Speaker 1: The coin Bureau Podcast is a production of I Heart Radio.
Speaker 1: Once we launched the site, which would have been in December,
Speaker 1: within about a month we organically had about a hundred
Speaker 1: and fifty thou unique users coming to the website. So
Speaker 1: so that was really the prime time, as we know
Speaker 1: to December and January where where we really had those
Speaker 1: blow off the top moments and the retail menia was
Speaker 1: at its craziest. So the timing was perfect, yeah, yeah,
Speaker 1: and then of course Bear Market kicked in, timing was
Speaker 1: not perfect. Welcome everyone to the coin Bureau Podcast. My
Speaker 1: name is Guy. This gentleman's name is mad Mike Mooch,
Speaker 1: and we are very very fortunate to be joined today
Speaker 1: by one of the first ever guests on the coin
Speaker 1: Bureau Podcast, none other than Nate white Hill, the founder
Speaker 1: and CEO of crypto Slate. Nate, thank you so much
Speaker 1: for joining us. Thanks so much for having me. Guys,
Speaker 1: it's honored to be here. Likewise, it's an honored to
Speaker 1: have you. And yeah for anyone, for anyone who hasn't
Speaker 1: heard of crypto Slate before. Crypto Slate is a crypto
Speaker 1: news and information opinion data platform. It's an amazing resource
Speaker 1: It's one of the first places I go every morning,
Speaker 1: you know, when I switch on my computer, you know,
Speaker 1: crypto Slate is right up there, you know, to go
Speaker 1: and get to go and see what's happening in the space,
Speaker 1: get an idea, and you know, I switched it on
Speaker 1: and just hope that it's good news. Thank you. It's
Speaker 1: there's not a lot of good news around at the moment.
Speaker 1: But so no, yeah, so tell me you obviously, as
Speaker 1: I say, you're the founder of crypto slate, can you
Speaker 1: tell us just a little bit about your background and
Speaker 1: how you came came to tank, came to found it. Sure.
Speaker 1: So I've been, I would say, pretty deeply involved in
Speaker 1: the crypto space. Sum I previously had a tech back
Speaker 1: on so I had started in launched a handful of
Speaker 1: technology businesses over over the past decade and a half
Speaker 1: or so. Uh. Some of them raised capital, others were
Speaker 1: just kind of you know a combination of product and
Speaker 1: service businesses, and did some consultation. But in fifteen, I
Speaker 1: was living in Seattle and one of my best friends,
Speaker 1: who's a hedge fund manager in the traditional finance space,
Speaker 1: told me to download coin base and had no idea
Speaker 1: what it was just thought, oh, you know, this is
Speaker 1: a place where you buy a cryptocurrency. Hadn't really done
Speaker 1: too much research or deep diving into crypto, but as
Speaker 1: soon as I bought my first bitcoin, I felt kind
Speaker 1: of invested in the ecosystem. The prices around two and
Speaker 1: seventy dollars at the time, so it had come down
Speaker 1: from about a peak of a thousand dollars, So this
Speaker 1: is right, you know, kind of summertime. Um. Soon afterwards,
Speaker 1: one of the bitcoin core developers named Mike Hearn wrote
Speaker 1: a pretty scathing post about bitcoin, calling it a fair
Speaker 1: field experiment. So there was a lot of fun at
Speaker 1: the time. Everyone was still questioning, like, is this industry
Speaker 1: you're going to exist? Is it going to be around?
Speaker 1: I had a lot of faith in it because of
Speaker 1: coin based. Coin Base was a very easy to use app.
Speaker 1: It was a great experience. It was really kind of
Speaker 1: the go to place, I feel like for a lot
Speaker 1: of people that were first kind of getting into crypto. Yeah,
Speaker 1: especially I think after after Mount Cox as well, you know,
Speaker 1: people were so is it people coming to because I
Speaker 1: remember that I I I sort of discovered bitcoin sort
Speaker 1: of at about the time that mount Gox was imploding,
Speaker 1: and it was something that you know, it really made
Speaker 1: me kind of back away for a bit because it
Speaker 1: was just like, you know, this is so, this is
Speaker 1: so insanely risky, not realizing at the time obviously that
Speaker 1: you know, it wasn't that it wasn't a fact that
Speaker 1: bitcoin itself was risky. It was this service that we
Speaker 1: were using to interact with bitcoin, to get our hands
Speaker 1: on bitcoin, that was that was risky, and you know,
Speaker 1: that was that was a really important lesson. But it's
Speaker 1: interesting that you say that you you were kind of
Speaker 1: so you were kind of led to it by someone
Speaker 1: because as you say, you're you're a tech background, but
Speaker 1: you were led to it by someone a friend of
Speaker 1: yours who was actually working in finance. Yes, exactly. And
Speaker 1: I had first heard a bitcoin probably in two thousand
Speaker 1: twelve or so. I was running another company called Highlighter
Speaker 1: dot com, which was in the education technology world. But
Speaker 1: at the time, you know, two thousand and twelve, just
Speaker 1: saw it heard, you know, had red headlines on it,
Speaker 1: but didn't really take it seriously. But when came around,
Speaker 1: um I knew it was obviously previously came from a
Speaker 1: high around thousand dollars. I believe this would have been
Speaker 1: kind of November. December two thousand, fourteen or so was
Speaker 1: when it hit its previous high, so I thought, oh,
Speaker 1: there's there's some potential to, you know, hope it get
Speaker 1: back to its all time highst um. About six months
Speaker 1: or so afterwards, after I first bought bitcoin, coin Base
Speaker 1: added Ethereum too, and this is where my mind really
Speaker 1: started to go deeper down the rabbit hole about you know,
Speaker 1: Bitcoin did one thing really well. It seemed like kind
Speaker 1: of be digital gold or potentially hedge against inflation, although
Speaker 1: I'm not sure we can call it that, and its right, yeah,
Speaker 1: but but Ethereum, you know, really kind of intrigued me.
Speaker 1: And at that point I was learning about the Ethereum
Speaker 1: Enterprise Alliance, which was developing all these partnerships with some
Speaker 1: of the biggest companies in the world, like Microsoft, for example,
Speaker 1: and that's when I really started to go, Okay, this
Speaker 1: is something that is much more than just digital money.
Speaker 1: It's digital application in a decentralized way. And that's kind
Speaker 1: of at the point where I started spending tons of
Speaker 1: time on coin coin desk, coin telegraph, coin market gap
Speaker 1: and kind of seeing the world from to two perspectives,
Speaker 1: like the qualitative side, like the news and analysis, and
Speaker 1: the quantitative side like being able to look at the
Speaker 1: prices and the forecasts and the volumes, all all the
Speaker 1: you know, actual quantitative data. So it was at that
Speaker 1: moment with my tech background, that I realized this might
Speaker 1: be a good idea for me to build something myself
Speaker 1: that combined the qualitative and the quantitative, right, And so obviously, yeah,
Speaker 1: with a with a tech background, you presumably it wasn't
Speaker 1: It wasn't much of a stretch for you to kind of,
Speaker 1: you know, for you to have that lightbulb moment for
Speaker 1: it to kind of all click and make sense. Yeah, exactly.
Speaker 1: We were at the time the first website it that
Speaker 1: was trying to do a combination of the news and
Speaker 1: analysis but also have a full directory of all the
Speaker 1: crypto assets. Um, so we integrated with quite a few
Speaker 1: a p I s we started building out the site
Speaker 1: all in WordPress. I've been using WordPress since two thousand six,
Speaker 1: so we've built a lot of different sites on WordPress.
Speaker 1: We've kind of seen it grows so much as a
Speaker 1: content management system. So the original idea was to have
Speaker 1: all of the digital assets inside WordPress as as objects
Speaker 1: in the same way that news posts are objects. So
Speaker 1: by being able to link to the objects to each other.
Speaker 1: We we had the goal of being able to provide
Speaker 1: more context for if you read an article about a
Speaker 1: particular cryptocurrency and you see real time chart, real time price,
Speaker 1: real time description of what this crypto asset is. So
Speaker 1: trying to combine the qualitative and the quantitative. I keep
Speaker 1: coming back to that, but I think it's something for
Speaker 1: a lot of people when they get into the space,
Speaker 1: they're so overwhelmed by by you one aspect of that,
Speaker 1: but trying to simplify it was our goal initially. Yeah,
Speaker 1: so that was the that was the inspiration behind it.
Speaker 1: And then so you launched in Is that right? Because
Speaker 1: Mike and I have been discussing sort of, you know,
Speaker 1: the history of crypto in previous episodes, and I think
Speaker 1: seen we we talked about in the context of Ethereum,
Speaker 1: and obviously it's just such a crazy time with I
Speaker 1: mean with I c o s sort of happening every
Speaker 1: week and these insane numbers flying around, and so I mean, yeah,
Speaker 1: it's obviously it was obviously a sort of prime time
Speaker 1: for to launch this service, you know, to to launch
Speaker 1: this platform and there were so many people obviously clamoring
Speaker 1: to get that information. So so you launched in se
Speaker 1: and you were you were obviously building the site yourself,
Speaker 1: and were you were you writing for it as well
Speaker 1: or were you having to were you getting other people
Speaker 1: on board at that point? So the one thing I
Speaker 1: never did was actually write any articles. We I built
Speaker 1: the site myself. We did a lot of the data
Speaker 1: entry ourselves too. So at the time, there was around
Speaker 1: eight coins on coin market cap, and I personally went
Speaker 1: to every single asset on coin market cap and went
Speaker 1: to the website. I was really like trying to do
Speaker 1: a very thorough deep dive into what are these eight
Speaker 1: hundred different assets, are they legit? Like is the website
Speaker 1: even up still? Like what's happening? So we did a
Speaker 1: lot of very kind of just early initial research and
Speaker 1: then um, once we launched the site, which would have
Speaker 1: been in December, within about a month, we organically had
Speaker 1: about a hundred and fifty thousand unique users coming to
Speaker 1: the website. So so that was really the prime time,
Speaker 1: as we know to December and January where where we
Speaker 1: really had those blow off the top moments and the
Speaker 1: retail mania was at its craziest. So the timing was perfect, Yeah, yeah,
Speaker 1: and then of course bear market kicked in. Timing was
Speaker 1: not perfect. Getting I think getting timing timing right in
Speaker 1: crypto is is as difficult as in you know, as
Speaker 1: as as in any other sector, isn't it, because you know,
Speaker 1: it can change so quickly, and and that and that
Speaker 1: moment in kind of eighteen when it just sort of
Speaker 1: fell off a cliffs So, I mean must have been
Speaker 1: that must have been tough because presumably you know, you
Speaker 1: saw you saw you know, hits to the site decline
Speaker 1: as as kind of especially retail interests fell off. So
Speaker 1: how was that? Yeah, I mean that must have been
Speaker 1: a sort of you know, a couple of years at
Speaker 1: least of of sort of very hard work with not
Speaker 1: quite as as the returns that you perhaps used to. Yeah. Absolutely, really,
Speaker 1: I would say wasn't until maybe like September October of
Speaker 1: twenty eighteen that we realized we're definitely not we don't
Speaker 1: have a ball market coming around the corner like we
Speaker 1: thought for basically the first you know, nine months of
Speaker 1: the year of after the blow off the top, everyone thought, oh,
Speaker 1: ball markets right around the corner again. People like Novigrats
Speaker 1: are making predictions that bitcoin would hit you again that year.
