Transcript+
Before we get into the episode, a quick reminder that this podcast is for informational and entertainment purposes only and nothing should be construed as investment or legal advice. Now for a word from on RAMP on RAMP is a Bitcoin asset management platform built on multi institution custody, leveraging our partnerships with industry veterans, Bit Go and Coin Cover on ramps. Multi Institution Custody is a segregated vault requiring two of three institutions at any point in time to sign once a client's unique permissions have been met. Our industry leading best in class approach to custody helps individuals and institutions secure new and existing Bitcoin positions. All keys are held in deep cold storage and kept 100% offline. Managed with institutional grade security best practices. The custody solution eliminates single points of failure and reduces counterparty risks. Ensuring maximum security and Peace of Mind on Ramp's suite of products includes our custody offering, a spot Bitcoin fund, private wealth services and inheritance planning, and managed wealth for advisors. Whether you're new to Bitcoin or a veteran in the space, we would love to connect with you. To understand your needs and how we can serve you, please visit our website at on rampbitcoin.com where you can schedule a consultation and connect directly with our team. What you're telling me is that music is about to stop, and we're going to be left holding the biggest bag of odorous extra ever assembled in the history of darkness, 1974198792972000. And whatever we want to call this. It's all just the same thing over and over. We can't help ourselves. I say when we sell, hey, I say when we sell. And we're live back to lash tray down a man this week our our Co host Jesse Myers is making a high time preference decision, closing on a house this morning. Wow, wow. Just throwing it all out there. You got to get it out there. I was going to. I was going to say something else about it being cold and him coming from California and this this cold weather might have kept him in the under the covers this early, but you just you just threw it all out there I guess. I guess it's live. Jesse will be back next week. We're happy for Jesse. Congrats Jesse, But we're here with Talal Tabaa, CEO of Coin Mana. Very excited for this conversation. I'm not gonna lie, gentlemen, I'm not gonna lie Talal. I've been in Bitcoin for 10 years and my understanding of what's going on in the Middle East and Northern Africa with Bitcoin is lacking outside of some brief conversations with people and what you see in the news with countries getting into mining. Obviously Dubai, Abu Dhabi, big sort of parts of the world where bitcoiners are flocking to, but it's a part of the world, part of the Bitcoin community, if you will. I don't have a lot of exposure to it, so I'm really excited to sit down, speak with you, get your perspective, learn more about what's going on in your part of the world. But before we do that, how did you find Coin Mana? Why did you found it? And what is the experience been like for you as a as a Bitcoin or building a company in the Middle East? Beautiful. So first of all, I didn't found Coin Mana, my partner did and I joined as I'm a Co founder of the company, I'm CEO and yeah basically running the company but it wasn't my idea and I didn't really come up with with with the branding, the concept, et cetera. So we're three founders of the company, myself, Dina and Yazan. Dina used to run Bit Oasis, she was Head of Operations or Director of Operations at Bit Oasis, which is the oldest exchange in the Middle East. I think it kicked off in maybe 20/14/2015. I used to be a furious customer of theirs. I really used to be a very angry customer of theirs. And that's when I started realizing, all right, maybe the Middle East does need a more reliable exchange. And yeah, basically how I knew about Coin Mina is I got an e-mail saying welcome to, like, you know, log in to talat@coinmina.com. And that's basically my partner Yezen had sent out. I created basically the book the domain, set up the Gmail, and then sent me an invite to my e-mail. And that's how I knew about Coin me. Then that was around during COVID, probably first couple of weeks in COVID, like in 2020. And I told him all right, sure, I'm down to build an exchange. All of the ones in the Middle East are very underwhelming and I've personally suffered from this issue. I think it's a bit cliche, as you know, when they say like you're most suited to solving the problems that you've suffered yourself. I've suffered from the lack of quality service from other Middle Eastern exchanges and we set out to set up the best one. And my first request or demand was that I'd only do it if we are regulated by one of the top regulatory bodies. So we'll obviously today walk you through the different regulatory systems that you have in the Middle East and there's quite a few. But yeah, to answer your question directly, Cohemina wasn't necessarily my idea. But yeah, I've been working on it since 2021 and we've now become the largest local exchange in in in the region. Obviously your finances, your Okx's etcetera, they still have quite a bit of volume. But hopefully by the end of the year we believe we should be the number one player in in in the Middle East. So you mentioned Bit Oasis, the exchange landscape was not up to snuff for you particularly. What are you guys trying to improve on at Queen? Queen Mina specifically? Yeah. So if you ask me, I don't necessarily think that on ramp and off ramp is necessarily the sexiest use case of Bitcoin or crypto in general. However, it