Digital Social Hour - Why Crypto Wallets Are BETTER Than Banks | Ivan Soto-Wright DSH #637

Episode Date: August 16, 2024

Why are crypto wallets better than banks? 🌐🚀 Tune in now as Sean Kelly dives deep into this hot debate with Ivan Soto-Wright, the visionary founder of MoonPay, on the Digital Social Hour Podcast. Discover why crypto is revolutionizing finance with lightning-fast transactions and decentralized control. 💰✨ Packed with valuable insights, this episode is a must-watch for anyone curious about the future of money. From avoiding bank fees to understanding blockchain's potential, Ivan shares insider secrets that will keep you on the edge of your seat. 😲💡   Don't miss out on this captivating conversation! Join the discussion and explore how crypto wallets could be your new financial powerhouse. Watch now and subscribe for more insider secrets. 📺 Hit that subscribe button and stay tuned for more eye-opening stories on the Digital Social Hour with Sean Kelly! 🚀 Get ready for a whirlwind of knowledge and excitement! 🌟   #CryptoTradingTips #CryptoInvestmentStrategies #BankAccounts #CryptoTrends2023 #CryptoInEverydayLife   CHAPTERS: 00:00 - Intro 01:36 - Bitcoin Halving, Cryptocurrency Events 04:00 - How to Not Get Hacked, Cybersecurity Tips 07:04 - Will Crypto Overtake Fiat, Future of Money 08:57 - Early Days of Bitcoin, Bitcoin History 10:52 - Ethereum, Smart Contracts 12:50 - Moonpay, Crypto Payments 15:12 - Binance, Cryptocurrency Exchange 16:50 - Moonpay’s 5th Birthday, Company Milestones 19:37 - NFTs and the Future of Gaming, Digital Assets 22:08 - Metaverse, Virtual Reality 23:55 - Fortnite, Gaming Trends 24:11 - Web 3, Decentralized Internet 27:23 - Stablecoins, Cryptocurrency Stability 29:10 - What Do You Do Outside of Crypto, Personal Interests 32:00 - Aluminum, Material Science 33:12 - Mouth Taping, Health Practices 33:53 - Closing Thoughts, Final Reflections   APPLY TO BE ON THE PODCAST: https://www.digitalsocialhour.com/application BUSINESS INQUIRIES/SPONSORS: [e-mail]   GUEST: Ivan Soto-Wright https://www.instagram.com/ivanhodl   SPONSORS: Deposyt Payment Processing: https://www.deposyt.com/seankelly   LISTEN ON: Apple Podcasts: https://podcasts.apple.com/us/podcast/digital-social-hour/id1676846015 Spotify: https://open.spotify.com/show/5Jn7LXarRlI8Hc0GtTn759 Sean Kelly Instagram: https://www.instagram.com/seanmikekelly/ Learn more about your ad choices. Visit podcastchoices.com/adchoices

Exactly. Yeah. And why are crypto wallets better than bank accounts, in your opinion? So the big thing is, if you try to move money from A to B, let's say we're trying to move money from the United States to the United Kingdom, different banking systems, sometimes it can take days for that money to clear. It's just inefficient. A lot of the technology is archaic and was built before the internet.

This is a new internet-based system. As long as you access the internet connection, you can move money over a blockchain. All right, guys, we're going to talk crypto today. We got Ivan, founder of MoonPay. Thanks for coming on, man. Yeah, thanks for having me. Great to be in Vegas. Yeah, good timing too. Also on a solar eclipse day. I know, right? Yeah, moon, lunar eclipse. That's pretty special. You going to watch it? Well, it already just happened. Oh, we missed it? We missed it. Well, actually, I looked up for like two seconds, but it kind of hurt my eyes so i was like okay it's probably not i thought it was this afternoon yeah well no you missed it oh man and there's only like one every what like 50 years yeah i

don't know when the next one will be so i blew it people are flying out to texas to see it yeah i think that's like the best prime time yeah location interesting there's a lot of superstitions around eclipses yeah what's your superstition i don't believe in them but my girl was like wear red today i'm like i got the red shoes yeah people that are pregnant are not supposed to leave the house today oh wow yeah are you into the babies yeah i don't know are you into that spiritual stuff uh you know i've been starting to get a little bit more into like learning more about just like i'm a sagittarius yeah i definitely identify being a sagittarius i think there's something there okay yeah because sometimes the crypto people are so analytical they just don't believe any of that stuff but it's cool to see you opening up

yeah well moon pay so you obviously need to know horoscopes i love that um bitcoin having's coming up right yeah we've got an exciting period of time you know this is probably the most exciting time to be in crypto wow why. Why do you say that? Well, I think if you look at crypto historically, we've had these waves of adoption with people coming in. And I think in this cycle, Bitcoin happening historically, we've always seen more people come into crypto, more excitement around crypto. And for us, we're on the infrastructure level. So it's just, it's exciting. It's like part of the public dialogue again. Yeah. And you basically identified a major gap on the infrastructure level. So it's just, you know, it's exciting. It's like part of the public dialogue again. Yeah.

