WEBVTT - Coinbase Conundrums 0:00:02.600 --> 0:00:06.400 I'm Stacy Marie Ishmael, Managing editor of Crypto for Bloomberg Views, 0:00:06.800 --> 0:00:10.480 and this is Bloomberg Crypto at Daily Bloomberg. I heard podcast. 0:00:10.680 --> 0:00:24.640 It's Wednesday, August three. It's safe to say that coin 0:00:24.720 --> 0:00:28.040 Base has had a rough couple of months. The company 0:00:28.120 --> 0:00:31.320 has had to manage an internal employee position about its management, 0:00:31.840 --> 0:00:36.040 response to speculation about bankruptcy, and even been the subject 0:00:36.080 --> 0:00:39.839 of intense regulatory scrutiny. And that's before we get to 0:00:39.880 --> 0:00:43.560 its share price. And then in late July, things got 0:00:43.600 --> 0:00:49.080 even trickier. Federal prosecutors charged a former coin based product manager, 0:00:49.520 --> 0:00:52.560 as well as his brother and a friend with allegations 0:00:52.560 --> 0:00:56.240 of insider trading. The cherry on top the security is 0:00:56.240 --> 0:00:59.440 an exchange commission, followed with its own allegation the coin 0:00:59.480 --> 0:01:02.840 Base has been running and illegal securities exchange. Here's to 0:01:02.840 --> 0:01:05.319 help us understand what's at stake for coin Base. One 0:01:05.319 --> 0:01:08.080 of the leading crypto exchanges in the world and for 0:01:08.120 --> 0:01:19.000 all digital currency uses is Bloomberg Business Week columnist Max Chafkin. Max, 0:01:19.280 --> 0:01:21.400 go to have you on the podcast. Great to be here. 0:01:22.040 --> 0:01:25.080 You are one of those folks who I've said this 0:01:25.160 --> 0:01:27.319 to other other folks on the podcast, Like, when you're 0:01:27.319 --> 0:01:30.160 on to talk about a company, it's probably not good 0:01:30.200 --> 0:01:33.560 news for the company that we're going to talk about. 0:01:33.560 --> 0:01:36.200 So today we're gonna talk about coin Base. What's been 0:01:36.240 --> 0:01:39.839 happening with coin Base? Okay, so a handful of things. 0:01:39.840 --> 0:01:43.120 I mean, one is and and maybe important context of course, 0:01:43.200 --> 0:01:45.320 is the crypto markets have not been great, you know, 0:01:45.400 --> 0:01:47.160 as a result, they're going through a lot of the 0:01:47.200 --> 0:01:50.160 same issues that pretty much everyone in this space is 0:01:50.200 --> 0:01:53.520 going through. But then there's this other thing that's going on, 0:01:53.600 --> 0:01:57.280 which is that July one or thereabouts the d o 0:01:57.400 --> 0:01:59.920 J arrest the Department of Justice one of yeah, the 0:02:00.000 --> 0:02:04.080 Parlament of Justice, excuse me, arrested a former product manager 0:02:04.160 --> 0:02:07.840 somebody who had been working on new token listings and 0:02:07.880 --> 0:02:12.520 accused him of basically insider trading, of of taking information 0:02:12.639 --> 0:02:14.560 about listings that we're going to go on coin base 0:02:14.880 --> 0:02:18.320 and passing them to his brother and another investor and 0:02:18.440 --> 0:02:21.480 profiting from that. And at the same time, and this 0:02:21.520 --> 0:02:23.560 is where it starts to gett even worse for coin base. 0:02:23.800 --> 0:02:27.320 Y SEC comes out and issues its own insider trading 0:02:27.320 --> 0:02:29.960 complaint and says, oh, by the way, some of these 0:02:30.120 --> 0:02:34.800 tokens that were being insider traded are not assets, they 0:02:34.840 --> 0:02:37.880 are securities. And the implication, of course, is that coin 0:02:37.919 --> 0:02:40.839 base would be operating an illegal securities exchange, which would 0:02:40.880 --> 