is the Trojan horse for launching all the different on chain services and on chain experiences that that I think is revolutionary. So it's impossible to do anything on chain if you don't have a reliable on ramp and off ramp. So I guess going Nina today offers customers the ability to deposit Fiat and buy crypto or deposit crypto and withdraw Fiat. And essentially we, the main differentiating factor between Coin MENA and other regional players is that we are reliable in terms of your ability to always be able to deposit money to Coin MENA and withdraw money from Coin MENA. And the reason why we're able to do that is from day zero we knew that the activity that we're doing requires massive reliance on the banks and we basically set up a fully regulated entity that complies with all the regulations. So basically not your keys, not your coins applies a lot. Now we're a centralized custodial service provider that's regulated by the central bank. So that's why we're able to have reliable on ramps and off ramps. And yeah, basically the user experience at Coinmina is significantly better than what it is at other regional players. And if I'm completely honest, the market is big enough for multiple big players and and and the reason for that is in the Middle East you have a very high GDP per capita. If you look at Upper Saudi, UAE, Kuwait, Roman, these countries all have very high GDP per capita. They also have a very young population with near full smartphone penetration. Yet you have some of the worst banking services in the world. Like if you compare how poor banks are in the Middle East versus Europe, China, the US, it's absolutely insane. So people are really incentivized, really incentivized to to to adopt crypto. Since we launched Coin Mina we've realized that the biggest use case today and as as a passionate bitcoiner it it sometimes pisses me off. But I guess I can understand why the retail and mass population want it, but it's USDT. Like for example in countries like Egypt, Lebanon, Pakistan where the local currency is literally collapsing, clients or customers want a reliable way to store USD. Like it's it's it's it's interesting how problems are relative. If you're sitting in the US, you're worried about your USD losing value and therefore you want to move to Bitcoin so that you can protect your purchasing power. Someone in Egypt, their local currency has dropped from maybe 24 Egyptian pounds to $1.00 to maybe 40. So this is like in the past year or so. So purchasing power literally almost cut by half and customers want USDT because their cost structure is in USDT and they don't have the sophistication of hedging or so yeah, I guess the main take away from launching and operating coin Mina is that USDT is by far the most popular asset for emerging markets. And I think that's also related to the shortage of traditional U.S. dollars like normal U.S. dollars in in in in those markets. So I guess that that to me was a very interesting phenomena and it's actually solving a real world problem because if you are sitting in Egypt and you want to send $100,000 to China or the US or to Paris, it's not easy. It's really difficult to do so and you'd need to go through so many hoops and and you might or might not be able to do it. Whereas if you have USDT you can send it wherever you want and yeah I guess you wouldn't be part of the traditional financial system. So that's that's an area that I personally found to be very interesting like alternative rails. And to my surprise some customers don't even properly know what crypto is. They think of USDT as like a digital dollar. Yeah, it's good, it's good to get people using crypto, but hopefully people start realizing the importance of of Bitcoin as a way to preserve wealth. But in this case, people are using it for cross-border payments and not necessarily for savings. Yeah, that makes a lot of sense to law. I'd be curious and interested in. My understanding is in Bahrain initially you guys got the the license with the Central bank and and started but as you as the past few years you've expanded into other entities or other countries and curious how you thought about that expansion. But then also you you mentioned something early on about the regulatory bodies being very important if you were going to participate and a lot of people thinks it's the the Wild West and crypto and specifically in that region where it's my understanding it's completely opposite as far as getting the borrow licenses and actually getting the rails and things in place. I would love to hear kind of like how you thought about the, you know initial place where you domiciled in the in the regulatory bodies, but then going into Dubai and other industry or other regions, how you think about that? Yeah. So I guess I'll tell you a bit about what Koimina's thought process was and then I'll expand to the other regulators. So when we thought of Koimina in 2020 or 2021 as an on rampant off ramp, my single biggest reliance is on the banks. So if I'm going to be relying on the banks, I need to be regulated by the same body that regulates the banks so that they don't look down at my license. If we had obtained a license from like the equivalent of the SEC which is the security and commodity authority in Dubey for example, the banks would have easily said, hey listen this is not our regulator, we can't really touch this. So we initially set out to be licensed by the Central Bank of Bahrain and that proved to be a very smart decision because it allowed us to open all of these banking channels and the central Bank of Bahrain is a very reputable regulator. So by them