WEBVTT - The Inside Story of Crypto's Get-Rich-Quick Underbelly 0:00:00.080 --> 0:00:06.760 Bloomberg Audio Studios, Podcasts, radio News. 0:00:07.160 --> 0:00:10.479 You're listening to Bloomberg Business Week with Karl Messer and 0:00:10.520 --> 0:00:12.920 Tim Stenevek on Bloomberg Radio. 0:00:13.200 --> 0:00:15.000 David Gura here with Jess Meant and filling in for 0:00:15.080 --> 0:00:18.800 Krol Masser and Tim Stenevek on Bloomberg BusinessWeek on Bloomberg Radio. 0:00:18.920 --> 0:00:21.439 And back in twenty twenty one, like a lot of people, 0:00:21.560 --> 0:00:25.000 Nathaniel Eliason got into crypto and amassed a small fortune 0:00:25.120 --> 0:00:28.480 doing so, but also, like a lot of people, ran 0:00:28.520 --> 0:00:31.680 into some trouble. He got hacked. He has chronicled his 0:00:31.760 --> 0:00:34.000 journey through the wild world of crypto in the book 0:00:34.040 --> 0:00:38.160 Crypto Confidential, winning and losing millions in the New Frontier 0:00:38.360 --> 0:00:40.120 of finance, and that joins us. 0:00:40.120 --> 0:00:40.279 Now. 0:00:40.320 --> 0:00:42.320 Now great to have you with us, and let's go 0:00:42.400 --> 0:00:44.479 back to the origin story. I'm always curious about this, 0:00:44.600 --> 0:00:47.519 especially with all investors, but especially with with crypto investors. 0:00:47.760 --> 0:00:49.880 What was it that drew you to it back then? 0:00:50.479 --> 0:00:53.199 And described the promise as you saw it then of 0:00:53.240 --> 0:00:55.200 that new frontier of finance. 0:00:56.200 --> 0:00:57.880 To lean and thank you so much for having me on. 0:00:58.320 --> 0:01:01.040 I felt what a lot of people I think felt 0:01:01.200 --> 0:01:03.959 in twenty twenty one that there was all of this 0:01:04.200 --> 0:01:07.520 money being made in this strangey, mysterious world, and I 0:01:07.600 --> 0:01:11.240 kept seeing it pop up on Twitter. I had so 0:01:11.280 --> 0:01:13.800 many friends who had gotten into that world, and I 0:01:13.920 --> 0:01:16.320 had just enough hubris to think that if there were 0:01:16.360 --> 0:01:20.959 these other people online making money doing some combination of 0:01:21.040 --> 0:01:25.240 investing and gambling, then maybe I could too. And I've 0:01:25.280 --> 0:01:27.680 been fortunate in that I'd seen crypto pop up a 0:01:27.720 --> 0:01:30.840 couple of times and twenty thirteen and twenty seventeen, and 0:01:30.880 --> 0:01:33.160 it felt like, Okay, we've seen this story happen a 0:01:33.160 --> 0:01:35.440 couple of times, and maybe it's going to happen again, 0:01:35.520 --> 0:01:37.280 and maybe I can successfully ride. 0:01:37.319 --> 0:01:42.200 At this time, you also are a new father, So 0:01:42.240 --> 0:01:44.880 how do you bridge that gap whenever it comes to 0:01:45.800 --> 0:01:49.480 the vautal world of crypto and those types of decisions, 0:01:49.520 --> 0:01:51.360 and then balancing that with your personal life. 0:01:52.720 --> 0:01:55.280 I had a few forces happening at the same time 0:01:55.280 --> 0:01:57.880 back in twenty twenty one, which I think most parents 0:01:57.880 --> 0:02:00.200 can relate to. My first child was on the way, 0:02:00.600 --> 0:02:03.240 and I didn't know what my financial life was going 0:02:03.280 --> 0:02:05.760 to look like once she was here. And on top 0:02:05.800 --> 0:02:07.400 of that, I had just stepped out of doing the 0:02:07.440 --> 0:02:09.799 marketing work i'd been doing before and trying to figure 0:02:09.800 --> 0:02:13.480 out a new career. So I had this strong, at 0:02:13.560 --> 0:02:16.239 least internal sense of pressure that I needed to figure 0:02:16.280 --> 0:02:18.920 out how to make more money as quickly as possible, 0:02:19.400 --> 0:02:21.400 and I just didn't know what life was going to 0:02:21.440 --> 0:02:24.079 be like on the other side, And that, combined with 0:02:24.400 --> 0:02:27.359 how crazy so many markets were in twenty twenty one 0:02:27.400 --> 0:02:30.799 and going into twenty twenty two, created this perfect storm 0:02:30.800 --> 0:02:33.280 for me to