don't trust it and now that this ETF is approved
You know more and more of these people are kind of spilling over and coming to accept it
So yeah, it's been it's been a gradual progression like over the years. It's like another thing another thing
I wouldn't say like like the ETF is not a complete game changer, but it's a very important
Another piece to kind of stack on to the legitimacy that we're trying to build for ourselves in cryptocurrency
So that you know, these these these other types of institutional parties can really start to think about investing
So everyone funds is another story as well
But I think where I've seen more interest as family offices specifically and funded funds
So isn't there I mean, I'll ask this question to the panel and we will move on to real world assets
But I the question I ask myself is even if you're the most meat and potatoes trad-fi, you know
You know kind of bonds and equities kind of person
Why wouldn't you put something like one to five percent of your portfolio in crypto especially now with the ETF that it's easy to do
So, I mean, it's you know, you got to optimize your shark ratio
So I guess the question is why wouldn't you do that right even put a little bit percentage in I mean even if you don't even care
About crypto or don't like them. No, just because you don't like commodities doesn't mean you shouldn't have a percentage of your
Aesthetic commodities, right? Like if you want to be a decent fund manager
I'll just comment on that quickly
If you don't mind I just very specifically we actually have a factory that explains this
One one to two percent of your forty sixty portfolio actually
Reduces actually sorry increases the sharp ratio. So it makes it better that actually
Quantitatively and objectively is actually historically speaking is a big improvement to someone's portfolio. So I'm sorry my big advocate of that. Sorry
I'll let the next person speak. Thank you. Yeah
Well, I know what he and I have actually talked about this because he's been in trad-fi also
So I was curious to get his perspective and we're gonna move into real world assets, too
So I guess if we can tie that in as well
Call the question directly all the comments that have been mentioned have been very very valid
But they've been focusing on the on the investor side the spec side
The point I'm trying to drive is that the real world needs the blockchain. Okay, so let's just pick real estate for real estate
Companies are being shut down by banks regional banks are essentially closed for business in the US
You know with interest rates going up all over the world
It's not easy to get capital private equity has sort of been in retrenchment mode in the last year and a half
Even though they got a lot of cash. So people need
tokenization of real estate, for instance
Is the perfect example of a monstrous asset class that is being created as we speak and that drives
Investors, so it's not just investors following Bitcoin. It's answering question matter
Of course the ETF lends legitimacy, but it allows all these real estate companies to think about
Tokenization it allows you know companies
I'm not gonna talk about fashion
Obviously, that's what I'm doing in the real world to tokenize that allows gold and miners to tokenize
So that is what's gonna drive the blockchain growth and the investor allocation
It's the demand for the use of real world assets and and essentially the blockchain
And it's interesting coach you have something you want to add to this about real world assets
Yeah, I just want to go back on on where the markets going. So we were on the call
We were here like two weeks ago think at the exact same time
I said BTC ETF was gonna be approved. We got that that I said it would be a sell the news event
Basically, I'm with Garrett's actually not not that doesn't really happen to be honest
But I'm with him right now thinking that we're gonna go to thirty five to thirty that thirty one thousand dollars potentially
thirty five being more of a strong area and
I'm just gonna actually are you like short like a short are you doing like a short for example word?
Like a lot of times in the finance base at least we like to you know
Share what our position is though. You're obviously staying this but are you are you actually short the market right now?
Yeah, I've been short in the market. I just posted like on Twitter like two days ago three days ago. I think now
That like we're waiting for forty thousand five hundred retest. We got that like yesterday. I think
And now are you short on are you short on defy exchanges or on defy and if you're short on defy
What's the mechanism? I across you that you're using
I'm using a c5 exchange for the short, but you know see fire do you five same same but different?
