#893 How FTX Marketing Is Taking Over Culture w/ Avinash Dabir

Avinash Dabir is the Vice President of Business Development at FTX In this conversation, we discuss the massive FTX sponsorships with professional sports and other industries. Avinash gives us a behind the scenes look at some of these deals and provides insight into the other creative advertisement campaigns FTX has done to arbitrage the market. ======================= The Pomp Podcast is powered by BetOnline.ag, the world's largest sports betting, casino, poker and horse racing website that accepts cryptocurrency for wagering. BetOnline.ag gives you the ability to use Bitcoin and more than a dozen altcoins to make deposits and withdraw your winnings. There are no crypto transaction fees, and processing is instantaneous and secure. Visit https://promotions.betonline.ag/pomp and use PROMO CODE: POMP100 to receive a 100% matching bonus on any crypto deposit. BetOnline.ag is available in nearly every country around the world, making it the top global gaming destination for crypto users. ======================= Since 2018 Copper has been at the forefront of institutional digital asset development. From award winning custody solutions, to creating the first truly off-exchange settlement function, Copper pioneers technology, products, and services, in lock-step with a rapidly changing world. No other infrastructure provider covers as many assets, across as many exchanges, with the speed and security that Copper can offer. To learn how Copper helps the world’s largest institutional investors secure their digital assets, head over to copper.co Copper - the unfair advantage. ======================= Bullish is a powerful new digital asset exchange built for institutions that delivers the innovations of DeFi in a regulated environment. The Bullish Hybrid Order Book pairs the high-performance of a traditional Central Limit Order Book with automated market making. Powered by deep Bullish Liquidity Pools, backed by the multi-billion dollar Bullish Treasury. So, you can trade with certainty and at scale across variable market conditions. Learn more at Bullish.com or follow @Bullish on Twitter. Because the future belongs to the bullish. *Not investment advice. Digital assets and cryptocurrencies are high risk products. Consult your professional advisor before dealing in them. Bullish’s services are available in select locations only and not to U. S persons. Visit https://bullish.com/legal for important information and risk warnings =======================

Speaker names marked ? are inferred from speaking time and the show’s known hosts — they are not voice-verified.

• 0:02Anthony Pompliano?

  What's up everyone, this is Anthony Pompliano. Most of you know me as Pomp. You're listening to the Pomp Podcast, simply the best podcast out there. Now let's kick this thing off. Avi DeBir is the Vice President of Business Development at FTX. In this conversation, we talk about the various sponsorships that FTX has been doing across sports and many other industries. I did this interview along with my brothers Joe and John, and we had a great time talking with Avi. I hope that you enjoy it. Before we get into this episode, though, I want to quickly talk about our sponsors. Today's episode is brought to you by BetOnline.ag. BetOnline.ag is the top spot for all of your sports betting, casino, and poker needs. It's available on your computer, your tablet, or your mobile device. BetOnline accepts Bitcoin and more than a dozen altcoins to

• 0:46Anthony Pompliano?

  make deposits and withdraw your winnings. There are no crypto fees, processing only takes minutes, and transactions are 100% anonymous and secure. Head over to BetOnline.ag and sign up today to receive a 100% crypto bonus on your first deposit. Just use ARC promo code POMP100 to get started. Discover why everyone is saying BetOnline is the fastest and easiest way to wager with crypto for sports, casino games, horse racing, poker, and more. Sign up today at BetOnline.ag and double your deposit with our exclusive podcast promo code POMP100. Go check them out at BetOnline.ag. Today's episode is brought to you by Copper. Since 2018, Copper has been at the forefront

• 1:31Anthony Pompliano?

  of institutional digital asset development. From award-winning custody solutions to creating the first truly off-exchange settlement function, Copper pioneers technology, products, and services in lockstep with a rapidly changing world. No other infrastructure provider covers as many assets across as many exchanges with the speed and security that Copper can offer. To learn how Copper helps the world's largest institutional investors secure their digital assets, head over to Copper.co. Again, Copper, the unfair advantage. Check them out at Copper.co today. This episode is brought to you by Bullish. Bullish is a powerful new digital asset exchange built for institutions that Delivers the innovations of DeFi in a regulated environment.

• 2:13Anthony Pompliano?

  The bullish hybrid order book pairs the high performance of a traditional central limit order book with the automated market making powered by deep bullish liquidity pools backed by the multi billion dollar bullish treasury. So you can trade with certainty and at scale across variable market conditions. You can learn more at bullish.com or follow bullish on Twitter because the future belongs to the bullish. Now, this is not investment advice. Digital assets and cryptocurrencies are high risk products. Consult your professional advisor before dealing in them. Bullish's services are available in select locations only and not to US persons. Visit bullish.com/ legal for important information and risk warnings. Go check them out at bullish.com or follow at bullish on Twitter. All right, let's get in this episode. I hope you guys enjoy this one.

• 2:57Speaker 01

  Anthony Pompliano runs Pomp Investments. All views of him and the guests on his podcast are solely their opinions and do not reflect the opinions of Pomp Investments. You should not treat any opinion expressed by Pomp or his guests as a specific inducement to make a particular investment or follow a particular strategy, but only as an expression of his personal opinion. This podcast is for informational purposes only.

• 3:20Anthony Pompliano?

  We got a special treat today. Avi from FTX has joined us. Avi, how are you?

• 3:24Speaker 02

  Doing well, guys. Thanks for having me here. Nice to meet you. Anthony, Joe, John, right? I got that right?

• 3:29Anthony Pompliano?

  Yeah, that's pretty good.

• 3:32Anthony Pompliano?

  You're good to go. So what is your exact role at FTX?

• 3:35Speaker 02

  I'm Vice President of Business Development at FTX. So I handle a lot of our sports partnerships, but as well as doing some interesting things in real estate as well. But the end goal is really just how do we take this great platform we have at FTX and acquire more users and also provide more benefits to businesses, whoever that might be.

• 3:56Anthony Pompliano?

  All right. So the real estate part sounds interesting. But let's, let's, let's start with sports maybe first.

• 4:02Speaker 02

  Sure, sure.

• 4:02Anthony Pompliano?

  So in my mind, you guys have been like the leaders in this category, right? Everyone laughs now crypto is all over the sports industry, whether it's leagues, teams, individuals, whatever. But you guys really started this. It started with the Miami Heat Arena here, and you've done a bunch of other deals since. What is the thought process originally behind your involvement within sports specifically?

