Speaker 1: Welcome to How the Money. I'm Joel and I am Matt.
Speaker 1: Today we're asking the question is crypto going extinct? With
Speaker 1: Stacy Marie Ishmael. That's right, Joel, we are diving into
Speaker 1: cryptocurrencies today because guess what, Uh, there's a very good
Speaker 1: chance that if you're listening, your crypto holdings are worth
Speaker 1: much less and you might be a little concerned. Um.
Speaker 1: And if so, it turns out you're not alone because
Speaker 1: a recent bank Rate survey show that only about thirty
Speaker 1: of millennials are comfortable investing in crypto today, which is
Speaker 1: down from about a year ago. There's just not as
Speaker 1: much confidence in crypto as there used to be. And
Speaker 1: so we're excited to be joined by Stacy Marie Ishmael
Speaker 1: for yours. Stacy, she used to work at The Finance Times,
Speaker 1: where she started the block Alphaville. She's worked as a
Speaker 1: senior editor at Apple, and now she's a writer and
Speaker 1: podcaster over at Bloomberg, where basically she eats and drinks
Speaker 1: crypto every single day. So, Stacy, thank you for joining
Speaker 1: us today. Thank you so much for having me. I
Speaker 1: wouldn't say that crypto is like super delicious as a mean,
Speaker 1: I was wondering. Yeah, bacon eggs in a side of
Speaker 1: cryptos like that that sounds like a nice breakfast and
Speaker 1: and well balanced, probably too. Uh Well, the first question
Speaker 1: we ask everybody that comes on the show, Stacy, is
Speaker 1: we want to know what they explored John Matt and
Speaker 1: I we sported John beer. We already showed you ours
Speaker 1: before we started recording. It's uh an expensive like twenty
Speaker 1: dollar bottle craft here that we're enjoying on today's episode
Speaker 1: and very much looking forward to talking about this at
Speaker 1: the end. Yeah. Well, and so we we sporge on
Speaker 1: that while we're saving and investing well for the future. So, yeah,
Speaker 1: what's that sport for you? What do you like to
Speaker 1: spend money on where people might think you're you're a
Speaker 1: little crazy for for doing it? Fountain pens. Oh, very nice.
Speaker 1: It's basically like the sit of cryptocurrency, like what is
Speaker 1: the most Yeah? Absolutely? Was this something you've always been
Speaker 1: into or was it because you needed something to juxtapose
Speaker 1: against cryptocurrencies and all the digital stuff that you're into. Oh,
Speaker 1: I've always been into it. So I'm left handed and
Speaker 1: a curse of being left handed, as you find that
Speaker 1: most pens don't work for you, and so I kind
Speaker 1: of fell down this path relatively early on of trying
Speaker 1: to find the perfect pen and trying to find, you know,
Speaker 1: something that would make my handwriting look a little bit
Speaker 1: less like chicken scratches. And somebody was like, have you
Speaker 1: heard of fountain pens? I was like, no, but I'm
Speaker 1: going to find out everything there is to know. And
Speaker 1: then I found out how expensive these can get, and
Speaker 1: it was a whole thing. So Matt and I we
Speaker 1: have a mutual friend who got so into fountain pens.
Speaker 1: He and I didn't. I was like, oh, that's cool.
Speaker 1: I'm glad that you're that you're interested in this, and
Speaker 1: he would talk about it occasionally show off his pens.
Speaker 1: But he went to a physical conference I have really
Speaker 1: wanted to go to. Okay, he had a really good time.
Speaker 1: So I think it would be worth the time and
Speaker 1: energy that it would take for you to get like,
Speaker 1: I didn't know that was a thing, but okay, So
Speaker 1: can I ask what is the most expensive pen that
Speaker 1: you own? It's okay, ask you can ask, um, the
Speaker 1: most expensive pen that I own is not the most
Speaker 1: expensive pen that I want, but I would say that
Speaker 1: I have spent at least there was one pen in
Speaker 1: particular that cost me more than all Right, I like it.
Speaker 1: I would love to just I mean, I've never held
Speaker 1: a pen like that before. It is I'm gorgeous, It
Speaker 1: writes beautifully, it's perfectly balanced. It is a work of arts. Okay, yeah,
Speaker 1: that's exactly. I have to follow up with this then,
Speaker 1: So how often are you writing letters to people? Because
Speaker 1: I would think if this is a sporge, like you
Speaker 1: don't want to get these pens just so you can
Speaker 1: you're not looking just look look at I'm putting them
Speaker 1: on the wall or something like that, Like are you
Speaker 1: are you often writing letters like old school style to
Speaker 1: fans and family? I even make wax seals for them.
Speaker 1: That's that's all. That is awesome. That is Can you
Speaker 1: send us a letter? We will send address. We'll give
Speaker 1: you our our millions, like put us on your your
Speaker 1: Christmas card list or whatever whatever in holiday card you
Speaker 1: send out. We would love to be on the receiving
Speaker 1: end of that beautiful writing. Well. I love that it's
Speaker 1: coming back to and and that you're helping bring it
Speaker 1: back because it's it's one of the like there's not
Speaker 1: much better than something handwritten from somebody to share to
Speaker 1: show that like you, you, you were thoughtful about you,
Speaker 1: you care about them. So I think it's cool. I
Speaker 1: think it's super cool as well. Thanks for sharing that, Stacy.
Speaker 1: Uh So, your background, right, like, you've lived, You've gone
Speaker 1: to school all over the world, just generally speaking, How
Speaker 1: has spending just a significant amount of time, you know,
Speaker 1: on a few different continents, how has that impacted your
Speaker 1: perspective when it comes to just economic matters that we're
Speaker 1: dealing with today. I think I've been very fortunate to
Speaker 1: be able to live what it feels like to not
Speaker 1: just like think about things like foreign exchange in the abstract,
Speaker 1: but actually go from one country to another where you know,
Speaker 1: all of my savings were in the Trinidad and Tobago
Speaker 1: dollar and I was paying bills in the the British
Speaker 1: pounds sterling, or to experience what it's like to have
Speaker 1: in one place, what would be considered kind of like
Speaker 1: a very comfortable standard of living that costs X y
Speaker 1: z amount, and then you moved to say San Francisco,
Speaker 1: where for exactly the same amount and rent you essentially
Speaker 1: live in a closet with no window. Um and it's
Speaker 1: it's really made me appreciate how important having a range
Speaker 1: of understandings of local contexts is as a as a reporter,
Speaker 1: as an and as an editor. Okay, talk to me,
Speaker 1: talk to me about your how you got interested in cryptocurrency,
Speaker 1: because yeah, you're at the point you host a daily
Speaker 1: podcast about it. Like Matt said at the beginning, you
Speaker 1: eat and breathe crypto and so like, what what got
Speaker 1: to this point where Stacy Marie Ishmael is now like
Speaker 1: that enthusiastic, that interested in the space where you hold
Speaker 1: client sinker that's your day job. Now, this is a
Speaker 1: reasonable question, and it comes from, I think the confluence
Speaker 1: of several of my interests. So when I started as
Speaker 1: a finance report to financial journalist, I was responsible for
Speaker 1: covering structured finance, for covering things like derivatives, for covering
Speaker 1: things that were called credit default swaps, um. I was
Speaker 1: looking at mortgage backed securities, you know, all the things
Speaker 1: that in two thousand and eight seemed like a good
Speaker 1: idea until they stopped seeming like a good idea. And
Speaker 1: so I've been I've always been interested in, like what
Speaker 1: is the nerdiest possible corner of a financial market and
Speaker 1: how can I make that interesting and accessible to people
Speaker 1: other than me and my immediate editors. And I've always
Speaker 1: also been the kind of person who is super interested
Speaker 1: in technology, Like I've worked at large and small technology companies.
Speaker 1: I was definitely the friend that would build your website.
Speaker 1: I was definitely the friend that you'd be like, I
Speaker 1: can't get by pre ne to work, like try this.
