Speaker 1: This is Bloomberg Crypto, a daily Bloomberg I Heard podcast,
Speaker 1: and I'm Philip Roger Transler, Senior editor for Crypto, standing
Speaker 1: in today for Stacy Marie Ishmael. It's Friday, October. This
Speaker 1: week in crypto, we are settling into cryptos new norms
Speaker 1: like Bitcoin now being range bound, trading steadily at around
Speaker 1: twenty and we're still waiting to see if the so
Speaker 1: called October will indeed shake out. But hey, trading is
Speaker 1: still happening, and the sec s uptick in regulation efforts
Speaker 1: are being viewed by investors as a boon. According to
Speaker 1: the latest m Live Pulse survey would be Crypto investors
Speaker 1: are cautiously optimistic about having more crypto guardrails on the way.
Speaker 1: And finally, we have a big story, actually the one
Speaker 1: story to rule them all, and that is the Crypto
Speaker 1: Story by Bloomberg columnist Matt Levin. Here to help me
Speaker 1: break down the latest is Bloomberg Crypto Senior editor an
Speaker 1: airera If your grandma and you are going to park
Speaker 1: to pick on, you might want to read it too
Speaker 1: and like figure out why you're doing it. And Bloomberg
Speaker 1: reporter Moya Shan this time when we have Matt Levin
Speaker 1: write the whole story about everything in crypto that you
Speaker 1: need to know. I think people are looking at more positively.
Speaker 1: Hello and welcome. All right, let's get straight into it.
Speaker 1: In the news about crypto markets over the past week,
Speaker 1: kind of could be forgiven for saying that there wasn't
Speaker 1: no news in terms of movements. UM at the very least,
Speaker 1: Moya Um kick it off with you. You've worked on stories,
Speaker 1: written stories about what people are doing to cope with
Speaker 1: this lull and how they're making money in a time
Speaker 1: where there's pretty much snow volatility. Could you tell us
Speaker 1: a little bit about what you found out through your reporting. Yeah,
Speaker 1: of course, Um. I think you know, crypto has being
Speaker 1: attracted to a lot of traders for the longest time
Speaker 1: because it was because the high volatility, but now the
Speaker 1: volta has gone. UM. The obvious, the most obvious and
Speaker 1: popular approach by a lot of traders and investor right
Speaker 1: now is sort of parking their money in real hard cash,
Speaker 1: like a lot of investors and traders in equity markets
Speaker 1: to UM and other things. I found it was interesting
Speaker 1: or sort of like a more crypto native is that
Speaker 1: I saw people are sort of betting on both sides
Speaker 1: of the market. Um, you know, like because the micro environment.
Speaker 1: Their traders who have been short in the market for
Speaker 1: a while. Um, some people have told me actually, which
Speaker 1: I as again, I thought it was very interesting that
Speaker 1: they have been taking long positions just because they think
Speaker 1: other too much of people too much more interesting, this
Speaker 1: thing might be good as well as a good time
Speaker 1: just to pick up some on loan positions. And now
Speaker 1: we sort of coming to late October, and we are
Speaker 1: coming to the face, um to face this question of
Speaker 1: will there be um what we call October in crypto parlance,
Speaker 1: which is basically October has a pattern of being an
Speaker 1: up month for crypto. Believe we are now looking at
Speaker 1: seven percent up for bitcoin this far in October. We've
Speaker 1: got a few more days of trading to go. Can
Speaker 1: and I could you talk us through a little bit
Speaker 1: about what the sense among traders that we interviewed for
Speaker 1: that story was. I think what's you know, what's interesting? Um,
Speaker 1: you know you mentioned seven percent right, just tying it
Speaker 1: back to what we were discussing about volatility, is you know,
Speaker 1: seven percent in a month might seem a lot if
Speaker 1: you're talking about you know, FIA currency but for crypto,
Speaker 1: you know, back in the golden days, you will get
Speaker 1: seven percent and you know in minutes, not in in
Speaker 1: a month. So it's quite interesting that you know, we
Speaker 1: are now we're looking at this sort of low volatility
