The Pomp Podcast - Emily Parker, Co-Founder of Longhash: Crypto Bridging the Information Gap to Asia

Episode Date: October 18, 2019

Emily Parker is the Co-Founder of Longhash. In this conversation, Emily and Anthony Pompliano discuss how journalism has changed over time, what the day to day schedule of policy scheduling staff looks like, how power is no longer a top-down phenomenon, what internet censorship in China really looks like, how Longhash is trying to serve as a gateway to Asia, and what exactly data journalism is. ————————————————————————————————————————————————————— Every morning Anthony Pompliano writes a letter to more than 38,000 investors that analyzes Bitcoin and the crypto industry. The subscribers include Chief Investment Officers from university endowments, pension funds, hospital systems, insurance companies, and sovereign wealth funds. If you want to read what the smart money is reading each morning, subscribe here: offthechain.substack.com ————————————————————————————————————————————————————— BLOCKFI-----BlockFi allows you to keep your crypto, put it up as collateral, and receive a USD loan funded directly to your bank account. They do loans ranging from $2,000 to $10,000,000, and they're perfect for helping you reach your financial goals of all sizes. Visit BlockFi.com/Pomp to learn more about putting your crypto to work without having to sell it. CRYPTO.COM-----Crypto.com is a pioneering payment and cryptocurrency platform that seeks to accelerate the world's transition to cryptocurrency. With the vision of "cryptocurrency in every wallet", the Crypto.com App offers a full range of financial products with competitive pricing, well designed UX and high security. It is the best place to buy, sell and pay with crypto. COINMINE-----The Coinmine One is like an Xbox that turns your electricity into Bitcoin. You just plug it in, connect to wifi, and tap on the crypto you want. It’s so easy anyone can do it. Everything is controlled from the Coinmine mobile app and the Coinmine keeps getting better with over the air updates that add new coins, features and services to your Coinmine. Visit coinmine.com/pomp to get a Coinmine and earn crypto for powering a new world. ETORO-----This episode of Off the Chain is sponsored by eToro, the smartest crypto trading platform, and one of the largest in the world. Join 11 million other traders and create an account at etoro.com and build your crypto portfolio the smart way.

What's up, everyone? This is Anthony Pompliano. Most of you know me as Pomp. You're listening to Off The Chain, simply the best podcast in crypto. Let's kick this thing off. Emily Parker is the co-founder of LongHatch. In this conversation, we talk about how journalism has changed over time, what the day-to-day schedule of policy planning staff looks like, How power is not a top-down phenomenon anymore What the internet censorship in China really looks like How LongHash is trying to serve as a gateway to Asia And what exactly data journalism is I really enjoyed this conversation And I hope you do as well

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or Morgan Creek Capital Management. You should not treat any opinion expressed by Pomp as a specific inducement to make a particular investment or follow a particular strategy, but only as an expression of his opinion. This podcast is for informational purposes only. All right, guys, bang, bang. I've got Emily here.

I am super excited to have this conversation. She's got a really unique view of the world, both kind of the intersection of data, journalism, and then the Asian markets. So thanks so much for taking the time to do this. Thank you so much for having me. Let's start with your background. You've done a whole bunch of cool stuff in the past. Where kind of did you get started, go to school, and what did you do after that? Sure. Thanks so much. So I actually started becoming interested in China fairly early.

I started studying Chinese in high school and then continued doing that in college. And right after college, I moved to Japan. And after that, I started at the Wall Street Journal. I was in their Hong Kong office, and we were basically covering Asia. And at that time, I became very interested in China and the internet, specifically looking at the impact of the internet in China. And that's been kind of the through line of my career, China and technology. After the Wall Street Journal, I moved on to the New York Times. Then I left staff journalism. I wrote a book looking at the impact of the internet and social media in China, Cuba, and Russia. The book is called Now I Know Who My Comrades Are. I also worked at the State Department on the policy

planning staff, and I was advising on technology policy. So that was kind of in the midst of the internet freedom agenda, and the U.S. was looking at how to use the internet and social media as a foreign policy tool. Got it. How has journalism changed over time? One of the biggest changes, of course, is social media. I think it's in some ways journalism has become a lot more democratic, which is a good thing. I think before there were a lot more gatekeepers to journalism. Now everyone has a voice, obviously, that has both good sides and bad sides. The good is that, yes, there are more voices in journalism. The bad side is that there are accuracy problems and trust problems. And it's it's it's hard to know who to believe. And I think also right now, a lot of the

mainstream media has a credibility problem and that you have a lot of the country not believing certain news outlets. For sure. And I guess you parlayed that into the work with the State Department, obviously. Talk a little bit about what the policy planning staff does and kind of what does that look day to day as you look at various issues, especially around technology? Sure. So the policy planning staff, it changes a lot with different administrations. When I was there, it had some people like me who came from outside of government who had a specific area background, and we were there to advise on a specific topic. And so mine was technology and internet freedom. So it's kind of a big picture thinking part of the State Department where you're