And you basically identified a major gap in the crypto space. That's the start of MoonPay, right? Yeah. So give you a quick background on the story. I think wallets are going to be the future. So as long as you have access to the internet, you can create a cryptocurrency wallet. That wallet has a public address and it has a private key. And that private key unlocks your cryptocurrency wallet.

And I think that wallet is going to be the future of your bank account. Everyone will have a cryptocurrency wallet. There are people in many parts of the world that can't get access to banking. As long as they have an internet connection, they can participate. And so from my perspective, I said, okay, well, there's this crypto wallet. We need to make it easy for you to top it up and put money inside. And so before MoonPay, you, there's this crypto wallet. We need to make it easy for you to top it up and put money inside. And so before MoonPay, you had to go to an exchange,

you had to go buy cryptocurrency on the exchange, then you could move it to your wallet. And I said, what if you could just buy directly inside the wallet? And that's essentially what led to MoonPay. Smart, so we're moving that friction. We're moving the friction. I think the biggest problem of crypto is the user experience.

We have to nail the user experience. It needs to be just like using any other financial app. It needs to be even better. Right. Yeah. It's got to be better or as good as a bank account. Exactly. Yeah. And why are crypto wallets better than bank accounts in your opinion? So the big thing is if you try to move money from A to B, let's say we're trying to move money from the United States to the United Kingdom, different banking systems, sometimes it can take days for that money to clear. It's just inefficient. A lot of the technology is archaic and was built before the internet. This is a new internet-based system.

As long as you access the internet connection, you can move money over a blockchain. And so I see the blockchain, the best analogy I can give you is if you think of telecoms, right? Telecoms, it was really expensive to place long distance phone calls. Then you had this thing called

voice over the internet protocol, which is what was built on Skype. You know, Zoom, which we use today is voice over internet protocol, iMessage. And so it's a new protocol for moving communication over the internet. And the same thing should happen for money, should happen for value. And that's the blockchain. Got it.

I like that. Yeah. You see on the flip side, there's a downside, right? On crypto Twitter, you see wallets getting hacked every day. What is your advice to not get hacked? Most important thing, you got to keep your private key safe. That's like your private key is essentially the passkey to your bank account. And so you want to share the passkey to your bank account. Right. Some of these hacks are pretty elaborate, though. Have you seen some of these? Yeah. So I mean, I think the reality is one of the big problems I think a lot of people should just be aware,

whenever you're connecting, especially on Ethereum, right, if you're connecting your wallet to a particular site, you want to make sure that that site is verified, that site is legitimate. It's kind of similar to back in the day when you put your credit card details online. There are websites that weren't secure. And if you provide those credit card details, you had a chance of your credit card details being stolen and you being a victim of fraud. Same thing applies in the world of crypto.

Wherever you connect your wallet, you want to make sure that's actually a verified, safe source. There are a lot of people that use spoofed links where they change just like one particular component of the link. Or even with the wallet, they'll tell you to send the wallet and it'll look exactly the same. Are you tired of ordering on a menu in a different country only to be served snails? Why not actually speak the language and order what you want? That's where Babbel comes in. Speak like a whole new you with Babbel, the science-backed language learning app that gets you talking. Wasting hundreds of dollars on private tutors is the old school way of learning a new language.

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off your Babbel subscription, but only for our listeners at babbel.com slash social hour. That's 60% off at babbel.com slash social hour spelled B-A-B-B-E-L.com slash social hour. Rules and restrictions may apply. Exactly the same at the beginning of the string and the end of the string, but they'll change the middle. So you have to be really careful. Some people run Google ads to a fake website that looks like the real website and just drains your wallet. Exactly. So you just have to be really careful. Yeah. There's Chrome extensions.

