0:00

Welcome to the Money

0:03

Miss Podcast. I'm Simon

0:05

Brewer and along with

0:08

my co-founder, Will Campion,

0:21

we created this show in 2020

0:23

to explore and unravel some of

0:25

the mysteries surrounding the investment and

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1:01

Thank you. Back

1:12

in September 2021, we wanted

1:14

to discuss blockchain and cryptocurrencies.

1:17

Will Campion, my co-founder, was more enthusiastic

1:19

than me, but we arranged to meet

1:21

with Nick Carey, one of the founders

1:24

and vice chair at blockchain.com, through a

1:26

friend of the show, James Peterson at

1:28

Rothschild. Blockchain was then becoming

1:30

the world's leading digital assets platform. Nick

1:33

arrived for the preparatory meeting at

1:36

my home with his Vizsla, a

1:38

beautiful if scatty, tobacco brown Hungarian

1:40

dog whose exuberance persuaded my chocolate

1:42

brown labrador to retreat under the

1:45

table. Nick then proceeded to speak

1:47

with great eloquence and fluidity about

1:49

the blockchain technology, the world of

1:51

crypto, currency debasement, government failures, and

1:54

the death of cash. Despite

1:56

my reservations, when we recorded

1:58

the conversation was really rich and

2:01

wide-ranging, we spilled over into two

2:03

episodes. Nevertheless, I was, and have

2:05

remained, a sceptic about the investment

2:07

merits of cryptocurrencies. Since then, Bitcoin's

2:09

price more than doubled, then

2:12

more than halved and more than doubled again.

2:14

It's priced when we did the interview as

2:16

45,000. When I started doing my research notes

2:18

only three weeks ago, it was 50,000. Today,

2:20

I think it closed around 67,000. And during

2:24

the same timeframe, FTX under

2:26

Sam Bankman freed, rose, collapsed, and

2:28

he's now incarcerated, financed and Coinbase

2:31

was sued by the US Securities

2:33

and Exchange Commission. And on 11th

2:35

of January this year, Bitcoin ETFs

2:37

were approved by the ESEC. Never

2:40

a dull moment in crypto land. Mick Carey, welcome

2:42

back to the Money Moves podcast. Thank you so

2:44

much for having me back. We do have quite

2:47

a bit to cover in just a few short

2:49

years. It feels like a decade of traditional finance.

2:52

And gracing us today is my co-founder

2:54

and business partner, Will Campion, who for

2:56

the first time is here on the

2:58

main stage. Will, welcome. Thank

3:01

you, Simon. It's great to see you again, Nick. I

3:03

would say one of the treats

3:05

we've had of this four-year journey

3:07

is like you, Nick. Many

3:09

people have been on the show, become friends,

3:12

and that's super special to interview

3:14

you with Simon today. I'm

3:16

really glad to have both of you

3:18

today. So we can address some scepticism

3:20

and we can look at the record.

3:22

I'm a firm believer. So we'll see

3:24

if we can dissuade Simon to slightly

3:26

change his view as we sail on

3:29

through this conversation. Thank you,

3:31

Will. Let's start with blockchain.com. Remind

3:33

us what you do. So

3:35

thank you for the opportunity to talk a

3:37

little bit about blockchain.com. We actually founded blockchain.com

3:39

in 2011 in a little town in northern

3:42

England called York, which always like because New

3:44

York is always well known as being the

3:46

sort of home of modern traditional finance. And

3:48

I think there's some kind of historical beauty to

3:51

sort of the story we have,

3:53

which is founding the largest digital asset platform

3:55

in the world in old York. And

3:57

I also think it sort of speaks to the special relationship between

3:59

the ideas. in the UK too. This has been my

4:01

home now for over a decade and

4:04

the UK is really our sort of home turf. So

4:06

blockchain.com established in 2011 is

4:09

a digital assets platform that serves both

4:11

institutions and retail customers. We've had over

4:13

90 million wallet holders in almost every

4:16

country around the world. We

4:18

started off as a data platform. We built

4:20

the wallet, we built an exchange and we've

4:22

been serving institutions now for about five years,

4:24

which has become a major part of our

4:26

business. And so we have a lot of

4:28

different product offerings. We serve a lot of

4:30

different customer segments and we have

4:32

a very serious business. It's a global company. I

4:35

serve on the board of directors along with people that

4:37

include the former officer of the control of

4:39

the currency of the US government. Joseph Auding,

4:41

we have Jim Messina who was the deputy

4:44

White House chief of staff and some of

4:46

the most impressive businesses in the world. Tom

4:48

Horton serves on the board of directors along

4:50

side myself and my business partner. He

4:52

was a former chairman CEO of American

4:54

Airlines and serves the leading director of

4:57

Walmart. So you have on

4:59

your website a very interesting thing called the

5:01

heat map, which anybody wants to

5:03

know about this space, whatever their persuasions will

5:05

find very informative. And I think on

5:07

there it said, it said because I'm fast

5:09

out of date, the cryptocurrency market as

5:11

of two weeks ago is valued over 2

5:14

trillion. Just give us a recap of the

5:16

market today. The very first cryptocurrency that

5:18

some of the listeners may be familiar with

5:20

is a cryptocurrency called Bitcoin. And it

5:22

was introduced basically as originally a concept for

5:25

a white paper in 2008, 2009. It

5:28

envisioned the development of a transactional network

5:30

that had a currency, a ledger,

5:33

or a way to keep track of who

5:35

owned what. And then it had the capability

5:37

to perform settlement with finality. And so this

5:39

network was launched and started to gain some

5:42

early traction basically between 2009 and 2011. And

5:46

then some of the first companies in the

5:48

cryptocurrency industry started to form ourselves included. It

5:51

would take a few years for marketplaces to

5:53

develop and exchanges to be created. And once

5:55

that happened, you started to see pretty significant

5:57

retail Adoption. But The Retail Adoption.

6:00

Which is really driven crypto Until frankly

6:02

this year has created a especially it

6:04

almost three trillion dollar alternative asset class.

6:06

And this is why this moment is

6:09

so special because in the past eight

6:11

weeks we've seen the crystallization in a

6:13

lot of ways and legitimacy of this

6:16

whole asset class being and crystallized by

6:18

the wants of each yes from the

6:20

traditional financial or houses on Wall Street.

6:22

So besides Bitcoin know there are now

6:25

thousands and thousands of digital currencies and

6:27

digital assets. They range in very sophisticated,

6:30

Platforms to even more silly things and

6:32

famously Elon Musk to you're referencing earlier

6:34

today is a big proponent of a

6:36

digital currency called Those Coin. Well of

6:38

course is competitor to some of the

6:41

more established and I would say crypto

6:43

and it'll Asset ecosystems have very strong

6:45

robust community and of foundation me. They

6:47

all sort of rely on a similar

6:50

principles which is having a digital asset

6:52

have some kind some kind of record

6:54

keeping system and then some kind of

6:56

settlements to ensure that people can transact

6:59

with each other. with certainty quote

7:01

William Shakespeare's Romeo and Juliet.