end up in some of the wild 0:02:33.320 --> 0:02:35.840 situations that led to getting to write this book. 0:02:36.280 --> 0:02:39.640 Going back to those earlier days, it did feel like 0:02:39.720 --> 0:02:41.280 and I had friends were the same boat as yours, 0:02:41.360 --> 0:02:43.720 I think, who just seemed to be making a ton 0:02:43.760 --> 0:02:45.480 of money, at least on paper, doing this, and there 0:02:45.560 --> 0:02:48.480 was this like overarching fear of fomo that I was 0:02:48.480 --> 0:02:52.520 definitely perceiving. What did you I mean? I also think 0:02:52.520 --> 0:02:54.640 that there was a moment at which there was an 0:02:54.680 --> 0:02:58.800 awareness that there were individual investors doing this buying crypto, 0:02:58.840 --> 0:03:00.680 but there was this other kind of like above that, 0:03:00.800 --> 0:03:05.160 which was a more commercial, more institutional hand if that 0:03:05.280 --> 0:03:08.040 was entering this space. Talk about when you started to 0:03:08.440 --> 0:03:11.160 recognize that that there were these other companies that you know, 0:03:11.160 --> 0:03:13.239 were wielding a lot of power in this in this world. 0:03:14.600 --> 0:03:17.720 Yeah, and it's so true. And you see people making 0:03:17.840 --> 0:03:19.600 all of this money on Twitter, or at least you 0:03:19.639 --> 0:03:21.640 think they're making all of this money. People don't post 0:03:21.720 --> 0:03:24.400 their losses nearly as much, which was something I learned 0:03:24.440 --> 0:03:26.079 once I thought it right. 0:03:26.120 --> 0:03:27.360 They brought about their wins. 0:03:28.320 --> 0:03:30.560 Oh yeah, yeah, yeah, they talk about how they made 0:03:30.760 --> 0:03:32.880 a crazy return on this investment and then of course 0:03:32.960 --> 0:03:35.480 they rolled it into three more coins and lost all 0:03:35.520 --> 0:03:37.600 of it. And so you stumble on a lot more 0:03:37.600 --> 0:03:40.040 of those stories once you get in there. But the 0:03:40.080 --> 0:03:42.280 other thing I started to realize was that there were 0:03:42.360 --> 0:03:46.000 these these people, and back then it was the ftx's 0:03:46.040 --> 0:03:48.840 and the Three Arrows and companies that a number of 0:03:48.880 --> 0:03:52.200 them are gone. Now, they they had so much money 0:03:52.280 --> 0:03:55.520 to throw around that they could just completely move these 0:03:55.560 --> 0:03:58.600 smaller markets where the liquidity was a lot lower. So 0:03:58.680 --> 0:04:02.040 you might have one of these new cryptotokens that on 0:04:02.280 --> 0:04:05.440 paper is worth one hundred million dollars or even a 0:04:05.480 --> 0:04:08.680 billion dollars, but there's only five or ten million dollars 0:04:08.680 --> 0:04:11.240 of trading liquidity backing it up, and somebody like a 0:04:11.280 --> 0:04:13.960 Three Arrows can come in and just completely manipulate that 0:04:14.040 --> 0:04:17.880 market based on their insider knowledge of when news might 0:04:17.880 --> 0:04:20.040 be coming out, when you know changes might be happening, 0:04:20.040 --> 0:04:24.280 fundraisers might be happening, and it just becomes extremely hard 0:04:24.360 --> 0:04:27.800 to win as a retail investor or speculator. 0:04:28.160 --> 0:04:31.839 So walk us through some of your biggest wins versus 0:04:32.040 --> 0:04:35.000 the mistakes you also made along the way. 0:04:35.080 --> 0:04:38.560 Yeah, so you know, the book started where I was 0:04:38.600 --> 0:04:40.039 trying to do what a lot of people were trying 0:04:40.080 --> 0:04:42.239 to do. In twenty twenty one. I was day trading 0:04:42.400 --> 0:04:45.400 doge coin on my phone because I saw Elon Musk 0:04:45.480 --> 0:04:47.839 talking about it on SNL, and that seemed like where 0:04:47.839 --> 0:04:50.080 everybody was making all of the money. And then I 0:04:50.160 --> 0:04:52.800 started to get into more of the group chats and 0:04:52.839 --> 0:04:55.000 started to get to know more people who were deeper 0:04:55.080 --> 0:04:57.960 in the space, and realized that there were levels and 