#941 Russell Starr On Bringing Crypto To The Public Markets

Russell Star is the Chairman & CEO of DeFi Technologies. In this conversation we talk about building DeFi, the macro economy, regulation, institutional investors, the current state of the European Crypto markets and How DeFi is helping to merge the Public Markets with Crypto. ======================= This episode is sponsored by my favorite place to buy, trade, and stake crypto, Okcoin. They're the fastest growing US based exchange, serving over 190 countries globally with the easy onboarding and low fees. If you haven't tried them out yet, you should. They're on a mission to make learning about and buying crypto easier than ever, and they're all about bringing more financial literacy to everyone, something we can always use more of. From being the only exchange to integrate Lightning to contributing over $1M for Bitcoin core devs, they're doing incredible work to further the bitcoin ecosystem and they offer lots of other vetted utility assets from gaming to defi. With Okcoin, I feel confident that the future really will be ok. To get started, go to http://okcoin.com/pomp for some free bitcoin when you sign up. ======================= Fundrise is the largest direct-to-investor real estate investment platform out there, giving you the opportunity to achieve upside of an asset class previously reserved for institutions and high net worth individuals. That’s right, Fundrise is making high-end private market real estate investing accessible to everyone via an easy-to-use, automated platform. See for yourself how over 190,000 investors have built a better portfolio with private real estate. It takes just a few minutes to get started with as little as $10. Go to http://Fundrise.com/Pomp today and, for a limited time, get $10 when you place your first investment. That’s Fundrise.com/Pomp ======================= Crypto is all about giving the power back to the people and our sponsor, Pipe, is doing that in a big way. Pipe is the world’s first trading platform that allows you to trade recurring revenue streams for up-front capital. And with Pipe’s new API, companies with recurring revenue can build seamless, embedded financing options into their platforms. One of the most interesting uses for Pipe’s new API right now is Compass Mining’s “Mine Now, Pay Later” which powers payment plans on bitcoin mining hardware so more miners can start or scale with a smaller up-front investment. Whether you’re looking for mining hardware or scaling any business with recurring revenue, check out Pipe to access growth capital with: No loans. No dilution. No restrictive covenants or warrants. Just growth on your terms And right now, Pomp Podcast listeners can access tens of thousands of dollars even millions fee-free for 12 months. Whether you are a bitcoin mining company looking to enable financing for your customers or a SaaS, DTC, or any business that has recurring revenue, sign up at http://pipe.com/pomp to start trading today. =======================

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. Russell Starr is the chairman and CEO of DeFi Technologies. In this conversation, we talk about DeFi, about regulation, about the European crypto market, institutional investors, and why this company is so focused at the intersection of public markets and crypto. I really enjoyed this conversation with Russell, and I hope you guys enjoy it as well. Before we get into this episode, though, I first want to talk about our sponsors. This episode is brought to you by OKCoin. They are my favorite place to buy, trade, and stake crypto. They're the fastest growing US-based exchange, serving over 190 countries

• 0:46Anthony Pompliano?

  globally, with the easy onboarding and low fees. If you haven't tried them out yet, you should. They're on a mission to make learning about and buying crypto easier than ever, and they're all about bringing more financial literacy to everyone, something we can always use more of. From being the only exchange to integrate Lightning, to contributing over $1 million for Bitcoin core developers, they're doing incredible work to further the Bitcoin ecosystem, and they offer lots of other vetted utility assets, from gaming to DeFi. With OKCoin, I feel confident that the future really will be OK. To get started, go to OKCoin.com/Pomp for some free Bitcoin when you sign up. Again, if you want free Bitcoin, go to OKCoin.com/Pomp today.

• 1:28Anthony Pompliano?

  Today's episode is brought to you by Fundrise. You all know I believe that the best investors both understand and seek out extreme asymmetry. Fundrise is here to help you do just that. It's the largest direct-to-investor real estate investment platform out there, giving you the opportunity to achieve upside of an asset class previously reserved for institutions and high net worth individuals. That's right, Fundrise is making high-end, private-market real estate investing accessible to everyone via an easy-to-use automated platform. Its 1 million users already know that the investment with Fundrise is capable of producing strong appreciation returns and income generation while helping to stabilize a diversified portfolio. That's more important now than ever in our inflationary environment. See for yourself how over 190 90,000 other investors have built a better portfolio with private real estate.

• 2:14Anthony Pompliano?

