The Wolf Of All Streets - Kevin O'Leary & Ben Samaroo: How To Bring A Billion People Into Crypto

Episode Date: November 6, 2022

Kevin O'Leary aka Mr. Wonderful and Ben Samaroo, founder and CEO of WonderFi, discuss what will drive the mass adoption of crypto and when grandmothers will be gifting Bitcoins instead of socks for Christmas. The panel was recorded at the W3BX conference in Las Vegas. Kevin O'Leary: https://twitter.com/kevinolearytv Ben Samaroo: https://mobile.twitter.com/bensamaroo ►► JOIN THE FREE WOLF DEN NEWSLETTER https://www.getrevue.co/profile/TheWolfDen  GET UP TO A $8,000 BONUS IN USDT AND TRADE ALL SPOT PAIRS ON BITGET FOR ZERO FEES! ►► https://thewolfofallstreets.info/bitget   Follow Scott Melker: Twitter: https://twitter.com/scottmelker  Facebook: https://www.facebook.com/wolfofallstreets   Web: https://www.thewolfofallstreets.io  Spotify: https://spoti.fi/30N5FDe  Apple podcast: https://apple.co/3FASB2c  #Bitcoin #Crypto #Trading The views and opinions expressed here are solely my own and should in no way be interpreted as financial advice. This video was created for entertainment. Every investment and trading move involves risk. You should conduct your own research when making a decision. I am not a financial advisor. Nothing contained in this video constitutes or shall be construed as an offering of financial instruments or as investment advice or recommendations of an investment strategy or whether or not to "Buy," "Sell," or "Hold" an investment.

Everybody's heard of Mr. Wonderful, but have you ever heard of Mr. Wonder-Fi? I sat down with Kevin O'Leary and he rebranded himself from Mr. Wonderful to Mr. Wonder-Fi in this epic fireside chat that I had with him and Ben Samaru, who is the CEO and founder of Wonder-Fi, which is a platform that Kevin O'Leary is heavily invested in. We talked about how to bring a billion people into crypto, but also how not to lose the first million that we already have here. We're going to talk about how to bring a billion people into crypto. Now, last time we talked was at Bitcoin in Bitcoin Miami. I think there was a lot of optimism in

the market. We hadn't seen this sort of contagion and collapse of things. You're wearing a Snoopy watch that was going to the moon. And so maybe instead of first of talking about how we're going to get a billion people into crypto, we can talk about how we're not going to lose the first million that we have. Yeah. That's a great summary of where we're at right now because there was so much anticipation back in Miami just over a year ago about regulation coming and an opening up of global markets, pension plans, sovereign wealth funds coming into crypto, and obviously none of that has occurred. And that is actually why we're in a rut that we are right now. It also remains a huge opportunity. There is two points of light that I think people should think about that look interesting right now. It also remains a huge opportunity. There is two points of light that I think people

should think about that look interesting right now. There were a lot of bills coming forward, bipartisan bills in the House and the Senate about trying to regulate crypto. Now it's consolidated down to two initiatives. They're both bipartisan. One is very important. Since we last talked, there was a collapse in stable coins. About 100 billion evaporated. Because it was decentralized, it wasn't all in the United States. So the regulator, while being unhappy, it's not a domestic problem. It was based on bankrupt ideas, the idea that an algorithm could somehow stabilize a coin against the US dollar. That's proven to be false.

We've had lots of pundits, Jamie Dimon, recently calling it decentralized Ponzi schemes. He was speaking specifically to stable coins, I believe, in that statement. However, at the same time, this bill called the Stable Coin Transparency Act is making making its way it's getting close to markup and the reason it's interesting is it only does one thing it only deals with stable coins that are regulated and backed by the u.s dollar nothing else it's not trying to solve for nfts doesn't care about bitcoin it's basically going through legislation on a bipartisan basis as a payment system. And the reason you should be optimistic for this is, why both sides of the aisle support this is,

