Speaker 1: I'm Stacy Marie Ishmael, Managing editor of Crypto for Bloomberg News,
Speaker 1: and this is Bloomberg Crypto, a daily Bloomberg I heart podcast.
Speaker 1: It's Friday, August. The day to day a pulse of
Speaker 1: crypto can be unrelenting and no two days are alike,
Speaker 1: So I'm glad I get to spend those days with
Speaker 1: my colleagues on the Bloomberg Crypto team to help me
Speaker 1: distill the latest developments in the world of digital assets
Speaker 1: for all of you are listeners and all of our
Speaker 1: readers of our stories. Today, I'm joined once again by
Speaker 1: Bloomberg senior editors Anna Irrera. There's always someone waking up,
Speaker 1: always someone needing an edit, always someone with a story idea,
Speaker 1: and Philip Blogger, cancer prosecutors doing raid on different crypto exchanges,
Speaker 1: people's homes for the latest Friday in the editor's room
Speaker 1: at Welcome back to the podcast. Hi, thank you, and
Speaker 1: I know you were joining us today from your closet.
Speaker 1: I am indeed, this is my preferred location for podcast recordings.
Speaker 1: It's wonderful and cozy and probably around forty degrees celsius,
Speaker 1: which is like what a hundred ninety I'm not sure.
Speaker 1: This is the glamorous life of Bloomberg editor podcasting and
Speaker 1: Phil you are in frankly more glamorous surroundings than one
Speaker 1: of the like gorgeous conference rooms in the Zurich office.
Speaker 1: How's life over there? Live is good? Thank you very much.
Speaker 1: Excellence This week, like every other week, I feel that,
Speaker 1: you know, when I was kind of reviewing the file,
Speaker 1: I was like, wow, we published a lot of stories
Speaker 1: about a lot of things. And one of the things
Speaker 1: I've noticed is that since you joined, which was just
Speaker 1: a couple of months ago, at this point, your byline
Speaker 1: has popped up with almost equal frequency in the you know,
Speaker 1: reported by Field as it has in the edited by Field.
Speaker 1: And I'd love for you to just talk a little
Speaker 1: bit about what it's like having been a reporter in
Speaker 1: Crypto for a long time and now, you know, being
Speaker 1: primarily an editor but still kind of contributing to reporting
Speaker 1: in the way that you have been. Yeah, I think
Speaker 1: you know, I'm still reporting because maybe at heart I
Speaker 1: will always be a reporter. And I guess many editors
Speaker 1: are the same way, right, because that's the way you
Speaker 1: become an editor often is because you were a reporter before.
Speaker 1: And I think in specifically with crypto, I feel it's
Speaker 1: helpful to be reporting also to an extent because you're
Speaker 1: keeping taps on what's going on, and you know, it
Speaker 1: helps when you're editing too because you have you know,
Speaker 1: heard from sources as well, and so you can also
Speaker 1: help reporters frame stories and help with sourcing as well.
Speaker 1: Just make sure that everything you know is solid, and
Speaker 1: you know, maybe sometimes a reporter has done great reporting,
Speaker 1: but they're struggling a bit on how to like frame
Speaker 1: it or get the angle right. And if you're speaking
Speaker 1: to people in the sector as well, or people not
Speaker 1: in the sector but have but who have views on it,
Speaker 1: you can help shape that in a way that's more
Speaker 1: I guess accurate or compelling or whatever the case is.
Speaker 1: And it's just always fun, you know, Like I think
Speaker 1: it's one of my favorite parts of the job is
Speaker 1: speaking to people and then writing stories and finding out things.
Speaker 1: So I'm happy that I still get to do that,
Speaker 1: especially things that people don't want to tell us. Love
Speaker 1: to hear about those. I'm reminded of something that a
Speaker 1: former editor of mine, Ben Smith, who is now you know,
Speaker 1: the founding editor at Semaphore, used to say when we
Speaker 1: were at BuzzFeed News, and it is that being a
Speaker 1: reporter is the most fun job that anybody in the
Speaker 1: in the newsroom can have. And he said this while
Speaker 1: he was editor in chief, and all of us the
Speaker 1: editors were like, I guess our jobs are fun too.