7:03

What's. In a nine month. A. Police

7:06

in block chain technology doesn't equal

7:08

a belief in crypto. Reason. Your

7:10

company's name. A bit of a misnomer

7:13

success. So we name the company probably

7:15

before there was any sort of what

7:17

I would describe as positive brand confusion

7:19

about any of this. And so all

7:21

these underlying crypto currencies and protocols for

7:23

lie on some type of a block

7:25

chain. So what is a block chain?

7:27

A block chain is basically a decentralized

7:30

record keeping system that stays in a

7:32

constant state of agreement. It's a database,

7:34

but it has some novel features including

7:36

being decentralized. So this is a really

7:38

big breakthrough in computer science means that

7:40

basically. You can have a large

7:42

worldwide network that is constantly saying the

7:44

state of Synchronicity meaning it's always been

7:47

updated in always in a state of

7:49

agreement. And when you have a system

7:51

that can do something like that, you

7:53

can pioneer all kinds of different features

7:55

in all kinds of different concepts. On

7:58

one of those concepts would be peer

8:00

to peer electronic casts, Others would be

8:02

decentralized applications, meaning software systems that can

8:04

basically run on a decentralized network. And

8:06

now we're seeing even more novel these

8:09

cases: Everything from digital art a few

8:11

i told him, assets and there's all

8:13

kinds of work being done right now

8:15

at the intersection between decentralization in artificial

8:18

intelligence which is a very important in

8:20

topical concept to dig into a little

8:22

bit later in the podcast. It has

8:24

a profound implications for how we understand

8:26

what is a truthful how these models

8:29

are being developed. And who has

8:31

access to the underlying data itself

8:33

and how we compensate the people

8:35

that collected data, create the content

8:38

in the world and essentially stupid

8:40

it? Can I just press your

8:42

little bit on? I'd love to

8:44

understand more about the journey on

8:47

where whereas ways being able to

8:49

fractional eyes and trade different asset

8:51

classes through the block chain technology

8:53

could you just give us a

8:56

bit more color on what potentially

8:58

my happen in the next. Two

9:00

or three years weather will we all

9:02

owning a fraction of a building. He

9:05

mentioned some art. is it gonna be

9:07

commodities? Could be platinum? What could we

9:09

all end up being able to have

9:11

in our portfolios in the future? There's

9:14

a lot of people are concentrated on building

9:16

the future of finance and changing the relationship

9:19

people have with their money, and it sits

9:21

on a few different rails. One of them

9:23

is basically increasing transactional capacity for the internet.

9:25

So if we're going to have basically a

9:28

lot more transactions happening over the internet, we

9:30

have to increase the capacity of these transactional

9:32

network. So it's sort of obvious. But for

9:35

example, in London, we have a lot of

9:37

small streets. It's very difficult to move. Drive

9:39

through the streets quickly. You need to have

9:41

highways. Are you need to have a tube?

9:44

System To do that. Technical networks

9:46

are not dissimilar. They have to

9:48

have capacity in order to deal

9:50

with demand. We've seen significant demand

9:52

and digital currency networks over the

9:54

previous decade. The anticipated throughput that

9:56

will be needed is relatively extraordinary.

9:58

Everything from supporting. The World

10:00

wide digital payments on the Internet

10:03

to micropayments to fractional ownership of

10:05

all assets. All these things will

10:07

require significant amount of transactional capacity.

10:09

So when the main things it's

10:11

being developed in our industry are

10:14

what are called layer to protocols,

10:16

these basically sit above the foundational

10:18

protocols are specifically focused on increasing

10:20

transactional capability. So. Let's

10:23

to stay block chain for a minute

10:25

because I think most of us incredulous

10:27

Li would say that the old certainties

10:29

of being lost and hey Isaac salaries

10:32

in the point where you know with

10:34

initial space we will actually know for

10:36

sure if the news article is based

10:38

on truth or video is completely sake

10:41

and Block Chain. It. Is there

10:43

is a suggestion of is this

10:45

Verifications Just explain a little bit

10:47

about how block chain can. Be.

10:50

A force for validation. I would

10:52

say the the work to be

10:54

done in order to validate data

10:56

on a worldwide level is basically

10:58

one was pressing issues we have

11:00

today and the reason is pretty

11:02

obvious. The way these large language

11:04

models work as they collect large

11:06

amounts of data and then that

11:08

data is basically waited and then

11:10

our models run against it against

11:13

those weights. And then what we've

11:15

seen over the last few months

11:17

is that there have been essentially

11:19

filters applied. To those large language

11:21

models, sometimes by compliance department, sometimes

11:23

by legal teams, or by the

11:25

commercial interests of the large platforms

11:27

that are collecting that information. And

11:29

when you run an inquiry against

11:31

Son in France against that datasets,

11:33

you can get hallucinations. So if

11:35

you ask it's basically make you

11:37

a photograph or design an image

11:39

of of for medieval knights. It

11:41

might put you know at characters

11:43

on those medieval knights that are

11:45

completely historically inaccurate. And so we're

11:47

developing a hyper intelligent system that

11:49

is. Hyper Censored and the Hyper

11:51

a condescending to us. And this

11:54

is absolutely problematic. And even more

11:56

concerning is it is almost no

11:58

way to check whether the gravity

12:00

of the underlying models is accurate.

12:02

When Larry Fink talks about Crypto

12:04

currencies and these of blockchain technology

12:06

to create entire informatics asset class

12:08

duty starting. see the vision for

12:10

all of this which is if

12:12

you can give data essentially a

12:14

property rights individual Dna have reasonable

12:16

piece of information, you can then

12:18

reward that information for being accurate

12:21

when south. What blockchain technology basically

12:23

makes it possible to do is

12:25

give everything in the world's a

12:27

digital property right as M C

12:29

a counterfeit. Resistance a string of letters

12:31

and numbers that is prescribed you have

12:33

specific asset specifics of information, a real

12:36

world asset or a digital piece of

12:38

art. And so if you start to

12:40

think about it is like a property

12:42

rights system for the internet. I'm using

12:44

this a mutable record keeping technology that

12:47

also has need of settlement built into

12:49

itself and the next few years I

12:51

expect to see far more tokens asian

12:53

of real world assets whether that's things

12:55

like gold for the that seems like

12:58

property. Where that things like music, catalogues,

13:00

Or alternative assets and enabling a

13:02

much wider market structure and a

13:04

retail offering to me to possible

13:06

for regular people have access to

13:08

things. I. Hope

13:10

you're enjoying so so far. Will be

13:13

back shortly. After a few quick word

13:15

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to learn more. So

14:30

I also share a mutual love of gold.