having crypto it helped us massively in in in in being able to open bank accounts and and start kick get the ball rolling. So if you think of like the Middle East you have the Gulf cooperative countries with the GCC. The biggest market by far is Saudi Arabia. Saudi Arabia doesn't have crypto regulations yet. It's not legal and it's not legal. So they haven't regulated but they also haven't banned it. So people in Saudi Arabia mostly buy crypto from overseas exchanges like coin Mina or they use P2P markets. So Saudi is still a very untapped massive market and I guess I'll go from size of market and and and potential. And then in my opinion UAE is obviously the the financial center of the Middle East. So if you think of what are the global financial centers, obviously the first thing that comes to mind is New York, London comes to mind, Singapore, Hong Kong, Tokyo and now Dubey is also what the, the financial center of the Middle East. So for us we knew that we wanted to be regulated in Dubai. I personally live in Dubai, very big fan of the city. I think they move at a different pace from everyone else. Insanely visionary leadership and ability of execution is absolutely insane. Like I first moved to Dubai in 2012 and I can't explain how different the country is and they dream big. Like usually if you're the size of a city, you don't dream that big. But in Dubai, they always dream big. And I guess the regulator that they set up, which is literally called Vara, the Virtual Asset Regulatory Authority, only regulates crypto. They only regulate virtual assets. So let me take a step back. I talked about Saudi. There's no regulations in Saudi yet. But in the United Arab Emirates, you have the main two cities are Abu Dhabi, the capital, and then Dubai, the financial center. In Abu Dhabi you have ADGM, which is the Abu Dhabi Global Markets. You have a few exchanges set up there. Coinbase recently I believe set up their asset management arm there. You have finance have a custody license that they recently withdrew. So there's there's, there's some activity in ADGMI, personally liked Vara more and that's why we went for the Vara license. And Vara is again the Virtual Asset Regulatory Authority and they're based in Dubai and they specifically regulate virtual assets and they regulate it based on the service that you provide. So whether you're a custodian, broker, exchange, advisor, it doesn't matter what asset you're managing or servicing, they regulate you per your service. And in my opinion, that's a very good way to do it as opposed to what the Swiss tried to do back in the day and like payment token, utility token, security token and everyone tries to disguise their securities as a form of utility. No point doing that. I guess that's what Dubey realized. Then they set up Bora, so Co and Mina were regulated by Bora and the central Bank of Bahrain. You also have the Dubey International Financial Center, which is what where traditional banks historically have been set up. They are recently, they've recently announced their plans to also regulate crypto. So you do feel like there is some sort of healthy competition between the regulators and that's not something that is very common if I'm completely honest. It's great for us because it gives us optionality on where we want to launch specific products out of. But yeah, so to take a step back on the comment of of Dubai being the the wild, Wild West, similar to Crypto, when you have something that's super high growth, you attract the best and you attract the worst because there's lots of opportunities and legit and grifters would both want to take part or they all both want to capitalize on what's there. And as a regulated entity in the United Arab Emirates, it's actually very stringent. So you have to go through a lengthy licensing process. You can go to Vara's registry and you can see which applications and approved and which are pending. And the process takes time. It took us 13 months from start to finish and that involved a central bank approval for our client money account. And obviously there is an unregulated market in the UAE and that's the OTC market that deals with physical cash. But that's a completely different industry in my opinion. So at Coin MENA, we only accept wire transfers, card and crypto deposits. If you enter into the cash business, that's a completely different ball game. And that market is not regulated by Vara, so or regulated by any. But yeah, that's how I guess similar to how P2P markets are operating today in an unlicensed, unlicensed manner. Yeah, I guess also you have Roman, the Sultanate of Roman, which is just South of the United Arab Emirates. They've all launched their crypto regulations, which should be coming into effect this year. And then Qatar, which hosted the World Cup and is also a very ambitious country. They've launched their tokenized, I forgot what they call it, like tokenized digital assets. But in my opinion, it's no such thing as just tokenized financial assets. You need to have your core digital assets for you to be able to do these on chain tokenized assets, and if it's a private blockchain then it's again very different from what we're trying to do at at Coinmina. So I get many things in the digital asset space are brushed with the same brush, even though they're extremely different. Yeah, it's incredible. You must pinch yourself all the time thinking about the amount of opportunity. The one thing to to to share it's like the bet from a a leader is in my opinion will come from the market as we've seen like maybe it's finance and Coinbase historically the past 10 years. But over