Speaker 1: and how the sort of the asset appreciates very slowly
Speaker 1: or not doesn't swing and while it is you know,
Speaker 1: maybe not very um attractive for traders. It's it's an
Speaker 1: interesting thing because the industry has has said for a
Speaker 1: long time that one of the reasons why it was
Speaker 1: hard for bitcoin to take off as a means of
Speaker 1: payment was because it was so volatile. So why would
Speaker 1: you like imagine having to pay your coffee and then
Speaker 1: the next minute like you've paid like, you know, seven
Speaker 1: percent more because it's gone up. You know what I
Speaker 1: find interesting? I wonder if like now that actually the
Speaker 1: asset is less volatile, then it will be used more
Speaker 1: for something, maybe not payments, I don't know, um or
Speaker 1: whether that was just not the reason why it wasn't
Speaker 1: being used. Maybe it was because it wasn't useful for
Speaker 1: for payments because we had other forms. Yeah, it's it's
Speaker 1: a valid question, I think, and it ties into sort
Speaker 1: of the next subject matter, that we've been covering, and
Speaker 1: it's this you know, well, you've had this lowl in trading,
Speaker 1: but at the same time, we've seen a lot of
Speaker 1: action on the regulatory front. We got the sec stepping
Speaker 1: up enforcement. We got action happening from Singapore to Hong
Speaker 1: Kong to to Europe, um and different parts of the world.
Speaker 1: And we actually did um an M Live Pulse survey
Speaker 1: last week and some pretty interesting results when it comes
Speaker 1: to how people, how would be investors are viewing this
Speaker 1: positive negative for crypto And I could you talk a
Speaker 1: little bit about what the conclusions to that was. I
Speaker 1: think the top line there was that, you know, the
Speaker 1: vast mill that the vast but almost sixty of respondence
Speaker 1: to the survey found that the fact that there was
Speaker 1: more legal action on crypto is positive for them. So
Speaker 1: they're more likely to invest because of this. And this
Speaker 1: is like super counterintuitive if you just think about it
Speaker 1: on the on a high level, right, you think, oh, wow,
Speaker 1: maybe I should be scared because all these regulators are
Speaker 1: coming and you know, what happens to the value of
Speaker 1: my asset if it turns out that it's a security
Speaker 1: and and it wasn't registered. But I guess it speaks
Speaker 1: to the fact that the industry has been calling from
Speaker 1: our regulation for many years and here in the UK,
Speaker 1: in the US, and perhaps even if you're not happy
Speaker 1: with the results of what, you know, enforcement might be
Speaker 1: a regulation, maybe it's better than nothing because it gives
Speaker 1: you gives you clarity on what is okay and what
Speaker 1: isn't and then within that framework, you're more free to
Speaker 1: you know, do what you want and you know, at
Speaker 1: least know what the risks are and you can assess
Speaker 1: them more clearly. Yeah, exactly. And it was a quote
Speaker 1: in a story that kind of just sums it up
Speaker 1: for me, and it goes like this, the more they
Speaker 1: can do to get crypto out of the wild West
Speaker 1: and into traditional investing, the better off it's going to be.
Speaker 1: And will yo, um, you know, considering what happened this year,
Speaker 1: from the terror breakdown to Celsius through you know, all
Speaker 1: the blow ups and mini discass well not media to fascists,
Speaker 1: some of them were pretty major disasters. The people that
Speaker 1: you talked to in the industry, how do they reflect
Speaker 1: on this? Yeah, I was just thinking about the story
Speaker 1: that we were just talking about about how regulations can
Speaker 1: affect the crypto space, you know, like UM, for the
Speaker 1: longest time, I was talking to a lot of people
Speaker 1: in the space, or you call crypto native people about
Speaker 1: UM the impact of Serro and the terror Luna, all
Speaker 1: these things. UM. You know, a lot of them were
Speaker 1: very upset and set a disappointed because it makes crypto
Speaker 1: look very bad to people. But it was very interesting.
