Stephen: This is Steven Sargent. This is Around The Coin podcast. And if you like fintech and content, this is going to be a really cool episode. We have the head of content for Europe for Money20/20, the largest fintech conference probably around the world. He talks a lot about his early days working in wealth management and how he transferred a lot of that knowledge, along with his journalistic knowledge of interviewing Rafael Nadal, uh, Djokovic, All of these amazing tennis players and bands and how he used all that information to help create content for Money2020's conference.

He talks a lot about the conference and the challenges and the benefits of the conference. And he goes into his new book, Why DeFi Matters, and he explains it to us, why it matters, what are some of the challenges, the dichotomy that we're fighting with, with each end of the spectrum, of how do we implement this technology in everyday life.

We talk a little bit about, you know, things like the metaverse and NFTs, but we get deep into DeFi technology, and what are some things holding us back, and what are some things propelling the industry, like the way and the role that crypto is playing on the elections, not just in the US, but around the world.

This is a fun podcast. Ian has such a fun personality and I know you're going to enjoy this one.

Stephen: This is your host, Stephen Sargent. We have a special guest on the Around The Coin podcast, live from Money20/20, or at least live from within the organization of Money20/20, and the established author, Ian Horne. Give us a little bit of your background, Ian, and now I'm going to jump in. I'm going to dive into some of your background, and we're going to go deep on some questions about Money20/20, and your book, Why DeFi Matters.

Ian: Hey Stephen, first, good to join you here on the podcast. My background is a bit confusing because obviously you mentioned the book Why DeFi Matters, which is going to be mostly what we're talking about, but I also run content in Europe for Money20/20 you know, major fintech banking and payments show.

I, like many people who are in financial services, kind of fell into it. So 10 years ago, I saw a job advertised on Facebook by a friend for a company called Citywire. They were looking for someone to head up their networking team for financial advisors and later wealth managers. And I kind of thought, well, that's a chance to travel around the UK and drink coffee and go for beers with people and things like that.

And thus sparked a 10 year career in finance, where I end up speaking to investors about how they, you know, how they asset allocate and how they look after their wealthiest clients and so on. My career though, I think one thing we're going to get into, right, is to start at the very beginning, I was A journalist.

So I used to write about the tennis tour, a job I kind of fell into. I was looking for a way to make extra money while I was at university, to be honest, and I was taking on any writing commission I could get. A friend of mine, it turned out, was writing for a website called livetennis. com. And he got me a job after I got published several places elsewhere.

And this ended up being a four or five year kind of part time and then full time role where I would write previews about matches. I mean, they were very cursory previews. It wasn't great writing, but it was, it was comprehensive. And I also got to go to some of the major events. So I was I had some crazy times at the French Open, for instance, where I got to interview a lot of the players, be in press conferences with..

Stephen: What year was this? I'm going to interrupt you a lot because I know

Ian: Yeah, yeah,

Stephen: to, like, what year was this? Like, who's in the finals of this year? Like Who are the stars you're talking to? Set the scene for us. Is it like Steffi Graf or not that early, not that early on?

Ian: No, not that early on, no, but the Roland Garros I'm thinking of, and I feel terrible for actually forgetting the women's side of the draw here, but what I do remember is there was an incredible five set match in the semifinals between Novak Djokovic and Rafael Nadal. I think it was 13 or 14 where Djokovic missed a really kind of Straightforward looking overhead smash I think in the fourth set, which ended up kind of counting against him at the end.

And then when it got to the final, it was David Ferrer against Nadal, and that was done in about an hour and a half. And it wasn't very, wasn't very difficult for Raffa, but it was a hell of a year though. I mean, you Going at the tennis tour at that time, you had incredible talent. I mean, I actually forgot who won the women's one, which embarrasses me.

But I mean, you had the likes of Serena Williams and Maria Sharapova playing there, Venus Williams was there. I think, you know, just incredible amount of talent on show, but. Yeah, the men's tour was seriously hot. I mean, people talk about the big four in men's tennis, Djokovic, Nadal you know, Federer, and Murray.

You know, they were all at the peak of their powers back then. In fact, I think Djokovic wasn't. He was just about getting to that level. But being able to watch..

Stephen: Can you level set some of the interviews you had? I know it's probably you and a bunch of other reporters and journalists in the room, or maybe it was like one on one. Was there anything that you saw or noticed you're like, Oh, the way this person carries themselves, I can see why they're a winner or why they're successful.

Especially as you did previews of maybe not other people ranked as high as like the Joker or Arafa.

Ian: Yeah, that's a good question. I think people who are right at the top of the game, they do have that aura about them but partly it's because you know who they are, right? I think they're not necessarily doing it to be, to make you feel distant from them. I think what I did find is there's so many different personalities, and that kind of surface level personality doesn't necessarily tell you who's going to be successful or not.

The ones that succeeded were the players that were consistently dedicated over a long period of time and disciplined and serious for what they do and obviously they have that underlying talent as well and perhaps a bit of luck by staying injury free or, you know, having the right kind of support and foundations when they're younger and things like that.

But actually you saw so many different people and personality types. So Federer for instance, classy guy. I just remember asking him a question. It was the first time I'd ever asked him a question in a press conference and it was a really just Basic generic question. He was like, oh, that's a great question.

And he answered it really nicely.

Stephen: Oh, he gave you one of those. That's a great question. When it was like..

Ian: It did. I mean, I think I might have just given you one of them, Stephen. So let's uh, let's be nice about those. Um, Anyway..

Stephen: Nothing better. There's nothing better when someone says that. It's like the classic response to make the other person feel amazing.

Ian: But what was telling about that, you know, it was a journalist sat next to me that was working for one of the UK broadsheet newspapers and basically said to me, He'll have recognized that you're new and he does that. He always wants journalists to feel like welcome. So you have someone like that who's very at ease, very calm.

Then compare him with like Rafael Nadal, who felt very on edge the whole time, felt permanently uncomfortable. Speaking to me, he seems very uncomfortable in a press conference. It's not to say that he is, he just doesn't sit still very well. You know, he's very agitated. You see him on the court, every water bottle had to be in the right place.

He's very agitated. I still remember one of his opponents, I think, during that tournament, deliberately moving one of his water bottles to try and get in his head, and failed, because you don't really get in Rafa Nadal's head that easy. But, it was so interesting to see the kind of calm of Federer, then you've got the kind of frantic energy of Nadal, and then, again, you've got someone like Djokovic, who at the time was actually quite humorous in his press conferences, and was still trying to make people laugh, and I think the Public didn't take that persona, and then you've now got the half man, half machine Djokovic that you see in front of you today.

So, and again, I mean, all the players had very different approaches and different kind of behavior types. I think the thing that really sets people apart is that time, that energy, that dedication. So it's, yeah, that's it really. It's a long slog.

Stephen: And then you get into finance, which is interesting. You were the head of UK audience. Development. Can you explain a little bit about CitiWire, like that sounds a lot, that sounds like you, you know, you're working for a broadcast channel not, not someone, you know, heavily invested in, you know, financial financial bathers.