Speaker 1: There was lots of you know, bullish but bullshit predictions.
Speaker 1: I think most of them are seemed very fine line.
Speaker 1: No one really knows exactly what's going on with it,
Speaker 1: and it's yeah, everyone just pulls a figure out there,
Speaker 1: ars and and and it's sort of the same with
Speaker 1: the fund. It just that seems to be regurgitated every
Speaker 1: every cycle, the same articles, the same of just different times. Yeah,
Speaker 1: And I think that that really is why sites like
Speaker 1: crypto Slate are so important, really because everyone's sort of
Speaker 1: clamoring for a prediction. Oh, you know, where are we
Speaker 1: going to be next month? How when's bitcoin going to
Speaker 1: get to six figures or something like that. And the
Speaker 1: short answer is that no one knows. You know, I
Speaker 1: don't know, you don't know. Nobody knows because we we
Speaker 1: just we can't predict the future. I mean, we can
Speaker 1: look at our we can look at the charts, we
Speaker 1: can look at the news coming out of places like
Speaker 1: the Federal Reserve, and we can make educated guesses. But
Speaker 1: you know, there seemed to be especially in the in
Speaker 1: that kind of mania of seen like people just wanted
Speaker 1: to people just wanted the crystal ball sort of treatment.
Speaker 1: But I guess, you know, the important thing is just
Speaker 1: to get that, to get the information that's out there
Speaker 1: and and present it in a way that you know,
Speaker 1: someone who doesn't want to go digging across half the
Speaker 1: Internet to find it that they you know, they have
Speaker 1: access to that and they and can make their own
Speaker 1: draw their own conclusions from what they read. Yeah. Absolutely,
Speaker 1: that eighteen to time period was was tough in the
Speaker 1: sense that we knew the market would come back eventually,
Speaker 1: we just didn't know when. But we had to you know,
Speaker 1: run as lean as possible, Unlike a handful of other
Speaker 1: crypto media that started during the time, like The Block
Speaker 1: and crypt Crypto Briefing. Uh. The Block and Crypto Briefing
Speaker 1: both raised venture capital at the time, and decrypt was
Speaker 1: a spin out of Consensus, so they kind of had we.
Speaker 1: We raised a very small round when we first started
Speaker 1: from friends and family, but for us to continue during
Speaker 1: that time and run as a business was tough. But
Speaker 1: what we emerged into with the recent bullmarket and how
Speaker 1: strong we are now, it's all been worth it in
Speaker 1: terms of the you know, it was a struggle entrepreneurially,
Speaker 1: but now especially over the past year and a half
Speaker 1: now things have been incredibly strong. So that's one piece
Speaker 1: of advice I'd have for anyone that is in in
Speaker 1: this bear market is about what you can do during
Speaker 1: this time to pass the time, not just you know,
Speaker 1: focus on short term price movements, are trying to trying
Speaker 1: to figure out what the next prediction is that might
Speaker 1: come true, but to build something that gives oneself a
Speaker 1: sense of purpose or value during what is, you know,
Speaker 1: an unknown period of uncertainty for the industry. Yeah, and
Speaker 1: and yeah, I mean it really is unknown, isn't it.
Speaker 1: We again, the predictions are kind of flying around. Oh
Speaker 1: it'll be you know, it'll be over by the end
Speaker 1: of the year. Oh it could be another couple of
Speaker 1: years at least. Yeah, and and I mean, I guess yeah.
Speaker 1: This is a message that we've been we've been talking
Speaker 1: about with a few people. You know, it's to try
Speaker 1: and try and see this bear market as an opportunity,
Speaker 1: which is what it is, you know, an opportunity to
Speaker 1: build and that you know, that sounds to me like
Speaker 1: is what you were able to do in very much
Speaker 1: kind of heads down, filter out. I mean, there wasn't
Speaker 1: really any hype to filter out, I guess, you know,
Speaker 1: and it's just concentrate on on making this thing as
Speaker 1: as good as you can make it. There's a lot
Speaker 1: of parallels between sort of a bear market in like
Speaker 1: a risk session, you know, like where if you if
Speaker 1: your business can be be lean and make it through
Speaker 1: a session and then come out with the other side,
Speaker 1: you're going to be set up well. And it sounds
Speaker 1: quite similar to how you know, you you you had
Speaker 1: like the boom period around that Christmas and then the
Speaker 1: bum fell out of the market and and but you
Speaker 1: were able to carry on, I suppose because you were
Speaker 1: probably quite quite new, quite small, quite agile, and then
Speaker 1: grow grow when it's lean and then and really sort
Speaker 1: of explode when it's when it's a rich. Yeah. Absolutely
Speaker 1: it was. It was challenging. But now when I look
Speaker 1: back at it, I'm so glad that we went through
Speaker 1: it because we as we were talking about, you know earlier,
Speaker 1: when starting a podcast, it's like you don't really know
Speaker 1: the mistakes you're gonna make until you make them, and
Speaker 1: you have to kind of learn along the way. And
Speaker 1: the same was true for a media business for having
Speaker 1: you know, people that are that we're responsible for or
Speaker 1: responsible for producing content for cryptos late all over the
Speaker 1: world and wanting them to do well, and um, you know,
Speaker 1: it was it was definitely, it was tricky, but it
Speaker 1: was so rewarding to really be in the last ball
Speaker 1: market that we are and now, you know, having experienced
Speaker 1: a few different ball and bear cycles, I know it's
Speaker 1: just a matter of time before the cycle turns. Whether
Speaker 1: it's who knows, Yeah, there's nothing like there's nothing like
Speaker 1: bitter experiences there, and it's just it's reassuring to to think, well,
Speaker 1: we've been there before. You know, Okay, this may be
Speaker 1: this may be bad. We may have had some unexpected
Speaker 1: and nasty surprises this time around, but we have we
Speaker 1: have been covered this ground before, and I think that's
Speaker 1: that's really important for for people new to crypto who this,
Speaker 1: you know, I think many of them this will be
Speaker 1: their first, their first bear market, their first sort of
Speaker 1: really testing testing time. Absolutely. Yeah. So tell me, Nate,
Speaker 1: So what's your what's your role at crypto Slate day
Speaker 1: to day now? So right now I'm managing a few
Speaker 1: different areas within crypto Slate, So I'm kind of managing
Speaker 1: the editorial team. I'm not really involved in editorial on
Speaker 1: a day to day basis. But um, that's something that's
Speaker 1: the kind of the the heart for what's cryptos l
Speaker 1: it is. We're an editorial operation that produces news articles
Speaker 1: every day, um, anywhere from ten to twenty articles on
Speaker 1: a daily basis about different topics which our team of
Speaker 1: journalists find interesting. So we're we're constantly on the search
Speaker 1: for what is an interesting, compelling piece of news that
Speaker 1: hasn't been told yet, or if it has been told
Speaker 1: or has been shared as a piece of news, how
Speaker 1: can we bring it differentiated angle to it. So, so
Speaker 1: that's kind of one aspect is the editorial. I also, um,
Speaker 1: I'm a programmer by for the past cautions I was
Speaker 1: eleven years old basics. So yeah, I've been building lots
Speaker 1: of different websites over the years. Um, only been working
Speaker 1: on cryptoc Light now. This has been the longest business
Speaker 1: and the longest kind of code base that I've been
Speaker 1: operating on now for almost five years. UM. So I
Speaker 1: do a little bit of coding here and there where.
Speaker 1: We're also in the process of fundraising, uh kind of
Speaker 1: managed the sales team. So it's a lot of different
Speaker 1: you know CEO stuff, but as much as I can
Speaker 1: sprinkle in the programming and the coding side. That's something
Speaker 1: that I enjoy so much. It's just there's a dopamine
Speaker 1: feedback loop about coding, and I think, you know what,
Speaker 1: maybe if I, if I knew had a buddy code,
Speaker 1: I can see how it might be. Yeah. Absolutely so.
Speaker 1: In the same way that you know, traders in a
Speaker 1: in a ballmarket experienced the dopamine feedback loop of just
Speaker 1: hitting the buy button and seeing the accounts go off.
Speaker 1: It's similar for writing a piece of code and having
Speaker 1: an execute and oftentimes having it come out better than
Speaker 1: you envisioned in your mind. That's that's a very like,
Speaker 1: you know, fulfilling thing. I've got a question, Um, so
Speaker 1: you had no sort of journalistic or editorial experts experience
Speaker 1: before setting up Yes, that's correct. I did have experience
Speaker 1: working with other entities setting up blogs. So one of
Speaker 1: my previous businesses was a blog development company back in
Speaker 1: this would have been seven, So we worked with Yahoo
Speaker 1: and Nike to set up some of their first corporate blogs.
Speaker 1: But on the editorial and media side, I did have
Speaker 1: no experience. Whatsoever. Did you have like a like a
Speaker 1: a mission statement of something like that? With with how
Speaker 1: you wanted crypto slate to sort of be perceived well,
Speaker 1: and how did you go around sourcing that talent to
Speaker 1: find the right right is if if you've never written
Speaker 1: before And yeah, so initially the the mission statement basically
Speaker 1: boiled down to we wanted to report the news in
Speaker 1: as honest and transparent away as possible. So one thing
Speaker 1: that Cryptomedia in the past I'm not going to name names,
Speaker 1: but has gotten called out for his names is not
Speaker 1: disclosing financial interests. So one thing that's really important for
Speaker 1: us is that if a writer holds an asset like
Speaker 1: bitcoin or ethereum that they're writing about, they just need
Speaker 1: to add a little disclaimer at the bottom of the
Speaker 1: news article that just makes it absolutely clear to the
Speaker 1: reader that you know, there might be a little bit
Speaker 1: of bias, and people should always be skeptical and do
Speaker 1: their own diligence about what these different crypto assets are,
Speaker 1: not ever rely on someone just to tell them what
Speaker 1: they and buy. Yeah, because let's face it, there's there's
Speaker 1: nothing wrong with with with being you know, with with
Speaker 1: liking one project over another. But it is important that
Speaker 1: whoever's reading it knows that you know because you know,
Speaker 1: we it's some it's they have to know how objective
Speaker 1: you know, the writer can be. Yeah, exactly, it's it's
Speaker 1: really important, I think, not just for for the reader,
Speaker 1: but for the entity that's kind of representing itself as
Speaker 1: well too. Anytime something there's there's like a paid advertising
Speaker 1: thing that needs to be clearly disclosed you that's the
Speaker 1: law in the UK and the US, and you know
Speaker 1: that's unfortunately, you know, there's still companies that reach out
Speaker 1: and they ask, can you guys write something that we
Speaker 1: pay you for but you don't have an ad on it?
Speaker 1: And I'm like, that's literally illegal, and I point them,
Speaker 1: I link them to the laws on the FTC or
Speaker 1: or we'll take care of you. I mean, yeah, we get,
Speaker 1: we get. We get so many inquiries like that all
Speaker 1: the time. And it's like you've what you've presumably watched
Speaker 1: a video at least one video on the channel. You know.