sort of looking at what does this policy mean? What is the general direction the U.S. government should be moving in in a certain area? So it's a little bit less on the day-to-day detail level and a little bit more on the big picture strategic thinking level. So this was sort of, now everyone takes for granted that there are a lot of U.S. officials on Twitter and obviously a very well-known U.S. official on Twitter. But when I was at the State Department, that was kind of just getting started

where the State Department was trying to figure out like how should we use social media? And it was a really interesting culture clash because you have these bureaucrats who are very nervous about speaking directly to the public and everything has to be controlled, but then you have social media, which is the complete opposite of that. So it was, I was sort of there in the middle of that transition. I'll just say Trump's wild on Twitter. He is absolutely. And I use the word wild specifically because there's some things

where he's probably actually accurate in some where he's not accurate, but just the idea that the president of the United States can speak to, I don't know, he's got probably tens of millions of followers directly. There is no fact checking. There is no spin. There is no kind of media filter, if you will. Yeah. This is exactly what he wants to say to the people, good, bad or indifferent. We've just never had that before. We've never had that before. That's absolutely right. And I think now it's become people are just used to it or I mean, they complain about it, but they're used to the idea that we have a president speaking directly to the people. But yeah, I mean, if you look even like 10 years ago, this was a crazy idea because the State

Department and government in general, they operate on press releases and well-coordinated statements where everybody has to sign off and get buy-in. And now you literally have people speaking directly to the world via their phone. And it's hard to overstate how huge a change that is. And it's a very recent change. For sure. And the part that cracks me up is it's not just the president, whoever the president would be. That kind of cracked it open. We're recording this right after one of there was a Democratic debate recently. And I saw on Twitter that Bill O'Reilly called out one of the candidates, Beto O'Rourke. And then Beto O'Rourke basically came in, like dunked on him on Twitter. Right. And I was just sitting there thinking, like,

literally five, six, seven years ago, the power inversion was the media had all of the power. They basically were the filter for the information that was going to the people. Now you have, you know, the reverse. Now Bill's got his own problems and it's no longer really the social media. But you now have the candidates that are controlling the narrative. And it's almost like the media players have become a part of the story. Yes. Right.

Yes. I think that's absolutely right. And, you know, I think this all reflects just a larger change that's happening in the world, which is that power is much less of a top-down phenomenon. So I think the big shift to social media that started happening around the time of the Arab Spring, for example, when these huge changes in the world were not happening behind closed doors and governments. They were happening with people on the ground, in large cases, using social media to make change happen. And I think some of the changes in government are just reflecting that. I think it was around that time that the U.S. government realized,

OK, we can't really do business in the old way anymore. It just doesn't work. We have to speak directly to the people or the people are just going to do their own thing. So I think they realized, like, we have to get on social media. We have to speak directly to the public. But now it's kind of been taken to a new level. And you're totally right. I mean, it's not just it's not just politicians speaking to the public. It's it's different governments speaking to each other on social media while the whole world watches and chimes in. So this is a completely new era. And it's again, it's fairly recent. Well, it cracks me up because it's kind of like you've got Wendy's and Twitter and McDonald's, you know, fighting it out on Twitter, like eventually you're going to have the U.S. And, you know, if you go back to the Trump stuff, probably the wildest moment for me was when he started tweeting at the North Korean dictator saying calling him Little Rocket Man.

Right. And it's like it's funny, but it's also got serious consequences. And you're basically, you know, you're towing the line between like a political type of relationship or negotiation, right? And kind of the role of what an ambassador would normally do. Yeah. And you're combining that with the power to like start a war. Yeah. Right? And then you add in the nuclear power and you start doing all this different stuff.

And it just becomes a very complex issue that I don't think there's a black and white answer to. And so, like, we're all kind of learning as this thing is playing out here. Yeah, we've really gone from one extreme to the other. So I think the negative side before was that a lot of the public felt that the government was really opaque and that these kinds of conversations were not transparent. Now you could argue that maybe they're a little bit too transparent. I mean, these things are happening in real time. And, yeah, I mean, when you look at the way foreign policy used to be conducted, there was planning, there was buy-in, there were a lot of different departments had to agree on a specific stance. Now it's like kind of all gone rogue, right?

I mean, everyone is just sort of saying things. And also, I think before, at least in the U.S. government side, there was more of a U.S. government position. You didn't have all these individual personalities on Twitter where you would know so deeply what a specific ambassador was like or what a specific politician was like because they were representing a larger entity. But I think Twitter is allowing more for these like individual voices to be heard. And it has its benefits and it also has its drawbacks. Yeah. One of my partners always says a friend of his said to him, I reminisce about the days when I didn't know the name of the central bankers. Right. Same thing can be said in terms of the ambassadorships, et cetera. Like the fact that we could name the controversial figures and what they're doing, et cetera.

It's just a deeper level of information. How did you originally come across crypto, Bitcoin, et cetera, in terms of you were a journalist, you were focused on China, some technology. But what was kind of the first foray into Bitcoin and crypto? Sure. So just one other point that you referenced earlier, I think, you know, right now we talk about this whole idea of, you know, social media and how a lot of the negative sides, but it does have a positive side too. And you referenced this earlier, which is that there were a lot of people who felt left out of the media narrative, you know, both in the United States and in other countries, they felt that their stories weren't being told by the media. And so social media is a chance for a lot of people to get their stories out. And so that's kind of related to your other question. So I had been looking at the impact of the Internet in China for a very long time. And early on, you know, that China has always had a lot of Internet censorship. But the other thing about China is information has always managed to get through. No matter how much they censor, there's always information that gets through.