Speaker 1: And you know, crypto is essentially the confluence of risk pricing,
Speaker 1: financial arbitrage and speculation, and interesting underlying technology smashed together.
Speaker 1: M Yeah, that makes sense. Okay, So I mean, on
Speaker 1: that note, can you maybe just give us a brief
Speaker 1: cryptocurrency history or just like an evolution, And obviously there's
Speaker 1: a lot to cover, but cover and kind of like
Speaker 1: go over the aspects of crypto that you think are
Speaker 1: most important given where we are with crypto today. So
Speaker 1: in a historical context, the main thing to understand is
Speaker 1: that crypto, which started as bitcoin, started as a rejection
Speaker 1: of traditional banking, started as a rejection of the idea
Speaker 1: that governments should have a say in your ability to
Speaker 1: transact with somebody else, and started as a rejection of
Speaker 1: the idea that you should have to trust big centralized
Speaker 1: agencies like central banks or banks in general, to be
Speaker 1: an intermediary in those same types of trans actions. And
Speaker 1: this was all written out in a relatively short white
Speaker 1: paper about thirteen years ago that was the origins of bitcoin,
Speaker 1: and it was based on you know, like some some
Speaker 1: political theories, some philosophies, some mathematical proofs, some conspiracy theory. Toadah,
Speaker 1: you've got a bitcoin white paper. And since then what
Speaker 1: it has evolved into is absolutely for a lot of
Speaker 1: people are kind of an ideological expression of other deeply
Speaker 1: held beliefs that they might have. For some people it's
Speaker 1: a means of transacting. For some people it's a means
Speaker 1: of you know, kind of speculating and generating some kind
Speaker 1: of financial yield. And for other people it's just like
Speaker 1: an interesting problem to be solved. They're like, oh, this
Speaker 1: this is a cool piece of technology. What what can
Speaker 1: I build on top of this? Yeah, So it seems
Speaker 1: like there's definitely some we mentioned political elements are certainly
Speaker 1: some like libertarian libertarian leaning elements right in a lot
Speaker 1: of the crypto space. And and we we take a
Speaker 1: look step back and you look at maybe decentralized finance
Speaker 1: as a whole um I guess what what do you
Speaker 1: think what makes it worth striving for? Or what do
Speaker 1: these people, the people who are who are crypto enthusiasts enthusiasts,
Speaker 1: what what what makes them think that the centralized finance
Speaker 1: is worth striving for. I guess to our listener, the
Speaker 1: average American, right, it feels like the current system works
Speaker 1: decently well. Sure, the banks, their credit card companies, they
Speaker 1: make lots of money on every transaction that we make.
Speaker 1: But you know, the system, it meets our needs pretty
Speaker 1: well and it seems to hold up. So why in
Speaker 1: the world do we need defy in our lives? Well,
Speaker 1: if let's jump back to two thousand and you know,
Speaker 1: the sort of late two thousand's, early two thousand tens,
Speaker 1: when for a lot of people, particularly people in the
Speaker 1: United States, they wouldn't say that the financial system was
Speaker 1: working particularly well. There were tons of people that had
Speaker 1: lost their homes to mortgage foreclosure. There were people who
Speaker 1: had lost their savings to bank failures. There were people
Speaker 1: who were looking at those same banks that they were saying, hey, sorry,
Speaker 1: we we can't pay you back. We're out of money.
Speaker 1: Their ceo s were like flying around in private It's
Speaker 1: like there was this real perception on both ends of
Speaker 1: the political spectrum that you know, banks, the financial system
Speaker 1: was not serving the quote unquote average American and a
Speaker 1: lot of the belief system of crypto is well reject
Speaker 1: that system that wasn't serving you, and let's create a
Speaker 1: different one that is based on much more egalitarian principles.
Speaker 1: And that idea of we don't need to rely on
Speaker 1: somebody else who is just like looking to monetize us
Speaker 1: to you know, to be able to participate in a
Speaker 1: financial system was really powerful for a lot of people
Speaker 1: and remains really powerful for a lot of people, even
Speaker 1: though a lot of people are doing just fine and
Speaker 1: are not facing foreclosure and actually are using banks to
Speaker 1: store their considerable assets that they may have generated from
Speaker 1: bitcoin or otherwise. You know, this narrative, the story the
Speaker 1: white paper behind crypto, like our bitcoin specifically, like it's
Speaker 1: it's been like like you said, it's been around for
Speaker 1: a while, but I think a lot of folks have
Speaker 1: kind of jumped onto it within the recent years. Um,
Speaker 1: do you think that that story, that narrative combined with
Speaker 1: than what we experienced with the pandemic, right, like the
Speaker 1: pandemic coupled with stimmy checks. Do you think all those
Speaker 1: things combined contributed to the to the rise and the
Speaker 1: fall that that we've seen cryptocurrencies and door Absolutely, So
Speaker 1: I have a um, my friends will have heard me
Speaker 1: say this, So if any of them are listening, they're
Speaker 1: about to rule their eyes. But I have I have
Speaker 1: a unified theory of like video games, meme stocks, crypto reddit,
Speaker 1: which is that all of these things kind of tapped
Speaker 1: into a desire to be a part of something. They
Speaker 1: tapped into the fact that a lot of people were
Speaker 1: just spending a lot of time staring at computer screens
Speaker 1: because they couldn't go outside, and that for various reasons,
Speaker 1: some folks had like an above average amount of disposable income.
Speaker 1: And so you know, whether it was people suddenly spending
Speaker 1: a bunch of money playing video games or getting aggressively
Speaker 1: into online poker in the states where that's allowed, or
Speaker 1: you know, trying to persuade everybody that buying game stop
Speaker 1: is a good idea, or shares and game Stop was
Speaker 1: a good idea. It was the sort of the same fuel.
Speaker 1: Everything was fueled by very similar things, and none of
Speaker 1: those things really have to do with that sense of
Speaker 1: you know, pure libertarianism. None of that necessarily requires you
Speaker 1: to have read a white paper. It's just a sense of, Oh,
Speaker 1: this coin that looks like a sheba. You knew that
Speaker 1: Elon Muski is talking about. That seems fun and I
Speaker 1: need fun, and I'm going to do something like that.
Speaker 1: And you know, so there was it is impossible to
Speaker 1: separate some of the price increases of the past two
Speaker 1: years with the overarching macro reality of all of these
Speaker 1: other things that were happening at the same time. It's
Speaker 1: it's almost like it was just in the right place
Speaker 1: at the right time. Like it kind of makes me
Speaker 1: wonder if cryptocurrencies didn't exist, Well, what when we have
Speaker 1: turned to write like just as a world in particular
Speaker 1: here in the US, Like, what would all of those
Speaker 1: individuals have done instead of dumping that money into crypto
Speaker 1: As physical communities are kind of breaking down and you
Speaker 1: can't in time with people that you're close to in
Speaker 1: the ways that you're used to. It's the cryptocurrency is
Speaker 1: kind of filled a void and I don't know what
Speaker 1: they absolutely did, And it's you know, whether you look
Speaker 1: at subreddits like our Cryptocurrency, which is one of the
Speaker 1: largest on Reddit, or you know, Discord, which I tend
Speaker 1: to describe as like slack for video games. There were
Speaker 1: so many people in there that in between sharing trading
Speaker 1: tips or whatever they were talking about, we're just like
Speaker 1: talking about their lives and you know, just kind of
Speaker 1: sharing experiences and finding community in a way that also
Speaker 1: happened to be like, oh, by the way, I'm buying
Speaker 1: this thing is going to the moon. You should get
Speaker 1: in on that as well. Yeah, okay, so I guess there.
Speaker 1: But there are more and more naysayers in the crypto
Speaker 1: space now or or or like you know, they talk
Speaker 1: about crypto even though they're not they're not in on
Speaker 1: on the game. And Jamie Diamonds, the CEO of Chase,
Speaker 1: he recently he called crypto. I mean this, I mean,
Speaker 1: I'm sure this made ripples in that Reddit community, right.
