Speaker 1: Bloomberg Audio Studios, podcasts, Radio News Now to our exclusive
Speaker 1: coverage from the Wyoming Blockchain Symposium. Joining us now is
Speaker 1: Crack and CEO Argren sat Cracking Insault, hosting the symposium
Speaker 1: this week. Argune, good to chat with you again. I
Speaker 1: know you weren't at the event last year, but I
Speaker 1: imagine the vibes even this year quite a bit different,
Speaker 1: given the regulatory outlook, given the excitement, and of course
Speaker 1: given the price increase that we've seen in so many
Speaker 1: of these digital assets. What are the vibes like?
Speaker 2: Look, I think you just have a large amount of
Speaker 2: tailwinds from what you saw last year, obviously with members
Speaker 2: of Senate, members of House, etc. And so you have
Speaker 2: a lot of excitement between folks that are here in
Speaker 2: the United States and outside the United States thinking about
Speaker 2: what's going to be the next evolution of building on blockchain,
Speaker 2: building on crypto, building with global liquidity in mind. So
Speaker 2: the vibe here is great. Like we're in Jackson HALLWAYOM
Speaker 2: right before the meeting with the rest of the FED,
Speaker 2: and you just got a lot of excitement in the room.
Speaker 1: What do you think is the next evolution of this technology?
Speaker 1: The next evolution of the blockchain. What's your view?
Speaker 2: So, I mean, we're really early. We just had at
Speaker 2: the symposium, we kicked it off and we started talking
Speaker 2: about global finance and what's going to happen in the ecosystem.
Speaker 2: We had a very us look at it, and then
Speaker 2: we had a very zero sum look at it, which is,
Speaker 2: you know, the value of bitcoin is going to be
Speaker 2: more sons with gold and on. Our take has been
Speaker 2: more that bitcoin is a protocol, it's a network, and
Speaker 2: you have another set of protocols like etch et cetera,
Speaker 2: and that the way in which we think about it
Speaker 2: today is very linear and it's hard to think about
Speaker 2: what is exponential and super linear. And so the way
Speaker 2: I think about it is that we're just in the
Speaker 2: really really early innings of what's going to be trillions
Speaker 2: of trillions of dollars coming into the ecosystem, building against it,
Speaker 2: and then the value continuing to grow.
Speaker 1: Can you explain more your thesis behind bigco being a
Speaker 1: protocol or being something that you build on, because I
Speaker 1: don't necessarily hear that from people who buy bitcoin or
Speaker 1: necessarily see that, because right now it just looks like
Speaker 1: people are using this as a way to build wealth
Speaker 1: they're buying and they're holding because they think the price
Speaker 1: will continue.
Speaker 2: To go up. Look, whenever in history you've had anything
Speaker 2: starting to grow at a certain velocity, people will have
Speaker 2: different interpretations of what it means. And so the first
Speaker 2: version of what you've seen in crypto Bitcoin, which has
Speaker 2: been the default it's an on ramp and off ramp
Speaker 2: into crypto, has been that like, this will be the
Speaker 2: store of value and this is where I think I
Speaker 2: can make money. So you have volatility across the way,
Speaker 2: and you've also seen the asset continue to grow. I
Speaker 2: think there's a certain amount of people that want to
Speaker 2: perpetuate that. Then there's just what is the technology of
Speaker 2: what you're allowed to be able to do with bitcoin
Speaker 2: and how that's going to continue to be perpetuated and preserved.
Speaker 2: And so remember look at the original thesis of the
Speaker 2: Bitcoin white paper. It was to be a hedge, but
Speaker 2: at the same time was sending and receiving payments. So
Speaker 2: you've got a lot of folks coming at it from
Speaker 2: different angles. When you have a lot of folks coming
Speaker 2: at it from a different angle, and it's a protocol
Speaker 2: and it's a network and it's a store value, there's
Speaker 2: just so many different applications that are going to be
Speaker 2: built around it and within it. Then there's a next
Speaker 2: set of folks that are thinking about how to build
Speaker 2: around it, which is what we've seen with Eth then Solana.
