WEBVTT - How Tech and Finance Push Bitcoin Mainstream | Cory Klippsten 0:00:13.760 --> 0:00:16.840 Everyone, Welcome to another episode of the Market Disruptor Show. 0:00:17.760 --> 0:00:20.919 Today I am sitting down and joined by Corey Clipston. 0:00:21.360 --> 0:00:24.720 He has another bitcoiner he is, uh, got a pretty 0:00:24.800 --> 0:00:28.000 wide range of background, really really interesting person and I 0:00:28.080 --> 0:00:30.120 can't wait to dive in with him. Corey, welcome to 0:00:30.160 --> 0:00:32.400 the show. Mark, thanks for having me on. It's it's 0:00:32.400 --> 0:00:36.720 good to meet another so cal bitcoiner here on video anyway, 0:00:36.720 --> 0:00:39.159 and I look forward to hanging out in person at 0:00:39.159 --> 0:00:42.519 some point. Yeah. Thanks, Uh, Yeah, I love talking bitcoin. 0:00:42.600 --> 0:00:44.680 If you watched any of my shows, you know that already. 0:00:44.720 --> 0:00:48.199 But Corey, you know so just for everybody watching, want 0:00:48.200 --> 0:00:49.760 you give us a little bit of a background, just 0:00:50.200 --> 0:00:52.080 who you are, a couple of minutes on who you 0:00:52.080 --> 0:00:55.040 are and where you've been. Yeah, absolutely so. Right now today, 0:00:55.120 --> 0:00:57.600 I'm the founder and CEO of a company called Swan 0:00:57.640 --> 0:01:01.280 Bitcoin swan bitcoin dot com. Uh. Going back a few decades, 0:01:01.920 --> 0:01:04.960 I started out my career working at Microsoft. Was at 0:01:05.000 --> 0:01:07.440 Morgan Stanley for a little while doing like high net 0:01:07.480 --> 0:01:11.760 worth client marketing UM, and that was just before business school. 0:01:11.800 --> 0:01:14.040 Went to University of Chicago, got an NBA in finance 0:01:14.040 --> 0:01:17.080 and entrepreneurship. There after that was that McKenzie and Company, 0:01:17.120 --> 0:01:19.720 the management consulting company out in their New York office, 0:01:20.160 --> 0:01:22.520 did private equity consulting with my own firm out of 0:01:22.560 --> 0:01:26.000 Chicago for a couple of years before another little stint, 0:01:26.080 --> 0:01:29.360 and management consulting through the downturn like eight to eleven. 0:01:29.680 --> 0:01:31.760 It was probably about two thousand nine two ten that 0:01:31.800 --> 0:01:34.440 I really caught the the early stage tech bug and 0:01:34.440 --> 0:01:36.319 really decided I wanted to spend the rest of my 0:01:36.400 --> 0:01:40.200 career building startups, investing in startups, and being in kind 0:01:40.200 --> 0:01:43.559 of a startup ecosystem. Was kind of sick of fixing 0:01:43.560 --> 0:01:46.280 other people's problems and consulting in private equity and cleaning 0:01:46.360 --> 0:01:48.520 up their messes, and I decided I wanted to make 0:01:48.560 --> 0:01:50.880 my own mistakes and build things. So I went to 0:01:50.920 --> 0:01:52.680 Google for two years really just to kind of do 0:01:52.760 --> 0:01:55.360 b school apart to the Internet version, and learned as 0:01:55.440 --> 0:01:59.320 much as I could. Fen met something like fifteen vcs 0:01:59.320 --> 0:02:02.600 and founders, was mentoring startups, organizing tech meetups and things 0:02:02.600 --> 0:02:04.720 like that out of Chicago and l A and UH. 0:02:04.840 --> 0:02:07.880 By summer of about six months after moving my family 0:02:07.920 --> 0:02:10.400 to Los Angeles, I was confident enough that I could 0:02:10.440 --> 0:02:13.320 leave Google, jump in with two feet start advising investing 0:02:13.320 --> 0:02:15.920 and looking for startups to help operate. And that's what 0:02:15.960 --> 0:02:17.720 I've been doing for the last seven years. So you've 0:02:17.760 --> 0:02:21.520 been helping startups operator get start up, I guess, and 0:02:21.520 --> 0:02:23.760 then you finally decided to take the plunge and started 0:02:23.800 --> 0:02:25.760 up on your own. Yeah, well I did take the plunge. 