14:33

And I think a lot of people that originally

14:35

started out in digital currency

14:37

and specifically with Bitcoin came to

14:39

it via an appreciation for hard

14:42

assets and sound money. And

14:44

so gold holds a special place in my

14:46

heart due to its physical properties, its use

14:48

as a form of money and a store

14:50

of value. And so gold

14:53

has specific properties that give it

14:55

social utility and economic utility and

14:58

utility and industrial processes. So there's a

15:00

reason why gold has been valued by

15:02

civilizations for thousands of years. I

15:05

think if we just go back a little bit

15:07

in the money maze through the lens of history

15:09

and think about what money really is. Money

15:12

is a prehistoric concept. It predates man's

15:14

written word. It's why we find in

15:16

burial tombs in Northern Scotland beads from

15:18

the Middle East. People have

15:20

been trading and exchanging goods and services

15:22

for other things using different technologies. So

15:25

whether it was bartering or the use of

15:27

beads or the use of exotic feathers or

15:29

cigarettes in World War II to break in

15:31

and out of prisons and settle debts between

15:34

soldiers, to cash instruments, to

15:36

gold, we've always sort of applied

15:38

an appropriate technology for the

15:41

existing market structure and the economy of the time.

15:44

So to me, it's not a big surprise

15:46

that we are now entering

15:48

basically what is broadly industrial

15:51

revolution, needing to reinvent and reevaluate

15:53

our relationship with the technology that

15:55

underpins how we transact wealth between

15:58

each other. I

16:00

would say money is just a social construct

16:02

that we all consent to that enables us

16:04

to exchange wealth over time. We've

16:07

used a lot of different technologies to

16:09

do that. I still think gold has

16:11

a very valuable role in a portfolio

16:13

for an investor, but I also think

16:16

so does real estate. I think so

16:18

do certain commodities. I think bonds do.

16:20

I think a position potentially some stable

16:22

cash would always be responsible. But I

16:24

also think if you're looking into the

16:27

future, the use of digital currencies that

16:29

are far more liquid that have the

16:31

ability to transact more readily and can

16:33

basically travel across borders instantly and settle

16:35

for very low cost, there's a role for

16:37

those two. And we're

16:40

already seeing the adoption of these types

16:42

of assets, both as a form of

16:44

money and a store of value. And

16:46

so Bitcoin specifically took a lot of

16:48

lessons from gold and tried to basically

16:51

engineer them into software. So you've got

16:53

scarcity designed into the total currency supply.

16:56

It becomes more difficult to acquire over

16:58

time. There's less and less of it

17:00

as it basically comes into circulation over the next 140 years. And

17:04

that drives certain dynamics in the price

17:06

structure of Bitcoin, where there's less and less of

17:08

it, and it's still more and more popular. And

17:10

so when you've got something that's scarce and useful,

17:13

and you've got a market of people that want

17:15

to buy it, then you have a price, and

17:17

the price fluctuates with that supply and demand. And

17:19

that's why this four year cycle is so

17:21

critical, because every four years, the total number

17:24

of circulating Bitcoin will decrease by 50%. We

17:27

have Scott Besson on the show, who

17:29

is, well, George Soros, the CIO, he

17:31

just nicely encapsulates it, is

17:34

that, you know, Bitcoin is a risk

17:36

on asset. As I looked

17:38

through your website, your health warning is

17:40

do not invest unless you are prepared

17:42

to lose all the money you invest.

17:44

This is a high risk investment. And

17:46

when Bitcoin started, there was a nice

17:48

little explanation that this was

17:50

going to be a medium of

17:52

exchange, and that hasn't transpired.

17:55

I mean, aren't we

17:57

simply dealing with a means of

17:59

speculation? I want to address a couple of

18:01

things that you just brought up. Cryptocurrencies

18:04

have had a lot of volatility in finding

18:06

product market fit, as I would describe it

18:08

over the last decade. The

18:10

risk warnings you see on the blockchain.com website

18:12

are part of our requirements here in the

18:15

UK for financial promotions. Those

18:17

were implemented in October, quite interesting because

18:19

since October, the value of digital assets

18:21

has more than doubled. These

18:24

types of warnings are not applied to

18:26

other financial services firms, interestingly. The

18:30

type of

18:32

warnings that are imposed here were

18:34

designed intentionally to basically help provide

18:36

some consumer protections. What they've

18:38

also done is slow down the rate

18:40

of adoption of digital currencies here

18:42

in the UK, which is counterintuitive

18:45

to the intention behind the

18:47

financial promotions regulations. We're obviously

18:49

all in favor of consumer protections, but

18:51

if you don't make it accessible for

18:53

people here in the UK to acquire

18:55

these things on regulated venues, you want

18:57

to lose the wealth creation for those

18:59

potential investors, the tax benefits from those,

19:01

and then the companies that work in

19:03

this space lose revenue as well because

19:05

of the frictions in the onboarding. I

19:07

just wanted to talk a little bit

19:09

about that and I'm glad to give

19:11

you an opportunity to. As far

19:14

as it being a risk on asset, I sent a

19:16

couple of this amazing chart. Hopefully,

19:18

the editors can maybe put it

19:20

in this part of the podcast, but it shows

19:22

the federal funds rate, and then it shows the

19:24

market capitalization of Bitcoin. If you look at it

19:27

in 2019, 2020, when the Fed rate

19:29

is at like 2%, crypto markets

19:32

are relatively subdued. Then

19:34

you have COVID, federal fund rate drops

19:36

completely. We're flushing money into the economy

19:38

to help stimulate the

19:41

businesses and investment, and everything gets

19:43

hot. The stock market reaches all

19:45

time highs. Every asset class in

19:47

the world starts to see significant

19:49

increases in value. Crypto

19:51

as well rages. Then

19:54

there's a correction in 2022, tech

19:56

equities collapse, crypto experience is a

19:58

significant number of self-inflicted. issues,

20:00

including famously the FTX collapse, and

20:03

then the federal rate starts to increase

20:05

dramatically. And right now, you're in a

20:07

very wild situation, which is very high

20:09

federal funds rate, and the

20:11

crypto market has responded extremely positively.

20:14

And so looking into the future,

20:16

you've got supply dynamics that are

20:18

going to cause arguably the price

20:21

of at least Bitcoin and its

20:23

tangential assets to be affected, arguably

20:25

positively. You have the

20:27

Fed indicating it may reduce its

20:29

federal funds rate over the next 6 to 12 months.

20:32

You have a US election that's happening. So

20:34

there's a lot of things that are sort

20:36

of conspiring to potentially make this asset class

20:38

even more, I would say, favorable to investor

20:40

conditions. And so yeah, on the risk on

20:42

asset side of it, I do think that

20:44

crypto is risky. People need to do their

20:46

research. And there's a huge difference between, I

20:48

would say, some of the emergent projects that

20:50

have not been tested in the market and

20:52

ones that have been around for a while.