  It takes just a few minutes to get started with as little as $10. Go to fundrise.com/pomp today and for a limited time, you'll get $10 when you place your first investment. Again, that's fundrise.com/pomp. Go check it out and when you make your first investment, they'll give you $10 on top of it. Fundrise.com/pomp. Today's episode is brought to you by Pipe. Crypto is all about giving the power back to the people and our sponsor Pipe is doing that in a big way. Pipe is the world's first trading platform that allows you to trade recurring revenue streams for upfront capital. And with Pipe's new API, companies with recurring revenue can build seamless embedded financing options into their platforms. One of the most interesting uses for Pipe's new API right now is Compass Mining's "Mine Now, Pay Later",

• 2:59Anthony Pompliano?

  which powers payment plans on Bitcoin mining hardware so more miners can start or scale with a smaller upfront investment. Whether you're looking for mining hardware or scaling any business with recurring revenue, check out Pipe to access growth capital with no loans, no dilution, no restrictive covenants or warrants, just growth on your terms. And right now, Pomp podcast listeners can access tens of thousands of dollars, even millions, fee-free for 12 months. Whether you are a Bitcoin mining company looking to enable financing for your customers, or a SaaS, DTC, or any business that has recurring revenue, sign up at pipe.com/pomp. Again, pipe.com/pomp to start trading today.

• 3:42Anthony Pompliano?

  All right, let's get into this episode. I hope you guys enjoy this one.

• 3:45Speaker 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

• 4:06Anthony Pompliano?

  For informational purposes only. All right, we've got Russell joining us from DeFi Technologies. Uh, Russell, how, uh, how are you?

• 4:15Speaker 02

  I'm good, man. How are you guys?

• 4:17Anthony Pompliano?

  Let's start with, uh, with kind of your understanding of, uh, the current economic environment. It feels like things got, uh, super, super overheated. Inflation 8.5% officially in the United States. Uh, many other places around the world, high inflation. Uh, they're starting to raise interest rates. There's been compression of tech multiples and a bunch of other kind of ramifications of that. Uh, but we've also seen commodity prices explode based on Russia, Ukraine, supply chain disruptions, et cetera. Like, what's your general read as to where we are right now?

• 4:45Speaker 02

  Oh, man. Uh, love this topic. Uh, honestly, inflation is probably closer to 20% in the U.S. Um, kind of the biggest joke. And when you talk about free speech and, and what's going on, the Fed is probably the biggest arbiter of, of, of unfree speech that I've ever seen. Um, you know, they've taken housing prices out of inflation. They've taken energy out of inflation. And if you were to look back at the way they measured inflation in kind of 1985, 1995, you'd be closer to 20%. And it shouldn't really come as a surprise to anyone when you're literally printing money like it's going out of style. The one thing that just continues to perplex me, and I'd love your guys' opinion on this.

• 5:29Speaker 02

  Why is it that they view Bitcoin as a tech stock or a tech play? Why is it trading with the NASDAQ and not, uh, arguably exploding, uh, when in reality, you know, every single American, every single U.S. citizen should be more worried about the fact that next year, every dollar they earned is going to be worth 20% less than it was today. And, and you could actually apply that across Web 3.0.

• 5:57Speaker 02

  And, and it's, it's, I don't know, it's, it's one of the biggest hopes is back to your commentary on, on what's going on with Twitter. Um, I'd love to see, you know, some more people coming out and, and basically just calling a spade a spade and saying, look, this is black and white. You print trillions of dollars. The definition of inflation is printing money and. And the US has done it better if you consider destroying the value of the US dollar better than any other country in the world, it seems right now.

• 6:25Anthony Pompliano?

  Yeah, it is. It is pretty crazy. The CDC changed the definition of vaccine on their website. And so ultimately, I think that everything's up for free game now, right? Like, what is inflation? Is it printing money? Is it something else? Like, all of these definitions now, I think they're all aware that they can change this stuff and they are willing to change it based on on the environment. One other thing on this topic that I think is interesting is what's your view on the Federal Reserve potentially increasing their inflation target? So historically, it's been 2%. Do you think there's a world where they could increase it from 2% to 3%? Or, you know, again, kind of, I don't want to say manipulate because it has kind of a negative connotation, but they basically just throw their hands up and say, look, we can no longer that low 2%. We now have to increase it to 3% or something like that?

• 7:10Speaker 02

  Yeah, no, well, look, the reality is they're the most powerful financial institution in the world, right? And when you can change a narrative at will and change a mathematical formula that's been in existence for, you know, decades at will, I think they actually just changed how they calculate inflation again in February to even minimize it.