time as the market matures, you start to work hyper locally, you go to the places you trust, you go with the licenses that you recognize. And so it makes complete sense that other exchanges would have form like yourself and then establish relationships where people are going to be able to go to an office or be able to talk to somebody. We see that here in the US, in Texas, specifically during the 2021 bull bull market and the miners and folks would call us up. It's like I don't know about doing business with Coinbase. I don't know if I'm sending my dollars out to SF. And so I can imagine there's a similar feel across the world when it comes to finance and banking. Yeah, I mean that's that's SF and Texas where it is significantly less you when significantly easier than what a fragmented market in the Middle East is where you have to get different license in each country. But yeah, again, we believe that the opportunity is more than worth it. And that's why we've gone ahead and gotten those licenses, because we want to compliantly open and operate bank accounts that allow retail institutional corporate customers to deposit their dwindling Fiat in terms of purchasing power and move on to Bitcoin or whatever asset they want to move to. Sorry, I was on mute there because I was sneezing. But you mentioned earlier this is something I really want to dig into is just the overall understanding you. You mentioned that people really don't understand that they like tether because of the stability. Obviously we have countries like Lebanon, Turkey, Pakistan going through crazy hyperinflationary events over the last few years. And then obviously the Middle East is a very energy rich part of the world. You have countries that you mentioned, Oman, creating a regulatory structure. They also made a big investment in a private miner last year. I believe Exahash was the name of that miner. What do you think? How or not what do you think? How I know there may be a relatively lack of a relative lack of whole understanding what Bitcoin is, the potential it provides. But are people starting to wake up to this in your mind, to really understand the opportunity that Bitcoin presents and the opportunity the Middle East specifically has to lead in this new market, in this new industry? Yeah. So I think we need to separate between two types of countries, ones that produce oil and energy and ones that have a failing currency because these usually don't go hand in hand, like Lebanon, Turkey, Egypt. Their GDP doesn't come from selling oil, whereas Kuwait for example, or Roman or Saudi or the United Arab Emirates, a big part of the GDP is from oil exports and that means they are easily able to peg their currency and maintain that peg because they have so much USD reserves. So I would say that in the GCC countries where they produce oil, what are they doing? In reality, they are monetizing energy. What is the best way in the world to monetize energy? It's Bitcoin. So I think those countries have realized that. And I was actually earlier in Abu Dhabi today at one of the bigger Bitcoin mining facilities and it is run by one of the public or it's operated, sorry, by one of the public listed companies in the US and they're doing an awesome job. So far they're huddling only and I went to them to try and sell them our services so that they sell their Bitcoin through us and pay off their their operating expenses. But yeah, it seems they're hobbling so far. So countries that have oil production and have excess energy in their grid, they are going for Bitcoin mining because they've realized that. They've realized that basically this is the best way to monetize your energy. If you look at Abu Dhabi Stock Exchange, there was a mining company called Phoenix that IP owed and that I guess sets a precedent of the first digital asset company going public in the Middle East. Roman has also done the same and many other countries that produce oil are are looking at that because the reality is if your cost per kWh is less than $0.03 per kWh then you're making bank you're printing money between 3:00 and 5:00 kilowatt hours. Yeah, you can. You can make some money, but below 3 is considered like a very lucrative business. So in those countries you are able to get such a tariff and these countries know what bitcoins worth. It's all relative to the problems that you have. If you are UAE, Saudi, Roman, you're producing a lot of oil and therefore you have energy, but your monetization of that energy is not very efficient. Whereas if you mine Bitcoin, that is the most optimal way of monetizing your energy because you literally spend energy you get back your Bitcoin. And on the other hand countries like Turkey, Lebanon, Egypt where they don't have a pegged currency and the purchasing power has been literally falling exponentially like falling over time. They are looking for USBT. Those markets I've I've spoken to many of our customers that want what in their mind is like a dollar electronic, which is like digital dollar. They don't even know what crypto is. And I've actually spoken to many of our customers in Egypt that just want to buy this digital dollar and they don't even know what Bitcoin is. But I guess let me take a step back and give you some context on our customer base. We have shares that trade in $25 million lots and we have customers that literally trade with 2-3 dollars. So we've covered a very wide spectrum of our customers. But to give you just an idea of how important education is, we had a customer that kept trying to withdraw Bitcoin to their physical address. You know, like on our application there's an address