Speaker 1: I was talking to a lot of people who entered
Speaker 1: to the space this year. UM. They were actually happy
Speaker 1: about it. They were like, I'm glad this happened. So
Speaker 1: the regulators would have come after them. Well, regulators are
Speaker 1: pushed to giving some sort of guidance of what they
Speaker 1: should do and what people should do, and they think
Speaker 1: it's good for the space in general in the long term,
Speaker 1: and therefore and more people would have come to the
Speaker 1: space as the will be more framework than more regulatory
Speaker 1: clarifications around crypto A s. S. I want to move
Speaker 1: over to a topic that is along the same lines UM,
Speaker 1: at least as far as government involvement is concerned. We
Speaker 1: have a new prime Minister in the UK. I believe
Speaker 1: it's the third and roughly as money months. UM. Richie
Speaker 1: sunac Anna, you've done some reporting around this you've done
Speaker 1: a little reporting about the crypto landscape in the UK.
Speaker 1: Sunac was obviously part of that as chancellor. Can you
Speaker 1: tell us a little bit about what sort of his
Speaker 1: signature moves around crypto were before the Boris Johnson government
Speaker 1: fell apart. So, yeah, So as Chancellor of the Exchequer
Speaker 1: obviously over you oversaw the Treasury. And while the UK
Speaker 1: had been a very kind of conservative on crypto up
Speaker 1: until then, the industry saw a bit of hope the spring,
Speaker 1: particularly with one of the Secretaries to the Treasury, John Glenn,
Speaker 1: who had given a speech where the point was that
Speaker 1: they wanted to make the UK's crypto scene more attractive
Speaker 1: globally and make it more competitive, and part of that
Speaker 1: was giving regulatory clarity, which again is a point we
Speaker 1: keep touching upon. So I think that the sort of
Speaker 1: appointment of Sunak was seen in the immediate as potentially
Speaker 1: positive for crypto because you know, first of all that
Speaker 1: he's a known entity, right as if he was chancellor,
Speaker 1: and they said these things, uh you know, they they
Speaker 1: had been talking to his team had been talking to crypto,
Speaker 1: so you don't have to go talk to new people
Speaker 1: like they know who's there and perhaps he has an
Speaker 1: understanding of the topics and what the issues are. And
Speaker 1: then generally obviously like there's so much that the UK
Speaker 1: government has to do that isn't crypto. We all talk
Speaker 1: about crypto and write about crypto and edit crypto stories
Speaker 1: all day, but we are you know, we live in
Speaker 1: the real world, so we know that you know, perhaps
Speaker 1: tackling um the energy crisis or inflation or in a
Speaker 1: potential economic crisis is perhaps pressing matter for a new
Speaker 1: government here. But for people in crypto, there is hope
Speaker 1: that finally they will get some action quickly, because they
Speaker 1: kind of felt as if they were in limbo for
Speaker 1: a bit with you know, when soon I resigned and
Speaker 1: then Trust came along. You know, there wasn't really any
Speaker 1: sense of what was going to happen, Whereas now perhaps
Speaker 1: they can at least hope that the push that had
Speaker 1: been started will continue. Um. But obviously there's never any
Speaker 1: guarantee of that. Oh I guess we'll see in coming
Speaker 1: weeks and months if Rishi can get a move on
Speaker 1: when it comes to crypto. We'll be right back with
Speaker 1: more of the week's tough crypto stories with Anna Airera
Speaker 1: and Muya Shan. A country that has really gotten a
Speaker 1: move on, at least when it to having a digital
Speaker 1: currency is Nigeria. We're coming up now to the one
Speaker 1: year anniversary of the e currency there and Bloomberg did
Speaker 1: a big take out on that this week. Um, and up,
Speaker 1: since you've been looking at CBDC, so I'm coming to
Speaker 1: you again to just kind of wrap up, sort of
Speaker 1: summarize how's this gone and are there any lessons for
Speaker 1: the myriad of other countries that are toying around with CBDCs,
Speaker 1: which I should explain our central bank digital currencies. Yeah,
Speaker 1: so it's not going great. Um, Less than zero point
Speaker 1: five percent of Nigerians are using the digital currency according
Speaker 1: to our story, which is not not great, especially because
Speaker 1: Nigeria is a country that is pretty advanced in using
Speaker 1: cryptocurrencies in general. But the country has been pushing back
Speaker 1: on that and is making it harder for banks to
Speaker 1: do business with with crypto firms. So, first of all,
Speaker 1: sort of the story notes how there's been a bit
Speaker 1: of confusion from the population. They see the CBDC in
Speaker 1: a way as a cryptos so they're thinking like, wait,
Speaker 1: we're not supposed to use crypto, are we? What is this.