it basically overnight, should it get regulated, creates the very first global payment system backed by the U.S. dollar, making the U.S. dollar the default payment system globally. And it will be adopted by every country except North Korea, Russia, and China. And overnight, it will make America even a stronger nation in terms of settling for financial services. So it'll be the very first crypto policy that passes, probably sometime after November 8th. But everybody in here should be optimistic about that because that signals the onslaught of more regulation that will deal with other digital commodities like Bitcoin and everything else. I think in the eyes of regulators,

we somewhat shot ourselves in the foot over the past few months with all of the contagion that we mentioned before. Ben, for those who don't know, is the CEO and co-founder of WonderFi and founder of WonderFi. And we were speaking before and you said you often now have to somewhat answer for the sins of these other platforms that have collapsed. How are you different than Celsius? How are you different than Voyager? What kind of lending are you doing? So how do you answer those questions when people assume that you're effectively the same? It's simple for us, we just say, we don't lend client assets. And that's the answer to the question. But there's a real need to build up trust again

within the crypto industry after what happened with that liquidity crisis this year. That's billion dollar companies disappearing, hundreds of millions of dollars of client assets just getting lost that people will never have access to. And so that's a huge setback for the industry. And it really came down to people taking outsized risks because the market was hot. And at the end of the day, it's going to lead to more transparency and more regulation. And that's what we're seeing in Canada with the regulators in the US and then other jurisdictions that are following suit.

So it is a step forward, but not without a lot of harm to users and consumers. So a part of how we don't lose that million customers or million users, like you said, is really taking the time to work through these issues and make sure that there's more transparency with the platforms that we're providing access through. And I love what you said about stable coins

because I think everyone at this point agrees that even just very basic regulation would give some clarity and allow that institutional wall of money that we discussed somewhat to enter the space. I've often made the argument that stable coins are actually the killer app of cryptocurrency and blockchain at this moment. And as much as Bitcoiners want it to be an

inflation hedge and people in hyperinflating countries to buy Bitcoin, what they're actually buying is stable coins because they don't have access to the dollar. Yeah, you're right. I think one of the great promises of Web3 and why we're all here today is that Web3 should signal the mass adoption of blockchain technology. And all of the dollars that are going into Web3 development are trying to do that, solving for the security of wallets, the ease of use of wallets, transparency of the chain, making it adaptable and easy to use. And the killer app, I would agree with you, would be a downloadable app that would let me store my USDC or whichever stable coin I choose to use as a payment system and allow me to use that anywhere in the world, in the countries that have adopted it, with a fraction of the friction fees.

Imagine a credit card is 350 basis points, ACH transfer fees, SWIFT system transfer fees, all those fees. Now, you wonder why Jamie Dimon is trying to talk this down. I mean, this is threatening his book in a big way. And so just payment systems alone are going to really cause some headaches in banks because they love to transfer assets between themselves and charge you friction. Their gas fees are crazy high. And so this is the disruption and the potential. And I'd argue to this Voyager story and all of these guys that have gone bankrupt, let me offer an alternative view. It's a good thing that that happened. And it scrapes the patina off the market.

It eliminates the idiot management. They'll never get financed again. The ideas that were bankrupt in the first place will never come back. The market remembers losses of $60 billion. And so when you take out the weak managers, the people that didn't understand leverage, the idiot managers, the ones that really were rogue in the sense that they were just doing it for nefarious reasons, you're cleaning the palette.

And what's left with is opportunity of stable opportunities like Circle and others that are doing it the right way, and FTX and all these other companies that are raising capital the compliant way. So I'm optimistic that over the next 24 months, should we get some regulation, the spigot of institutional money will come pouring into this space. Jamie Dimon has been toxic with regard to crypto since the very beginning, but you can hear what they say or watch what they do. There's JP Morgan coin. That's how they settle effectively as using a private blockchain. And they're offering crypto services to all of their wealthy clients. So that even shows that as dismissive as he is, he knows that he either needs to get on board or get out of the way. Well, let's be fair. I mean, he's a really

successful manager in that space. I own JP Morgan stock, which hit a 52-week low yesterday, just so you know. And it's trading at an eight multiple, which is one of the lowest it's ever traded at. And part of that reason is many investors see this disruption coming in the next two years. So these banks are going to have to figure out how to adapt to this and compete with it. And the best way I'd say is I believe that the sector will be the 12th sector of the S&P in 10 years. So what's going to happen is, financial services is a really big sector of the S&P. Some portion of that value is going to get transferred over to blockchain,