Speaker 1: But I do think that having your main responsibility to
Speaker 1: be like going out and finding stuff out and then
Speaker 1: you know, writing it down or recording it for audio
Speaker 1: or sharing it on video, is is a pretty a
Speaker 1: pretty interesting way to spend time. For sure. Sometimes I
Speaker 1: still think, is this my job? Like this is so cool?
Speaker 1: I get to do this, like it's my job, Like
Speaker 1: I speak to people and like, you know, you get
Speaker 1: front and row seats for what's going on in the world,
Speaker 1: even if I mean, you know, obviously depending on the
Speaker 1: beat you cover, it's more you know, relevant to the
Speaker 1: course of humanity or not. But in any case, wherever
Speaker 1: you are, you are seeing, like, you know, an industry developed,
Speaker 1: you know, big decisions being made, So it's it's you know,
Speaker 1: I'm still kind of in love with it, so that's good.
Speaker 1: I guess right. I will not answer the question of
Speaker 1: whether crypto is relevant to the course of You might
Speaker 1: go to Phil because Phil, you too, you've been an
Speaker 1: editor at Bloomberg for a longer time than me or
Speaker 1: on a combined but you've also you know, there's like
Speaker 1: wild stuff happening in the markets, and I wake up
Speaker 1: in the morning in the the U. S. Time zone
Speaker 1: and I see a Phil larger cross little byeline, Like,
Speaker 1: what's that like? Yeah, I mean there is a there
Speaker 1: is a very large element as an editor at Bloomberg,
Speaker 1: I think of writing and sometimes from scratch. In my position,
Speaker 1: I've had I've taken copy from many parts of the world,
Speaker 1: and crypto is, as you know, it can be fairly technical,
Speaker 1: and it's a fairly nascent field. And and and sometimes
Speaker 1: you do have to do sort of the quite invasive
Speaker 1: writing of things that are filed or you know, rewriting
Speaker 1: maybe something that you need to do. But also as
Speaker 1: an editor, you you need to be able to step
Speaker 1: in and write from the top down sometimes, especially if
Speaker 1: you know people are out, reporters are out doing what
Speaker 1: they should be doing. Are you reporting um? And you're
Speaker 1: there and it can be written up quickly and cleanly,
Speaker 1: and it's it can be very rewarding to write something
Speaker 1: from scratch as well. Yeah, just like a reminder that
Speaker 1: we know how sometimes for for ourselves, but for our
Speaker 1: teams as well. There's something that you said about, you know,
Speaker 1: sometimes you something will come in and I know you
Speaker 1: talked about helping folks frame things, and and you know, Phil,
Speaker 1: you talked about the kind of the technical hurdles and
Speaker 1: barriers that people face. We've talked on this podcast, and
Speaker 1: Phil you've shared the fact that you know, anybody kind
Speaker 1: of coming into this asset class from a journalistic perspective,
Speaker 1: encounters words, stats, metrics, things that you may not have
Speaker 1: seen previously, even if you have deep financial markets expertise
Speaker 1: or have over other markets for years. What are some
Speaker 1: of the kinds of things that you see, you know,
Speaker 1: in in copy maybe that you think to yourself, Oh, yeah,
Speaker 1: I remember when I did not know what this was.
Speaker 1: And it's good to be able to guide somebody along
Speaker 1: that path. You know, nine months ago I would have
Speaker 1: said that I had no idea what the DeFi was.
Speaker 1: I could not have described that to you at all.
Speaker 1: An algorithmic stable coin would be another example. We had
Speaker 1: to take a crash course and that back in May
Speaker 1: or many of us, you know, especially missed myself. Blockchain
Speaker 1: bridges well, n f T, so I had a vague idea.