It's just impossible for any one government to completely control the Internet. It's just not possible. And so I just became interested in it on that level, just kind of looking at this tension between decentralized technology and government controls. And I started to notice, you know, kind of around 2017, how big crypto was in China. Crypto was huge in China. I mean, it was it was it was a huge part of global trade. And then, of course, the Chinese authorities got nervous and they tried to ban various aspects of the cryptocurrency industry.

And my feeling was having watched the space for a long time, I was like, OK, this is going to be like an epic battle, right? Because before you had the Internet spreading information and the government trying to rein that in. I was like, okay, now you have Bitcoin kind of spreading decentralized money. The government's going to try to rein that in. And so what have you seen actually happen in China? Or actually, before we go into that, let's back up for a second. Explain what you're doing in terms of building a company, right? So you've got LongHash and you're kind of, you've got a couple of different irons in the fire, if you will, but explain exactly what you guys are doing. And then

we'll get into kind of your perspective, but I want people to understand first kind of where you're coming from. Sure. So LongHash does do a lot of different things, but like our general vision is that we see ourselves as a gateway to Asia, because we believe that Asia is really the heart of the cryptocurrency world, and it's a little bit hard to understand from outside of the region. And so we have offices in Shanghai, Tokyo, Hong Kong, and Singapore, and we have people in all those places, and people who really, really understand those locations. So Longhash has two parts. One part is a data journalism platform, which basically... So the idea behind the data journalism platform is quite simple everyone always in the crypto industry

talks about how much data there is right that's the blockchain is data you everything you know people say the great thing about blockchain is that you can see all this data but the number of people that actually understand that data or can use that data is actually very small this isn't like an easy thing to make sense of and so what how we see data journalism is we take that data but we tell stories around it and we explain to investors what they should pay attention to and and why should they care? And our platform also has a little bit more of a focus on the Asian markets. And then the other part of LongHash is we also have, we also do incubation of early stage startups and help them kind of break into the Asian market. And we also help Asian startups

kind of go global. Go the other way. Yes. Yeah. Describe what data journalism is, because I think it's a little bit different than we were joking beforehand. Most people, I think when they hear the word data journalism, it's I'm going to write an article and I'm going to include like a graph. Yeah. But what exactly is data journalism? Yeah. Well, I think there are different definitions. So the way that I see it is that I think one of the problems is that there's this kind of this big gap in that obviously you have a lot of people doing data out there, a lot of data scientists, but they don't necessarily know how to communicate their ideas to a mainstream audience. You know, they'll kind of hand you the data and say, OK, you figure it out. And then on the other

hand, you have a lot of great journalists, but they're not necessarily familiar with data. So we're actually working with data scientists who can take that data and tell stories around it. It's really, I guess the simplest way to answer your question is I see data journalism as telling stories around data. So it's based in data. We definitely use charts. We use on-chain data. We use price data, but we don't just put it out there. We don't just put it out there for people to make sense of. We try to actually tell a story around it, tell a narrative around it, because I feel like without that, the data isn't very useful to most people because you just look at data. And it's not just saying, it's not just explaining the data. It's saying, you know, what does this

data mean? And also, why is this data more important than other data? I mean, this is something that I'd say most people can't necessarily make sense of themselves. For sure. And why is this valuable, right? In the sense of, I think that I at least see it usually as two separate things, right? So you have the journalism that goes on, let's say, in crypto at the coin desks, the coin telegraphs of the world. Then there's the data journalism that goes on, but you don't see a huge intersection of the two, at least externally, you know, looking in at these different platforms. Why is that? And is that a good thing or a bad thing? Sorry, looking at the two, meaning like...

The data journalism versus what I'll call more traditional journalism. Yeah, yeah, yeah. No, I think you're absolutely right. And this is not just a crypto industry thing. This is just an industry thing where, you know, again, there's this very big gulf between kind of the data people and the journalists, right? I mean, they're kind of two different skill sets. And we're trying to create almost like a hybrid where you have a combination of data and storytelling. So I think, yeah, we are different from a lot of these crypto platforms. But I think generally it's just because traditionally these two ways of telling stories have been very, very separated. I think data scientists in general are not trained to create

narratives around data and journalists are not necessarily trained to understand data at a very deep level. So you kind of have to create something new. It's kind of a very new field in general. Got it. And so let's talk about Asia specifically with crypto. What do you see just at a high level? You're talking to an American or somebody from the Western world. They say, I know nothing about Asia, but I'm super into Bitcoin and crypto. What do I need to know? What are the two to three high level points that you see that are really important and kind of articulate the Asian markets to that Western audience? Sure. So again, Asia is quite big. And so I think the countries that we focus on the most