0:04:58.040 --> 0:05:00.160 levels and levels to this game, and the deep or 0:05:00.240 --> 0:05:03.400 you got, the more adversarial it got, and the more 0:05:03.800 --> 0:05:07.799 your success relied partially on secret knowledge and then partially 0:05:07.960 --> 0:05:11.320 on your ability to actually contribute to projects and actually 0:05:11.320 --> 0:05:13.520 work on things. Something I realized pretty early on was 0:05:13.560 --> 0:05:17.000 that purely speculating was kind of a loser's game because 0:05:17.120 --> 0:05:19.400 you were always at the whims of the market and 0:05:19.680 --> 0:05:21.919 you might have these big wins that you see, but 0:05:22.000 --> 0:05:25.719 you also have these pretty devastating losses. And so I 0:05:25.839 --> 0:05:28.320 early on decided, Okay, I'm going to try to learn programming. 0:05:28.360 --> 0:05:31.200 I'm going to try to work on a crypto company 0:05:31.200 --> 0:05:34.839 that's actually doing something, not just launching another meme coin, 0:05:35.400 --> 0:05:37.279 and joined up with this game and ended up getting 0:05:37.480 --> 0:05:40.200 paid in that game's token because they didn't have the 0:05:40.200 --> 0:05:43.440 actual money to pay me for the work. And then 0:05:44.000 --> 0:05:46.880 the token ended up taking off in just this incredible 0:05:46.880 --> 0:05:49.159 way where when we launched it, we thought we were 0:05:49.200 --> 0:05:51.120 going to launch it for one cent, and then we 0:05:51.200 --> 0:05:53.920 ended up having to launch it at ten cents, and 0:05:53.960 --> 0:05:56.960 then six months later it was suddenly trading at thirteen 0:05:57.040 --> 0:06:02.839 dollars and ended up creating this incredibly euphoric and stressful 0:06:03.120 --> 0:06:08.720 and terrifying just every emotion imaginable seeing my net worth 0:06:08.839 --> 0:06:12.560 on paper, you know, not necessarily accessible, go to these 0:06:12.640 --> 0:06:15.320 insane numbers and just bounce around day to day. 0:06:15.360 --> 0:06:18.440 Because of that, we had our colleague in here a 0:06:18.440 --> 0:06:20.680 few minutes ago talk we were looking at a bitcoin chart. 0:06:21.080 --> 0:06:23.279 She was saying, you can do technical analysis because there 0:06:23.320 --> 0:06:25.920 really isn't any fundamental analysis to do when it comes 0:06:25.920 --> 0:06:27.960 to it when it comes to a bitcoin and others. 0:06:28.480 --> 0:06:30.760 When was that moment for you when you know what 0:06:30.800 --> 0:06:34.480 you're describing, the kind of exuberance and effervescence, and wow, 0:06:34.560 --> 0:06:36.640 this thing created out of whole cloth is now worth 0:06:36.800 --> 0:06:39.680 x amount of dollars at least on paper. Why didn't 0:06:39.680 --> 0:06:42.640 you begin to sort of think differently about that? Was 0:06:42.640 --> 0:06:44.839 it when these companies were collapsing and you saw the 0:06:44.839 --> 0:06:48.479 industry sort of starting to reconfigure itself. Was there a 0:06:48.520 --> 0:06:51.839 moment at which you thought, this is pretty bubblicious, this 0:06:51.880 --> 0:06:52.719 is too good to be true. 0:06:54.360 --> 0:06:58.520 I unfortunately didn't start to realize how bubblicious it was 0:06:58.600 --> 0:07:01.640 until a little bit too late. The only reason that 0:07:01.839 --> 0:07:04.240 I got out the money that I did was that 0:07:04.360 --> 0:07:06.520 I just set a rule for myself that I was 0:07:06.560 --> 0:07:08.440 going to sell a small amount every day and not 0:07:08.520 --> 0:07:10.280 try to time the market, And that was kind of 0:07:10.320 --> 0:07:14.120 my saving grace through that period. Really, what I think 0:07:14.160 --> 0:07:16.600 made me feel like it was getting too hot and 0:07:16.640 --> 0:07:18.800 too crazy was I was deep in the gaming world, 0:07:18.800 --> 0:07:21.320 and I still think that there's this incredible potential for 0:07:21.440 --> 0:07:24.760 crypto and gaming to have a neat relationship in the future. 