Speaker 1: He called crypto a decentralized Ponzi scheme. And he's He's
Speaker 1: not the only one who's kind of a Debbie Downer
Speaker 1: in this regard, but it certainly feels like, you know,
Speaker 1: anyone like Matt Side at the beginning, who invested some
Speaker 1: of their money around Super Bowl time earlier this year,
Speaker 1: like they might feel the same way as he does, so,
Speaker 1: I don't know how how has the crypto community responded
Speaker 1: to big time players like it are they? Is he
Speaker 1: like the arch nemesis now of the crypto community. There
Speaker 1: are so many animals in crypto, like Jamie Diavon, like
Speaker 1: some you know, the it's like you know those murder
Speaker 1: boards where there's just a bunch of people and they're
Speaker 1: connected by red string like some dudes. Somewhere definitely has
Speaker 1: like Jamie Diamond's face as well as Somewhere board somewhere. Um, well,
Speaker 1: I'll say a couple of things. One is, it is
Speaker 1: very much the case that a lot of people bought
Speaker 1: into crypto because prices were hitting all time highs and
Speaker 1: there was this this you know, legit fomo, this fair
Speaker 1: of missing out, this idea of like wow, all of
Speaker 1: my friends are suddenly rich on paper, Um, I want
Speaker 1: to get in on this action. And so, and that
Speaker 1: was before the super Bowl. For me, the Super Bowl
Speaker 1: was kind of like the toppi Ist top of the
Speaker 1: marketing crency. Um, you know, if like million dollar ads
Speaker 1: with famous celebrities, exactly Matt Damon is telling you to
Speaker 1: buy something, it's like a strong counter indicator. Otherwise you're weak,
Speaker 1: are you not your exactly so, but that enthusiasm has
Speaker 1: been going on for several months, and you know, like
Speaker 1: that September to December period is when you couldn't if
Speaker 1: you were a celebrity and you weren't talking about your
Speaker 1: board ape and ft like, were you even a celebrity?
Speaker 1: And but the reality for a lot of other people
Speaker 1: who bought into crypto in two thousand thirteen, two thousand
Speaker 1: fourteen when it was trading like the low thousands of dollars,
Speaker 1: is that even though it's down, you know, more than
Speaker 1: fifty this year, those people are still fine. And so
Speaker 1: you have this kind of dichotomy emerging in the market
Speaker 1: of folks who piled in at the top and folks
Speaker 1: who have been in from the beginning. And it's sort
Speaker 1: of it's almost like two sides talking past each other
Speaker 1: because a lot of the folks who piled in at
Speaker 1: the top, and to be clear, some of the people
Speaker 1: piled on the top were very sophisticated. They were, in
Speaker 1: kind of parlance, I'm sure folks and you're shore familiar with,
Speaker 1: considered like qualified investors. Right. They had they had the
Speaker 1: liquid assets, they had the background, they had the experience um,
Speaker 1: and they made decisions that institutional investors, including major hedge funds,
Speaker 1: were also making, Like this token looks like a smart bet,
Speaker 1: you know, hindsight and all that stuff. So I would
Speaker 1: be very careful not to say that everybody who came
Speaker 1: in because of the Super Bowl was like didn't know
Speaker 1: what they were doing. People who very much knew what
Speaker 1: they were doing also made bad bets and bad calculations.
Speaker 1: That's very true, good distinction to make, Stacy. You know,
Speaker 1: we're kind of talking about crypto here, just kind of
Speaker 1: widely and broadly. We're gonna take a quick break, but
Speaker 1: after that break, we're going to dive into kind of
Speaker 1: some of the more specific and practical applications that we
Speaker 1: can see cryptocurrencies impacting our lives directly. We'll get to
Speaker 1: all of that right after this our we're background the break,
Speaker 1: still talking with Stacy Marie Ishmael about cryptocurrency. And you know,
Speaker 1: we covered a lot of history, old history, recent history
Speaker 1: just a second ago. But obviously since the Super Bowl time,
Speaker 1: right since the topi ist of the top Stacy, we're
Speaker 1: we're experiencing a lot of volatility um a lull in
Speaker 1: the crypto market, right and so I guess I'm curious
Speaker 1: to hear from you. Like, We've got a lot of
Speaker 1: history to draw from when it comes to stock market recoveries,
Speaker 1: but we just, you know, we just don't have as
Speaker 1: much history on the crypto front. So how have you
Speaker 1: seen investing strategies shifting in the face of less data
Speaker 1: less information? There's a phrase in crypto that is deployed
Speaker 1: in a way that's not always helpful. Um that's called
Speaker 1: do your own research. And it's this it's you know,
Speaker 1: you would have seen this at the heights of meme
Speaker 1: stocks as well, But it's just this idea of you
Speaker 1: should be able to find out and you should be
Speaker 1: able to you know, like use Google, use Reddit, use
Speaker 1: discord talks to your financial advisor, whatever, but you should
Speaker 1: be able to figure this out for yourself. The reality, though,
Speaker 1: and I say this from the vantage points of somebody
Speaker 1: who works at in a newsroom that has access to
Speaker 1: like the best, fastest, most real time financial data in
Speaker 1: the world, you can stare at crypto data all day
Speaker 1: long and not be sure what exactly you're looking at because,
Speaker 1: as you say, you have a relatively short amount of
Speaker 1: like sample, right, it's you know, Thirteen years is not
Speaker 1: a long time for a financial asset to be in existence.
Speaker 1: You have many different types of pricing because one of
Speaker 1: the things about being decentralized is like you don't necessarily
Speaker 1: have one single clearing price that everybody agrees on is
Speaker 1: is the price. It can be quite hard to get
Speaker 1: certain other kinds of data, like volumes, you know, things
Speaker 1: that if you are like a traditional look at a
Speaker 1: person coming at this from a traditional financial perspective, You're like,
Speaker 1: how do you assess the fundamentals of bitcoin? Question mark?
Speaker 1: And the folks on the more skeptical side of the
Speaker 1: spectrum will say, well, bitcoin has no fundamentals, And the
Speaker 1: folks on the more maximalist side of the spectrum, she'll say,
Speaker 1: the fundamentals don't matter. What matters is like the future
Speaker 1: and the optimism and the limited supply, and so trying
Speaker 1: to value this thing like a traditional financial asset is
Speaker 1: extremely difficult. So what folks have done instead is things like, okay,
Speaker 1: what is crypto correlated to? And for a decent stretch
Speaker 1: over the past several months, it was very correlated with
Speaker 1: like big cap tech stocks, So you know, whatever Apple
Speaker 1: or Meta or Amazon were up to or even Netflix,
Speaker 1: like that was what you were going to see in bitcoin.
Speaker 1: You know, if you were to chart Bitcoin versus the
Speaker 1: fangs for a while, it looked like a single chart.
Speaker 1: Some people would look at this from the perspective of
Speaker 1: something that you said earlier. Okay, like nobody has stimmy
Speaker 1: checks anymore. There's less liquidity in the economy. That means
Speaker 1: that fewer people are going to have the appetite for
Speaker 1: riskier assets. We're going to expect that we're gonna adjust
Speaker 1: our price targets downward. But again, those are things that
Speaker 1: are almost orthogonal to crypto itself that folks are trying
Speaker 1: to model on top of, because again they're just there
Speaker 1: are very few crypto native inputs that are scalable and
Speaker 1: available for the average person to analyze. Right, Yeah, as
Speaker 1: we're trying to find these corollaries, I mean, a lot
Speaker 1: of folks said that Bitcoin that it would be this
Speaker 1: inflation hedge, almost like a like a digital form of gold, right,
Speaker 1: and so folks turn to sort of like those safe
Speaker 1: harbor assets like gold when you're seeing, you know, the
Speaker 1: market tank. But obviously as inflation has been soaring, Bitcoin
Speaker 1: has been crashing along with the market, and yeah, So,
Speaker 1: I mean, I guess why is it that you think
Speaker 1: bitcoin hasn't lived up to its billing. Is it just
Speaker 1: an improper comparison to something like gold or to something
Speaker 1: like some of the top stocks. Well, I think it's
Speaker 1: the difference between like theory and the reality of markets, right,
Speaker 1: which is, you can have a really good theory and
Speaker 1: then markets will be like ha ha you thought. And
Speaker 1: one of the but one of the things that is
Speaker 1: true about crypto is this is a This is an asset.