are China, Japan, and Singapore. I mean, I guess what I would say quite simply is that this is a really big market. I mean, that's the simplest way to say it. It's a really big market. Understatement of the year. Yeah, it's a huge market. And also, there is the chance that at least in the near term, we might see more dynamism there than than in the United States. That's possible. And a lot of that has to do with regulation. I think a lot of blockchain projects are really afraid of the U.S. or they think that the U.S. is too strict. And more important, they think regulations in the U.S. are unclear, like it's unclear what is the utility, what is the security. And so, you know, you hear

stories. I mean, some of this is anecdotal, but I think we will eventually see some data on this of blockchain projects kind of leaving the U.S. and going to Asia and registering in Asia because they think that's more of a friendly dynamic. You know, whether this is good or bad, it's hard to say. I mean, you know, it's hard to say with the U.S. I mean, this doesn't necessarily have to be a permanent thing. The big question for the U.S. is like, OK, are we just getting our house in order? We're being strict. We're making sure that like, you know, this doesn't become a total meltdown. Or is there just kind of like regulatory confusion? You know, I think it's kind of a combination of both. I mean, I don't think it's bad to be strict on regulation, but there needs

to be a little bit more clarity. And actually, the SEC Commissioner Hester Peirce visited Asia and I met her there. And one of her observations was that, you know, the U.S. is just just has a lack of clarity in the crypto regulation space. That's just really hard to make sense of. And I think that contrasts to a place like Singapore, where I think people have just a better sense of kind of what's going on. And regulators are seen as looking at cryptocurrency more as an opportunity than as a threat. So I think that's I think those are the big things as a huge market And that it may in the short term be perceived as more of a regulation friendly environment in the United States. Obviously, not China, but China is still a very big, big market.

For sure. And when you look at from a data standpoint, like what are the key things to look at? Right. When it comes, is this something like, hey, what's the active wallet addresses on Bitcoin in certain markets? Is this volume on exchanges? Is there other metrics you guys look at? Like, what are those key metrics to watch? Yeah, great question. I only do great questions on this podcast. Yeah, it's a great question.

Shout out to all the Twitter trolls who like that when I say that. I think that geographical data can be very, very challenging. This is one of the big challenges in blockchain, is just in the blockchain world, which is just isolating, like, what country activity is happening in. But there are certain things like, for example, I mean, one one statistic that I think it's a data site coin called Coin Hills looks at national trade between Bitcoin and various national national currencies. So, you know, U.S. as of recently, U.S. dollar was number one. The Japanese yen was number two.

That's a pretty I think that's pretty interesting. I mean, that kind of shows how big the Japanese market is. You know, Japan, from what I've heard, is pretty much a retail market. Those are retail traders. There's not a lot of institutional money in crypto there yet. That's kind of one statistic. I think Japan, they've had a lot of regulatory swings over the past two years, but I think it's a market that we should really take seriously because there's just a lot of retail traders

there. China is very difficult to get accurate volume on because China has cracked down on cryptocurrency exchanges. We do know that trade volume was huge in 2016, 2017 before that happened. But, you know, what we try to do with Chinese, we try to look at other metrics like social media. We look at like search, you know, this search traffic for Bitcoin or other words like that. We also look at how often, you know, these terms are mentioned on Chinese social media. So and then if you just look at kind of want to look at activity in the region, Singapore recently, Singapore had as of last year, August 2018.

This is elementous data. You know them. Singapore had more ICOs than the United States. So I think that's pretty interesting, right? If you look at the size of Singapore versus the United States, this is, you know, this is a data point I mentioned often because I think it really shows the changes that are happening in the world. For sure. And so I'm very fond of this idea that the best investors in the world understand demographic changes and they basically bet on those changes, right? So there are certain countries in the world that are growth countries versus not. And a lot of it is, you can see by the demographics of the country, right? Are they growing? Are they not growing? All this kind of

stuff. What is the age population, the median and average age, all that kind of stuff. Is some of this a demographic driven difference between Asia and let's call it the Western world or the United States, meaning that there's just younger, larger populations in Asia that are super interested in this stuff and they now have access to the internet and they're kind of digitally native? Or is it something else, right? Like how much of it is what I'll consider like a structurally driven difference versus, no, actually it's just a cultural thing or something else that's driving this? Yeah. So I think that's definitely part of it, the demographics, but I think a lot of it is, a lot of it does have to do with the government approach to cryptocurrency. So I think, you know,

And when you have a government driven, well, I wouldn't say it's government driven, but I think that plays a role. So I think, you know, in the U.S. where you have this feeling that the U.S. government's really nervous about cryptocurrency and they're kind of trying to keep it from getting out of control. And then you have a place like Singapore, which is sort of welcoming. And I think Singapore really sees cryptocurrency as blockchain is a huge opportunity. Like this is going to be our thing. Like we are really going to embrace this. So I definitely think that that's part of it. And I think, yeah, I think in a country like China, for example, it's just a really it's a different place for people to park their money. It's a different way for people to invest that like offers a pretty strong contrast to the other options that are out there.