checker. So if your Bitcoin address starts with BC and whatever it's it goes through like it checks that your the address that you're sending to is correct. And we kept receiving this weird error that this customer's withdrawal wasn't going through. And we went and checked and it turned out this customer was trying to withdraw a big amount of Bitcoin to like apt 6F on a specific Rd. in Riyadh and Saudi Arabia. So we actually ended up delivering the bitcoins on a treasure to to to the customer. But that gives you an idea of how, Nathan, how nascent we are. So to answer your question on whether people realize the importance of Bitcoin, I think the wealthier countries, the ones that produce oil, have properly understood it. And in emerging markets, the biggest issue is lack of dollars. Today, if you're in Egypt and you want dollars, there isn't enough dollars in the country. So USDT trades at a very high premium and people still see Bitcoin as a higher risk asset that is too volatile. And I guess when you're hurt by your own currency failing by 3040% and you've seen Bitcoin to be volatile over time, USDT is the the preferred preferred choice in in those markets and actually in in Egypt and in Lebanon, yeah, Egypt we operate more, but we see over 90% of total trading volume on USDT, which is crazy. But again that that is because customers are afraid of their local currency and they've already been hurt by devaluation. So they have minimum risk tolerance or threshold or ability even like they can't afford to lose any money in the short term. And it's those countries usually they are not big on saving because you don't have a wealthy population. So whatever you have, you spend and I guess with with countries like Saudi, UE equate Qatar where you have a richer population a lot more people see the value of Bitcoin as a way to protect your wealth long term. It's very similar to American demographics in general. You know when you break it down, it's it's a similar stance on there's the thing it came out like 90% of stocks in the US are owned by top 10% of individuals or the top 90% of stocks are owned by 10% of the individuals. When you think about those individuals, are that like segment you're referring to that are looking at trying to understand Bitcoin and from a lens that are buying $25 million lots versus the person that's trying to just make it to the paycheck. The paycheck doesn't have the time or the luxury to think about how can they preserve their wealth because they don't have a lot of wealth to preserve. Yeah, agreed. Yeah, and it's it's so fascinating where we are right now. We're 15 years in to Bitcoin coming up on another halving. It's going to cut the subsidy from 6.25 to 3.125 and it has felt like over the last two years specifically. Obviously you've been with Coin MENA for the last few years and it feels like I don't want to use the cliche crossing the chasm. But it does feel like there is finally some urgency on behalf of business owners like yourself and countries particularly to recognize like, oh, this Bitcoin thing's not going away. We've got to take advantage of it, prepare, understand, and then capitalize on the opportunity that lays ahead. And So what do you think the next 2-3 five years look like for for Bitcoin in the Middle East? Like I my I think that the Middle East is going to become a powerhouse in the mining industry, which makes too much sense, little. Honesty, go ahead. I was just saying just add a little more meat because it's a it's a big I think that coupled with something that was really exciting when we started talking and and just excited to go out there And and what's happening is there's these like 3 like tailwinds I think that are working in favor of the region of what Marty just shared. And one of them my it didn't end up in the best way. But I think about I think it was the the Saudi sovereign fund that invested in Wework and there's this like been this narrative and it's happened. It's not just a narrative for the past 10 plus years of diversification away from oil into emerging technologies. And so I think that's like one. The other one is just global macro in general as we think about, you know this idea whether it's sovereign individual or this, you know, infringement of states rights on civil liberties And whether it's Dubai, Singapore and these other regions, even Texas where individuals are are fleeing or or leaving their existing places to go to places that treat them more like customers than you know, employees and really having to offer a good product. And then the last one is really the Bitcoin growth like this story of Bitcoin as emerging technology. So it fit into that tailwind that I just described. But then also it ties directly to the energy source which again sits at the core of you know the GDP of a Texas or the the MENA region. And curious like all those things combined to Marty's point, like it seems very positive and bullish for that region for the next 3-5 years. And curious on like how you see it, but then also how the market seen it in that region? Yeah. So I'll start off with the interesting point that you mentioned about like competition on residency. So I'm personally Jordanian, OK. So Jordan is a country that's a three hour flight north of Dubai. It's a great country. That's economic opportunities. There aren't that amazing so I moved to Dubai. The process was quite easy. I moved my money here easily via crypto. You have the ability to liquidate if you need to. But most importantly is that it's kind of created competition between other places that you could move. I used to live in Zoo Switzerland