0:02:43.880 be bad and which would put aspects of their overall 0:02:43.880 --> 0:02:46.919 business at risk. And you know, it's important to say so. 0:02:46.919 --> 0:02:50.200 So this is a really this this indictment, it makes 0:02:50.200 --> 0:02:53.600 for really good reading. It's very colorful. This guy who 0:02:53.680 --> 0:02:57.560 was busted was busted because of a crypto influencer named 0:02:57.600 --> 0:03:02.320 Kobe who basically spotted these transactions tweeted about them, and 0:03:02.360 --> 0:03:04.679 then that tweet found its way first to coin base 0:03:04.760 --> 0:03:07.200 and ultimately to the Department of Justice. So that's sort 0:03:07.240 --> 0:03:09.919 of a bad look for coin base. Um, but but 0:03:09.960 --> 0:03:12.160 it's important to say, you know, no one's accused them 0:03:12.200 --> 0:03:14.640 of wrongdoing. But then, at the same time, as Bloomberg 0:03:14.639 --> 0:03:17.680 reported just a few days later, the SEC is also 0:03:18.160 --> 0:03:21.480 looking into basically this very question. Was coin based operating 0:03:21.600 --> 0:03:24.480 or is it operating an illegal securities exchange? Is it's 0:03:24.520 --> 0:03:27.600 selling securities that have not been vetted by the SEC 0:03:27.720 --> 0:03:30.320 in the proper way? And that's something that coin Base, 0:03:30.680 --> 0:03:33.560 you know, really cares about because it could imperil their 0:03:33.560 --> 0:03:36.240 business create all sorts of regular problems for them down 0:03:36.280 --> 0:03:38.040 the road. Last year, remember this is when it really 0:03:38.080 --> 0:03:42.280 started to get very contentious between the industry and the agencies. 0:03:42.360 --> 0:03:44.600 And you know what Brian Armstrong said at that time 0:03:44.640 --> 0:03:46.320 is they refused to tell us why they think it's 0:03:46.320 --> 0:03:49.280 a security and instead subpoena a bunch of records from us. 0:03:49.360 --> 0:03:52.880 We comply, demand testimony from employees. We comply, and then 0:03:52.920 --> 0:03:55.000 tell us that we they'll sue us if we launched 0:03:55.000 --> 0:03:57.240 certain products. A lot of this is being done through 0:03:57.360 --> 0:04:02.080 enforcement rather than rulemaking itself. So until the agencies decide 0:04:02.320 --> 0:04:04.840 what's a currency, what's a commodity, and what's the security, 0:04:05.120 --> 0:04:08.120 it's going to be very difficult for the industry to 0:04:08.120 --> 0:04:11.520 to work around that. That was about Brian Armstrong, who's 0:04:11.560 --> 0:04:14.280 the CEO of coin base. Clearly there's a lot of 0:04:14.280 --> 0:04:17.039 stuff going on here, So I want to kind of 0:04:17.040 --> 0:04:20.400 tease apart a few different things that you said, and 0:04:20.440 --> 0:04:22.640 I sort of want to start with the you know, 0:04:22.680 --> 0:04:25.440 the how all of this came to light. In April 0:04:25.640 --> 0:04:29.719 of this year, coin Based, seemingly out of nowhere, published 0:04:29.720 --> 0:04:31.680 a blog post that was like, here are some changes 0:04:31.680 --> 0:04:34.240 that we have made that would make it more difficult 0:04:34.279 --> 0:04:36.960 for people to inCider trade in tokens. We're not saying 0:04:36.960 --> 0:04:39.200 that that has happened, but if it were to happen, 0:04:39.320 --> 0:04:41.719 it's now harder to do. And at the time, you know, 0:04:41.800 --> 0:04:44.360 various of us were like interesting, and now we know 0:04:45.080 --> 0:04:47.640 that the reason that that post went out on the 0:04:47.839 --> 0:04:51.120 coin based medium blog in April was related to them 0:04:51.240 --> 0:04:55.320 finding out that this former employee had been engaging in 0:04:55.360 --> 0:04:58.000 this kind of behavior and the you know, the company 0:04:58.040 --> 0:05:02.240 has confirmed as much. My question back to you about 0:05:02.279 --> 0:05:06.520 this is when we are reporting on these kinds of companies, 0:05:06.520 --> 0:05:10.039 on these kinds of investigations, who in a lot of 0:05:10.080 --> 0:05:13.160 other senses and crypto like to say like we're super transparence. 