Someone yesterday got key logged off a Chrome extension. Yeah. So it's an ever-facing threat that you're going to have. Cybersecurity is super important. What it normally comes down to is just good operational security. So making sure that you have a password manager, you're rotating those passwords regularly, and things like your private key. It's kind of like toxic waste. Like you can't put that anywhere on the internet. You know, making sure that you hold that safely is super important. And, you know, to me, the future is you should always be in control of your money. You should always be in

control of your data. You should always be in control of all of your digital property. And so that private key is central to that thesis. So you need to make sure that private key is safe. I love it. Do you see crypto overtaking fiat currency one day? I think it's just a new form factor, right? So, you know, if you think about it, dollars, stable coins is one of the most exciting new innovations that you're seeing. It's essentially dollars that are on a blockchain

that you can send just like an email. And you can send it in seconds with almost no transaction costs. It's definitely a more efficient, it's definitely a more, you know, better system than what we have today. So I just think very similar to what we saw with voice over the internet protocol and communications,

it will take years for people to opt in to a more efficient system. So if you think about it, it wasn't like we lost our cell phone and our relationship with AT&T and Verizon and all these cell carriers that we have today, but we started to opt in to voice over IP and using iMessage and these new internet-based protocols for communication because they're more efficient, but didn't happen overnight. It took

years. Same thing with the existing financial system. You're going to have your debit card, you're going to have your credit card, you're going to have your existing banking relationships. But over time, I believe you're going to opt into a system that's far more efficient and it's going to be built on these wallets. I agree. More and more merchants are accepting crypto too. Yeah. So that's also really exciting to see.

For them, merchant fees are very expensive, right? And in a lot of cases, to accept a debit or credit card payment, it could be 2%, 3%. That affects and eats into their margins. So if they can reduce that cost by accepting crypto, great. And also from a fraud perspective, right? So the big problem that you have with the traditional financial system is when you charge a card, you have something called a chargeback

where you could call your bank and say, I didn't place that transaction, the money gets reversed. Crypto transactions are final. So merchants love it. If they can receive crypto, they know the likelihood of them getting a chargeback is less.

Obviously, we still have to build in the controls if someone gets their private key jeopardized, but that's why it's so important, again, for you to be in control of your wallet. Yeah, I didn't know you couldn't charge back is less. Obviously, we still have to build in the controls if someone gets their private key jeopardized, but that's why it's so important, again, for you to be in control of your wallet. Yeah. I didn't know you couldn't charge back a crypto purchase. Yeah, there's no way. You can't call Satoshi Nakamoto and say, hey, man, I'd like my Bitcoin back. When you deliver it, it's delivered final on the blockchain. I love it. How early were you on Bitcoin? So I first learned about Bitcoin, my friend in college wrote his thesis on Bitcoin. So it was the very first time I learned about it. And this is back in 2012. So I was at George

Washington University in DC. And I was like, this is really cool. I wish I was writing this thesis. It's like way more interesting. I think I was writing about like credit unions and demographic details of credit unions in the United States. And I just remember learning about crypto then and just looking at the ecosystem. It was super early in the market cap of crypto. It was in like the hundreds of millions. So it was super tiny at that point. But I love the idea of like an internet-based currency, an internet-based form of money. You know, I used to play a lot of video games kind of growing up. So I think the concept naturally made sense that there would be, you know, we're in the physical world, we have cash, we have all these existing payment methods, like there would be something for the digital world. And, you know,

I think for me, it wasn't till, you know, I was working in the pensions world, it was kind of random. So after, so after, after I graduated from college, I worked at this investment advisory firm where I was looking after big pension funds. And what's interesting about that is they manage huge amounts of capital. So like 10 billion to a hundred billion pounds of assets under management, this was in London. And you get to see how they invest it across all these different asset classes. So they invest in equities, they invest in fixed income, they invest in real estate. And so crypto to me was just like this new bucket. Your bucket and your alternative is part of your portfolio. And I believe that if it became as big as something like gold, that was always my mental model.

Gold today, about $11 trillion asset class. Bitcoin now just over a trillion. But if you think that the future generation is going to prefer Bitcoin over gold, there's still a lot of market potential for Bitcoin. Wow. So we can overtake gold one day. I believe it will.

It'd have to 12x from here, right? It'd be less than that because I think we're like 1.7 trillion. So maybe 6x. Wow, that's pretty doable. So that'd be 250k or 350K. We're at like 60, 70K. So you're looking at 6X. Yeah. Are you as bullish about Ethereum as well as Bitcoin? Well, Ethereum I think is incredible from an application layer perspective. I think it has different properties than Bitcoin. Bitcoin obviously fixed in supply. So I think that's what makes it particularly special.

And I would say Bitcoin is more decentralized. But I think the application of Ethereum is super exciting. You now have all these smart contracts, which I think are going to be the future for any form of transaction over the future is going to take place in these kind of smart contracts. These smart contracts, you can program basically any if this, then that statement

into the smart contract itself. So I could enter an arrangement that if we both agree that the eclipse will happen at this particular time, we could both make an assessment of whether it's going to happen. That could be verified by an oracle, like some on-chain data source, maybe from one of the weather channels. And that could essentially determine whether crypto gets transferred from you to me. Wow.