I just find that see the I find the exchange that I like
It's easier. It's easier than having like a smart contract and stuff like that
We'll get there eventually at some point, but right now. I'm still using a c5 exchange
But yeah, I'm short because you know where we're basically in a bearish scenario on on daily chart right now like
When I trade the each amoku each amoku is almost that of confirmation. I'm full bearishness. Um, we're gonna see potentially
Actually, it'll be indicative of like a 20 25 percent 30 percent retrace like we've had in every other cycle
When we've gone up like pretty much straightforward and people are gonna take profit first of all second of all you know
And I know many people right now that are stuck in longs from like 45 thinking that we're gonna go break out and go way higher
And I think that those people are gonna
You know a lot of there's gonna be some liquidations that are gonna happen at some point and I think that will happen around
35,000 we'll go to the bottom of the cloud on the each amoku and then I believe like you probably after Chinese New Year people forget
About that as an act as a really big point of interest like Chinese New Year people sell off all their assets
They get the red envelopes out I put cash in those envelopes
So I expect for us to go down on for probably like another
Three to four weeks and then slowly start to rise up in in March and end of February sort of March
So that's where in terms of the market I see as a perspective of where we're gonna go
And then like bringing it back to real world assets because I totally agree that no
We've heard this for like I've been in the space ten years and I think for like the last seven years six years
I've heard people say that we're gonna tokenize everything
I think we're getting closer to that ETFs
Just gave a proof like the PTF approval gives all the institutions gives all the businesses is all the people that
Normally wouldn't even look at Bitcoin and always all thought it was a scam now
They're like, okay. Finally, this is real for them and they're like, we don't want to miss out
So like we all bought him before BlackRock good for all of us. That's amazing
What what that does is it validates Bitcoin, but then it's like what else is it validate?
Well, I think you're gonna see a lot of validation across different asset classes
And people are gonna start putting these assets on chain that it simplifies a lot of the processes
You're gonna see this security tokens and stuff that I thought would take five seven years five seven years ago
I think they're gonna slowly start coming into play. We'll see real estate. We'll see watches. We'll see gold
We'll see all types of assets to be put on chain
You're starting to see NFTs of different trading cards all sorts of stuff
And I think that makes a lot of sense because otherwise you can't validate anything and you have to guess like you buy something on
eBay you the guest hope hopefully it's something that you actually bought with with blockchain tech
You can have someone be validating everything before it even comes out and you don't have to even question anything, right?
Like there's so many ways that they could put into a vault and have it already like, you know
that this trading card is this quality and it's a nine-star on a Pokemon card could be that as simple as that and
Now you have to trust as much people you just trust the system and blockchain will give you that asset class
It will literally give you the ratings on the diamond on the watch on everything and you'll know what you're buying and yeah
That that's gonna be massive because people won't have to continue. Yeah. Hey coach. Hey coach. Yeah, I think I totally agree
Yeah, I think that's kind of like the basics and I'm glad you laid out the basics of RWAs and I kind of want to jump
Deeper into the discussion. Thanks for teeing that up. That was that was great Johnny and Terrence when I want to bring you all in
Cuz I know you've been waiting a while
Yeah, what do y'all think so kind of what heat and coach K that they've been talking about
They've been kind of teamed up in a different way saying hey
Well, we need to see our WA integration and that's going to be the real game changer even over these ETFs
I'd love to hear about your perspective on things and these developments
Thank you. I'm really bullish on Bitcoin long-term and I think in the short term, right? We are having some price
Overall still net positive inflows into ETFs even accounting for the outflows
Significant outflows from grayscale where people felt like they were in Hotel, California
Roach Motel and they could finally get out with the any of the discount closing and more liquidity and
But yeah, so I would say that for people who are have a low time preference and aren't
Experts and I would say like outside of maybe some of the people on stage
It's very very hard to beat the market and on a risk-adjusted basis, especially long-term
It's really hard to beat Bitcoin which is up over a thousand percent over the last five years
Even with the recent price drop. So I think for most of us it just makes sense to buy some Bitcoin
Right don't buy too much when you ease into ease into it
And then just as you learn buy more you can dollar-cost average
You can ape in a little bit if you get a big chunk of cash
Maybe a bonus maybe an inheritance or other liquidity event where you can put something like half into Bitcoin in the other half
into Bitcoin over time, but that's assuming you've studied it and the key is you'd need to be able to not sell because
I'll end with this our CIO Hafez Aguri at Swan chief investment officer X Goldman X Merrill
He's basically said some things that other people have said but I like the way he put it which is Bitcoin
It's extremely hard to hold why because most days you're flat or down
Flat or down most days. It's very few days when Bitcoin goes up and when it does go up
It's very violent to the upside
And if you are not in the market on those six or seven days each year when Bitcoin makes a big move
You're going to miss out on returns and trying to time it
It's just not something that the vast majority of us can do. Thank you
Okay. Yeah, I appreciate that. I feel like we all it's like every space
We get kind of stuffed into the Bitcoin ETF and the mechanisms there
Want to stick back to the real world after no
I do love it because I love talking about that stuff
But you know RWA is the current topic. Oh, sorry, everyone's been kind of bringing it in. No, no, it's good
I think you should drop some out then that's that's great and a good perspective
But maybe Johnny and I know Jack we haven't gone to you yet
So Jack Levin, so Johnny and Jack what do y'all have to add to this discussion on real world assets?