Speaker 1: You you see, we don't run out, we see you see,
Speaker 1: we don't do sponsored content. Why are you asking me this? Unfortunately? Yeah,
Speaker 1: there's just there's a lot of it around. So so
Speaker 1: how a bit so you great? You know, obviously small beginnings,
Speaker 1: How big is the team now? Team is around and
Speaker 1: fifteen people right now, mostly kind of in Europe. We're
Speaker 1: we have a few in the US. We're trying to
Speaker 1: hire more in the US um and then we have
Speaker 1: a few people in Asia. Two. So we meet multiple
Speaker 1: times a week on Slack, we're and also on Google
Speaker 1: Video Chat, where we have you know, fifteen different little tiles,
Speaker 1: and you know, we're able to everyone is able to
Speaker 1: express kind of how they're doing, what they're working on.
Speaker 1: So we try to maintain as as as close of
Speaker 1: a team environment as possible despite the fact that we're
Speaker 1: fully remote. Yeah, and I was I was going to
Speaker 1: ask you about that actually because I remember, you know,
Speaker 1: I've seen on your I've seen on your site for
Speaker 1: a while. Now, you know, you've got a button saying
Speaker 1: we're hiring, and I think this is something we'll we'll
Speaker 1: circle around two in a bit. But I mean, obviously,
Speaker 1: one of the big bits of new in crypto at
Speaker 1: the moment, it's just how many companies are laying people off.
Speaker 1: And it's I mean, it's horrible to see and you know,
Speaker 1: not meant naming names coin based, but you know it's
Speaker 1: some but you guys are you guys are still expanding.
Speaker 1: You guys are hiring. Yeah, so we we managed our
Speaker 1: treasury really well over the past year and a half,
Speaker 1: thankfully didn't hold any US T or have any exposure
Speaker 1: to any DeFi you know products. We were just trying
Speaker 1: to be as conservative as possible, knowing that uh, you know,
Speaker 1: the previous spare market, like they're like, it's the possibility
Speaker 1: for revenue to dry up is very significant. Um, we weren't.
Speaker 1: We're not at that place yet, but we kind of
Speaker 1: had that in our mind that that's something that we
Speaker 1: want to be able to operate as long as possible.
Speaker 1: Like I, I thoroughly enjoy doing what I do today
Speaker 1: today and the opportunities that crypto Slate has has given
Speaker 1: to me, like moving to London from Seattle, for instance.
Speaker 1: I came here to operate cryptos late because London is
Speaker 1: a much better city to operate in in fintech and
Speaker 1: crypto than um probably any other city in the US
Speaker 1: except for maybe in New York City. So um, so
Speaker 1: that's something that had Cryptosolate never you know started, or
Speaker 1: crowd cryptos never started, I would never be here. So
Speaker 1: I feel very thankful for, like I said, the opportunities
Speaker 1: and we we want to operate cryptosolate as long as possible.
Speaker 1: It's it's genuine, genuinely a fun place to be to
Speaker 1: kind of have our finger on the pulse of what's happening.
Speaker 1: I'm sure similar for you as well, being able to
Speaker 1: you know, analyze and look at the industry from so
Speaker 1: many different perspectives and talk to so many different founders. Yeah, yeah, absolutely,
Speaker 1: and yeah to sort of keep that and again it
Speaker 1: works really well for us having people kind of all
Speaker 1: over the world as well, because you know, you get
Speaker 1: those different perspectives and you get you know, you get
Speaker 1: so many, so many different opinions on it. It's much Again,
Speaker 1: it helps, it helps with that objectivity, I think. And
Speaker 1: just before so, I want to talk to you, you know,
Speaker 1: I want to have a chat really about sort of
Speaker 1: everything that's well, we can't recover everything that's going on
Speaker 1: at the moment, but you know, some of the things
Speaker 1: that have some of the big stories in crypto over
Speaker 1: the past couple of weeks. But before we you know,
Speaker 1: before we do that, I just wanted to to finish
Speaker 1: up talking about crypto Slate in general. I mean, so
Speaker 1: you obviously, as you pointed out earlier, you guys, are
Speaker 1: you're fully independent? You know, you don't have any kind
Speaker 1: of venture capital backing or anything like that. As you said,
Speaker 1: you raised a bit from friends and families, so you're
Speaker 1: you're an independent crypto news organization and no, but I
Speaker 1: mean do you still I mean how do you deal
Speaker 1: do you get pressure from from projects and companies to
Speaker 1: you know, to publish or or even retract particular stories.
Speaker 1: I mean, how do you how do you deal with that? Yeah? Absolutely, Um,
Speaker 1: it's something that we really need to kind of taken
Speaker 1: into consideration on a case by case basis about what
Speaker 1: someone is asking of us and is it reasonable. Like
Speaker 1: if we if we have an incorrect fact in an article,
Speaker 1: we obviously want to correct that as soon as possible.
Speaker 1: Sometimes a company doesn't like what we've written about them,
Speaker 1: but as long as it's as long as there's a
Speaker 1: source for what we're saying. What we're saying, we're not
Speaker 1: trying to tell people how to think, tell people what
Speaker 1: investments decisions to make. We're just trying to tell original, interesting,
Speaker 1: compelling stories that are fully fact checked or fully we
Speaker 1: have the sources, even if the sources are are off
Speaker 1: the record, As long as we can verify that this
Speaker 1: is a legitimate person that they, you know, give us
Speaker 1: the information and they provide personal information about them. That's
Speaker 1: when we'll obviously consider posting something, is when we have
Speaker 1: a good idea about who this person is and how
Speaker 1: reputable they could be. Yeah, And of course the other
Speaker 1: the other side of that too is the sort of
Speaker 1: infamous or famous however you see it, the kind of
Speaker 1: crypto communities out there, Because again, Mike, this is something
Speaker 1: we've discussed a few times and stuff, Like, one of
Speaker 1: the great things about crypto is it's kind of community feel,
Speaker 1: is how it gets sort of passionate, brings passionate and
Speaker 1: like minded people together to talk about some of these
Speaker 1: amazing projects. But I kind of feel as a flip
Speaker 1: side to that as well, and you can, you know,
Speaker 1: crypto communities they can be great and they can also
Speaker 1: be kind of pretty toxic. And yeah, I guess yeah.
Speaker 1: So I mean, do you guys, do you guys have
Speaker 1: sort of ever get kind of pushed back from crypto
Speaker 1: communities as well? Or yeah, It's happened to handful of
Speaker 1: times over the years. Like a few years ago, we
Speaker 1: wrote a story about dig about I forge at exactly
Speaker 1: what the context of it was. But the digitbate founder
Speaker 1: than posted the you know, the article to his following
Speaker 1: and said he didn't like the article for for specific reasons,
Speaker 1: and the community started coming after us, um, coming after
Speaker 1: our Twitter account, you know, the different journalists and saying
Speaker 1: saying kind of mean, you know, stupid stuff, and that
Speaker 1: just is what it is. Like you said, it's very
Speaker 1: these were very tribal communities that they have. They're personally
Speaker 1: invested in in the outcome of these different crypto assets,
Speaker 1: so they tend to be irrational oftentimes, and they don't
Speaker 1: like what they're hearing. It's it's such a weird thing,
Speaker 1: isn't it. I mean again, it's it's it's it kind
Speaker 1: of depends, I think on what side of the bed
Speaker 1: you get out of. You know, you sometimes think this
Speaker 1: is this is great that people are so engaged with it.
Speaker 1: This is great that people feel passionately about these projects
Speaker 1: and want this piece of tech to succeed, and what
Speaker 1: you know, recognize that, you know, we're trying as an industry,
Speaker 1: it's trying to change the world. And then on other
Speaker 1: days you just think, oh, my word, just just simmer down.
Speaker 1: It's just crypto. You know it can be quite insane
Speaker 1: at times. Yeah, yeah, Okay, let's take a quick break
Speaker 1: and then afterwards, Yeah, let's let's dig into some of
Speaker 1: the things that's been been going down in the past
Speaker 1: few days. Sounds great. Welcome back everyone to Part two.
Speaker 1: We are here with Nate white Hill, the founder, R
Speaker 1: and CEO of crypto Slate UM. So, yeah, so we've
Speaker 1: been we've been talking about how crypto Slate came into being,
Speaker 1: and it's kind of, you know, its place in the
Speaker 1: in the crypto ecosystem now. So I thought we'd move
Speaker 1: on and and talk about just some of the some
Speaker 1: of the crazy stuff that's been going down over I
Speaker 1: guess the last I mean, it feels like a long time.
Speaker 1: I'm kind of I'm kind of backdating everything at the
Speaker 1: moment to the terror collapse, which now feels weirdly like
Speaker 1: almost ancient history. But it was only about six weeks
Speaker 1: ago or something like that, and obviously it's kind of
Speaker 1: still rippling out throughout the whole throughout the whole sort
Speaker 1: of crypto ecosystem. But I mean, looking at these last
Speaker 1: sort of six weeks a couple of months, is there
Speaker 1: anything that kind of stands out to unite as particularly
Speaker 1: as particularly surprising. I mean, we've had these kind of
Speaker 1: really unpleasant shocks, but I mean, is there anything that's
Speaker 1: kind of really grabbed you in that respect. Yeah, I'm
Speaker 1: definitely surprised by the three arrows down for because a
Speaker 1: lot of people in the industry had a really high
Speaker 1: amount of respect for Susu and thought that he wasn't
Speaker 1: operating as irresponsibly as as they were operating. It's come
Speaker 1: out also the talk that he bought a fifty million
Speaker 1: dollar yacht as well to to impress everyone. Um, there
Speaker 1: is just so much irresponsibility, so much over leverage. I
Speaker 1: think the kind of myth of seed DeFi centralized DeFi
Speaker 1: is it's like kind of a myth. Actually it's not.
Speaker 1: It's not something you know, as we can see with Celsius,
Speaker 1: with with black Fire, unfortunately, Voyage or there's been so
Speaker 1: many examples of big institutions that have really you know,
Speaker 1: used their customer funds irresponsibly. So that's that's very disappointing. Yeah,
Speaker 1: because so much of what we were talking about, you know,
Speaker 1: when we when we knew that this this bear market
Speaker 1: was on the horizon, so much what we were talking about, well,
Speaker 1: this time, it's going to be different because we've got
Speaker 1: so much institutional capital here. You know, the big boys
Speaker 1: are playing. You know, it's it's so it's going to
Speaker 1: be it's going to be different, and that the kind
Speaker 1: of really disappointing thing is that, yeah, it is different,
Speaker 1: but actually these these big guys have have made it
Speaker 1: so much worse because the numbers involved are just so high.