• 7:33Speaker 02

  You know, they've effectively boxed themselves into a corner. So you're gonna, you're gonna see the Fed probably do exactly what you just said, increase that target and then, and then create an entire narrative that will try to convince citizens in the US that this is actually a good thing for them. And then the other thing I think they're gonna, they're, they're gonna do. I mean, look, the math is there. They're the single biggest debtor and probably stand to lose the most with higher interest rates. The question I always ask myself is, if you're gonna raise interest rates, you're gonna slow down the economy. The economy kind of looks like it's already in a recession in the US, despite, you know, what they try to suggest otherwise.

• 8:16Speaker 02

  You put yourself in a really complicated corner where, you know, you've got, you've got a regulatory environment that's trying to hinder the adoption of. Kind of the coolest new ecosystem, maybe the most valuable new ecosystem the world's ever seen outside of out of the internet with web three point O. Which could be a solution for the US to actually get themselves out of the the sort of the the box that the Fed has put themselves in because as they raise those interest rates, um, it's going to be harder to buy a house. Everything's going to become uh more expensive. Um, so you're going to see the economy slow down and it's already an economy that's struggling in my opinion.

• 8:57Speaker 02

  Um, and it's an educated opinion. I I've I've ironically, I went to the same university as Ewan, although he he was only there for two years and and and went on to bigger and better things, of course. Uh, but yeah, no, they'll they'll change that that band. Um, they'll try to convince us that it's a good thing. Um, and then they'll they'll increase interest rates until they probably destroy um, the US consumer. And then I think you're probably into another um, decade or or multi-decade period of again loose interest rates where they just try to inflate themselves out of this um, this debt cycle that they've created.

• 9:33Anthony Pompliano?

  Yeah, it's super interesting. Um, obviously, I'm a shareholder in uh DeFi Technologies through a little advising uh that I've been doing on on some deal uh dealful stuff, but I I I understand this because you guys have educated me on it, but I think that it'd be helpful for the audience if you could explain. You guys recently went through uh an uplisting uh to uh OTC, uh was it QB, right? I think it is uh the way to describe it. Explain how this stuff works, right? So like most people, including myself, they don't play on the public markets that much, and so they have no clue how moving between stock exchanges works, etc. Like, how does an uplisting work and why is that important or why do people seek to do this?

• 10:12Speaker 02

  Well, it look, and I you and I have had this conversation before and and in in my opinion, unless we can get more people exposure to web three point O on traditional equity markets, it's going to be really, really tough to grow this industry because so many people just are are terrified of opening an account on on Frax, Kraken, or any of the other alt exchanges. And then, of course, you look at at institutions who would typically invest in this space. Unless you're private equity or a hedge fund, you're locked into only investing on traditional equity. Markets. So originally in the US, we were stuck on what's called the pink sheets, which most people in the US can't invest in.

• 10:58Speaker 02

  You'd be guy, you guys would be surprised at the restrictions that banks in the US force retail and institutional clients into. So I, I like literally every day, every week, I fielded hundreds of calls from US citizens who have seen shows like yours. Seen some of my podcasts, whatever, saying, look, man, we want to buy your stock, but we're not allowed to because you're on the pink sheets. And so we graduated, it took honestly, it took six, seven months because crypto is now a bad word in the US. DeFi is an even worse word in, in the US. And so we went through, I call it, I mean, I, I listen to you guys swear, so I'll call it what I call it.

• 11:39Speaker 02

  It, it was a forensic colonoscopy. It was one of the worst experiences of, of my life, just trying to get onto a better exchange. Uh, which is the QB so that more people in the US would be allowed to get exposure to our stock. Cause we're one of the only, in fact, we're the only publicly listed company that gives you a diversified exposure to web three point O. You know, you can go to Hut or Hive or Marathon and get exposure to Bitcoin or Ethereum, but there's very, very few public companies. They give you exposure to Solana, um, Terra Luna, Avalanche, um, Polkadot, and that's what we do. Uh, so getting on that better exchange and just to answer your question more directly, Anthony.

• 12:23Speaker 02

  The pink sheets are, are honestly viewed as just, you know, a mug's game. Uh, everybody's messing around with it. It's just, it's an exchange that no one really is permitted in the US to, to, to participate in. You then go to the QB, which is what we've done. And we have what's called DTC settlement, which means you can settle in US dollars rather than having to convert Canadian and US all the time. And then there's one step higher before you go to the NASDAQ called the QX, which will endeavor to do as quickly as possible. But you know, if you're, if you, if you just go back and look at our filings, you'll see that we actually got a. Prove to be listed on the NASDAQ. Um, and we got DTC and then last minute, out of the blue, the SEC intervened and stopped us from uplisting onto the NASDAQ.