• 4:20Speaker 02

  Yeah, I mean, so much of what happens at FTX is just, you know, Sam creates like such an open and Brett are the president of our US business, just creates such an open environment for people to just throw out like crazy ideas, right? And I think you want that at any company, especially when it's young and it's growing. And, you know, the way it really started for us is we were on a all company all hands call and a bunch of people just throwing out ideas and someone threw out the idea of, oh, we should do like an arena. And, you know, I had previously worked at the NBA and so I was kind of like raised my hands like, okay, cool. Like, I can, I can look into this. And this was in January 2020. And then like, you know,

• 5:01Speaker 02

  I started looking into it, starting getting some more momentum just internally as well. People like, oh, okay, this is cool. Let's do this. Talking to a handful of teams in cities, right? Because the governments, local governments are involved as well. And we kind of identified Miami as like, oh, this is really interesting, you know, great market, super like multicultural, great team. You know, and this was also around the time where like crypto buzz was like growing here in Miami. And then, you know, honestly, three months later, things just kind of snowballed and we had this arena. Like, it happened so fast. Tons of credit to Miami Dade County and Mayor Kaba and her staff, like, to get

• 5:44Speaker 02

  comfortable with crypto. Like, it wasn't easy. No one had really done crypto deals. So.

• 5:48Speaker 03

  So let's stop there for a second. Like, how does this deal actually work? Miami, the Heat deal specifically, right? Because I think that the arena, I don't know if it had been no, like a vacant name sponsor for a couple of years, I believe, right? But like, how does this work? How do you approach them? How does it get negotiated? All of that type of stuff?

• 6:02Speaker 02

  Yeah, you know, you know, you know, your history. So, American Airlines, I think, was a vacant partner for the last two years, right? And

• 6:10Speaker 03

  What does that mean? Vacant partner?

• 6:11Speaker 02

  So their deal ended and for two years, they technically didn't have a naming rights partner, but they left the signage up, right? Because

• 6:18Speaker 03

  You needed a name.

• 6:19Speaker 02

  Case cost money to take it all down too, right?

• 6:21Speaker 03

  And they hadn't sold the name yet.

• 6:23Speaker 02

  They hadn't sold the name. So they didn't have a new partner. And I think this is public, but I think there's the county also. So there's some stipulation in their agreement with the Heat where they may owe some funds or some services in exchange if there's no naming rights partner, right? So, you know, they really wanted to get a new partner and we kind of came in at the right time. And you know, you kind of add on the fact that this was during COVID where, you know, a decent amount of, you know, live event businesses were were short on revenue. I think kind of opened up the door, right? And that sort of opened up the door where we could have the conversation with with Mayor Kava in Miami-Dade County as well as the Heat.

• 7:06Speaker 02

  And then they spent a lot of time getting comfortable with our business. You know, it required a lot of just financial due diligence, a lot of education. And they took the time to learn. Honestly, that's why I give them a ton of credit for that. And to get approval from a local government, plus the Heat and the NBA, who had their own diligence teams looking into this, really sort of validated not only just FTX, but the cryptocurrency industry in general. And things kind of just snowballed from there, right?

• 7:37Speaker 03

  And on the due diligence piece, I think I remember seeing a quote from Sam that was like, you know, they questioned if crypto was going to be around in years and if he was going to be able to pay for these things. And he was like, not to sound completely absurd, but we could pay for it today if we needed to. Is that part of the process? You're like, just look how much money we have on our balance sheet, like it's not a problem?

• 7:54Speaker 02

  I mean, I mean, they they have our financials, right? And we did disclose that and share that confidentially. You know, and there are ways to structure these deals in a way where, you know, you can front load some of the funds, right, to to provide some more comfort.

• 8:09Speaker 02

  You know, and the deal is public, right? So so you it's anyone can really go and look up what the what the deal terms are with the with the county.

• 8:18Speaker 03

  And why do you think that they sat for two years without a sponsor?

• 8:22Speaker 02

  That's a good question. You know, sort of all that predates really my involvement and really, I don't even know if FTX was really in a position where we could acquire an arena at that point. But I think it could be a multitude of reasons. You know, American Airlines airline businesses took, probably took a little bit of a hit during, during COVID. That could be one reason. I'm just purely speculating here. I have no.

• 8:47Anthony Pompliano?

  What is the, like, once you go ahead and you get the naming rights, what else comes with it? Cause I see that there's usually people FTX related court side. I see, I went to the game on Monday night and all of a sudden they have like 16 kids basically like run out, they're doing the half court shot.

• 9:03Speaker 02

  Crypto chaos.

• 9:04Anthony Pompliano?

  Yeah, kid hits it, goes wild. I'm like, what just happened? And all of a sudden it pops up like $5,000 in crypto. Oh damn, that kid about to go party his face off.

• 9:12Speaker 02

  Well, we went to the season opener too. And I think you guys gave, it was like $500 to every person in a specific section if they downloaded the app, right? So I'm assuming there's a bunch of.

• 9:19Anthony Pompliano?

  Yeah. So how does this work? Or like, what are some of the things you guys are doing inside of the stadium other than just the naming rights?

• 9:24Speaker 02

  Yeah. Great question. So, so there's really, there's really two deals. Like there's one with the county, which is the naming rights. And then there's a, a marketing partnership with the heat who help activate the arena.

• 9:34Anthony Pompliano?

  Got it. So the heat are responsible for what happens in game?

• 9:38Speaker 02

  Related to the Miami heat? Yes. Correct. So yeah, I mean, part of it is hospitality, right? Where you entertain guests, you know, we could do giveaways and whatnot for win a ticket to a heat game, things of that nature. Every game, we have a lucky seat and lucky row where we give away cryptocurrency for downloading the app to the people in those spaces. And now we've recently added crypto chaos, which is like, I don't know if you guys remember that game like knockout? It's kind of knockout.

• 10:05Anthony Pompliano?

  Yeah, it's fair play.

• 10:06Speaker 02

  Yeah. Like everyone's just heaving half court shots.

• 10:08Anthony Pompliano?

  It was chaos.