Speaker 1: And yeah, to to see what's been this kind of
Speaker 1: drip feed of of revelations over the past a couple
Speaker 1: of weeks, as you say, concerning three Hours Capital and
Speaker 1: Celsius as well, just this kind of this mismanagement of
Speaker 1: user funds is truly shocking. Yeah, it's something that I
Speaker 1: wish kind of in hindsight that the these institutions had
Speaker 1: been more transparent about how they're actually using customer funds,
Speaker 1: because that's unfortunately, when there is this element of centralization,
Speaker 1: they can be quite opaque in terms of how how
Speaker 1: their businesses actually works. But if you're if you're self
Speaker 1: custody and your money and you you hold it, you know,
Speaker 1: in meta mask, or you're interacting with the DeFi applications yourself,
Speaker 1: you have a lot more kind of transparency about what's
Speaker 1: really happening. You can look on chain for instance, but
Speaker 1: people want something easy and it's easy to send your
Speaker 1: funds to a centralized uh, you know, custody as opposed
Speaker 1: to hold the hold it yourself and actually then do
Speaker 1: defy yourself. Yeah, it's it's it's one of the it's
Speaker 1: kind of c fight. You know, these platforms like Celsius
Speaker 1: and others have kind of exploited the fact that defy
Speaker 1: for most people is quite daunting. You know, it's it's
Speaker 1: not necessarily easy to use, and whereas these guys have
Speaker 1: been building these platforms, Yeah, it couldn't be. It couldn't
Speaker 1: be simply you know, give us, give us your coins.
Speaker 1: And of course you know that there's the question of
Speaker 1: yield as well, you know, offering these in some cases
Speaker 1: insane yield. But I mean, I think what was what
Speaker 1: was telling with Celsius in particular, was I mean, these
Speaker 1: weren't kind of Ponzi scheme yields. This wasn't like, you know,
Speaker 1: fifty a month or anything like that. They were just
Speaker 1: very very competitive yields. But they didn't I think perhaps
Speaker 1: maybe bullmarkt euphoria kind of blinded too many of us
Speaker 1: to to the fact that yeah, okay, these are competitive yield,
Speaker 1: there's still quite high. You know, eight percent may not
Speaker 1: sound like much, but it's a heck of a lot
Speaker 1: when you compare it to what's you know, to what
Speaker 1: you can get in mainstream finance. Yeah. I think there
Speaker 1: was just so much wishful thinking that happened when everyone
Speaker 1: started seeing how many billions of dollars Celsius was raising,
Speaker 1: or black Fire was raising, or some of these these
Speaker 1: big entities that collected a lot of customer funds. People
Speaker 1: people did think, oh, if inflations this bad, and I
Speaker 1: should be taking a little bit higher risk by putting
Speaker 1: putting my capital in something that is, you know, yielding
Speaker 1: a percent instead, and that that's not a sustainable rate really,
Speaker 1: that's that that's a rate that they used to incentivize
Speaker 1: more people to deposit more funds. So there is an
Speaker 1: element of kind of ponds and omics built into the
Speaker 1: c defy aspect as well. And and and Tara Luna too.
Speaker 1: That was that was incredibly disappointing because a lot of people,
Speaker 1: a lot of big entities like Novigrats and Errington, they
Speaker 1: put VC money into Terra. They they really had a
Speaker 1: big bet on on do Quon and on the Tara
Speaker 1: lunar ecosystem succeeding, so to see it have the downfall
Speaker 1: that it did is also just incredibly disappointing. Yeah, yeah,
Speaker 1: it's and I mean it doesn't it even the fact
Speaker 1: that that you know, big guys have lost money, it
Speaker 1: doesn't make it any easier. It doesn't. Because so much money,
Speaker 1: so much capital has now been been sucked out of
Speaker 1: the whole of the whole crypto market, added the whole
Speaker 1: crypto ecosystem, it's going to be it's gonna be very,
Speaker 1: very difficult to know, to get back to where we
Speaker 1: were before. Yeah, there was one interesting example I heard
Speaker 1: about of PA and Terra who they bought in too. Terra,
Speaker 1: I think they put in a one point seven a
Speaker 1: million dollar investment. Then it went a hundred acts and
Speaker 1: they pulled out right in time, So they turned one
Speaker 1: point seven into a hundred and seventy million pulled out.
Speaker 1: The timing was great for them, but for anyone games, yeah, exactly. Yeah, extraordinary, extraordinary.
Speaker 1: And so I mean, do you think on the topic
Speaker 1: of on the topic of sea fight, on the topic
Speaker 1: of because obviously it's and I mean it's very difficult.
Speaker 1: And you'll know this from you know, you'll you'll know
Speaker 1: this from running crypto Slate and having to verify information.
Speaker 1: It's so we're seeing so many rumors flying around. You know,
Speaker 1: we don't yet know the full story of what happened
Speaker 1: with with three A C. I mean, the Celsius story
Speaker 1: is still very much ongoing. I mean the last night,
Speaker 1: any hot tips you can share with the listeners here
Speaker 1: today off record, of course, it's um, but I mean, yeah,
Speaker 1: especially with Celsius, you know, we're still kind of hearing that,
Speaker 1: you know, withdrawals are still suspended, and now there's talk
Speaker 1: of either bankrupts see or I think Goldman Sacks are
Speaker 1: now involved or rumored to be involved. And then of
Speaker 1: course you go onto somewhere like crypto Twitter and you
Speaker 1: just see, I mean, there are these amazing accounts, aren't
Speaker 1: there that these amazing kind of anonymous accounts that are
Speaker 1: that are you know, um giving us all this information.
Speaker 1: But it's it's knowing and obviously seeing other companies. You know,
Speaker 1: the company's next so is a good example. I mean
Speaker 1: there's a lot of there's a lot of fud flying
Speaker 1: around about Next at the moment, obviously because it too
Speaker 1: is a sea file leander like Celsius. And you know,
Speaker 1: you have you have these accounts saying one thing and
Speaker 1: Nexo and other companies coming back with another. It's so
Speaker 1: difficult to filter out what you know, to try and
Speaker 1: get to the bottom what could be the truth and
Speaker 1: all of that. Yeah, that's what we're really trying to do.
Speaker 1: We're we're trying to take these anonymous accounts and try
Speaker 1: to verify who these people are ourselves, meaning engage in
Speaker 1: a direct message conversation, figure out if they're real people,
Speaker 1: if they're legitimate people, what their interests are, and if
Speaker 1: they are legit. Like with the uble of fat Man Terra,
Speaker 1: who brought a lot of the allegations against Terror and
Speaker 1: Luna over the past few months. Um, that's someone that
Speaker 1: we had a direct message conversation with and after we did,
Speaker 1: we felt comfortable publishing some of the tweets that he
Speaker 1: was sharing about the different things happening. And because of that,
Speaker 1: because we kind of reached out and had this unique conversation,
Speaker 1: we were publishing information about Tara and Luna like five
Speaker 1: to seven days before coin Desk works a coin telegraph,
Speaker 1: So that's something that we we try to do we
Speaker 1: try to look at who are these anonymous accounts? Can
Speaker 1: we figure out if they're real people? If they are legitimate,
Speaker 1: real people, then we will consider posting that on cryptosolate. Yeah,
Speaker 1: it's so much information and just trying to trying to
Speaker 1: get to the bottom of what what information you can
Speaker 1: use and what it's what is genuine. But I mean
Speaker 1: some of the stuff coming out coming out of Terror
Speaker 1: through through fat Man Terror is just extraordinaries and extrudinary. Again,
Speaker 1: this is this story has so much further to run.
Speaker 1: And obviously I think a lot of the talk now
Speaker 1: is you know what where is Do Kuan? What's going
Speaker 1: to happen to him? And we're still i mean, we
Speaker 1: still have this relaunched Terror, which it's just insane. Yeah,
Speaker 1: it's crazy that they basically created another four billion dollar
Speaker 1: network in like a few weeks, and and some of
Speaker 1: the direct message chats that were coming out between the
Speaker 1: validators and Do Kwan, they were really rushing this. And
Speaker 1: we had an article about how it's it's irresponsible to
Speaker 1: be rushing this relaunch of a multibillion dollar network when
Speaker 1: forty billion dollars just basically vanished from the previous network. Yeah,
Speaker 1: you have priorities. You have to sort out what happened
Speaker 1: with the previous billion dollar network before you go and
Speaker 1: launch another one. It's yeah, it's a real sort of
Speaker 1: only in crypto moment, isn't it um? And I mean
Speaker 1: obviously that one of the one of the fallats from this,
Speaker 1: or one of one of the results from everything that
Speaker 1: we've seen over the past everything that's still going on,
Speaker 1: is that we are going to get regulation, and you
Speaker 1: know we're seeing it now. There are there are bills
Speaker 1: kind of starting to sort of their way through the
Speaker 1: rather convoluted process of you know, capital going through Capitol
Speaker 1: Hill and all that sort of stuff. So you know,
Speaker 1: we know that regulation is coming. Do you think, I mean,
Speaker 1: do you think we as a crypto as an industry,
Speaker 1: we as a crypto community. Do you think the stuff
Speaker 1: that we can do in advance of that? Is there
Speaker 1: a way that we can kind of start to to
Speaker 1: regulate ourselves before, you know, before the it's done for us.
Speaker 1: I think by everyone paying the taxes that they are
Speaker 1: on crypto capital game whoa whoa, hey, let's say that
Speaker 1: word right, the work that taxation with that representation falling
Speaker 1: off his chair. It's definitely it's something that obviously people
Speaker 1: talk a lot about, but they don't like to talk
Speaker 1: a lot about at the same time. It's it's something
Speaker 1: that I feel like it's it's really important because that
Speaker 1: is that is showing, at least on an individual basis,
Speaker 1: that one can be participating in this new you know,
Speaker 1: new economy that clearly people at the top are very
Speaker 1: afraid about, but be doing it in a responsible way.
Speaker 1: And so I think the more money that any government
Speaker 1: collects from people paying their crypto taxes, the more likely
Speaker 1: they're to be fair on it. Hopefully they want to
Speaker 1: see it succeed as long as and they want to
Speaker 1: see it flourished because they can see it as a
Speaker 1: source of revenue. Yep, exactly so. And that also goes
Speaker 1: for for losses. So anytime someone buys an asset and
Speaker 1: it goes down, that that can be a loss that's
Speaker 1: written off. So it you know, in the bear market,
Speaker 1: there's lots of opportunities if one purchased in the ball
Speaker 1: market to pay less taxes for for that year of
Speaker 1: the bear market. Yeah. Yeah, and it ties in, doesn't it.
Speaker 1: I mean, you know, people, this is stuff that people
Speaker 1: need to know how to do. I think a lot
Speaker 1: of people who you know, maybe crypto was their first
Speaker 1: experience of of investing or of trading of any sort
Speaker 1: of asset. And you know, one of the big things
Speaker 1: about crypto has always been, you know, it's an open
Speaker 1: tunity for people to learn about how money works. Okay,
Speaker 1: this is this is a this is a futuristic twenty
Speaker 1: one century money. But you know, it's it's important that
Speaker 1: people realize how there's you know, how the system works,
Speaker 1: how how you go about paying taxes. You know, it's
Speaker 1: not just it's not just a case of everyone having
Speaker 1: deducted from their pay slip and money that they never see. Yeah,
Speaker 1: it's it's something that I feel like, especially for people
Speaker 1: that are younger, they're more likely to want to invest
Speaker 1: in crypto assets or hold n f T s. Certainly,
Speaker 1: the the younger generation is kind of ushering in this
Speaker 1: interest and digital assets. They understand it a lot, you know,
Speaker 1: more quickly than people of the older generation. So so
Speaker 1: for them to use it and to you be responsible
Speaker 1: about it. To learn how money works, to learn how
Speaker 1: the FED works, to learn how self custody works, that's
Speaker 1: something that I think is one of the most important
Speaker 1: things that anyone listening to this they should look into
Speaker 1: how to self custody their own funds. Yeah. I think
Speaker 1: if anything is going to come out of the out
Speaker 1: of the last few weeks, that the case for self
Speaker 1: custody has been made so unequivocally that I think when
Speaker 1: we look back on this period of time, I think
Speaker 1: that will be the moment that the penny dropped, the
Speaker 1: satoshi dropped. For a lot of people, it's like, yeah, okay,
Speaker 1: that's what they meant by not your keys, not your coins.