Speaker 1: Whether you're thinking about you know, the big ones like
Speaker 1: ethereum and bitcoin or even the you know things like
Speaker 1: stable points, but this is an asset that started in retail.
Speaker 1: It started with people who were interested enough to solve
Speaker 1: math problems on paper in their bedrooms, and then you
Speaker 1: know kind of like upgrade their their PCs versus starting
Speaker 1: from you know, fully formed from the minds of some
Speaker 1: person at Goldman Sacks or JP Morgan or wherever. And
Speaker 1: retail investors are much less predictable than your average institutional
Speaker 1: investors and much less likely to be engaging in trillion
Speaker 1: dollar group think. Billion dollar group think absolutely, but you know,
Speaker 1: generally speaking, the capitalization of any one retail investor is
Speaker 1: way way smaller. But as institutional investors got into the market,
Speaker 1: they do the kinds of things that institutional investors do,
Speaker 1: which is they pile into a position or or a
Speaker 1: series of positions. They allocate their portfolios where they're looking
Speaker 1: for things that can hedge, so you know, they want
Speaker 1: something that's going up while something else is going down
Speaker 1: and vice versa. And that has this like same making
Speaker 1: tendency where trades become very crowded and they become identical
Speaker 1: because you have a bunch of very large entities all
Speaker 1: moving in the same direction at once. So something that
Speaker 1: somebody else would argue is supposed to be uncoupled from
Speaker 1: sociain kinds of fundamentals like becomes coupled because people who
Speaker 1: are prone to big investment band group think are now
Speaker 1: playing in that space. All right, I want to know
Speaker 1: about like we we've seen problems with wallets and crypto
Speaker 1: storage and people losing their passwords and getting locked out
Speaker 1: and they've got like a deadline in order to figure
Speaker 1: out what their password was or they're gonna lose like
Speaker 1: a ton of money, and um so yeah, I guess
Speaker 1: what's the best way for people maybe to go about
Speaker 1: investing in cryptic currency. Do E t F solve this problem?
Speaker 1: Like that's something that's happening outside of the United States.
Speaker 1: We don't have any crypto approved ets here inside the
Speaker 1: US yet. But is that the future and is that
Speaker 1: the best way for people to have some exposure or
Speaker 1: I guess there's two different problems. There's one like the
Speaker 1: the investor wants some sort of exposure, but then there's
Speaker 1: also that somebody who feels like there's a use case
Speaker 1: they want actual crypto in some sort of you know,
Speaker 1: at crypto wallet. Right, yeah, I mean you hit on
Speaker 1: something really important, which is that the user experience of
Speaker 1: crypto is challenging. Most people in most countries have figured
Speaker 1: out paper money. A large percentage of people in countries
Speaker 1: that you might not have expect have figured out digital money.
Speaker 1: Right there, like Venmo native or Empesso native. They're like cash,
Speaker 1: what is cash? I'll venmo you or i'll you know
Speaker 1: cash app you or whatever those things are. Crypto has
Speaker 1: not quite reached that same level of user friendliness. You
Speaker 1: you start from a place of if you forget your password,
Speaker 1: r I p all your money, right It's it's not
Speaker 1: like you can call your bank and give them, you know,
Speaker 1: nineteen different forms of identification and your firstborn child, and
Speaker 1: they'd be like, okay, we've unlocked your account. Here you go.
Speaker 1: There's none of that because again, this is a rejection
Speaker 1: of centralization. There's no appeal to a higher authority to
Speaker 1: say it comes down to you. And frankly, most people
Speaker 1: are bounded password managements. It's just not a strength for
Speaker 1: acquired right now. So you know, anything that gets like
Speaker 1: really intensely built around make sure you remember this very
Speaker 1: complicated combination of characters and never forget it's a hurdle.
Speaker 1: Uh So, I think the last problem number one. I
Speaker 1: think problem number two is the way that some folks
Speaker 1: think about crypto is that as if it's as safe
Speaker 1: as other kinds of financial assets. You know, like a
Speaker 1: lot of the most um depressing testimony from people who
Speaker 1: lost money to entities like Celsius and Voyage has been
Speaker 1: folks saying I thought you were a bank, and I
Speaker 1: thought you had f D I C type insurance and
Speaker 1: I thought that'd be okay. And you you know, this
Speaker 1: was marketed to me as a savings product. And so
Speaker 1: I think there's a misunderstanding of the levels of risk here.
Speaker 1: Even when you get two products like e t f s,
Speaker 1: which are supposed to provide more of those traditional looking things,
Speaker 1: they're still just rappers on an underlying asset class that's
Speaker 1: right volatile, or on equities exposed to an underlying acid
Speaker 1: class that is very volatile. Basically, that's why stable coins
Speaker 1: weren't so stable, right because at least some of them, Yeah, right, right, yeah,
Speaker 1: because like they get labeled as such, they get wrapped
Speaker 1: in it's in the name exictically, it kind of gets
Speaker 1: wrapped in that way, gets promoted, gets marketed the less
Speaker 1: volatile form of cryptocurrency. But like you said, some of
Speaker 1: them didn't experience that. But okay, so you're kind of
Speaker 1: talking about some of the reasons why cryptocurrencies, how they're
Speaker 1: not actually being used as a currency, right, Like you're
Speaker 1: you're talking about first of all, it's tough to manage
Speaker 1: whether or not they're safe. It's not an actual bank.
Speaker 1: Are there other reasons that we're not seeing countries adopt cryptocurrencies?
Speaker 1: We've seen too, right, right, So yet El Salvador, right,
Speaker 1: like they made it their national exchange, but it just
Speaker 1: in the Central African Republic is the other one. But
Speaker 1: it doesn't seem like it's it's getting widely adopted. Up.
Speaker 1: I'm curious if there are some other reasons that you
Speaker 1: think that that's the case. Yeah, I mean the big
Speaker 1: one is slowness. And and this is thing that is
Speaker 1: not like talked about as often. It's like you want
Speaker 1: to send, like you want to buy something on a blockchain,
Speaker 1: or you want to send money from one way to another,
Speaker 1: most of the solutions that are available to most people
Speaker 1: are nowhere near as fast as your average like Venmo transaction.
Speaker 1: There's just a lot of latency built into these networks,
Speaker 1: and there are fees that folks might not expect. Right.
Speaker 1: It's which is not to say that there are no
Speaker 1: fees in banking, because like every time I get dinged
Speaker 1: for a wire transfer fee, I'm like, ah, But in
Speaker 1: every single time you do a transaction in crypto, you
Speaker 1: you pay some kind of fee to process that transaction.
Speaker 1: And I remember in like last fall, when folks were
Speaker 1: doing they were like, oh, we're going to save the
Speaker 1: world by raising money in crypto. Donate here and we'll
Speaker 1: send it to good cause of your choosing, And people
Speaker 1: be like, great, I want to donate a hundred dollars
Speaker 1: and then on the other end they'd be like, great,
Speaker 1: that will be fifty dollars in fees, And excuse me
Speaker 1: for you know, so that I was a calculation you
Speaker 1: were not expecting because even the world's most aggressive credit
Speaker 1: card is rarely going to charge you a fIF on
Speaker 1: on some kind of donation. And then I think, just
Speaker 1: like a third thing is the inherance volatility of the
Speaker 1: thing itself. Like one of the key expected attributes of
Speaker 1: something that acts like a currency is that it's a
Speaker 1: store of value that at the beginning, middle of the
Speaker 1: end of transaction, this one dollar is still going to
Speaker 1: be worth a dollar. And if you combine like the
Speaker 1: slowness and the fees that I mentioned, that you're by
Speaker 1: the end of a transaction, you're one dollar might be
Speaker 1: worth two dollars or it might be worth twenty cets.