So, you know, I think these are, yes, very, very different contexts, you know. Skrt, skrt. Want to know who has the best URL? Crypto.com. That's right. Crypto.com. They're a crypto platform with one goal, motherf***ing mass adoption. That's why we're all here. We're trying to get crypto in every wallet. Crypto.com is helping people do that through buying, earning, lending, and card payment.

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Yeah, I think both are happening. So, you know, and this is something that the SEC commissioner actually said to me. She said that she's hearing projects are basically avoiding the U.S. So that can be. Of course they are. I mean, so. Right. So there's all sorts of reasons.

I mean, I think, you know, you also hear about a lot of and I've heard this just anecdotally about projects that, you know, don't want to accept U.S. users, won't let U.S. buyers buy tokens, but they're open to other markets. I mean, you just hear stories like this all the time. And I think, again, the point to underscore here is it's not necessarily because the U.S. is more strict. It's because the U.S. is confusing. The U.S. is very confusing because, you know, if you look at Singapore, you know, there generally is one regulatory body that like looks after these things. The U.S. has like a bunch of different regulatory bodies and different states have different rules and you have things like the Howey test, you know, where you kind of need to be a securities lawyer to figure out what's going on. At least that's the impression. I mean, some people will say, no, the U.S. is clear. I'm sure some people would argue that. But I think the general impression among a lot of blockchain projects is that it's not clear and that you could run afoul of U.S. law like accidentally, you know, and that's like who wants to take that risk, right?

That's a pretty big risk. It's, you know, cryptocurrency is already pretty confusing and it's already, you know, regulations are already very slippery. You know, why would you want to operate in a jurisdiction where you could just like accidentally get in trouble with the SEC? And I do think there is some level of that. I also think that just, you know, again, in Singapore, there's this feeling that like you can approach regulators and they kind of want to talk to you.

And I think people see the U.S. is a little bit more scary. I don't think this necessarily has to be the case forever, but I do think that that's the impression now. It's just something I hear a lot about. Got it. And so does that change over time? Like, can we actually get the clarity in the U.S. and almost incentivize those people back? Or do you think that this is something where the epicenter of this industry has shifted to Asia and there's no pulling it back because now you have kind of a snowball rolling downhill, right?

You've got too many people, too connected, too incentivized to be in Asia, to stay there, the liquidity is there, et cetera. and you'll never pull the epicenter back to the U.S.? Or is it possible to actually do that? Oh, I think it's definitely possible to change. I think this is so dynamic. I mean, this is just changing so quickly. I mean, even in just two years, I've seen so many changes. So, you know, for example, you had China being kind of the center of the Bitcoin world.

That was definitely happening around 2016. Then China cracks down. Then a lot of those investors migrate to Japan and Korea. Then early 2018, Japan suffers the biggest hack in crypto exchange history. They lost $500 million. This was Coincheck. Then Japan gets really strict. This is something people don't necessarily pay that much attention to here. But Japan has been kind of in a crypto freeze for a while. They really got very strict after that hack. And then that's when you start to see kind of everybody talking about Singapore.

So I've already seen all these changes happening. It can it can kind of change on a dime. Right. Because all you need is like one bad thing to happen in one of these countries and then they can completely change their policy on on crypto. And I think with the U.S., a lot of it is going to just depend on, like, how regulators see this industry, right? Do they see it as a threat or do they see it as an opportunity? I mean, again, if you look at this SEC commissioner, if you look at Hester Peirce, she's one of the people who really sees this as an opportunity. Because I asked her this question. I said, why do you care if crypto leaves the U.S.? Does this even matter?

And she said it matters because I don't want to lose a whole generation of talent. That's her thinking. But I don't think a lot of U.S. officials don't see it like that because they're thinking about the financial crisis. And they're thinking, like, what if something goes horribly wrong? We don't want this to be our fault. Right. So a lot of it is going to have to be, you know, I think, look, some strictness is good. Right. I mean, there are a lot of scams in the ICO world. Right. And so I don't think it's bad to be strict about this, but I think you have to be clear, you know, and that's something that, yeah, I do think it can change.

But they have to kind of want it to change and they have to really see this as something that, like, will help the U.S. in the long run. And I think, you know, Singapore sees crypto and blockchain as something that will help them in the long run. And I think Japan ultimately will see it that way, although they've been kind of going back and forth. So a lot of it is going to just depend on, like, if they see this is worth fixing. Yep, absolutely. It makes complete sense. What are you most excited about in Asia, right? So there's a whole bunch of stuff going on.

There's projects that are coming from the U.S. that are going there. There's a lot of stuff organically being built. But, like, somebody who spends a lot of your time, you're fluent in multiple languages in different countries, what gets you excited? Well, I think it's just it's just the energy in Asia. It's just very, very dynamic. And, you know, you just see so many projects going there. You see a lot of innovation happening. I mean, even in a country like China, I think the headlines here are all about China banning this or China banning that. But there's just like a lot of entrepreneurial energy kind of at the grassroots level. And so that's what gets me excited about Asia. I mean, just the size of the market is exciting because this is just I mean, if we're talking about Bitcoin mass adoption and we're talking about, you know, this really becoming a big thing, you need Asia. Right. And I think this is something that, you know, these markets are really, really big, big players. And I think so. I think the attitude towards cryptocurrency, again, seeing it as an opportunity and the market size and then also just like, yeah, the entrepreneurial activity that I'm seeing there is very exciting. It feels it feels like it's also the speed. And again, speed is a double edged sword. Right. Because speed, you know, you have to be careful because if there's too much speed, then like mistakes can happen and scams can happen.