the 12th sector, which doesn't exist yet. So you have to decide as an investor, there's two risks in investing in crypto. One risk is you invest in crypto. It's volatile and it goes to zero. Could happen. The other risk is you don't investing in crypto. One risk is you invest in crypto. It's volatile and it goes to zero. Could happen. The other risk is you don't invest in crypto and all that asset value transfers

over the next two to three, four, five years into blockchain, which is now providing some portion of financial services. You got risks both way. I've chosen to invest in crypto and blockchain and many, many projects, including I'm a large shareholder of what Ben is doing here

because I can invest in that company and it's regulated. I got no rogue anything. There's no Kim Kardashian SEC charge there. That's not going to happen. This is a regulated business in a market that's very advanced. The Canadian OSC, which is equivalent to the SEC, gave this guy an order that he is now allowed to have a million Canadians trading on a broker-dealer crypto platform

and starting the beginning of the next year, fractional shares of equities. So in one account, you can have everything you want. You can have equities, fractional shares, real-time quotes, crypto, 40 different tokens and coins, right? All regulated by the regulator. Right, and, 40 different tokens and coins, right? Yeah. All regulated by the regulator. Right, and regulated staking coming out soon,

which will be the first in Northern Africa. That's the first ever, yeah. On the banking point, I think it's super interesting because you talked about what JP Morgan's doing. We're seeing banks, financial institutions in Canada and the US really seriously looking at different offerings in crypto, not just for institutional clients, but what can we offer our investment clients and our retail clients that just use banking services. So that's definitely being explored by all the big banks, I can say for

sure in Canada, and we've talked to some in the US. So I think there's definitely that bridge that's going to happen just a matter of time until it really does. As you said, the bear market inevitably flushes out the excess, the bad actors, the speculators, the dead projects, the zombie companies. And that leaves us with the ability to actually invest in the big winners. And a lot of people have said to me, bear market is the best time to build. It's almost become a meme with every founder and project head that I talked to is that we actually love this bear market. It gives us time to breathe. Nobody's worried about price. We can actually build things for the next inevitable bull run. So let's go back to the topic at hand, bringing in a billion people. What are you building now? And how are you preparing for that next inevitable run? So we really have a long-term view on things.

I think what we've learned from other managers and companies is that when you focus on the super high risk short-term things, it doesn't work out well. And so we've had, you know, the way that I came together with Kevin was a lot around regulation. He's, With his background and institutional background, that's just always been such a big focus. And so that was something that we shared in common and really wanted to pursue this goal of providing regulated access to crypto. So our focus is rolling out new products in a regulated way. So I mentioned staking. We've got hundreds of millions of dollars of client assets that trade through,

or billions that trade through our platforms. And a lot of those are sitting stagnant with custodians that aren't being staked or utilized. And so rolling out regulated staking is going to be a really big win for our customers who can now earn a bit of yield on that, that might not be able to be getting that through traditional means. Are there specific barriers from a technological perspective to actually scaling to that many people? I mean, right now, obviously, we talk about fast and cheap blockchains, but they go offline because of an NFT mint, right? So really hard to talk about the next billion people in crypto if the platforms can't even stay online or handle a small amount of transactions. So what are the challenges there?

It's funny, I would say not to criticize the regulators, because to Kevin's point, I think particularly in Canada, they've done a good job. And I think we've seen a lot of progression in the US, especially with some recent legislation now that's clarifying jurisdiction of SEC versus CFDC but with Canada and anywhere the regulation moves really slowly so we've got a lot of time to build and a lot of time to sort out technical issues the gating item really is getting regulatory approval to be able to offer these to offer these services so that's that's really the key barrier. And we have a ton of time to be able to address some of these new products that we're rolling out. How important is it that the entities are regulated,

like WonderFi, of course, especially for you who have probably major constrictions on the way that you can invest and where you can put your money? Yeah, I mean, I don't have an option. I mean, I'm involved in so many different financial services companies and also that issue securities under the mandate of the SEC. So, you know, we know the regulator.