20:54

This is why working with firms that have

20:56

an established record that have been there

20:59

for their customers and have navigated the volatility of

21:01

these cycles over the previous decade is

21:03

so critical for consumers and investors to

21:05

understand. In studying these things, and we

21:08

might put your chart on, and we'll

21:10

put another chart on where we show

21:13

the high correlation in Bitcoin and positive

21:15

risk assets. We've had a cheap money-fueled

21:17

rally replaced by a everything will work

21:19

out fine rally, even in the narrowing

21:22

market. And Bitcoin has been a beneficiary,

21:24

I would argue, of that higher

21:26

risk appetite. We'll see how it fares when a

21:30

downturn which is inevitable comes. One

21:33

of the arguments, and you've hinted at it, but you're

21:35

not alone, is scarcity. And the

21:37

case for having Bitcoin is the supply

21:39

side. But I've

21:41

struggled with that because scarcity

21:44

on its own doesn't confer

21:46

value and mean that in

21:49

the long term, something will increase in its

21:51

worth. Can I just interject here

21:53

as well? Because I know we've been talking about Bitcoin

21:56

a lot, but Nick, can you bring in the

21:59

other players in the market? market,

22:01

Ethereum, you talked about that and

22:03

the last podcast, there's many other

22:05

digital coins and currencies. Can

22:07

you explain a bit how they're

22:09

reacting in the system as well? Yeah,

22:11

I'm not going to get, I'm not going

22:14

to let Simon not be completely off the

22:16

hook here, because I hope desperately that I

22:18

can not necessarily persuade him to completely

22:20

come over to the other side here,

22:23

but just to understand that I agree

22:25

scarcity is a necessity for things to

22:27

have a certain level of potential value,

22:29

but the other is utility. And so

22:32

those two features in combination are critical

22:34

to Bitcoin success. And I've also been

22:36

critical to the success of other historical

22:39

financial systems like a gold-backed

22:41

economy. And so if you have something

22:43

that's useful and scarce, it commands a market

22:45

price. And that is really what the feature

22:48

set that Bitcoin is attempted to implement over

22:50

the previous decade has done. In

22:52

a lot of ways, Bitcoin fell into an

22:54

interesting product market fit, which has been described

22:56

as digital gold, and it has served as

22:59

that function and not as much of a

23:01

function as a peer-to-peer cash system for the

23:03

Internet, which is what it was originally envisioned

23:05

to do. That has now

23:07

been taken over by other crypto

23:10

protocol projects and other digital assets.

23:12

So there are some important ones for

23:15

listeners to learn a little bit more

23:17

about. Probably the most relevant is a

23:19

digital currency called Ethereum. It's been now

23:21

in the market for almost a decade.

23:23

It is the second largest digital currency

23:25

by market cap and has

23:27

gone through significant improvements and

23:30

upgrades. And so while Bitcoin

23:32

has arguably been slower

23:35

to actually improve and update itself,

23:38

other protocols are now moving

23:40

very quickly. And this thing

23:42

is basically more like a

23:44

worldwide computer. It is designed

23:46

to support the essentially launch

23:48

of completely autonomous digital agreements,

23:50

software programs that run in

23:52

a decentralized way on the

23:54

Internet. And it's a far

23:56

more complex system. So

23:58

if you've got a use case for. Basically just digital

24:01

gold. Now you've gotta use case for far

24:03

more sophisticated agreements they can self execute on

24:05

the internet, So example of one of those

24:07

agreements would be well let's all make a

24:10

bet. You think the go and zero for

24:12

the i think bitcoins going to one hundred

24:14

thousand we could all put fifty pounds into

24:16

a digital agreements and when one of those

24:19

conditions happens to digital agreement would execute and

24:21

it would pay out, it's for word to

24:23

the participants of that agreement and that is

24:25

interesting, is useful and that's a novel use

24:28

case of a what's called a smart contract.

24:30

Which probably execute on something like

24:32

the aquarium network. These networks are

24:34

also now being used to issue

24:37

something called stable points which are

24:39

just digital dollars, digital pounds, or

24:41

digital Euros. And there's been this

24:43

conversation about wealth. Should central banks

24:46

potentially explore the use of blockchain

24:48

technology to create central bank digital

24:50

currencies, having a direct relationship between

24:52

consumers and the central bank? I

24:55

think. When. All the research

24:57

is complete and all the work and parties

24:59

and are spending their time on this build

25:01

kind of the conclusion that don't need to

25:04

do anything. A Central banks already

25:06

have the tools they need to basically

25:08

a sec monetary policy and now they

25:10

have these digital utility networks that can

25:13

basically mince dollar tokens that allow anyone

25:15

the world to have a sense lead

25:17

dollar denominated bank account on their phone

25:19

or uptown denominated bank account on their

25:22

phone or a Euro denominated a bank

25:24

account or on. and as for hims

25:26

or anything and so. These are particularly

25:29

useful though because now you can basically

25:31

been dollars over the internet without having

25:33

to wait for a settlement. Window without

25:35

having to go through a for X markets

25:38

and anybody on earth that has a smartphone

25:40

can download a digital wallets and use these

25:42

different dollars or pounds and still your soaks

25:44

even if you don't like. Bitcoin.

25:47

Or a Syrian or some other protocols. You

25:49

can start to think of them as a

25:51

utility layer for settlements on the internet, and

25:54

they are used by financial services firms to

25:56

create digital dollars to four pounds and more.

25:58

Just have you been. things like send

26:00

money over the internet. But Nick, I understand

26:03

your conviction, but if I want to go

26:05

afterwards to threaten my sandwich or I want

26:07

to go to a truck shop and buy

26:09

a computer, I can't use any cryptocurrencies to

26:11

do it. You can online shops. There's plenty

26:14

that allow you to buy things with digital

26:16

currency. So Microsoft accepts cryptocurrency for payments for

26:18

Xbox. You can buy computers on the internet.

26:20

You can buy compute for AI and much

26:22

more. But I agree, on the high street,

26:25

if you were across into Oxford Circus today

26:27

and try and shop with digital currency, I

26:29

think most of the retail point of sale people

26:31

would look at you a bit odd. But they

26:33

would also not accept cash anymore. And it's likely

26:35

you would have to use a credit card. And

26:38

if you were to look just five, 10

26:41

years ago, the adoption of different

26:43

mediums for exchange has already permeated the

26:45

way we transact on a day-to-day basis.

26:47

We don't even use instruments, look anything

26:49

like our parents did. So I think

26:52

if you just sort of put

26:54

the lens of technological adoption on, you

26:56

can see where within five to 10

26:58

years, you may have a wallet

27:00

on your phone. It is going to use whatever

27:03

asset, as

27:05

a collection of assets that you have on your

27:07

wallet or your brokerage account or

27:09

whatever. And it'll immediately convert what is

27:11

most valuable and transact on it instantly.