So it's just straight logic. It's just straight logic. So I think it was going to transform so many different industries. Cool. Any other communities, crypto products you're eyeing right now? So I think it's super fascinating right now. You're just seeing, I believe in a multi-blockchain world. I also believe in a multi-wallet world.

I think you're going to have multiple forms of these digital wallets. I think what's super interesting is just all these emerging chains. And ultimately, I think everyone is fighting for the same thing. We want to get to a place where transaction costs come as close as possible towards zero. And so a lot of the innovation right now is really trying to reduce those transaction costs. We've gotten to a place where with a layer two solution like Optimism, we can move US dollar coin at no cost and no gas costs whatsoever to actually transfer it from one person to another. That's a huge innovation, right? If you think about how expensive it is, the reconciliation, all the backend work it takes to move money from

A to B, the fact that we're bringing transaction costs down is incredible. And so I think that's really the big theme that you're seeing is getting those transaction costs down. And then as a result, also just the user experiences. How do we build a better user experience where all this stuff is really easy for people to use? Yeah, and you've had 20 million people onboarded into your wallet. 20 million, yeah, pretty crazy. So it's across our entire ecosystem.

So MoonPay, we started as purely B2B, so helping some of the biggest companies in the world in the crypto space enable their users to come and be able to on-ramp into crypto. So if you go to a website like bitcoin.com or you go to bitcoin.org or you search like buy bitcoin on Google, you'll see a lot of different websites that come up. Those are all places where we wanted to install our infrastructure and make it easy for customers that go to those sites

to be able to buy their cryptocurrency really easily. Then from there, part of what we do is we also do KYC. So we have on file the KYC information on these customers. The most painful thing from a friction perspective is if you had to enter your KYC details every single time you wanted to use crypto. So the beautiful thing about MoonPay and the 20 million customers that we have is essentially like a passport. You can use it across any application that's in crypto. So if you're inside your Phantom wallet in Solana and you've used Bitcoin.com, or you've used Bitcoin.org, or you've been on OpenSea, you're going to have a frictionless experience, almost like a one-click checkout for you to top up and put money into that ecosystem

or into that wallet. I think the most exciting thing really has been, we also think that it's really important that there's the backwards compatibility with the existing financial system. People still have bank accounts, right? And they want to be able to use their crypto in everyday life. So what's been really fascinating to see is over the last year, our fastest growing product

has actually been our off-ramp. So you can take any crypto that you have inside of any wallet, and in literally minutes, you'll see it, boom, deposited into your bank account. So you could take Ethereum that you have in one of your wallets, your MetaMask. You could take Solana that you have in your Phantom wallet.

And you can immediately just see it debited into your card. So if you have like Chime account in the United States or any debit card, it will work. Really? That's been really exciting. Dude, I actually need that. Yes, that business has grown about 700% last year. I didn't know that was a thing because my crypto is on MetaMask. And I never knew how to get it in my bank account. Yeah. So I feel like that's

a lot of it. People saw it as like something that wasn't necessarily real as an asset, right? So I think to make it more real, we need to have frictionless backwards compatibility to the existing system. That makes sense. What's the fee if someone has like a thousand bucks to offer? It's about 3%. Okay. That's not bad. Because Coinbase probably charges similar, right? Similar. Yeah. Yeah. But I think for us is we wanted to have the experience native inside the wallet. So you don't need to go navigate somewhere else. You can just do it directly inside your wallet. Yeah.

They just won their case. Did you see that? Yeah, it's really exciting. I think they're doing God's work. That's exciting. They have a lot on their shoulders. They're obviously the biggest crypto exchange in the United States, but they're fighting super important battles.

I think this year is a huge year. It's a huge election year. I think it will decide a lot. I think we want to see crypto thrive in the United States. I think crypto is actually very American. The idea that you can actually be in control and own your own money, I think that's a very American value. So I'd like to see it thrive in the United States. I think we just need clear rules and regulation, and I think it's moving in that path in these cases.

Unfortunately, we're going to this place where it's happening through litigation. Ideally, it would be a place where we have like a framework in place. We agree on that framework and we just comply with it. Every crypto founder that I know wants to comply, right? And so we just need those clear rules. Let's make sure that we comply.

Ultimately, a lot of it comes down to, is this asset a security? Is this asset a commodity? Should it be unregulated? How do we enable people to have access to it? And ultimately, regulators do have a role. They should make sure that they go after the scams, right? They should go after the fraudsters. That's good activity. But I think generally speaking, for the consumer, they just should have a really great experience. And that's where we want to hopefully see in the next couple of years. They need to put people like you and other crypto founders in touch

with the SEC directly to like negotiate because they're going after Ethereum again, right? Yeah. So hopefully, you know, I don't want to comment too much on like existing litigation, but I think, you know, I don't believe Ethereum is security. I think there are principles that you could bring security type instruments into any blockchain asset because there's a new file format, right? In theory, securities could become on blockchains. But again, there should just be a clear rule on how to list that, how to do that with a broker-dealer. And right now, there hasn't been that clarity. Absolutely.