We know the system and we don't breach it for any one project. We can't do that. It affects all the rest of the businesses. So, you know, going to your question about technology, I think regular, if you think about mass adoption, there's three things that have to happen in, let's say, the next 24 months. The wallet has to work.

And basically, the wallets, whether you're decentralized or centralized, for lack of a better word, are shit. Like, they're just, they're just shit. And they're not safe, They're hard to use. The average person doesn't know what they're doing. The passphrase technology, everybody gets screwed the first time. You always start with, you know, $250 and lose it immediately. You get it ripped off. It's always good to learn that, but that's just isn't going to work. So we're

going to have to, Web3 is about solving that problem number two we need security you got to have much better security as you amass assets even if it's just stable coins but if you're starting to build a portfolio in today's world and you're putting some portion of your savings to work i don't care whether you schwab or fidelity or interactive brokers you're not worried about security they've solved that problem they've built that trust. They've done it over decades. And you're happy to hold your assets. We got to solve that in Web3.

You got to feel that there is security to where your assets are being held. And lastly, and just as important, the other two, we need regulation. All these people that were founders of this fantasticness and industry that think it can't be regulated, never should be regulated, I thank them for where they got us to today, but now I want them to get off the bus and let the rest of us take this forward because there's no way we're going to get that trillion dollars of assets in here without regulation. And that's the part that makes it mass adoption. When your grandmother wants to own some USDC, then you know you've made it.

It's absolutely, literally the description for this conversation, I think, was how do we get to the point where grandma's buying you Bitcoin instead of buying you crypto instead of buying socks. And we always use grandma sort of as the example. You talk about the importance of regulation. I think now it's in the rear view for anyone who believe, whether you believe it should or should not happen, it's happening, right? You can either live in reality, as you said, or get off the bus. But is there still a threat that we could get heavy-handed, uneducated regulation that's not sensible for the space and that could actually become an inhibitor or an obstacle rather than something that helps facilitate mass adoption?

I'm going to answer that a different way, and I'll tell you how. And I believe that this is a true situation. You teach, and I've talked about this quite a bit, if you go and teach at MIT, as I do, graduating cohorts of engineers. I use this example all the time. And so if you look at the cohorts that go into those colleges, let's take MIT for an example.

You pretty well need a perfect math score. They don't care what planet or country you come from. You have to be the best of the best of the best of the best of the best. Then you can be part of that cohort. And you bring your ideas, and you are educated by a world-class institution, but it's when they graduate that you start to see what's going on. Because the reason I go there selfishly is a third of the class will always start new deals. You want to find out about these projects long before the VCs do. That's why I go there. I spend the time. And I've met many great founders, et cetera. But here's what's changed in the last three years. You talk to them about where they're going to work, right? These guys have 50 job offers. I

don't care what discipline of engineering you're talking, electrical, computer science, mechanical, it doesn't matter. When you're graduating out of any college these days as an engineer you got 50 job offers recession no recession doesn't matter and you have them from all around the world where do they want to work a third of the class will never work in the 11 sectors of the s p. They want to work on the blockchain. Why? Because they see it the same way the internet was decades ago. It's a nascent opportunity and they can really make a difference.

Now here's the answer to the question. It's impossible that you can pour that much intellectual capital into this industry and not expect extraordinary outcomes in a few years. These are the brightest minds on the planet Earth wanting to work in this space because they see the potential of it. Now, every politician gets that joke. It doesn't matter what side of the aisle you're on. What we're currently doing with these people and MIT is a good example is there's no screen or filter or curation on nationality there if you're good enough you get in and

Then we educate you and then we throw you out of America the minute you graduate That's just fucking stupid. I mean 100% stupid. And so we should be giving every one of those people the option of an American passport the second they get their diploma and they stay here because they're the future of this industry and they're happy to work everywhere else. The Caribbean islands, the UAE, Brazil, Switzerland, everywhere

else except America. That's very fucked up. It's completely fucked up. And beyond just that point, we also, with the fear of heavy-handed regulation, could send all of the innovation offshore. So not only are we sending the talented people, we'd be sending off all the projects and the companies and the technology that's being built. And it seems, maybe I'm slightly pessimistic, but it seems like the regulatory entities, Gary Gensler, at the SEC, that's what they want. It really feels like they're trying to aggressively push innovation because of a personal political agenda. Well, Ben, you were a regulator. You were a legal guy in that space. It's a turf war, isn't it? Yeah, it is a turf war.