27:14

And all those types of swaps, all

27:16

those things require digitally native tooling to

27:18

achieve. And so longer

27:21

term, these things will get

27:23

adopted at a brick

27:25

and mortar level for a variety of reasons,

27:27

but most likely just because of the transactional

27:29

efficiency. But I agree, we have a lot

27:32

of work to do here. And there's still

27:34

a huge amount of opportunity really at the

27:36

last mile where you're picking payments for regular

27:38

things. Well, I hope you're enjoying

27:41

the show. So far, we'll be

27:43

back shortly after a few quick words from

27:45

our sponsor. We're

27:48

delighted to have Schroeder's as a

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for clients who want to maximise

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positive change. Capital is

28:23

at risk with investing. And

28:30

actually, your colleague, Ed Bradley Norman, who

28:32

said to me, if you were trying

28:34

to escape a country, as people had

28:36

done from Germany in the 1930s, being

28:38

able to secrete diamonds or gold is

28:40

a lot easier than trying to get

28:42

something that requires electricity and verification. And

28:44

so there is something that is inherently

28:47

more difficult than

28:50

back to the gold or other more

28:53

easily transactable items. I'd

28:56

like to talk about the institutional

28:58

universe. And let's maybe just

29:00

start with you, because you were a new

29:02

business, financed by venture capitalists. I think if

29:04

I'm right, you had Sequoia, Google Ventures, Richard

29:06

Branson, Bayley Gifford, as your backers. VC

29:09

had a re-pricing, as we know of their

29:11

extraordinary explosion in those rates. How

29:13

are your investors feeling about their investment

29:15

in your company? So

29:17

in 2022, blockchain.com raised a

29:20

significant amount of funds at a

29:22

$14 billion valuation. We

29:24

then saw the tech equities market

29:27

dramatically drop everything from PayPal to

29:29

our rivals, to Amazon

29:31

saw huge corrections. And then things

29:33

have started to turn around. We

29:36

raised more money for our business. We

29:38

put about a billion into the company

29:40

over the previous decade. Our investors see

29:42

a long-term play with our

29:45

company. And that's something we've been very

29:47

careful to curate with our investor group.

29:49

We see this world that

29:51

I'm describing to you, where there's frictionless

29:53

payments over the internet and having a

29:56

foundational company that is right in the

29:58

center of supporting the adoption. of

30:00

these technologies and tools is critical for people

30:03

that see that future. And so our business

30:05

is doing very well. We've had the best

30:07

quarter of our company's history in the past,

30:09

basically four months since 2022. And

30:13

we see things turning around very,

30:15

very nicely this year. And on

30:17

the institutional side of adoption, I

30:19

would not discount just how significant

30:21

the ETFs are. And so you

30:24

had a basically a $3 trillion

30:26

asset class that was created by

30:28

retail adoption and retail investors. And

30:31

now after a decade of every argument

30:33

being thrown at this thing, I would

30:35

say it's been through a

30:37

very hostile discovery process for product

30:39

market fit. The SEC tried

30:41

for a long time to slow down any

30:44

type of ETF. And famously

30:46

there were applications made in 2014, almost

30:49

every year from the previous decade. So

30:52

finally, after these things were challenged

30:54

in the courts, the SEC has

30:57

changed its perspective and has approved

30:59

ETFs. BlackRock's ETF launch of their

31:01

Bitcoin product is the most successful

31:04

ETF launch in BlackRock's history. It

31:06

took 37 days for them

31:08

to get over $10 billion in AUM and

31:11

they're not alone. Wisdom Tree, Fidelity and

31:13

the other 10 ETFs that

31:16

were all approved simultaneously are all performing

31:18

very well. I think everyone's actually quite

31:20

surprised by the level of interest from

31:22

these retail products. And to me, I

31:24

think if I look back on it,

31:26

I don't know if I even appreciated

31:28

just how much wealth and capital

31:30

is sort of stored in the investor class

31:32

in their 401ks in the United States that

31:34

now has access to a secured,

31:37

highly regulated investment product through

31:40

their trusted financial services firms. And

31:43

so this has opened up a

31:45

huge new market and there's gonna

31:47

be more of these ETFs approved

31:50

for alternative digital assets over

31:52

the next few years. So I'm quite bullish on

31:54

these changes in the market structure. And Nick, can

31:56

I just come back? I think you said you

31:58

had 90. million wallets.

32:02

Could you just give us a little bit of background

32:04

on the growth of that and

32:07

what your company and platform will be

32:09

able to provide listeners to this podcast

32:12

in how and what they can invest

32:14

in? So when I

32:16

described earlier the phases of

32:19

bull and bear markets over the previous decade, one

32:21

of the challenging things to navigate as a

32:23

business in this industry is that when there is

32:25

a bull cycle, you see

32:28

a huge surge in activity. And

32:30

so you see between two and

32:32

10 times the number of users

32:34

signing up, transacting. And

32:36

this type of growth puts extraordinary stress

32:39

on technological systems, on people systems, on

32:41

your risk systems across the entire business.

32:43

And so there are these short periods

32:45

of time where you have to be

32:47

accommodating to a large number

32:50

of new economic participants. And

32:52

we're just starting to see that new

32:54

wave of economic participants over the past

32:56

three months across our platform and across

32:58

other industry players. And so we've had

33:00

90 million people sign up for a

33:02

blockchain.com wallet. The reason it's been popular

33:04

is because it's free. You can find

33:06

it in the app store and

33:08

you can sign up today. And

33:11

after you input your personal information, a

33:14

passport or a driver's license and go through

33:16

a KYC and peps and sanctions

33:18

check, you can acquire and buy

33:20

five pounds or five euros of

33:22

a variety of different digital assets.

33:24

Most people pick something they're familiar

33:26

with, something like Bitcoin or Ethereum.

33:28

We have over 350 digital assets

33:31

that people can explore within the

33:33

blockchain.com platform. Well, nothing as a

33:35

friend of the show had this

33:37

question, which was with exploring blockchain

33:39

data being in the corporate DNA,

33:41

can you talk about interesting projects

33:43

to seed before others

33:45

because you have this competitive advantage?

33:48

One of the things that we

33:50

are privileged to have insights into

33:52

are just emerging trends. And so

33:54

in 2022, 23, a lot of

33:56

people were. just

34:00

rotating into risk off assets. They just

34:02

wanted to hold digital versions of gold.

34:04

So we said digital gold

34:06

token, they wanted to hold more dollars,

34:08

they wanted to hold basically fiat. And

34:10

so we support digital versions of those

34:12

things as people rotate out of risk

34:15

and hold them in their wallets. Alternatively,

34:17

go into the future, you can

34:19

see now these type of gaming

34:21

tokens are actually particularly interesting. A

34:23

lot of young adults spend a

34:25

huge amount of time on online

34:28

entertainment, and there's a lot of

34:30

interesting use cases for everything from

34:32

fan tokens for large sports games

34:34

like the Premier League to video

34:36

game economies. So that's an emerging

34:38

trend we're seeing. Digital art was

34:40

a big one and fractional ownership,

34:42

I think is gonna be a

34:44

particularly interesting new opportunity for people

34:46

over the next few years. So

34:48

I watched the brilliant, brutal and

34:50

tragic Navalny on Prime last night.