Speaker 2: The list kind of goes on. They're all you know,
Speaker 2: combined together. And I think what people miss is that
Speaker 2: we're just in the early innings of what the market
Speaker 2: cap is, you know, in the trillions today, what happens
Speaker 2: in five years, what happens in twenty years.
Speaker 1: I want to home in on that point that you
Speaker 1: made about this being something that is used to exchange
Speaker 1: for goods or services, As you said, it was in
Speaker 1: the white paper more than a dozen years ago. At
Speaker 1: this point, are we seeing that play out at all
Speaker 1: right now when it comes to bigcoin specifically, or are
Speaker 1: people just buying and holding it. I'm not seeing prices
Speaker 1: denoted in bitcoin by any means.
Speaker 2: That's right. Well, there's some folks that are trying to
Speaker 2: take you know, payments in bitcoin, but I think the
Speaker 2: overall you know arching thesis today and the usage is
Speaker 2: you know, buy and hold and then watch the value
Speaker 2: a crew. But you are starting to see people try
Speaker 2: to bridge against it and build against it, and so
Speaker 2: it's really early. Most of this innovation you see is
Speaker 2: happening outside of the United States, but a lot of
Speaker 2: what we're trying to figure out is like how do
Speaker 2: we bring it into the United States, keep it here,
Speaker 2: control it here, and perpetuate it here so that innovation
Speaker 2: continues to grow in the United States.
Speaker 1: One more on the market and then I want to
Speaker 1: get to crack in specifically and the roadmap and sort
Speaker 1: of theory and strategy there. Where do you think we
Speaker 1: are in the cycle? Given there's been so much pull
Speaker 1: forward since the November election and on optimism over the
Speaker 1: regulatory environment you mentioned just you know at the beginning
Speaker 1: of our interview, the optimism around that. Where do you
Speaker 1: think we are in the cryptocycle? Are we at the
Speaker 1: top or is there more room to run higher?
Speaker 2: Look, I wear another hat chairman at Tribe Capital, and
Speaker 2: one of the first things I tell any entrepreneur that
Speaker 2: I work with is the word hubris is really important
Speaker 2: as you grow. And so as you grow at a
Speaker 2: high velocity, a lot of people will think about your
Speaker 2: company as you know, as a prime candidate. And so
Speaker 2: what happens is you think about the supply and demand
Speaker 2: of any type of valuation. When there's more eyes looking
Speaker 2: at something, the value of that asset tends to accrup
Speaker 2: and sometimes that's not healthy. So where we are in
Speaker 2: the market, when I think about where we are in
Speaker 2: the market with crypto, we're really really early in the slope.
Speaker 2: But it doesn't mean that you won't have any ups
Speaker 2: and downs and volatility along the way. And I would
Speaker 2: say that if I was to just look at it
Speaker 2: from a pure numbers perspective, I think we're in the
Speaker 2: middle of the road. And the more we get market structure,
Speaker 2: the more we get market stability, the more inflow of
Speaker 2: capital that comes in. I mean, take a look at
Speaker 2: like the DATS. You can make an argument that it's
Speaker 2: good for the ecosystem. We can also make an argument
Speaker 2: that there's a lot of folks that are sort of
Speaker 2: thinking about crypto fast and loose. And it reminds me
Speaker 2: and it's reminiscent of what you saw on twenty twenty one,
Speaker 2: where the discipline approach around building a business starts to
Speaker 2: go away and it trickles away. And so I think,
Speaker 2: you know, the way in which we carry ourselves is
Speaker 2: more about what's the disciplined approach to making sure that
Speaker 2: we're catering towards our customers what do they need rather
Speaker 2: than speculation. So I think we're in the middle of
Speaker 2: the road, but it doesn't mean that we can't have
Speaker 2: hubris in this category over the next year or two.