But you do get the sense that in in Asia, things are moving very, very quickly. And, you know, it's it's exciting. It's exciting to see like how just how how how much they're innovating. And I think sometimes, you know, in a situation like China, for example, where there are a lot of barriers, people almost have to innovate more. Right. They have to kind of come up with like creative, creative solutions. And so it's just it's just a very, very dynamic space. The U.S. seems like a little calmer, you know, by comparison. Yeah. And look, in a disruptive market, being calmer might not be a good thing, right? Like it actually may be a negative to some degree. This is sort of the million dollar question, right? So it's like, right. I mean, again, it's if you move too fast and if you cut corners, like really bad things can happen. I mean, we know this from, you know, the financial world. But right. There is this danger that if you move too slowly, you will get left behind and other countries will leapfrog you. So I think this is really this is a question for regulators all over the world.

That's that's. And for me, as someone who comes from the policy world into this, that's kind of what I find the most interesting is that tension. Right. Like that tension that every government is facing, which is like, OK, this is this crazy technology. This is a currency that we can't control. I mean, think about it from a government perspective. Right. I mean, it's really radical. You know, I mean, this is a this is a currency that is out of the scope of government control. So as a government, you're going to be a little bit nervous about that. Right. But at the same time, you recognize that it's probably unstoppable and it's going to happen anyway. So, like, how do you strike that balance between, like, you know, having it not be a threat to your sovereignty, but also, like, not shutting it down? So it's like I'm sympathetic to government regulators.

I mean, this is, like, not an easy thing to figure out. And especially for a country like the U.S., which arguably has a lot to lose, right? I mean, you know, this is that's the other thing. I mean, the U.S. is in a different situation, right? Do you think investors in the U.S. are making a mistake if they only invest in the U.S.? Like, is it to the point where there's so much going on in Asia that ignoring that part of the world could actually have a material impact on returns? And I don't want to say it's fatal for an investment organization, but would be highly detrimental. I think it is really important to look outside of the U.S.

However, I think you have to be really careful because if you and this is kind of what we try to do at Longhish. This is why we call ourselves a gateway to Asia, because we really try to help people enter those markets and understand those markets. because, you know, even if you look at, you know, China or Japan for various reasons, these are not markets that are easy to just kind of helicopter into, you know, it's just, it's, you know, partly about evaluating the projects, but also just knowing who you're dealing with. I mean, there's a lot of trust is necessary, a lot of networks are necessary. So yeah, I do think it's important to invest in these markets. But I think you have to know, I think you have to know what you're doing. Because I think if you don't know what you're

doing, I mean, this is true in general, but I think especially when you're operating in a foreign environment, if you don't know what you're doing, you can get pretty burned. You're being incredibly kind. I'll just say it. There's a lot of Americans who think that if they go to Asia and invest, they'll get scammed. They don't understand. Basically, it's what you're saying. They don't understand the market. They don't understand the dynamics. They don't know who the players are. They don't speak the language. There's all these hurdles. And so there's a lot of people who just throw their hands up and say, look, rather than try to figure all this out, the odds of capital loss are so high that there's no amount of upside potential that

could convince me to take the risks that I perceive to be taking. I think the point you're making is uh no you can actually mitigate a lot of those risks either by getting educated through certain things by having teams on the ground you know all these aspects but it takes real capital commitment and real kind of intellectual commitment to spend the time to do it or find good partners you know and again that's really something that we are really trying to do um you know we have teams on the ground in in in in asia we have um we have some funding from the singapore government we're like a very trusted entity in asia because it's all about trust at the end of the day all those things can be avoided if you're working with people you trust and you're working with

people who have kind of like good reputations and good backgrounds in this area. But I mean, look, in general, you know, anytime you're coming from one country to another, there's just so many things that are happening. There's always a back. There's always a backstory. You know, there's always things that are very hard to know unless you kind of like have experience or people you trust in that area. How serious is the perceived China ban on Bitcoin? Is that something that's heavily enforced or is that kind of, yeah, yeah, yeah, we banned it, but oh, by the way, let me buy some? I think you will get a completely different answer in the United States and in China. So if you say, if you ask that question to Americans, they're going to say it's a huge deal.

It's a black box. It's really, this ban is really serious. If you ask people in China, a lot of them are going to be like, it's fine. They're used to everything being made. Yeah. I think this is just what, I mean, I think one of the key lessons about China is that it always looks really different from the outside and from the inside, always. So, you know, constantly. And it's actually, it makes your head spin. It is a big deal. I mean, China actually took pretty radical steps by, you know,

kind of banning, you know, the exchanges from trading from Chinese currency to Bitcoin. That's a pretty big deal from banning ICOs. The ICO ban is definitely pretty serious. And I don't think it's necessarily a bad thing. Actually, a lot of people in the Chinese crypto world supported that ban. So it's not like I don't want to downplay what China did, but I think there can be this sense here in the U.S. like, OK, that market is dead, which is just not true. But the other problem is that there's not a lot of data. So I know it's not true. And if you're in China, you know, it's not true, but there's not a lot of good data to support it because the exchanges, you don't have that exchange data to, you know, to support that, how vibrant that market is.