34:52

And if people haven't watched it,

34:54

it's quite breathtaking and it's quite

34:56

awful. And at one point they're

34:58

trying to access data that is illegal.

35:01

And so they go onto the dark web and

35:03

they pay for it with crypto. So tell

35:06

me why this isn't a great place

35:09

for bad actors to operate. Okay,

35:11

let's talk about that. And I think we should address it

35:14

head on. So maybe we go through

35:16

sort of the environmental, social and governance,

35:19

framework for digital currencies and Bitcoin.

35:21

So in the Ukrainian example, right

35:23

after Russia invaded Ukraine,

35:25

the Ukrainian government put out an

35:28

all points bolt and saying, hey, hi, we

35:30

need help. They asked Western governments for support

35:32

for munitions, for security agreements. And one of

35:35

the things they also did was ask for

35:37

economic donations. And over the

35:39

course of just a few days, they

35:41

put up a cryptocurrency wallet and over

35:43

a hundred million dollars worth of donations

35:45

by people all over the world were

35:47

instantly beamed to the support

35:50

of Ukraine. And I think this speaks

35:52

to an incredible ability for digital currencies

35:54

to reach across borders,

35:56

to instantly support humanitarian and

35:58

crisis situations. It's been regularly

36:00

commented on and argued that these

36:03

things are highly energy intensive and

36:05

that causes environmental damage and that's

36:07

problematic. So let's break that one down

36:10

a little bit. So if we look

36:12

at the underlying data and one of

36:14

the benefits of cryptocurrencies is that because

36:16

they are transparent, because the

36:18

networks are running on these blockchains, we

36:21

can actually compute the energy consumption of

36:23

that network. So we can actually, we

36:25

can understand what the externalities are, which

36:27

is completely different than we could do,

36:30

for example, say, what is the economic

36:32

or the environmental damage of say, building

36:34

Canary Wharf or getting gold

36:36

out of the Earth's crust, highly environmentally damaging.

36:39

So we know what the energy consumption is

36:41

of Bitcoin, for example. It takes roughly 0.55%

36:43

of worldwide energy. So

36:47

that's a decent amount. Bitcoin does not

36:49

cause scope one emissions. So

36:51

scope one emission is basically a machine

36:54

that spits out basically combustion into the

36:56

atmosphere. So it's more focused in what's

36:58

called scope two emissions, just like electric

37:00

cars. And what's

37:02

interesting is that the network that

37:04

supports Bitcoin basically uses all of

37:07

these computers all over the world

37:09

to maintain the integrity of the network. That

37:11

network now holds over a trillion dollars of

37:13

value. So you want to have a lot

37:15

of energy and a lot of security protecting

37:17

all of that value locked up into it.

37:20

So there's social utility in the use of this

37:22

energy. So if we're going to have an honest

37:24

conversation, yes, cryptocurrencies use a

37:26

lot of energy, but they're also trying

37:28

to find the most renewable, most affordable

37:30

energy sources in the world. And

37:33

if we wanted to compare the total energy

37:35

consumption of Bitcoin to say something a lot

37:37

of people find useful, but I would argue

37:39

it's not necessarily has a ton of social

37:41

utility, you would compare it to the total

37:44

use of, say, tumble dryers in the world.

37:46

So tumble dryers help make sure we don't

37:48

have soggy clothes to go to work. But

37:50

at the end of the day, they use

37:52

an extraordinary amount of energy. And you don't

37:54

see anyone calling for the banning of those

37:56

things. And I think we should just be honest about

37:58

exploring whether or not we find sources. utility and

38:00

the use of those energies. On the energy

38:02

piece, I think that that's an interesting perspective

38:05

to look at. There are also examples of

38:08

pretty interesting initiatives. There's one

38:10

in Canada where they're actually

38:12

using crypto mining machines to

38:14

help warm social housing and help

38:16

heat large communities of apartment buildings.

38:18

I think there's interesting little use

38:20

cases like that. On the social

38:22

piece, one of the criticisms of

38:25

crypto is that it's been used

38:27

for illicit activity. And so

38:30

in the case, you just described an

38:32

interestingly persecuted political rival

38:34

to Putin cast

38:36

to resort to using alternative

38:39

forms of transacting in order to

38:41

acquire information, to send messages, to

38:43

get data that is relevant

38:46

and needed to them. So I don't think maybe

38:48

anyone would argue that that person shouldn't have access

38:50

to being able to try and do those things

38:52

in an oppressed political environment. But

38:54

then again, we also don't want bad actors

38:56

to use these things to

38:58

do more controversial things or undermine our democracies.

39:01

And so an interesting report came

39:03

out last year, run by Chainalysis.

39:06

Again, because the transactional networks are

39:08

fully transparent, we can actually run

39:10

analysis on how many of these

39:12

payments are going through things like

39:14

the dark web or illicit marketplaces.

39:17

And fewer than 0.24% of worldwide Bitcoin transactions

39:22

are involved in illicit activity. The

39:24

United Nations issued a report last year

39:26

that said somewhere between 2% and 5%

39:30

of worldwide GDP is

39:32

used in money laundering and illicit activity. And so

39:34

again, if you're going to have an honest conversation

39:36

about it, while these things are not perfect, they

39:39

are much less used by bad

39:42

actors, partially because of this transparency

39:44

capability. Every major bad actor that

39:47

has done something very bad with

39:49

crypto has left a digital trail

39:52

that lets the intelligence

39:54

agencies, that lets the

39:56

police and investigative agencies

39:58

essentially affair. fingerprint of

40:00

what they've done. The bad actors would

40:03

be very, very foolish to use digital currencies

40:05

and crypto networks to conduct illicit activity in

40:07

the long run. I think they believe they

40:09

can maybe get away with it in the

40:11

short run, but that is a misplaced conflict.

40:13

Nick, can I just come in on this?

40:15

You say you leave a fingerprint. That's what

40:17

I thought years ago. Is

40:19

that fingerprint not allowing them to be

40:21

brought to justice? What's the fingerprint?