So Moonpay is coming on five years now. Five years. Yeah, we just celebrated our five-year milestone. Which is a lot in the crypto industry. It's crazy. Yeah, they say that's like decades in crypto. You guys are like a dinosaur at this point. Yeah.

Because you've gone through. I'm not a dinosaur yet. No gray hairs, thankfully. That's almost two full cycles, right? Five years. A couple cycles, yeah. So I've seen four drawdowns in crypto so far. So I think you really just have to have a long-term view.

HODL is one of the terms, hold on for dear life. I take that to heart. I'm Ivan HODL. So I really believe in just really looking at this industry for the long term. I think over time, we're just going to opt into these systems that are just far more efficient than the systems that we have today. I'm a hodler. If you look at these day traders and if you look at their portfolio and if they just held,

99% of the time, they would have made more. Yeah. I mean, I think you can't take a myopic short term. There's always going to be people that are speculating on particular assets. Speculating actually is important. It's price discovery, ultimately. But I think if you focus on the basket of the most valuable assets that you have conviction around, that's always when people ask me what they should do, or they ask me about price predictions, I go back to that analogy that I brought you around gold, right?

You know, in terms of preferences, do we think Bitcoin could potentially overtake gold? That's a good mental model to think about how we could think about Bitcoin over the long term. But you have to be prepared for those drawdowns. So, you know, I think it's not an asset to hold for, you know, not to day trade, definitely. Not something to just hold for a year, but really to look at something over the long term. If you're a venture capital investor, typically you're looking at a time horizon of seven years. You know, I think that's a similar time horizon you should be thinking about when you're looking at crypto. And most people don't have that horizon with crypto.

Yeah. I mean, it's because it's also uh, because it's, it's also so liquid, right. In a lot of cases, I think a lot of people, they, you know, it, emotions play, play a huge role of it. But I think, you know, you have to silence kind of, they call it the animal brain, right. And just think logically, right. Is this an asset class that you want to be part of for the longterm? Absolutely. You mentioned you were a gamer earlier. Can I guess what games you played? Yeah, go for it. R runescape and world of worldcraft so funny enough i am familiar with both of them but those weren't my games really no okay i was a halo guy oh yeah first person shooter i loved halo yeah halo is my thing okay and then i've recently been getting

into fortnite which has been kind of funny i'm into force because i feel like i need to get part of you know understand gen z culture and what's going on there i think it's awesome you can put on your spotify while you're playing. That's been my favorite way to unwind is I just go on Fortnite and just mess around. I'm terrible. I play zero build. I don't even know what that is. That's how bad I am.

The thing is I know that I need to learn how to build. If you know how to build, that's how I know you're good. If you know how to build while you're playing and shooting, that's been the tough part. Also, I'm playing on xbox which i think is a huge disadvantage to these people on their like crazy gaming rig setups and they've got like the lights and they've got everything set up the guests coming on after they got the yeah they got the like uh special aim bots and all this stuff going i don't get any of that yeah i feel that well

that's a good segue into collectibles actually because fort fortnite's done phenomenal with their collectibles with their skins right I think it's super cool. And I think that's the way to think about a lot of these NFTs, right? I think a lot of them could be like skins. I think the future to me is this ready player one economy, right? I believe in a world where,

ideally with MoonPay, right? You're going to see, you're going to go into your Microsoft Xbox Live environment. You're going to scan a QR code. You're going to have all your payment methods ready to go. All of your debit and credit cards that are linked. All of your cryptocurrency wallets that are linked. Inside those cryptocurrency wallets could be an in-game asset, an in-game skin, and you could bring that into a gaming environment, right? And then inside that gaming environment, you might earn more skins,

you might earn other assets. Those can go directly into your wallets. You could decide to go on a platform like Magic Eden and sell that asset to anyone in the world, immediately see that into your balance, and then be able to spend that in everyday life. That is essentially, I think, the next iteration that we're going to see is there are going to be people that have their entire worlds inside of these games. We're essentially bringing financial services into these gaming environments, which is super interesting. It's like we're at the very beginning of this trend. They need to do that because Fortnite actually banned people from selling their accounts with skins. But instead, they can make a lot more money if they had a marketplace. Yeah. Well, I think it's interesting. If you go back to Vitalik and Ethereum,