Speaker 1: And that is a degree of instability that not everybody
Speaker 1: is super comfortable with. Yeah, and and something else that
Speaker 1: people aren't comfortable with in the crypto space or more
Speaker 1: there's more more discomfort with these days, is is hacking
Speaker 1: in scam attempts? Right, because we saw it just the
Speaker 1: other day. Stats came out that more than two billion
Speaker 1: dollars has been stolen in crypto accounts this year alone,
Speaker 1: and so I guess, uh, some of these some of
Speaker 1: these places where people buy in store cryptocurrency, they're not
Speaker 1: as secure as may be the end end user thinks,
Speaker 1: and then they find out that their money has been
Speaker 1: stolen by hackers. I mean, how big of a problem
Speaker 1: is this, because it seems like the more the more
Speaker 1: money that's being ripped from people's hands as they're getting
Speaker 1: into the space, that that creates just preponderance of issues
Speaker 1: for adoption of crypto in general. This is a problem,
Speaker 1: and it's a problem for all of the reasons you've
Speaker 1: identified and a few more. And one of the things
Speaker 1: is that a lot of the energy coming into like
Speaker 1: crypto hacking are non state or state actors like the
Speaker 1: Lazarus Group, which is, you know, kind of an infamous
Speaker 1: North Korea based hacking collective who five years ago might
Speaker 1: have been ripping people off or attempting to hack into
Speaker 1: into like non crypto things, but there was less money
Speaker 1: in crypto five years ago. So what you have are
Speaker 1: these incredibly sophisticated, well organized actors that are very opportunistic
Speaker 1: and they're looking for where is there a bunch of
Speaker 1: money slashing around and the opportunity to confuse people and
Speaker 1: make an easy book as a result of that. And
Speaker 1: that is a real challenge. And when I say sophisticated,
Speaker 1: it's you know, some of my colleagues on the cybersecurity
Speaker 1: team here at Bloomberg have reported on things like that
Speaker 1: group will bribe employees at Team Mobile to get them
Speaker 1: to clone your simcard, you know, so that they can
Speaker 1: redirect your two factor authentication code and log into your account.
Speaker 1: I mean, this is not like your average like somebody
Speaker 1: clicked on a spa bammily link in an email thing.
Speaker 1: This is legit incredibly sophisticated attempts that are very hard
Speaker 1: as an ordinary human being to protect yourself against. So
Speaker 1: that's the first thing, and I think the second thing is, yeah,
Speaker 1: there's also just a bunch of like you click on
Speaker 1: a spammi link in an email, or you know, somebody
Speaker 1: loses or had a very weak password on their Instagram
Speaker 1: account and then their Instagram was taken over and it's
Speaker 1: a celebrity account. So people are like, oh, yeah, why
Speaker 1: is so and so celebrity telling me to buy dogecoin.
Speaker 1: I guess I'll buy dogcoin, but it was in fact
Speaker 1: somebody who has compromised that celebrity account. Or you know,
Speaker 1: you get an email that looks like your n f
Speaker 1: T provider and it says click here for a free
Speaker 1: n f T and everybody loves free stuff and they
Speaker 1: click on the thing. But the thing is a link
Speaker 1: to some kind of malware, and that malware, you know,
Speaker 1: connects to a server, and that server is like, cool,
Speaker 1: thank you, We'll take all your actual n f T
Speaker 1: s and we will make our merry away with it.
Speaker 1: You know. So I don't think that the hacking is
Speaker 1: necessarily like new I do think that the the opportunity
Speaker 1: is so large that a lot of folks who are
Speaker 1: being like sketchy and netherious in other areas have turned
Speaker 1: their attention to crypto. That makes a ton of sense.
Speaker 1: You're getting hit on both ends. You're getting hit by
Speaker 1: the folks who are trying the less sophisticated spam attacks.
Speaker 1: But then you've got, like you said, some of these
Speaker 1: big players as well. And I think some folks would
Speaker 1: say that like one of the solutions to this frauds
Speaker 1: these attempts would be tieder regulation. So can you talk
Speaker 1: about how you think that type of regulation by the state,
Speaker 1: how would that affect something like cryptocurrencies. This is one
Speaker 1: of the hardest simple questions because crypto is global, right,
Speaker 1: So when you're when you're talking about regulation, you're also
Speaker 1: talking about you have to have some kind of cross
Speaker 1: border framework, because you can't only regulate bitcoin in the
Speaker 1: United States and then have nothing happening in Europe because
Speaker 1: you're gonna want to You're gonna have people in Paris
Speaker 1: who want to send something to people in New York,
Speaker 1: and then you're gonna have a conflict of regulatory entities.
Speaker 1: So that's kind of a huge problem. And there are
Speaker 1: there are many efforts by the folks who are paid
Speaker 1: to write white papers that are very long about global
Speaker 1: financial stability and regulation, that are attempting to find solutions
Speaker 1: to this problem. But then you have different kinds of
Speaker 1: potential regulation. You have regulation at the state level. As
Speaker 1: you say, so, like I live in New York City,
Speaker 1: the New York Attorney General and others have been very
Speaker 1: aggressive in saying, okay, crypto companies, if you want to
Speaker 1: operate here, if you want to have New Yorkers sign
Speaker 1: up for your stuff, you are going to have to
Speaker 1: abide by a higher class of disclosure requirements. There's way
Speaker 1: more paperwork in your future. Get ready. And by the way,
Speaker 1: if you don't follow up, we will find you out
Speaker 1: of existence. Other states have been like, word, chill, we
Speaker 1: we have no requirements. Do what you will, it's fine.
Speaker 1: Then you have federal level regulations, right, So you've got
Speaker 1: the Securities and Exchange Commission, you have the the cftc
Speaker 1: UM and others saying we are going to make sure
Speaker 1: that at the level of like qualified Investors or Kim Kardashian,
Speaker 1: that no one is engaging in behavior that contravene existing laws.
Speaker 1: Then you've got the legislators, so people who are trying
Speaker 1: to say, well, I as a congress person or I
Speaker 1: as a Senator, I'm proposing that we do more stuff
Speaker 1: with stable coin. And here's my five page long bill.
Speaker 1: Will somebody please remember to vote on this before the
Speaker 1: midterm elections. So you've got this sort of stew of
Speaker 1: different kinds of things, and that's leading to a bunch
Speaker 1: of people in the industry being like, woe is us.
Speaker 1: There's no regulatory clarity. We don't know how to proceed.
Speaker 1: And in the meantime, the people who are really suffering
Speaker 1: are those individual investors who thought this thing was a bank. Yeah,
Speaker 1: I guess when we're talking about decentralized find its right
Speaker 1: to currency is a part of this movement to get
Speaker 1: away from traditionally regulated ways of doing of doing business,
Speaker 1: sending money and does regulation kind of flying the face
Speaker 1: of that is does it kind of up end like
Speaker 1: toss over to the apple cart? Per se? It absolutely
Speaker 1: does by definition. So it's because this to regulate something,
Speaker 1: you have to be able to define it. You have
Speaker 1: to be able to say, these are the this is
Speaker 1: the jurisdiction that you operate in. There is there are
Speaker 1: a couple of crypto companies that famously are like we
Speaker 1: are not headquartered anywhere, no one can regulate us, and
Speaker 1: regulators like, um, yeah we can. We will regulate you
Speaker 1: in every place that you have in office like good try.