• 13:09Speaker 02

  Um, and it's, and it's purely because, um, our, the name of our company is DeFi, because everything else we do is, you know, cleared by prospectus. We, you know, everybody's KYC. It's everything that the US is trying to to get this industry to move towards. We kind of do already. Uh, but when you're stuck on these lower exchanges, you're, you're prohibiting more people from being able to participate and buy that equity. I hope that answers the question.

• 13:38Anthony Pompliano?

  That, that makes a ton of sense. And so when we then start to think about you guys uplisting, you obviously get access to capital markets, all of that. You started to take, uh, some stakes in some interesting businesses. One of them is this, uh, uh, Swiss digital asset bank known as Seba? Seba?

• 13:55Speaker 02

  Seba.

• 13:56Anthony Pompliano?

  Seba?

• 13:56Speaker 02

  Yeah.

• 13:57Anthony Pompliano?

  What, what is going on there? Why are you guys doing this?

• 13:59Speaker 02

  So, look, the, I mean, you guys are all believers. We're, we're, we're talking to the converted here, but a lot of people I'm not sure have gone completely towards what, what you and I and, and everyone who, who, uh, who participates in this space thinks it's going to be. It's, it's the future and the evolution of kind of tech and, and capital markets combined. But I think it's going to revolutionize the way that banking's done for all of us globally.

• 14:27Speaker 02

  Um, there's a bank in Switzerland, Seba Bank, um, unknown, underappreciated. You know, think Silvergate, which might be a name more familiar to you guys, or Anchorage Bank, which you would have seen KKR, um, just do a lead investment in, uh, maybe four or five months ago. We let a consortium of investment, a consortium of investors into, uh, a large round into Seba Bank. And it's one of two licensed, um, FINMA, FINMA permitted, which is basically the SEC of Europe. Banks, uh, that, that's pursuing an entirely digital strategy. So, so we own 6% of it. Um, a guy that you guys are probably all familiar with, Anthony, I know you are, Ollie.

• 15:11Speaker 02

  Olivier Russe Newton is going to take a, take a seat on their board. Or already has. And so we actually have this, uh, large investment in them. Um, it's, it's already come close to doubling in value. Um, it's crazy what the capital markets are doing. Right now, you're actually seeing private companies trade at higher valuations than public companies, which is is kind of backwards. Usually a public company trades at a higher valuation than a private. But we just, we had an opportunity to invest along the likes of Alameda, Ordway, basically the who's who of sort of Europe, Asia and and Middle East into this underappreciated, underloved private crypto Swiss bank. And if you think of banking globally,

• 15:53Speaker 02

  you know, most people would look at the US as sort of the leader in banking or traditional banking. Swiss and the and the Swiss private banks are probably a close second, but these, this particular bank is pursuing entirely crypto strategy. So Web 3.0 custody, staking, you name it, and their assets are ballooning. And it just made a ton of sense for a company like us. You know, we have our VC portfolio and we do make these these alt investments. When we had a chance to actually take a stake in it, 6% of what's probably going to be a multi, multi, multi billion dollar enterprise is is never a bad thing. So so that's what we did. That's why we did it. And it gives us an edge that no one else has.

• 16:39Speaker 02

  Look at any company on any exchange. I don't think there's anyone that's doing what we're doing and and has a stake like that in a in a private Swiss crypto bank.

• 16:49Anthony Pompliano?

  Makes sense. And then a huge part of your business is ETPs. Describe the difference between an ETP and an ETF for everyone. And then why are you guys so focused on this ETP business?

• 17:02Speaker 02

  So in Europe, ETFs are prohibited from having any more than 5% of any one product. So that's that's the difference, right? So you can't, you can't really have an ETF for any one single asset product. So when we launched our Bitcoin Zero, our Ethereum Zero, and just so everybody understands what's that, what that means, we have a listed traditional equity. I guess you guys could think like Grayscale or some of these these other companies. But our product tracks Bitcoin perfectly. There's no variability. We charge no management fee and what we do is we list other ETPs. Basically, and I know for the purist in the crypto space decentralization is everything.