Break this down. Is that, is that the only role that has that title in the world or is that quite common in

Ian: not that common. No, it's, It's a strange, strangely unappreciated role, I think. I mean, I did, I did that job for eight years. First as an executive, then I ran the team for several years. The interesting thing I think about audience development is it's, many event companies don't think to have a team that does that.

money20/20 doesn't have a team that does that for one reason or another. But what it really is, is It's a team that spends its time getting to know the audience engaging with them, writing content about them, doing podcasts with them, heading to their offices, meeting them and the team, doing various things to basically champion the industry that you're in and the people within it.

And the idea is if you build that rapport and those relationships, they will then turn up to your events and engage your publications. They'll do, you know, various things. And it's kind of a nice job to have because you are there to literally introduce people to what you do. And it's kind of like a marketing function.

It's kind of an editorial function. It's kind of a sales function. It's all sorts of, sorts of things. And it can seem like a really odd job. I mean, depending on who I'd speak to, I'd tell someone I was a journalist. I'd tell someone else I was a professional coffee drinker. I would say different things to different people, to be honest.

But what was great about that was we were working with an audience of professional investors. That market is only a certain size. You can't just pluck investors out of thin air. You have to go out into the industry and meet these people, engage with them, get to know them, listen to their interests as well.

Like, let's listen to them talk about your product and how you can serve them better. And if you can do that and then prove that value, they're going to, they're going to engage with what you do. So. It's a fun job. It was a really, really fun job, but actually audience development as a function is seriously underappreciated and under kind of, well, it's not spoken about very often.

For me, it was..

Stephen: Sounds like what I do on LinkedIn.

Ian: Yeah, yeah, well, well, exactly that.

Stephen: You're doing 18 different functions. You just subscribed to the Entrepreneur, basically.

Ian: Yeah, well, exactly that, yeah. You've got to tell people like, why the, why your thing is good. Listen to them on what they want you to do. More of, or less of, and all the rest. It's, nah, it's a cool job and doing that for eight years gave me a real insight into financial advice and then wealth management as well.

And, and funnily enough, that is, The kind of origin story for what I do now, because I, the UK Financial Advice and Wealth Management Market is an interesting one. There's some brilliant people there. I had lots of good relationships with people there and enjoyed it. But I did find, as I got to know people and their businesses, that technology was a bit of an afterthought.

Not for any kind of malicious reason, but more perhaps You know, finance is often a relationships based industry. So people's value, they kind of see in learned knowledge or having that conversation with clients and all that kind of stuff, listening to them, help them get their outcomes, or, you know, managing an investment portfolio, which doesn't have to be done in a high tech way.

But there were so many efficiencies being missed out on that I started, I kind of petitioned to write my own newsletter and have my own podcast on wealth technology or wealth tech. And, Management relented and let me do it, which was fantastic. I then launched a series of events, like virtual events and then in person event as well.

I mean, speaking of being an entrepreneur, I was like, I was the salesperson for that event. I was the host of that event. I was running the content for that. I..

Stephen: You're like running the mic. You're taking registration.

Ian: Seriously, I had some very helpful people working with me, but that was, I was definitely like, I was going above and beyond to make that work.

So I was just passionate about it, you know, and from that, I think I realized that I was so enthused by how technology was improving wealth management and financial advice that the next logical step seemed to be to actually jump fully into fintech and, I then applied to work for Money20/20 on the content side of things and yeah, here I am now.

Stephen: Was that like a dream job for you? You have to think money, 2020, content. That's like for me, it's like, wow, like, You get to work for a big organization, no shortage of funds, you know, whether it's sponsors or what they're doing, spending money on production. And you get to focus on just the content. Was that kind of like a dream job or was there a lot of functions?

Cause there are a lot of conferences out there, but you know, very few are even close to as big as Money20/20.

Ian: yeah, I mean, it's a really sweet job to have, right? I mean, we get to do some really cool, cool things. And finally, my first experience of the show was the Vegas show in 2022. My first week at the job was Vegas and I, yeah, I mean, what a way to start a job, right? You, I, I really can't think of a bigger shock to the senses in our industry than, than turning up.

You're in Las Vegas. There's, I can't remember how many thousand people, but about 12, 000, I think off the top of my head all there. All with a kind of mutual interest in, in fintech. And yeah, there is an element where that is a complete blast. I mean, don't get me wrong. Like, like any job, there's things you, there's plenty of spreadsheets involved.

There's lots of admin involved. There's lots of chasing up people for various things and, and briefings and all the rest, of course.

Stephen: eight minutes, eight hours after they were supposed to.

Ian: Well, we don't talk about those, but um, but yeah, of course, yeah, we do. We do have that. Yeah. Speakers that are late deadlines and all sorts of other things like that, or last minute delays where someone has to cancel that the day before they're due to speak and stuff like that, you're always going to get that stuff, but no, you're right.

It's a hell of a job to have. And it's it's, there's a bit of pressure with it. Don't get me wrong because the industry really cares about this show. Right. And if the content sucks, I'm going to be the first to hear about that. Well, I might not be the first, but I'll be one of the first to hear about that.

And at the same time, it's, I don't really think about it like that. Cause it is just very fun and getting to like help set the agenda and get the kind of best thoughts and ideas of leading companies in this space is a cool thing.

Stephen: If the content sucks, it goes from a fintech conference to a crypto conference. How do you take, like, you're talking about the scrappiness of running your own events and, you know, you know, building the audience. How do you leverage those skills when you have such a massive undertaking like money20/20? Is there still some of that hand to hand, unscalable things that you can do at such a massive organization to make people, the audience members, the vendors, make them still feel like, Oh, I'm talking to Ian, and you know, Ian, what are we going to do on the main stage?

How do you keep that kind of closeness and essence? Uh, While running such a huge operation.

Ian: Well, that's the thing. So with the focus being on content, for me, we do brief every speaker that comes across our stages you know, on guidelines of how, what we think would work, what might not work. We listen to them on their ideas for their, their session. And it gets to the point where you start to know most of the sessions on the stages quite intimately, which is kind of strange.

I have. Unusual evenings in like the weeks before the show where I'll wake up at 4am thinking about a session, which is just not, I don't recommend that to anyone. Yes, I'm probably a total nerd. That's okay. But it's definitely part of the whole process. There are other things as well. Like we get to know people.

I do go to other fintech events across mostly the UK, but also Europe too where I can, and you get to know people and it's, it is a personal thing. So I don't think there's ever as much as. We run a massive show. I don't think we lose that personal element of working with the speakers and, and making sure that experience is good for them as much as it can be.

And don't get me wrong, there's anything in excess of 300 in some years more than 400 speakers, so it can't be fully hand holding, but We, yeah, I mean, I don't, I think you lose something if you lose that element of of being reachable and contactable and being able to discuss ideas with someone. So, yeah, we do our best to keep that.

Stephen: How do you, you know, you're talking about wealth technology, financial technology, that's what the, you know, the essence of the conference is. How do you make sure that you're capturing the future of, you know, the industry without just chasing the hype, but also, you know, keeping some of the existing content that's important today.

You know, you have such a wide group, right? 300 people, you can manage exactly what they're looking for. You know, almost 3, 000 people within a minute coming into a stage, like you have over 12, 000, I believe, people, like, That's hard to, like, make sure everyone has a track that suits them. How do you manage that from a content lens?