• 10:13Speaker 02

  It's so, it's so fun. I mean, it's one of the most like, I love that part of the game, right? Cause the whole arena is cheering for these people to bank, to make this shot. So we've added that element to it. You know, we also have a partnership where we're able to sort of leverage heat assets and whether that be like in social media promotions. We did an NFT drop recently with the Miami Heat around the mashup jersey. So really excited about that. There's a space called the FTX Token Lounge, which we've actually created and turned it into an NFT gallery. It's a way for people to enter into the arena. We just launched that like a week ago. Would love to have you guys come by at some point. You know, we got LED screens, you know, we got some printouts on the, on the hallway

• 10:56Speaker 02

  entering in, but really just trying to meet the fans where they're kind of already at through, you know, cryptocurrency, NFTs and blockchain technology, rather than try and like force it on them.

• 11:10Anthony Pompliano?

  How do you measure success? Like, all right, so you guys go spend this money. It's obviously cool. People see it, you know, on the screens, whatever. Do you guys measure like, hey, how much do we get from downloads or volume? Or is it just like, we think it works and let's figure it out? Like what, what do you do?

• 11:26Speaker 02

  Yeah, I think there's, there's multiple pieces to like how you measure success here. You know, one, like the obvious one is straight up, you know, conversion, right? How many people in Florida download the app or around the Miami area, download the app, register, deposit, trade, you know, there's that standard sort of funnel that's very easy to track. But there's this intangible element that's a little bit harder to quantify and right? And that's just generally like, you know, when, when I go have a conversation with, with a real estate developer and they're like, that conversation is easier because they've seen FTX at the arena.

• 12:02Anthony Pompliano?

  It's legitimacy.

• 12:03Speaker 02

  Yeah, it's trust. It's, it's, you know, legitimacy. You know, same thing when it comes to any of our, our team's business development endeavors, right? If you're a trader that's, you know, at an institution and like, oh, cool. Like I've already heard of FTX because of FTX Arena, or I saw your Superbowl spot with, with Tom, or sorry, Larry Day. David or the MLB umpire patch like it's just building trust and value through brand association, but we have to deliver on that trust and value like that opens up the door, but you know, we need to help them step through that door and then make sure they have a good time when they're in the room.

• 12:41Speaker 03

  I'm assuming that's more off of field than it is actual numbers, right? That's probably pretty difficult to quantify.

• 12:45Speaker 02

  Totally. It's and you know, we see it because you know, we hear people be like, oh, I love your Super Bowl commercial or you know, I had a great time at the Heat game, you know, last night, or I can't help but see the FTX on the MLB patch like every time, every pitch.

• 13:03Anthony Pompliano?

  How did the Larry David commercial come together? Like, obviously, I have a theory, but I want to hear kind of how you guys came up with that and how that came together.

• 13:11Speaker 02

  Yeah, I mean, so there's a really good article written. I can't remember the publication, it might be the Times, but I don't.

• 13:18Anthony Pompliano?

  It's probably the best business show.

• 13:20Speaker 02

  That's right. The best business show, I think, I think they had the best theory on it.

• 13:26Speaker 02

  But you know, we, we have some really good agency partners that are super creative. And you know, we also have some great folks internally on the marketing side. They're just great at like, you know, explaining what FTX wants and what FTX really wants is like, we're trying to just be some like playful, inviting and just like, hey, like, we're here when you're ready. Like, that is, that's, that is our, very much our approach to sort of doing our marketing and advertising. And you know, Nathaniel on our marketing team is a super key component of our brand messaging and another colleague of mine, Sina.

• 14:09Speaker 03

  Fantastic.

• 14:10Speaker 02

  Yeah, both, both great guys, super smart and just really get our brand and you know, they really spearheaded that and pulling the right people and teams together, you know, and then when we, when we saw the script, we were like, this script is awesome. You know, and then, then we're like, we have to get Larry David, right? And then, you know, the teams went to work to try and, I don't know if that commercial works if it's not Larry David, right?

• 14:33Speaker 03

  Yeah.

• 14:34Speaker 02

  And just small sort of teaser, Sam's dad is, is also in that commercial.

• 14:39Speaker 03

  Really?

• 14:39Speaker 02

  Yeah, yeah, it's a little, little.

• 14:41Speaker 03

  That's amazing. I didn't know that.

• 14:42Anthony Pompliano?

  Yeah. Well, Sam's dad is very involved with, I think it's a foundation. There's a pretty big philanthropic effort that's going on.

• 14:50Speaker 02

  100%. We recently had, just had a FTX Foundation Hackathon at the FTX Arena, where we gave away, well, we awarded a million dollars in prizing for high school students that were building businesses in sort of like the tech space. So we're really excited about that. And, you know, his, Joe Bankman leads a lot of that for us, as well as we have a lot of other initiatives around climate and that the foundation is super focused on, on just the whole idea of effective altruism and making the world a better place.

• 15:24Anthony Pompliano?

  What's going on with F1, Mercedes? You guys I know sponsor the team.

• 15:27Speaker 02

  Oh, man. I love F1, right? Like, you know, Drive to Survive has gotten so many of us Americans, like, pulled into the sport. And it really is a team sport, all the way from like engineering these cars to executing on race day. So we are a Mercedes Formula One partner. They've been awesome. You know, this, this year has been pretty interesting so far. Last year was, you know, I'm biased, but I didn't agree with the results.

• 15:55Anthony Pompliano?

  Lewis Hamilton didn't either.

• 15:58Speaker 02

  But the guy's a true professional, man. Like, the fact that he's back and in that seat and ready to go again is super impressive. But we're planning to have a pretty big event here in Miami for the Miami Grand Prix. That's May 6th through 8th. We'll be announcing that pretty shortly, but expecting a lot of people to come through, doing a lot of activations around just other Mercedes partners, our partners involved, like, just trying to bring together a whole community of people building cool things together to celebrate that all. And it's going to be big. I wish I could share more details.

• 16:34Anthony Pompliano?

  How much money have you guys spent on marketing?

• 16:37Speaker 02

  That's a good question.

• 16:38Anthony Pompliano?

  Like, just ballpark?

• 16:41Anthony Pompliano?

  Are we talking 500 million, a billion?

• 16:43Speaker 02

  Well, well, some of these deals like,

• 16:45Speaker 03

  Let's do committed, right? Because they're multi-year deals, right?

• 16:48Speaker 02

  Right, right. I'd say, I'd say over 500.

• 16:51Anthony Pompliano?