0:02:25.880 --> 0:02:29.800 From late thirteen to late fifteen, I was on the 0:02:29.840 --> 0:02:32.160 senior team of an ad tech startup that did pretty 0:02:32.160 --> 0:02:33.359 well and raised a bunch of money and at a 0:02:33.360 --> 0:02:35.320 bunch of vcs and kind of went through that thing, 0:02:35.919 --> 0:02:39.320 and I came out of that kind of combining prowess 0:02:39.320 --> 0:02:41.640 and fundraising, which I've been doing, you know, off and 0:02:41.680 --> 0:02:44.959 on for sixteen years now, and strategy from all the 0:02:44.960 --> 0:02:48.000 work that I've done in consulting and uh basically worked 0:02:48.000 --> 0:02:50.720 with something like thirty CEOs over the next four years 0:02:50.760 --> 0:02:54.240 on strategy and fundraising, helped raise over a quarter billion 0:02:54.280 --> 0:02:58.640 dollars across twenty companies and thirty rounds, and and also 0:02:58.680 --> 0:03:01.640 continued to make angel investment throughout. So I built myself 0:03:01.680 --> 0:03:04.520 a nice little like a name and some experience and 0:03:04.600 --> 0:03:07.160 kind of got my uh, you know, my master's degree 0:03:07.360 --> 0:03:10.200 in in startups and got to the point where you know, 0:03:10.200 --> 0:03:12.560 I've been kicking around ideas for a while of something 0:03:12.600 --> 0:03:14.520 to start and had some fits and starts of things 0:03:14.560 --> 0:03:17.880 outside the bitcoin space, and nothing really you know, got 0:03:17.919 --> 0:03:21.239 my attention and passion to the point where this did 0:03:21.400 --> 0:03:24.640 and this, uh you know, bitcoin grabbed me, never let go. 0:03:24.720 --> 0:03:26.919 And once I had the idea for for what I'm 0:03:26.919 --> 0:03:28.840 doing in the space, now it grabbed me and never 0:03:28.919 --> 0:03:31.320 let go and it's just become a reality because I 0:03:31.360 --> 0:03:33.640 couldn't do anything else. Yeah, I know, I know what 0:03:33.680 --> 0:03:36.680 you're talking about. So, um, just for everybody that's watching, 0:03:36.720 --> 0:03:39.080 we're gonna go through a bunch of information and um, 0:03:39.120 --> 0:03:41.480 if you are new to bitcoin, um, you probably have 0:03:41.520 --> 0:03:43.200 a whole bunch of objections in your head. We're gonna 0:03:43.280 --> 0:03:45.200 run through those towards the end to make sure you 0:03:45.200 --> 0:03:48.120 stick around for that. But um, Corey, So it's interesting 0:03:48.200 --> 0:03:50.240 that you know, you've been through all these different businesses, 0:03:50.320 --> 0:03:52.560 the ins and outs of it, inside the belly of 0:03:52.600 --> 0:03:55.560 the beast almost so to speak. Right, like lit working 0:03:56.120 --> 0:03:59.040 in the financial system you had mentioned, like Mackenzie Morgan, 0:03:59.120 --> 0:04:01.480 stan Stanley. I mean, they're like as as deep as 0:04:01.480 --> 0:04:03.800 you can get kind of right. Yeah, absolutely, it was 0:04:04.000 --> 0:04:06.120 right in the thick of it. I was even spent 0:04:06.160 --> 0:04:08.000 a lot of that time at Mackenzie working in Financial 0:04:08.040 --> 0:04:10.720 Institutions group and putting together you know, financial models for 0:04:10.720 --> 0:04:14.640 new products for financial firms things like that. Yeah, so, 0:04:14.760 --> 0:04:16.720 you know, I find it interesting because you have like 0:04:16.760 --> 0:04:19.599 this very deep background in finance and then you also 0:04:19.640 --> 0:04:23.080 have a deep background in tech at the same time. So, um, 0:04:23.120 --> 0:04:25.160 you know, bitcoin is a lot of different things, and 0:04:25.160 --> 0:04:28.200 it's definitely finance and tech. Right, So when did you 0:04:28.279 --> 0:04:31.159 first hear about bitcoin and when did you decide to 0:04:31.240 --> 0:04:33.400 finally get in? I mean, even someone that knows as 0:04:33.520 --> 0:04:35.400 much as you do, like tell me how that journey 0:04:35.400 --> 0:04:37.800 worked out. Well, this is why I would say, like, 0:04:38.000 --> 0:04:40.800 if you felt like, you know, you heard about bitcoin 0:04:40.800 --> 0:04:43.040 in twenty or twenty eighteen and didn't get in or 0:04:43.080 --> 0:04:44.520 got it, you know, heard about it last year and 0:04:44.520 --> 0:04:48.800 still didn't get in, it's absolutely not too late. In fact, 0:04:48.960 --> 0:04:50.800 every day that you wait is only going to hurt 0:04:50.839 --> 0:04:53.400 you in the future, because the chances are this thing 0:04:53.480 --> 0:04:56.080 becomes ubiquitous and we all end up pricing goods and 0:04:56.120 --> 0:04:59.800 services globally in bitcoin, you know, So like the earlier 0:04:59.839 --> 0:05:02.400 you can start learning about it and understanding it. The better. 