before that also moved for crypto reasons. But this crypto competitiveness or like the country competitiveness like they they are, it's like a customer acquisition plane. So for example, Dubai has this golden visa program that allows you to get permanent residency for 10 years and that will allow you to plan better and yeah and basically set up your life here. I don't know if anyone that's visited Dubai in months where it's not too hot. I think the overall feedback is it's one of the best places to live on earth. I'm certainly biased, I've been here for the past five years and realistically staying for the foreseeable future. But yeah, Dubai has been able to attract so many different people from the crypto world and I would say that it is a combination of multiple factors. So First off is insane Lehigh quality of life versus what you pay and the quality that you get. Dubai is unmatched in my opinion. Secondly is taxes. We have no taxes in Dubai. There's VAT tax and a few ones, but there's no personal income tax, no capital gains tax and that's something that I guess shocks some people in Europe or the US where tax literally the government's your, your your uninvited partner. And finally finally Safety Dubai is I've never seen anything as safe as Dubai. You could literally and obviously that is by design and it May is very harsh on anyone that that breaks the law, but that leads you to have a very, very safe country that is something that bitcoiners and and and people that have made it in crypto appreciate quite a bit. So that's that's a bit on the residency competitiveness side. But to go back to the original question on where do I see Bitcoin and specifically mining in the Middle East. OK. So historically the region had used to sell oil to the US when the US was a net importer. And now now I guess that's not no longer the case. And those countries, Saudi Arabia, UAE, etcetera, used to sell oil, receive money and keep it in treasury bills to make whatever yield that treasury is going to make. But the purchasing power of those treasury has constantly been going over time. So I think Saudi Arabia, UAE and other countries have started to essentially no longer put the funds in U.S. Treasury bills and that can be seen by the foreign ownership of U.S. Treasuries that that data corroborates the point that I'm mentioning. And they're starting to invest it in anything that's local that can allow them to move away from oil revenue diversification or sorry concentration, so to diversify their revenue streams, I guess one example is what they've done on the sports level in Saudi. They now own and run the PGA, which is the golf tournament. And they did that through live, which is I guess quite controversial and on how they did that. But the most followed sports, the most followed person on Instagram globally, Cristiano Ronaldo now lives in Riyadh. That would have that would have not been possible if the Saudis did not stop deploying the oil proceeds into treasuries and instead started to diversify them locally. So part of that exodus or part of that move of capital, I believe a big part will go towards mining. I think Phoenix Group being publicly listed in Abu Dhabi has opened up the eyes of so many different governments, government entities, and yeah, it's likely become like a subject of national security. Are you mining your Bitcoin locally? Are you storing it locally? Like, I I sometimes think of custody and and and how much it's going to change in the coming 10 years if like just imagine how much shit governments gave us about local data custody or local data storage. Like if you're using Amazon, I need to or at Coin Mina, when use Amazon, we need to use the Bahraini cluster of Amazon so that the data is stored locally in a compliant way. That's on data. Imagine what they're going to do for the ultimate form of money, where do you need to custody your Bitcoin? So I think that in the Middle East we'll see emergence of top quality custodians, but even beyond that, I think the types of players that will be involved will change. Now every bank during their board meeting they're going to discuss whether they're launching A crypto or a Bitcoin offering or not. Because if Blackrock's offering it, then there's no excuse for any local bank or any investment company not to also offer it to its customers. So as much as some people hate the ETF and think it goes against the principles of Bitcoin, in my opinion Bitcoin is anti fragile and should be able to sustain any type of pressure, including the ETF. But there is definitely an impact on how financial institutions think about it. Thanks for tuning in. If you're interested in exploring any of these topics further, or want to learn more about how we can help you secure a new or existing Bitcoin allocation, get in touch with our team at onrampbitcoin.com. We look forward to supporting you on your Bitcoin journey. To to go back and answer your question in a more coherent manner, how do I think cryptos and Bitcoin is going to look like in the Middle East? In three to five years it will solidify the Middle East, will solidify its spot as one of the top regions in the world for crypto and Bitcoin across services, mining, regulation, custody. And part of that effort will also be quasi governmental because one of the things that I guess in the United Arab Emirates and in in other Arab countries is there, but not as common or maybe even frowned, frowned upon in the US or free markets is government involvement. So for example, Emirates Airline, I don't know if you've gone on Emirates Airline, it's insanely good and the impact of Emirates Airline