Specifically like will that be the driver?
And I think the question is will RWA's will be the real driver of mainstream institutional tradify adoption or is it that the current?
Developments with the Bitcoin ETF are enough to you know, see lots of fun flows
Right where maybe we'll see above trillion-dollar market cap on Bitcoin as an asset class, etc
So Johnny, yeah, Johnny and Jack Justin the three J's would love to hear your perspective
Hey guys, this is John here
Go ahead. Yeah, John. Maybe Johnny go for it. And then Jack and Jack you can hear Johnny, right?
Yeah, Johnny. We'll have Johnny go first and Jack next
So I'm a CEO of USP coins or we're tokenizing platform
We're talking over 52 million dollars worth of real estate today
So my perspective is Bitcoin ETF improved is great thing
It's it basically, you know make the whole blockchain mainstream people investor start to think this is not just a scam
Right. There's a real world utility people started adapting these technologies
But as I'm real estate investor
I don't really see a real-life utility of Bitcoin on how to help people's everyday life
Except as being a great investment and then it's a great store of medium exchange store value
But I think the tokenization is actually gonna be the one that's gonna lead the change and there are a lot of think is
Big and a bull on the tokenization as well, right?
I keep saying the tokenization is in the next generation of the market is going to change the whole financial industry
I think in the future and not just our dub days
Real estate oil even stocks security is all gonna can be tokenized in the future and then
So Johnny that's like, you know, it wasn't you know, it was Tara Luna that first try to do this, right?
They had like, you know, they had tried to tokenize like Tesla stock for example on their Tara Luna platform
You know dokwon obviously and the famous don't want of
So you think it's gonna be Larry think is gonna be like dokwon number two
I mean, I say that not not not in a negative way
But I think like is that is it like you had the right idea keeping dokwon but just obviously didn't do well
But the idea that you could tokenize everything that's that's what you're seeing
You think it's gonna be Larry Fink who leads the charge there and in a legitimate way
I don't know if it's gonna be one leading the charge, right?
I'm also leading the charging in the real estate world as well
It's I don't know who actually eventually is gonna be the one that make it work
But they have to come with the legislation supports right right now. There's no legislation
There's no laws that supports organization and where I've talked nice my real estate based on the existing law
That was written like in 1920s. It's hasn't really old outdated. It doesn't reapply
So I think no one's legislation is more clear than you will see more institution investor jumping into these sectors
I mean, let's look at the real utility of the tokenization, you know
Once he told us real-world asset, it's not blockchain is it gives more security more transparency
You can trade those things peer to peer and he can't do that before say if he investing a stock
Like say real estate, right real estate bought all your bottle of gold is hardly transfer looks right and then people used to use
Secure as the common stock market, but there's so much more assets. They're not on stock market
They're not algebra be on some market market and it's really expensive to be on stock market, too
So tokenization over stock tuning before
Every people small business to tokenize their assets to raise money to allow investor to get the quality
They couldn't get before you know
And then this talk this time not to me use knowledge on real estate also on VC fund a lot of VC fund right now
They're facing the liquidity questions, right? The market is not doing good. They can
Liquidate that liquidates their assets, but you know tokenization offers another methods allow them to get more liquidity is by tokenizing
Their shares a lot more every time best to get into the game
So the real retail of tokenization is not undeniable and there I just see that this is how have so much benefits
That you know that you can help the whole system to evolve and there is a long-term game though
So I'm yeah, those are not utility tokens, right? Those are definitely security tokens. I mean, yes
Look I'm a big fan of crypto and tokenization, but I guess my devil's advocate would be why even tokenize those things, right?