Speaker 1: That what That's what they meant by don't leave your
Speaker 1: coins on in exchange, because yeah, this idea. You know,
Speaker 1: so many people are just happy to to trust these
Speaker 1: platforms and yeah we we we kind of assumed that
Speaker 1: they were legit because they had so much money. Coins
Speaker 1: are now fifty million dollar yachts exactly. And even bringing
Speaker 1: it back to regulation, what you're saying to one thing
Speaker 1: I like is that the UK has started to look
Speaker 1: like it's going to be more pro cryptoe We there
Speaker 1: are some talk recently how the UK is not going
Speaker 1: to require the same rule as the EU about basically
Speaker 1: k y seeing all unhosted wallets. Yeah, so there's there's
Speaker 1: some really good things that are happening right now, um
Speaker 1: in the UK specifically that we don't see the happening
Speaker 1: in the UK and the EU. I'm sorry. So that
Speaker 1: that's another kind of reason why I know people hate Brexit,
Speaker 1: but this actually could be one of the benefits of
Speaker 1: Brexit potentially, Yeah, because yeah, I mean, the EU is
Speaker 1: such a vast machine, isn't it. And and and some
Speaker 1: of these crypto regulations that are kind of grinding through
Speaker 1: the European Parliament at the moment. Yeah, I mean they're
Speaker 1: they're they're very concerning for the future of the industry.
Speaker 1: And it's it's interesting, isn't it to see countries like
Speaker 1: the UK, and obviously also places like Portugal and Dubai
Speaker 1: and you know, El Salvador. You know, lots of places
Speaker 1: across the world sort of embrace crypto in in kind
Speaker 1: of different ways and are trying to trying to figure
Speaker 1: out how best to you know, to take advantage. Yeah,
Speaker 1: and then people are deciding they're going to go where
Speaker 1: they're treated best as well. So that that's another great
Speaker 1: thing about crypto is that, unlike the previous tech boom
Speaker 1: of the two thousand's This is so much more global.
Speaker 1: You know, that last one was really concentrated in Silicon
Speaker 1: Valley in San Francisco, But this there's innovation happening all
Speaker 1: around the world now, and there's governments that are taking
Speaker 1: it seriously and considering rules and regulation that are more
Speaker 1: favorable towards towards people that are crypto investors. So, you know,
Speaker 1: the opportunity to go live in a new land, I
Speaker 1: think is it's better than it's ever if you're in
Speaker 1: crypto right now. Yeah, And that's I mean, that's decentralization
Speaker 1: in action, isn't it, Because I mean I feel we
Speaker 1: talk about what's happening in the US kind of from
Speaker 1: a regulatory standpoint so much, and obviously we're all obsessed
Speaker 1: month to month with what the FED is doing, and
Speaker 1: obviously like it or not that the US is very
Speaker 1: much kind of the epicenter of crypto at the moment,
Speaker 1: and we want to see the industry thrive there. But
Speaker 1: actually we don't want to see the US be the
Speaker 1: be all and end all, you know, we want it
Speaker 1: spread out across the globe. We want it to be
Speaker 1: you know, something that any country can I guess kind
Speaker 1: of embrace on its own terms. Absolutely. One thing that's
Speaker 1: been a bit concerning um and especially in crypto, but
Speaker 1: I know this has always been the case is how
Speaker 1: much the US kind of tries to act like world police.
Speaker 1: So like Gary Gensler said yesterday that he thinks bitcoin
Speaker 1: is a commodity, but no other cryptocurrency. And you know,
Speaker 1: previously there had been talk other people had said that
Speaker 1: they think ethereum is too decentralized at this point to
Speaker 1: be a security as well. So, but the fact that
Speaker 1: the US does dictate kind of how the rest of
Speaker 1: you know, the world will will look at these different
Speaker 1: assets and what categorizations will give to them. Um that
Speaker 1: that's a bad thing. Still, we need we need other
Speaker 1: bodies around the world, like Switzerland, for example, has they
Speaker 1: have multiple different classifications that are not just it's a
Speaker 1: security or it's not a security. Yeah, and you want,
Speaker 1: I mean, it's it's It must be difficult for these,
Speaker 1: especially kind of smaller countries to to sort of take
Speaker 1: the lead because the system that we have is so
Speaker 1: is so geared towards the U. The US is such
Speaker 1: a powerful player and so much at the heart of
Speaker 1: the modern system. And and no, I mean, as we're
Speaker 1: kind of seeing with with Russia at the moment. You
Speaker 1: know that the consequence if you fall outside of that
Speaker 1: system or a pushed outside of that system, it can
Speaker 1: be can be diet. So I guess, you know, we
Speaker 1: really we really want to see countries, I guess, gain
Speaker 1: the confidence to kind of go their own way. And
Speaker 1: I think again that's something that's really exciting about seeing
Speaker 1: El Salvador adopting adopting bitcoin, and and also the Central
Speaker 1: African Republic as well. You know, you kind of hope
Speaker 1: that these countries will find you know, common cause through
Speaker 1: through bitcoin, through crypto, whatever whatever form it takes. Yeah,
Speaker 1: I hope they do it for the long term too,
Speaker 1: because there's been a few examples now of other countries
Speaker 1: or jurisdictions try to adopt it but have really kind
Speaker 1: of fallen off. The two that come to mind that
Speaker 1: I've visited in ten were Malta and Gibraltar. Oh yeah,
Speaker 1: so at one point, you know, finance was set up
Speaker 1: a shop in Malta. Everyone was gonna set up a
Speaker 1: shop in Malta and then it just kind of fell off. Um,
Speaker 1: And to be honest, I don't even really know the
Speaker 1: reasons why. So if you either of you guys. Well,
Speaker 1: I know Malta. This is I have no idea why,
Speaker 1: first of all, so I don't listen to anything I say,
Speaker 1: but I know Malta. That is the is, the is
Speaker 1: where every big betting company is resided sam in Gibraltar.
Speaker 1: So like I know, it's just through from friends who
Speaker 1: were involved in in in YouTube channels and they were
Speaker 1: advertising with you know that ball or whatever. And they're
Speaker 1: all in one building apart from maybe one which is
Speaker 1: somewhere else. But like everything, so if you fall out
Speaker 1: with one, you fall out with all of them because
Speaker 1: they are all in the same in the same lunching cafeteria, pub,
Speaker 1: lunch or whatever. So yeah, I don't know if it's
Speaker 1: it's some tax reasons or or something like that, which
Speaker 1: is why I'm assuming there there. Yeah, I mean Gibraltar
Speaker 1: I think is quite sort of subject to pressure from Britain.
Speaker 1: But yeah, I mean I'm not I'm not so sure
Speaker 1: about Malta. I mean, I guess you know, you just
Speaker 1: never know what's going on behind the scenes, do you.
Speaker 1: I mean, in it could be an entity like the US,
Speaker 1: you know, much more or the EU is sort of
Speaker 1: it pushes against it and goes or the i m F.
Speaker 1: You know, the i m F we've seen, you know,
Speaker 1: it's very happy to loan countries like Argentina a whole
Speaker 1: boatload of money. But then these these loans come with
Speaker 1: really sort of you know, really tight restrictions. And it
Speaker 1: even looks like the EU could be putting pressure on
Speaker 1: Portugal too, because recently it came out that they're going
Speaker 1: to Previously they were not taxing crypt and crypt capital games,
Speaker 1: but now they will be, even though recently in the
Speaker 1: legislature they voted against actually starting to tax it again.
Speaker 1: So it's still kind of to be determined when it
Speaker 1: is going to be taxed, but it's something that unfortunately
Speaker 1: the EU is probably putting pressure on Portugal for. Yeah. Yeah,
Speaker 1: And I think the silver lining to that is, I
Speaker 1: think the last I read of it, it's it's, yeah,
Speaker 1: it's likely to get sort of tied up, you know,
Speaker 1: that that can sort of gets kicked down the road,
Speaker 1: you know, for a long long time. But yeah, I
Speaker 1: mean there's so much there's so much external pressure from
Speaker 1: you know, just a handful of very very powerful entities,
Speaker 1: and yeah, that's you know, we want we want decentralization,
Speaker 1: we want crypto to to spread across the globe. Exactly
Speaker 1: do you have like a timeline in your mind for
Speaker 1: when you think more countries could start to adopt it.
Speaker 1: Are we looking like five years down the road or
Speaker 1: ten years down the road, or are are we kind
Speaker 1: of at the mercy of countries like Al Salvador seeing
Speaker 1: how their experiments go? And then I think, so yeah,
Speaker 1: I mean, I think so many eyes are on El
Speaker 1: Salvador to see how it worked, to see if it
Speaker 1: can you know, if this experiment with with kind of
Speaker 1: weaning itself off the dollar actually works. And so so
Speaker 1: much of what I've read and heard kind of since
Speaker 1: that announcement is that I think across sort of Central
Speaker 1: and and Latin America, you know, across Latin America in general,
Speaker 1: they're they're kind of primed for it, and you know,
Speaker 1: there's so much crypto adoption happening in those countries that
Speaker 1: it kind of it to me, it almost feels inevitable.
Speaker 1: And I wonder whether this recession that we're almost certainly
Speaker 1: going to have, you know, or perhaps already in you know,
Speaker 1: I wonder if if that could precipitate it more, because
Speaker 1: you know, the the US is going to you know,
Speaker 1: could well could well retreat slightly from that, you know,
Speaker 1: from that stage. Um, so I think I kind of feel, yeah,
Speaker 1: I think it will sort of play out very gradually,
Speaker 1: but I think it will be kind of fits and starts.
Speaker 1: So I think, yeah, I think as we really start
Speaker 1: to see inflation bite, I mean, it's you know, it's
Speaker 1: it's it's so apparent now, but you know, we're we're
Speaker 1: only really starting to feel effect the actual effects of inflation.