Ian: yeah we do all sorts of things. So in the run up to the show, we hold all sorts of research calls with banks, payment providers, fintechs, you know, everything from startups through to major tech companies. You know, institutions. So we try and understand what's coming up in the year ahead and how we can best capture those trends.

We also do things like we taxonomize the content. So, you know, behind the scenes, there are all sorts of things that I'm looking at to make sure that anyone that attends our show is going to see enough content that's suitable for them. So, you know, we've got a wide audience. We've got people who are in the crypto space.

We've got people who are in cybersecurity. We've got payment providers. We've got people in credit and lending. I need to make sure that we have enough stuff that services those needs. So we do that. We audit that quite closely. In terms of the quality of the content and, you know, distinguishing between hype and nonsense yeah.

So one thing we do is we try and coach people a bit on applications. So we make videos with people with four people, and we sometimes turn up at industry, like, kind of broadcasts to explain how people can apply to the show, give them hints and tips on how to do that. And also I think one of the key things is we genuinely want like applied uses of technology.

So when it comes to something like, say, AI, like I don't necessarily want people to come and say, you know, AI is good or AI is bad or whatever, unless there's a really, really good reason for them to say that. Like, okay, if you're like Sam Altman, tell me about the ethics of AI. That's cool. I'm interested in that, but.

But generally speaking, unless you're going to be showing me like how AI is materially changing financial services, I'm not necessarily here for it. Same with with crypto. I mean, there's loads. I mean, there's so many chances in crypto, which I don't want. I'm not trying to paint the whole industry one brush there because I try to be as balanced as I can.

But you can tell the difference between someone. Talking about a genuine solution in the market versus someone that's just saying, Oh, crypto is good. There's loads of hype. Prices are up.

Stephen: right, right. Please, please invest in my course after I get off stage.

Ian: yeah, yeah, exactly that. So I think, yeah, no one has a perfect kind of, you know, bullshit filter.

I don't either, but at the same time, we are looking for people to demonstrate what, how, how, and why, what they do actually improves things. And then beyond that, I mean, I, I work on content with Mickey Tesfai who actually is based out in America. Some of you guys might, might have met him listening to this podcast.

He's a former analyst and journalist. I have worked in journalistic functions. We both have that kind of training and I just, you can't do that kind of role without having to. You come across a fair amount of people that talk nonsense about any substance, right? And I think it's something we're very careful about.

And there are a million and one things we do to kind of make sure that we don't have chances on there, on the stage. Because it's important, right? If you come to Money20/20, you want great content and we, yeah, yeah, we do what we can to make sure that you don't get someone just plugging or shilling or whatever.

Stephen: Speaking of crypto, you know, there was this, you know, huge thing where there was crypto kind of AI where, you know, some of these crypto conferences were using AI women to show that they have all these women speakers and then it comes out like, you know, the person was, oh, I just, it was a placeholder nothing malicious.

How do you balance that diversity with like, Hey, we want the qualified speakers. We know we have qualified speakers, but like, Hey, there's this panel. Like, you know, I'm part of a man on the panel with the association for women in crypto, so I will never speak on the panel anymore. Anyway that doesn't have a woman and they have a list of like probably a hundred women that could easily fill all around the world.

Do you think about diversity or is it just like by the nature of you guys speaking with it, your team, your team, your, you know, the constituents look much like the speakers. How is that? Is that an app? Like, is it a, something purposeful? Do you guys have meanings about it? You don't have to go into nitty gritty details, but like, how do you think about diversity altogether?

Ian: Yeah, that's a really good question. And I think it's, it's massively important to, to have that on the stages. And we, we do generally speaking at Money20/20 across all the shows have, I would say, better ratios for you know, gender and ethnic equality than, than pretty much any finance show going. I'd put ourselves up there against anyone.

We aim for 50/50 in terms of gender split, by the way, as best as we can. The reality is it often ends up being slightly less than that for various reasons, like late dropouts and so on. Firstly, that crypto story you mentioned, I was so baffled when I saw that because I just, like you say, there are easy ways to find women that can talk on the topic.

It's not like there are no women in blockchain or crypto or Web3. Like it's, it's lazy and it's bizarre and I don't know at what point they intended to reveal that there were no actual women there. I just, I can't, yeah, that was a bit, a bizarre game of crypto.

Stephen: I'm gonna assume once they cash the checks after the conference would be the best time for them.

Ian: well, yeah, that must have been it, but it's a strange bit of catfishing, and a very easily audited one. Um, So..

Stephen: What's funny is they just weren't doing it to say, hey, look at our women speakers. They knew a lot of those sponsors wanted more diversity. And that's like, that was kind of their method. It wasn't like, Hey, look at, we have speakers and they're women. It was more like the sponsors were like, Hey, let me take a look at your speaker list kind of thing.

And that's, I think where it came up as like, Oh, this was very, very plan.

Ian: We'll just create some women. I think it's deeply insulting, and I don't really understand what the rationale is. Like you say, there are places where, there are, people that are creating like areas where you can find good female speakers. As a content professional myself, it is easy enough to find them.

You do have to like, you know, speak to companies and there is some back and forth sometimes because we are in fintech, we are in finance. The majority of people in that industry are men and they are, you know, senior figures are men, sorry, and they're white men as well. So you have to push back sometimes when you're speaking to people.

major brands that want to speak on stage, we always say to them, like, put forward a diverse agenda, put forward a diverse panel, because it will increase your likelihood of getting selected, because we want to have the best, most diverse conversation that we can have. And it's not about, you know, box ticking, it's a, it's about having people represented on stage so the content has more depth to it, more richness to it.

So, yeah, we do a lot on that front there, you know, in the, speaking from a UK and European perspective you know, The Herd is a good website to check out. Chantal Swainston runs that. Great database of women that are brilliant at talking about finance and all things, yeah, fintech. It's not like these resources aren't out there.

So, I think in this day and age, there's, there's no excuse. I think if you're a marketing and comms professional trying to get your message out on stage, the sensible thing to do here is to put forward your best and strongest female speakers that you've got as well. Because, you know, Our applications represent our audience a bit.

We get far more applications from, from men than we do from women and so on..

Stephen: Men are like like, what? Open to speak? Sure. I'll talk about. I'll talk about any topic...

Ian: I don't think I've ever turned down a speaking gig, Stephen.

Stephen: Click ones that apply.

Ian: But yeah, I kind of, that's it, isn't it? I mean, I'm, I'm. I don't think there are many men out there that are hesitant to speak on topics when they're invited and that kind of becomes a problem.

But anyway, yeah, to your point, we really do care about that and we've put a lot of thought and effort into that. It requires some pushback. It also requires people to buy into it as well, but I think people increasingly do. So yeah, that kind of AI nonsense, my goodness, I don't know what that If you're gonna pull a scam as well, at least pull a good scam, I mean, geez.

Stephen: Yeah, I think the fact created an AI person, like kind of adds a little salt to the wounds. Talk to me about money20/20 though. Like one common theme I've been thinking about, you know, we're going to go into your book. I want to hear like, Hey, some like, Hey, give us some exclusive stuff about what to expect for money20/20.

