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Speaker 1: Welcome to the Fear and Greed summer series. I'm Michael

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Speaker 1: Thompson and today, k pop music rights surely one of

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Speaker 1: the more unusual investing ideas that we've talked about here.

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Speaker 1: As always, this is general information only and you need

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Speaker 1: to get advice tailored to you before making investment decisions.

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Speaker 1: Stefan von Imoff is the co founder of alternative investing

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Speaker 1: community fund Alts dot Coster Fun. Welcome back to Fear

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Speaker 1: and Greed.

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Speaker 2: Good to be here. It's start K pop K Pop.

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Speaker 1: Demon Hunters this year, right, there's the Netflix movie that

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Speaker 1: just took off. It really brought K pop to the

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Speaker 1: world in a big way. K pop has been around

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Speaker 1: for a while, but it's just had a belter of

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Speaker 1: a year, hasn't it.

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Speaker 2: It has.

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Speaker 3: I mean, you know, Korean culture in general has kind

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Speaker 3: of had a great you know, past five to ten years.

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Speaker 3: You think, you know, movies like Parasite. You know which

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Speaker 3: one best best picture? Yeah, Squid Game most popular TV

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Speaker 3: show on Netflix of all time until K Pop Demon

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Speaker 3: Hunters came and just broke every record in the book.

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Speaker 3: It's the most It is the most popular Netflix movie

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Speaker 3: ever and I think it did take people by surprise

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Speaker 3: just how popular it is.

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Speaker 2: I don't know if you've seen it. I happen it is.

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Speaker 2: The songs are catchy, it's a good story. I get it.

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Speaker 2: I like it.

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Speaker 1: Yeah, yeah, Look I've got young kids, so it was

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Speaker 1: a hit in our household. But it was interesting for

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Speaker 1: the insight that it gave into the industry, and because.

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Speaker 2: K pop.

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Speaker 1: Is a very manufactured space, isn't it. It take us

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Speaker 1: through a little bit of kind of how basically the

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Speaker 1: pop idols within K pop are created. Because it is

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Speaker 1: a process that begins quite early.

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Speaker 3: It's actually manufactured on two levels. What a lot of

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Speaker 3: people don't realize is Korean culture in generals is boosted

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Speaker 3: and manufactured by the Korean government, which has spent billions

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Speaker 3: and billions of dollars to basically promote a Korean wave

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Speaker 3: around the world. So that's kind of an undertold story

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Speaker 3: in this whole thing. But within that, yes, absolutely, the

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Speaker 3: k pop is think of it as like a machine.

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Speaker 3: Like these are not you know, like random acts that

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Speaker 3: are kind of coming up.

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Speaker 2: These are manufactured.

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Speaker 3: They're basically like startups, right, and so you've got like

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Speaker 3: three big companies in Korea that are basically treating these

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Speaker 3: these groups like startups. They're they're incubators, right. They there

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Speaker 3: are these these talent shows where you know, Koreans basically

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Speaker 3: vote on who should be in each group, and it's like,

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Speaker 3: you know, lasts a whole year and then they basically

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Speaker 3: put the group together at the end of the show,

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Speaker 3: and you know, that group becomes like a great, you know,

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Speaker 3: best selling group. So it is very much manufactured. The

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Speaker 3: idols are scouted as teenagers, they're trained for years to

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Speaker 3: sing and dance. It's all very orchestrated, and I mean, yeah,

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Speaker 3: it's working very well all of a sudden on a

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Speaker 3: global scale.

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Speaker 1: Yeah, and there's been some big successes in recent years

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Speaker 1: of BTS, Black Pink as well. And it's more than

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Speaker 1: the music. There is the culture around it, collectibles and

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Speaker 1: everything as well. That it is a business on a

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Speaker 1: massive scale. Run Just to show you how big it is. Hunterricks,

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Speaker 1: which is the fake band from K Pop Demon Hunters.