I mean, there's a secondary market very silver actually found co-founded second market, right? Then he originally did this like a decade ago
There are ways to sell secondary shares on on VC companies
I mean, I'm still a fan of all this stuff
I guess I like playing devil's advocate though and want to hear why tokenize well
What is tokenization give us that non tokenization would allow us to have so so first of all that, you know
Is the is the accessibility right? So yes, you do have some second market, but that really limited small network now once you tokenize it
It's a global network. Like I built my product on a theorem and that's a global network anybody can train like there
So I can send my you know, my real estate ownership through a theorem to anywhere in the country
Anybody has an Internet's access can actually access their know the security ownership and then you can't do that before
I mean think about if you have a reads even your trading on publicly you can only train on NASDAQ people outside of u.s
I mean, it's hard to buy right and then and you can't say if you own what Apple stock or Tesla stock or reads on that stack
How do we draw that ownership and send it to your family scene in Australia?
You can't do that. You have to sell the stock get your cash
We draw it wait for the settlements which take two and half days take the money wire to Australia
That takes another two and a half days. It costs you more money than just standing on a theorem, right?
So it does offer more benefits and more accessibilities in my opinion. Yeah, I think it's interesting Johnny
Thank you for that back and forth Jack. I know you've been waiting a while. So Jack Jack Levin. What do you have to add to this?
Yeah. Hey guys. Good morning
exciting couple of weeks and I would say that I
Might take on on the ETF is extremely positive because I have three kids
They all have accounts on the trades and I was able to DC a
Into Bitcoin with those custodian accounts
That I control and previously was very very difficult to do. So I did the same thing for my dad and for my mom
Really teach them about crypto as much and I think the the positivity here
obviously is that there will be a lot more flows like that into
The crypto asset that will love and into the industry itself
Which which makes liquidity better and I think like obviously the we did have to sell the news event
And it was by the rumor and you know to be honest like I remember just a couple of months ago Bitcoin was
$25,000 and there's this funny meme
It basically shows two guys one is like sitting in an orange Lambo and the other one is like broke
You know in the skid row in Los Angeles somewhere like, you know, like completely like in the gutter and in both cases
December Bitcoin is 40,000 and then January Bitcoin is 40,000
So it is the same thing except but the mood is, you know, one guy's like in this orange Lambo
And the other guy's like completely broke. So I think a lot of things are psychological
but we have to remember that I mean like just very very recently we were 25,000 and
Definitely be the adoption is happening. The world is
now voted basically with their you know, all all of their extremities that
This is a very important crypto asset people wanted
it's it's almost like a political statement against the
The fiat world that allows the government to to text the population by printing fiat and
Send that money to war or wherever else that people didn't necessarily agree with
So I think people are really getting into kind of like this mind frame that this is one of those
things that you can actually store your wealth and it's not subject to any government or
Really like I mean, there's there's countries where creep is illegal or whatever have very very tight regulations
but at least you have options and
The the central core of this whole project that's been happening for the last 15 years
Is solid then continues to be so so I'm super stoked
It's awesome. Thank you so much act. Um, I know they're hands
But actually now's the time for us to move over to our sponsor for the day
so David I want to tee you up as though our partner for today is orthogonal and
We're super excited to have them and before David speaks about orthogonal. We do encourage comments on the lower, right?