Speaker 1: And I think as prices rise and people across the world,
Speaker 1: you know, it costs more and more to fill your
Speaker 1: car up or to get your shopping or anything like that,
Speaker 1: I think that that kind of swell, that ground swell
Speaker 1: of discontent is only going to grow. And I think
Speaker 1: that's that's the moment that you know, people with you know,
Speaker 1: politicians with ideas can step in and go there is
Speaker 1: another way. Yeah, we really need more politicians that understand
Speaker 1: crypto and thankfully there are a handful in the United
Speaker 1: States now that are running first Senate, so we we
Speaker 1: do have more educated people that are running that want
Speaker 1: to push crypto values. So, um, hopefully you know in
Speaker 1: the United States that that happens and the rest of
Speaker 1: the world follow us, and that does seem in the
Speaker 1: US to be a fair amount of kind of cross
Speaker 1: party support for it. I mean, this latest bill that's
Speaker 1: been put forward by Senator Lamis is is a Republican
Speaker 1: for Wyoming, Isn't that right? And then Senator Gillibrand is
Speaker 1: a Democrat. Um, I forget for where, but yeah, you know,
Speaker 1: this is a cross party thing, And I mean, America
Speaker 1: is seems so polarized on most issues, but it seems
Speaker 1: like there could be some actual bipartisan support for for
Speaker 1: something like crypto. Yeah. Well, what's odd to me too
Speaker 1: is that you have a senator like Elizabeth Warren, who
Speaker 1: you know, previously been very much against the big banks,
Speaker 1: but she's also very much against crypto. So I'm you know,
Speaker 1: you would think that if she is against the big bank,
Speaker 1: should understand the benefits of crypto and self custody and
Speaker 1: and people being able to have access to to bitcoin
Speaker 1: versus hold physical gold. So I do find it very
Speaker 1: odd that some some particular politicians seem to be incredibly
Speaker 1: against it, like almost religiously. So yeah, yeah, it's um,
Speaker 1: it's gonna it's you kind of feel that with with
Speaker 1: people like Elizabeth Warren that there is no you know
Speaker 1: that there will be no kind of Damascene conversion. You know,
Speaker 1: that's that's the way she'll always feel. But I mean,
Speaker 1: this is how democracies work, isn't it. Politicians who have
Speaker 1: views that are out of kilter with the rest of
Speaker 1: the population, they get they get moved aside. And I
Speaker 1: think that's something that we're going to you know, that
Speaker 1: could be really interesting come the midterm elections in November.
Speaker 1: You know, it seems like there is, as you say,
Speaker 1: there is kind of there are pro crypto people going
Speaker 1: up for for some of these positions, and and there's
Speaker 1: obviously quite a powerful crypto lobby in the United States
Speaker 1: as well. Yeah. Absolutely, Yeah, thankfully there are you know,
Speaker 1: entities now like coin base, like obviously SBF and f
Speaker 1: TX that are really taking that seriously. SPF donated i
Speaker 1: believe four or five million dollars to Joe Biden's campaign, uh,
Speaker 1: you know, a few years ago, so that was That's
Speaker 1: something that as much as people might hate that, they
Speaker 1: still this is how it worked. The game is played,
Speaker 1: and this is a you know, this is someone in
Speaker 1: a position of power, who is in who is in
Speaker 1: our industry and that as that I think is a
Speaker 1: good thing. And um yeah, I mean I think we
Speaker 1: should I think we should talk about SPF Sam bankman
Speaker 1: Fried in minutes or so, because he seems to be
Speaker 1: just all over the krypto news at the moment. But
Speaker 1: before we take another break, I just wanted to ask
Speaker 1: you quickly. I wanted to get your thoughts Nate on
Speaker 1: something that's been This is a story that seems to
Speaker 1: just repeat itself every few weeks. Um. So recently we
Speaker 1: saw a hack of Harmony, the Harmony bridge to Ethereum,
Speaker 1: and I think it was about a hundred million dollars
Speaker 1: of crypt to gone. And you know, this is kind
Speaker 1: of playing out at the moment and we see, as
Speaker 1: I say, we see this every few months, you know,
Speaker 1: hundreds of millions of dollars that there was the Wormhole
Speaker 1: bridge hack not so long ago, and there seems to
Speaker 1: be this kind of this this playbook kind of kicks
Speaker 1: into action. You have this huge hack, it's revealed that
Speaker 1: you know, there's a seven figure number or or nine
Speaker 1: figure numbers has disappeared, and obviously everyone can then you know,
Speaker 1: it doesn't take long to locate where that crypto is
Speaker 1: it's sitting, you know, it's sitting in a walllet. The
Speaker 1: hackers can't possibly do anything with it because there's just
Speaker 1: so much money. And then, as as the case with Harmony,
Speaker 1: the Harmony team have offered the hacker one million dollars
Speaker 1: as a sort of as a as a payoff. Basically,
Speaker 1: it's like, we'll give you a million dollars. And it
Speaker 1: was interesting the way they worded it. I think they
Speaker 1: said they didn't say there will be no charges, but
Speaker 1: they would. I think they said they wouldn't advocate for
Speaker 1: charges runting like that. So, I mean my question to
Speaker 1: you know is, how do you do do you think
Speaker 1: this is a healthy thing? Obviously these hacks are not
Speaker 1: something that we want to see, but how do you
Speaker 1: feel about this, this this sort of business of kind
Speaker 1: of trying to pay off these hackers. Yeah, I'm not
Speaker 1: sure what else they can do other than try to
Speaker 1: have the wallet addresses blocked by exchanges, which is hard
Speaker 1: to do once you start, you know, using mixing wallets
Speaker 1: to move the funds around. But I mean, ultimately, because
Speaker 1: the FIAT off ramp exists on the centralized exchanges, it
Speaker 1: is up to the centralized exchanges to make sure that
Speaker 1: the money coming into them is not from you know,
Speaker 1: criminal activity, but it does make sense. I think one
Speaker 1: million dollar on a hundred million dollar hack is way
Speaker 1: too low that I think, And already the funds have
Speaker 1: started moving today. Yeah, so yeah, they need to they
Speaker 1: need to increase that. You know, I don't know ten million,
Speaker 1: But who knows what the hacker. I mean, he could
Speaker 1: be some guy sitting in his parents basement, you know,
Speaker 1: in pajamas. It's sord to say, but it kind of
Speaker 1: seems inevitable. It's like they're they're going to try to
Speaker 1: get the funds back. Um, and I think white hat
Speaker 1: This is one reason why I'm a big fan of
Speaker 1: white hat hackers, because they are trying to identify uh,
Speaker 1: you know, exploits or vulnerabilities, but do it in an
Speaker 1: ethical way and then receive some some benefit from the
Speaker 1: company that they're they're hacking. Yeah, I think there's I mean,
Speaker 1: I'm fully in favor of of these sort of bug
Speaker 1: bounties and things like that. You know, that's that that
Speaker 1: that's a great way to get you know, to get
Speaker 1: your code kind of unofficially audited. I guess I just
Speaker 1: I can't shape that I can't shape the idea that
Speaker 1: you know a hacker because because I guess it's like,
Speaker 1: I think you want to not negotiate with terrorists. Well,
Speaker 1: I kind of feel in a way that that that
Speaker 1: that should be a consideration, because I think I've used
Speaker 1: this analogy with you Mike before. It's like when when
Speaker 1: one of these hacks happen, it's like someone it's like
Speaker 1: someone breaking into a bank and stealing kind of more
Speaker 1: cash than they can actually carry, and then the payoff
Speaker 1: is it's like, well, okay, if you give this cash
Speaker 1: back that you you can't really do anything with because
Speaker 1: there's so much of it, and you know, it's so
Speaker 1: difficult to to hide that amount of money on chain,
Speaker 1: But we'll give you, you you know, we'll give you a
Speaker 1: nice you know, a nice fat world of fat world
Speaker 1: of cash. Fear trouble. I don't know, I kind of
Speaker 1: feel it may it may kind of make the situation
Speaker 1: worse because the hackers have almost got nothing to lose. Yeah,
Speaker 1: I think, I mean, really the honorable thing for the
Speaker 1: hacker to do. I know it's hard to talk about
Speaker 1: honor when it comes to a hacker, but the hackers
Speaker 1: should be should be trying to do change themselves that
Speaker 1: they should be yeah, we're in the hacker dunce hat
Speaker 1: or something. What we really need is people to just
Speaker 1: have honor and recognize that if they're that intelligent to
Speaker 1: hack a protocol, that they should be doing it, you know,
Speaker 1: in a white hat way so they don't have to
Speaker 1: hide the funds they're they're doing it, and you know,
Speaker 1: if they if they go like different protocols are willing
Speaker 1: to pay a huge amounts of money. Some are like
Speaker 1: ten million dollars for a bug bounty. So for anyone
Speaker 1: that's smart enough to you know, to solve that or
Speaker 1: to do that, they should go do that because then
Speaker 1: they can legally keep those funds as opposed to have
Speaker 1: to worry for the rest of their life. How do
Speaker 1: they know unload a hundred million dollars? How do we
Speaker 1: digitally launded this crypto? Exactly? It is extraordinary, and I
Speaker 1: mean there are there, there are sort of ways to
Speaker 1: do it, but it just it feels like, yeah, it's
Speaker 1: it's such an odd thing to sort of see be
Speaker 1: able to look on chain and see this money sitting
Speaker 1: there and then you've kind of got this Mexican stand off.
Speaker 1: You kind of you need to think about their mindset
Speaker 1: and like there are obviously someone who's probably quite competitive
Speaker 1: and they've got like this, you know what I mean.
Speaker 1: They they're playing a game and sort of going okay, here, here,
Speaker 1: it's all back, give me a little bit or doing
Speaker 1: it legally is kind of haven't watched the Matrix or
Speaker 1: any happy I mean, maybe maybe it's not. It's a
Speaker 1: really hot woman with a slick black hair tapping away
Speaker 1: the computer and she doesn't take no for an answer.
Speaker 1: They're the trench code. Yeah exactly. She goes and does
Speaker 1: a bit of free running in a spare today martial
Speaker 1: arts expert as well. Yeah, well that's what we'd like
Speaker 1: to think. On that note, let's take let's take another ache,
Speaker 1: and then when we come back. Wow, there's still so
Speaker 1: much to talk about, Nate. I don't want to take
Speaker 1: up your your entire evening, but let's take Let's take
Speaker 1: another break, and we'll be back with you in a
Speaker 1: moment or so. Sounds great. Welcome back everyone to part three.
Speaker 1: We are here still with Nate. Anywhere. We haven't gone anywhere. No,
Speaker 1: um So, Nate, one another thing I wanted to ask
Speaker 1: you was you know we've seen, we're kind of deep
Speaker 1: into this bear market. Now, do you think there's there's anything,
Speaker 1: you know, crypto specific, Is there anything that we as
Speaker 1: a crypto industry can do to kind of pull ourselves
Speaker 1: out of this or are we very much at the
Speaker 1: mercy of kind of external factors. Yeah. I think for
Speaker 1: an individuals, as long as they believe in this acid
Speaker 1: class over five to ten years, I would say dollar
Speaker 1: cost average, set up an automatic withdrawal, you know, on
Speaker 1: a reputable exchange like coin base, and just have you know,
Speaker 1: ten dollars a week come out or something like that.
