WEBVTT - Terra: Is It Some Kind of Bitcoin? 0:00:01.840 --> 0:00:05.480 I'm Stacy Marie Ishmael, Managing editor of Crypto for Bloomberg News, 0:00:05.960 --> 0:00:09.440 and this is Bloomberg Crypto at Daily Bloomberg I Heart Podcast. 0:00:09.800 --> 0:00:19.800 It's Thursday, June. The Washington Nationals baseball team haven't had 0:00:19.840 --> 0:00:22.239 a great stud to this season, and that's not just 0:00:22.320 --> 0:00:25.320 because of their losing record. They also managed to debut 0:00:25.360 --> 0:00:28.160 a sponsorship deal with the organization behind a not so 0:00:28.280 --> 0:00:32.240 stable stable coin. The name of that organization, Terraform Labs, 0:00:32.600 --> 0:00:37.000 now splashed all over billboards, uniforms, seats, anywhere you might look. 0:00:37.680 --> 0:00:39.320 It might have seemed like a good play when they 0:00:39.360 --> 0:00:41.920 signed the contract, but by the time that stable coin 0:00:42.159 --> 0:00:45.080 crashed and burned in early May, it started to look 0:00:45.080 --> 0:00:47.680 more like a streakout. The Nats aren't the only sports 0:00:47.720 --> 0:00:50.159 team to have accepted crypto sponsorship, even if they're one 0:00:50.200 --> 0:00:53.920 in the spotlight. Today, Bloomberg Senior editor Mike Reagan joins 0:00:53.920 --> 0:01:00.800 the conversation to sort through how this deal happened. Mike, 0:01:00.920 --> 0:01:02.440 thank you so much for joining us. Oh thanks for 0:01:02.480 --> 0:01:05.160 having me, Stacy. Are you a baseball fan? I am 0:01:05.200 --> 0:01:07.760 not so much this season since my Phillies are are 0:01:07.800 --> 0:01:10.600 kind of struggling, But I'll be on the bandwagon if 0:01:10.640 --> 0:01:12.560 they if they turn it around for sure, do they 0:01:12.600 --> 0:01:15.080 have any crypto sponsorships? You know, I'm not sure. I 0:01:15.080 --> 0:01:17.400 don't think they do though, But why do so many 0:01:17.400 --> 0:01:20.240 other teams both in baseball, which we want to talk 0:01:20.240 --> 0:01:23.039 about the Nationals specifically, but kind of elsewhere in sports, 0:01:23.120 --> 0:01:25.600 Like why is crypto and sports such a thing right now? Well? 0:01:25.640 --> 0:01:28.360 I think obviously these crypto firms have a lot of 0:01:28.400 --> 0:01:31.080 money to spend on marketing, so I think they're looking 0:01:31.160 --> 0:01:33.720 for ways to say, Okay, how can we reach this 0:01:33.840 --> 0:01:37.680 big captivated audience. And when you think about buying the 0:01:37.760 --> 0:01:41.240 naming rights for a stadium, we're saying arena. You know, 0:01:41.440 --> 0:01:43.680 one night you get a basketball audience, the next night 0:01:43.720 --> 0:01:45.960 you get a hockey audience. The next night it might 0:01:45.959 --> 0:01:49.280 be a country music concert or a rap concert. And 0:01:49.600 --> 0:01:52.520 you know, instead of being at home on the TV, 0:01:52.640 --> 0:01:55.400 where you might watching TV and be distracted by doom, 0:01:55.440 --> 0:01:58.600 scrolling through your Twitter or you know, falling asleep changing 0:01:58.640 --> 0:02:01.360 the channels, you're kind of a active audience. So it 0:02:01.480 --> 0:02:04.760 really like it gets the eyeballs on your logo and 0:02:04.840 --> 0:02:07.360 on your product. But like I said, a pretty broad 0:02:07.440 --> 0:02:10.799 demographic of potential customers at least in that one city. 0:02:10.840 --> 0:02:12.400 And then the hope is obviously your team mix to 0:02:12.480 --> 0:02:16.560 the playoffs and suddenly your arena is on the national stage. Right. 