  Yeah. Over 500 million. Have you crossed over a billion, you think?

• 16:54Speaker 02

  I don't know. I don't think so.

• 16:57Anthony Pompliano?

  Yeah. Because what the, the arena deal is how much?

• 17:01Speaker 02

  In total, like if you consider the heat and the, the arena portion of it, like close to 200.

• 17:09Anthony Pompliano?

  Yeah, so it's 200 of at least 500.

• 17:11Speaker 02

  And that's a 19-year deal, you know?

• 17:13Anthony Pompliano?

  Yeah. Yeah. Part of this is when you do the committed, you could look at this, it could be over 20 years, literally.

• 17:19Speaker 02

  Right.

• 17:20Anthony Pompliano?

  So, but so $500 million is a huge commitment. What was the Major League Baseball? Is the Umps a one-off? Or is it part of a bigger deal?

• 17:30Speaker 02

  It's part of a bigger deal. So we have a lot of other components that, you know, the, the patch is so visible, right? Which we love. But there's so many other components to it. You know, last season, we had this campaign called Moon Blast. So every time someone hit a home run over a certain, I think it was 400 or 425 feet, then it was considered a moon blast. And so that was branded on social media, FTX Moon Blast. Like, so there's that entire element of it. You know, we have some additional.

• 18:00Anthony Pompliano?

  That's a very FTX type thing to do.

• 18:02Speaker 03

  And you had the guy at the playoff game.

• 18:03Speaker 02

  Yeah, we had the Moon, the Moon Man.

• 18:05Speaker 03

  They literally had someone show up with like a costume at the games and he was the Moon Man.

• 18:09Speaker 02

  We planted him behind the umpire in the stands with this giant head.

• 18:14Speaker 03

  You could see him right in the screen every game. It was amazing.

• 18:17Anthony Pompliano?

  There's Moon Boys on Twitter and then there's Moon Blast in baseball.

• 18:21Speaker 03

  So how did the individual deals work, right? Because you've done a bunch of those also with Tom, someone in the chat asked if you personally know Tom Brady?

• 18:29Speaker 02

  I personally do not. I've met him, a great guy, like excellent smile.

• 18:36Anthony Pompliano?

  Great hair, great face.

• 18:38Speaker 02

  Some of these people you meet and they just have this like gravitas to them, right? And he is that. He's a bona fide superstar. You know, that really came through. So, you know, Cena's a big, he works on a lot of our, our partnerships with, with the athletes. And he's, he's done a great job with really not just, you know, working with Tom, but Gisele too is also a partner of ours. And so we're looking to do more things with her.

• 19:05Anthony Pompliano?

  If you're going to work with the family, you better work with the richer of the two.

• 19:09Speaker 02

  Totally. And like, you know, you keep them both involved together, right? And I think that makes the partnership stronger. And, you know, again, credit to them. They're open about learning. Like, they will say, hey, I'm comfortable with this. I'm not comfortable with this. Help me learn about this. And our team who handles those relationships have done a great job.

• 19:28Speaker 03

  Is Brady a Bitcoiner?

• 19:30Speaker 02

  He is. Yeah. I mean, you've seen like those videos he's thrown. Like, there's, there's one video that he made on his own. I mean, his teammate, where he throws a football like into the sky. And he's got like laser eyes on it and the Bitcoin like comes down. So he's.

• 19:45Speaker 03

  But it's amazing. You guys had nothing to do with that video.

• 19:48Speaker 02

  Because I think that that's what, those are the partnerships we love where like you get them excited about crypto. And then they kind of authentically take it in the direction that they want to take it. Has been the most successful stuff that we've done.

• 20:02Speaker 03

  How do you guys think about, like you added, I believe, equity part of Tom Brady's deal? Like, how important is that to align incentives with these individual athletes for these marketing deals?

• 20:11Speaker 02

  Yeah. Great question. Like, do these guys have money, right? Like, like, you gotta kind of figure out like what gets them excited about partnering with you. And, and I think that there's, you know, he doesn't need another X millions of dollars more. But if he's got an investment in something, you know, these guys, and they're competitors, right? So like, like in a way, business is competition, right? And he's kind of aligning himself with FTX, which we love, right? And he thinks and backs us that we're strong competitors. So I think that validates FTX, but also gives him some access to be competitive in this world that he wants to learn more about and compete in.

• 20:52Anthony Pompliano?

  What about this Stephen Curry? I saw that there's a brand new, I guess, commercial or video that you guys put out and he's like chiseling the ice. And I think Shaq does the voiceover and he's like, tell Shaq stop playing, right? But like, when you guys do that type of stuff, how much of that is like, they have ideas for the creative? Versus you guys are like, okay, we're going to do, you know, A, B, C, here's the scenes. You know, you just gotta do your kind of acting role.

• 21:15Speaker 02

  Yeah. I mean, they're generally so busy. So it's when it's hard to get their time. So when you have it, like, you want to have a plan as to what you want to do. So we have a plan, right? We have a script. We're like, hey, here's the theme. You know, we keep them, Steph and his team involved throughout the entire process because they got to be comfortable doing it. If it's not authentic to your brand, like they're not going to do it. And this, I think this last spot, the not expert spot is really authentic to him because like he's interested in crypto, but doesn't know a ton about it, but wants to, right? And that makes it approachable. And I think that aligns with what FTX is sort of ethos is it's like, hey, like we're here when you're ready.

• 22:00Speaker 02

  Or like come to us to like learn. And you know, you're not alone in this process, right? Like, you know, Steph, like arguably, you know, the best basketball player on the planet. You know, is successful at so many things, but here's something that he is not the best at. But he is willing to admit that and say he wants to learn and come with us on that journey is really.

• 22:20Anthony Pompliano?

  David Schwab did that deal?

• 22:23Speaker 03

  I'm not sure. He works at Octagon.

• 22:24Anthony Pompliano?

  Yeah, yeah, he did.

• 22:26Speaker 03

  Yeah.

• 22:26Anthony Pompliano?

  All right. Yeah. Look, he'd be happy to give him a little shout out.

• 22:28Speaker 03

  There we go.

• 22:31Anthony Pompliano?

  What else?

• 22:31Speaker 03

  I was just gonna ask about the real estate stuff. What do you do on the real estate side?

• 22:34Speaker 02

  Oh, yeah. This is my, this is my new sort of like excitement and passion right now.