0:05:13.160 --> 0:05:15.359 We always tell everyone what's going on. But when it 0:05:15.400 --> 0:05:18.400 has come down to here are weird things that are happening, 0:05:18.480 --> 0:05:20.280 they get a little bit kg, they get a little 0:05:20.279 --> 0:05:24.840 bit traditional, and it's really contrasted to you know, Brian Armstrong, 0:05:24.839 --> 0:05:26.479 the CEO of coin Based, willing to go on twister 0:05:26.560 --> 0:05:29.320 and just like yell at the SEC but they weren't 0:05:29.360 --> 0:05:33.279 necessarily forthcoming about the fact that this thing has happened. 0:05:33.600 --> 0:05:36.719 What do you think explains that tension? Well, I mean, 0:05:37.120 --> 0:05:39.920 this probably just gets to my own being a cynical 0:05:40.000 --> 0:05:42.520 journalist and having followed, you know, tech companies for a 0:05:42.520 --> 0:05:45.280 long time. I mean, I just think, you know, we 0:05:45.320 --> 0:05:49.240 shouldn't take the ideology that seriously, at least the ideology 0:05:49.279 --> 0:05:52.920 of transparency. Yeah, exactly, at least insofar as we're like 0:05:52.960 --> 0:05:56.760 trying to understand the actions of a very large public company, 0:05:56.760 --> 0:05:59.000 which is what coin Base is. They've done a lot 0:05:59.040 --> 0:06:01.839 of stuff over the past couple of years. It's funny 0:06:01.880 --> 0:06:03.960 because I've been familiar with this company a long time. 0:06:04.000 --> 0:06:06.240 I met with the founders, you know, back in you know, 0:06:06.320 --> 0:06:08.320 kind of like the mid s when they were this 0:06:08.400 --> 0:06:11.600 sort of hot shot Silicon Valley company, and their whole 0:06:11.640 --> 0:06:13.679 thing back then was that they were like the most 0:06:13.720 --> 0:06:17.040 conservative crypto company. They were the one that like followed 0:06:17.040 --> 0:06:20.120 all the rules. They had like much stronger k y C. 0:06:21.120 --> 0:06:23.599 That's know, your customer rules. You know, you needed basically 0:06:23.640 --> 0:06:25.679 need a bank account, you need to show a driver's 0:06:25.760 --> 0:06:28.680 license if you wanted to buy tokens. And really they 0:06:28.720 --> 0:06:30.840 only sold bitcoin, I mean for the for the really 0:06:30.839 --> 0:06:34.880 long time, Bitcoin ether, I think light Coin, maybe one other. 0:06:35.520 --> 0:06:37.560 But of course something flipped, and and the thing that 0:06:37.600 --> 0:06:40.080 flipped was that the market for tokens boomed, and you 0:06:40.160 --> 0:06:44.120 had a couple of other exchanges, I think most importantly Binance, 0:06:44.520 --> 0:06:47.360 you know, really move aggressively into listing all these other 0:06:47.400 --> 0:06:49.960 tokens um taking their market share, and there was like 0:06:50.000 --> 0:06:53.880 a clear choice that was made I think starting probably 0:06:53.920 --> 0:06:58.360 around eighteen, but that became even more pronounced when they 0:06:58.400 --> 0:07:01.560 went public, which was best year in May of or 0:07:01.720 --> 0:07:05.800 April of one, where basically they just went way more aggressive. 