0:02:16.720 --> 0:02:18.760 So in theory, it's pretty good bang for a book. 0:02:18.800 --> 0:02:21.560 As as far as marketing r I might go, you know, 0:02:21.680 --> 0:02:24.040 if you've got that kind of marketing budget with these firms, 0:02:24.080 --> 0:02:26.600 clearly do. I mean a lot of people saw it 0:02:26.720 --> 0:02:32.560 and immediately, older people like myself immediately thought back to 0:02:32.600 --> 0:02:34.680 the dot com days, you know, where all of a sudden, 0:02:34.720 --> 0:02:37.919 dot Coms, we're sponsoring getting the naming rights for stadiums, 0:02:37.960 --> 0:02:40.320 and we all know how that ended and poorly and 0:02:40.320 --> 0:02:43.160 and Ron Stadium in Houston. So I think it raised 0:02:43.160 --> 0:02:50.720 some eyebrows when a lot of these naming rights were sold. Well, 0:02:50.840 --> 0:02:53.360 here's an example of something that's going poorly. Right. So 0:02:53.720 --> 0:02:57.920 the Washington Nationals, which as a non baseball fan, I 0:02:57.919 --> 0:03:00.560 had research, but but the way that I found out 0:03:00.600 --> 0:03:02.320 about them is because I was like, Okay, what's happening 0:03:02.320 --> 0:03:04.359 with Taro, let's see and then it's like, by the way, 0:03:04.680 --> 0:03:08.320 they have signed this deal with Terraform Labs, which is 0:03:08.360 --> 0:03:12.480 the organization co founded by Do Kwan that issued an 0:03:12.480 --> 0:03:15.840 algorithmic stable coin that has been pretty much dominating news 0:03:15.880 --> 0:03:17.960 headlines for the past I don't know a month at 0:03:18.000 --> 0:03:21.000 this point. Why would they have done that? What what 0:03:21.160 --> 0:03:23.880 is the upside? And now obviously like there's all of 0:03:23.880 --> 0:03:27.160 this reputational risk. Well, why would the Nationals get involved? 0:03:27.200 --> 0:03:29.200 I think because Do Kuan wrote them a big check 0:03:29.600 --> 0:03:32.320 three million dollars. How much was the check? I was 0:03:32.440 --> 0:03:35.640 like thirty eight millions something like that. But I think 0:03:36.000 --> 0:03:39.560 what's fascinating is why Do Kuan chose the Nationals? Right? 0:03:39.680 --> 0:03:43.160 And this sponsorship included a few things. You know that 0:03:43.200 --> 0:03:47.720 the Nationals are tweeting out crypto videos sponsored by Terra, 0:03:47.840 --> 0:03:50.400 that sort of thing. But also he sponsored the v 0:03:50.480 --> 0:03:53.920 I P club right behind home plate called the Terra Club, 0:03:54.360 --> 0:03:56.400 and I'm now called the Terrat Club right still called 0:03:56.400 --> 0:03:58.840 the Terrat Club. I don't know if it's sort of 0:03:58.840 --> 0:04:03.240 the general population understands these v I P clubs at stadiums, 0:04:03.240 --> 0:04:05.600 they're they're very swank. It's not your you know, hot 0:04:05.640 --> 0:04:10.320 dogs and Budweiser. It's you know, top shelf liquer free buffet. 0:04:11.200 --> 0:04:13.600 And I was at the Brooklyn Nets v I P 0:04:13.720 --> 0:04:15.680 Club once, and you know, your head is kind of 0:04:15.680 --> 0:04:17.560 on a swivel, like cool, Who's that? You know? Is 0:04:17.560 --> 0:04:19.359 that a v I P over there over there? So 0:04:19.480 --> 0:04:21.680 think about that. In d C, you're gonna be looking 0:04:21.720 --> 0:04:24.480 around thinking is that a representative? Is that someone from 0:04:24.520 --> 0:04:26.880 the Treasury? You know, it's it's sort of the clubhouse 0:04:26.920 --> 0:04:30.520 for the movers and shakers in d C. And do 0:04:30.680 --> 0:04:34.119 Quan and Terraform have had some problems with with the SEC. 0:04:34.279 --> 0:04:36.800 I'll give you a warning on a dual self promoting here, 0:04:36.800 --> 0:04:39.760 but I wrote a story about a year ago about 0:04:39.760 --> 0:04:45.200 the synthetic equities trading on terraforms blockchain and fascinating, you 0:04:45.240 --> 0:04:48.880 know that they can basically make a crypto currency token 0:04:49.080 --> 0:04:55.000 that tracks the value of apples et f s. Really 0:04:55.000 --> 0:04:58.479 innovative stuff, but also you know, kind of flying in 0:04:58.520 --> 0:05:01.839 the face of this big stack of regulation around the 0:05:01.880 --> 0:05:04.600 stock market in the US and elsewhere. So that story 0:05:04.680 --> 0:05:06.960 kind of questioned, well, how can they get away with this? 0:05:07.040 --> 0:05:09.080 And I, you know, reached out to the SEC for 0:05:09.080 --> 0:05:12.000 their comment. They didn't comment. A couple of weeks later, though, 0:05:12.000 --> 0:05:14.440 the chairman, Gary Gensler, gave a speech where he said 0:05:14.880 --> 0:05:17.760 basically not naming Terraform, but basically saying this type of 0:05:17.760 --> 0:05:20.200 stuff filing securities laws. You gotta you gotta watch it. 0:05:20.680 --> 0:05:23.240 Shortly after that, unit Swap stopped allowing them to be 0:05:23.279 --> 0:05:25.600 trade and unit Swap is one of the kind of 0:05:25.640 --> 0:05:29.640 peer to peer exchanges that is so popular with crypto folks. 0:05:29.839 --> 0:05:31.120 But I want to go back to what you're saying 0:05:31.160 --> 0:05:34.680 about this not being Terra's first run in with a 0:05:34.680 --> 0:05:37.240 product that various people were like, surely this is not 0:05:37.320 --> 0:05:41.600 a good idea, right, What was the basis of the 0:05:41.600 --> 0:05:43.360 thing that has gotten them in trouble in recent weeks. 0:05:43.400 --> 0:05:45.479 So it's like, Okay, not signed a deal seems fine. 0:05:46.000 --> 0:05:48.000 One month later we're talking about why that's not fine. 0:05:48.040 --> 0:05:52.560 What happened in between? Well, obviously the stable coin terry 0:05:52.640 --> 0:05:56.160 USD just just blew up, you know that. The So basically, 0:05:56.240 --> 0:05:58.839 for those who aren't familiar with an algorithmic statement is 0:05:58.880 --> 0:06:02.800 most of the population. Bear with me here and I'm 0:06:02.800 --> 0:06:06.400 getting a little technical. You know, a typical stable coin 0:06:06.720 --> 0:06:09.479 tries to track say the dollar. Some track maybe track 0:06:09.520 --> 0:06:12.160 the Euro or some other currency, but the big ones 0:06:12.240 --> 0:06:15.000 track the dollar. Uh. And the way say a tether 0:06:15.160 --> 0:06:18.880 stable coin does that is they hold assets, you know, 0:06:18.960 --> 0:06:22.440 some treasury bonds, maybe some commercial paper with sort of, 0:06:22.640 --> 0:06:26.200 you know, a reserve to allow that token to always 0:06:26.240 --> 0:06:29.720 be worth a dollar, right, An algorithmic stable coin tries 0:06:29.800 --> 0:06:33.160 to do it without those reserves. They try to maintain 0:06:33.200 --> 0:06:37.160 that stable one dollar price through a relationship with another 0:06:37.320 --> 0:06:40.839 cryptocurrency that is, let's say not so stable and that 0:06:40.960 --> 0:06:44.320 is Luna, and through an arbitrage mechanism that's probably too 0:06:44.360 --> 0:06:47.200 complicated to get into