0:05:02.480 --> 0:05:05.360 So that's my first bit of imploring you to take 0:05:05.400 --> 0:05:07.440 this seriously. It's kind of like the old proverb the 0:05:07.440 --> 0:05:09.040 best time to plan a three is twenty years ago. 0:05:09.080 --> 0:05:13.320 Second best time is today exactly exactly. Yeah, um, you 0:05:13.360 --> 0:05:15.640 know so, so don't feel bad if it didn't take 0:05:15.680 --> 0:05:18.880 the first time. It's the story of of people that 0:05:18.920 --> 0:05:21.240 are heavy in the bitcoin today, the bitcoin founders, even 0:05:21.279 --> 0:05:24.440 the coders that that work on Bitcoin Corps, the people 0:05:24.440 --> 0:05:26.520 that write about it and have podcasts. Like, most of 0:05:26.560 --> 0:05:29.159 these people missed it the first time around. I was 0:05:29.600 --> 0:05:34.320 at a tech conference in uh January and uh, and 0:05:34.400 --> 0:05:36.480 somebody had a blockchain wallet and was given away fifty 0:05:36.480 --> 0:05:38.640 dollars for everybody that installed a blockchain wallet. And I 0:05:38.839 --> 0:05:41.440 got my bitcoin on my blockchain wallet, and I proceeded 0:05:41.480 --> 0:05:43.720 to not read the white paper, not go down the 0:05:43.760 --> 0:05:47.880 rabbit hole, and lose the private key. Oh and you know. 0:05:48.240 --> 0:05:51.360 And then in December, I was at a Buddies holiday 0:05:51.360 --> 0:05:54.039 party up in Santa Barbara and uh, he knew knows 0:05:54.080 --> 0:05:56.240 what I do, and he asked me to help him 0:05:56.400 --> 0:05:58.679 basically put together like a marketing deck for a series 0:05:58.720 --> 0:06:01.560 I'll see that had stakes of his that he had 0:06:01.600 --> 0:06:03.839 in in eight different startups, and one of them was 0:06:04.040 --> 0:06:08.359 Balagi's company, which is like early bitcoin mining attempt, and 0:06:08.360 --> 0:06:12.880 another one was ripple Um, which is trash but you 0:06:12.920 --> 0:06:15.240 know as a company, but you know, And so I 0:06:15.240 --> 0:06:17.440 had another opportunity. I was like reading up on bitcoin 0:06:17.480 --> 0:06:19.680 over the holidays and putting together these slides for him, 0:06:19.720 --> 0:06:21.679 and like it still didn't take. I was so busy 0:06:21.720 --> 0:06:24.440 with other things and other clients and investments and things 0:06:24.480 --> 0:06:27.320 like that, Like it just didn't didn't click. It wasn't 0:06:27.400 --> 0:06:30.400 until I'm a pretty social animal. I like to organize things. 0:06:30.480 --> 0:06:32.880 I like to recruit people, like like to throw parties. 0:06:32.920 --> 0:06:34.880 I like to you know, you know, just basically like 0:06:34.920 --> 0:06:38.520 throw conferences. Like I always organizing people. And I take 0:06:38.600 --> 0:06:40.920 my cues a lot more than I probably should from 0:06:40.920 --> 0:06:42.960 what's going on around me. And it was only the 0:06:43.000 --> 0:06:46.680 noise of the price run up in bitcoin and ethereum 0:06:46.839 --> 0:06:48.839 and then all of these people jumping over into I 0:06:48.880 --> 0:06:53.120 c O projects in spring of that really caught my attention. 0:06:53.720 --> 0:06:56.200 And it was only by luck that one of the 0:06:56.240 --> 0:07:00.480 first kindly say alt coin fund founders, Uh, this is 0:07:00.440 --> 0:07:03.440 who running a crypto fund? Uh? And I guess he 0:07:03.520 --> 0:07:05.120 liked me, and he knew what he was doing with 0:07:05.160 --> 0:07:08.400 all the I c O crap insisted that I read 0:07:08.560 --> 0:07:11.119 digital gold first and that I buy some bitcoin first. 