There's a purple button. So please feel free to comment and also we've got a telegram group
That's up in the nest as well as a newsletter that we'd love for you to come join. So orthogonal
So David yet, please tell us about orthogonal orthogonal is the global accelerator public investment platform
Focused on accelerating investing in top companies and projects in frontier industries
So we're super excited to have them that they've had some groundbreaking news recently
So in q1 2024, they recently announced a global expansion with Dubai as a key strategic hub
David T s up and tell us about tell the group about orthogonal
Basically orthogonal, you know, our one desire is to show
Companies we've invested in our people that we do business with that
There is a way to take a company public on the traditional, you know
Tri-fi go public big board exchanges and again
I was listening to everybody and I think everybody makes some, you know, really good points and yes
I remember second market. We did a lot of business with them at the end of the day
Everything needs to be on the blockchain and tokenize whether that's a cap table or an SPV
I mean if you go back to our family office, we've invested
Very early on in the crowdfunding space. We were very early with SPVs with companies like Republic at the end of the day
It would be great to go to a platform
Really like you trade and be able to buy whatever you want
whether it's a security token or a token or a public company or something listed on the OTC and
and the great part about it is that that day is coming and
It's like the voting ballots of today that technology is going to change and we're gonna get more up to date on how that's done
And I think it's just patience and I think it's people working together
To have a united front to see this industry change
so if anything orthogonal is a
Platform to help companies go down the road of obviously incubation and acceleration
But what does a liquidity event look like in the future?
How do you create a company that's longitudinal? And that's really what we think about internally. I
Think it's super cool. And you know, we're discussing this exactly earlier
I didn't realize you'd work with second market. Like how do you think things have evolved, right?
That was like a decade ago when Barry Silbert started something around a decade
I forget when and I actually met with Barry at the time about what was happening there
What there were there were different? Yeah, there were a lot of company
I mean, there were a lot of companies besides second market
I mean there was Forge with the ended up going public and a number of companies out of YC that were doing
SPVs Republic was early in the SPVs. We were doing SPVs that we funder
So again, the problem with all of that and we've been doing that for since 2013 is
There are issues that you don't know about where shares the same shares are traded between multiple different
You know have been resold to three different parties or lawsuits that people don't know about
So again, what what I love about this is the auditability and the trust in
Transparency because once you get that you solve the sort of the collective consciousness of the capital markets
And you know, I always you know, it's always about the journey not the destination
But things will be very different in the next year the next three years the next five years
And I I think before you know it
You will go to platforms and you'll be able to trade everything
So, you know, I was kind of pushing I think it's great
You know as I was saying a little bit of pushback earlier about you know
How do you tokenize when things are probably going to be considered security tokens?
You know in the past we we as startups we'd say hey, you know, maybe we could do a reggae plus
It's been so expensive to register with the SDC both for an IPO but even a reggae plus right like you have to do all sorts
Of things that a private market startup doesn't normally have to do right
So I guess how does the tokenized world change any of those rules?