in this. You know, the relationship 0:06:47.240 --> 0:06:50.599 between Luna and ust the stable coin is is always 0:06:50.640 --> 0:06:54.839 meant to keep that stable coined exactly to a dollar, 0:06:54.960 --> 0:06:57.440 but it did not write. And that's that's why we're here. 0:06:57.480 --> 0:06:58.800 And so, you know, one of the things I was 0:06:58.839 --> 0:07:02.040 really interested in understanding is if I'm a sports team, 0:07:02.080 --> 0:07:03.560 one of my first questions would be if I we 0:07:03.560 --> 0:07:05.680 without sports teams lawyers, like, did we get this money 0:07:05.760 --> 0:07:08.840 up front? In fact? And they did at the National 0:07:08.880 --> 0:07:10.800 State I think, you know, in that old set of president, 0:07:10.840 --> 0:07:14.120 I'm sure everyone's going to catch that check before renaming 0:07:14.240 --> 0:07:19.080 the name of their clubhouse after them. I think it's 0:07:19.080 --> 0:07:23.520 important to focus in on why he did focus on Washington. 0:07:24.160 --> 0:07:26.520 You know, he wanted to be in front of the regulators, 0:07:26.520 --> 0:07:28.440 in front of the politicians. He wanted to give them 0:07:28.480 --> 0:07:30.840 a good impression. You know, this was a multi year deal. 0:07:31.600 --> 0:07:35.520 His ambition was really to make that stable coin be 0:07:35.720 --> 0:07:38.720 useful in real life. He the goal was that eventually 0:07:38.760 --> 0:07:42.080 the Nationals would be selling tickets in exchange for the 0:07:42.160 --> 0:07:44.920 UST stable coin. So a person who was saying that 0:07:45.040 --> 0:07:50.320 season ticket hold buy that ticket using their stable coin, Right, 0:07:50.480 --> 0:07:52.720 that was the goal. That's kind of been blown up. 0:07:52.760 --> 0:07:55.200 I don't think it's been officially announced that that's plan 0:07:55.360 --> 0:07:58.960 is one, right, yeah, with with the price of you know, 0:07:59.080 --> 0:08:01.360 Ust and the penny is at any given moment, as 0:08:01.400 --> 0:08:03.640 I pointed out, a lust of the the Nationals really start 0:08:03.800 --> 0:08:06.640 playing as badly as they started the season, and that 0:08:06.840 --> 0:08:10.480 maybe but but otherwise that plan is unlikely. But it's 0:08:10.480 --> 0:08:13.760 sort of gives you some perspective on Do Kuan's ambitions. 0:08:13.800 --> 0:08:16.080 You know, obviously there's a lot of scammers and crypto, 0:08:16.240 --> 0:08:19.560 there's a lot of quote unquote rug poll but this guy, 0:08:19.800 --> 0:08:22.480 you know, I think of it. You remember the book 0:08:22.480 --> 0:08:25.720 when Genius failed long Term Capital Management. I feel like 0:08:25.760 --> 0:08:28.760 this is an instance of not a scam, of of 0:08:28.800 --> 0:08:32.600 not fraud, but of when that genius innovation failed because 0:08:32.640 --> 0:08:34.160 he he was trying to get in front of the 0:08:34.200 --> 0:08:39.720 regulators and say, look, we're we're literally in front of them. 0:08:39.800 --> 0:08:42.080 And partly because he ended up being subpoena at about 0:08:42.120 --> 0:08:45.080 those synthetic equities last year and he's been sort of 0:08:45.080 --> 0:08:47.240 fighting the SEC over this, so I think he wanted 0:08:47.280 --> 0:08:49.720 to put a good face in front of the regulators 0:08:49.720 --> 0:08:51.640 and say, look with you know, we're adults here. This 0:08:51.679 --> 0:08:55.559 is a mature or hopefully soon to be mature business. 