Speaker 1: The interesting thing about the crypto bait as like every
Speaker 1: month there is a new set of terms that you
Speaker 1: get introduced to. UM. This year it's often been you know,
Speaker 1: in conjunction with said invention crashing spectacularly, and I fully
Speaker 1: expect that to continue. It's you know, it just rolls
Speaker 1: out every single time. I don't think there's been a
Speaker 1: month since I started this bait that I haven't come
Speaker 1: to face with a new a new set of terms
Speaker 1: that I needed to all use upun come to terms
Speaker 1: with h and that you know, for me, that's always
Speaker 1: been one of the attractions of asset classes like this
Speaker 1: is you're you're constantly learning, right, And I think one
Speaker 1: of the things that folks criticize journalists force They're like, well,
Speaker 1: you didn't know what you were talking about six months ago,
Speaker 1: and yeah, like that's that's kind of the point. Sometimes,
Speaker 1: It's that you balance deep expertise and proficiency in certain
Speaker 1: things with an ability to become deeply experts and deeply
Speaker 1: proficients and other things in it sometimes aggressively short amount
Speaker 1: of time, and you know, learning how to learn is
Speaker 1: on on deadline and under pressure while somebody on the
Speaker 1: other end of the line is potentially yelling at you. Um.
Speaker 1: That's that's certainly helped me in being able to cover
Speaker 1: cover markets like this at the time, like the one
Speaker 1: we're dealing with right now. Phil, I also to ask
Speaker 1: you about you know, you and Anna are both in
Speaker 1: kind of are like European time zone, European offices. And
Speaker 1: one of the advantages or disadvantages you could disagree with me,
Speaker 1: but one of the things about that is it lets
Speaker 1: you get a lot of overlap with the sort of
Speaker 1: the Asia Pacific day as well as the US day.
Speaker 1: And so, you know, to use a phrase that you
Speaker 1: used earlier, you both have front row seats to a
Speaker 1: different kind of thing, which is like how the markets
Speaker 1: and the coverage and the companies are different. As you know,
Speaker 1: the the day shifts and you know, like Asia starts
Speaker 1: going to sleep in Europe starts waking up, and then
Speaker 1: the US comes on stream. What have been some of
Speaker 1: the kinds of stories coming out of Asia that you've
Speaker 1: been able to edit that sort of give folks a
Speaker 1: sense of that global scoop of our coverage. I remember
Speaker 1: from the get go, I think it was early January
Speaker 1: we started getting stories out of Japan UM and there
Speaker 1: was some interesting stories about how the Japanese UM Cryptox
Speaker 1: Changed Association was overhauling listing rules for crypto tokens, and
Speaker 1: it was really like the reporter in Tokyo was new
Speaker 1: to the subject. I was very new to the subject,
Speaker 1: but it was a very interesting thing because it was
Speaker 1: a complete rethink of how they were going, you know,
Speaker 1: through the process of of screening new tokens for listings.
Speaker 1: I mean that was one UM. The whole Korea Terraform
Speaker 1: Lab story has been another. UM Korea for those who
Speaker 1: aren't too familiar with this story, has launched an investigation
Speaker 1: into the circumstances around Terraform Labs and the collapse of
Speaker 1: the terra USD stable coin, and there's been a lot
Speaker 1: of stories around that and how that that sort of
Speaker 1: moved through the judicial system with prosecutors doing raid on
Speaker 1: different crypto exchanges, people's homes and things like that that
Speaker 1: have been breaking over the past month or two and
Speaker 1: has been very very interesting and rewarding to be part
Speaker 1: of as well. And and uh, you know, you being
Speaker 1: in our London office are often interacting obviously with folks there,
Speaker 1: but also like our teams and Brussels who cover the
Speaker 1: the European Union, or you know, other like our fintech
Speaker 1: reporters who are writing about various elements of the the
Speaker 1: UK market. What has it been like for you now
Speaker 1: being in this endless see of stuff to do and
Speaker 1: people to encounter. It's been great. I mean, I Phil
Speaker 1: was like everyone deserving of a holiday, so he was
Speaker 1: gone for a few weeks and I really got to
Speaker 1: appreciate the you know how hard it's been like to
Speaker 1: cover two different time zones, right, because you know, there's
Speaker 1: always someone waking up, always someone needing an edit, always something,
Speaker 1: someone with a story idea, which is great because it's
Speaker 1: better to have more than less, but it is quite consuming.