But before that, we see a lot of like side events popping up at these massive conferences. People, let's say no longer want to, but they're like, Hey, how can we maximize every dollar? Hey, I may not want to sponsor, but Hey, I'll sponsor like a hundred drinks, you know, during lunch on a side event. I've been noticing some conferences are having like now official side events, which makes companies want to, you know, make that list and still get the distribution of the conference.

Talk to me, this must be a little bit of a gray area and kind of like, yeah, it's fine, but like, kind of that's not what the point is. Without the conference, you won't have any side events, so let's continue to support the conference. Give me your, you know, your landscape of this.

Ian: Well the thing with parasites is No, I'm kidding, I'm kidding, I'm kidding um, I You're right, it's a grey area, isn't it? And I think you have to take the rough with the smooth, really, is my proper answer. Like, and actually we do advertise certain fringe events on our app when people show up because we, we accept it's part of running an event.

It's, it's going to happen. And as well, there's, there's a learning exercise too, as well. If I see something on the fringe content that I think, actually, that's really good. And I wish we'd done that. There's a learning experience there. And it might be something that we can bring in. I mean, my aim is to make sure everything we run inside the app.

Inside the show is so good that the fringe event isn't worth looking at, but you never know. I, I think you can't really do too much to stop it. And I say that because, you know, we run our shows in Vegas, Amsterdam, and Bangkok. You can't buy a city. You can't shut down a city and stop people doing stuff.

And yeah, there's something that's encouraging about the fact that everyone is coming. to town when we're in town. So I suppose you also take that as an endorsement of we're doing something right and we're bringing people to the city. I think I just, the challenge for us is just to make sure that the stuff, the best stuff is always, as I say, it's, it's in the tent, it's in the show.

And you know, and if you want to turn up and you can't afford or don't want to be in the main thing, fine, but when you do take that dive and jump in and become part of the regular show, then you realize that's the full experience. That's the best experience that you've got. So, you know, I, I don't, you know, I can joke about this stuff.

Yes, it's a confusing situation. I don't think it's going to go away, but Yeah, I think people that commit to the actual full experience will realize that it's worth just being part of it. We, we, we run an awesome show.

Stephen: Like, it's like a sporting event. Like, yeah, you could watch conveniently for free, you know, drink as many beers from your own home. Or you could be in the stands. It's like, yeah, like, you know, for the most part, when, you know, when this is, if it's the World Series, it's only happening once a year and somehow you can get tickets, like you go watch it in the stands, there's an energy, there's an energy there that you can't replicate, you know, outside or at a local bar watching it on TV.

And I think that's the most important thing. What can we expect? money20/20 or money? Yeah, money. 2020 in. 2025 is coming. I believe it's June in Amsterdam. A talk to me about the location. Is this like, why Amsterdam and why haven't you gone any other places? Or is this kind of your staple? Are you locked in maybe with the deal with the, the, the..

Ian: Oh, there are a million and one reasons why I'll admit I've been at the company two years and wasn't involved in the original discussion to bring bring the show to Amsterdam. You'd need to speak to likely the CEO, but I, I know there was a connection with, with Dutch Fintech doing a lot of work to bring us in same with the Dutch Royal Family being part of that whole bit to kind of attract money20/20 to the area.

So, and we had Prince Constantine speak at the show this year, which was awesome. I mean, the Rai in Amsterdam is, it's a great venue. It's very spacious, is well connected. There are logistics reasons as well as the fact that it's a really good venue. area to run a show. And as you know, being on mainland, in mainland Europe is actually pretty handy too.

So I know previously to that it was in Copenhagen. I don't know of any plans to move it, but that would not be the head of content's decision I have to say. But so long as they give me enough space to put some cool stages in, I'm, I'm, I'm, I'm..

Stephen: Some Pyro, some fireworks. Anything that you're expecting, anything that you can, even if it doesn't happen, anything that you're like, Hey, what would really be cool next year would be A, B, or C. Anything that you could think of that you think that's maybe not on the list so you're not spoiling it internally. Your comms

Ian: mean, I

Stephen: listening intently to this podcast.

Ian: yeah, I think a few people would squirm if I went into any detail in this. We're still kind of at the ideation phase, so I'm kind of toying around with some ideas at the moment, Stephen, of how we can bring people in and different content themes we can trial. I genuinely can't say anything anymore, but

Stephen: I love it. I love it. Hey man, this is a podcast. We're going to put, we're going to..

Ian: Yeah, yeah.

Stephen: We're going to push so. Now at the end of last year, you do what most crazy people would do. You release a book, you lock yourself away and you write why DeFi matters. And you know, maybe I can ask you right away, why does DeFi matter?

And why did you feel the need to? You know, put everything pen to paper to show the people why DeFi matters.

Ian: That's a good question. So, I mean, the inspiration for this book was, actually goes all the way back to me being a relationship manager in financial services, you know, for investors, because I always saw coverage of crypto as being really, really contentious. And I say crypto rather than DeFi, there's obviously a distinction, but You know, people either hated this stuff or they loved it.

And then also speaking to professional investors, you know, they often publicly say, don't invest in this stuff. And then you speak to them at an event or you speak to them in their office and they own some Bitcoin or they own some Ether or they own whatever. And that's actually,

Stephen: They pull up their MetaMask on their phone and you're like, what, you have dog with hat.

Ian: Yeah, exactly. Oh God, it was pre dog with hat, but like I, you know, it's not even a hypocritical position to hold, by the way. I mean, if you work in the financial, in, you know, services industry and you're investing on behalf of clients until the arrival of like ETFs, you would, you wouldn't, well, even, and even then you probably wouldn't allocate a typical client in this stuff.

Like investing your clients in would be a regulatory disaster. And a lot of advisors and wealth managers were being asked by their clients, like, should I buy crypto? I've seen the money going, I've seen the prices going up, like, why aren't you investing in me, in all this stuff for me? And it possibly, for them, became an ongoing frustration of having Unqualified investors telling them they should be investing in something that's unregulated.

You can imagine the kind of irritation that caused. But anyway, to go back to why I wrote the book, I, I was also really interested in what was going on here and trying to understand it. And I, Honestly found it very hard to trust anything I read about crypto. I still do find it hard to trust a lot of what I write sorry you know, read about crypto because you've got some people that are obviously trying to sell you stuff and shill things and, you know, crypto is the best, oh yeah, next year Bitcoin is going to be worth a million dollars a coin and all that kind of stuff.

And then you read another article and it's, you know, this is a fraud, the whole thing's a Ponzi scheme, you know, these guys are criminals, oh yeah, this exchange collapsed, so the whole thing's a bust. And I just found it very hard to kind of understand what was going on. I thought this is an interesting area.

Like what is really going on here? My original perspective was actually to go and write a book about what people should know about investing in, in cryptocurrency and like whether or not they were a legitimate asset and all the rest. I found there's a much better story actually just talking about decentralized finance more broadly.