0:08:55.760 --> 0:08:58.400 We're trying to do something real here the collapse of 0:08:58.440 --> 0:09:01.720 the stable coin, so tune on the heels of this. 0:09:01.960 --> 0:09:05.719 This sponsorship is just I popping, because you know, he 0:09:06.080 --> 0:09:08.960 really was trying to move this industry forward a little bit. 0:09:09.600 --> 0:09:20.960 Thank you, Mike, we'll be right back. Well, it's interesting 0:09:20.960 --> 0:09:23.959 that you raised the analogy of long term capital managements 0:09:23.960 --> 0:09:26.840 and because they were, you know, supposed to be the 0:09:26.880 --> 0:09:30.320 original smartest guys in the room, that they really knew 0:09:30.320 --> 0:09:33.000 what they were doing, and they utterly miss priced risk, 0:09:33.920 --> 0:09:36.440 got all of the correlations wrong, and you know, and 0:09:36.440 --> 0:09:39.520 and in that particular case, like utterly misread the macro 0:09:39.559 --> 0:09:43.320 economic environment and where risks were embedded. And frankly, that's 0:09:43.440 --> 0:09:46.319 very similar to what happened over the past few weeks 0:09:46.360 --> 0:09:50.280 where you've had this unexpected inflationary environment, the Fed's response 0:09:50.320 --> 0:09:54.679 to that inflationary environment, various other concerns about macro economic indicators, 0:09:55.160 --> 0:09:58.200 resurgence of the pandemic, like things that generally make people 0:09:58.200 --> 0:10:01.680 a little bit shaky and us prone to buy into 0:10:01.800 --> 0:10:04.760 risk asset, right right, And I think that played into 0:10:04.880 --> 0:10:08.280 it completely. You know, at one point, do Kuan pivoted 0:10:08.480 --> 0:10:11.480 from and terraform Labs. Obviously it's a d A oh, 0:10:11.520 --> 0:10:13.800 so they vote on everything. A D A O or 0:10:13.920 --> 0:10:16.280 DOW is a decentralized those tonomous organizations, which is like 0:10:16.280 --> 0:10:18.160 crypto's version of trying to make a company or an 0:10:18.240 --> 0:10:21.240 LLC right right, a co op kind of basically where 0:10:21.240 --> 0:10:24.000 everyone gets to vote and anyone who's holding the token 0:10:24.080 --> 0:10:27.400 gets to vote on the governance and what happens. So, 0:10:27.800 --> 0:10:30.320 you know, do Quan and Terraform Labs were trying to 0:10:30.679 --> 0:10:33.840 sort of pivot away from the algorithmic stable coin model 0:10:33.880 --> 0:10:37.360 because you know, the project got so big and the 0:10:37.480 --> 0:10:41.679 risks became greater and greater that they know clearly got 0:10:41.679 --> 0:10:44.840 worried that something could go wrong. So they started buying bitcoin, 0:10:45.000 --> 0:10:46.480 you know, and the plan was to buy up to 0:10:46.559 --> 0:10:50.360 ten billion dollars in bitcoin to help back us t 0:10:50.520 --> 0:10:52.240 the stable coin. So then you would have kind of 0:10:52.240 --> 0:10:56.520 a hybrid algo traditional there's both in you know, the 0:10:56.520 --> 0:10:58.959 model of other stable coins, there's some kinds of assets 0:10:58.960 --> 0:11:01.800 backing it's but they would also maintained that peg using 0:11:02.000 --> 0:11:05.000 Luna described right. And you know, make no mistake, this 0:11:05.040 --> 0:11:07.079 is a bit of improv on their part right here, 0:11:07.240 --> 0:11:09.320 you know, I mean this was and how they what 0:11:09.440 --> 0:11:13.520 they set out to do. Uh. You know, Uh, Terror 0:11:13.679 --> 0:11:17.880 was named after a video game called StarCraft and the 0:11:18.000 --> 0:11:20.640 humans in that game there it's there's a bunch of aliens, 