Speaker 1: Uh you know. So it's this this idea of statelessness,
Speaker 1: this idea of being entirely decentralized. There are always people
Speaker 1: behind these protocols, and those people will say things like well,
Speaker 1: you can't regulate software and the European Union and be
Speaker 1: like tell that's a Microsoft, my guys, we absolutely can
Speaker 1: regulate software. So you know, I think that this this
Speaker 1: paradigm of you want something that is entirely decentralized, entirely stateless,
Speaker 1: but also safe, it's very hard to reconcile. Yeah, all right,
Speaker 1: We've got a few more questions we want to get
Speaker 1: to with you. Stay. That's that's fascinating. I'm so curious.
Speaker 1: I feel like this is one of those things where
Speaker 1: like what happens here is where I'm on the edge
Speaker 1: of my seat because it's in tossing popcorn of my
Speaker 1: mouth while I watch um. But yeah, we've got a
Speaker 1: few more questions to get to with you, including we
Speaker 1: want to talk about n f T s. We also
Speaker 1: want to discuss maybe like crypto and how it seems
Speaker 1: to have religious elements to it going on. We'll we'll
Speaker 1: get to those questions right after this. All right, we're
Speaker 1: back from the break talking with Stacy Marie Ishmael about cryptocurrencies,
Speaker 1: and just before the break, you heard it here Stacy
Speaker 1: is a proponent for one global organization to regulate all
Speaker 1: the one ring to rule the act exactly. It sounds
Speaker 1: like even watching the series as well. Stacy. On that note,
Speaker 1: let's talk about religion, because yeah, a lot of segues here,
Speaker 1: like earlier on, like you're kind of talking about this
Speaker 1: sort of like your unified theory as to why it
Speaker 1: is that folks were sort of latching onto something like crypto.
Speaker 1: I mean to that end, like do you see parallels
Speaker 1: between cryptocurrencies and sort of like fundamentalist religion, because I
Speaker 1: feel like the like the fear, uncertainty, doubts, the mantra,
Speaker 1: the combined with continued calls for fellow crypto enthusiast to
Speaker 1: hold all to keep the faith like that has a
Speaker 1: lot of these kind of like quasi religious elements, which
Speaker 1: kind of makes this an even weirder asset class. Oh,
Speaker 1: it's super weird. Um. One of my colleagues was on
Speaker 1: the team in London, Emily Nicole. She academically studied cults
Speaker 1: and has a kind of a research background in understanding,
Speaker 1: you know, what makes people coalesced a round, either an
Speaker 1: idea or particularly compelling personality, And it's so interesting to
Speaker 1: get to benefit from the perspective that she brings to
Speaker 1: covering this for all of the reasons that you've just described,
Speaker 1: which is I don't know if I would necessarily go
Speaker 1: so far as to say it is religious, but it
Speaker 1: is certainly a space that is marked by charismatic leaders
Speaker 1: and by people who are held up as quasi deities.
Speaker 1: You know, whether it's like you believe in Doge and
Speaker 1: Elon Musk, or you believe in Jack Dorsey and bitcoin,
Speaker 1: or you perhaps some of your listeners are familiar with
Speaker 1: something that was called Home and was a very interesting
Speaker 1: set of tokens that relied very heavily on the idea
Speaker 1: that if nobody ever sells, this can only go up,
Speaker 1: which is in other parts the financial markets described very differently.
Speaker 1: But this was led by a person who was pseudonymously
Speaker 1: known as Zeus, and Zeus would hold these town halls
Speaker 1: where he would like rally his followers who call themselves
Speaker 1: Om's and talk about the need to keep the faith
Speaker 1: and you know, all of us have to be in
Speaker 1: this together. I mean they're down like ninety seven percent
Speaker 1: since the height of the height of those town halls.
Speaker 1: But there is something about crypto that is very much
Speaker 1: based in this idea of community, which is very confusing
Speaker 1: when you think about the fact that it is also
Speaker 1: explicitly a rejection of trust, right that this whole thing
Speaker 1: is supposed to function even if you don't know or
Speaker 1: trust your counterparty. And yet so many of these kinds
Speaker 1: of appeals are to identity, are to the idea of
Speaker 1: like tribe or nation and other kind of collective organizing principles,
Speaker 1: like crypto people even invented companies. They were like, you know,
Speaker 1: forget ll c s, we can have decentralized autonomous organization
Speaker 1: because we like, we need a way to make decisions collectively.
Speaker 1: So I absolutely think that I don't know if it's
Speaker 1: inherent to the asset class or if it's that the
Speaker 1: kinds of people who are attracted to this tend to
Speaker 1: manifest in very specific ways, but there are there are
Speaker 1: very much elements of this that are defined by that
Speaker 1: appeal to charisma. I'm sure that that unknown identity of Satoshi,
Speaker 1: right has to has to play a little part in that, right,
Speaker 1: the ambiguous nature of who wrote the paper and kind
Speaker 1: of like it came from on high, what's started. Yeah,
Speaker 1: it's like the tablet's coming down from the mountain and
Speaker 1: you're like, all right, cool. And that has to be
Speaker 1: a part of it, because if you could just point
Speaker 1: to a nerdy individual like in their mom's basement, you
Speaker 1: might be like, okay, well, some of the mystery is lost,
Speaker 1: and I'm not going to keep the faith in that. Yeah,
Speaker 1: I mean, mythology is really important, right, It's people love
Speaker 1: hero they love villains even more, but they do they
Speaker 1: do love a hero, and they do love the idea
Speaker 1: that somebody out there was like smarter than everyone else
Speaker 1: and figured something out and then like rude off into
Speaker 1: some kind of financial sunset mysteriously. Yeah, yeah, I want
Speaker 1: to know to Let's talk about n f T s
Speaker 1: for a second, because this is very much a part
Speaker 1: of this DeFi space. And and you know, obviously we
Speaker 1: remember when picks of apes and crypto punks were going
Speaker 1: for millions and digital pet rocks. Basically we're costing hundreds
Speaker 1: of thousands of dollars and when you think about it, though,
Speaker 1: it really wasn't that long ago, although it looks like
Speaker 1: art based n f t s have seen this enormous
Speaker 1: drop in value. But yeah, what's what's going on in
Speaker 1: the n f T space. What do we need to know?
Speaker 1: And is is there a future for enough T s?
Speaker 1: What does that look like? Well, I'll start with the
Speaker 1: question of is there a future for n f T
Speaker 1: s and an n f T fundamentally is just a
Speaker 1: piece of software. It's a way of defining encode, rights, obligations,
Speaker 1: and benefits. And for you know, say about a year
Speaker 1: or so, the primary use case of that software was
Speaker 1: telling somebody you have the right to be recognized as
Speaker 1: the owner of this picture of a monkey, which is
Speaker 1: definitely something you could use software for. Sounds goofy, that
Speaker 1: seems fine, um, but there are other things that you
Speaker 1: can do with that software. And that's where I think, like,
Speaker 1: we haven't seen anything close to actual use cases. And
Speaker 1: by use cases, I don't mean you know, like nobody's
Speaker 1: doing this. I mean like widespread utility and usefulness and
Speaker 1: you know, but I've seen people do experiments. They're like, well,
Speaker 1: we can sell music in the form of an n
Speaker 1: f T, and that software, that code that defines this
Speaker 1: transaction can say you know, if I, Stacy sell this
Speaker 1: to you at and then you sell this to somebody else,
Speaker 1: I will still get royalties without having to do anything.
Speaker 1: And you don't have to do anything either, because that's
Speaker 1: just encoded into the contracts like the world's smartest analytic basically,
Speaker 1: right yea um, And that's you know, that's that's really interesting.
