Epicenter - Learn about Crypto, Blockchain, Ethereum, Bitcoin and Distributed Technologies - Amor Sexton & Marco Santori: Siân Jones Interviews Inside Bitcoins London

Episode Date: September 25, 2014

Siân Jones was recently in London for the Inside Bitcoins conference. She interviewed two people with extensive knowledge of regulation and how it should apply to Bitcoin. Marco Santori is Chairman of the regulatory affairs committee of the Bitcoin Foundation and recently appointed Global policy council of for Blockchain. As the New York Department of Financial Services BitLicense proposal nears the end of it’s second 45-day challenge period, Mr. Santori gives his predictions on what the legislation will look like when it is passed, which he expects to happen by the end of this year. Amor Sexton is a lawyer at Adroit in Sydney Australia, a commercial law firm that specializes in Bitcoin and actively represents the Bitcoin industry when hen liaising with the Australian government. In her talk with Siân, she spoke about the Australian government’s recent guidance and draft ruling on the tax treatment of crypto currencies, with regards to income tax, capital gains tax and GST. They point out how these draft rulings differ from those proposed in other jurisdictions and explore how they will affect merchants and Bitcoin holders in the future. Episode links: Inside Bitcoins London COINsult COINsult Blog This episode is hosted by Brian Fabian Crain and Sébastien Couture. Show notes and listening options: epicenter.tv/041

Hi there, welcome to Epicenter Bitcoin. The show Hitch talks about the technologies, projects, and startups driving decentralization and the global cryptocurrency revolution. My name is Sibbess and Kutu. This is episode 41 on September 24, 2014. So, as I mentioned last week, we've been a little short on Thursday content for the last few weeks. That's primarily because we haven't attended any conferences since Coin Summit in London, and that's been, that was a couple months ago.

So the good news is we've got a whole lot of events lined up for the next two. two months in October and November. And in fact, we start this week with two interviews that Sharon Jones did for us in London at the Inside Bitcoin's London conference. The first is with Marco Centauri. He's chairman of the regulatory affairs committee of the Bitcoin Foundation and recently appointed Global Policy Council for blockchain. And so as the New York Department of Financial Services bit license proposal nears the end

of its 45-day challenge period, the second challenge period, Mr. Centauri gives his predictions on what the legislation will look like when it gets passed, which he expects to happen by the end of this year. And got to say, the outlook isn't really that good. The second interview is with Amor Sexton. She's a lawyer at Adroit, which is a law firm based in Sydney, Australia, which specializes in Bitcoin, and also does some liaison with the Australian government on behalf of the Bitcoin industry to establish what the regulatory framework should look like. And in her talk with Sean, she spoke about the Australian government's recent guidance, and draft ruling on the tax treatment of cryptocurrencies with regards to income tax,

capital gains tax, and GST. And they point out how these draft rulings differ from those proposed other jurisdictions and how they will affect merchants and Bitcoin holders in Australia in the future. So thanks a lot, Sean for those interviews. And in fact, Sean will be back next week with interviews from Crypto Valley Summit in the Isle of Man. So speaking of conferences, we'll be at at least three events in the next two months. Starting with Europe Bitcoin, which is the first Francophone Bitcoin conference in Europe,

organized by the French, Swiss, and Belgian Bitcoin Associations. That's happening on October 8th in Paris. And if you want to attend that, you can get 10% off by using the code epicenter. Next is BTC2B that's happening in Brussels on October 16th and 17th. Now, as the name states, this is a business-to-business conference. It's really designed to be some sort of a networking event. So if you're a startup, if you're looking for visibility from investors, other entrepreneurs, you really need to be attending this event.

There is a startup show, and if you want to register for that startup show, you can do so at BTC2B.com, and those startups that get chosen will get a free stand so that they can be on location and show off their startup. So if you want to attend that, you can get your tickets at BTC2B.com, and you can get 15% off by using the code epicenter. So those are two events happening basically a week from each other. Why not make it a trip? Come to a EuroBitcoin in Paris.

Stay for the week. It's an hour and a half euro star ride away. And then you can go to Brussels on the 16th and 17th. How about that? And we'll also be attending Inside Bitcoin's Paris. And that's on November 20th and 21st. We don't have a coupon code for you yet. We are partnering with that event.