• 22:38Anthony Pompliano?

  We're in.

• 22:41Anthony Pompliano?

  If you need partners, we're in.

• 22:43Speaker 02

  Let's talk, fellas. So we are, so we're helping a lot of condo developments, specifically here in Miami, accept cryptocurrency payments for purchases. The first couple that we did is with 11 residences, which is a PMG property. And then also with the Waldorf Astoria. I'm actually going to a real estate event tonight with Diesel Winwood condominiums in Winwood. So they're now a partner. We've done a partnership with Paramount as well. And I got off the call before here with another big real estate firm.

• 23:22Speaker 02

  There's like people just like, the interesting thing about right now, it's like, hey, let's accept payments for real estate. And what that really does is what you guys know, if you transact in crypto, you're in control. You could do it anytime. You don't have to wait for a wire transfer cutoff. You're in control and it's just infinitely more seamless. And then plus, a lot of people in crypto have made money. So if you give them a way to sort of diversify their assets into an asset class like real estate, there's value there. And then sort of the third point is like, a lot of international buyers really prefer it. It's just easier to move the money.

• 23:58Anthony Pompliano?

  Do you wear a suit and tie when you go to these events? Or you show up in the FTX t-shirt?

• 24:02Speaker 02

  I'm a t-shirt guy. I did bring a blazer. I'm not sure if I'm gonna wear, to be honest, like I brought a blazer to work. I'm not sure if I'm gonna wear it or not, but I just brought it just in case.

• 24:11Anthony Pompliano?

  I feel like that's an insurance policy. Like, that may be one of the industries, that and like lawyers.

• 24:15Speaker 02

  Yeah.

• 24:16Anthony Pompliano?

  Those two together.

• 24:16Speaker 02

  So I'm feeling it out. Like, I'm definitely wearing sneakers.

• 24:21Speaker 02

  Like, forget the dress shoes.

• 24:24Speaker 04

  What's the process like when a company, a traditional like mortgage company or whatever for loans, is like, hey, we want to start accepting payments in crypto? Like, do you guys just go in and help them set it all up? Like, what's the process like?

• 24:35Speaker 02

  Yeah, totally. It's actually fairly easy. Like, we have an agreement that, you know, we've sort of templatized at this point. We're just essentially accepting funds, crypto, and then converting it in real time to dollars and then putting those dollars wherever it needs to go, whether that's to the seller or to the title company, right? Like, they don't really want to hold crypto. So it's really, the benefit is more so for the buyer. So ease of transaction for the buyer.

• 25:03Anthony Pompliano?

  How many people actually want to buy using crypto versus the buildings or the building managers want to say they accept it, but they don't actually have any anticipation of people actually buying? Like, it's like, I'd seem cool because I accept it, but no one's gonna do it because of the tax ramifications, etc.

• 25:20Speaker 02

  Well, you have to pay taxes regardless, right? So I don't think that's really a deterrent.

• 25:26Anthony Pompliano?

  Well, no, but if I buy the building, if I, let's say I buy a condo and I buy it in cash, I just pay the sales tax or whatever. But if I buy it in crypto, I have to pay the capital gains on top of the sales tax. Like, that's why I always wonder. I've seen a couple of announcements in Miami, which I'm assuming you guys were involved in, where people bought, you know, some are $5 million, some are $20 million type condo purchases in crypto.

• 25:48Speaker 02

  Yep.

• 25:49Anthony Pompliano?

  I'm like, man, are they really paying capital gains tax on doing it? But I guess like, if you have 100% of your assets in crypto, like you have no other choice.

• 25:57Speaker 02

  That's what I'm saying. Like, a lot of, like, most of them, you know, I think some people are, some are international buyers, so it's just easier to transfer. Some are, some people won't even just be YOLO buying condos, right? Because they can.

• 26:11Speaker 02

  You know, which is a piece of it. You know, I think today it just starts with with cryptocurrency payments. But to your point, right? Like, you know, we'd love to get to a point where, okay, you know, if I have a million dollars in Bitcoin, like, can I take out a mortgage against that? Right? So then I don't have to sell my Bitcoin? Or can I borrow against it in some particular way and, you know, tie that closer to real estate? I think we're gonna get there. It's just a matter of when, right? The products just aren't sophisticated. Like, technically, I think we can get there, like, tomorrow. But like, but like, regulatory wise, and just like, you know, smoothing all that stuff over, I think that's, that's really sort of where the hurdle is. And that's a big thing that we're, we're doing at FTX,

• 26:53Speaker 02

  right? Like, Sam and Brett spent a ton of time in DC, working with the regulators, like, educating them, like, we make sure we have all of our licenses. So it's just super important for us to, to, to be up to speed and do things the right way. So when we want to offer these cool, fun products that people are kind of used to already, but now put a crypto spin on it, I think is gonna be really interesting. How have those conversations with DC and everything changed over the last year? You know, I'm not personally involved in them, but like, just from like, the outside, I think they've gone really, really well. And so much of that is just because like, you guys know, right? Like, one, okay, you hear about Bitcoin, or you hear about any

• 27:36Speaker 02

  cryptocurrency, but then you like, put a little skin in the game, whether it's like 100 bucks, a thousand bucks, or whatever. Then you start like, paying attention to it more, and you learn more, and you see the use cases. And I think it's just the time and the effort that's been spent has really moved things forward. And I only see like, it's just gonna trend upward.

• 27:54Speaker 03

  Well, it sounds too like when you guys first started doing these partnerships, take the Miami Heat, for example, they were questioning, maybe is not the right word, but interested to see if this industry was gonna be here in a decade, right? And asking the right questions. And now it's people are coming to you guys to do partnerships, I'm sure, right?

• 28:08Speaker 02

  Yeah, 100%. Like, you know, our inboxes are flooded. Like, you know, people know, you know, we've spent a little bit of money on some sponsorships. So, you know, we see a lot of interesting things.

• 28:20Anthony Pompliano?

  What's the craziest thing someone's asked you guys to do?

• 28:22Speaker 02

  I saw like, like a Canadian like curling team was like super just like wacky and just like out there. One of my favorite ones that we've done is we've, we've, we wrote the fortunes for fortune cookies. So if you, and I forget how many, but they're all over the US. So if you go like, you know, you get a fortune cookie from one of these restaurants, it'll say FTX on the back and Alec, the guy who runs a lot.