40:25

What I'm saying is that every time

40:27

you perform a transaction on a digital

40:29

crypto protocol, that transaction gets

40:31

loaded into the Bitcoin or

40:34

crypto blockchain. So it's forever

40:36

essentially financial archeology. But

40:38

every subsequent transaction is also tied partially

40:40

to that fingerprint. So if your personal

40:42

identity is actually ever leaked from one

40:44

of these crypto exchanges that

40:47

you use, it's possible for someone to

40:49

essentially tell and track everything you've ever

40:51

done with all the money. So there's

40:53

going to be an interesting conversation, potentially

40:56

in the next few years,

40:58

about actually hardening the privacy

41:00

on these networks and increasing

41:02

the amount of scrutiny and

41:04

security on places where there's

41:06

account-based infrastructure or custodial infrastructure

41:08

of personal identifying information. Because

41:10

if you append both the

41:13

personal identifying information and your

41:15

entire public payment history, you

41:18

essentially would be able to graph

41:20

someone's total economic activity. And

41:22

so there's a lot of challenges with some of this,

41:24

and it makes regulating it particularly

41:26

difficult. If you were in charge,

41:29

what would you put in place

41:31

to stop these bad actors? Well,

41:33

fortunately, the bad actors tend to

41:35

face justice. And we've seen that

41:38

actually over the past year with

41:41

famously the founder of

41:43

FTX being brought

41:46

to face the music for that person's

41:48

extraordinary crimes and failures to take care

41:50

of their client funds. We

41:52

don't need new rules to deal with bad actors

41:55

or frauds. We actually have very strong rules to

41:57

deal with those things, and there's a special room

42:00

with hell, I think, saved for saboteurs

42:02

and mutineers and fraudsters. And that's why

42:04

Dante put that in his little body

42:07

of work as well. And so in short,

42:09

it's about accountability. And these

42:12

companies have seduciary duty to protect

42:14

the precious information of their clients.

42:17

And so when investors are thinking

42:19

about who to work with, when

42:21

retail customers are thinking about how

42:23

to navigate exploring where they can

42:25

place that trust, one of

42:27

the interesting options for people in our space

42:30

is to use trustless services, which is actually

42:32

to not rely on any intermediary and just

42:34

use an actual application where you yourself are

42:36

the firm custodian of your assets. So this

42:38

is an interesting model because if you're a

42:40

gold bug, you may not actually want your

42:43

bank to hold your gold because if there's

42:45

a run on the bank or if the

42:47

bank gets broken into and someone steals all

42:49

the gold from the bank. Or

42:52

you're in Ukraine and you

42:55

hold your life savings in an account

42:58

in Crimea, you're smoked if

43:01

there's an invasion. And so one of

43:04

the interesting things about digital currencies is

43:06

that you can, with a wallet, basically

43:08

hold as much or as little of

43:11

a bearer instrument directly in your pocket.

43:13

And with that, you can then globally

43:15

transact with it. And so we've covered

43:17

the environmental piece on the social piece.

43:20

And I hope I've demonstrated that in

43:22

comparison to the traditional financial economies and

43:24

cash instruments, which are used far more

43:27

regularly for illicit activity, cryptocurrency isn't

43:29

perfect. But because it's transparent, we

43:31

can actually really track what's happening,

43:33

which means we can mend it over time. So

43:35

I think you've explained the ESG piece very well.

43:37

Thank you, Nick. I'm going to just

43:40

correct you on one thing, which is

43:43

you say unequivocally gold is environmentally damaging.

43:45

If you go to the World Gold

43:47

Council's website, you'll see

43:50

the video they released recently

43:52

with Idris Elba. You will

43:54

see the extraordinary way in

43:56

which they're reinvigorating communities, landscapes,

43:58

putting in infrastructure, hydro. power,

44:01

wealth education, hospitalisation. I'm in a

44:03

real force for good. So I'll

44:06

leave that with you. We'll put it

44:08

out there. And since you mentioned Sam

44:10

Bankman Fried for anybody listening who didn't

44:12

have the chance just before Christmas, Ravi

44:15

Joseph and myself interviewed Michael Lewis on

44:17

his fabulous book. It was very controversial,

44:19

not the interview of the book, but

44:21

I think that it was a very

44:23

pithy, funny, and we

44:25

certainly enjoyed that interview. So

44:27

the question, Nick, from me is,

44:29

can you just give us

44:31

a little bit of colour of how surprised you

44:33

were with the demise of FTX

44:36

and Binance and how it's kind of

44:39

reacted to your company and how that's

44:41

happened? Having been in this industry now

44:43

for a decade, I remember in the

44:46

early days, everyone said it would be

44:48

career suicide. This stuff would never work.

44:50

We already had great investment

44:53

products like gold, and we didn't need

44:55

these types of tools in that.

44:57

And then it was only used by nerds

44:59

on the internet, and then it was only

45:01

used by retail adopters that didn't have any

45:03

sophistication. And now, a few years later, we

45:06

find ourselves with the largest institutions

45:08

in the world offering digital

45:11

currency products to the investment base. So it's been

45:13

an up and down 10 years.

45:16

And we've had some very

45:18

colourful characters come through, including

45:20

Sam Bankman Fried from FTX.

45:23

That episode was very painful

45:25

to witness. And as

45:28

someone who takes taking

45:30

care of our clients and the reputation

45:32

of our industry very seriously and has

45:34

been combating misinformation and confusion about the

45:36

space, and we have a lot of

45:38

work to do still, obviously. I hope

45:41

within the next decade, I

45:43

can convince Simon here. We're

45:46

going to ask him at the end, because he's been a bit

45:48

more convinced. But at

45:50

the end of the day, people have their

45:52

perspectives. But when you have bad actors that

45:54

betray the trust of their clients, it makes

45:57

everything more difficult. And I believe in... basically

46:00

a business Hippocratic oath, which is

46:02

do no harm to your customers.

46:04

And so watching people take advantage

46:07

of their clients for greed, for

46:09

narrow-mindedness, or for short-term gain, to

46:11

me is particularly painful. But

46:13

it also reinforces the importance of the

46:15

relentless pursuit of integrity and working in

46:18

this space for the right reasons and

46:20

for the long haul. We are living

46:22

in a state of potentially permanent inflation.

46:24

And so there are dynamics at play

46:27

now that, to me, are highly concerning.

46:29

And I hope that the work

46:31

that my firm and the good

46:33

actors in the cryptocurrency industry are

46:35

playing will, in the long run,

46:37

help provide more social and economic

46:39

utility to participants worldwide. And

46:42

just like it was beneficial to HSBC to

46:44

have Silicon Valley Bank die last year, they

46:46

were able to acquire an incredible asset for

46:48

a very low amount of money. When firms

46:50

don't manage their risk well, other firms can

46:53

come in and take advantage

46:55

of those moments. Meeker, I've got

46:57

two closing questions, which are general. This

47:00

volatility around your business is immense.

47:02

And how do you cope mentally

47:05

with these extraordinary swings? Yeah.