0:07:05.839 --> 0:07:07.760 And when you do that, that puts you at odds 0:07:07.760 --> 0:07:10.560 with the SEC and and in the US government, and 0:07:10.560 --> 0:07:13.280 at the same time they were sort of adopting this 0:07:13.680 --> 0:07:18.680 kind of edgier regulatory pose. Brian Armstrong, the CEO, kind 0:07:18.680 --> 0:07:21.880 of comes with this new sort of positioning for the company, 0:07:21.920 --> 0:07:24.840 which is this like bad boy in a couple of 0:07:24.840 --> 0:07:29.240 different ways. One is that in September of you know, 0:07:29.520 --> 0:07:32.640 as protests around George Floyd's murder we're going on, there's 0:07:32.640 --> 0:07:35.080 a lot of activism inside of coin Base, he comes 0:07:35.120 --> 0:07:37.400 out and basically declares that, you know, when we're gonna 0:07:37.440 --> 0:07:40.080 be a no politics company, we're gonna be anti woke, 0:07:40.560 --> 0:07:42.360 and that is a way to like that that generates 0:07:42.360 --> 0:07:44.520 a lot of attention, and then we see, you know, 0:07:44.600 --> 0:07:46.800 kind of throughout the last couple of years him taking 0:07:46.800 --> 0:07:50.280 as you said, this kind of very muscular communications approach 0:07:50.280 --> 0:07:53.160 where he's like trash talking the SEC and things like that, 0:07:53.480 --> 0:07:56.320 and at the same time spending huge sums of money 0:07:56.360 --> 0:07:59.440 on lobbying, you know, working really hard to kind of 0:07:59.520 --> 0:08:01.960 work the things you know in Washington. And I think 0:08:02.120 --> 0:08:05.440 this is all related because they see this fight coming 0:08:05.880 --> 0:08:07.880 and now it's here, and they've been sort of preparing 0:08:07.920 --> 0:08:11.000 for it, and that preparation includes, you know, lobbying, it 0:08:11.000 --> 0:08:13.560 includes all this legal work and sort of messaging around 0:08:13.600 --> 0:08:16.920 their process, and of course it includes a cultural component. 0:08:18.880 --> 0:08:24.080 We have sometimes received cranky emails from listeners of this 0:08:24.160 --> 0:08:27.520 show about the idea that there could be a cultural 0:08:27.560 --> 0:08:32.920 component to crypto, that crypto is like politics neutral, value neutral, 0:08:33.360 --> 0:08:37.520 and it's about the purity and sanctity of the blockchain, etcetera, etcetera. Um, 0:08:37.640 --> 0:08:41.319 and folks listening cannot see this. Max's giggling, and Max, 0:08:41.440 --> 0:08:43.400 you know what you're saying is that no, there is 0:08:43.440 --> 0:08:48.080 there are some explicitly politicized elements to the way this 0:08:48.120 --> 0:08:50.800 fight is shaping up. Yeah. Absolutely, And I mean you 0:08:50.840 --> 0:08:53.040 can look at their their spending. I mean, you know, 0:08:53.080 --> 0:08:55.920 they're their lobbying spending is open. I mean the last 0:08:55.960 --> 0:08:57.839 time I looked, I think it's like a couple of 0:08:57.880 --> 0:08:59.880 million bucks over the last I think I can't remember 0:09:00.040 --> 0:09:01.440 last year or last two years, but you know, they're 0:09:01.440 --> 0:09:04.920 spending significant sums of money in Washington, and you can 0:09:04.960 --> 0:09:07.200 see it in the way that Armstrong is communicating, you know, 0:09:07.240 --> 0:09:11.120 he you know, there was a Republican SEC commissioner published 0:09:11.160 --> 0:09:15.560 a sort of like counterpoint yeah to this, and so anyway, 0:09:15.679 --> 0:09:19.000 they're like they have allies, they have conservative allies, they 0:09:19.000 --> 0:09:21.439 have you know, politicians that they're trying to work and 0:09:21.440 --> 0:09:24.720 and and of course it's political because yes, like coin 0:09:24.760 --> 0:09:28.320 base is promoting many of these values, as you said, 0:09:28.320 --> 0:09:32.280 transparency and so on, but it's also a public company, 0:09:32.520 --> 0:09:34.360 you know, with the headquarters in the United States, and 0:09:34.400 --> 0:09:37.720 it's under the jurisdiction you know, the US government, and 0:09:37.840 --> 0:09:40.040 it has tried to use those things to help it. 0:09:40.080 --> 0:09:42.280 Like I said along the way, like coin Base, one 0:09:42.280 --> 0:09:43.960 of the ways it got customers early on is that 0:09:44.000 --> 0:09:46.000 it was seen and I think maybe still is seen 0:09:46.400 --> 0:09:49.480 as safer, more reliable and so on, compared to some 0:09:49.520 --> 0:09:52.560 of these more aggressive exchanges. We'll be right back with 0:09:52.559 --> 0:09:55.400 more from Bloomberg Business we call umnist Max Chafkin on 0:09:55.440 --> 0:10:05.959 the future of coin base. Bloomberg has learned that coin 0:10:06.000 --> 0:10:10.040 base is facing a US investigation on cryptocurrency listings. This 0:10:10.080 --> 0:10:12.840 move comes as a chorus of US regulators to do 0:10:13.000 --> 0:10:16.520 work to oversee the crypto industry has grown louder. One 0:10:16.559 --> 0:10:21.000 of the things that hurts them earlier this year is 0:10:21.400 --> 0:10:24.320 Brian Armstrong on Twitter kind of coming out and saying, 0:10:24.920 --> 0:10:27.640 you know, hey, and he in this thread that was 0:10:27.679 --> 0:10:32.120 about an otherwise very unremarkable like SEC required filing, use 0:10:32.240 --> 0:10:35.640 the B word like invoked bankruptcy, and he's like, in 0:10:35.679 --> 0:10:39.160 the in the unlikely event that anything were to happen, etcetera, etcetera. 0:10:39.200 --> 0:10:42.200 But of course people on Twitter don't read. They just 0:10:42.760 --> 0:10:45.000 they just saw a coin based plus bankruptcy and there 0:10:45.040 --> 0:10:48.360 was just a lot of freaking out about that. So 0:10:48.920 --> 0:10:51.200 in the grand scheme of if you were a coin 0:10:51.240 --> 0:10:53.600 basis PR company, or you know, you were somebody like 0:10:53.640 --> 0:10:56.440 helping them with image management, what would be some of 0:10:56.440 --> 0:10:59.920 the things you might expect to see them change, if anything, 0:11:00.320 --> 0:11:02.160 over the next couple of months as they get much 0:11:02.200 --> 0:11:07.120 more into this fight with regulators. Well, I think and 0:11:07.160 --> 0:11:09.640 maybe we're already seeing it. I think they're gonna be 0:11:10.640 --> 0:11:14.520 again less aggressive in terms of marketing, in terms of 0:11:14.920 --> 0:11:17.360 like anything you do to say, you know, your crypto 0:11:17.360 --> 0:11:19.520 investment is gonna is gonna make you rich or whatever 0:11:19.800 --> 0:11:22.480 is going to create some potential exposure with the SEC. 0:11:22.760 --> 0:11:24.840 And I mean I think the SEC is like very 0:11:24.880 --> 0:11:28.679 attuned to the prospect that like regular people could get 0:11:28.760 --> 0:11:32.600 hurt by buying you know, dumb stuff. And coin Base 0:11:32.720 --> 0:11:35.800 has been selling a lot of stuff, you know, I 0:11:35.840 --> 0:11:37.640 don't want to say it's dumb, but of maybe a 0:11:37.720 --> 0:11:41.640 questionable that when you look at yes, sire risk assets, 0:11:42.000 --> 0:11:45.160 and they've done some things to try to kind of 0:11:45.679 --> 0:11:47.880 you know, walk a line where I think certain tokens 0:11:47.920 --> 0:11:51.440 are labeled differently. But again when you when you look 0:11:51.480 --> 0:11:54.320 at where they were, you know, a few years