a lot of the reason that he created Ethereum was the idea that he didn't like the idea that he didn't have control of his own assets. So when you think about crypto, cryptography, and what we talked about, the private key and the public wallet address, you're now in control of the assets that are inside your wallet. Right now, when you have a skin on Fortnite, at any time, they could decide to take that away from you. You don't actually control it. So I do think the future for them, obviously, it makes sense in the short term because they're able to monetize this ecosystem. There's no competition. Everything happens through their platform. But I think over time,

the economic incentives will be aligned where these platforms will have to open up. But we're in the very early phase of that. I think phase one is just putting some of the assets inside of these platforms. They're going to be closed-loop systems where these assets are just inside that ecosystem. So for example,

they could take their own intellectual property, their own assets, and put it on a blockchain. That's great for provenance and a bunch of other reasons. But when they open them up, that's where I think we're going to see a ton of innovation, right? This idea that I can take any of these digital assets I have and transport them across any of these different marketplaces and platforms. But there's a lot of challenges with that. We have to agree on the format, what blockchain they're going to use. For them, they want to look at their business model, how they make sure that they can keep monetizing it. So we're going to use. You know, for them, they want to look at their business model, how they make sure that they can keep monetizing it. So we're going to see, it's going to, I think

it's a, you know, we're looking at a three to five year time horizon. Yeah. We'll see what happens. Are you still optimistic about metaverse integrations? So I think we got probably too excited, right. In a lot of cases around like how fast kind of the metaverse would take place. Right. But I do think that it makes sense. Like you're going to, you have a physical world, you're going to have a digital world and you have a digital identity associated with that digital world. And I think it comes down to the application layer being incredible, right? I think we got too far ahead of the actual experiences. Like anyone that was crypto native and built like a crypto based metaverse, I think had a really rough time.

I think where we're going to see the adoption, well, I think it'll be twofold. Like there'll be some new games that are sprung up from basic principles. Like I think we got way too advanced in terms of promising like these really advanced experiences that don't even exist in the existing gaming world that we have today, right? So that's where I think we got too far ahead of ourselves. But I do think that, you know, we're already seeing a ton of innovation on things like Oculus. We now have Apple Vision Pro. We're at the early versions of the app store for those platforms. So we're just super, super early. Right. And it's kind of the similar with virtual reality. Like even when I was a kid, they were talking about virtual reality, but it's not yet today that I see everyone in a virtual reality headset, but it's starting to happen more and more. Right. So again, it's just one of those

long-term trends that I think it's going to take time to play out. Yeah. Have you done the sandbox VR yet? I haven't played with the sandbox experience, but I've obviously familiar with it. Have you used it? I'm not talking about the sandbox online one. There's a one in the hotel here where you shoot zombies. You put on a VR headset and they put on trackers on your body.

Oh, that's cool. I have to check it out. Yeah, you would love it since you like Halo, man. There we go. I don't like the new Halo, man. Yeah, actually, it's funny. I tried to play the new Halo and I was way worse at it. It's so boring. It's so hard. I don't like the new Halo, man. Yeah, actually, it's funny. I tried to play the new Halo, and I was way worse at it. It's so boring.

It's so hard. I don't see the purpose. At least with Fortnite, you want to win. Well, that's why I play Fortnite now. Yeah. Have you won any games yet? I've won one. Actually, two.

I've gotten two. So I think I went from bronze to silver recently, and then I started going to silver, and I got my ass kicked. So I'm not quite silver. The fact you're playing ranked, though, means you're getting into it. How else am I supposed to play? I don't play ranked. No play ranked no no just for fun i just play for fun dude i like killing bots yeah i think i'm super competitive so yeah that's my problem i love that man uh let's talk web 3 because that was hot for a while too well i still think you know it's just a it's a

new form of the internet we're upgrading the internet right and the idea is it really comes back to internet you own and control right now when you use a bunch of these third-party platforms, whether using social media, you're not really in control of your data. The future is you'll be in control of your data and you'll be able to exchange that with a whole range of different applications. I think we're in the early phases of it.

I think right now the application layer, we're still early. Even games aren't phenomenal. I think right now the major use case has really been, for me in Web3, I really think the biggest use case we're going to really see is stable coins, right? This idea that I now have this digital money, I can send this frictionlessly

to many different parts of the world. It's actually in America's interest that we see stable coin adoption really thrive. We want the US dollar to be on the blockchain and be everywhere in the world, right? But I think in terms of the Web3 stuff that I'm most excited about now, so we've done a bunch of work with enterprise. So we've worked with companies like MasterCard. We've done activations with Universal. We've worked with