• 28:51Anthony Pompliano?

  Runs our fortune cookie business.

• 28:54Speaker 03

  How much does a fortune cookie cost?

• 28:56Speaker 02

  He's our, he's our, runs our Twitter handles. He wrote all the fortune, like he wrote most of the fortunes.

• 29:00Anthony Pompliano?

  No way.

• 29:02Speaker 02

  So like you.

• 29:02Anthony Pompliano?

  Shot on Alec.

• 29:05Anthony Pompliano?

  That's amazing.

• 29:05Speaker 02

  And they're really, they're really witty. He did, he did a great job.

• 29:08Anthony Pompliano?

  So like, take that for example, right? Cause I think a lot of people like, what do you mean? Whatever. Is it just a branding exercise? Or like, is there like a QR code that people can scan and?

• 29:15Speaker 02

  Yeah, it's just a branding exercise. You know, you, you have this, you know, you ordered like an Asian meal and you know, you're done with the meal. You, you crack open the fortune cookie and you know, you see an FTX logo and it's like some witty, just like fortune around. It's all crypto related fortunes.

• 29:32Anthony Pompliano?

  Got it, got it.

• 29:33Speaker 02

  Like blockchain and crypto related fortunes.

• 29:35Anthony Pompliano?

  And so when you do that, I'm assuming that there's some kind of analysis on like, hey, we're arbing the potential eyeballs that are going to look at this versus like what it costs. And I always wonder if you were to unleash, you know, like intelligent quantitative people on marketing, which I'll put FTX as, you know, a leader here. It seems like that's really what you guys are doing, right? You're trying to figure out like, what are all the mispriced marketing opportunities in the market? And then you go and you just attack those and you're not scared to kind of do it with conviction.

• 30:06Speaker 02

  For sure. That, that's like at a high level, that is what it is. Like what's sort of like mispriced? I mean, maybe things, I think sports partnerships now are less mispriced for crypto. Like, cause like everything's been bid up, but when we got into it, I think it was mispriced.

• 30:22Speaker 02

  Not mispriced, that's like a, it was just like, there was an opportunity, like there was value there.

• 30:26Anthony Pompliano?

  Yeah.

• 30:27Speaker 02

  I just got a text from someone. They said, hey, man, I'm watching the show and I can say that I've had a few of those FTX fortune cookies from our favorite Chinese place in Chicago. Exactly, right? And people tweet them out. So there's like this just natural like good vibe feeling that comes with that, right? And some of that's not quantifiable, right? But someone cracks that open, sees FTX, feels good about it. Like, maybe they think differently about.

• 30:53Anthony Pompliano?

  If I got that, you know what I would think? I'd be like, damn, these guys are everywhere. They're literally infiltrating the fortune cookie industry. I saw Sam at one point was like, I think he was joking, but he was like, ah, maybe at some point we should like start doing things because like the rest of the industry will do it as well and like throw them off our scent. Yeah. He was like, I'm gonna lose money on purpose, I think is what he said.

• 31:12Speaker 04

  There's one of the fortune cookies up right now. It says, in retrospect, it was inevitable.

• 31:17Anthony Pompliano?

  When you guys think about, like, have you guys ever actually considered like trying to fake out everyone else and like do something that would, you guys put a little bit of money, lose it on purpose and then let everyone else go spend all their money?

• 31:28Speaker 02

  I mean, there's definitely some, some gamesmanship.

• 31:33Speaker 02

  There's some gamesmanship that goes along with, with, you know, anytime there's a counterparty involved, right? So.

• 31:39Anthony Pompliano?

  So the fortune cookies are the money losing one?

• 31:41Speaker 02

  No, I mean, it's, it's, it's hard to like, I wouldn't, honestly, I think that's, that one's been like, you know.

• 31:47Anthony Pompliano?

  I actually think that was really smart. Yeah.

• 31:50Anthony Pompliano?

  So like, what, what would be, I want to like just sit here and brainstorm for a second. What would be something that you guys could do that would throw everyone else off? Like, I feel like the sports stuff.

• 31:58Speaker 02

  Well, we can't reveal it on air.

• 32:00Anthony Pompliano?

  Trust me, you could definitely say a lot of stuff people will still follow. They're trying to trick us into thinking that it wouldn't work, but it really would work.

• 32:09Anthony Pompliano?

  But it feels like, like I saw in Miami, right? There was just Ultra. There was a whole bunch of stuff. And one day I was walking and I just saw like 17 planes all pulling like the banners behind them. And I was like, what are the odds that I can one, even see any of those, but also two, like I, I understand what it means. I remember it and I go and it converts. And it's like, it's probably not that much. There's also like the screen that floats in the water.

• 32:34Speaker 02

  I see those all the time from.

• 32:35Anthony Pompliano?

  Yeah. And it's like, I've seen it over and over and over again. I probably could remember maybe two of the ads I've seen. But then I went and I looked, I'm like, how much does this cost? It's like, nothing.

• 32:44Speaker 02

  Yeah.

• 32:45Anthony Pompliano?

  Right? It's so inexpensive that I feel like some teams are just like, we might as well do it. And it's just a pure branding exercise, has nothing to do with conversion.

• 32:53Speaker 02

  Yeah.

• 32:53Anthony Pompliano?

  But the cost to the impression number is so skewed that you're just like, screw it, whatever. And for those people, they're making money and so they keep the cost low without, you know, really worrying about trying to price it at the high price point.

• 33:03Speaker 02

  Totally. And it's, that's an awareness play, right? Like, we're just trying to get people aware of FTX. So then, okay, they see, you know, that boat go by and it's a FTX logo or some quick hit about it. They see the plane go by, oh, FTX. But then when they get to FTX Arena and there's an opportunity to, I don't know, checkout with FTX Pay or something of that nature, think, oh, cool. Like, I've seen that brand twice already. Here's for the third time, and this is kind of what they do. Let me now convert, right?

• 33:32Anthony Pompliano?

  So you want to know what I think you guys should do?

• 33:34Speaker 02

  Yeah.

• 33:34Anthony Pompliano?

  I think you guys should open a bar. If you open a bar in Miami, because there's a ton of young people who've started to move here.

• 33:40Speaker 02

  Yep.

• 33:40Anthony Pompliano?