0:07:24.920 --> 0:07:27.840 People are spending billions of dollars a year on Fortnite 0:07:27.880 --> 0:07:31.800 in roadblocks, and there are already these gray markets, these 0:07:31.840 --> 0:07:34.280 gray economies that build around those games, and crypto is 0:07:34.320 --> 0:07:37.040 an interesting way to make them accessible. But you had 0:07:37.040 --> 0:07:40.080 these games that were suddenly being worth hundreds of millions 0:07:40.120 --> 0:07:44.360 of dollars more than very professional, well developed gaming studios, 0:07:44.520 --> 0:07:48.200 purely for speculative reasons, when there was not much of 0:07:48.240 --> 0:07:51.720 an actual game there that people were playing, or many 0:07:51.800 --> 0:07:54.720 people playing whatever game there was, And that's when it 0:07:54.760 --> 0:07:58.560 became pretty clear that, Okay, there is something here. There 0:07:58.560 --> 0:08:01.400 probably will be some very interesting things in crypto gaming 0:08:01.400 --> 0:08:04.480 in the future, but right now it's just crazy speculation 0:08:04.600 --> 0:08:06.600 and people are getting way ahead of themselves on it. 0:08:07.240 --> 0:08:11.320 You mentioned learning programming in a way to build your 0:08:11.400 --> 0:08:15.280 skills set beyond just trading crypto. How exactly did that 0:08:15.280 --> 0:08:17.680 help you? What methods when you're talking about programming, because 0:08:17.680 --> 0:08:19.920 I've heard this from other traders as well. Was this 0:08:20.000 --> 0:08:22.200 something you did online? Was there a particular course you 0:08:22.240 --> 0:08:23.440 did through a university. 0:08:25.040 --> 0:08:27.320 Yeah, that was actually a really big challenge back then 0:08:27.360 --> 0:08:30.360 because I wasn't building trading algorithms, I wasn't trying to 0:08:30.360 --> 0:08:32.320 become a quant I was trying to learn how to 0:08:32.440 --> 0:08:37.760 write code to build applications on the blockchain, so specifically 0:08:37.840 --> 0:08:41.680 building applications on ethereum, so learning how to actually launch 0:08:41.720 --> 0:08:45.800 a cryptocurrency, or how to build a very basic decentralized 0:08:45.880 --> 0:08:50.600 finance application for lending and borrowing with your assets, things 0:08:50.640 --> 0:08:53.440 like that. And the interesting thing was it was such 0:08:53.480 --> 0:08:56.679 a novel technology at the time, back in twenty twenty 0:08:56.679 --> 0:08:59.920 one that there were no boot camps. There was one 0:09:00.000 --> 0:09:03.480 one not great online course that you could go through 0:09:03.480 --> 0:09:05.400 that somebody had put on you to me a couple 0:09:05.440 --> 0:09:08.080 of years earlier, but there was no chat GPT, so 0:09:08.120 --> 0:09:09.800 you didn't have that that you could ask questions too. 0:09:10.200 --> 0:09:12.280 There were very few stack overflow answers for how to 0:09:12.360 --> 0:09:14.440 do these things, and so you kind of had to 0:09:14.480 --> 0:09:17.800 hack together the education on your own. And that's partially 0:09:17.840 --> 0:09:21.359 why the first time that I built anything on ethereum, 0:09:21.440 --> 0:09:24.040 I made a mistake and somebody stole thirty five thousand 0:09:24.040 --> 0:09:27.520 dollars from me. So a pretty painful way to learn 0:09:27.800 --> 0:09:29.760 probably ended up costing about the same as if I 0:09:29.840 --> 0:09:32.680 had gotten a little university education in it. 0:09:33.000 --> 0:09:35.360 For those sticking with us Jessman and David Gura here, 0:09:35.360 --> 0:09:38.720 of course, the Bloomberg Interactive Brokers studio. Carol and Tim 0:09:38.760 --> 0:09:42.240 are off today Bloomberg Business. We continues on radio, YouTube 0:09:42.280 --> 0:09:45.120 and originals. Of course, we're back with Nett alias in 0:09:45.200 --> 0:09:48.640 joining us on Zoom from Austin, Texas. Thanks so much 0:09:48.960 --> 0:09:51.560 for sticking with us and that we've been discussing his 0:09:51.600 --> 0:09:55.439 book Crypto Confidential, Winning and Losing Millions in the New 0:09:55.440 --> 0:09:57.680 Frontier of Finance, and of course we want to talk 0:09:57.679 --> 