And what is the way in which will be what we could potentially get there
I mean the I love using metaphors
I go back to my plasma TV that I bought and I'm aging myself
My first plasma TV was $10,000 maybe 15,000
My plasma TV that I bought six months ago was $500
So as technology evolves things get cheaper things get consolidated
Easier, you know, we did the first reggae at we funder which was a company called Legion M
And it was somewhat of a disaster
You had like 10,000 people on the cap. Yeah, I'm not surprised by the way
That's it was a disaster, but I want to hear what it was. It was it was a complete disaster
We're not the first one to say that. Yeah, we're whereas whereas today
You can have one single SPV that makes up the entire cap table. So again
What I love is I love to build companies
I love to accelerate lots of companies because there will be a critical mass where we solve all these issues
I think T zero's doing a great job trying to solve this. There's tons of people in the crowdfunding space whether it's Republic we funder
Yeah, I mean, I think it's just I I want to get out of the conversation of a collateral asset like Bitcoin
Which I try to remind people we don't we don't pull out gold bars and go pay for coffee with gold bars
I'm looking for the day where yeah
My Bitcoin can sit on a credit card and I can actually go to a hotel and use it
So that's why whenever we do something at orthogonal, we're looking at, you know longitudinal aspects of really
disrupting the industry long term
And it's great. Um for the rest of speakers, by the way, if you have questions directly for David
We are in the AMA for orthogonal, but if you have direct questions, please feel free to raise your hands
So David the follow-up question I have with Justin. Did you have question? I saw a hand raise in the good. Yeah
Yeah, the question I formulated a comment earlier
But I think I can phrase this as a question because I'm really curious on your thoughts on this one as well. So
The way I see it is that these security tokens at the technology for this was always possible
But the problem, you know is is regulation right that creates a very high barrier to entry
But that security tokens by definition still have to comply to these regulations
So as far as I think this decreases costs today
It seems to be more like a temporary form of regulatory arbitrage unless the regulation catches up on the other end
However, I will say that you know real tokenized reward assets
I will say they're like an improvement of the old system
But they're more like an additional mechanism on top of the pre-existing system
So in that sense, it's not revolutionary. Let's say like native blockchain assets are
So they don't necessarily decrease
Cost but they do increase I think can improve them in different ways, right as long as we have like the regulatory
Environment so I just love love to hear your thoughts on that on that perspective
Yeah, I know. I totally agree with you
I mean we wrote our first white paper as a dividend token back in
2017 it was called orthogonal collective. It was a security token. So
We were we were very ahead of the curve
But now when we look at that and we look at one of the companies where we were early like Republic
You know, they did the security token the issue right now
Just like the issues we're having is the on-ramps and off-ramps the KYC and AML
investors wanting to invest in a public company and
You know the word orthogonal is two accesses coming together sort of in a in a term of
Serendipity like there's no mathematical equation at some point we will hit critical mass and and those two
Accesses will come together where you know
A security token is not going to be like a bulletin board stock. It will be freely traded
I think a lot of the issues that come up right now and I see it all the time when I'm dealing with our
Own public company is just a lot of the laws today are not
Empowering and again, I talk a lot about you know regime change and changes within
You know the u.s. In terms of the SEC and DOJ
Right now, unfortunately, there's still a super negative energy
Around all of this stuff. I'm actually not surprised that Bitcoin has gone down again
I'm somebody that buys daily. I believe in dollar-cost averaging and
I want to see this space start looking at things in like 10 year cycles
Let's build companies to empower this space because we all know that we need to go down this road
And you know, we're talking earlier. Thank you
Oh, no, yeah, and by the way others have questions for David, please feel free to raise your hands or just jump in and ask him
But you know David like falling on that we were talking about this earlier
But what is going to be the change right? Is this just going to be a gradual thing over years?
For people to see Bitcoin as an asset class, you know
Yeah, I'll give you a great example, uh, you know, we've been in the cannabis space for over 20 years at this point
Cannabis is federally illegal
But it is acceptable today in many states to sometimes not even have a dispensary license
So cannabis process the order through a credit card machine and yes
Do they check your driver's license and other things? Sure, but
It took literally 25 years. So I think a lot of people don't understand
So do we think this is gonna take is gonna be a 25-year?
You know, thankfully, it's not a product that you know, you take an edible and something bad can happen
No, I don't think it's 25 years
I'm actually as we timed this public company and you know
We're working on a number of token projects as well
We believe that the US is going to have a threshold change
Within the critical mass of our population in the next election cycle
And again, I get into a lot of debates and everybody wants to get into Trump versus Biden
Well, you got you guys are you guys are your space is that right?
We are a US based company the the actual company is traded out of the CSE on Canada
But it is also traded on the OTC and also on Frankfurt
So again, all of these things you're talking about
You know, I go back to seeing Coinbase at Y Combinator
Which you know, I was there live and direct and seeing how far that's come to today
A lot of people don't know this but Coinbase was actually partially funded through a company called founders Club
Where it was crowdfunded?