And regulators are just trying to cover their ass and protect consumers. And I think heavy-handed regulation, definitely, you're bang on. It chases out capital. It chases out technology and talent. And I look at Canada and the US, and I think we've done a reasonably good job, but if you talk to a lot of innovators in the space

and ask where they're starting their company or where they're starting their project, 99% of them are not in Canada or the US. And if you've mentioned that, they'll think you're an idiot. Right. It's not even a matter of where they're starting. It's that they've built something and won't even attempt to operate here. Exactly. it's not even a matter of where they're starting. It's that they've built something and won't even attempt to operate here. Exactly. It's not even part of the conversation. So that says a lot. I think the consensus on the Hill now

from both sides of the aisle, and I'm not the only person that spends a lot of time there these days, is that we got a problem here. We're falling behind. The greatest technologies on earth were all developed in the United States. And this is the first time ever we're falling behind I don't care what sector you look at we have always

dominated on tech not here and so that is a problem because it kind of came under the radar screen blockchains came screaming on a lot of regulators didn't understand it now they're starting to see the use cases for it and they're, shit, we don't have a piece of this. And I think it will resolve itself in the next two years. I think the midterms will probably be a turning point, not to get into politics, but it's highly likely the House flips. I don't know about the Senate. Everything will get stalled in Washington except bipartisan bills, so there'll be no more of this jamming spending bills through. They'll start to focus on things they both agree on. And one of them they agree on right now is stablecoins

and digital commodities as in Bitcoin. So that will be a good thing for this sector. I agree. And going back to talking about a billion people, you've talked about payments, obviously stablecoin regulation as being one huge barrier that could be lifted. Obviously, what you're building is DeFi and financial services. What about NFTs, Metaverse, all of the other breadth of use cases that we know exist for crypto, where we've actually seen quite a lot of adoption in the past few years? Yeah, I think there are huge areas for growth.

I think they draw on a lot of people from different backgrounds and geographies. And I think to Kevin's point earlier, and you touched on this too, Scott, crypto and Web3 and digital assets, there's a part of that that's people just wanting to invest and make money. But the real use case in a lot of areas is just access to stable currencies in places where you don't have them. And I think that things like, you know, some of the assets you talked about are so crucial to proliferate in some of these places because they give people a way to interact with digital assets that, you know, that they haven't had so far. So I think that we need to sort of as an industry focus on that message a lot more than we are right now and a lot more than the investment opportunity.

Because I think that applies to a lot of us that are sort of privileged and looking at making money. But for others, it's about access. I think that's a very US and Canada centric view that we have because we live in an ivory tower where we have access to quality financial services. Most people, what you're building and what's being built or the promise of it is for the people who are unbanked, underbanked, don't have access, but they do have a cell phone. Right. And so do you believe that what you're building is a parallel rail to the existing systems or do you go the full maximalist potential of it and think that we can replace the legacy systems that exist with DeFi around the world?

I think there's a little bit of both. We definitely need cooperation with traditional financial institutions and the existing infrastructure being regulators and the banking system and so on and so forth. I think that there's, I mean, that's a lot of what we do is really being able to bridge that gap. We still need people, people still need a way

to get their fiat into digital assets. And then for us, it's being able to provide something super simple and usable that once you have a digital asset, you can access all these different opportunities within. So I think you need both. I don't think you can have one without the other, at least for the time being. Who knows what the future holds? But the mass adoption on something like this, just think about it. Right now, if you want to transfer $350 to somebody, you bought something at a garage sale and they want 350 from you.