0:10:01.080 with you more about what the crypto looks like today, 0:10:01.120 --> 0:10:03.840 regulation hurdles, and then of course draw more from your book. 0:10:04.040 --> 0:10:07.840 So there's currently legislation in Congress that would create a 0:10:07.960 --> 0:10:11.360 regulatory framework for the crypto industry, but of course it's 0:10:11.360 --> 0:10:13.200 sorely needed, but there's a lot of issues that is 0:10:13.240 --> 0:10:15.920 holding up that type of regulation. How do you view 0:10:15.920 --> 0:10:20.360 this issue when it comes to regulation in crypto, it's. 0:10:20.240 --> 0:10:24.920 A fascinating problem because the industry clearly needs appropriate regulation. 0:10:25.080 --> 0:10:28.959 We don't want anyone to be able to do just anything. Scammers, 0:10:28.960 --> 0:10:31.680 bad actors. Everybody knows some of those stories in the space, 0:10:31.720 --> 0:10:33.400 and they also are hearing more and more of the 0:10:33.440 --> 0:10:35.960 good stories in the space, and so there do need 0:10:36.000 --> 0:10:39.000 to be proper guidelines for the industry to thrive, and 0:10:39.040 --> 0:10:42.520 it has the opportunity for America to be where it thrives, 0:10:42.559 --> 0:10:45.240 for America to be kind of the crypto center. And 0:10:45.480 --> 0:10:48.080 I'd say that in the last month or two, it's 0:10:48.160 --> 0:10:51.360 there's been a lot more optimistic, positive talk around creating 0:10:51.440 --> 0:10:54.800 that great set of guidelines for it here instead of 0:10:54.840 --> 0:10:57.720 just trying to ban everything, which had kind of been 0:10:58.320 --> 0:11:00.000 the way that we were seeing the SEC and other 0:11:00.160 --> 0:11:02.960 bodies act for the last few years, just up until 0:11:03.000 --> 0:11:06.640 this real change in the energy around crypto in the 0:11:06.720 --> 0:11:07.439 last month or two. 0:11:08.400 --> 0:11:10.600 Let me take your story as an example. You mentioned 0:11:10.640 --> 0:11:14.240 before the break you got hacked, lost about thirty thousand dollars. 0:11:14.760 --> 0:11:17.679 Was your impulse in that moment to think, who do 0:11:17.720 --> 0:11:19.840 I contact to help me out here? I'll get that 0:11:19.920 --> 0:11:23.520 money back and go to the regulators, go to law enforcement, 0:11:23.559 --> 0:11:25.960 go to government. Or were you still then of the 0:11:25.960 --> 0:11:28.840 frame of mind like this is, as Gary Gensler says 0:11:28.840 --> 0:11:31.000 so often, the wild West. This is a frontier that 0:11:31.080 --> 0:11:34.280 is not for better or worse, one where the government 0:11:34.280 --> 0:11:36.440 and regulators plays at this point in time, a very 0:11:36.440 --> 0:11:36.880 big role. 0:11:38.200 --> 0:11:40.640 I knew that what I was doing, trying to build 0:11:40.679 --> 0:11:44.560 something new on this fringe technology and give in some 0:11:44.679 --> 0:11:47.600 of the privacy and anonymous nature of crypto. There was 0:11:47.840 --> 0:11:49.960 nothing anybody could do to get that money back. It 0:11:50.000 --> 0:11:53.960 was gone, and those hackers they know how to obviouscate 0:11:54.000 --> 0:11:57.400 the funds, maybe try to withdraw them in other banks 0:11:57.440 --> 0:11:59.559 outside the US. It would not have been worth my 0:11:59.600 --> 0:12:01.600 time to to go after it, and I kind of 0:12:01.679 --> 0:12:03.640 knew I was taking that risk by building there, And 0:12:03.679 --> 0:12:06.320 hopefully when people are building in the future, they have 0:12:06.600 --> 0:12:09.960 some better safety systems in place so that they don't 0:12:10.040 --> 0:12:12.240 run the same kinds of risks that I was running 0:12:12.240 --> 0:12:12.600 back then. 0:12:13.120 --> 0:12:16.400 So after going through a situation like that, I mean, 0:12:16.400 --> 0:12:18.920 most people I would imagine be really terrified when it 0:12:18.960 --> 0:12:22.079 comes to those types of hacking or deals, why did 0:12:22.080 --> 0:12:24.760 you decide to sort of stick with crypto after that? 0:12:26.160 --> 0:12:29.319 So after it