0:07:11.320 --> 0:07:15.280 So thank goodness for that gentleman, who's another guy here 0:07:15.280 --> 0:07:17.760 in so cal forced me to at least start there, 0:07:17.840 --> 0:07:20.320 and I think that gave me just enough of like 0:07:20.360 --> 0:07:23.400 a head start on bitcoin to make what what people 0:07:23.440 --> 0:07:26.600 call your am I allowed to use off color language 0:07:26.600 --> 0:07:28.800 on this show, Mark Sure, go for it. Okay. Well, 0:07:28.840 --> 0:07:31.360 a lot of people in bitcoin refer to a shipcoin 0:07:31.440 --> 0:07:34.640 horse shoe, which is basically most people do start in 0:07:34.680 --> 0:07:37.040 the space in bitcoin, and then you basically have a 0:07:37.040 --> 0:07:39.760 shipcoin journey where you're like, go and explore everything else 0:07:39.760 --> 0:07:42.640 because why wouldn't you. You're a curious person. And eventually 0:07:42.640 --> 0:07:44.880 you finish your horse shoe journey and come back to bitcoin. 0:07:45.040 --> 0:07:48.400 Thank goodness for this guy getting me started. My my 0:07:48.520 --> 0:07:51.080 shipcoin horse shoe only took about ten or eleven months, 0:07:51.200 --> 0:07:53.240 and by then I was actually already working full time 0:07:53.240 --> 0:07:55.920 in the space. I had taken over as president and 0:07:55.960 --> 0:07:58.960 chief investment officer of a crypto fund UH in early 0:07:59.360 --> 0:08:03.160 eighteen terrible timing, but yeah, by like March or April 0:08:03.200 --> 0:08:05.840 of that year, I wanted nothing to do with any 0:08:05.880 --> 0:08:07.320 of the I c O s or the cryptos, and 0:08:07.320 --> 0:08:08.760 I saw no value in any of them. And I 0:08:08.800 --> 0:08:10.720 saw bitcoin as a money that would you know, trend 0:08:10.760 --> 0:08:13.200 toward one and the hardest money ever and all the 0:08:13.240 --> 0:08:15.320 things that you talk about in your videos. And so 0:08:15.320 --> 0:08:17.920 I basically spent about six months trying to extricate myself 0:08:17.920 --> 0:08:20.800 from the situation of having hired a dozen people and 0:08:20.920 --> 0:08:25.160 uh and having responsibilities and etcetera. And uh, yes, since 0:08:25.920 --> 0:08:29.280 I left completely by the beginning of August or late August, 0:08:30.320 --> 0:08:32.240 and basically spent the next six months trying to figure 0:08:32.240 --> 0:08:34.960 out what to do in bitcoin. I really wanted to 0:08:35.000 --> 0:08:38.280 do something in this space, and I finally figured it out. 0:08:38.360 --> 0:08:41.720 And it's the most obvious thing that you could possibly 0:08:41.760 --> 0:08:44.079 think of, the new business that you finally decided to 0:08:44.120 --> 0:08:46.480 jump into. It is the most obvious thing. It's the 0:08:46.480 --> 0:08:49.080 most obvious thing that you could possibly think of to 0:08:49.120 --> 0:08:53.720 do with bitcoin, yeah, which is selling it sell bitcoin. Yeah. 0:08:53.960 --> 0:08:56.080 And it's it's so funny. And this is again, this 0:08:56.160 --> 0:08:58.680 is that this is like having the wrong mental framework. 0:08:58.760 --> 0:09:00.920 You know, I got caught up with all these uh 0:09:01.000 --> 0:09:03.400 these all coins thinking that you know, maybe bitcoins my 0:09:03.440 --> 0:09:05.959 Space and Facebook is around the corner, or maybe it's 0:09:05.960 --> 0:09:07.640 like tech and there's all these other things that can 0:09:07.679 --> 0:09:09.920 kind of do different versions of the same thing, and 0:09:09.960 --> 0:09:12.920 it's like, no, actually, bitcoin's money, and tech enables it, 0:09:12.960 --> 0:09:14.840 and it's this protocol and there's some other cool things. 0:09:14.840 --> 0:09:16.280 So it's like a new kind of money. But at 0:09:16.280 --> 0:09:18.040 the end of the day, it's money. It's the hardest money, 0:09:18.080 --> 0:09:20.240 the soundest money that's ever existed, and all these other 0:09:20.280 --> 0:09:26.480 things combined may have a you know, a maximum market 0:09:26.520 --> 0:09:30.040 opportunity of something like two orders of magnitude smaller than bitcoin. 