• 17:46Speaker 02

  But if you want to get, you know, your mom, your dad, your, your kids or, or, or people who are just terrified of getting on these alt exchanges into this industry. The way you're going to do it is by creating these ETPs. And so we've got a Solana one, Polkadot, Cardano. Terra Avalanche, and we're planning on listing another 20 plus we have our Bitcoin and our Ethereum as well. And it's basically just a way of, of giving people access to any of these protocols that you can think or want to own. Without having to go through, you know, a Coinbase or a Kraken or a Frax or anything like that.

• 18:28Speaker 02

  So it's, it's basically traditional equity market exposure to Web 3.0. Which no one else is doing, but then also married with, you know, some other really cool stuff like we've co-invested with you and Sovereign, we've co-invested with you and Wilder World, which have been, you know, hugely successful and stuff like that. So it's, uh, it, it's, Europe is so much more friendly towards Web 3.0 versus what's going on in the US that, you know, everybody always asks us, when are you going to come to the US? And my answer is really, really simple. Write your congressperson, write your governor, write, you know, the president, write whomever.

• 19:04Speaker 02

  This is an industry that's not going to go away and for whatever reason, I think it has mostly to do with the fact that the US dollar is kind of under siege from various different ways. China, Russia, uh, and crypto, uh, Bitcoin in particular. And I think that's part of the reason why you haven't seen a Bitcoin ETF as well. Um, and instead of embracing the technological future and Web 3.0 and what it can do and bring to everyday citizen. It's, it's become kind of a hurdle to get involved in it if you're, if you're doing anything in the US. So Europe, ETPs, and the one exception to that, Anthony, is in Switzerland, you can actually do ETFs. So we're working on some pretty cool stuff with Seba in Switzerland.

• 19:43Anthony Pompliano?

  Makes sense. Joe, John, what questions you guys got? Yeah, my question would just be around, uh, the current state of Bitcoin and crypto markets in general, right?

• 19:52Speaker 03

  People are looking at Bitcoin specifically and seeing the stalemate where it's been trading in this range for a longer period of time. And there's some uncertainty around the global economy and what's happening overseas and stuff like that. So just talk me through kind of how you think about this on a more broader level.

• 20:07Speaker 02

  Yeah, look, it's again, back to what you guys were discussing with with Elon and owning Twitter. I think I read a stat not too long ago that there's six or nine families that basically control every single media outlet globally in the world. Like it's it's it's actually that controlled now. And similarly, that's what I think happening with Bitcoin, because you're seeing Bitcoin trade almost, you know, perfectly, I wouldn't say perfectly correlated, but pretty much correlated to the NASDAQ and tech stocks. But it's not a tech stock. It's a store of value. It's an alternative to destruction of fiat currencies. And the one thing that that sort of make like is the aha moment, and I don't know what you guys think about it, but

• 20:53Speaker 02

  think through why on earth they would allow a Bitcoin futures ETF and not a Bitcoin spot ETF. And the answer is actually pretty self evident to me. You get a Bitcoin spot ETF and Bitcoin's going to a hundred thousand, two hundred thousand, five hundred thousand. You'll see, you'll see institutions, retail, you'll see everyone jump into that. And so this is, this is a situation that's, you know, I think far more politically motivated than it is actually, you know, fear, greed, or any of those other things. This has to do with, you know, the Petro One and how you can now settle oil in gold or renminbi. It has to do with what Russia's trying to do.

• 21:37Speaker 02

  And the one time you actually saw Bitcoin decouple a bit was was on the invasion of Ukraine, which, you know, I'll call it, it's, you know, disgusting. I can't even believe that that the world, the global, global world is allowing this to happen. It's, it's, I don't know, I thought we were evolved enough that we'd never ever see wars again. But it seems like Russia's taking a different perspective on that. But that being said, it's, it's the narrative. I think people need to start looking past, you know, analysts, they need to start looking past social media and they have to start looking at at the the destruction of what's going on in the US dollar. And, you know, we remarked on this earlier in the show.

• 22:17Speaker 02

  If every dollar you make in the US next year is worth twenty percent less, and I'm not making this up, just there's an amazing website, you guys should have it all the time. It's called Shadow Stats and and it's a guy who literally just said, I'm gonna just keep measuring all this economic data the way they used to do it instead of measuring it the way they're doing it now. And you'll see that inflation's up at sixteen, seventeen, eighteen, nineteen, twenty percent. That's the erosion and the destruction of of of your dollar that you earn every day. So you're actually making twenty percent less every year than you would have normally, and you're probably not getting a pay raise. How do you, how do you actually protect yourself from that? You buy commodities because that's one of the single best ways to protect yourself from inflation.