happened, I was obviously feeling pretty terrible, 0:12:29.440 --> 0:12:31.960 and one of my first instincts was to try to 0:12:31.960 --> 0:12:34.240 make sure it didn't happen to anybody else, And so 0:12:34.320 --> 0:12:37.959 I wrote a Twitter thread explaining what had happened, explaining 0:12:37.960 --> 0:12:39.960 the mistake I had made, in the hopes that somebody 0:12:40.000 --> 0:12:41.760 else would see it and maybe wouldn't make the same 0:12:41.760 --> 0:12:43.400 mistake when they were trying to learn how to do 0:12:43.440 --> 0:12:47.040 this kind of programming, and really within hours, I was 0:12:47.040 --> 0:12:50.680 getting inundated with messages from other people in crypto who 0:12:50.760 --> 0:12:53.240 were much further along in their programming journey, who were 0:12:53.240 --> 0:12:57.120 working at these huge influential companies, were really successful engineers 0:12:57.120 --> 0:12:59.640 who had made the exact same kinds of mistakes when 0:12:59.679 --> 0:13:02.640 they started. So many people had a similar story to 0:13:02.679 --> 0:13:05.400 tell that. What I ended up taking away from it 0:13:05.520 --> 0:13:08.000 was that this is kind of the gauntlet you have 0:13:08.080 --> 0:13:10.040 to go through if you want to learn how to 0:13:10.040 --> 0:13:12.880 build something in this new world as it was back then, 0:13:12.920 --> 0:13:15.720 and it was honestly kind of inspiring to see how 0:13:15.800 --> 0:13:18.880 much people rallied around somebody else making a similar mistake. 0:13:19.600 --> 0:13:23.160 We've talked about your genesis as a crypto investor in 0:13:23.200 --> 0:13:26.000 somebody playing in this space. Talk to us, if you would, 0:13:26.000 --> 0:13:28.200 about your genesis as an author. When did you decide 0:13:28.240 --> 0:13:31.599 to chronicle this in a book, your personal journey to 0:13:31.640 --> 0:13:34.679 weigh in on what's happened here in crypto and who's 0:13:34.679 --> 0:13:36.960 this book for? Who are you writing for, and what's 0:13:37.040 --> 0:13:38.520 the takeaway that you want people to have. 0:13:40.120 --> 0:13:42.880 While I was going through this whole period, I was 0:13:42.920 --> 0:13:46.040 writing articles to try to explain some of the interesting 0:13:46.080 --> 0:13:48.720 and crazy things that were happening in crypto to non 0:13:48.800 --> 0:13:54.000 crypto folks. I'm definitely not the most experienced, most expert 0:13:54.320 --> 0:13:57.880 crypto person out there, but I am quite good at 0:13:58.000 --> 0:14:01.360 explaining some of these interesting and technical topics to more 0:14:01.360 --> 0:14:04.080 of a lay audience. And as the market was quieting 0:14:04.120 --> 0:14:06.520 down and I was looking at how crypto is being 0:14:06.559 --> 0:14:09.600 talked about, it became pretty obvious that there wasn't somebody 0:14:10.000 --> 0:14:12.679 trying to explain what it was like to be living 0:14:12.720 --> 0:14:16.080 and working in that mania from the inside. There were 0:14:16.120 --> 0:14:20.600 some wonderful books and explainers from the outside from journalists, 0:14:20.640 --> 0:14:23.600 from people who were observing it, but nobody who had 0:14:23.800 --> 0:14:26.760 really lived and worked through it was sharing that story. 0:14:27.000 --> 0:14:29.040 And so I thought that this would be a really 0:14:29.120 --> 0:14:32.360 neat opportunity to capture that point in time to talk 0:14:32.400 --> 0:14:34.800 about what it was really like in the mailstream and 0:14:35.000 --> 0:14:37.600 try to sneak in some of that crypto education along 0:14:37.640 --> 0:14:39.280 the way, because I think there are a lot of 0:14:39.280 --> 0:14:42.440 people who have seen all these things happening with crypto, 0:14:42.640 --> 0:14:44.560 who know there's some good, who know there's some bad, 0:14:44.600 --> 0:14:47.000 who wants somebody to show them here's how you tell 0:14:47.000 --> 0:14:49.320 the two apart and do it in a really fun way, 0:14:49.400 --> 0:14:50.960 And that's what I tried to do with the book. 0:14:51.320 --> 0:14:53.640 What do you think is the biggest issue currently in 0:14:53.680 --> 0:14:57.400 the crypto industry that isn't getting discussed enough about? Because 0:14:57.400 --> 0:15:01.040 we talked so much about regulatory hurdle and the risk 0:15:01.080 --> 0:15:03.760 and the volatility, but other things happening underneath the surface. 