0:09:30.200 --> 0:09:32.560 So like, if you take the current crop of all 0:09:32.640 --> 0:09:36.080 all coins that exist ethereum included, you know, their upside 0:09:36.120 --> 0:09:41.200 combined is like one percent of what bitcoins upside is. Um. Yeah, 0:09:41.320 --> 0:09:43.640 I mean that's there's there's so many different ways to 0:09:43.720 --> 0:09:46.559 look at it. Um. I just made a tweet yesterday 0:09:46.600 --> 0:09:50.000 that is probably the biggest viral tweet I've ever put out. 0:09:50.000 --> 0:09:52.040 I can't believe it. And I basically just said I 0:09:52.080 --> 0:09:53.560 was just thinking last night and I was just like, 0:09:53.600 --> 0:09:55.560 you know, what if bitcoin never goes up in value, 0:09:56.240 --> 0:09:59.040 but it keeps my value, keeps my my store of 0:09:59.080 --> 0:10:01.320 value up within aation like I'll be fine with it. 0:10:01.320 --> 0:10:03.600 And I just tweeted that out and uh, I mean 0:10:03.600 --> 0:10:05.720 it's like like the biggest viral tweet I've ever put out, 0:10:05.720 --> 0:10:08.160 it seems like. But the point being, I'm not in 0:10:08.160 --> 0:10:09.760 it to get to the moon. And so you talk 0:10:09.800 --> 0:10:11.920 about other all, it's like, uh, they don't they don't 0:10:11.920 --> 0:10:14.560 have as much upside? Well do do we really care 0:10:14.559 --> 0:10:17.800 about the upside? Like? What is it that bitcoin feet like? 0:10:17.880 --> 0:10:19.440 For me? Anyway, it's kind of like, you know, the 0:10:19.480 --> 0:10:24.120 features that bitcoin gives us being borderless, permission list, censorship resistant, immutable, 0:10:24.559 --> 0:10:27.199 that's what makes it special to me. And some people 0:10:27.200 --> 0:10:29.000 in the US don't care. But if you're in Iran 0:10:29.200 --> 0:10:33.560 or Venezuela, you probably do care. Um. And so for me, 0:10:33.679 --> 0:10:36.080 I mean I would say, maybe some alts give you 0:10:36.120 --> 0:10:38.319 better returns right now, it's like penny stocks. It's like 0:10:38.400 --> 0:10:40.560 chasing penny stocks, right, but none of them, I guess. 0:10:40.679 --> 0:10:42.559 I guess the argument I get into with with crypto 0:10:42.679 --> 0:10:45.600 crypto alts is, uh, what are the features you're trying 0:10:45.600 --> 0:10:47.719 to optimize? Force? So people tell me, oh, but this 0:10:47.760 --> 0:10:50.840 is this one's faster, and I'm like, do people want 0:10:50.880 --> 0:10:52.360 faster money? Well? I mean, I think at the end 0:10:52.360 --> 0:10:54.320 of the day, I think we're talking about the same 0:10:54.360 --> 0:10:56.880 thing on different time frames and with different strategies and 0:10:56.920 --> 0:10:59.959 different people. So if you're a professional trader and you're 0:11:00.000 --> 0:11:01.679 a short term time horizon, and I have a lot 0:11:01.760 --> 0:11:05.839 of professional trader friends, and I don't begrudge them whatsoever 0:11:06.320 --> 0:11:10.240 for increasing their net worth by trading cryptos, like this 0:11:10.320 --> 0:11:12.480 is the easiest thing that you could possibly do. To 0:11:12.480 --> 0:11:14.600 look at these inefficient markets, with these pump and dump 0:11:14.600 --> 0:11:18.480 schemes constantly going out, and like insider information makes you rich, 0:11:18.559 --> 0:11:22.240 like absolutely by all means, get on key base and 0:11:22.280 --> 0:11:25.439 discord and telegram and call your friends and Nike a 0:11:25.440 --> 0:11:28.640 Tunnelly or look at your technical analysis. But everybody else 0:11:28.640 --> 0:11:30.679 that's not a professional trader and hasn't been a professional 0:11:30.720 --> 0:11:33.520 trader for the last decade or two, You, like all 0:11:33.559 --> 0:11:35.720 other humans, are going to buy high and sell low 0:11:35.920 --> 0:11:37.880 because you're gonna find out about it and get excited 0:11:37.920 --> 0:11:40.600 about it when it's finally starting to go up and 0:11:40.760 --> 0:11:43.280 you're gonna buy you know, compound or whatever at eight 0:11:43.640 --> 0:11:46.319 and it's gonna go down the next day or whatever. Um, 0:11:46.360 --> 0:11:49.760 you know, So you just want to be accumulating the 0:11:49.760 --> 0:11:52.199 thing that's going to be around for a long time. 