What it does. How it, how it has changed finance, what it might mean for the future. So that kind of brings me back to your original question of why DeFi matters, obviously the title of the book. And I think it matters because, you know, people have introduced the idea of transactions or kind of entire financial ecosystems being carried out without the involvement of banks or intermediaries, which actually in itself is kind of crazy, like, you know, Crazy is the wrong word, but it's different. It's new.

Stephen: No, it's crazy. It's crazy.

Ian: Well, yes and yes and no. I mean, actually, do you know what I mean? You're right. Yes, it kind of is crazy. It kind of isn't crazy, but it's very different. And the impact of just throwing that into a world that has lots of regulated financial services is, it is different, right? So if we DeFi matters, it's the, You know, promise of an entirely new financial ecosystem, make of that what you will and dial it back, and I prefer to dial it back we can also look at how the technology is added to the existing financial system or is like starting to add to that system You know, when you look at doing things about intermediaries, what you're really doing is adding efficiencies and automating things, really, and that can have lots of different impacts.

So, it's a story of what we can upgrade and what we can add efficiencies to. You know, and that might involve like international money movement. It might be, you know, we look at decentralization that might be involved identity, asset management, governance, if we look at DAOs and more. So, you know, cryptocurrency is new types of money.

You know, it's also inspired central banks to create new types of money. You've got them CBDC Pilot projects and actual product projects, which most of the world seems to be engaged with. I think it's like over 90 percent of the world's GDP has either been piloted, you know, nations with 90 percent plus the world's GDP, I should say, have experimented with CBDCs and so.

Stephen: Agora by the Bank of International Settlements or other projects?

Ian: Now what I'm looking at, and actually the best way to look into this is the Atlantic Council's CBDC tracker, so I would advise anyone to look at that. It's kind of their clever wording of it, but what they're trying to say is the nations that between them have 90 percent plus of GDP have all had some involvement with a CBDC project.

They've either piloted one, researched one, or launched so the point is this You know, this has inspired new money in a crypto sense, but you also have central banks across the world looking very seriously at integrating the technology of DeFi into their own central bank money, which is really quite something.

And then, I mean, if you look at beyond that, like why DeFi matters, it's created social movements, collectives. I mean, look at the Board 8 Yacht Club and things like that. It's inspired artwork, not all good. It's influencing politics. I think we'll get into that later. Economic policy. I mean, this is actually like crazy stuff.

So yeah, yeah. I'll go back to my original point. It is crazy.

Stephen: To us, me and you? I live in Canada, you live in the UK, you know, somebody scams our credit card, we can pick up the phone and call the bank and they remove the charges. I understand why it might mean something for someone in Nigeria where they can't just walk into a bank and get us dollars or to pay a vendor.

And, you know, even if, you know, their money's being devalued by the second, so they have to kind of push it into stable coins to, to retain their wealth. Why is it, why do you think it doesn't matter more for certain, you know, for certain economies than it does for other, or do you think broadly speaking, it matters and it's important for everyone to have access to an alternative financial ecosystem?

Ian: I think that's a really important question to ask, and I think it matters more to some people than it does to others. I think when we look at the impact of the crypto on money, what we often mistakenly talk about is this idea of replacing the traditional financial system. I don't think it does that.

I think it adds depth to the financial system. It adds a new type of money, new types of purposes. new use cases. So what's useful for you or me might not be useful for someone else. You know, if you want to be really kind of zoom out on it, how, how crypto could be very influential for us is if it helps sway the US election, that could actually have a very big impact on us.

But that's not necessarily a specific DeFi use case. I mean, in the book, I pointed out some things like The Russian evasion of Ukraine and how Bitcoin was used to get money to the front lines in Ukraine and materially made a difference. You know, that provided money for fuel, tanks, guns, armor, all that stuff.

And without crypto that might not have happened as quickly as it did.

Stephen: Or at all, right? The centralized platforms like GoFundMe refused to send funds there because it was for military action. We even saw in Canada the Freedom Convoy. You could not donate, you know, to fight something that legally the people had the right to fight the government on. So they started, governments started knocking the door on every crypto exchange in Canada.

Some even decentralized exchanges

Ian: Yeah.

Stephen: that they're probably weren't aware of how the technology works.

Ian: Well, that's the funny thing, isn't it? And I think DeFi becomes useful to you when your system doesn't work for you. And sometimes it might not currently have a use to you, but it might have a latent use if the world changes, if your world changes. You know, it might offer some kind of financial inclusion aspect if you're shut out of the Financial system, if you're, you know, other examples I remember pointing out in the book where there are women in Afghanistan using it to have access to money because they can't open a bank account.

Again, in the developed world, I think the primary use case, honestly, is it's an investment. It's maybe a bit of fun. I'm not saying that's the only use case for it, but I think for your typical financial professional, it's something to play around with. But that doesn't mean that's the whole point of it.

So who knows, who knows like how that evolves through time. But I think when you think about why DeFi matters, it's always about like, try and de center yourself. Like it's not just about you. There are millions of people in this world with different perspectives, different, you know. You might live in a country that's suffering from hyperinflation, for instance, and if you can find a way to effectively store and hold, you know, and spend Bitcoin and so on that might be preferable to holding your own government's currency.

At the same time, that might do further things to devalue your government's currency, which then might have some impact on you. It's, yeah, there are, it's got to the point where you've got like, I think the cryptocurrency market is worth over two trillion dollars. It's quite small in terms of, you know, related to general world GDP.

And at the same time, like, it's not insignificant. So, yeah, the use cases are niche. Yes, the use cases are often illegal. But even then there's a question of whose laws and who are you? Like,

Stephen: Exactly. Yeah. Illegal where, right? To take money out of your own country into USD is illegal in a lot of places like China and Nigeria for certain capital controls. But for us, it's like sending 60, 000 across the world makes sense. Question though, Bitcoin ETFs where are you with the Bitcoin ETFs versus like, hey, the decentralized nature, the Nakamoto?

Bitcoin ETFs are just kind of like traditional products where we're kind of pretending that we're touching Bitcoin, but not exactly. Are Bitcoin ETFs good to get people onboarded into crypto and now they can venture off into Web3 and DeFi? Or is it bad because we're, you know, we're not even touching the underlying asset?

Ian: That's, I'm genuinely slightly, you know, baffled by the Bitcoin ETFs and what impact it actually has. You know, I guess it brings institutional money to the table. It does notionally prop up the value of Bitcoin and the people who are going to benefit from this if the investment is successful. is a positive one, will be people that are already wealthy that will then have the added layer of consumer protection if if anything goes wrong with the, you know, with BlackRock, for instance.

So you'll have people who are already wealthy having better customer protection than people who are just buying into it. At the same time, it also seems confusing. It doesn't really seem to sit with the whole not your keys, not your crypto kind of thing. thing, right? So I, I don't really know what it, what it means.

I mean, you look at who holds crypto now, who has Bitcoin, sorry, if you look at the ownership, I think BlackRock are one of the biggest, they're one of the top 10 holders of Bitcoin in the world, right? So are Fidelity, so is the US government, so is the Chinese government. And that is, that is materially important in terms of decentralization.