Adidas. And really right now, it's still in the experimental phase, but they have incredible intellectual property. Can they bring that on chain and can they build a really compelling experience? And I think right now the experiences aren't that compelling. So we have a lot of work to do to make those experiences awesome. I don't think necessarily it has to be an experience for financial gain. It can just be an experience around a memento. A really good example is we were just at MasterCard at the Arnold Palmer Invitational, which is our golf tournament. And they had this little photo booth where you could take a photo, and they have these really cool hats, and they were connected hats

with a little chip inside where you could literally tap RFID, and you'd tap your phone to it, and you could take the photo and put it into your hat. So anytime you can take your phone on the hat, and you could see the photo that you have, so it's like a memory. So that's just like a cool, unique, you know, it's on the blockchain forever. So it's a memento

building a priceless experience for, for MasterCard. Um, I think those are like right now it's, it's around that. I think the, the most exciting use case of web three, I think will be ticketing. So ticketing and gaming really in the ticketing space, I think, you know, it's really inefficient. If you think about a lot of tickets today, you have an incredible amount of value that doesn't go back to the creator. Taylor Swift complains all the time that she doesn't get paid. Essentially, a lot of our fans can't afford her concerts anymore. They're so expensive. A lot of that value is being captured by these third-party marketplaces versus the creator herself. And also for her to be able to tailor who gets the tickets first. I think Web3 will solve a lot of this.

Wow. I didn't know the ticket providers were making more than the actual talent. In a lot of cases, yes. And they're sharing back the revenue with the talent. Sometimes they have arrangements to do that. But the point is the ticketing space today, I think, is ripe for disruption. Yeah, that'd be a more fair system, right? Like a lottery almost? Well, not necessarily a lottery, but imagine you were someone that was a huge Taylor Swift fan that went and basically was a big listener.

Like you have all this data that supports that this person's your fan. She's constantly showed up or she's been at concerts in the past. There should be a way to be able to track that and give the allocation or the opportunity for that person to be able to get the ticket first.

I like that. Now you've mentioned stable coins a few times now. There's some people that theorize they might de-peg and they talk about it on Twitter. What's your thoughts on that? So I think stable coins, I mean, the reality is we need good regulation around this. You need to attest that the dollars that are being held in the bank account that are representing that stable coin asset are actually really there. And so that I think is the direction that we're moving. I think it was a mistake for us to believe that we should have these stablecoins

that are U.S. dollar outside the United States. They should be in the United States if it's a U.S. dollar-denominated asset. So I think that's the general trend that we're going to see. So they're going to be in U.S. bank accounts. I also hope we start to see a trend where the interest that these people are making on the dollar deposits,

I mean, it's an incredible business for the businesses that are actually in the business of issuing these stablecoins because they're able to earn net interest margin on all the deposits. And that isn't necessarily being held, given back yet to the consumers that are depositing. So they're starting to work on that. There was a lot of debate around staking and how that's going to be done. But ultimately, we want to be able to share that yield. So I think we're going to hopefully see a lot of innovation there.

But it's a more efficient dollar, right? It's a more efficient dollar. It's on a blockchain. It's, you know, you can move it frictionlessly to anyone in the world. I think it's an incredible innovation that we want to see happen here in the United States. Absolutely.

Are you a USDC or USDT type of guy? Well, it's interesting. I think there's two different audiences for that. I think with the US dollar coin that's based in the United States, US dollar tether, a lot of those assets are held not necessarily onshore. So I think there's going to be some work there. But there are certain things that are more liquid with USDT today than they are with USDC. So I think there should be multiple. I think there will be a world where it shouldn't just be one or two. It should be multiple. It should be just kind of like the same competitive nature that we have within the banking system. The same thing

should happen for stablecoins. Interesting. What do you do outside of crypto? Outside of crypto, I've been doing a lot of working out recently. It's been great. I'm doing an Ironman. Now saying that on the record, so I can't weasel out. I tried to do it about two years ago, but my cows were killing me right beforehand. So now I've got a seven, I'm doing the half iron man. I'm doing it in Cascai, Portugal. So I've been really trying to train up. I've been doing like four times a week training. So I've got three other people, I think actually now four other people at Moonpay that are going to join me. So yeah, I obviously I'm the CEO, so I can't, you know, I can't do badly. That would be poor, poor form on my side. So I got work to do on that. I love that, man.

That's been keeping me busy. I've been doing a lot of stuff around just like we have a value at MoonPay. We call it Kaizen, which is change for better. So just constantly just trying to get better at things. So I think just making sure mental health, physical health, trying to get all those stuff in tune, really believing like sauna, cold plunge, trying to get that into my routine, trying to eat healthy. I've seen on your podcast you've had some great people talk about essentially optimization and these type of hacks or biohacking.