Speaker 1: There are other people who are trying to design n
Speaker 1: f T s that would allow like portability between video games. Right, so,
Speaker 1: say you have like some really cool bow and arrow
Speaker 1: set in Fortnite, but you also play elden Ring. There's
Speaker 1: a bunch of assumptions based into this, including that Fortnite
Speaker 1: and the makers of elden Ring will ever get along
Speaker 1: stay with me? Um, so you know, see whom the
Speaker 1: video games were interoperable, and you could like take that
Speaker 1: bow and you know, that bow and arrow out of
Speaker 1: Fortnite and into elden Ring and vice versa. Like you
Speaker 1: would do that in the form of software, and you
Speaker 1: would do that in the form of an n f
Speaker 1: T and like those sorts of things where you're sort
Speaker 1: of taking a step back and imagining the possibilities of
Speaker 1: software that reacts intelligently to circumstances. Is I think a
Speaker 1: much more expansive way of understanding the reality of n
Speaker 1: f T s than apes. But but it's also like
Speaker 1: less profitable immediately, right, Yeah, I mean it kind of
Speaker 1: makes me think just to early computing and just some
Speaker 1: of the applications early on, it was a lot of
Speaker 1: it was kind of dumb stuff, maybe like we've seen today,
Speaker 1: like with the digital pet rocks and monkeys in stomical
Speaker 1: cheese were brilliant. Yeah, but it does seem like that
Speaker 1: there's a lot of future ahead of us when it
Speaker 1: comes to just the application specifically of blockchain, which which
Speaker 1: kind of makes me then want to ask you how
Speaker 1: excited should we be about the possibility that blockchain is
Speaker 1: going to be able to change the future and a
Speaker 1: how likely is that do you think to happen? And
Speaker 1: then be do you think we can do that without
Speaker 1: going all in and buying actual cryptocurrencies because the underlying
Speaker 1: technology will solve problems and we don't necessarily have to
Speaker 1: egg it on with our investing dollars. I mean that
Speaker 1: phrase that you used people have used in like crypto
Speaker 1: skeptic drinking games, which is like somebody's going to say
Speaker 1: underlying techno and we've alway said once, thank goodness. So
Speaker 1: but this is kind of this is sort of the challenge,
Speaker 1: right where a lot of those early tech things that
Speaker 1: you're describing, like some of that turned into pets dot
Speaker 1: Com and some of it turned into Apple, and it's
Speaker 1: very very hard to predict what direct action any of
Speaker 1: this is going to be used for is you know,
Speaker 1: is crypto gonna go from like interesting but marginal from
Speaker 1: a technology perspective to redefining the way that you understand
Speaker 1: the universe. There are absolutely people, mostly venture capitalists, making
Speaker 1: extremely significant bets in that direction. But then there's also
Speaker 1: a ton of people that are like, I don't know,
Speaker 1: I'm not sure, and you know, I think journalists in
Speaker 1: general are not prone to like wild bouts of enthusiasm
Speaker 1: or for any particular thing. But I think what makes
Speaker 1: class Fountain bens foreshort, that is like where I channel
Speaker 1: my enthusiasm. Um. But I think what makes this as
Speaker 1: the class interesting to me is the fact that I
Speaker 1: don't know, right, It's the fact that sort of every day,
Speaker 1: some utterly chaotic thing happens that makes me think about
Speaker 1: the potential both in terms of upside and downside in
Speaker 1: very different ways. Again, this is another thing where I'm
Speaker 1: be on the edge of my seat, popcorn like watching
Speaker 1: how things play out. Because in the next ten years,
Speaker 1: it's right a fascinating space. We're going to continue to
Speaker 1: see developments for sure, And uh, Stacy, Marie Ishmael, we
Speaker 1: really really appreciate you joining us today on the podcast
Speaker 1: Where can Our listeners go to find out more about
Speaker 1: you and what you're up to. Well, we're all part
Speaker 1: of the I Heart Radio family, sir. The Bloomberg. The
Speaker 1: Bloomberg Crypto podcast is Monday to Friday. It's available wherever
Speaker 1: you get your podcasts um I am on easily findable
Speaker 1: on the internet. But please do check out the work
Speaker 1: of my fantastic reporters and editors on Bloomberg dot com.
Speaker 1: It's awesome. We'll make sure to link to all of that. Stacy,
Speaker 1: thank you so much for joining us today. My pleasure. Well,
Speaker 1: all right, Joel May, what a fun conversation we just
Speaker 1: had here with Stacy Marie ishmael Um. I feel like
Speaker 1: we were able to this truly did feel like a
Speaker 1: conversation we had with a friend, Like I felt like
Speaker 1: she was here with us. We're all having a beer
Speaker 1: together and we're able just to talk about a topic
Speaker 1: that you and I are very interested in. But simultaneously
Speaker 1: it's difficult for us to die, like really dive into
Speaker 1: it a because we're we don't have the depth of
Speaker 1: knowledge that someone likes Stacy does, but we're idiots on
Speaker 1: this front. But also we I want to talk about
Speaker 1: it too much. Um, and that's something I'm afraid, Like,
Speaker 1: I wonder if we talked about it too much back
Speaker 1: when it was more hots and folks bought more of
Speaker 1: it maybe than they should have. We're still talking about
Speaker 1: and we're still hating on the folks who are just
Speaker 1: too enthusiastics. And I will say that's the right to
Speaker 1: bring some nuance conversation. That's a nice thing about having
Speaker 1: a journalist on the show to talk about it who
Speaker 1: covers it with ridiculous frequency like Stacy, because you're you're
Speaker 1: not getting someone who is sold out to this asset
Speaker 1: class who believes the cryptocurrency is the future. And if
Speaker 1: we interview somebody like that, it would be difficult to
Speaker 1: temper their enthusiast and ask them the hard questions. But
Speaker 1: Stacy is like involved talking to all the players in
Speaker 1: this space, and so I feel like she has a
Speaker 1: really nuanced helfold take and just provides a lot of understanding.
Speaker 1: So now I feel like I understand crypto more now
Speaker 1: after that comment, and even possibly the future depending on
Speaker 1: I mean, who knows what's actually gonna happen, but the
Speaker 1: possibilities are there. She's not holding her own town halls
Speaker 1: where She's just launched her own coin, right, and it's
Speaker 1: just like, let me tell you, you can get it
Speaker 1: on the ground floor, this nig the Stacey Coin, Fountain
Speaker 1: pen Coin. But yeah, do you have a Do you
Speaker 1: have a big takeaway from this conversation? Yeah? I think
Speaker 1: my biggest takeaway was when she said that we we
Speaker 1: have this misunderstanding of risk when it comes to crypto markets,
Speaker 1: and I thought that was I thought that was really
Speaker 1: smart that oftentimes we're thinking about the risk of like,
Speaker 1: are are the price of the asset going down? Deploying
Speaker 1: some capital into the crypto space and then seeing that
Speaker 1: we have less money six months from now than we
Speaker 1: had before, and that is a real risk, right, and
Speaker 1: we a lot of people have experienced that risk. But
Speaker 1: when I'm thinking about like all of the risks in
Speaker 1: the crypto space, like there are actually a lot more
Speaker 1: than there are with other traditional asset classes. So so
Speaker 1: not only are you at risk of deeper price cuts,
Speaker 1: you're also you potentially experienced faster gains right in the
Speaker 1: crypto space. But not only are you at risk of
Speaker 1: of even deeper price cuts, but you're also at risk
Speaker 1: of fraud, hacking, scam attempts, and so I guess, um,
Speaker 1: I think crypto is, like we said, it's a fascinating space.
Speaker 1: There's a lot going on, there's a lot to kind
Speaker 1: of keep your eyes on. Um. But I think with
Speaker 1: with the preponderance of nefarious activity we've seen in the space,
Speaker 1: I think your risk appetite has to be pretty strong
Speaker 1: to be in the crypto game, to have to hold
Speaker 1: many of your assets in cryptocurrency at the current time. Yeah,
Speaker 1: and I think I thought you're going to go in
Speaker 1: this direction, like you're talking, we're talking about different countries
Speaker 1: that have adopted cryptocurrencies as their national medium of exchange.