0:11:20.800 --> 0:11:23.520 you know, space battle video game. The humans are known 0:11:23.559 --> 0:11:27.560 for adapting on the fly very quickly, uh to any situation, 0:11:27.720 --> 0:11:30.840 and and clearly that's what he was doing in this situation. Um. 0:11:30.880 --> 0:11:34.280 But of course then bitcoin starts crashing with every other 0:11:34.400 --> 0:11:38.120 risky asset in the world, so that's sort of undermines um, 0:11:38.160 --> 0:11:40.640 you know, the notion of using bitcoin as a reserve 0:11:40.720 --> 0:11:43.200 to to back up the stable coin. Everything just became 0:11:43.240 --> 0:11:47.000 increasingly expensive at the same time, right right, And um, 0:11:47.040 --> 0:11:48.800 you know there was there was sort of a run 0:11:48.800 --> 0:11:53.280 on the bank of liquidity, uh in certain pools that 0:11:53.480 --> 0:11:57.120 trade stable coins, and that happened over a weekend and 0:11:57.160 --> 0:12:00.760 just helped to really just pull the bottom card out 0:12:00.760 --> 0:12:02.520 of what turned out to be a house of cards 0:12:02.640 --> 0:12:06.000 with this stable coin. So I'm a lawyer for a 0:12:06.040 --> 0:12:11.560 sports team, my GM or somebody in marketing comes to 0:12:11.559 --> 0:12:13.040 me and says, hey, should we do a deal with 0:12:13.040 --> 0:12:15.439 this crypto company that's going to pay us thirty something 0:12:15.440 --> 0:12:19.400 million dollars up front? What would you tell them? First? 0:12:19.440 --> 0:12:24.720 I'd consult my own lawyer, But like you said, get 0:12:24.720 --> 0:12:29.760 to get catch the check up front, uh, right into 0:12:29.920 --> 0:12:32.080 into the contract that you can. You know, if this 0:12:32.120 --> 0:12:34.440 thing blows up, you can erase the logo off of 0:12:34.480 --> 0:12:38.599 the arena at anytime. They do you think there's a 0:12:38.640 --> 0:12:41.240 reputational risk there. I mean, I think part of what 0:12:41.280 --> 0:12:44.800 I'm struggling with is most people in the world don't 0:12:44.800 --> 0:12:47.559 know who these crypto companies are, right, just like as 0:12:47.559 --> 0:12:51.080 a broad proportion of billions, lots of people do shortly. 0:12:51.120 --> 0:12:53.120 I'm not saying that there isn't anybody out there who's 0:12:53.120 --> 0:12:54.760 never heard of a coin base or on f t x. 0:12:55.320 --> 0:12:59.400 But if things go pear shaped, the people who really 0:12:59.480 --> 0:13:05.679 care are like media, Twitter, crypto Twitter, anybody who's lost money, certainly, 0:13:06.200 --> 0:13:09.800 and that sort of fintech ecosystem. But if you have 0:13:09.840 --> 0:13:13.559 a situation like Tara, where the goal was to introduce 0:13:13.679 --> 0:13:16.320 this company to people, you know, is there really a 0:13:16.360 --> 0:13:18.880 net negative for the team. It is mostly that people 0:13:18.920 --> 0:13:21.200 are just like, I don't know what that company does shruggy. Yeah, 0:13:21.240 --> 0:13:23.480 it doesn't seem like it was much of a net 0:13:23.520 --> 0:13:25.839 negative for the Nationals at this point. Certainly, if you 0:13:25.960 --> 0:13:29.400 lost money in Tara, you're furious. You're you're furious if 0:13:29.400 --> 0:13:32.880 you're a Nationals fan. I don't know. Sports sports fandom 0:13:32.920 --> 0:13:35.160 kind of trumps everything, so you know, you'll you'll be 0:13:35.200 --> 0:13:37.960 willing to look past it and maybe still follow the team. 0:13:38.000 --> 0:13:40.000 I don't know. It would be tough for my team, 