Speaker 1: Hey, before we go, I want to try to get
Speaker 1: some updates on how you're thinking about the road to
Speaker 1: a publicly traded company at CRACK and can you give
Speaker 1: us an update on your IPO when it will take place,
Speaker 1: any banker's size, anything color around that.
Speaker 2: Sure. Look, I think people use the word public markets
Speaker 2: as if it's like a race to an exit, and
Speaker 2: like we're private. We've stayed private. We've raised less than
Speaker 2: twenty five million in capital since twenty eleven, and we've
Speaker 2: been able to stay disciplined. The way we think about
Speaker 2: our journey along the way private or public is that
Speaker 2: isn't in the best service to our clients and our customers.
Speaker 2: If the answer is no, we won't go public. And
Speaker 2: so there's no real update there. It's just that you
Speaker 2: know we're profitable, We give our quarterly updates, and we
Speaker 2: want to make sure from a counterparty risk perspective, trust
Speaker 2: is the currency that we.
Speaker 1: Care about what are your takeaways from recent IPOs of
Speaker 1: firms in the space circle. For example, we saw Bullish
Speaker 1: last week. The investor appetite was certainly there for that one.
Speaker 1: What are your thoughts.
Speaker 2: If I use the framework of intrinsic value versus options value.
Speaker 2: My personal belief is that a lot of these companies
Speaker 2: in the crypto ecosystems are option valued, So they're overvalued
Speaker 2: in my perspective. And in some cases that is a
Speaker 2: good thing and and a bad thing, which is you're
Speaker 2: getting more attention and so you know more about what's
Speaker 2: happening in the industry. But I think it's really important
Speaker 2: to just take a look at, you know, how are
Speaker 2: these companies growing efficiently? Where do they make their money,
Speaker 2: where do they not and where do the losses recruit?
Speaker 2: And so again, taking a step back, how do these
Speaker 2: companies actually grow the industry, How do they grow themselves?
Speaker 2: And are they actually fighting intrinsic value to themselves and
Speaker 2: their shareholders is what matters most.
Speaker 1: So which companies do you look at and say those
Speaker 1: are overvalued?
Speaker 2: Well, I mean, you know, I think any company that
Speaker 2: gets into a category of a meme tend to get overvalued.
Speaker 2: I don't think that's necessarily good or bad. You just
Speaker 2: take a look at the numbers and say, like, does
Speaker 2: it actually make sense for where they're going to be
Speaker 2: in two years, five years, and ten years. So I
Speaker 2: don't have any specific perspective on which one is overvalued.
Speaker 2: I just think the world of crypto has become a
Speaker 2: more overvalue with the dats and the companies that have
Speaker 2: been going public.
Speaker 1: Yeah, it's been pretty wild to follow this just over
Speaker 1: the last few months, and what a difference we've seen
Speaker 1: in a little, you know, over a year at this point. Hey,
Speaker 1: one more for you on the public markets and what's
Speaker 1: happening there. Are you concerned at all about all the
Speaker 1: companies that are going public sort of taking away interest
Speaker 1: from a potential IPO for you, or sort of taking
Speaker 1: the air out of the room when it comes to
Speaker 1: investors who want to invest in a company that is
Speaker 1: in the crypto space, By the time you get there,
Speaker 1: maybe the interest won't be there because there are so
Speaker 1: many others.
Speaker 2: Well, I've been around around a lot long time in
Speaker 2: Silicon Valley, and I think what you've seen is that
Speaker 2: there's a race. You know, it's kind of let me
Speaker 2: put my idea on a napkin and raise, you know,
Speaker 2: tens of millions, one hundred millions of dollars. Put a
Speaker 2: dot com at the end of my company and take
Speaker 2: it public. I think good companies get valued because they're
Speaker 2: good and because they're able to continue to execute.
Speaker 1: Argent Safety Kraken's CEO. Always good to see you, Argent,
Speaker 1: thanks so much for joining us on Bloomberg Crypto