Venmo, PayPal, Zelle. Have you ever looked at the fees on those things? And so I'm not criticizing the services. They work. But the minute you give an alternative, such as a stable coin, which you can go under the chain and just transfer to somebody for a fraction of that fee. Well, I mean, people go to the path of least resistance. They always do. And so, you know, providing stability for payment systems on the chain and regulation for it is going to be very, very disruptive

because it's going to be so inexpensive. And it works internationally. So there's none of this, oh, I can't do it in Switzerland or I can't pay for my meal in London or Paris. All that goes away. It just evaporates because the vendor at your guide Michelin restaurant in Paris that you're having dinner at is saying,

oh, you got a stable coin? Here's my wallet. Boom, pay your bill. And all of a sudden, that 3.5% that you were paying to whichever credit cards you had that is peeling off 150 basis points for themselves. I mean, I invest in all of these platforms because they make so much money. I mean, it's fantastic. But I'm also going to invest in Circle and other because I know those guys are going to disrupt

the credit card companies. So I've made a ton of credit cards, but now, I mean, this is going to get crazy because there's going to be a hell of a competition. It's going to be really interesting because the minute I can use a stable coin on my phone, why am I going to use anything else? It's cheaper.

I save money. That's the whole point. And all of a sudden, by word of mouth and by the fact that it's ubiquitous in every country that adopts it, everybody uses it. There you have mass adoption. And mass adoption starts to occur not at 100 or 1,000 or 100,000 users a day. It's a million a day. It's people saying, oh, this is the new standard. I'm taking it down. I'm going to download this app. I'm going to start using it. That's the million a day. It's people saying, oh, this is the new standard. I'm taking it down. I'm going to download this app. I'm going to start using it. That's the potential of this.

So you want to be invested in some of those projects because they're going to be that disruptive. And it's all about the thing when, you know, people always say, oh, this is a great societal reason for it and it's burning less carbon and all that stuff. That's all great. But at the end of the day, what motivates people? Money. That's what they understand and saving it. Everybody in every language, everywhere on earth cares about saving money. That's it. They do. And with so many options

to invest in the crypto space, how do you attempt to actually choose those winners as an investor? I simply ask the project leader one question. What problem are you solving? If you don't have that answer, take it behind the barn and shoot it because it's a really bad idea. It has no reason to exist. So, you know, you have to solve a problem. That's the problem with a lot of these projects,

a lot of these chains. There's no applications on them. There's no problems being solved. I mean, yeah, they're developing a new chain, but they'll die because there's no way to make any money. You got to have applications. So obviously Ethereum is the top dog because it was there first, but it's too slow for financial services. So that's never going to happen. If you're going to do the same number of transactions that any credit card company does, you're going to need a new chain.

And it's not going to be Ethereum with Polygon on top of it. It's not solving for the gas fees. You've got to solve for the speed and the security. And that means a mist and maybe, maybe, or maybe if Solana stops blowing up or something where it can really prove to do hundreds of thousands of transactions a minute, if not millions. And nothing can do that yet. I 100% agree that much of crypto is not looking

to solve a problem, but we've come up with a solution first and then go in search of the problem after that. Now, actually, I was told, sorry to put you on the spot, but I was told that we're going to take some questions for a few minutes from the audience. So I'm going to just go ahead and move on. We should have someone with a mic, but if we don't, I can hand mine off. We're not going to get to all of you. I'm sorry. I do have to tell you that.

But somebody with a mic, choose right up here. Yeah, right there. There you go. Hey, Mr. Wonderful. You're the man looking sharp as usual. I wish I had hair like you, man. I appreciate it. I appreciate it. So it so when we're talking about onboarding the next bill you know I do a lot of work I know you do a lot of work

with youth and ed tech and we do a lot of work trying to onboard new minority groups people of color young women etc my company works on that kind of focus what role do you see in this very fragile, volatile market, the up and coming youth and those future leaders playing and how can we best develop them to fit into this model? Because if we're going to ship stuff overseas, we've got to do stuff here to make it better here. You know, one gravity that everybody has to deal with in crypto is the same gravity every startup in consumer goods and services has the number one reason Eight out of ten businesses fail in America They're started up within 36 months is they're never able to get their customer acquisition costs below the lifetime value of the customer a