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Speaker 1: This isn't a real group that actually exists. It was

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Speaker 1: created solely for the movie.

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Speaker 3: Was the number one artist in the world on Billboard

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Speaker 3: for weeks after K Pop Demon Hunters came out, and

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Speaker 3: they don't actually exist. There's no actual touring group there,

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Speaker 3: So yeah, I mean it's absolutely I think the entire

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Speaker 3: K pop culture is valued at about thirty one billion

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Speaker 3: dollars last year, and that's certainly going to go up

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Speaker 3: year after year in the future.

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Speaker 1: Investors, how can I make money from this? Because clearly

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Speaker 1: there's a lot of money going around within this industry.

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Speaker 1: And is it just something for that's kind of confined

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Speaker 1: geographically to Korea or is there an opportunity there for

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Speaker 1: people elsewhere in the world.

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Speaker 2: There's lots of ways to invest.

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Speaker 3: It's definitely not confined to Korea, and if you're jay

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Speaker 3: Z you know that more than anybody. So he actually

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Speaker 3: just two days ago announced that he's, through his investment firm,

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Speaker 3: is putting in half a billion dollars into Korean culture.

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Speaker 3: So this is going to target growth stage companies and entertainment, beauty,

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Speaker 3: not just music, but also music, food, lifestyle, and he's

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Speaker 3: partnering with a Korean company to kind of, you know,

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Speaker 3: identify the potential winners and.

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Speaker 2: Jay Z's goals to help them scale globally.

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Speaker 3: He sees what's happening here now, not everyone's jay Z,

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Speaker 3: and not everyone has access to jay Z's fund. Luckily,

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Speaker 3: little tiny funds like ours can get a slice as well,

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Speaker 3: so we're getting in on the fund. We have invested

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Speaker 3: in a group called Twice, which is one of the

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Speaker 3: They're kind of like the Nirvana of K pop. They've

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Speaker 3: been around forever, right, They've been around for ten years,

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Speaker 3: which in k pop is a very long time. They

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Speaker 3: actually have two songs on the Demon hunter soundtrack, and

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Speaker 3: so we're investing in the publishing rights of a handful

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Speaker 3: of Twice songs. So there are ways for the everyday

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Speaker 3: retail investor to invest.

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Speaker 1: Yes, it's a fascinating space and based on what happened

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Speaker 1: in twenty twenty five, you would expect that k pop

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Speaker 1: it certainly hasn't peaked. In Australia, you would say.

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Speaker 2: It certainly hasn't peaked. I don't think anywhere.

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Speaker 3: I mean, Netflix just announced K Pop Demon Hunters two

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Speaker 3: is coming out. Unfortunately they said it's not going to

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Speaker 3: be released still twenty twenty eight. I'm really hoping they

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Speaker 3: can push that up to twenty twenty six to twenty

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Speaker 3: twenty seven for the sake of my own investments.

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Speaker 2: However.

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Speaker 3: Yeah, so the fight is to say the wave has nowhere.

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Speaker 3: There's no indication that it is peaked.

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Speaker 1: I'm really not sure whether you're speaking as an investor

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Speaker 1: or as a as a K pop fan. Then now

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Speaker 1: I think the two are starting to blur a little bit.

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Speaker 2: Mate.

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Speaker 3: I'll tell you what I know far more about this

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Speaker 3: world than any forty three year old, self respecting individuals

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Speaker 3: should know.

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Speaker 2: I'll tell you that that is fantastic.

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Speaker 1: Stefan, thank you for talking to Fear and Greed summer series.

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Speaker 2: Thanks mate, that was to find.

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Speaker 1: Volume off from alts dot Co. Don't forget to follow

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Speaker 1: on the podcast. There are new episodes every day during

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Speaker 1: our summer series, and regular shows are back.

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Speaker 2: From January twelve.

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Speaker 1: I'm Michael Thompson and this is Fear and Greed