  Right? There's a lot of crypto folks who have moved here, et cetera. But if you make it a fun bar, it then infiltrates into the conversations. And what ends up happening is, it's kind of like a club or some of this other stuff, right? It becomes the center of people's social life.

• 33:56Speaker 02

  Right.

• 33:57Anthony Pompliano?

  And once you do that, like, you win.

• 33:59Speaker 02

  Well, you could probably make money doing it, too.

• 34:03Speaker 02

  I mean, it was going out in the grand scheme of things, but it's like, I spent $500 million.

• 34:07Anthony Pompliano?

  Even if you did things like, you know, hey, if, uh, uh, certain times there's like FTX, you know, specific events. But if it literally was just like the FTX bar and it was just fun. It was like genuinely fun to go to and people would go there regardless of what the name was.

• 34:20Speaker 02

  Right.

• 34:20Anthony Pompliano?

  You just infiltrate into the social life and like a bunch of 25-year-old kids, like, where are we going to go tonight? Like, oh, every Friday we go to FTX Bar.

• 34:27Speaker 02

  Yeah.

• 34:27Anthony Pompliano?

  You just immediately become part of the conversation. And it feels like those are the types of things where like the arena, when people, they're not thinking, hey, I'm marketing FTX, but like, hey, I'm going to FTX Arena.

• 34:36Speaker 02

  Correct.

• 34:37Anthony Pompliano?

  Going to the game. There's other things that you could do that are like that. And I don't know what the legal risks are.

• 34:42Speaker 02

  Yeah. Well, you guys want to open that bar up with us?

• 34:45Anthony Pompliano?

  Sure.

• 34:45Speaker 02

  Like, let's do it.

• 34:46Anthony Pompliano?

  Sure. I'm being dead serious.

• 34:48Speaker 02

  No, I'm not saying.

• 34:49Anthony Pompliano?

  I've been complaining, too.

• 34:51Speaker 02

  Yeah, we'll find someone to operate it.

• 34:53Speaker 04

  I've been complaining about the bars in Miami, too.

• 34:55Anthony Pompliano?

  Perfect. We have, uh, we have street research.

• 35:00Speaker 04

  Yeah, I'll stick to R and D.

• 35:02Anthony Pompliano?

  I am out.

• 35:02Speaker 02

  We're not, we're not, we're not in any.

• 35:04Anthony Pompliano?

  You're running. Johnson General.

• 35:06Speaker 04

  You guys aren't even making money.

• 35:08Speaker 02

  That's the problem.

• 35:10Speaker 03

  I think we may not make money.

• 35:11Anthony Pompliano?

  I know you. You and all your friends will be there all the time.

• 35:13Speaker 03

  Nah.

• 35:14Anthony Pompliano?

  And we won't make any money.

• 35:14Speaker 04

  My friends will be paying covers to go there.

• 35:18Speaker 04

  And they'll be downloading the FTX app.

• 35:20Speaker 02

  Love it. I love it.

• 35:21Speaker 03

  Have you guys sponsored college athletes?

• 35:24Speaker 02

  We have, yeah. So we did, um, we've done a couple of teams and a couple of players. I think we've done, um, the UCLA women's basketball team, um, a softball team in Florida, the Kentucky men's basketball team. So we experimented in the NIL space. Like, I think it's interesting and there's definitely value in there, especially because so many of these athletes want to, you know, build their brand and like, they also learn about it and they're also really good at it, right? They're natively just good at social media. But there are some challenges and those challenges are just like, you know, they're still, they're still college students, right? Their, their main focus is, you know, going to, well, playing basket, like playing sports.

• 36:10Speaker 04

  Let's just call it a space.

• 36:12Anthony Pompliano?

  They gotta play sports and they wanna party. That's what they're trying to do.

• 36:15Speaker 02

  Yeah, like it's still hard. Like I remember when I was like, you know, 19, 20, it's hard, hard to get people to do things. But some of them are great and totally get it. I think there needs to be a little bit more structure in that space and it's gonna come. And these, there's some platforms out there that have been really helpful in helping sort of put the plan out there. But I think there's a lot of value there once that gets sorted out and figured out.

• 36:36Anthony Pompliano?

  Yeah. If you really think about it, if you're like an enterprising, you know, 18 to 22 year old and you're good at your sport, you could make an absolute bag right now. Cause there's so much capital that everyone, it feels like everyone's like, that market's going to be big and I need to get there early.

• 36:50Speaker 02

  Yep.

• 36:51Anthony Pompliano?

  And they don't know really kind of what the cost should be. They don't know how effective it is. Like there's a lot of kind of fragmentation. And so if you actually have a big following, if you're well known and you understand business, like you probably.

• 37:05Speaker 03

  Most people don't have agents either, right? Which is one piece of it.

• 37:08Speaker 02

  Yeah, but they have like somebody looking after their like.

• 37:11Anthony Pompliano?

  They got their brother or their mom.

• 37:13Speaker 03

  But the deal is, my point is they're much less structured, right? They're not, they're not nearly as.

• 37:16Anthony Pompliano?

  Is it worse to call up a, a college athlete and him be like, okay, I've got an agent that works at, you know, CAA or whatever? Or to be like, yeah, my mom handles my deals. Which one, which, which one are you like, damn?

• 37:29Speaker 03

  I, I feel like I'd rather deal with the agent.

• 37:33Speaker 03

  Right? Yeah. Even if I gotta pay extra, it's like, let's just deal with the agent.

• 37:37Anthony Pompliano?

  Imagine if our mom was like our agent and she'd be like, my boys are worth so much more. Like every mom would be that.

• 37:44Speaker 03

  Joe needed to post this yesterday. Why didn't he post? He'll post it when he wants.

• 37:50Speaker 03

  I was wondering what would happen.

• 37:52Speaker 02

  That's great.

• 37:52Anthony Pompliano?

  Yeah, it's like, I don't know. It just feels like when there is fragmentation, sometimes actually the fragmentation is bad. Right? Because actually that you want the kind of, we talk all the time about the Miami apartment scene. Is completely different than New York. Like in New York, the landlords are on it. They know exactly what the deal is. There's laws, there's regulations. You can't raise rent too much, like all this stuff. In Miami, you know, there are multiple friends we know where they're like, we're raising rents 30%. And you're like, you can't do that. It's like, we can do whatever we want. And you're like, all right, I want to go back to the structure.