on the country and the city was absolutely amazing. Dubai airport, Dubai International Airport is the busiest airport in the world and that is because the government spent smart money to build this carrier or this their airline that has a total net benefit for Dubai. So I guess even on the mining side, I do believe that we will see government backed government supported initiatives that yeah we'll we'll start a race for other countries to do so because yeah there's like a who's going to do it first. I think El Salvador was the first to be super aggressive and now we're seeing many countries follow suit, maybe not switching their local currency to Bitcoin, but working on quasi sovereign initiatives that will lead them to have a lot of Bitcoin custody. Look. It's all you got to. You got to slow down. Marty's packing his bag. He's he's ready to go. I'm, I'm glad you mentioned the El Salvador thing because I've talked to folks that are very close there. And while it's a it's very great thing to see, it's something I'm starting to learn in the Bitcoin space and the ecosystem is the 1st through the door may not necessarily be the ultimate winner. And when I think about like El Salvador, they established kind of a brand in a in a country in a way to do things. But the reality is you can take those learnings and then start to apply them in a more efficient way. And as you mentioned like the private public market, as you start to bring in other individuals from the private market into the the public market, in the reference to Dubai, you could start to just have a more kind of free market without the air quotes of like how you actually scale building a city or a country that's going to be friendly to this ecosystem versus like from a bureaucratic nature, which my understanding that's a lot of what's happened in El Salvo now while trying to be friendly to the ecosystem. It's actually been the opposite in the sense of when you're doing it brand new, you end up just with a lot of that natural kind of like, I don't know if tech that's the right word, but it's that same like legacy debt that's built into everything else you do versus starting with some of like the framework but then fresh eyes. Yeah. And I think that's that's like by the way that's the exact reason why we decided to go with VAR as our regulator because they're starting with as they say in French like carte blanche, it's a. There's nothing there. You know, they're just starting. There's no legacy knowledge of how FX brokers work or stock brokers work. It's purely designed for digital assets or virtual assets as they like to call it. And yeah, I guess we were one of the first to get licensed there. And so far it's definitely going in the right direction. No starting carte blanche like tabula rasa blank slate. I I, I guess a good natural segue into the partnership between on ramp and Coimena like you do have the opportunity where I think here in the USI think this last 12 months specifically, more specifically the last seven months with the lead up to the ETF approvals has proven that the regulators here in the United States are trying to like forfeit Bitcoin, this whole new alien technology into centuries old securities regulation and financial regulation. It's here in the US and by starting with a blank slate in the Middle East, there's a really good opportunity to really set the standard. That's something we've been talking about on this show for almost a year now and in other places is like I do believe that Bitcoin as a salient technology with these native properties that enable you to custody and secure your assets, your Bitcoin in a very unique way that is simply impossible in the incumbent system. You can, if you have a blank slate, go out and create new standards and really push the ball forward in terms of actually leveraging the innovative properties that exist with this with this technology. Something like multi sig, multi institution, multi sig, multi jurisdictional multi institution multi sig. I think this is where the market should go. And as an American, it is a bit disheartening to see that they're trying to form fit Bitcoin into again, regulation that was written over a century ago. Whereas it seems in the Middle East, you guys are sort of setting yourself up to really innovate on the regulatory front to ensure that individuals and companies are able to leverage these native properties that make Bitcoin a better asset in the digital age. Yeah. So I think 1933 is the securities law, right? It's yeah that's that's been a while none of us were were were even close to being here. Look, I think Dubai is a very ambitious city, which means that they always aim high. They sometimes don't necessarily hit the jackpot 100%. But on the ones that they do, yeah, I guess one of one of my favorites quotes is for his Zionist Muhammad ruler of Dubai, which I guess the don't quote me on the translation, but because it's in Arabic. But it basically says the biggest risk is not to take risk. So I guess that is the ethos of the city and it only was fitting for them to adopt digital assets in the way that they did. And honestly, having lived in Zook, which previously was like a a place where many crypto people moved to, I was there between 2015 and 2017. So now I've seen a lot more people that used to live in Zoo have moved to Dubai. Obviously, the US is still the largest market in the world and most of the innovation in web two and in web three has come out of the US If you think of like many of the applications that are built on Ethereum and whatnot, many of it have has come out of the US, whether New York, San