Speaker 1: Um dollar cost averaging is one of the best possible
Speaker 1: ways to get exposure to crypto asset for which I
Speaker 1: think there's really only maybe a few that are worth
Speaker 1: accumulating over a long period of time other than bitcoin
Speaker 1: and ethereum, everything else, like who knows. It's kind of
Speaker 1: how I look at it. You know, it's totally possible
Speaker 1: they'll see greater gains, but oftentimes it's not worth the
Speaker 1: risk over a multi year period to hold some anything
Speaker 1: else other than bitcoin and ethereum. So I think that's
Speaker 1: kind of the first thing I would say is no
Speaker 1: financial advice, Yes, exactly. Financial advice. But that and and yes,
Speaker 1: self custody, I feel like is the most important thing
Speaker 1: for anyone who's getting into crypto to really take too seriously. Yeah, yeah,
Speaker 1: it's very It seems to be very much like we
Speaker 1: the lesson that we we in the in the space
Speaker 1: have to learn. It's just it seems to be one
Speaker 1: of restraint at times like this. You know, we went
Speaker 1: crazy during the bullmarket and you know, money got thrown around.
Speaker 1: I remember speaking to people, some people after Bitcoin Miami
Speaker 1: this year, and like a couple of people mentioned afterwards,
Speaker 1: you know, when we were kind of deconstructing it. Um.
Speaker 1: They both sort of said, independently of each other, they
Speaker 1: were like, it was amazing, it was amazing to see
Speaker 1: all these things going on. But they just said, this,
Speaker 1: this craziness cannot last. And they both cited the kind
Speaker 1: of dot com bubble as as as an example. And
Speaker 1: I think, I mean, I don't think we're you know,
Speaker 1: I don't think we're facing that kind of implosion, but
Speaker 1: I think there is definitely going There is definitely a
Speaker 1: sense that you know, we we have had it so
Speaker 1: good for the past couple of years, and now it's
Speaker 1: about now kind of restraint is very much the the
Speaker 1: order of the day. Absolutely. I feel like another thing
Speaker 1: that's interesting about this previous ball market is that it
Speaker 1: didn't have the same sort of blow off the top
Speaker 1: that the previous ball markets did. We actually first peaked
Speaker 1: in May of one and then again in November, so
Speaker 1: the chart patterns look a lot different than you know,
Speaker 1: people were saying that until we have a blow, a
Speaker 1: true blow off the top of that, the market hasn't
Speaker 1: reached uh, you know, the top for this period. But
Speaker 1: now I think we can say this kind of double
Speaker 1: top that we had that certainly was the top of
Speaker 1: that market, and it's a different pattern. And another thing
Speaker 1: that's happened to again is that Bitcoin and ethereumgon below
Speaker 1: the previous all time higher for the previous market. That's
Speaker 1: another thing that people said it's not going to happen,
Speaker 1: but it does happen. So I think there really are like, no,
Speaker 1: there are no certainties in crypto, like anything is possible. Yeah,
Speaker 1: we're very much in uncharted territory at me. And of course,
Speaker 1: you know, as we've as as we've said before, Mike,
Speaker 1: it's like we're we're in such a we're in such
Speaker 1: an unprecedented situation now for crypto. You know, the first
Speaker 1: kind of recession that krypto is going to have existed
Speaker 1: in the first high rates environment that that that crypto
Speaker 1: is going to have seen, and obviously all these extraordinary
Speaker 1: extern all factors. I mean, you know, just since the
Speaker 1: start of the year, obviously with the invasion of Ukraine
Speaker 1: and things like that. You know, the world just seems
Speaker 1: to have gotten so much crazier just over the I
Speaker 1: mean it was crazy enough to begin with, but we
Speaker 1: seem to be facing this this really really sort of
Speaker 1: strange and kind of troubling macro outlook. And I don't
Speaker 1: know about you, but I mean I for me, I
Speaker 1: kind of get a bit of solace from that when
Speaker 1: when when you look at it from a from a
Speaker 1: crypto perspective, because it's not this isn't a case of
Speaker 1: our industry has imploded. Our industry has has run its
Speaker 1: course and and has you know, has been a bubble.
Speaker 1: It's no, We're we're in a we're in an extraordinary situation,
Speaker 1: and our industry has, along with every other industry, to
Speaker 1: try and find, you know, a way away out of it. Yeah,
Speaker 1: some of the best products have come out of bearer
Speaker 1: markets to like, for example, was built in the last
Speaker 1: bearer market. This is really the time for building. This
Speaker 1: is why I'm kind of just enjoying it as I
Speaker 1: was six months ago, because I know we're just going
Speaker 1: to keep building. We're here for the long term. Um,
Speaker 1: it's a lot quieter to build in a bear market
Speaker 1: than in a ball market. There's harp porn about the
Speaker 1: recession thing again, but exactly the same thing with Uber
Speaker 1: and Airbnb were products of the last recession and you know,
Speaker 1: and they've gone into I mean, to become goliaths. Yeah. Yeah,
Speaker 1: innovation in in in the in the lean times is yeah,
Speaker 1: you have to. I guess perhaps it's a measure of
Speaker 1: if you're building something robust, if you can if you
Speaker 1: can build something during the most difficult of times when
Speaker 1: there really isn't that much you know, spare cash flying around,
Speaker 1: there isn't that much interest. If you can get it
Speaker 1: off the ground, then then that's the sort of early
Speaker 1: sign that you could well have a success on your hands. Absolutely.
Speaker 1: I think the question really is like how low do
Speaker 1: we go? And that's one question I would ask both
Speaker 1: of you guys, like without making you know, financial advice
Speaker 1: predictions or anything like how low do you think we're
Speaker 1: going to go in this spare cycle? What with bitcoin?
Speaker 1: I have absolutely no idea. We were talking the other
Speaker 1: day with sixteen point five was what some people were
Speaker 1: were saying potentially off air, What do we say on it?
Speaker 1: I can't remember. I think we might said on it? Yeah, yeah,
Speaker 1: I mean so many A lot of predictions have just
Speaker 1: been sort of went to me first. Never go to
Speaker 1: me first, a guy first, and I will give prices
Speaker 1: right and then go slightly blow. I think it. I
Speaker 1: think it makes just as much sense to go to you, Mike,
Speaker 1: because you know we were you know we are making
Speaker 1: we are making predictions. This is look I mean discussed early,
Speaker 1: isn't it. It's so hard to It's so it's impossible
Speaker 1: to what it did it? Doctor three or five in
Speaker 1: in two thousand and eighteen, I can't remember because I
Speaker 1: was dealing in pounds, so I can't remember what went
Speaker 1: down to as low as like, yeah, in dollars, Yeah,
Speaker 1: that would have been like November if I remember rightly.
Speaker 1: I think the rop from the high in November was no.
Speaker 1: November twenty seventeen to the to the subsequent low whenever
Speaker 1: it was in twenty eighteen was I think it was
Speaker 1: either eight or and we haven't fallen that far yet,
Speaker 1: which means I think we we could go. We could
Speaker 1: go as low as the ten to fourteen K range,
Speaker 1: I think. And I mean if you'd asked me this
Speaker 1: a few months ago, that would have that would have
Speaker 1: been impossible to me. And I remember so many we
Speaker 1: were all kind of talking, you know. First of all,
Speaker 1: it was like, well, it's difficult to see it dropping
Speaker 1: below forty k. Okay, it's difficult to see. And then
Speaker 1: everyone was kind of looking at twenty k is the
Speaker 1: top of the previous ballmarket, and as you as you said, Nate,
Speaker 1: you know, we we've never had this situation. We're down
Speaker 1: to seventeen. Yeah, it dipped, It dipped into the seventeen
Speaker 1: k range um. So yeah, I think I think we
Speaker 1: could go as as low as that. And I mean
Speaker 1: I think there are there's a lot of money I
Speaker 1: think waiting on the sidelines to to pile in at that,
Speaker 1: so I you know, I think you know, bitcoin can
Speaker 1: can confine support there um. But yeah, again, it's it's
Speaker 1: going back to all the factors that we've we've been
Speaker 1: talked about talking about I think we're just in such
Speaker 1: a you know, such what are you buying intigation? I
Speaker 1: think uh K would potentially be very attractive. Um, I
Speaker 1: would say, the lower it goes, I'll keep buying, just
Speaker 1: because I believe in the long Yeah. Yeah, And and and
Speaker 1: now you're buying just bitcoin, bitcoin, bitcoin, etherium, a few
Speaker 1: other little coins here and there that I believe in.
Speaker 1: Like I'm wearing a Cosmos T shirt. Oh yeah, I
Speaker 1: noticed that. So yeah, I like the Cosmos ecosystem quite
Speaker 1: a bit. I think it's another interesting one. What is
Speaker 1: I don't know anything about Cosmos. What's the application? What
Speaker 1: is it? So Cosmos is basically a layer zero, so
Speaker 1: not not a layer one. Layer one would be like Ethereum,
Speaker 1: but a layer zero allows many other blockchains to operate
Speaker 1: on top of it. Is this the one that we're
Speaker 1: talking about, the thread between the intro probability approach? Cool? Yeah,
Speaker 1: we've sort of I think we've maybe mentioned it in
Speaker 1: the context of something like Polka doos As, which is
Speaker 1: kind of a similar exactly. So today they announced that
Speaker 1: chains will be able to share what they call interchain security,
Speaker 1: so a new chain can launch and share the security
Speaker 1: of its parent chain, as opposed to, you know, try
Speaker 1: to get a bunch of validators to spin up and
Speaker 1: be processing all the transactions on the network. So so
Speaker 1: it takes the trickiness out of the decentralization of it. Yeah. Yeah,
Speaker 1: there's some interesting things about it. I also like that
Speaker 1: it's very much like a community kind of oriented chains. So,
Speaker 1: you know, some chains it's a heavy amount of venture
Speaker 1: capital investing um for which oftentimes venture capitalist don't have
Speaker 1: the strongest hands, but the communities that are participating or building,
Speaker 1: they hold the majority of the token supply that oftentimes
Speaker 1: the tokens can do much better because it's people that
Speaker 1: are building who believe in it, as opposed to just
Speaker 1: trying to see financial return from it. Yeah, I think
Speaker 1: I think cosmos Is is a project that's particular, really
Speaker 1: popular amongst you know, amongst the kind of tech the
Speaker 1: more technically minded people. Absolutely Metallic at one point said
Speaker 1: that if you were to redesign Ethereum from scratch, she
Speaker 1: would do it in a similar way to the works.
Speaker 1: Well there you are, folks, not not financial advice, that
Speaker 1: alpha none. That sounds quite a lot. We'll so well, we'll, we'll,
Speaker 1: we'll start wrapping up in a minute. But some one
Speaker 1: other thing I wanted to to to sound you out about, Nate,
Speaker 1: was we talked earlier about how you know crypto Bitcoin.
Speaker 1: I should say, bitcoin came about in the midst in
Speaker 1: the in the wake of the failure of the banking
Speaker 1: system and all these banks being bailed out by what
Speaker 1: by us really by by taxpayers. And now we have
Speaker 1: a situation in crypto where we have these big institutions
Speaker 1: failing the like you know, the our equivalent of banks
Speaker 1: if you like, the likes of three Hours Capital and Celsius, etcetera, etcetera. So,
Speaker 1: and we've talked about We've mentioned SPF, Sam Bankman Freed, who,
Speaker 1: for those who don't know, is the CEO of the
Speaker 1: ft X crypto exchange. He's also the founder of Alameda Research,
Speaker 1: is a massive crypto investment and trading company. H And
Speaker 1: SPF is in the news a lot at the moment
Speaker 1: because he is, you know, he's being cited as as
Speaker 1: as possibly a kind of I guess, like a white
Speaker 1: Knight to come in and rescue some of these companies
Speaker 1: and bail them out. So now, I mean, how do
Speaker 1: you feel about that? Now? Do you do you think
Speaker 1: that these companies should be rescued. Is there a case
Speaker 1: for it, or or should we kind of should we
Speaker 1: let them fail? Letting them fail would put customer deposits
Speaker 1: at risk, and that I would think is the worst
Speaker 1: possible thing. So, um, we don't want to scare more
Speaker 1: retail off from using crypto or investing in crypto. So
Speaker 1: I don't like the idea of them feeling for that reason.