0:13:40.040 --> 0:13:42.000 like the seventy six ers, to do anything in the 0:13:42.000 --> 0:13:45.440 sponsorship realm enough to turn me off against watching them. 0:13:45.559 --> 0:13:47.200 But I think it's something they're gonna think long and 0:13:47.240 --> 0:13:49.960 hard about going forward after after this situation for sure. 0:13:51.200 --> 0:13:55.360 And do you still think on this basis that things 0:13:55.440 --> 0:13:59.920 like naming rights which aren't cheap make sort of econom 0:14:00.040 --> 0:14:02.720 makes sense from that marketing r o I perspective, given 0:14:02.760 --> 0:14:05.120 that a lot of the wealth of these crypto companies 0:14:05.200 --> 0:14:08.120 is in crypto, and as those prices go down, it 0:14:08.160 --> 0:14:10.480 becomes more expensive for them to you know, convert it 0:14:10.520 --> 0:14:12.880 into the dollars that they need to pay for these sponsorships, 0:14:13.120 --> 0:14:16.280 right right, Yeah, I doubt highly that any big checks 0:14:16.320 --> 0:14:18.280 like that will be written, say for the rest of 0:14:18.320 --> 0:14:22.280 the year, given given the slumping crypto that we've seen. 0:14:22.760 --> 0:14:25.920 But one interesting thing was coin Desk sent some reporters 0:14:25.960 --> 0:14:28.600 out to the National Stadium. I wish I had thought 0:14:28.600 --> 0:14:30.760 of the stacy that you would have loved to see 0:14:30.760 --> 0:14:33.600 my expense account after this trip, like I have got 0:14:33.640 --> 0:14:36.920 to go on and not any trip, you know, the 0:14:37.000 --> 0:14:40.080 V I P Club at National Stadiums. And they did that, 0:14:40.120 --> 0:14:43.600 and they talked to people. No one really knew what 0:14:43.840 --> 0:14:47.080 Terra was, none of the fountains, yeah, you know. And 0:14:47.240 --> 0:14:49.680 they even as to bartender in the club, the Terra 0:14:49.800 --> 0:14:52.920 club named after this coin, like hey, did he hear 0:14:52.920 --> 0:14:55.560 about what happened with this thing? And and the bartenders 0:14:55.600 --> 0:14:59.000 like it's some kind of bitcoin, right, I love that, 0:14:59.120 --> 0:15:01.640 some kind of bix, which is not wrong, you know, 0:15:01.720 --> 0:15:03.480 it's it's uh in the thanks gime of things, I 0:15:03.480 --> 0:15:06.440 guess it's right. But you know, it was very early 0:15:06.520 --> 0:15:10.000 days in the in the sponsorship. UM. So it's hard 0:15:10.040 --> 0:15:13.920 to say, you know, whether the terra got its money's 0:15:13.920 --> 0:15:17.040 worth out of the exposure. UM, but I would say probably. 0:15:17.560 --> 0:15:20.480 You know, the regulators and and some of the lawmakers 0:15:20.760 --> 0:15:23.480 congregating in that V I P Club are quite familiar 0:15:23.480 --> 0:15:25.680 with it now, let's say, so they'll be reminded every 0:15:25.680 --> 0:15:29.040 time they go back. Every time. Well, thank you, Um 0:15:29.080 --> 0:15:32.320 I learned about baseball today. It doesn't happen to me often. 0:15:32.840 --> 0:15:36.680 And I think it's just as a final question, do 0:15:36.720 --> 0:15:39.920 you think in terms of those regulators. One of the 0:15:39.960 --> 0:15:41.760 things that has come up, and you know we're going 0:15:41.800 --> 0:15:45.000 to talk a lot about on this podcast is consumer protection. 