So it is it is like legitimately confusing, you know, what's happening in China. Is the China-Hong Kong situation playing into any of this? Like, is that drawing attention to Bitcoin or crypto? Or is that more of a kind of American narrative that people want to believe, but not actually playing out? Really, it's really hard to say because, you know, it's just hard to get data on something like that, right? Like, you just don't know because there's so many different, it's like the trade war, right? I mean, you know, it's, and we've tried to do analysis of this, but it's always, there's always going to be a little bit of murkiness. You know, like, is this specific political event driving more people into Bitcoin?

I think it's always hard to prove that definitively. Got it. And then in terms of where we go from here, like what are the next inflection points that you think are important for the Asian market specifically to kind of continue to accelerate? rate? Well, I think a lot of it will depend on, you know, if you look at a country like it's kind of goes back to this earlier question of like how they will strike that balance between regulatory thoroughness and not cracking down. Right. So I think if you look at like a country like Japan specifically, I think they're really struggling with that, where they were embracing cryptocurrency. Then they got suffered this major hack. Then they became kind of overly strict. And now I think they're trying to figure out okay like how do we make sure that like our exchanges are safe and

we're like you know inspecting these exchanges but with it not doing so to such an extent that like nobody wants to come here anymore so i think that's really the big question for asia it's not a question for everywhere all over the world which is like how do you find that balance between like regulation and like tolerance you know so i think that's what we're gonna we're gonna keep seeing and and you know and it's it there's always going to be these tests right because a government i mean, can be very accepting towards cryptocurrency. Then they suffer a major hack or there's some major scam. And like, are they going to be able to really keep going after that after public opinion turns? I mean, that's kind of what happened in Japan. Five hundred million dollar hack. It's not

a small thing. Right. So, you know, all of a sudden you're going to have a lot of people being like this industry is shady, you know, and then Japanese authorities, I think, understandably are going to say, like, is this worth it? Is this really worth it? So that's going to be the big tension going forward. But I think we're going to also see increasing competition in the region. Right. And I think, you know, because as and this is, you know, even for China, I mean, I think China, you know, China is can be wary of Bitcoin, but they embrace blockchain technology because I don't think they want to miss out on this either. What do you think is the most important company in crypto right now? I'm super interested in your answer specifically, given that you have a global view. The most important company?

The most important company in crypto. So I end each podcast with rapid fire questions. And that's the first question is what is the most important company in crypto? Oh, man. The most important company in crypto. All right. I'm just going to say Binance. Yeah, that's fair answer.

Why? Because I think Binance is just a really interesting example of a company that's had to navigate through a lot of different jurisdictions. You know, they kind of like left China early, relatively early. They left China kind of before the crackdown because they saw the writing on the wall. They had, you know, now they they have a presence in Singapore. It's just a very I just think Binance is just a really fascinating example of a company that shows that like they're not beholden to any one jurisdiction. They really are kind of decentralized because I think some people think of Binance as a Chinese exchange. They're up, but they're obviously so much bigger than that now. And I think they've navigated a lot of regulatory challenges in a way that they're just kind of like everywhere. And I remember I interviewed CZ a while back and kind of asked him, like, where he was based and where the exchange was based.

And he was just kind of like, I'm a citizen of the world. And that's, you know, that's kind of like the whole philosophy of cryptocurrency, right? He gets it, man. He really, really gets it. And I tried to explain to somebody, it's not a show. Like, he believes this, right? Yeah. So I think it's just a really interesting, I mean, if you're looking at, like, how the cryptocurrency industry is creating a really new kind of company, you know,

a company that's kind of like everywhere and nowhere. I think finance is a pretty good example about that. So it's not so much about whether I think finance is good or bad. I just think they are really representing a radically new kind of business model. For sure. What's the one regulation you would change if you could anywhere in the world? Well, I don't think this is necessarily a regulation, but I think that the United States should find a way to be more clear. And I don't have like, I don't have the answer to that because I'm not like a securities lawyer, But I think that that's the I guess I would say that is the regulatory challenge that I would I would focus on is how the United States can kind of make their policies a little more clear to the rest of the world. Got it. We end each podcast. You get asked me one question, but first we talk about aliens.

OK. Believer, nonbeliever. Think they're real. OK, don't think about it that much. You're actually the first person to caveat with that. I've asked almost 200 people and everyone acts like they think about it all day long. Yeah, yeah, definitely don't think about it that much. I'm not going to lie. Aliens, do I think they're real or not? Yeah, I mean, probably, I think would be my answer.