I'm not an extreme version of that. I'm probably more 80-20 role. So let me try to take some of those principles and get better at it, try to avoid the bad stuff most of the time. I think it's still important to have fun. So, you know, I think there's definitely different poles of how much people adopt it. But yeah, curious to hear your biggest tips for me. No, I love that. What have you learned? It's cool to see you change the crypto bro narrative of just nerdy, like not in shape. You know, you're going against all that but i've learned a ton man i mean infrared sauna i'm not into cold plungers yeah i know some people are well it's interesting so there's

been some interesting studies around the stress and cortisol levels that go up after you jump into an ice bath but yeah you know so i don't do it every day but you know i try to do it i mean i find it definitely wakes me up immediately ready to go i feel like just super charged to do whatever i'm going to do next i'm cold shower type of guy I've been trying to avoid 5g rays. So on my phone, I have an EMF blocker. Oh, interesting. Where do you get that on Amazon or something? Uh, there's a Aries tech. That's the one I use. Gary Brecker said he uses it too. Uh, I turn my wifi off at night and I have EMF blockers around the house. I definitely believe there's something there with the phone. I mean, it's kind of scary that it's definitely not talked about enough.

They already announced it. It's on Apple's terms of service that it causes damage. Yeah, it's terrifying. I hope it doesn't turn out to be something like, I guess the cause of smoking or something like that, like future, they'll be like, hey, your life has been shortened by 10 years as a result of this stuff.

That'd be terrifying. Yeah, and we won't know until probably 10 years from now what the actual results are. Yeah, it was kind of crazy. I remember I did a test where they were just testing a bunch of different stuff with them, body composition and stuff. And it was, I think it's mercury. Is it mercury inside the phone?

Uh, it might be. I'm not sure. It wasn't mercury. It was actually aluminum, but my aluminum levels were a little bit high and they think that's because my, you know, my phone's my hand so much. Wow. It's kind of crazy. So I just had a dentist on last week.

So do you have those fake teeth? I don't have fake teeth. The metal ones? No, I don crazy. So I just had a dentist on last week. So do you have those fake teeth? I don't have fake teeth. The metal ones? No, I don't. So those are causing disease now too, apparently. And you can't cook on the aluminum foil as well. You're not supposed to cook on aluminum foil. No, you're supposed to use parchment paper. Oh God, that's going to change my life. Yeah. Don't use that. And do you drink tap water? Well, sometimes I do. Okay. So don't drink that. No. And do you shower? Uh, I try to without a filter. I mean, Oh no. Yeah, definitely. Without the filter. So I need to get the filter, get the filter. So when you shower, yeah. When you shower for 10 minutes in tap water without a filter,

you're drinking nine glasses of tap water. Oh wow. Yeah. Your body's absorbing it and you're inhaling it with the smoke. That's crazy. Well, but some tap water is good for you, right? They say that New York might be good, but I don't know. Okay. I feel like there must be some tap water somewhere. Probably in Iceland. Yeah. Yeah.

You got to go somewhere like really natural. I stick to glass, man. I mean, shout out to Afora. I'll put you in touch with the founder. Oh, that's cool. He hooks it up. Do you feel a difference just drinking Afora? Oh, yeah.

Yeah. They put oxygen in it, so. Oh, wow. I feel great. Yeah. I've also heard hydrogen in water, right? Yeah. I think there's hydrogen in this.

Is that becoming a really big thing? Yeah. Yeah. Why hydrogen? I don't know the exact science Is that becoming a really big thing? Yeah, yeah. Why hydrogen? I don't know the exact science. I just follow the smart people. Okay, yeah. I lead them to explain that to everyone else.

But the mouth tape too. Have you tried that? Sleeping with mouth tape at night? No. Do you snore? My girlfriend would know. Okay, yeah. Ask her if you snore.

But even not, it improves your sleep, man. Yeah, there's a lot of different acts, man. I'm into all of them, but you could go down too far. So I try to keep it 80, 20, like you said, you know, some people sleep at 8 PM every night, like Brian Johnson. Yeah. Brian Johnson's on a different level. He's taking the blood, right. Of his son. He sleeps alone. There's a lot of, yeah, a lot of stuff. I mean, I don't know. Life's too short though. You also have to have fun. Like, so I think there's that balance, right? So like, I think if I was sleeping alone, different rooms and, uh, you know, having to do blood transfusions with my son, yeah, I'm not, not, not quite at that level. I feel that anything else you want to close off with men? No, let's, uh, you know,

have a great year ahead. I mean, I think, um, this, this should be a really exciting year for crypto. I'm really excited about what we're doing at Moonpay. Really proud of our team. Come a long way. We're really just trying to build great products that make it easy for people to use this stuff. So, you know, I think we've got our work cut out ahead of us, but going to continue to grind and hopefully we'll see those results pay off. Cool. I'll try out the off-ramp thing. Thanks for coming on, man. Thanks, buddy. Yeah. Thanks for watching, guys. See you next time.