We will be there getting interviews as we normally do, but we don't have a coupon code just yet. That's coming. We'll have that for you in the next few weeks. So I hope you enjoy interviews by Sean Jones at Inside Bitcoin's London. So this is Sean Jones. I'm at Inside Bitcoins in London. And I'm sitting down right now with Marco Santori. Marco Santori is the chairman of the Regulatory Affairs Committee,

the Bitcoin Foundation. He's been involved with advising Bitcoin businesses as a lawyer, now a council at Pillsbury, Winthrop, Shaw and Pittman in New York. And recently, congratulations, you've been appointed Global Policy Council for Blockchain. That's right. That must be an exciting new position for you. It is. And, you know, it's really a sort of a continuation on the outreach work that I've been doing for some time on behalf of the company. And really, this is a global situation that we're in. And it's certainly a global focus.

Sorry, I should say, it's a global offering that the company has. This is not a United States story. It's not a European story. It's a global story. And in fact, I believe that blockchain has gone on record anytime saying that they've seen the biggest growth outside of the U.S. market. And that's what we're seeing generally in Bitcoin as well. And I suppose that really leads me nicely onto the thing I want to talk to you about today,

which is the impact of New York's bit licensed proposals on the rest of the world, everywhere outside the US, because the proposals, as they're drafted at the moment, and we're speaking in September and we're at the first draft stage, the proposals at the moment are very wide-reaching in terms of scope of businesses that are covered, and in terms of extra territorial reach. Yeah, I think that's right. So like a lot of things in Bitcoin, this is another global story. It's the New York bit license, right?

It's something that we like to say. It's just one jurisdiction. And yeah, maybe it's one of the largest financial jurisdictions in the world, but it's just one jurisdiction, right? I think that that would be the case if we weren't dealing with Bitcoin. since obviously we know that Bitcoin is a global story, the regulations, at least the proposed regulations, are drafted accordingly.

And they're incredibly broad in scope and also in jurisdictional reach. Any transaction involving a New York person is captured by the regulations. And any entity, wherever located in the world, servicing a New York person or really engaging in any way with a New York person is, at least on the face of the regulations, captured.

So you could be an exchange in somewhere like Paris, France, and have someone walk in, if you have a premises, walk in, and if they happen to live in New York or have some business involvement with New York, they would be captured by the regulations, and therefore the Bitcoin Exchange in Paris would have to. technically, I suppose, have a bit license, would it to deal with you? I think that's reasonable. And at least that's on the face of the regulations as they're drafted. And it could be even broader than that.

I could see a United States attorney in a prosecutorial capacity arguing that anybody who has wired money from a U.S. bank account to, say, the Parisian exchange, would trigger the extraterritorial application of the laws. Because dollars are all transferred through New York. Even if that person resides in Iceland or Colombia or Georgia. And there's never even visited New York and has no dealings with New York. Conceivably, that's how they're drafted. But, and so there's another side of the coin, of course,

that a lot of regulations are drafted like this. There's nothing particularly special or onerous or offensive about these particular regulations. It's actually fairly common in the U.S. And what we see is that when these laws are applied, they're applied strictly, and they're constrained in their jurisdictional scope because in the U.S. we have a federal constitution. We have the U.S. Constitution, which limits the reach of what's called long-arm jurisdiction, extraterritorial jurisdiction. And I expect that to happen here regardless of the language of the regulation that ultimately becomes effective. So will, for example, you on behalf of the foundation be making representations in this feedback period that says, you know, you can't do that, Mr. Lorski, the Constitution prevents

you, or is it something you think might get challenged at a later stage once it does become regulation, if it becomes regulation as proposed at the moment? Well, I can tell you that the foundation will be submitting comments. Mm-hmm. Further comments, we've already sent in one letter. I can't tell you what the contents of that will be just yet. But I can tell you that in response to your second question, we can expect, and I can almost guarantee,

based on my knowledge of the industry participants, that there will be some challenge to this regulation if it is ever enforced. I think that what we're seeing is right now sort of a frenzy of some people taking deep offense to it. Other people saying, well, you know, it's just par for the chorus and everybody in between. But this industry is a very vocal industry. It's from an economic standpoint, an irrational one at times. And I think that there are plenty of people who will proudly act economically,

irrationally, and stand up for their principles. And I think we can, we, we can expect some opposition to the bid license in whatever form it takes. Can any challenge take place before it becomes regulation, or there's horse trading that goes on, it has to then become regulation, and then there's a challenge later? Yeah, that's absolutely right. So until this regulation becomes effective, until it becomes law, there's really very little that anybody can do to challenge it under New York state law or under federal law. It's not yet ripe.