0:11:52.320 --> 0:11:54.920 If something in this space is going to work, it's 0:11:54.920 --> 0:11:57.560 gonna be bitcoin. And that's the only one that has 0:11:57.600 --> 0:12:00.800 an opportunity to actually be global money out of everything 0:12:00.840 --> 0:12:03.040 in this space. And really these arguments are much more 0:12:03.080 --> 0:12:06.880 of like vintage argument. And most bitcoiners that are serious, 0:12:06.880 --> 0:12:08.360 that spend a lot of time in the space, as 0:12:08.400 --> 0:12:10.960 I'm sure you know the people you talk to, but 0:12:11.000 --> 0:12:13.280 your audience would know this too, they're not actually spending 0:12:13.320 --> 0:12:16.679 any time talking about alts anymore. Our conversations are about governments. 0:12:16.920 --> 0:12:21.240 Our conversations about financial infrastructure, our conferstrates. Our conversations are 0:12:21.240 --> 0:12:25.959 about liquidity, privacy technologies, payments technologies. They're about fidelity, they're 0:12:26.000 --> 0:12:30.040 about square, They're about visa, They're about you know about 0:12:30.120 --> 0:12:32.400 non k y C bitcoin, you know, like how can 0:12:32.440 --> 0:12:34.920 you buy bitcoin without having to have it, you know, 0:12:35.120 --> 0:12:37.880 on the grid, that kind of thing. Ye. Yeah, And 0:12:37.920 --> 0:12:40.240 if anyone watching my videos, they know that's all I 0:12:40.280 --> 0:12:43.959 spend my time talking about. I'm curious. So having been 0:12:44.000 --> 0:12:46.760 in tech, in finance, UM and all these different industries 0:12:46.800 --> 0:12:49.680 and now you're building a company in this space. Now 0:12:49.840 --> 0:12:52.600 you're building you're not building on bitcoin. You're not building 0:12:52.600 --> 0:12:55.440 on the code, but you're building a business that revolves 0:12:55.440 --> 0:12:58.280 around bitcoin. And I'm curious how that is to build 0:12:58.280 --> 0:13:01.360 a business, um with someone that has kind of experienced 0:13:01.400 --> 0:13:04.679 that you do so um dealing with banks, dealing with uh, 0:13:05.040 --> 0:13:07.120 you know, fundraising, if you guys are doing fundraising, and 0:13:07.200 --> 0:13:10.200 just uh, is there this stigma that's making it difficult 0:13:10.240 --> 0:13:12.600 to grow a business around bitcoin or does it seem 0:13:12.640 --> 0:13:17.000 pretty easy? Well, there's obviously a lot more easy money 0:13:17.040 --> 0:13:21.560 slashing around when you can create your own token, and 0:13:21.679 --> 0:13:23.320 so that's why you see a lot of these legacy 0:13:23.320 --> 0:13:26.800 like raises, like still having a lot of money to 0:13:26.840 --> 0:13:30.440 slash around, and it's gonna take a while for you know, 0:13:30.520 --> 0:13:33.319 the market to swallow all of that malinvestment and all 0:13:33.320 --> 0:13:36.640 the inefficiency. So you have you know, crap like Cardano 0:13:36.679 --> 0:13:39.200 and Tron still putting out videos and marketing programs and 0:13:39.200 --> 0:13:41.080 things like that because they're raised a hundred million dollars 0:13:41.080 --> 0:13:43.040 and have this big treasure or whatever. But at the 0:13:43.080 --> 0:13:45.040 end of the day, eventually that will get spent in 0:13:45.120 --> 0:13:48.080 an old results. I'm more I'm more talking about like, uh, 0:13:48.320 --> 0:13:50.760 you know at the bank, do they say, oh, you're 0:13:50.760 --> 0:13:54.079 a bitcoin business, we can't accept your bank account. Uh no, no, 0:13:54.120 --> 0:13:57.120 there's there There are enough there are enough banks that 0:13:57.120 --> 0:13:59.280 will work with bitcoin companies that it's not really an 0:13:59.280 --> 0:14:01.640 issue anymore. I mean, you've got you've got plenty of 0:14:01.679 --> 0:14:04.560 partners to choose from at this point. Okay, So as 0:14:04.559 --> 0:14:08.280 far as building a business on a revolves around bitcoin today, 0:14:08.720 --> 0:14:10.679 a couple years ago it wasn't. But today you feel 0:14:10.679 --> 0:14:13.360 it's a kind of not too much different to building 0:14:13.360 --> 0:14:15.679 in any other type of business. So let's look at 0:14:15.679 --> 0:14:17.160 it through the lens that I know really well, which 0:14:17.200 --> 0:14:19.680 is like startups. And so you know, one of the 0:14:19.720 --> 0:14:22.880 challenges that you certainly have is in the fundraising arena. 