So I think a lot of this kind of a lot of these different what I would say
Progressive things that we're working on need to come together
I believe the cannabis space needs to be on the blockchain
So again till we are ready
It's like somebody that stops drinking or stops doing hard drugs till we're ready to get off the rollercoaster ride of like
The day will come when we're like, okay, we want full trust and transparency
We want everything auditable
Everything needs to be on the blockchain and I think we are closer than you can imagine and I am when I see a company
Has 15 trillion dollars on assets. I'm gonna bet on that company that they're gonna make it happen
So David I applaud you for you know building and building in America as a fellow American
I think it's become harder and harder to be a crypto entrepreneur in America for regulatory reasons
But I think the core and I was um, you know
Interviewing the CTO of ripple co-founder ripple David Schwartz on my podcast and he was like, you know
We're Americans we want to build in America
But it's been you know, really hard to build as a crypto entrepreneur in America
So one solution if you're American, right doesn't matter if you're not American yes
But if you're American then you either don't be in America, right?
So dy dx based in Brooklyn, for example is you know services everyone except Americans
Even though they're based in Brooklyn or number two you try to work with regulators, right?
Something akin to what coinbase has been doing so but David I think implicit in your comments
You're saying the change does have to be regulatory though
It's gonna be through critical mass at the end of the day Abu Dhabi has a NASDAQ small cap
When I look at my telegram groups and the different companies again
We our family office controls over a hundred positions a third of those are in
Companies that are in the blockchain and crypto space
It is a known fact that all these companies that have raised, you know sufficient amount of capital
They are looking for liquidity real liquidity
Right now real liquidity comes from a big board exchange like the nice year NASDAQ
What a lot of people don't understand is if you look at the metric of how many public companies we have today versus 10 years
The reason for that is because it's so difficult and cumbersome
Also, the positive thing is a lot of people have moved into the crypto space
Because it's the last free market left at some point all of these things have to line up
Where people decide that just like the cannabis space we're gonna have to have credit card processing
We're going this is even though it's federally illegal
We're going to have to work within legislation at a state level to make it work
I'm not suggesting that I am hoping at a federal level we can make this work
But the current administration whether it's been crowdfunding or cannabis or crypto
I mean, they've literally come after every every progressive business possible even crowdfunding and
That is never gonna get us ahead. That's why this administration whoever gets elected is going to change out everything
Imagine a new SEC without Gary Gensler. There's gonna be a conscious change
amongst all these agencies
Wow, I think it's so fascinating. So Michael welcome to the space like Wilkerson
Yeah, thank you. I have a no David
I just want to say how important what I think what you're doing is if you think about the regulatory battle that's going on
It's it's on many fronts and you've hit it, right?
You know, I've written a lot this year about the war from the SEC on crypto. It's not just yet
SEC it's the Treasury. It's the Fed
It's all the institutions that are working to undermine what crypto represents just to make the link back to
GBTC and the ETF it was sort of a non-crypto event
GBTC was not a great product. The fees are one and a half percent people in who were invested in 2023 were there for the trade
55% discount closing over the course of the back half of the year and got out
So that was part of the rotation you see so many ways and I'm trying to link the earlier conversation
That what we see happening in the ETF world is different
And I agree that it is important to onboard and bring in others into into crypto
But they're not really coming into crypto. They're coming into another sort of web 2.0 product
What you're doing with a fagonal is critical though
Because it is trying to address this across many many fronts and this in my mind
The regulatory battle is the real fight that we have
Yeah, no, I appreciate that. I would I would tell you that on a daily basis
I'm dealing with you know, a dozen law firms a day
Dealing with different investment bankers and I think the undertone amongst the people that are even in tri-fi
Let's say at let's say the top thousand public companies out there. They want to see a change people want to have
crypto on their balance sheet
When you scare auditors to get sued and you can't find an auditor for a public company
Or when you go to an auditor and they want to charge you a million dollars for an audit
That doesn't work. And again, I don't I don't mean to use, you know, these different metaphors
But when you beat up somebody and and again, the crypto space has been beaten up really badly during the Biden administration
Nobody's gonna feel empowered and I would say amongst the people that I know that are like, you know
People that are let's say the top 20 Bitcoin holders in the world. Some of them are like our personal friends
They're just standing on the sidelines. They they're waiting for this whole shakeout and
Again, if you look at them and then you look at the consensus of the mass population
Right now all that's going on is arbitrage and people trying to front-run, you know different announcements
That's not why we're in the space
Yeah, I mean talk about I
direct experience with trying to manage crypto on the corporate side and it's like even things like accounting rules like the FASB, right which
Is an accounting board based in the you know, US based accounting board, you know
They're trying to they're saying crypto is an intangible asset, right and it's on your book books at cost
Which as we know crypto is a 24-7 live globally traded, you know at that
You know and it's even more liquid than socks and stocks in a lot of ways
But you're stuck putting it on your books does for better or worse
By the way as an indefinite lived intangible asset. So I mean just like everything just go behind everything
What I can tell you because it's one of the reasons I'm going to Dubai because I want
That exposure to the Middle East. I think you know Dubai is so progressive and futuristic
I think people have like the wrong idea of it
But how does America I said something this morning?