0:15:45.840 --> 0:15:48.880 And one of the things you rightly identified with the 0:15:48.920 --> 0:15:51.440 sponsorship is they're trying to get in front of not 0:15:51.520 --> 0:15:54.000 just the movers and shakos, but the country music fans, 0:15:54.160 --> 0:15:56.680 right like anybody who is in that stadium at any time, 0:15:57.480 --> 0:16:01.200 and various other types of advertising asset classes. You don't 0:16:01.240 --> 0:16:04.000 get to just say buy my stuff with no fine prints, 0:16:04.040 --> 0:16:08.000 like big Pharma, can it be splashing logos anywhere or 0:16:08.040 --> 0:16:10.080 you know, saying on TV, by these drugs and without 0:16:10.080 --> 0:16:12.560 somebody speaking really fast with a list of things that 0:16:12.600 --> 0:16:15.840 will kill you. There isn't really that approach in crypto. 0:16:16.280 --> 0:16:19.920 Do you think situations like this me you know, accelerate 0:16:19.960 --> 0:16:22.720 that conversation about the appropriateness of this sort of marketing. 0:16:22.920 --> 0:16:24.840 I think it will absolutely. I mean we've already heard 0:16:24.920 --> 0:16:28.400 Janet Yellen, you know, talking about stable coins. The Treasury 0:16:28.400 --> 0:16:30.840 and the Fed. We're already looking into them pretty closely, 0:16:31.280 --> 0:16:33.360 viewing them as sort of if a coin is meant 0:16:33.360 --> 0:16:36.040 to track the dollar, once one, you're kind of sort 0:16:36.080 --> 0:16:39.520 of elbowing into the Federal Reserve, and the Treasury is 0:16:39.560 --> 0:16:41.800 turf there and and that's where you know, that's going 0:16:41.880 --> 0:16:44.400 to be a magnet for them, especially to to really 0:16:44.440 --> 0:16:46.360 keep an eye on. So I do think you know, 0:16:46.480 --> 0:16:50.000 what was it, sixties seventy billion in value just vaporized 0:16:50.720 --> 0:16:54.160 in this situation. I think it's going to be a 0:16:54.280 --> 0:16:58.000 big catalyst, I would guess for bringing forward some of 0:16:58.040 --> 0:17:01.400 these crypto regulations that you know have been bounced around 0:17:01.400 --> 0:17:03.440 and talked about for years but but not really put 0:17:03.520 --> 0:17:05.680 into practice. Well, we'll keep an eye on it. Thank 0:17:05.720 --> 0:17:08.320 you for joining us. Thank you say. You can find 0:17:08.359 --> 0:17:10.760 more of Mike Regan's reporting on the Bloomberg terminal on 0:17:10.840 --> 0:17:14.800 Bloomberg dot com and on Twitter, he's at reag Anonymous. 0:17:15.760 --> 0:17:19.240 On the next episode, Bloomberg reporter Alista Mash shares his 0:17:19.359 --> 0:17:22.439 reporting on how Ukraine has been using crypto during the 0:17:22.480 --> 0:17:26.439 war to support its armies and its population. Ukraine is 0:17:26.440 --> 0:17:29.240 even selling its own non fungible token, and it's a 0:17:29.280 --> 0:17:33.159 timeline of the Russian invasion. I'm Stacy Marie Ishmael and 0:17:33.240 --> 0:17:36.480 this is Bloomberg Crypto, a daily podcast from Bloomberg and 0:17:36.480 --> 0:17:39.359 I Heart Radio. For more shows from my Heart Radio, 0:17:39.800 --> 0:17:43.159 visit the I Heart Radio app, Apple Podcasts, or wherever 0:17:43.240 --> 0:17:47.159 you get your podcasts. Email your comments, questions, or suggestions 0:17:47.200 --> 0:17:50.400 for the show to Crypto at Bloomberg dot net. You'll 0:17:50.400 --> 0:17:57.000 find us on Twitter at Crypto. The supervising producer of 0:17:57.000 --> 0:18:00.879 this episode is Vicky Vergalina. Associate producer is Ty Butler, 0:18:01.200 --> 0:18:04.760 Associate producer is zan Ab Sidiki Desta wonder At is 0:18:04.800 --> 0:18:08.480 our engineer. Original music by Leo Sidron. Bloomberg's head of 0:18:08.480 --> 0:18:09.959 podcasts is Francesca Levi.