47:08

We've been through huge downturns

47:10

and also incredible upswings, where

47:12

the volumes in your revenues

47:14

go up and down by

47:16

90% in very short

47:18

periods of time. I talked to

47:20

a venture's mind that have worked in

47:23

the financial services industry, just like you

47:25

do, who have these moments they talk

47:27

about, whether it was the sovereign debt

47:29

crisis, or the great financial crisis, or

47:31

the dotcom bubble, or these things where

47:33

they have terrible PTSD and scarring from

47:36

those over their careers. And

47:38

I have some of those, and I feel like there's a

47:40

few of them every year. And

47:43

so I don't know if I have all

47:45

the best coping mechanisms for dealing with

47:47

volatility, but I try and maintain a longer

47:50

term perspective on the work. And

47:52

you guys interviewed a personal hero of

47:54

mine, General Petraeus, and I loved his

47:56

new book, Conflict. And when he talks

47:59

about his sort of leadership style,

48:01

there are a few things that really resonated

48:03

with me and he talks about getting the

48:05

big idea right, the big grand strategic idea

48:08

right. And then communicating and

48:10

articulating that big idea repeatedly and

48:12

then creating the conditions under which

48:14

you can reassess and reevaluate so

48:16

you can continue to pursue the

48:19

right big idea for the moment. And so to

48:21

me, the big idea for the past decade

48:23

was that it was possible for

48:25

a computer system to create a more

48:27

fair, economic and accessible financial system for

48:30

the world. And I still

48:32

think and believe that to be true. And if

48:34

you fast forward to where we are today from

48:36

where we started, if you had told me in

48:38

2011 that there'd be a

48:40

$3 trillion asset class, hundreds of millions

48:42

of users worldwide, and that BlackRock would

48:45

be selling Bitcoin to my parents' generation,

48:48

I would probably be dancing on top of the

48:50

table. But I'm not here dancing and I'm not

48:52

here gloating. I think we have a huge amount

48:54

of work to do still. And

48:57

to me, that work is extremely motivating and

48:59

keeps me up, keeps me busy. Nick,

49:01

my final question is you've been very involved

49:03

in your charity Sky's the Limit. Just give

49:05

us an update on where you are. Yeah,

49:07

thank you for the opportunity to talk about

49:09

this. So there are two things

49:11

I care about in the world, reinventing the

49:14

relationship people have with their wealth and the

49:16

other is inspiring a lot more entrepreneurship. I

49:18

think entrepreneurship is an incredible path for wealth

49:20

creation. It's what feeds our communities, what clothes

49:22

us. It's how we learn about business and

49:25

saving money and the

49:27

value of building things that people

49:29

find to be useful. And so

49:31

skyslimit.org is a charitable organization here in the UK,

49:33

as well as a 501c3 in the United

49:36

States. It's a global mentorship platform

49:38

that allows first time entrepreneurs, predominantly

49:41

from underrepresented or underserved backgrounds, to

49:43

gain access to mentors and advisors

49:45

from incredible companies like Accenture, Goldman

49:47

Sachs, CVC Capital, PNC Bank, and

49:50

many more. We provide

49:52

entrepreneurship education. We Provide a

49:54

matchmaking service to mentors and advisors, and

49:56

we have a funding system where we

49:58

issue grants to entrepreneurs that are. can

50:00

get there first capital. Whether that's to

50:02

buy a lawnmower or to get some

50:04

inventory or disrupt their first web sites,

50:06

anyone can sign up for free. We

50:08

just launched yesterday are I O S

50:10

apps for Sky's the Limit Been a

50:12

huge investments from the team am very

50:14

proud of that work and ah yeah

50:16

we're had the best year ever And

50:18

when he twenty three with such tens

50:20

of thousands of entrepreneurs I'm signing up

50:22

from around the world and dad the

50:24

need for this is X is extraordinary

50:26

and the the changes in the workforce

50:28

are. You know, happening at an unprecedented

50:30

rate? A I can also chains on the

50:33

employment landscape and does young people are going

50:35

to need increasingly turn to things like entrepreneurship

50:37

to make ends meet and so we're hopeful

50:39

to to play a small role and being

50:41

of anywhere entrepreneurs can practice entrepreneurship and actually

50:44

sort of What we try and do is

50:46

is Chris safe place for people to do

50:48

that. I'm never going to be amazing figure

50:50

skater but if I go in practice every

50:53

single day I can get better at doing

50:55

that and the ideas to build a place

50:57

where people can can practice entrepreneurship so. That's

50:59

what's guys on a dozen That's privileged. Work on that with

51:02

my team. Capitalism. Has

51:04

never been more important. Success should be

51:06

celebrated more widely. It's a problem we're

51:08

going to talk about in this country

51:11

versus America about was Uk and Europe

51:13

debates to the and not not just

51:15

not good at a people in the

51:18

back and say well that's that's the

51:20

great thing about my podcast and leaving.

51:22

The answer is I get to have

51:24

the final word sat outside guy dies

51:27

the Sebastian idea since January that we

51:29

need to put Sky's the limit on

51:31

money made podcast slashed land. Which

51:33

is a new initiative we've got going with

51:36

or encourage your lawlessness to have a look

51:38

bad and great resources. And Nick I've had

51:40

a look at what you do mare and

51:42

hats off to you. it's really impressive. Appreciate

51:44

that think you guys are I'd had we

51:46

do so. i love

51:48

red so it's always good to be

51:51

able to in this research read other

51:53

people a most of those significantly smaller

51:55

is gary clark as the see ios

51:57

for digital hero i'm convinced this technology

52:00

transform finance and more, but that does not

52:02

mean you'll make any money betting on the

52:04

existing set of token prices. And

52:06

as you talked about BlackRock, I wondered if BlackRock

52:09

had been able to do that in another era

52:11

with tulips where they wouldn't have had just as

52:13

much demand. So I am with Warren

52:17

Buffett, who of course, along with Charlie

52:19

Munger, had referred to cryptocurrencies as being

52:22

crazy gambling. But I

52:25

distinguished the power of

52:27

blockchain and its enabling

52:29

and protective components with

52:32

the investment or the

52:34

speculation in these cryptocurrencies.

52:36

Our listeners will make their own decisions

52:38

and I will make my own decisions.

52:41

But you clearly created a business founded

52:43

on great vision and

52:46

hard work and protocols

52:48

and ethics. I

52:50

happen to be happy with my gold, perhaps using

52:52

a different Warren Buffett analogy. You don't need to

52:54

swing at every pitch. So that is where I

52:56

stand. Nick, it's been great to have you back

52:58

here today. Nick. Well, nice

53:01

to have you. I think that's it.

53:03

You're welcome. Thank you very much. I've

53:05

really enjoyed it. And Nick, thank you

53:07

so much for your time and enlightening

53:09

us. Thank you, Will. And thank you,

53:11

Simon. All

53:20

content on the Money Maze podcast is

53:23

for your general information and use

53:25

only and is not intended to address

53:27

your particular requirements. In particular,

53:29

the content does not constitute

53:31

any form of advice, recommendation,

53:34

representation, endorphment or arrangement and

53:36

is not intended to be

53:38

relied upon by users in

53:40

making any specific investment or

53:42

other decisions. Guests and

53:44

presenters may have positions in any

53:46

of the investments discussed.