Okay. And what do you see as being the time? timetable from this point on, which I know they've recently extended the deadline for feedback, but where does it go from here? Yeah, so the original deadline was somewhere in September. The current deadline is October 21st, and I would expect to see new effective regulations, quarter one of 2015. Right. And then from there, at least if, let's just assume this portion of the regulation becomes effective and untouched from their market participants or bit license seekers will have a 45-day window during which they can operate before they have to submit an application for the bit

license. So for some, because there are some very onerous requirements in terms of identification, in terms of background checks and financial records and just about everything, businesses that that are intending to go down a bit license route in whatever form that takes needs need presumably to start planning for that now 45 days will go by very quickly yeah i think that's right and the worst really the worst of all possible outcomes is that somebody builds a product they pour their heart and their soul into it they pour a lot of time resources money sometimes other people's money into it and they build a product that doesn't fit the regulation,

or they build a product that can't be easily modified to fit the regulation, to satisfy those obligations. And then you've seen months of work go to waste. And that's really one of the primary things I work on with clients is helping to structure their offering so that they can comply with or avoid regulations that shouldn't apply to them. So your forecasting bit license is becoming effective in Q1 of next year, 2015. What's the roadmap from here to there?

Will it go through another set of comments, a new draft, or do you think it's going to go, here's all the comments, here's the final version, and it's going to kick in next year, how does that work? Well, what we've seen from DFS is a real sense of urgency about this. and like I've I hope that I've gone on record and given sort of a balanced critique of that and that I think that

the bit license is a good thing I think it's too early at this time but nonetheless we've seen a real sense of urgency from DFS they were they initially granted the industry the statutory minimum time to respond

and much of the industry pushed back against that in several contexts. And in response, DFS said, okay, they listened. They said, okay, that makes sense. We should have more time for comments. And so now they've extended the deadline.

But I don't think we'll see another extension. Okay. I don't think we'll see another draft. I think that this, and the foundation has suggested that DFS take an iterative process where they send us another draft and we can give more feedback. But I think that that's pushing against this real sense of urgency. internally with DFS and they're not going to

permit that and so I expect that the next thing we'll see from DFS is a new set of regulations. And that will be it then? That'll be it. And they'll give, does it become effective within a certain statutory period of time once it's been published or how does that work?

Built into the statute, there's that 45-day period. So at minimum we can expect that. Okay. So, well, we're a September now you think it's going to be a few months towards the end of the year, beginning of next year, that something will be published and then people have got 45 days to do it? I think that DFS is really pushing for a 2014 launch of this. I think that, you know, despite their best efforts, it's the government. So at times it's not as quick as I think the stakeholders and the government want it to be.

And what other predictions do you have for bed license? I think that some of it will be paired. down. I think that, wow, it's really going on back there. My goodness. I think that we'll see primarily the definitions be cut a little bit. So right now the definitions are very broad. Pretty much anybody doing anything with Bitcoins, with another person's Bitcoins, is regulated. I think we're going to see that paired back a little bit.

for example, we'll see the securing frong, probably removed or lightened a bit. Right now, anybody who simply, quote, secures somebody else's bit is captured under the licensing requirement, so that would capture conceivably companies like mycelium or Armory or these local, or even anybody distributing the QT wallet. QT client rather, is technically, I mean, just linguistically, right, helping to secure somebody's bitcoins.

And DFS has now gone on record recently, and I think in a coin desk interview saying that that's not what they meant. But I guess we'll see the proofs in the pudding. We'll see what the final laws really say. Okay. Any other predictions? I know earlier in the conference on a panel you thought, about 90% of the proposals will see the lighter day.

Yeah, I think that's right. I think that most people are going to be shocked by the requirement to identify parties on both sides of the transaction. I think that as an industry, we look at that regulation and immediately dismiss it. We think, well, that's ridiculous. That's like trying to put a saddle on a Ferrari. I mean, why would you, you know, what's the point

using Bitcoin if you have to do that? And we just assume that that won't make it through. I disagree, I think that is going to make it through. And I think that, and that's, that rule mirrors something called the travel rule on the federal level, which requires that certain transactions over $3,000 and certain transactions between financial intermediaries, the information of the customer has to travel with transaction, right? And if we're going to take any lesson from the federal level, can take the lesson that Finson expects financial intermediaries in the Bitcoin space to follow that rule.