Speaker 1: Um As for the sort of geographical distribution of things
Speaker 1: that it's been really fascinating because obviously with the Bloomberg
Speaker 1: we have reporters everywhere, and so while we might not
Speaker 1: have Crypto specific reporters everywhere, you know, Crypto is a
Speaker 1: story that touches upon everything you mentioned. Brussels, so the
Speaker 1: ECB is thinking of launching a digital token, right, so
Speaker 1: I've been speaking to the reporter there and trying to
Speaker 1: figure out sort of what interesting stories we can do.
Speaker 1: And you know, there was a big conference in Paris,
Speaker 1: so we were lazing with the reporter in Paris. So
Speaker 1: it's it's just been really really fascinating, um and interesting
Speaker 1: to cover it as a global story rather than just
Speaker 1: you know, a local story, which it's not, because crypto
Speaker 1: in its very nature is a global sort of asset
Speaker 1: class that doesn't have time zones or you know, doesn't
Speaker 1: never shuts down, never sleeps. Coming up some more of
Speaker 1: what we're watching in crypto as we head into next
Speaker 1: week from Bloomberg Crypto Senior editors Anna Arera and Philip
Speaker 1: Blogger Cranso. One of the the elements of crypto that
Speaker 1: is global. It means that our coverage has to be global,
Speaker 1: but it also means in lots of different places. So
Speaker 1: you know, if you are listening to this podcast and
Speaker 1: you've listened to the end, first of all, shout out
Speaker 1: to you, thank you for listening to the end. But
Speaker 1: one of the things you've heard is, you know, we
Speaker 1: always say hey, you can find more of our coverage
Speaker 1: on the terminal on Bloomberg dot com or follow us
Speaker 1: on Twitter. We are also responsible for things like a
Speaker 1: newsletter we're responsible for. You know, we have colleagues who
Speaker 1: work on uh Bloomberg Television where they do various types
Speaker 1: of crypto coverage, including a weekly show. In addition to
Speaker 1: what we do on Bloomberg Television, we also have a
Speaker 1: video streaming product called quick Take, you know, which has
Speaker 1: sort of more social friendly videos that are often quite short,
Speaker 1: quite accessible, regularly cover crypto and a range of other topics.
Speaker 1: I sometimes think about how many different ways people who
Speaker 1: are interested in crypto like have to get access to
Speaker 1: their information, you know, whether it's they're watching TikTok's if
Speaker 1: people explaining why they bought a certain toka, or three
Speaker 1: hour long YouTube videos of somebody going on a deep
Speaker 1: investigative dive into unnamed companies, dubious financial statements. What are
Speaker 1: y'all reading or watching or listening to? That is you know,
Speaker 1: kind of crypto related but doesn't come from Bloomberg right now.
Speaker 1: I mean, I know it makes me sound very millennial,
Speaker 1: but I do still get a lot of stuff out
Speaker 1: from Twitter, and you know, because I do find people
Speaker 1: still are able to share even concise opinions, and then
Speaker 1: from there then on they linked me to other places,
Speaker 1: and I know it makes me sound very boring. And
Speaker 1: obviously podcasts are also something that's easy to learn from
Speaker 1: because you can be doing something else while you're you're listening,
Speaker 1: and that's quite valuable because reading, you know, we might
Speaker 1: not actually have the time, or you know, you just
Speaker 1: need to be more focused. But still do read all
Speaker 1: of our stories from the beginning to the end because
Speaker 1: we care about kickers very much. We take much you know,
Speaker 1: pride in the last quote, so please read it. I did.
Speaker 1: I didn't tend to read the Financial Times scrypto coverage.
Speaker 1: Shout out to my former colleagues. Yeah, shout shout out.