0:14:23.640 --> 0:14:26.560 And you know, basically the problem that you have is 0:14:27.640 --> 0:14:32.120 you're looking for investors that care enough about bitcoin and 0:14:32.160 --> 0:14:34.520 know enough about bitcoin to think that your company is 0:14:34.560 --> 0:14:37.520 a good bet. But by definition they know enough about 0:14:37.560 --> 0:14:41.640 bitcoin to be judging a startup investment versus their expectations 0:14:41.680 --> 0:14:44.680 for bitcoin as an asset. Their total rate is basically 0:14:44.680 --> 0:14:47.000 their expectations of you know, what they think bitcoin is 0:14:47.040 --> 0:14:49.400 going to do over the life of your startup, and 0:14:49.440 --> 0:14:52.800 so basically that that makes it very difficult for most 0:14:52.880 --> 0:14:56.480 bitcoin startups to raise money. You know, because of my 0:14:56.560 --> 0:14:59.800 background and extensive network, it's not been an issue for us, 0:15:00.440 --> 0:15:02.200 but I do see that problem for a lot of 0:15:02.200 --> 0:15:04.760 other companies in the space, and that's why I and 0:15:04.760 --> 0:15:06.960 and three friends of mine have gotten together and we 0:15:06.960 --> 0:15:11.400 started a fund called bitcoiner Ventures earlier this year. And 0:15:11.440 --> 0:15:14.720 basically the goal there is, you know, while the percentage 0:15:14.720 --> 0:15:17.240 of people who would invest in a bitcoin start up 0:15:17.280 --> 0:15:21.520 maybe small, the denominator of people that you can pull 0:15:21.600 --> 0:15:25.240 from should be the largest of any vertical and technology 0:15:25.280 --> 0:15:28.680 because there's so many people around the world. So our 0:15:28.720 --> 0:15:31.560 our goal basically is just aggregate like a few thousand 0:15:31.560 --> 0:15:33.640 people that might raise their hand and write a small 0:15:33.720 --> 0:15:36.440 check into a bitcoin startup and do those through syndicates. 0:15:36.920 --> 0:15:40.440 And we successfully did a funding for Unchained Capital out 0:15:40.480 --> 0:15:42.640 of Austin, which does really really cool stuff in the 0:15:42.640 --> 0:15:47.080 bitcoin space, including bitcoin backed loans and and multi sig 0:15:47.240 --> 0:15:50.000 custody setups and things like that. So we cut our 0:15:50.000 --> 0:15:52.880 first check for them in in May towards late May 0:15:53.040 --> 0:15:55.400 um and we're hoping to do another deal this fall 0:15:55.560 --> 0:15:59.000 out of bitcoin Ventures. Nice. That's good. Continue to help 0:15:59.040 --> 0:16:02.920 the ecosystem grow. Oh so, um, I'm just curious. I 0:16:02.960 --> 0:16:04.680 wanted to dive back in for a second before we 0:16:04.720 --> 0:16:06.920 move on. UM, So again you had kind of talked 0:16:06.920 --> 0:16:09.400 about how, or maybe you told me before we started recording, 0:16:09.400 --> 0:16:11.840 but you were saying how you got into bitcoin but 0:16:12.160 --> 0:16:14.600 you thought it was just like a tech play, um, 0:16:14.600 --> 0:16:16.640 and you were buying it, but you didn't really understand 0:16:16.680 --> 0:16:19.040 what it was. Your eyes hadn't really been opened up. 0:16:19.080 --> 0:16:21.320 You haven't been read build whatever you wanna call it. UM, 0:16:21.520 --> 0:16:24.320 tell me about that, like what what what? What was it? 0:16:24.360 --> 0:16:25.960 What was your old view that was wrong? And then 0:16:25.960 --> 0:16:27.760 how did you come to look at it differently? I mean, 0:16:27.880 --> 0:16:31.280 I'll just come back to the you know, the my 0:16:31.320 --> 0:16:34.160 Space Facebook analogy is probably the easiest one. Like you know, 0:16:34.240 --> 0:16:37.640 you you get into something in technology and the first 0:16:37.640 --> 0:16:39.840 thing you think of is something better going to come 0:16:39.880 --> 0:16:44.360 along soon and