Fancy way of saying they go bankrupt advertising It's no different in crypto and on the blockchain A lot of the project leaders have to understand you also have to acquire customers. You have to be able to tell your story and get people to know you even exist, to even try or use you. And that's going to be a big challenge for a lot of these apps that are being developed and all these great social missions and trying to bank the debanked and all that stuff. There's going to be a lot of work to try and figure out customer acquisition and that that will at the end of the day be the same gravity that every business faces the same will happen in crypto next question hand off the mic back there over here so i do feel as if i'm not in my team's project so we're focusing on a business district in the metaverse that's more realistic. I would love to hear your thoughts on as we onboard businesses for global adoption and

in regards to bringing other projects and various solutions within a platform. What are your thoughts in regards to how it could scale globally and change in mass adoption? massive. Well, you know, the market has voted on the metaverse in not a very positive way as measured by the value of... Wow. They didn't like that.

Yeah, that was the metaverse. The empire strikes back. Next question. Well, I was just going to point out that Facebook has been cut in half because it had a vision for the metaverse that isn't articulated yet. I mean, I'd like to hear, Ben, what you think about this. What was the question again? The metaverse. What do you think?

Oh, the metaverse. Yeah, I think there's potential there for sure. I think that there was a lot of hype during the bull run. And so there was a lot of crap that was sort of sticks and what's still there. So I think we've got to wait and see what happens here. But really, it comes down to where's their value. And so I think that remains to be seen in the metaverse, at least from my perspective. We have time for about two more questions. I know you have the mic over here.

I just wanted to comment on your, I love how you're always advocating for regulation. And that's a good thing in the space. And a lot of crypto natives and Web3 people aren't a fan of that. But obviously, I think to get those billions of people into this industry, we have to welcome that. So that's the first part of getting this mass adoption is regulation. And I don't think they're going to do it in a way that's going to stifle that innovation. Because just like you said, the US doesn't want to lose leadership. But the second way I see people getting involved is through education.

Because, you know, the conversations that we have in Web3, we all love it. But how do you get the masses involved? And the Kim Kardashian thing, I think that was great. I mean, that's sending the message that the Web2 waves of pumping my bags, non-transparent, you know, the economy goes to the few at the top, that's gone now. So my mission is to help spread the word with quality, entertaining information people can trust, like a Joe Rogan-style podcast with industry leaders that I meet along the way to have this conversation in a more meaningful way with people in the mainstream mass media. So I think trust and transparency is everything in this. And I

wanted to know your thoughts on investing in education and educational efforts and this new creator economy. Yeah. I mean, Scott, you've been pretty vocal about this. Education. I think that that's actually probably the biggest answer that we didn't give to how we bring a billion people in. And so I think she makes a great point because, and Ben, we talked about this right before as well. I think we have a big problem with, well, UX, UI, certainly the vernacular that we use for things. I mean, 99% of cryptocurrencies should not be called cryptocurrencies, and that's already a non-starter in my opinion. So I think that simplifying our messaging, I think we're terrible. We like need a PR agent for crypto or something. We're just terrible at giving that very quick two-minute pitch on why these things are important.

And I think that that does inevitably whittle down to education. And the onus is on us as podcast hosts and platforms themselves to do that, in my opinion. I think we have one more question. Kevin, you spoke about the potential of stable coins in terms of actually making cryptocurrency ready for adoption as a currency. Because we all know that people right now are investing in cryptocurrency as a high-risk,

high-return asset investment class, and not really looking at it as a potential for being a global currency. You mentioned that you're investing in Circle. However, my question is that Circle themselves, they are looking at the 130 trillion transaction market in US alone and trying to get a piece of the pie like all the neobanks are doing. Circle team themselves said that we are not focused on the unregulated offshore areas. And ultimately, the way Circle is pegged to dollar, which includes putting money in treasury notes and in Silvergate Bank as a fiat currency, ultimately, it would be capped by what the sovereign body or the Federal Reserve says that, you know, we just want this much US dollars in circulation. My question is, which stable coin do you really see becoming a currency for everyone around

the globe that includes countries like Turkey where there is a 78% inflation? Because Circle is not focused on that right now. Yeah, but I think the world has already voted on that issue. And I can answer it this way. How many people would take out of their savings account all their US dollars and give it to China in a Chinese digital currency. Would anybody in this room do that? I mean, that's not going to happen. The US dollar is voted on every day, in every market, every second, and it's determined price against every other currency.