What is your logic as to why you probably think they're real? It just sort of makes sense, right? I mean, the universe is so big. It's just I find it hard to believe that, like, we're the only ones here. That just seems like that seems by the law of averages. There should probably be aliens somewhere. That's what I would say, having given little thought to the issue. So that's exactly my thought process, right?

You've probably thought about it more. Well, I've had 200 people come in here and give me their opinions, right? So I've got plenty of ideas. But no, it really comes down to math probability, and it's pretty overwhelming, like in terms of how high probability that there's other sentient life somewhere. Will we find them? Will they find us? Is that a good thing? Where are they?

Is it in our lifetime? Are they already here? I've heard it all. Um, and so, uh, it's pretty, uh, it's pretty fascinating, but, um, uh, what one question do you have for me to finish up? Sure. So if you could be totally blunt, um, what do you think is just kind of like the most overhyped part of the crypto industry?

Like the, kind of the most, you know, overrated, annoying. So many things just went through my head. Yeah, go for it, go for it. at it um no the most overrated part of the crypto industry um this is broad but it's important there is way too big of a focus on the technology the technology actually doesn't matter right and it's because you can make technology you can get the end result that you want by using different pieces of technology and applying different pieces of technology different ways right there's a kind of multiple paths to the same end result. And so people who sit and say, yeah, but this piece of

technology or this blockchain or whatever does X, Y, or Z, and that's better, they're not wrong in that, yeah, maybe it is faster or cheaper or more efficient or whatever, but that actually doesn't matter at the end of the day, right? The better technology doesn't always win and it comes down to other things. And so I think that just in general, still today, some of it is because of who are the early adopters of this stuff, who's building it, who's in the industry today. There's a huge focus on the tech. The tech doesn't matter, right? And I tell them all the time, I say, you use the internet every single day and 95% of you couldn't explain to me how it works, right? And you actually don't know that there was 80, 90 other protocols and why certain ones won

and didn't win and all it doesn't matter at the end of the day it's gonna get solved now we need smart people working on it there's going to have to be the work done to actually solve it like all that stuff my point being that uh when you're trying to build products you're trying to build companies the technology is only one piece of it and it's actually not the most important piece in many cases um you know and if you look at take google right google beat out all the other search engines because they actually had a better algorithm right so like that is why they ended up winning. But that's not why they built a successful company, right? They built a successful company because the product, they did a whole bunch of things around that technology that made it

successful. And so I think that ultimately, if we can get away from that focus on a tech and move to other stuff, or at least lessen our dependence on the story of the tech, we'll be in a much better place over time. Actually, can I ask a follow up question? Do you think that the crypto industry is becoming unnecessarily complex? Because I feel like that's sort of related, right? Like you kind of hear all these projects that, you know, they explain what they're doing and you're like, what? You know, I mean, and I think I actually personally think this is a problem because I think we still have this moment where most people don't even understand what Bitcoin is. Like the vast majority of people do not understand what Bitcoin is. And yet you have all these projects that are getting

increasingly complex, you know, to the extent that, you know, very few people outside of their tight inner circle can understand what they're doing. Do you think that's a problem? Oh, absolutely. Right. Here's the best example I have. So recently I was talking to a gentleman who works at a very large institution. They've got, you know, twenty five plus billion dollars under management. And he said to me, we're talking about Bitcoin and the known supply schedule, right? The disinflationary supply schedule. And he said, well, if everyone knows that, then isn't it priced in? And I said, well, if I told you that 100% of people in Bitcoin and crypto know, you could argue that it's priced in. But if I told you that that 100% of Bitcoin and crypto is only 1% of the world's population, all of a sudden, that's probably not priced in, right?

And so I think that is very, very similar in other applications when talking about crypto. It's just we all understand Bitcoin to some degree. Majority of the world doesn't, right? We all understand how blockchain works. majority of the world doesn't. Right. And then when you get inside of crypto, like, you know, my best test for founders, tell me in two sentences or less, what do you do? Yeah. Right. And if you can't do it or there's any sort of technical jargon or whatever, I'm not interested. Right. And some of it is because you can't articulate what you do. And also the other piece of it is

because you probably don't do anything. Right. Like you're doing more of like an intellectual, you know kind of olympic type event where you're saying oh we tried to build a faster this or cheaper this or whatever that's not doing something right it's what problem are you solving what is the solution etc yeah yeah no i totally agree with that because i think in general the whole crypto industry not the whole crypto industry but much of the crypto industry just has a storytelling problem in which we still haven't really convinced the public why this is necessary right there's a lot of people don't even understand why bitcoin is is useful why blockchain technology is necessary. And then when you kind of sort of skip that step and start

talking about these increasingly complex products, yeah, I think you're skipping a really important piece. Absolutely. Well, where can people go find out more about LongHash, the incubators, the data journalism, kind of all the different things you guys are doing? Sure. Well, I mean, our data journalism site is longhash.com. On Twitter, we're at LongHashData. somebody had long at long hash somebody had at long hash psychos on the internet i love it yeah so we're at long hash data yes got it and then where can they find you um i am at emily d parker on twitter um and emily parker writes it's just my personal website awesome thank you so much for coming to do this thank you so much hey everyone pop here if you like this episode

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