Speaker 1: There's also a lack of like knowledge of it, and
Speaker 1: so it's just struggle to take to take off a
Speaker 1: year on um that being said, you know, it takes
Speaker 1: a while for some of these things to to work,
Speaker 1: and especially new technologies and get a network effect. What's
Speaker 1: interesting to me is that in a way you have
Speaker 1: like a government trying to build a consumer app, like
Speaker 1: a consumer fintech app in a way, or like a
Speaker 1: consumer product. So like just the idea of you designing
Speaker 1: something that's technological today for three years from now, it's
Speaker 1: quite challenging if you think about it, like how do
Speaker 1: you make sure that people use it? And also just
Speaker 1: like the marketing effort that would go into it, right,
Speaker 1: Like I think in Nigeria they're trying to get rickshaw
Speaker 1: drivers if I'm if I'm correct, um to ye to
Speaker 1: use it, right, Like imagine like the central Bank having
Speaker 1: to think like in a way they have to think
Speaker 1: like a fintech firm or like a finance firm, or
Speaker 1: just at the very basics basics like a consumer firm,
Speaker 1: like how do we get someone to adopter products? Like
Speaker 1: when have they had to think of that? Right? So
Speaker 1: it's just it's just very interesting. Yeah, um, I want
Speaker 1: to turn out to the big story of the week,
Speaker 1: and by big I mean big, ginormous forty thousand words
Speaker 1: Bloomberg columnist Matt Levin's crypto story. Muyal, How has crypto
Speaker 1: Twitter reacted to this? I want to say it's more
Speaker 1: positive than negative, because you know, usually when a media
Speaker 1: publication like Bloomberg writes about crypto, um, crypto Twitter or
Speaker 1: crypto native in general, like it's easier for than criticize
Speaker 1: than on sort of you know, praise. But this time,
Speaker 1: when we have Matt Levin write the whole story about
Speaker 1: everything in crypto that you need to know, I think
Speaker 1: people are looking yea more positively as you know, like
Speaker 1: finally crypto is getting recognized and you know, and then
Speaker 1: there's a really good explanation about a lot of turns
Speaker 1: in the space which being kind of perceived at by
Speaker 1: mainstream people as more complicated and hard to understand. And
Speaker 1: now we have a person who's really good at writing
Speaker 1: and really good at explaining things um to more general readers.
Speaker 1: They you know, every everyday person like like my parents.
Speaker 1: I would have want I would have wanted to know
Speaker 1: if this article ever going to translate into Chinese and
Speaker 1: maybe they would understand crypto better, you know, like know
Speaker 1: who I'm actually writing about these days. Yeah, and it's
Speaker 1: worth pointing out that this is only the second time
Speaker 1: in Bloomberg Business Weeks ninety three year history, um that
Speaker 1: they've done something like this, I uh, cover to cover feature.
Speaker 1: The last time was a similar thing, slightly different. It's
Speaker 1: a it's a story also a giant story called What
Speaker 1: is Code by Paul Ford UM. And certainly if you
Speaker 1: do have the time and the focus and the patients
Speaker 1: UM to go through this whole thing, it's it's certainly
Speaker 1: a real primer for for crypto. Um Anna, I'm trying
Speaker 1: to ask you a little bit, what do you think
Speaker 1: or who do you think? What kind of target audience
Speaker 1: is this piece four? Is it for the you know,
Speaker 1: the person who read the Bitcoin white paper back in
Speaker 1: two thousand and eight, or is it for grandma who's
Speaker 1: just about to park you know, seventy bucks in bitcoin
Speaker 1: um or somewhere in between. I think probably somewhere in between.