Speaker 1: They break a fair bit of news on crypto. They write,
Speaker 1: you know, fairly critically about crypto. I also, you know,
Speaker 1: as a general sort of I enjoy the Bloomberg big Takes.
Speaker 1: I think that the format is nice, and you know,
Speaker 1: they're usually almost always stories that that kind of hit
Speaker 1: it right on the bottom, well reported, well executed. While
Speaker 1: I did, I'm very proud to see that the Crypto
Speaker 1: team has been punched I think above its own weight
Speaker 1: in terms of getting stories on as big takes, and
Speaker 1: I think that's very nice for somebody who's not familiar
Speaker 1: with the big take. How would you describe it? I
Speaker 1: think it's a you know, selection of basically highlighting our
Speaker 1: best work, um be it often often it's enterprise of
Speaker 1: some sort big feature stories, but sometimes it's you know,
Speaker 1: big breaking news that we are just giving the royal treatment.
Speaker 1: Um I believe there was a story about Goldman Sachs
Speaker 1: and you know there their travails with community consumer banking
Speaker 1: fairly recently. That was off a breaking news, but but
Speaker 1: given the sort of big treatment, so it could be
Speaker 1: a little bit of everything. But usually they are stories
Speaker 1: that have a good visual element, a good graphical element,
Speaker 1: nice storytelling and and very interesting information in them. There
Speaker 1: was a great big take a couple of weeks ago
Speaker 1: about mayonnaise, like for real, for real, you know Tracy Alloway,
Speaker 1: who some of you may have heard because she's obviously
Speaker 1: part of the Odd Lots squad. But the title of
Speaker 1: that story was what the Great Mayonnaise Inflation Mystery can
Speaker 1: tell Us about prices? And it was just this incredibly
Speaker 1: well written deep dive into you know, inflation and supply
Speaker 1: chains and how things how prices are calculated, using mayonnaise
Speaker 1: as an example, and as somebody it doesn't even particularly
Speaker 1: like maybe he is so sort of fascinated by by that.
Speaker 1: So that was, if you will excuse the pun, a
Speaker 1: good flavor of what the Big take has to offer
Speaker 1: on that awful pun note, I think I'm gonna let
Speaker 1: y'all go back to your well. Hopefully Anna you can
Speaker 1: get out of the physical closet that you are in
Speaker 1: and back to your your your virtual or real desk.
Speaker 1: And Phil, thank you so much for as always for
Speaker 1: joining us from Zurich. Thank you, thank you. You can
Speaker 1: find all of our work on the Bloomberg Terminal, on
Speaker 1: Bloomberg dot com, on Twitter, and in that Bloomberg Crypto
Speaker 1: newsletter that I mentioned. Anna is at Anna Arera on Twitter.
Speaker 1: That's I R R E r A, and Phil is
Speaker 1: at lager Crancer. That's l A g e r k
Speaker 1: r A n s e R. On the next episode
Speaker 1: of Bloomberg Crypto, n f T prices might have cooled
Speaker 1: significantly from their recent highs, but luxury brands are still
Speaker 1: betting that clients wants exposure to these tokens. For more
Speaker 1: on why brands like Gucci and Tiffany are embracing n
Speaker 1: f T s, tune into the episode dropping on Monday,
Speaker 1: August twenty nine. This is Bloomberg Crypto, a daily podcast
Speaker 1: from Bloomberg and I Heart Radio. For more shows from
Speaker 1: I Heart Radio, visit the I Heart Radio app, Apple Podcasts,
Speaker 1: or wherever you get your podcasts. Send us your comments, questions,
Speaker 1: or suggestions for the show to Crypto at Bloomberg dot
Speaker 1: net or find us on Twitter We're at Crypto. The
Speaker 1: supervising producer of Bloomberg Crypto is Vicky very Galina. Our
Speaker 1: senior producer is Janet Babin. Our producer is Sharon Burriro,
Speaker 1: Associate producer is Ty Butler. Desta wonder At is our engineer.
Speaker 1: Original music by Leo Sidrin. I'm Stacy, Marie is Shmell.
Speaker 1: Have a great weekend. M