It doesn't do anything to eradicate the technological properties of Bitcoin and, and your ability to have self custody and to own your own assets. But I do, I do think the idea of a decentralized economy where you've got huge wealth inequality and wealth held by a small number of people does limit the kind of revolutionary power of the whole thing, and it also gives people less incentive to get involved.

But I mean, as any. So many more multiples that Bitcoin can go up in price, for instance. So it's a lure to someone who doesn't have a huge amount of money might kind of diminish at this point. Yeah, it's at the same time I'm talking about the wealth inequalities in, in many respects that horse is bolted for Bitcoin, same for Ether.

And I know, you know, there's ETS being, being launched for that as well. So yeah, I wouldn't say that these things kill the idea of decentralization, but I think they highlight that this isn't a, you know, Bitcoin isn't really a wealth distribution tool in the way that people thought it might be. Yeah, it..

Stephen: Well, I'm curious, what would you take from the, you know, you've been in the traditional finance space, you've read about it, you've been having, probably one of the people that has the most conversations with people that are interacting with traditional investment methods, what's something that you wish you could plug in from the TradFi space, Into crypto for any reason, whether it's security governance, is there anything you're like, Hey, why can't we just absorb this?

They they're doing this. So, right. They do a lot of things wrong, but this is one thing they're doing. Right. That we need in crypto in order to kind of get the same momentum and user adoption.

Ian: It's a difficult question to answer because, you know, part of the beauty of beauty of a Bitcoin is its lack of governance. Almost the fact that is, that is a property of the thing. That is kind of what makes it. At the same time, I, I think the lack of consumer protection is something that bothers me a bit about crypto.

And I, I, yeah, I don't know how you could ever provide it really without, because again, with it, it's easy to regulate entities and centralized exchanges and so on, but Regulating everyone that comes into contact with like a decentralized exchange is incredibly difficult. But I think you have a situation where people come to the table, like most users of DeFi are qualified financial professionals who have some background in tech or finance, generally quite well read, relatively affluent.

And then you get new people coming to the table that perhaps don't know a huge amount about finance, maybe have read some blogs somewhere that say that a coin is going to the moon, and they're kind of easy to fleece, I would imagine, if I'm coming at this from the perspective of a scammer or someone who's got slightly less than virtuous intentions.

So I would like to see more. Protection for people that come into the space because if you know, I don't think crypto has to be a scam But if I was going to scam it's pretty handy for that so I would like to see that brought in but I have no no genuinely good ideas on how to, how to do that..

Stephen: Interesting. I've been talking to so many different companies. They offer like warrant wallet warranty. You know, there's a couple of DeFi insurance companies. Do you believe that, because you talked about, you know, you know, in the sense of, you know, big institutions, the only way they can touch DeFi is if they have compliant measures.

Do you just feel like there should be a toggle? Like, hey, if you're, if I want to go into DeFi and I want to play, that's cool, but I should be able to toggle KYC, AML for certain issues. Is that what some of these DeFi projects should be doing? Is allowing an access point? Similar to how a lot of these centralized exchanges have DeFi or decentralized exchanges infrastructures that people can port out to and go into at their leisure.

Do you think DeFi kind of has to have that same kind of on ramp from the centralized point to touch the technology?

Ian: It's interesting because I think once you bring in that kind of layer of verification, an ID, you, you lose that notional inclusion aspect of DeFi, which is that anyone can use it, regardless of their circumstance. It also, you know, creates an audit trail that some people probably don't want. It's, you know, I guess sometimes there's no benefit without also sacrificing something.

And that's the situation you have with DeFi. So I don't know. I mean, you're then looking at a system that more closely resembles the regulated industry too. And a toggle for people saying, you know, I, I opt in or I opt out. I mean, that's tricky as well, because I think you, if you look at investment from an investment And have this notion of a sophisticated investor.

I know that's certainly a thing in the UK. I'm not sure if you have it by a different name in the US, but if you're trying to invest in more exotic things and more alternative assets, and you're insisting that you're, you're wanting to do it, and you've got an advisor or wealth manager, you often need to prove that the, The investor is a sophisticated investor how you would prove that in DeFi, I don't know.

You know, I'm not sure the certificates are there to do that. Yeah, I don't know where the bar is for that.

Stephen: That's an interesting point. I think in the States, I don't, I think they have it. I don't even think it's for exotic. It's for any, you know, investments. You have to be an accredited investor. I think, you know, proven net worth or funds or assets over a million dollars. I

Ian: I actually come to think about it. I think if you've got an advisor over here, you generally, yeah, if you're doing something that your advisor says you probably shouldn't do, then that's, you know, That's the bar, I think, but I'm sure someone in the comments could probably correct me on that one.

It's been a while, it's been a few years since I was doing that every day.

Stephen: You wrote a blog on, you know, and we talked about earlier about the impact of crypto in the elections. We're obviously seeing this in the US, but this is an election year across. I think this is. The most global elections we've ever had, where the more, the most countries we've ever had have significant elections this year.

What are your thoughts? We see, I think now, some of Kamala Harris's representatives are now talking a lot more about crypto, even though they were quite critical about it before. Is this a big play? And then the second follow up question is like, why are we going after the crypto community? That's, that's a big question.

Usually very anti, you know, government and governance and they're more libertarian than the average person. Does, does it make sense for these governments to even pitch, you know, Trump at Bitcoin National? Does it make sense for these candidates to be pitching a community that, you know, technically I don't think, no, would be, you know, that invested in the presidential and voting process to begin with. I could be wrong in saying that, but that's, you know, that is the emphasis of Bitcoin.

Ian: It's a really reasonable question and this year seems very different to other years. I mean, as you say, I've written a blog on this. I've got a blog that I occasionally write called New Adventures in DeFi which covers kind of topical issues. I try and keep it light hearted and end up going on.

lengthy kind of, investigations of things. And yeah, one of the things, like the American election is fascinating from the other side of the pond. I do think it makes sense for people to chase it, both Trump and Harris. One, it seems to fit more neatly with a Republican kind of free market narrative and libertarian kind of streak as you, you know, As you highlight, there is definite support, I think, within that Bitcoin community for Trump.

But I think the other thing, a lot of people invested a lot of time and money into businesses and into cryptocurrencies and probably want reassurances that Their money won't be touched. And, you know, to a lot of people, a government that was trying to interfere with that, that would be an invasion of their, of their rights, of their, of their freedom.

And that becomes very important to people. So I think when you consider, I think it's 7 percent of the American population, I think, own or traded crypto last year. In an election won by fine margins, it makes sense for them to pursue this. I think the interesting thing is, again, the blog, I kind of go into the various policies that are set out by Trump and kind of analyze them.

Some of them are quite sensible, some of them have come from research positions, others are. Wild, and I think he's just said them in the heat of the moment, like freeing Russell Briggs, for instance. Like, we know Trump gets carried away when he talks about stuff, right? So when he says stuff like that, I just, well, that's not a serious policy, is it?

But anyway the key thing he's trying to say is vote for me, isn't it? Is I, I'm not going to take your crypto away. I'm not going to shut down your businesses. I'm going to try and, yeah, but he's also receiving funding from crypto companies too. You know, always be aware of where you're coming from. You know, it doesn't mean they're doing anything wrong necessarily, but always be aware of what your politician is getting funded by.