• 38:22Speaker 02

  It's free, it's a free for all.

• 38:24Speaker 03

  Yeah, they show you comps. You're like, that's from two towns over.

• 38:29Speaker 03

  That has nothing to do with my apartment.

• 38:31Anthony Pompliano?

  The, the one that I keep seeing on Instagram, there's an apartment in one of the buildings on, I guess, what is it? It's Brickell Avenue and it's like a $50 million apartment. And all these like real estate Instagram accounts went and took a tour. There's a video that they all keep using. And it's got an indoor pool. It's got all this stuff and everything. And I always just think of like the landlord sitting there being like, well, if they're selling $50 million apartments down the street, then my thing is worth, you know, at least a million. That's not how this works. They have an indoor pool. You have a pool on the roof that sometimes is open.

• 39:03Speaker 02

  A hundred percent. It's, it's a little wacky out there for sure in the real estate market. And, you know, I think doing stuff with crypto and maybe bringing a little bit more transparency through that can be really beneficial.

• 39:15Speaker 03

  How long have you lived in Miami?

• 39:17Speaker 02

  Eight months.

• 39:18Speaker 03

  Eight months. Okay, cool. Where did you come from?

• 39:20Speaker 02

  So I'm kind of all around, from upstate New York, school in Boston, then San Francisco, Los Angeles, and then now here.

• 39:27Speaker 03

  Oh, a smart move.

• 39:29Speaker 02

  Yeah.

• 39:30Anthony Pompliano?

  You like it? Are you staying?

• 39:31Speaker 02

  Yeah, we love, we love it in Miami. We just bought a house, so.

• 39:34Anthony Pompliano?

  Yeah, smart move.

• 39:35Speaker 02

  It's, it's, it's a good place. Things are, things are, things are happening here.

• 39:39Speaker 03

  We went to LA for the Super Bowl and we were trying to figure out where the 52% of your income was going.

• 39:46Speaker 03

  We thought they'd be flying cars.

• 39:48Anthony Pompliano?

  The weather's great, don't get me wrong, but for sure.

• 39:51Speaker 02

  It's a nice place to visit now.

• 39:53Anthony Pompliano?

  Yeah. The, the, the, the part that cracks me up when people come to Miami is like, it's one thing when people from Miami go somewhere else, like, oh, this is like a little off for whatever reason. But when people come here now, I feel like they're just like, damn, this is what freedom looks like. Right. And like, they're talking about everything from, you know, pandemic related stuff to the economy, to the, just the way that the local government feels to be encouraging local business, like all the stuff. And it makes you actually thankful, like grateful, like, you know, most people didn't move here with their eyes wide open, like that's why they were moving. But once you get here and you get into it, then you're like, oh, okay, like this is, uh, this is where I want to be.

• 40:27Speaker 02

  Totally. I feel like in, in Miami, there's, it's not really rules, they're like guidelines.

• 40:34Speaker 02

  You know, you can follow them.

• 40:36Anthony Pompliano?

  The mayor's like shit.

• 40:39Speaker 02

  Follow them or, or not, but like, I feel like most people, you know, if you treat them like adults, they'll behave like adults, you know, like, and that's, there's like this general mutual respect. So, yeah, I think that's been really refreshing.

• 40:50Anthony Pompliano?

  I completely agree with that. Uh, before we let you go, where can, uh, people go? Like what, what would be helpful to FTX? Like, how are you guys want to help people that are watching us?

• 40:58Speaker 02

  Yeah. I mean, thanks for that. I would say, you know, follow us on Twitter, uh, on Instagram, um, you know, FTX.us if you want to open an account. Um, you know, you know, come, if, if you're in Miami, you know, come to our event, which we'll, we'll be announcing for, for the Miami Grand Prix. Uh, I think we'll be announcing next week, but you know, excited to, and opening that up to, to anyone and everyone.

• 41:22Anthony Pompliano?

  Somebody suggested also you should do FTX barf bags on the, on the airplanes. I was like, I don't know if that's good or bad, but. Probably cheap relative impressions, but not, not the look you're probably going for.

• 41:36Speaker 02

  I mean, I, I don't think I've ever thrown up on a plane, like.

• 41:39Anthony Pompliano?

  I don't think those get used that much. Uh, to, to be honest, actually the, now that I'm thinking about it is I bet you no one's ever done an advertising deal inside of the plane, but like, you're just sitting there staring. Right, right. Well, you can do that. The airbag comes down, you're like, oh, let me check out the X first. Well, Michael Saylor did say Bitcoin was oxygen, so.

• 41:57Speaker 02

  You know what? I always see the Marriott Bonvoy commercial play before like every movie that I try and watch.

• 42:05Anthony Pompliano?

  Well, they do the credit card ads. I mean, they literally go down the aisles trying to sell you credit.

• 42:09Speaker 03

  And only rewards they talk about. It's not like what the APR and stuff.

• 42:16Anthony Pompliano?

  We have a 27% APR, but don't listen to that. You get 500 airline points.

• 42:19Speaker 04

  You can go to Cancun for one night.

• 42:22Speaker 03

  It's crazy.

• 42:23Anthony Pompliano?

  Thank you so much for coming on.

• 42:24Speaker 02

  Hey, thank you guys so much for having me. This is fun. It was really fun.

• 42:28Anthony Pompliano?

  We're gonna bring you back after you guys do something else crazy.

• 42:31Speaker 02

  When we open that bar, like let's, we could do this live.

• 42:34Anthony Pompliano?

  We're gonna message you afterwards. We're gonna figure out how to do the bar. John is gonna find the GM and we'll be in business.

• 42:40Speaker 02

  Sounds great, guys. You need good luck.

• 42:41Anthony Pompliano?

  Thank you.

• 42:41Speaker 02

  Thanks so much.

• 42:42Anthony Pompliano?

  All right. Thank you, buddy. Thanks so much for listening to today's episode. I really hope you guys enjoyed this one. Make sure you subscribe on Apple, Spotify, or your favorite podcast player. And if you're looking to try to transition to get a new job in the Bitcoin or crypto industry, we've got you covered. Head over to pompscryptocourse.com. We've developed a curriculum with the top teams across the industry. It's a three-week intensive training program with over 50 events packed into that three-week time period. Go to pompscryptocourse.com to learn more and I'll meet you guys for the next episode.