Every single day in the FX currency, the biggest market on earth is FX, a trillion dollars every 12 hours. I'm kind of agnostic to nationality regarding currency, but the only place I'm going to put the majority of my wealth is in the US dollar stablecoin because everybody else wants that and everybody trusts it. The idea that China's going to coronate a leader for life who will probably get dementia in his 80s, who will be controlling my currency, is a really bad idea. And so, you know, I just tell it the way it is. The standard payment system on earth is going to be based on the US dollar. You don't have to like the politics. You don't even have to care about it. It's what the world votes on every single day.

And that's what matters. It's the trust of that currency with all the problems America has. Everybody wants to put their money here. I think it says it all right there. So I know we only said one more, but you are standing there already with a mic and we don't want to make it super awkward for you. So we're going to let you go. I appreciate it. Mr. O'Leary, is it okay if we start referring to you as Mr. Wonderfi? Yes. I'll answer on his behalf. Yes. Okay. Patent pending, trademark. Yeah.

I have a two-part question. We're with a social media, so me, it's social media empowered, and we have a scalable social media platform with about 70,000 users. Do you see any challenges with mass adoption coming through social media at this point with the limitations? Last year, we did run into quite a bit of limitations

with our blockchain. We broke it. We had too much traffic. We had to pivot, so now we have like a web of limitations with our blockchain. We broke it. We had too much traffic. We had to pivot. So now we have like a Web2, Web3 implementation as a side chain. But that's our solution. But do you think there's anything better that we could do to scale this? Because we're about ready to scale.

You know, there's a new... I answered this question a few hours ago, but I'll answer it again now. There's a new model emerging in Shark Tank. The way I look at it, it's always 24 months ahead of the market. Whatever deal you see on Shark Tank now, you see in the market in 24 months because it's all this innovation. There's 100,000 applications, and they bring the most interesting ideas. The new model I saw this year, which hasn't aired yet,

and there's many examples of it, this idea of Community based businesses where some person with the total transparency around some cause Creates a community on social media and gets hundreds and hundreds and then millions of followers who totally trust This one individual and that's done through social media And then they decide with full transparency to monetize it to say thank you for being in the community we're all the same together you trust me I'm a forum for your ideas and I saw this happen in the in a vertical of anxiety there's many

many people that suffer some of them clinically, from anxiety, and some of it's inherited. So I saw a young woman in her 20s build a multi-million dollar business in selling product and services to her community of people with anxiety. They totally trust her. Her margins are 86%. She has no customer acquisition cost. Every day, word of mouth gets her hundreds of thousands of more customers, and she's totally transparent about monetization. She has a bank account in her 20s. She's a multimillionaire, and she has horrible anxiety. She just goes to bed in a horrible situation every night

and then talks about it the next day with her community. I mean, you can't make this shit up. This is absolutely incredible. And so that kind of business is going to emerge and it's going to be enabled by blockchain. Her whole business is built on that. That's how she actually has her supply chain worked out from where she makes her products and services. You'll see this deal on Shark Tank. It's going to blow

you away. I mean, every one of those sharks just said, what the f? Like couldn't believe it. Yeah. We did 2 million in revenue last year with 50,000 users. Yeah. 4% that went paid. That's my whole point. This is, this blockchain power is enabling a brand new business model for individuals. And everybody in this room should think about it, because if you're 24 and you're crippled by anxiety

and you can become a multimillionaire, well, that's America, baby. Yeah, more power. Thank you so much. I don't think there's any better note to conclude this on than that. Thank you, Mr. Wonderfi and other Mr. Wonderfi. The Mr's Wonderfi, ladies and gentlemen. And if you guys want to revisit this, this actually has been recorded

and it will be put out on the Wolf of Wall Street's podcast, Apple, Spotify, YouTube, everywhere that you listen to your podcasts. Thank you guys once again. Thanks, Scott.