And someone who's previously not liked crypto and said it's not real money, who now suddenly likes crypto and is receiving funding from crypto companies and also is after votes in a marginal election, I mean, make of that what you will. Harris similarly though, I mean, as you say, the Democrats haven't been, I can't say they, they don't love crypto, do they?

They've not, they've not loved crypto as far as I'm aware. But that is also to. Kind of paint that as a blanket statement. There are Democrats that are pro crypto. There's also in the Republican party, pro and anti crypto representatives across the board. I think for Kamala, what's interesting is she's taken the more sensible and considered approach to this policy stuff right now, which is to speak to the likes of Ripple and Circle and Coinbase well that's been reported anyway to try and come up with some sensible policy decisions.

I. I think she probably needs to say something at some point soon to give some reassurances, but I think the other thing here is we're looking at crypto as in like crypto good or crypto bad and the whole conversation around crypto and around DeFi is just so broken because it's not a bipartisan issue.

It shouldn't be something that is, you know, I'm left wing or I'm right wing and therefore I think X or Y about crypto. And then beyond that, I mean, and again, I explore this in the book in a small amount of detail. There are certain cryptocurrencies that are owned primarily by left wing people, like Ether, I think, or others by right wing and libertarians, I think Dash meets that criteria.

And then if you look at like a narco capitalist, for instance, there's like over a third of, I think, Monero. Holders identify as anarcho capitalists, which is a kind of, there's kind of a crypto for everyone is what I'm trying to say. And to kind of paint this thing as, in the way that it's being painted is slightly wrong.

And then to say, you know, crypto good or crypto bad, like, am I talking about stablecoins? Am I talking about meme coins? Am I talking about Bitcoin? Am I talking about decentralized exchanges? There's a million and one different angles to it. And my hope is that a better conversation could emerge, it's a very faint hope and that we could actually apply some nuance to the situation because the regulation of crypto shouldn't be as simple as vote for me and I'll make it easy or vote for me and I'll shut it down.

It shouldn't be that conversation, but anyway, I think it's fascinating to see how that's playing out. And I'm intrigued to see what Kamala says next because she is clearly putting some thought and effort and her team is clearly looking into this before coming out with some kind of position on it.

Stephen: A win for the industry, right? If they're both talking about crypto, then that's good. Cause we're also, we're going to have to come to some kind of collaboration. At some point, it's not going to be one party or the other that's going to drive this. We need some, we need them both to say, okay, it's good, but with some guardrails, let's put in those guardrails.

Now you have a podcast too, with Sherry Chen, Miki Taspeh and others. You're interviewing the leaders of the space and there's one more person. I believe it's Rachel Morrissey. So I don't want to leave anybody out. Were there any episodes that stood out to you? Cause you've been running this for almost, I believe, or at least money20/20 has had a version of this for about six years.

Is there any guests that stood out, whether you were the host at the time or not? You're like, Oh, interesting person. Didn't think they would go this route or, Oh, didn't think they'd be so lighthearted and funny, I thought they were more serious. Anything that stuck out to you as a podcast host?

Ian: Do you want, I'm one of several hosts on that podcast. Rachel is the kind of mastermind behind a lot of it. She doesn't like to take credit for it, but she is. She did a fantastic podcast with the guys at Stronghold Mining talking about how, you know, crypto mining goes on. And it was a proper investigation.

She actually went out to their, their mine. Is it a mine? Would you call it a mine? She went there and visited them and actually spoke to them about it. And that is a really great podcast to check out. I mean, I had a few at Europe this year that I thought were quite fun. I was speaking to Laura Barrowcliffe from GBDG, who she looks at kind of fraud and identity.

And we were talking about how You know, the rise of AI and the rise of, you know, biometrics is also being matched by a rise in deepfakes and, and again, people automating their, their hacks and attacks and scams and all that kind of stuff. So that was fun because we started, you know, we were at the show and she was, you know, saying this, this could be an industry all of its own, you know, you could actually run blockchain.

An industry event for, for hackers and scammers. So we started kind of piecing together what Fraud 2020 would look like and I had a good time with that. That was a really fun episode. And there's been a few others as well. Over in the UK, an embedded finance platform, Railser. It was a, you know, unicorn valued business, was doing very well.

Obviously. COVID, a few other things, overspending, whatever, nearly went bankrupt. And we got to speak to the incoming CEO about how he'd turned that business around which I thought was quite fascinating hearing leadership lessons and, you know, how you can rescue a fintech that was doing everything right until it suddenly wasn't.

And he was, you know, Philippe Morel, the CEO, was very you know, open about what had to be done, including, you know, layoffs and things like that. That was a really good conversation. And then, and then one that didn't feature me. We had Pav Gill, who's the Wirecard whistleblower Wirecard being you know, one of Europe's biggest kind of financial scandals of the last few years.

Pav was the guy who actually, you know, again, blew the whistle on that. And he was interviewed by Jason Mikula, who some, some people will know from FinTech Business Weekly, which is a hugely popular FinTech you know, blog or publication. I don't know what we're What he'd rather call it, but that was a great episode too.

So there's loads of stuff going on. And I think what's good is we try and have fun with it. I mean, Cheryl Chen, who you mentioned as well, I love hosting with her because we get silly with it and we try and offer insight, but also have fun. We try and have a bit of personality and a bit of fun. But at the same time, we're speaking to real industry leaders.

It's a cool thing to be able to do. So yeah, I don't do all of those podcasts. We rotate it. Obviously Mickey, who I mentioned earlier, does some great podcasts too. But it's, it's a privilege to be part of that whole series.

Yeah,

Stephen: That's awesome. We have to catch up the ones that you mentioned and that, you know, the incoming CEO, when I always think that's interesting and I know that the GBG team, cause I'm big on crypto investigations, blockchain investigations, and they're deep in that world as well with their solutions. Did they have the wolf dog at your event, or did they not have the wolf costume yet?

Ian: They did have the wolf. Yeah,

Stephen: All right..

Ian: They leaned into that as well. I think that was really good fun. I think most, most shows need people to wear a mascot outfit. That's..

Stephen: Yeah, yeah,

Ian: yeah.

Stephen: That's definitely catching, you know, in Canada we had the, we had the, it was a fox, I think, the fox with the cane, so that's always good fun. Before we end off, what are your thoughts on, you know, some of the things that aren't getting that as much attention? You mentioned in the book NFTs, Metaverse, where are we with those?

Are we, is the technology still sound, but we're just not at the right place? You know, point of the cycle where it's like, Oh, it's level set, right? There's no real hype. It's just, you know, it's just the technology and the use cases. What are your thoughts on the Metaverse and NFTs?

Ian: Yeah. The metaverse, we don't talk about that anymore, do we? I, I think it's, it's really interesting because a lot of the problems that we look at and the same is true of crypto, I think people find technology or they create tech solutions and they think that that's the job done. And when it comes to.

You know, the proliferation of tech and mass adoption of tech. So many of the problems that we encounter are not tech problems. And I think the metaverse has kind of run into that. So, you know, I, I think this might not be a popular take, but I personally think the metaverse will come back in a big way.