0:15:05.160 --> 0:15:08.520 I think the biggest problem is that the really useful 0:15:08.560 --> 0:15:11.280 technologies that are being built are just not very sexy 0:15:11.320 --> 0:15:13.200 to talk about. Everybody wants to talk about the new 0:15:13.200 --> 0:15:15.760 coin that's going to the moon, or the new scammer 0:15:15.760 --> 0:15:18.600 who's getting caught, or the new mistake that's happened, or 0:15:18.840 --> 0:15:21.240 you know, Germany is selling billions of dollars of bitcoin, 0:15:21.320 --> 0:15:24.120 Like those stories are a lot more exciting than Hey, 0:15:24.200 --> 0:15:27.640 we designed this new way to very rapidly transfer US 0:15:27.720 --> 0:15:30.160 dollars anywhere in the world for basically no fees, and 0:15:30.160 --> 0:15:33.560 that could dramatically change international commerce and all these other things. 0:15:33.640 --> 0:15:36.080 Like those stories just aren't as exciting to people, So 0:15:36.160 --> 0:15:38.840 a lot of people miss the cool stuff that is 0:15:38.880 --> 0:15:40.560 being built, and a lot of people who are building 0:15:40.600 --> 0:15:45.120 it don't have the same crazy, bombacious personalities that get 0:15:45.120 --> 0:15:47.080 those stories out there, So you have to dig a 0:15:47.080 --> 0:15:49.400 little bit to find the cool things that are happening 0:15:49.960 --> 0:15:51.480 because they don't always make the headlines. 0:15:51.760 --> 0:15:53.320 Now we've got about a minute left. You know, I 0:15:53.400 --> 0:15:55.400 covered the Sam Bankman freed trial. I think a lot 0:15:55.440 --> 0:15:57.120 of people thought that was going to be this pivotal moment. 0:15:57.160 --> 0:15:58.640 I think there were a lot of kind of naysayers 0:15:58.640 --> 0:16:01.080 who thought that this is it popular peel of this 0:16:01.160 --> 0:16:03.400 is going to vanish. Were you surprised that hasn't been 0:16:03.400 --> 0:16:06.240 the case. Of course, we've seen the ETF authorization on 0:16:06.480 --> 0:16:09.000 the heels of all of that. But what you mentioned 0:16:09.080 --> 0:16:10.840 sort of the CD scammers who are getting caught, Has 0:16:10.880 --> 0:16:12.200 that changed anything as you see it? 0:16:13.880 --> 0:16:16.360 I think the good thing about all of that is 0:16:16.440 --> 0:16:21.040 that every year crypto continues to receive investment, that people 0:16:21.080 --> 0:16:23.360 continue to work on it, people continue to get involved, 0:16:23.400 --> 0:16:26.400 The tolerance for those types of actors goes down, the 0:16:26.440 --> 0:16:30.320 skepticism towards these new profits as they often portray themselves 0:16:30.440 --> 0:16:33.640 goes up, and we develop a better collective immune system 0:16:33.680 --> 0:16:36.400 towards that behavior. So when I saw the SBF stuff 0:16:36.400 --> 0:16:38.600 blowing up, or the Three Arrow stuff before that, or 0:16:38.760 --> 0:16:40.920 Terra Luna, I didn't think that was going to be 0:16:40.960 --> 0:16:43.160 the end of crypto. I knew it was going to 0:16:43.400 --> 0:16:44.960 put a dent in things for a while. It was 0:16:45.000 --> 0:16:47.920 going to naturally increase people's skepticism. But it was also 0:16:47.960 --> 0:16:49.720 a good thing. It was like a forest fire. It 0:16:49.760 --> 0:16:51.800 was clearing out some of the bad chaffs so that 0:16:51.840 --> 0:16:54.960 we could have this much healthier ecosystem in the long run. 0:16:55.000 --> 0:16:58.160 And unfortunately, sometimes some of these bad things do have 0:16:58.200 --> 0:17:00.560 to happen for the system to get stronger in the 0:17:00.600 --> 0:17:03.040 way that it really needs to to be successful. In 0:17:03.160 --> 0:17:05.040 twenty thirty, forty fifty years. 