Speaker 1: And she was talking about how that that volatility that
Speaker 1: you're talking about, Joll, is what is keeping it from
Speaker 1: being becoming more widely adopted because people don't like that.
Speaker 1: I mean, even just with inflation that is providing some
Speaker 1: uncertainty within our lives, you see prices rising and dropping. No,
Speaker 1: we don't as a people, we don't like that kind
Speaker 1: of uncertainty. There's enough uncertainty that we have in life,
Speaker 1: let alone the the mediums of exchange that we're using
Speaker 1: within our lives. But if you're trying to use your
Speaker 1: money as a store of value as a medium of
Speaker 1: exchange if it's up or down by ten percent in
Speaker 1: a given day, doesn't work well as a store of
Speaker 1: value if it felluctuates that much. And that's so that's
Speaker 1: clearly a hurdle that has to be overcome before I think,
Speaker 1: before it becomes widely adopted. So that was a little,
Speaker 1: I guess, small idendum to yours, But my big takeaway
Speaker 1: she said the phrase that you need to like in
Speaker 1: a lot of cryptocurrency circles, how you should be doing
Speaker 1: your own research. And man, that stood out to me
Speaker 1: because not only is that true when it comes to
Speaker 1: a more speculative asset like crypto, but how about everything
Speaker 1: that we put our money towards uh and within the
Speaker 1: world of personal finance, and not just cryptocurrencies, but just
Speaker 1: what it is that you spend your money on from
Speaker 1: a consumption standpoint, the bank that you choose to leave
Speaker 1: your money with where you're expecting it to stay safe,
Speaker 1: the different kind of investments, whatever company you're thinking about
Speaker 1: joining with in order to earn money, all the different
Speaker 1: arenas it's important that we vet do our own research
Speaker 1: and all the different arenas within our personal finance life
Speaker 1: as a whole. Because like, truly there, I don't think
Speaker 1: there should be anything that we just take for granted.
Speaker 1: I really do think that there should be a higher
Speaker 1: level of personal responsibility when it comes to what it
Speaker 1: is that we each do individually with our money. That
Speaker 1: it makes me just think that anybody who's listening to
Speaker 1: this show, even if they've been listening for a long time,
Speaker 1: and they're like, man, I really think Matt and Joeler
Speaker 1: spot on a lot of things, and you you might
Speaker 1: be like, they're idiots on a lot of things, which
Speaker 1: which which is probably true. But even that, even in
Speaker 1: that like take our word with a grain of salt, like,
Speaker 1: listen to us. Hopefully we can provide you valuable information
Speaker 1: and a helpful way to think about important topics in
Speaker 1: your life, like whatever personal finance conundrum you've got going on.
Speaker 1: But we're also fallible human beings, and and it just
Speaker 1: makes me think of like TikTok and how there's some
Speaker 1: great people dishing some good advice on TikTok, but there's
Speaker 1: a lot of bad information out there too, and it's
Speaker 1: coming at you in these bite sized bits that are,
Speaker 1: you know, a minute or less in length, and so
Speaker 1: it's really hard to communicate effectively when we're talking about
Speaker 1: complicated maneuvers that we might be making with our money.
Speaker 1: So yeah, I would listen to a range of people.
Speaker 1: I would read books, blogs, I listen to podcasts. I
Speaker 1: would kind of run the gamut when I'm getting my
Speaker 1: information on things. And if you found one guru in
Speaker 1: the crypto space that you're beholden to, then you're treading
Speaker 1: on really risky ground at that point. Yeah, that's true.
Speaker 1: Although I will say, like, there's nothing that we stay
Speaker 1: here on the show that we don't personally do. Although
Speaker 1: I'm sure those gurus out there say the same thing
Speaker 1: as well. Yeah, they're like, no, this is what I'm doing.
Speaker 1: Obviously I believe it. I mean, we we plent crypto broke.
Speaker 1: We try to say things that that only that are
Speaker 1: in the best interest supper audience, and that's our goal
Speaker 1: three days a week, every week. And I think it
Speaker 1: is important to mention that, to say that that's kind
Speaker 1: of the standard we hold ourselves too. But there are
Speaker 1: a lot of other people who might say the same
Speaker 1: thing and then not actually practice it. That's right, Okay,
Speaker 1: let's get to our amazing beer that you and I
Speaker 1: enjoyed during this episode. Well, this is a barrel aged
Speaker 1: blended strong ale by our friends over at Monday night brewing.
Speaker 1: So this is their anniversary beer, their anniversary ale. They
Speaker 1: used to call it tie whatever on, like whatever year
Speaker 1: it was, So if it was the fifth anniversary, tie
Speaker 1: five on. So this one it doesn't say tie eleven on,
Speaker 1: but it just has an eleven on there made out
Speaker 1: of neck ties because neck ties are kind of their thing.
Speaker 1: It's kind of like their original original thing was like
Speaker 1: a young professional individual who was loosening as tie after
Speaker 1: a hard, hard day's work. Essentially, they were trying to
Speaker 1: like combat the we're drinking beer on the weekends. It's like, no, no,
Speaker 1: we make sophisticated beers that you enjoy during the week.
Speaker 1: It's more about quality than quantity. Munch of the clock,
Speaker 1: leave your work, go get a good beer at the
Speaker 1: end of the day, exactly. And this beer is a
Speaker 1: quality beer, I'll say. So. It's a blended strong ale.
Speaker 1: And the reason it's not a particular style is because
Speaker 1: this is truly a mash up of a bunch of
Speaker 1: different beers. Like like they say here, it's a mash
Speaker 1: up of a stout quad brown Ale, barley wine Ale, Doppelbox.
Speaker 1: There are so many different beers that they've brewed in
Speaker 1: order to blend together. In some of these extra special makes,
Speaker 1: Burana would barrels. I guess this is what they stuck
Speaker 1: these things. It's like Brazilian Brazilian. That makes me think
Speaker 1: of when I was a kid, and you would do
Speaker 1: the suicide of this and but awestent times that tasted
Speaker 1: like trash. But this this one does not. Because when
Speaker 1: I hear because it's funny, I was like, man, this
Speaker 1: has some quad like elements. So this has some barley
Speaker 1: wine like elements. I didn't the label and know that,
Speaker 1: but I can taste it all coming through. It wasn't
Speaker 1: it works. It was like a traditional stouts Russian Imperial,
Speaker 1: or it wasn't just a straight up barley wine. It's
Speaker 1: just a dark, rich, flavorful ale that also happens to
Speaker 1: have some vanilla. But yeah, man, this was a fantastic beer. Often,
Speaker 1: when you're doing that, it takes like a master blender.
Speaker 1: Blending multiple beers to create a great beer is actually
Speaker 1: a really difficult thing to do well. And there's a
Speaker 1: lot of really crappy, blendid beers out there, but this
Speaker 1: is a really really good blendid beer that yeah, I
Speaker 1: would like to have more of for sure. Yeah. The
Speaker 1: technique they borrowed from the world of scotch, because that's
Speaker 1: typically that's how you get some of those consistently amazing
Speaker 1: scotches like you you know, the Johnny Walker whatever, You've
Speaker 1: got the different colors, like each one of those are blends,
Speaker 1: and so you've got single malts, which are a single
Speaker 1: like vintage basically a single year. Most folks like the
Speaker 1: consistency that comes with the blend. But then there's folks
Speaker 1: who use that blending technique to create entirely new products,
Speaker 1: which is the beer that you and I are enjoying today.
Speaker 1: It's like blending on steroids. Yeah, absolutely, so good, agreed, delicious.
Speaker 1: So that's gonna do it for this episode. For folks
Speaker 1: who want show notes links to anything that that Stacy
Speaker 1: mentioned in the interview, Will will put those up on
Speaker 1: our website and how to money dot com. That's right,
Speaker 1: So Joel, that's going to be it, buddy. Until next time,
Speaker 1: Best Friends Out, Best Friends Out,