And recently they were in one meeting, they were shocked to find that nobody was following that. Nobody, very few were following that rule. And the opposition from the Bitcoin space was, well, it doesn't apply to us. It just clearly doesn't apply to us. And Vincent says, no, if you're going to be a financial intermediary, you need to play by the same roles as every other financial intermediary. I think we're going to see that in New York too. Okay.

Well, Marco, thank you very much for sparing the time this afternoon to talk to me and talk to our listeners. I know it's been very, very interesting and really appreciate your time today. Well, thanks for asking. I'm happy to participate. This is Sean Jones again at Inside Bitcoins in London. It's a pleasant but foggy September day. and I'm sitting down with Amour Sexton, who's a lawyer with adroit lawyers in Sydney, Australia.

You've travelled a long way to this conference. What drew you all these miles? Well, you've probably got loads of air miles now, haven't you? No, not quite. I was really, really curious to see what the Bitcoin industry was like in other countries. They've got a really strong but small Bitcoin industry in Australia, And I guess I just wanted to see what was happening in the rest of the world in that space, because you read about it on Coin Desk and online, but it's nice to actually be here and put some faces to the name.

And the firm you work for, does that specialize in Bitcoin and cryptocurrency business? We do now, yeah. We're a commercial law firm that's always dealt with technology companies, and I think as the industry grew and our clients started to get more interested in Bitcoin, we started to learn more about it, and we've got both. a lot of clients that are Bitcoin companies and we also have played an active role in liaising with the government on behalf of the industry to establish exactly what the regulatory framework is in Australia.

And really I suppose that's what I wanted to talk to you about because just a few weeks ago the tax authorities in Australia came out with a very important announcement. if I understand correctly, not necessarily a very welcome announcement. Do you want to tell us a little about that? Yes, so essentially what they did is they released official guidance and draft rulings, which is actually going to be a binding ruling, on what the tax treatment is of cryptocurrencies and specifically Bitcoin. It was a very important thing for them to release because it shows that cryptocurrencies are definitely on the map.

They spent a lot of time thinking about it, put a lot of resources into it, And I actually think that although the final outcome wasn't necessarily what the industry wanted to see, the fact that they put so much time and effort into understanding the technology and thinking about how the technology should be treated from a tax perspective, I think that bodes well for the future, because sometimes getting regulators' attention is step one in the process. So essentially what happened is they looked at income tax, capital, gains tax and GST, which is the Australian version of sales tax.

And in Europe, we'd know that as value-added tax. Yes. And it works in a similar kind of way. Very similar, yeah. On the good news was with capital gains tax, they said that capital gains tax does apply because Bitcoin is property, but they said it doesn't apply if it's under $10,000. So that's good because it means that consumers can use Bitcoin without having to account for any capital gains tax.

And that's very pragmatic. because in the States it's quite the opposite and technically virtually every cup of coffee you buy with a Bitcoin is something you've got to maintain records on it's hard work to do that so it's more pragmatic and it's consistent with their approach to other forms of personal use assets

so it wasn't a surprise but that part of it was quite welcome I think what the industry and the businesses are concerned about is the fact that they have said that the supply of a Bitcoin is a taxable supply for sales tax purposes. And what that means is if you're registered for GST and it's in the course of your business and you pay with Bitcoin or supply a Bitcoin as an exchange,

you've got to put 10% on that, 10% of the value of the transaction. In some situations, that means that there would be 10% for the goods and service. and then 10% for the Bitcoin and you have a double taxation situation. So this is effectively treating it like barter? That's exactly what they're doing. They're saying that it's a commodity and it's a barter arrangement

and that it's not money or a currency. So yeah, it's exactly what it is, a barter arrangement. And I guess that creates a lot of distortion the moment you move out of business-to-business transaction. So if you've got business to business transactions, well, yes, you've got to put your 10% on top, but you can take it back off. That's right.

That's right. As part of your input. That's right. But the moment you have a consumer transaction, that changes the true cost. Yes. And I think aside from the actual financial cost, just the fact that it's increased paperwork

and increased compliance is what's concerning because the beauty of Bitcoin is that the, transactions are so seamless and quick and efficient. And once you introduce this level of complexity, you're really undoing some of the benefits of Bitcoin as a currency and as a payment method itself. So especially for small businesses and startup businesses, where paperwork is a cost to them because they have to pay accountants,

bookkeepers, lawyers to figure it all out. So even in a business-to-business situation where there's input tax, I still think it's going to affect the industry. How has the industry reacted in Australia? I think, look, it's very early days. It's just, the news has just come out. The industry, there's kind of a concern about how it's going to affect it long term. I think at the moment nobody quite knows what's going to happen.