I don't know when though. I think the hype came too soon. I don't think the access to the technology was ready. I don't think the experience was ready either.

Stephen: And I think the timing too, right? Right after the pandemic, all we wanted to do was go touch somebody, anybody..

Ian: Well, yeah, yeah, yeah, even touch grass, like anything, like anything.

Stephen: The last thing you want to do is go back into a virtual world after two years.

Ian: I think there was probably that slight kind of hold up of people that really enjoyed the pandemic and maybe still didn't want to leave their houses who possibly liked the metaverse. But no, I think it was, you know, people were trying to do too much. And the, the need wasn't there.

And it might've seen a better idea during a lockdown when, you know, you can't speak to the people who you care about, but then, then you could again. So do I need to wear a headset to do that? And what I'm not, as you say, no, we're either just do it in person and see, see people in real life, which I think we usually would.

I mean, we're human, but I think again, some of the projections got out of hand. This idea that we'd all spend hours a day in the metaverse. It just doesn't, Really fit, but I do see a future for it. As I say, I actually am still quite you know, bullish on the idea of it, but I, I, I'd expect pockets of use cases to emerge and then maybe more after that.

But, you know, the idea of the big, a big blanket experience that we're all experiencing simultaneously. I think the energy that requires actually is, is actually a big problem anyway. Never, nevermind the fact that it's not necessarily going to scale socially. So I think. Yeah, maybe small and contained use cases for specific businesses you know, arts and entertainment, stuff like that.

Then maybe think about joining the dots and having a bigger international community that engages regularly on the Metaverse. I think it could Everyday use cases, like, I wouldn't mind putting on you know, the goggles. If I'm buying a new condo or a new house and I have the floor plans and I want to know like, Hey, how, how big is this room in real life versus on paper? I think that's a use case. People would like,

Absolutely. Absolutely. And I think it's just getting to that point. I mean, you know, I think the other thing as well is like the business aspect of it and the market needs to follow the money. Those use cases, there's use cases that are cool and there's use cases that have a business case. I think the metaverse needs to follow those first and maybe, you know, focus on those people that have money to spend, who will spend the money and then, and then grow from there.

Because until you're making money, you can't really scale. I mean, I know Meta have tried throwing billions after billions. Very few companies are able to do that.

Stephen: Yeah, they seem like they backed off and they're going, you know, they're doubling down now into AI and they'll probably incorporate it again soon, but like, it seems like they're doubling down on AI. What's, you know, speaking of AI and I don't want you to talk about AI. What's one thing you're like, Oh man.

I didn't get a chance. You know, there's that three months, probably from the time you stopped writing the book till it's published. I don't know how long, maybe you can educate us. What's one thing that you left out? They're like Bitcoin, DeFi on Bitcoin is probably a major one. I'm not sure if you captured it in the book, but what's something you're like, Oh man, why didn't I know about this, you know, two weeks ago, so I could have squeezed it into a chapter.

Ian: I think actually it's an ongoing story. And you're right, DeFi on Bitcoin is a good one to add in, because, you know, there was that distinction between, oh, it's Bitcoin, it's not really DeFi, whereas now, does it really matter? I mean, there's other things as well, actually. I think more recently, I've I don't think there's any mass scaled solution yet, but I've seen kind of ideas that you can basically embed payment services into crypto wallets.

So then when you, you get, when you're trying to buy something, you can notionally buy basic everyday items of cryptocurrency because a service provider will pay for it. Basically make that exchange for you. The merchant receives fiat currency. You spend crypto. There's an exchange that happens. I don't know if that actually fully works just yet, but I find that area interesting.

If someone finds a way to make it really easy to spend crypto on a daily basis, like that could have interesting impacts on the market.

Stephen: Episodes coming up on the podcast where we recorded about crypto debit and credit cards are gaining a lot of popularity. So you have to listen out to those for listeners.

Ian: So yeah, I will do. I just want to see where that's going and, you know, how they, how they work in, in practice, because if, if that is something that you can suddenly do, that, that changes things. But again, I think it is just this ongoing story. I mean, I was writing about CBDCs in the book, for instance, and that's an ongoing adventure and exploration.

Different banks are taking different approaches to it, and we're still finding out what people are going to do with those CBDCs. Obviously people, a lot of people are terrified about what they may or may not be. The people I've spoken to who are building them are generally saying sensible things, but I think it's the concern about what they might be that terrifies people.

Yeah, I'd love to kind of provide updates on that. I think another thing is, again, the role of crypto in politics. You've got The idea of a Bitcoin reserve being floated. You've got, you know, nations like El Salvador being further along in its crypto journey. Other nations looking to kind of copy.

I know in Argentina, Millet said some interesting things about Bitcoin. I think the story just continues. It doesn't end. There's also the impact of regulation. I mean, I've outlined MECA in Europe and what that might mean for service providers. But that'll evolve, right? I think that will all change.

I mean, at the moment, there's no provision in Mika for DeFi, because there's no obvious businesses that it can regulate. But I wonder how long regulators are happy with that kind of, you know, malaise. It's not really a comfortable situation if you're a regulator. So, I mean, a million and one things.

Like, I don't think this story has run its course. I think DeFi continues to be interesting. And also it's, It's infiltration into regular assets, like regular traditional financial assets is massive. I mean, you know, Citibank of all people have published a very interesting paper on tokenized assets, which is a multi trillion dollar opportunity in there by their reckoning.

And when you look at the idea that you could add asset ownership onto tokenized rails, making it more efficient, transparent, and so on, or fractionalized, you could do fun stuff with it. Then, yeah, I

Stephen: Sounds like you gotta get off this podcast and get back into the basement or something here, and paper

you're wasting your time talking to talking to me.

Ian: Ah, honest to goodness, I, yeah, that's the thing.

It's, and that was the challenge writing the book, right? You want, trying to write things on this topic and being dedicated to keeping it accurate is very difficult. And that was always a challenge I set myself. And I think I, I did a, you know, a good job of that, but yeah, yeah, it never ends.

Stephen: That's amazing. Ian, we're going to have to end though right here and..

Ian: What a segue.

Stephen: ...maybe went over by a couple minutes, but tell people where's the best way to reach you. I know LinkedIn is the best for me. Are you deep, knee deep in crypto Twitter, or do you try and stay away of that to keep your creative juices flowing?

Ian: Oh, I am very much not active on crypto Twitter. That is, you know, when I was talking about not being able to understand what the hell goes on, that's crypto Twitter. That is a confusing place. Get me on LinkedIn. The name's Ian Horne. I will reach out to, well, I'll gladly connect with anyone with an interest in, in crypto and DeFi.

Stephen: And that's awesome. And hopefully some of our listeners will, you know, meet up with you at money20/20 next year in June in beautiful Amsterdam and instead of sorting side events, they'll come into the actual event..

Ian: Pay for a ticket,

Stephen: Instead of inviting you local Starbucks.

Ian: Listened to the podcast now, you're in,

Stephen: They'll come shake your hand.

Ian: Come to Vegas. I'll be at Vegas and Bangkok too, so Around The World, come to Money20/20, come to the real show. And thanks, Stephen.

Stephen: Awesome.