Speaker 1: I do like the idea of kind of technological evolution,
Speaker 1: like getting rid of the ship projects and you know,
Speaker 1: putting the good projects at the top. But obviously, you know,
Speaker 1: there is that whole question of wanting to make sure
Speaker 1: that customers, oftentimes when they have their life savings, unfortunately
Speaker 1: at some of these on some of these protocols, them
Speaker 1: losing all their money is just bad for everyone. So
Speaker 1: if SPF is willing to be a white night, I'm
Speaker 1: fully in support of that. Yeah. Yeah, And I guess
Speaker 1: perhaps there's a perhaps there's a middle way. Perhaps there's
Speaker 1: a kind of middle ground whereby the you know, someone
Speaker 1: like SPF can come in get that, provide the liquidity,
Speaker 1: provide the you know, provide the funds, and the first
Speaker 1: thing that happens is that the users get their money back,
Speaker 1: you know, the people who have been who have been
Speaker 1: on the receiving end of this, and that you know,
Speaker 1: in the case of especially as Celsius, you know that
Speaker 1: is retail they if if they are prioritized, and then
Speaker 1: you know what's left of the of the company or
Speaker 1: the entity after that, you know, either it's kind of
Speaker 1: dismantled or asset stripped or whatever it is. It's just
Speaker 1: so important that you know that we at least learn
Speaker 1: the lessons from it. I guess absolutely. The one thing
Speaker 1: I I do find a little bit concerning it is,
Speaker 1: you know, we were talking about decentralization and how important
Speaker 1: that is, and I think that's also true for the
Speaker 1: ownership of some of these companies. Right now, SPF has
Speaker 1: acquired a stake and pretty significant stake, and Voyager in
Speaker 1: Robin Hood, um, there's potentially in block Fire two. So
Speaker 1: that that's a little bit scary to think about. There
Speaker 1: is one person who has someone's control over so many
Speaker 1: major entities. Yeah, yeah, it's and it's it's an odd situation,
Speaker 1: isn't it, Because I mean, I guess at times like this,
Speaker 1: you know, some people, some people lose everything, you know,
Speaker 1: it's it's a catastrophe for some, but it's an opportunity
Speaker 1: for others. And you know, you get this kind of
Speaker 1: redistribution of wealth. And yeah, I mean if that becomes
Speaker 1: more centralized, that that that can't be a good thing
Speaker 1: in the long run. Yeah, I agree, And this is
Speaker 1: another reason why self custody is just so important, Like
Speaker 1: people should just think about what are the benefits of
Speaker 1: holding an asset over a few years, as opposed to
Speaker 1: trying to eke out every little, you know, bit of
Speaker 1: interest from holding it on a centralized party, which could
Speaker 1: in these times was clearly shown completely fail or go
Speaker 1: down or you know, they can't access their fund and
Speaker 1: get funds again. So that's one piece of advice I
Speaker 1: would impart to anyone who's new to cryptos. Don't be
Speaker 1: too greedy. Yeah, yeah, it's I mean, it's it is
Speaker 1: easier said than done, but I mean, it's how many
Speaker 1: times do you just how I got into crypto? Mike
Speaker 1: is motivated purely by greed. He's not in it for
Speaker 1: the tech um. Yeah, it's it's so true. And how many,
Speaker 1: you know, how many times do we have to do
Speaker 1: we have to learn that lesson the hard way. But
Speaker 1: I guess, you know, we we we really, we really
Speaker 1: rebuild and we come back stronger, and yeah, I think
Speaker 1: it's I think it's really important if we can. You know,
Speaker 1: if everyone who holds crypto, if you hold a bit
Speaker 1: of bitcoin, maybe you should think of yourself as as
Speaker 1: a node on the network. You know, you think of
Speaker 1: yourself as part of the big the the wider picture
Speaker 1: of decentralization and that you know you're in charge of
Speaker 1: this is it's not just your money that you're taking
Speaker 1: custody off, but you're also kind of responsible for the
Speaker 1: network itself, for the survival of the network itself. Yeah,
Speaker 1: it's a much better way to participate in these different
Speaker 1: crypto assets than holding on an exchange. Like I really
Speaker 1: like the quote, you know, not your keys and not
Speaker 1: your coins. So I think people should be tattooing that
Speaker 1: in their mind, tattooing it backward on their forehead every
Speaker 1: time they look in the mirror. Okay, well, ny, this
Speaker 1: this has been great, and you know, there's so much
Speaker 1: I mean, there's so much more we can talk. We
Speaker 1: didn't even we didn't even get to the board ape
Speaker 1: Nazi Club or anything like that. This is quickly they're
Speaker 1: not really Nazis. They claim they're not. Um Okay, to
Speaker 1: be honest, I don't know, I don't, I don't know,
Speaker 1: but it's I I saw this like on Twitter, and
Speaker 1: I sort of I just I just my instant thought was,
Speaker 1: as we were saying, how you know how Crypto seems
Speaker 1: to be quite bipartisan, this could be something to fuddy
Speaker 1: up the thing and go, okay, cool this putting it
Speaker 1: on sides and stuff like that, because I've never seen
Speaker 1: anything like that. But then again, I only sort of tweeting.
Speaker 1: I had no I didn't look any further than that
Speaker 1: and just made my own assumption. So I'm interested to
Speaker 1: hear what what what someone who knows what they're talking
Speaker 1: about kids share some light on it. Yeah, I'm not
Speaker 1: too educated on the story. I know that the board
Speaker 1: A team does have pretty diverse backgrounds, like there are
Speaker 1: there are Jews, so I guess it is possible to
Speaker 1: be a Jewish Nazi. This is that case. Yeah, there,
Speaker 1: you know, it's a pretty diverse group. They've defended themselves.
Speaker 1: They've said, you know, some of the imagery that they
Speaker 1: created it might be similar to some of what would
Speaker 1: be considered Nazi imagery but really yeah, well so like
Speaker 1: the skull and crossbones basically like that was, but that
Speaker 1: could also be pirates. Yeah, I think I think one
Speaker 1: of the I think one of the things that they
Speaker 1: counted with was that because I think, yeah, there was
Speaker 1: a lot of controversy over the over the board at
Speaker 1: Yacht Club logo, which was shown to look kind of
Speaker 1: similar to the I think it was the logo of
Speaker 1: the the SS, the German s the Nazis double the death,
Speaker 1: said the Totten Coop. I'm going to say that that
Speaker 1: lightning strikes also on Harry Potter's forehead. Well, I mean,
Speaker 1: that's a whole that's a whole other I think I
Speaker 1: think the people would say that the writer, do not
Speaker 1: go there, do not go there. I think I think
Speaker 1: one of the things that you labs have come back
Speaker 1: and said, it's like, well that that is very much
Speaker 1: inspired by skater imagery. You know that that's where that
Speaker 1: comes from. And I guess it just points that, you know,
Speaker 1: these things, everything is so kind of interlinked now and
Speaker 1: it's so again it's what we were talking about earlier.
Speaker 1: You have this information, it's so difficult to know what
Speaker 1: to believe and what to you know, what is it?
Speaker 1: What is a credible source and what isn't similar. We
Speaker 1: were talking about this off fair with four chan turned
Speaker 1: the okay sign into the white power sign, and you know,
Speaker 1: so like you've got you've got President Obama doing the
Speaker 1: okay sign and like it's just because it's it's sort
Speaker 1: of decided on on on the murky underworld of of
Speaker 1: four chan. Doesn't mean that it's actually true. But then
Speaker 1: it gets blown up and the media sort of backing
Speaker 1: up just by running this story. Almost yeah, I don't
Speaker 1: know about you know, but I mean, if this, if
Speaker 1: this sarga and obviously this is still unfolding, you know this,
Speaker 1: there's there's a lot more to come come from this story.
Speaker 1: I think that one thing it taught me was like
Speaker 1: how little I really know about kind of internet culture. Yeah,
Speaker 1: it runs so deep. Yeah, there are so many memes
Speaker 1: that take into consideration. Another you know, the Peppe of
Speaker 1: the Frog at one point was like very much a
Speaker 1: crypto thing, and then apparently the rates started attributing it
Speaker 1: as well, saying it's their MASc arts. So whose meme is?
Speaker 1: Who war? Wow? Okay um, And just before we just
Speaker 1: before we finish up. The last time we had the
Speaker 1: guys from Crypto Busy in here a couple of weeks ago,
Speaker 1: and we asked them what they're kind of coping strategy
Speaker 1: was for a bear market. You know what happens when
Speaker 1: you check your portfolio in the morning, it's read across
Speaker 1: the board and you think, how do you so, how
Speaker 1: do you how do you deal with a day like that?
Speaker 1: How do you stressed? I like to just go outside.
Speaker 1: And I was telling you about the one wheel earlier,
Speaker 1: which is kind of like a interistic hoverboard slash skateboard,
Speaker 1: which is just super fun. And I'm not thinking about
Speaker 1: crypto I'm thinking about how do I not break my arm?
Speaker 1: How do I stay on this thing? Yeah? So the
Speaker 1: way that you cope with it is putting yourself in
Speaker 1: extreme danger. Yeah, I'm either in financial danger or physical
Speaker 1: So I think I'll go over a bit of physical
Speaker 1: danger this morning. Yeah, exactly, diversify your risk. Well, there
Speaker 1: you are, people. Yeah, the if the crypto markets are
Speaker 1: getting you down, if there's too much read in your portfolio,
Speaker 1: get out on a get out on a one wheel,
Speaker 1: put yourself in some maybe drinking before doing it, you know,
Speaker 1: don't listen to Mike put yourself in some physical jeopardy
Speaker 1: and you know, watch those crypto related troubles melt away. Nate,
Speaker 1: thank you so much for coming in today. It's been
Speaker 1: great to talk to you. I mean we could have
Speaker 1: gone on for hours and hours and hours. So I
Speaker 1: hope you'll I hope you'll join us again sometime. Absolutely, Yeah,
Speaker 1: thank you so much for having me. It's a bit
Speaker 1: and honor. It's a pleasure. It's a pleasure. Yes. Crypto
Speaker 1: Slate is the site checking out folks. It is a
Speaker 1: wonderful resource for all things crypto, and I hope you
Speaker 1: can join us again next week. Thank you so much
Speaker 1: for listening to the coin Bureau podcast. If you'd like
Speaker 1: to learn more about cryptocurrency, you can visit our YouTube
Speaker 1: channel at YouTube dot com forward slash coin Bureau. You
Speaker 1: can also go to coin bureau dot com for loads
Speaker 1: more information about all things crypto. You can follow me
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