0:17:05.359 --> 0:17:08.160 Clearing out the brush, the under rush, the undergrowth. Nathaniel 0:17:08.240 --> 0:17:10.760 Iison joining us from Austin, Texas via zoom. His book 0:17:10.760 --> 0:17:14.760 is Crypto Confidential, Winning and Losing Millions in the New 0:17:14.800 --> 0:17:18.560 Frontier of Finance, a terrific and fast read, and focusing 0:17:18.560 --> 0:17:22.399 on his journey through the world of crypto, overlaid with 0:17:22.440 --> 0:17:24.920 what we've seen in its recent history. S Bloomber Business 0:17:24.960 --> 0:17:27.119 Week on Bloombergradio David Grow with Jess Manton in for 0:17:27.200 --> 0:17:28.639 Tim Stenebek and Carol Masser. 0:17:30.200 --> 0:17:33.080 We're going to have an interesting conversation coming up right 0:17:33.119 --> 0:17:36.639 now and switching gears on the importance of training workers 0:17:37.080 --> 0:17:41.919 on sustainable technology. And who better to talk to us 0:17:41.960 --> 0:17:44.920 about this than Hillary do chief Growth officer for the 0:17:45.000 --> 0:17:47.400 State of Michigan, Who's going to walk us through us 0:17:47.720 --> 0:17:50.680 joining us on zoom. Thanks so much for making time 0:17:50.760 --> 0:17:54.200 for us on this Tuesday here. Now walk us through 0:17:54.240 --> 0:17:58.320 when people are talking about training workers sustainable technology, what 0:17:58.440 --> 0:18:01.400 exactly does this all mean and what's the most important 0:18:01.400 --> 0:18:03.320 thing about this for those listening. 0:18:04.520 --> 0:18:06.239 Yeah, well, thank you so much for having me. I'm 0:18:06.280 --> 0:18:09.520 excited to be here. And you know what we just 0:18:09.840 --> 0:18:11.280 managed to do and what we won't came here to 0:18:11.359 --> 0:18:12.879 chat with you all about today as it relates to 0:18:12.920 --> 0:18:16.080 this topic. We actually just put a national poll in 0:18:16.160 --> 0:18:19.440 the field and surveyed, you know, one thousand folks US 0:18:19.480 --> 0:18:22.239 adults across the country, and what we found was that 0:18:22.280 --> 0:18:26.879 people nationwide really overwhelmingly want to see additional investment in 0:18:26.960 --> 0:18:31.439 things like sustainable technology, clean energy, and ev infrastructure, and 0:18:31.600 --> 0:18:35.720 really importantly, alongside that investment, they really want training in 0:18:35.840 --> 0:18:39.719 order to ensure that those technologies can be developed and 0:18:39.840 --> 0:18:43.520 manufactured right here in their communities and right here in 0:18:43.560 --> 0:18:47.600 the US. And one of the most overwhelming statistics from 0:18:48.080 --> 0:18:52.200 that survey was that eighty seven percent of folks surveyed, 0:18:52.359 --> 0:18:55.119 just a huge number said that they'd be willing to 0:18:55.160 --> 0:18:58.960 pay even more for those sustainable technologies if they were 0:18:59.119 --> 0:19:03.239 indeed developed and manufactured right here in the US. So 0:19:03.280 --> 0:19:06.879 Americans are actually willing, you know, to help facilitate, you know, 0:19:06.920 --> 0:19:10.639 getting that done and getting those sustainable technologies manufactured right 0:19:10.680 --> 0:19:12.920 here in the US. And if they're able to participate 0:19:13.000 --> 0:19:15.840 in you know, that economic opportunity. 0:19:15.680 --> 0:19:17.760 Hillary, let's pick up on that if we could. So 0:19:17.920 --> 0:19:21.840 they're willing to go that route. What are their expectations 0:19:21.840 --> 0:19:23.920 for the role that the government is going to play 0:19:24.160 --> 0:19:25.800 in making this happen? I imagine there are a lot of 0:19:25.800 --> 0:19:28.560 people who might suspect these technologies are more expensive, there's 0:19:28.560 --> 0:19:31.760 going to be higher capital costs. How eager are they 0:19:31.840 --> 0:19:33.800 or willing are they to sort of shoulder the cost 0:19:33.840 --> 0:19:35.880 of that, either through taxes or just through the way 0:19:35.880 --> 0:19:37.440 that this is allocated in state budgets. 0:19:38.760 --> 0:19:42.080