ago, 0:11:54.760 --> 0:11:56.640 and you look at where they are today, Like some 0:11:56.720 --> 0:12:00.920 of these tokens are very lightly traded. They're not companies 0:12:00.960 --> 0:12:03.840 that you would have heard of. It's definitely closer to 0:12:03.840 --> 0:12:06.640 to to a penny stock. And and of course there's 0:12:06.840 --> 0:12:09.520 those are those are very volatile assets, and so I 0:12:09.559 --> 0:12:12.320 think we're going to see them backing off, you know, 0:12:12.360 --> 0:12:14.800 in terms of the sort of messaging. A couple of 0:12:14.800 --> 0:12:18.680 weeks ago, they ended their affiliate affiliate marketing program, which 0:12:18.720 --> 0:12:21.160 was kind of interpreted as some kind of oh no, 0:12:21.320 --> 0:12:23.200 like that maybe the company's in jeopardy. But I do 0:12:23.320 --> 0:12:25.880 wonder if if that may be part of an effort 0:12:25.880 --> 0:12:27.960 to be like a little bit less aggressive in how 0:12:28.000 --> 0:12:30.640 they message to prospective customers and how did their affiliate 0:12:30.640 --> 0:12:34.840 marketing program work. So I believe that you were basically 0:12:34.920 --> 0:12:37.440 if you signed up a new investor as an a 0:12:37.480 --> 0:12:42.000 crypto influencer, you would get yeah, there's a link, and 0:12:42.040 --> 0:12:44.840 then every trade they make for a certain period of time, 0:12:45.160 --> 0:12:47.319 you're getting a cut of their commission. That's this is 0:12:47.480 --> 0:12:52.080 something that finance has used really aggressively and very effectively. 0:12:52.559 --> 0:12:55.680 It does have some sort of multi level marketing vibes, 0:12:55.720 --> 0:12:58.320 it does. It kind of creates, you know, this this 0:12:58.400 --> 0:13:00.679 sort of sort of third party that you know is 0:13:01.280 --> 0:13:03.320 kind of acting on behalf of the company. But to me, 0:13:03.400 --> 0:13:05.200 that feels like it could be something that was done 0:13:05.760 --> 0:13:07.559 less as a cost cutting measure and more as a 0:13:08.000 --> 0:13:10.320 let's try to you know, kind of back off some 0:13:10.360 --> 0:13:13.320 of the more aggressive marketing practices. The biggest question that 0:13:13.360 --> 0:13:16.319 a lot of people have right now in this environment 0:13:16.400 --> 0:13:20.520 where you know, lenders have frozen withdrawals, other types of 0:13:20.559 --> 0:13:25.480 crypto companies have been largely in distress. Is okay, Well, 0:13:25.720 --> 0:13:28.720 I have large deposits of coin base, or I'm one 0:13:28.760 --> 0:13:32.280 of the people who has allowed like my paycheck to 0:13:32.280 --> 0:13:34.800 be paid into my coin based account. Like what's next 0:13:34.840 --> 0:13:37.440 for me if all of this regulatory stuff happens, Like 0:13:37.480 --> 0:13:39.440 how do you see any of the shifting to me? 0:13:39.640 --> 0:13:42.120 Like if you were had a lot of coin bax exposure, 0:13:42.160 --> 0:13:44.960 should be more worried about your crypto exposure rather than 0:13:45.400 --> 0:13:49.120 the particular risk of like coin Base getting hit by 0:13:49.120 --> 0:13:52.080 the you know, SEC because you know, I don't think 0:13:52.200 --> 0:13:54.520 like customer deposits and that sort of thing are going 0:13:54.559 --> 0:13:56.280 to be at risk, and I don't think people should 0:13:56.280 --> 0:13:58.800 be thinking about it that way. It's more, you know, 0:13:59.400 --> 0:14:03.600 what is the to coin base stockholders, people who our 0:14:03.720 --> 0:14:08.520 own equity in the company itself and who right yeah, 0:14:08.559 --> 0:14:11.000 positioned itself as like this is the future of finance. 