Dubai is what America used to be and again when I talked to my father that moved here in the 70s
You want to come to America to achieve the American dream?
Not you know be somewhere that's unsafe and has regulatory concerns
And you don't know if you're doing something and all of a sudden, you know, the DOJ is gonna show up at your door
That's what's going on. And you know, furthermore, I sit down with people that have let's say
25,000 bitcoins or a hundred thousand bitcoins that are large companies that are saying
Okay, we need to wait till this next administration before we decide to go public and I think that you know circle
Obviously, we know those guys. They were also part of you know, the whole crowdfunding
They waited they they were timing this I guarantee you that s1 was sitting there waiting for this
So if if if I were to look at this
You're gonna have multi dozen companies coming out in the next 12 to 24 months that are companies that have been sitting on the sideline
With crypto assets. I'll point one out that you know again, we're a shareholder in this company and a moco and a mocha
They're they're definitely looking at a liquidity event because their investors want one
So they have to analyze where they're gonna go and what's a market that is appropriate
What is empowering and that's what I do like about the region in the Middle East
So fascinating. I feel like we have a whole space on that David. Just quick question your US based
Are you a US based in Bay Area based is based on your experience. I was based in the Bay Area
I lived in Hawaii for almost 20 years
I've actually relocated to Dubai
I'm very involved in the longevity and
psychedelic as well as cannabis space
Obviously these products are illegal in the Middle East
But just as far as looking at you know, the longevity space and the crypto space
I want to be somewhere that is empowering where we want the best for what humanity is
The world of drinking diet soda or soda with sugar
I mean 50 years later, we're finding out that causes cancer. So again
Whatever the system is today. It's not a free market in the tri-fi world and it needs to evolve immediately
And it's fascinating, you know, I feel like we've had keep this conversation going forever
But but now's the time to end so David want to go to you and say what do you have?
That you want to leave for the audience about
Orthogonal or any of your work? Yeah, what do you have to what you have to say for us?
I mean keep if you're on the space you obviously enjoy the blockchain crypto space
Keep building stop worrying about the price of Bitcoin. It's not something you need to worry about unless that's what you're arbitraging on a daily basis
You know, I'll take a line from Paul Graham. He says
Don't work on anything that isn't at least a 10 billion dollar market cap and that was you know, 13 years ago
So if you're looking at a space today, what is a trillion dollar space?
I actually think the real world asset and the crypto space. I think it's a
multi hundred multi hundred million hundred trillion dollar space
Frankly, I think it's around 300 trillion to be honest with you. I
Think it's pretty incredible. Well, yeah, you dropped that bomb at the end and this is the last comment
All right. Well, I had lots of comments about that, but we did say we're gonna end
So I said David, I want to say thank you for joining the space been a pleasure having you
First of all, thank you for everybody
Waheed Mario great to meet everybody and again, just keep building. That's what it's all about
No, thanks. Thanks for everything
Yeah, aloha. All right. Well, thanks everybody for joining the space
Please follow all the speakers follow David and orthogonal and we look forward to seeing you on the next show. Take care everybody