So there's a lot of people going, okay, well, can we move to another jurisdiction? You know, it all sounds very easy from a technical perspective, but practically it's not easy to necessarily pick up and relocate and to do it right. It can be a complicated and inexpensive process in itself. I think what will be really interesting to see, and again it's only been a few weeks, but it will be really interesting to see if it affects the merchant adoption,

whether or not companies are willing to accept payment in Bitcoin if they think it's too complicated. I think that one of the ways that you can mitigate the impact is the fact that Bitcoin Merchie Services providers can automate a lot of that paperwork process. So because it's not cash, if you can build into your payment systems a way that paperwork can be done very easily, you might be able to mitigate some of the impact of the tax ruling. I can imagine it's a little bit of a nightmare for a merchant. I can imagine someone who runs a coffee shop

and a sideline is a catering service to local businesses so consumers come in and buy their cup of coffee and a sandwich and that's very easy because if they want to pay with Bitcoin they're not going to add GST to it. The moment they have a sale of a plate of sandwiches to the business around the corner that they then deliver at lunchtime well if they want to pay with Bitcoin they're going to be faced with

tax on top of the Bitcoin that's being used to pay and then they've got to put that in as their input I mean I can imagine that's just a nightmare this whole promise of Bitcoin being something simple and easy and and with

huge cost reduction implications that just goes out of the window yeah definitely what's interesting though is that barter card is quite successful in a Australia and that's a system that is being taxed with barter transactions as well. So I think it is, whilst I think it definitely has an impact, long term, I'm not sure. I mean, if you can take some of the pain out of the process, you may find that there's other benefits of Bitcoin that will

outweigh it. I think what the industry needs to do is, I know the industry at the moment is focusing on, well, how can we get the government to change their mind? That, of course, does need to be something people think about. But I think as well we need to think about, well, how can we make this work for consumers? How can we make it work for businesses? And is there benefits in Bitcoin that we can talk about to them? Like, I guess voicing your dissatisfaction with the tax treatment is important because the government needs to hear your opinion, but there needs to be some positivity out there too so that you don't scare the general public away from adoption. Yes, because the audience isn't always just the government or the regulator.

It's all the people who are listening. And at the moment there's a big audience of passive listeners waiting to find out what this thing of crypto is really about. Is there a way of appealing this decision? This decision is an interpretation by the tax authority of the law as it stands, as they believe it's... stands and that can't change? No, it could. It's in draft stage at the moment. It's an interpretation and they've got some draft public rulings and they've invited submissions. It is possible that they could change. Considering they've given it so much thought, I'm not sure how likely it is that they will change their mind. There are some other ways that you can look at trying to change the

decision. One is that you could challenge it through the courts and what would essentially have to happen there is somebody would have to get an assessment and then challenge that tax assessment. That's a long process, a long and expensive process. Even if you take advantage of the sum of funding that's available for tax appeal cases, it's still usually only about 40% of the costs. And, you know, two to four years. Oh, well, so. You know, what is Bitcoin going to look like in two and the result? maybe just to uphold the decision? Absolutely, there's always that risk.

So the other avenue that you can choose to do is lobbying for legislative change. One of the difficulties with this specific piece of legislation is that it's, we've got a series of states. We're like the United States. We're a federation of states, which a lot of people don't realize. So it's a federal act and a federally administered act. but the money actually goes to the states and territories. So in order to change that act, you have to get approval from all the states and territories.

Right. Which is difficult. Very, very, very difficult. And are some states in Australia more friendly towards Bitcoin than others? There certainly hasn't been any indication one way or another. I think just even the administrative and logistical process of that would make it complicated. So there would be a lot of work to be done at the state level and at the federal level

to get a change through. That's right. You're going to say that that's another two to four years. Maybe even longer. I mean, at the moment, the government doesn't have a solid majority in the upper house either, so trying to pass anything is incredibly difficult. So there's a lot of political reasons why that's difficult. One of the things that probably isn't very clear is the main question that was being asked

is whether Bitcoin is money for purposes of just using Bitcoin as payments, but for the exchanges, the exchange of Fiat to Bitcoin, it was always relatively clear that the Act interpreted that to be a taxable supply. And that's going to require legislative change. So even if you manage to get up on the money argument, for payments, you're still going to have, the exchanges are still going to have that extra step, that extra hurdle. So I think what you might see is that a lot of exchanges,

to look at jurisdictions outside of Australia. For example, Singapore, they have a similar approach to taxation, but you don't have to be registered for GST until you hit, I think it's a million in revenue, and it's only 7%. A million... In revenue. Of which currency, sorry. Oh, Singaporean dollars.