0:14:11.160 --> 0:14:13.000 Like maybe it's not the future of finance. Maybe it 0:14:13.080 --> 0:14:15.600 was just this kind of flash in the pan thing 0:14:15.679 --> 0:14:17.920 that took advantage of a of a boom that is 0:14:18.040 --> 0:14:20.040 not going to exist for a long time. It could 0:14:20.040 --> 0:14:22.400 also get muscled out by, like I said, some of 0:14:22.400 --> 0:14:25.080 these other competitors finance for instance, So I think it's 0:14:25.120 --> 0:14:28.320 more about that. I think there you know, questions about 0:14:28.720 --> 0:14:32.920 you know, exactly what tokens are able to be marketed 0:14:32.960 --> 0:14:35.000 in the future. So that's going to have you know, 0:14:35.120 --> 0:14:39.000 implications for entrepreneurs and and so on who are building 0:14:39.000 --> 0:14:42.120 businesses on this platform. I think it also has implications 0:14:42.200 --> 0:14:44.440 for some of the big venture capital firms, some of 0:14:44.520 --> 0:14:48.120 these like institutional crypto investors, who were you know, using 0:14:48.160 --> 0:14:51.000 the tokens as a way to to make their investments 0:14:51.000 --> 0:14:53.680 alongside equity. I mean, there are a lot of questions about, 0:14:54.120 --> 0:14:56.800 you know, exactly what happens to that if there is 0:14:56.960 --> 0:15:00.160 greater regulation in the US. So so definitely don't think 0:15:00.200 --> 0:15:03.360 there's a lot of risk for just like regular people 0:15:03.680 --> 0:15:06.280 beyond like assets going down or going to zero, which 0:15:06.280 --> 0:15:08.560 I think is the thing people should be most worried about. 0:15:08.800 --> 0:15:11.000 It's definitely think a lot of people are worried about 0:15:11.120 --> 0:15:13.880 right now. So amazing. Well, Max, thank you so much 0:15:13.880 --> 0:15:18.360 for joining us. Thanks for having me. You can find 0:15:18.360 --> 0:15:21.080 more of Max Chafkins columns and reporting on the Bloomberg 0:15:21.160 --> 0:15:24.960 terminal on Bloomberger dot com and on Twitter. He's at 0:15:25.360 --> 0:15:31.520 Chafkin that c H A F K I N On 0:15:31.560 --> 0:15:35.680 the next episode of Bloomberg Crypto. Digital by Now pay 0:15:35.800 --> 0:15:39.960 later options skyrocketed over the last several years, and they 0:15:39.960 --> 0:15:42.720 were definitely everywhere in the early days of the pandemic. 0:15:43.280 --> 0:15:46.600 And now the NPL has come for crypto through a 0:15:46.600 --> 0:15:51.400 decentralized finance lender called Teller. Is this really a good idea? 0:15:51.960 --> 0:15:54.880 Bloomberg proportsa Mr Lena Gulf of Polo will join me 0:15:54.960 --> 0:15:58.080 for a discussion on how by now pay later fits 0:15:58.120 --> 0:16:05.240 into the crypto economy. H This is Bloomberg Crypto, a 0:16:05.320 --> 0:16:08.720 daily podcast from Bloomberg and I Heart Radio. For more 0:16:08.720 --> 0:16:11.400 shows from I Heart Radio, visit the I Heart Radio app, 0:16:11.640 --> 0:16:15.760 Apple Podcasts, or wherever you get your podcasts. Send us 0:16:15.760 --> 0:16:18.640 your comments, questions or suggestions for the show to Crypto 0:16:18.720 --> 0:16:21.840 at Bloomberg dot net or find us on Twitter. We're 0:16:21.880 --> 0:16:27.800 at Crypto. The supervising producer of Bloomberg Crypto is Vicky 0:16:27.920 --> 0:16:32.000 very Galina. Our senior producer is Janet Babin. Our producer 0:16:32.080 --> 0:16:36.440 is Sharon Burriro Associate producer is Ty Butler. Desta Wonder 0:16:36.520 --> 0:16:42.240 at is our engineer. Original music by Leo Sidrin. I'm 0:16:42.240 --> 0:16:44.480 Stacy Marie schmal We'll be back tomorrow.