• 22:59Speaker 02

  And you've seen, you know, oil go through the roof and and again, part and parcel, you know, supply chains, part and parcel Ukraine. But a lot of this was really, really obvious to people like me with economic background, economics backgrounds, because you just can't print money and do that. And and what I keep on saying to people anytime, anywhere I go, I was actually just in Phoenix at sort of a little political event. And and I said, look, everybody needs to start looking at what's going on and realizing that that one of the best ways to protect yourself from what the US government is doing, and in particular, the Fed, is to buy crypto, buy Web three point O.

• 23:41Speaker 02

  I mean, it's, it's, I I mean, this is maybe being a little bit flippant, but, you know, if if someone said to me, I, you know, nineteen ninety four, here's fifty grand, what would you put your money in? Ten times out of ten, I would put my money into Amazon in nineteen ninety four. And and here we have a sector that's growing two times faster than the internet that that's structurally hard to invest in because of a political event and and basically a narrative that I think you guys are doing a phenomenal job helping people understand.

• 24:15Speaker 02

  I was long winded, but I hope that helped. That was perfect. That was perfect. I want to talk on one thing that. You mentioned there was you said when a spot ETF is approved, you see Bitcoin 100K. I know our audience loves to hear that. What do you think the regulatory framework is about getting to that spot ETF in America? Oh, man. Look, having gone through what we've gone through to just get an upgraded listing to the OTCQB. And now also working through the hurdles to get listed on the NASDAQ. I think what we need is everyone to write their congressman, their attorney general, whomever it is, and even just phone and just say, look, man, I want exposure to this.

• 24:55Speaker 02

  This is something that's going to be good for all of us. And truthfully, I believe it is. Innovation is always good for everyone. It's just we're sitting in an environment right now where I think the bigger issues at play are political rather than what you and I are talking about. And that would be start number one. I also think, and look, I'll just call it as it is, that, you know, there are ways and opportunities to get a spot ETF created outside of the US. And that's something that we're looking at really, really aggressively because you know, if, if for whatever reason, from a regulatory perspective, it's going to continue to be a hindrance.

• 25:37Speaker 02

  And I'll tell you what, something for you guys to think about. The minute the spot futures ETF was created, I said Bitcoin is no longer going higher. That a futures ETF is the easiest way for leverage to be created to actually suppress price increases. And they did it to the gold market. They did it to the silver market. It, you know, people will call me a conspiracy theorist, but it's, but it's more fact than fiction. And the Bitcoin ETF will, will actually flip that around. And the beauty of the new world and Web 3.0 is it doesn't matter where it is. If it's in Australia, if it's in Switzerland, if it's in, you know, pick, pick a jurisdiction, as long as people have an online trading account.

• 26:20Speaker 02

  Get access to it. And so it may be competition. It may be that it's created somewhere else. I think you guys all saw that grayscale is actually trying to get approval to to turn themselves into an ETF. I don't think that's going to happen because you've seen, you know, Kathy would get shot down. You've seen fidelity get shot down. These are household names that are that are trying to do the right thing. So so maybe, just maybe, it's going to be it being created outside of the US to force the US to recognize the value add of just allowing this incredible new ecosystem to grow and thrive in the US and allowing everyone to get exposure to it.

• 27:01Anthony Pompliano?

  Yeah, it's super fascinating. We've got to go, but I'll give you kind of the last word. If you look out through the rest of this year, what's the one thing that you're most looking forward to or most excited about, whether it's for your business or for the market?

• 27:14Speaker 02

  Can I say being on your show one more time?

• 27:17Anthony Pompliano?

  That's a very good answer. That is the answer of an expert right there, my friend.

• 27:24Speaker 02

  No, look, I think I think we're going to be in for some pain here for the next three to five months because, you know, the Fed is really jawboning the long end of the fixed income curve higher. But the reality is, if you guys do the math and just think through nominal and real rates, the real rates are extremely negative. Fixed income is a waste of time. And so what I'm really, really looking forward to is is sort of that institutional and retail evolution of moving into this space. And I've got to tweak this conversation and, you know, pitch defied. We are literally the only company right now publicly that's actually doing this, giving people exposure on listed exchanges to web three point O.

• 28:11Speaker 02

  So leave it with that.

• 28:13Anthony Pompliano?

  I love it, Ben. Thank you so much for joining us. We'll definitely do it again in the future.

• 28:17Speaker 02

  You got it. Thanks so much.

• 28:18Anthony Pompliano?

  Guys, have a great day. All right, everybody. 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.