Yeah. So I think the exchanges are definitely going to look at other jurisdictions until... Does that present problems for them when they're then... when their customers are based in Australia, do they then have to be registered for VAT, sorry, for GST in Australia, or they can operate completely offshore from Australia? This is a fascinating question that I actually did raise with the tax office and they said it's a very fascinating question.

I don't think anyone has the answer. If it's a normal good or a normal commodity, you've got input export rules that you can take. advantage of because Bitcoin doesn't necessarily exist anywhere like in theory you could move a shore offshed a digital asset yes but in theory you could go offshore you could import it in you could try and you know take advantage of different tax situations in that way but does a Bitcoin ever exist in a jurisdiction I'm not sure it exists only as a set of keys recorded on a blockchain which exists everywhere and nowhere so it'll be interesting to see how

how that idea develops and how people decide to try and structure things. I gather there's some very attractive Pacific islands not too far away from Australia that are attractive as offshore jurisdictions. So maybe we'll start seeing a newie Bitcoin exchange or somewhere like. I've been hearing a lot about the Bali Islands project. Oh, Bali, that sounds like. Yeah, I don't know. I'll have to do some interviews, then, find out what the Bitcoin scene is like in power.

We need to have a Bitcoin conference in Bora Bora, I think. Well, definitely, I think that'll probably be the next time I'm going to interview you for an update. So we'll look forward to that. Thank you. Any other predictions for Bitcoin in Australia, either as a consequence of this GSD decision or from anything else that's happening? There's a couple of interesting things to note about Australia as a marketplace, and one of the things is that we're one of the biggest adopters of mobile payments in the world. The Reserve Bank recently talked about the decline of cash in Australia.

Contactless payments in particular are very, very popular. And with Bitcoin having the ease of that, but without the risk of fraud, because it's a push technology, I actually think that even though it's a small market, it's a good market to prove your concept. to solidify your business. I think the other interesting thing about the Australian market is, to put it bluntly, we're quite used to being ripped off. We have a lot, things are, because we're quite isolated geographically, we get a lot of, things are more expensive, we pay bank fees. For example, if you take money out of an ATM and it's not your bank,

you pay $2, every transaction, things like that. So it will be interesting to see if that mentality means, that people aren't that fuss about the extra 10% on Bitcoin. I'm not sure. But there's certainly various factors in the Australian market where I think it will be interesting to see how it develops. And from a cultural point of view, is it a sort of anti-establishment society

where the average person, whoever he or she is, So I'm quite happy to rail against the banks. There's certainly not the same. I mean, there's always the old joke about everyone hates banks. But see, we didn't go through the same thing. And what I've been told no one else calls the GFC. That's what we call the global financial crisis back home. And I've been told this trip that only Australia calls it the GFC.

But we didn't suffer quite as bad at all really in that process. and part of that was our banking system. And I think that since then, there seems to be more of, I wouldn't even say trust, but I certainly think that there's a level of comfort with Australian banks in the general population. Okay, so Bitcoin isn't going to win because it's seen or perceived to be an anti-bank. No, it'll win, I think, because Australians like new technology,

they like easy ways of payment. We're also, we travel a lot, we've got lots of relatives that live overseas. I think it will win because it is a technology that offers so many choices to consumers. And I think that's what will really allow it to get a foothold in this train. And on that very optimistic note, I'd like to thank you for sharing your thoughts with Epicenter Bitcoin.

Our listeners will be grateful, and thank you for your time today, Amon. Thank you. So thanks so much for listening. And thank you to Sean Jones for capturing those interviews in London. Like I said, Sean will be back next week with interviews from the Crypto Valley Summit in the Isle of Man. Now, if you want to support the show, there are multiple ways you can do that. You can start by leaving us a review on iTunes.

That really helps us in getting discovered by new listeners and just helps your overall rankings on iTunes. You can also follow us on Twitter at Epicenter BTC. And finally, please live us a tip. at epicenterbitcoin.com slash tips. So thanks again for listening and we'll be back next week.