Speaker 1: But it is written in a way that if your
Speaker 1: grandma and you are going to park set bitcoin, you
Speaker 1: might want to read it too and like figure out
Speaker 1: why you're doing it, or maybe you're like a very
Speaker 1: superinformed grandma and then um, then you won't need to
Speaker 1: maybe you are a grandma who read the white paper. Um,
Speaker 1: but um, you know what, what what I find I
Speaker 1: found really like nice reading it was um and I'm
Speaker 1: not saying that I have finished it, but I have
Speaker 1: started it, is that, Um. You know, it comes at
Speaker 1: it from the perspective of, you know, I'm a person
Speaker 1: who finds finance interesting, and this is why I find
Speaker 1: this interesting. I'm not saying you like I believe this
Speaker 1: is the future, or I'm not saying that I believe
Speaker 1: this is bullshit or this is all a scam, And like,
Speaker 1: I find that quite refreshing because having covered the sector
Speaker 1: for a long time, it's nice to have someone come
Speaker 1: at it from that perspective and say, hey, this is
Speaker 1: why you should look at it. I think it's definitely
Speaker 1: like a really great read. If you are someone in
Speaker 1: finance and perhaps are very skeptical or like haven't really
Speaker 1: been paiding attention and like just have seeing the price
Speaker 1: go up and down, like you can look at it
Speaker 1: and like here's an honest view that's like unbalanced. In
Speaker 1: an explanation, and I will understand like what everything is
Speaker 1: and what everything does and why it's there, and like
Speaker 1: what the fun parts are, and like I might get
Speaker 1: a more informed you, whether I want to pay attention
Speaker 1: or not. And I don't think the point of it
Speaker 1: is you'll read it and you'll say, hey, now I
Speaker 1: want to invest. It's like, oh, now I really get it,
Speaker 1: and you know, it is pretty interesting, Like it's you
Speaker 1: you leave it thinking, wow, it's interesting and like perhaps
Speaker 1: you're not going to go away. Um, And and to me,
Speaker 1: that's like pretty valuable if something that is so fast
Speaker 1: moving and so like confusing and full of acronyms and
Speaker 1: full of bullshit even so you know, it's it's definitely
Speaker 1: worth a read. Yeah, cuts through the nonsense. Um, folks,
Speaker 1: go and check it out The Crypto story by Matt Levin.
Speaker 1: All right, guys, I think that's it. Well, thank you
Speaker 1: Anna and Muyao. You can find more of Anarera and
Speaker 1: Muya Shen's reporting on the Bloomberg Terminal on Bloomberg dot
Speaker 1: com and on Twitter. Anna is at A N N
Speaker 1: A I R R E r A and Muyao is
Speaker 1: at m u y a O s h E N
Speaker 1: just In time for Halloween. On the next episode of
Speaker 1: Bloomberg Crypto, we're going to talk about brains. No no, no, no,
Speaker 1: we're not. We're going to talk about zombie coins. It
Speaker 1: might still melt your brain. Don't say I didn't want you.
Speaker 1: This is Bloomberg Crypto, a daily podcast from Bloomberg and
Speaker 1: I Heart Radio. For more shows from I Heart Radio,
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Speaker 1: you get your podcasts. Send us your comments, questions, or
Speaker 1: suggestions for the show to Crypto at Bloomberg dot net
Speaker 1: or find us on Twitter. We're at Crypto. The supervising
Speaker 1: producer of Bloomberg Crypto is Vicky very Galina. Our senior
Speaker 1: producer is Janet Babin. Our producers are Mohammed Faruk and
Speaker 1: Sharon Barriro. Our associate producers are Ty Butler and Moses
Speaker 1: on Them. Desta wonder At is our engineer. Original music
Speaker 1: by Leo Sidrn. I'm Stacy, Marie Ishmael. Have a great weekend.
Speaker 1: The Bat that Intensian Everything Ding every d