disrupt this. So you may be an 0:16:44.360 --> 0:16:46.920 investor in Friendster and then you just get your lunch 0:16:47.000 --> 0:16:49.320 eaten by my Space and you think you have the 0:16:49.400 --> 0:16:51.480 right one because you're at my Space, But then Facebook 0:16:51.520 --> 0:16:54.440 comes along and just like destroys you. So that's actually 0:16:54.480 --> 0:16:57.000 probably the I would I would say, I mean, at 0:16:57.080 --> 0:17:00.680 least the top two. UM, you know, complain not complains, 0:17:00.680 --> 0:17:03.680 but objections that I hear, um is that but there's 0:17:03.720 --> 0:17:06.480 a thousand other cryptos and and and exactly what you said, 0:17:06.480 --> 0:17:08.840 Bitcoin is gonna be the old mice brace and um 0:17:08.880 --> 0:17:11.240 all though, so how do you look at that? Now? 0:17:12.320 --> 0:17:14.719 So let me let me use this. So there's a 0:17:14.720 --> 0:17:16.960 lot of arguments for why it can only be Bitcoin, 0:17:17.040 --> 0:17:20.160 but I'll almost even more easily say why it can't 0:17:20.160 --> 0:17:23.240 be any other one because let's say that some alt 0:17:23.359 --> 0:17:26.479 coin becomes dominant, why would you stop there? Let's say 0:17:26.480 --> 0:17:29.359 it becomes dominant because of some feature, and and people 0:17:29.440 --> 0:17:31.879 make the argument and it flippings, as they say, if 0:17:31.920 --> 0:17:34.600 it flippings bitcoin, why would you stop there? So now 0:17:34.600 --> 0:17:38.359 it's Ethereum, well why not eos? Why not some other thing? 0:17:38.400 --> 0:17:42.080 Why not you know, cosmos? Why not whatever? You know? 0:17:42.359 --> 0:17:45.400 Like there will always be people. So basically, this concept 0:17:45.480 --> 0:17:48.680 of of a shelling point, which is basically where you 0:17:48.720 --> 0:17:52.160 know the second order estimation of what you think other 0:17:52.200 --> 0:17:55.160 people will think, ends up that we all basically think 0:17:55.160 --> 0:17:58.400 it's the same thing. So it's like, you know, these 0:17:58.400 --> 0:18:01.360 things exist where you're like, uh, you know, let's meet 0:18:01.359 --> 0:18:03.879 in New York tomorrow, but you don't give any other information, 0:18:04.040 --> 0:18:06.960 like where would you meet, right, And you know, basically 0:18:07.040 --> 0:18:09.840 the shelling point is grand Central Station in the Grand 0:18:09.840 --> 0:18:12.640 Hall at noon, because that's what most people would think, right, 0:18:12.720 --> 0:18:14.600 And so it's like the point that where most people 0:18:14.600 --> 0:18:17.680 are are being concentrated around, which I which I agree with, 0:18:17.760 --> 0:18:19.399 But you know, I think Bitcoin is a little bit 0:18:19.400 --> 0:18:22.040 different even to that, because like back to the MySpace 0:18:22.440 --> 0:18:26.119 Facebook kind of analogy, I can have accounts on both, 0:18:26.200 --> 0:18:29.679 so like for example, um, on Twitter, everyone's moving to 0:18:29.720 --> 0:18:32.119 like parlor now, but like there's not that many people 0:18:32.119 --> 0:18:33.840 on parlor yet, and so like I don't really want 0:18:33.840 --> 0:18:35.720 to use it, but I can have an account on both. 0:18:35.720 --> 0:18:38.479 But with Bitcoin, it's like you only can really have 0:18:38.560 --> 0:18:40.679 your money in one place. So it's a little bit different. 0:18:40.720 --> 0:18:43.240 You know, well, you can have investments in other things 0:18:43.280 --> 0:18:45.000 like you can. I mean, there are a lot of 0:18:45.040 --> 0:18:47.120 people that own a lot more Bitcoin than I do, 0:18:47.359 --> 0:18:50.719 and even that may understand bitcoin better than I do 0:18:50.920 --> 0:18:53.719 and may still have, you know, some gambles because they 0:18:53.760 --> 0:18:55.719 have you know, a bet that like in this cycle, 0:18:55.760 --> 0:18:58.359 they think this coin is gonna you know, be higher 0:18:58.400 --> 0:19:01.399 beta and we'll go up or than bitcoin does. And 0:19:01.520 --> 0:19:04.320 that's fine. That's like they're gambling thing. But it's not 0:19:04.400 --> 0:19:08.560