Francisco, et cetera. So I wouldn't count the US out just yet. Maybe the regulators and the SEC in specific hasn't been has tried to box Bitcoin into the security wrapper. But I do believe that the perceived and potential upside of digital assets will end up winning and and entrepreneurs and companies in the US will find a way around it because the upside is so high that they're incentivized to do so. Yeah, I think that ties in something that market morally says often about, you know, States and states rights. And we see this in the US with Wyoming and Texas, Tennessees and other state that's really exercising kind of the friendliness, whether it's be a mining financial services, how Bitcoin as an asset is held. You said something that was about the risk or not to take it reminds me of a, you know, kind of I don't watch football anymore, but the Cowboys, you know, they just got completely crushed. And this idea that I was watching the game and I was thinking of this, this idea of you have to play to win, You can't play not to lose. And when people are tight, when they're kind of worried and and like they have a seat, they have a position that's like at the forefront in this analogy, like the Cowboys were you know one of the best teams and from a record perspective and that that would be like an incumbent financial institution or just an incumbent in the market, you kind of play it safe. And the reality is the market doesn't doesn't want that. It needs you to keep moving the the puck 4. That's how you become. I mean you think about Amazon and how like I think what's the whole thing. relentless.com still reverts back to Amazon.com that was he owned that domain. And so this idea of you have to play to win, not to lose. So you have to look at the opportunities with that fresh slate and then think about the innovation. So like in reference to Marty and the the partnership, I think the education is so important. I don't know if we'll pull it up, but it's on Coin Mana's website and I think we'll probably post it somewhere. But the first piece we we partnered was with Bitcoin Bitcoin's full potential valuation by Jesse and it's important because in the industry you rarely see kind of the Bitcoin native kind of like education that lives within that meets the market. On the asset management finance side, where they are, it's generally like 1 sided or the other where you kind of have the the bit wises and these cryptic firms that are putting you know 10 baskets of ETF or 10 baskets of cryptocurrencies in a in a bucket and selling it to the market. Or you have the other side that's telling the the market, hey you know you got to now your keys not your coin. But there's there's no like meeting them where they're at in the sense of like how do you evaluate this, how do you think about it as a in the global macro context and from a portfolio perspective. And so I think that it's going to and that that transcends all borders, right. It's the the the markets, the market from assets whether it's equities, commodities, bonds and the way you size it proportionally and the volatility exists in Dubai and Texas and Singapore all over the world. And so I I thought about that deeply as far as working with Coin Meno on the research and some of the other things that we're discussing in that bringing what we're kind of put together with you know Jesse Bryan on the team to be able to help transcend that. I that bitcoins volatile Bitcoin doesn't exist. There's a bunch of error between 0 and bitcoins current you know price $43,000. We all know and most people listening that there's a lot of fundamentals baked in, but the the fact of the matter is the market really doesn't know it yet and so be able to get that information out there is really important. Yeah. So it's it's my colleague Zaid, who leads content marketing education at Coimena. He used to send me on RAMPS reports and we realized that we're referring back to them pretty much in every conversation. So yeah, I guess it was we're very happy to have this partnership and I guess us being educated through Jesse's writing and and he has such an amazing, digestible style of writing that we need to figure out how we translate his style into Arabic. But I'm sure Zaid would be able to sort that out. And yeah, I mean, one of the biggest factors for, you know, adoption not going faster than than it is, is education. And I think it's only a matter of time until we see Bitcoin integrated into curriculums at school. Like there's there's no reason why kids don't learn about the importance of money and how hard money differs from soft money. Yeah. At an early stage and maybe at the Coimbena level school, kids aren't really our target addressable market. It's more so funds, investment managers, banks, etcetera. But yeah, I guess it's it's an area that we spent a lot of time and effort and resources on, even though it doesn't have, let's say, tangible, direct ROI. But it does have a very, yeah, very important impact. Because without it, it's impossible to acquire and retain proper clients. Like you can't convince people that don't understand Bitcoin properly, don't have the same conviction as people that properly understand it. And through those reports is how we aim to make our customers more conscious and aware of how groundbreaking this technology is. Yeah, it's exactly right. I think it's like the chicken or egg thing. I think our biggest cost center and investment is in is in education. When you think about the pods and the the content produced and the individuals that have have joined the firm because we've seen it. It's I always joke like for the next 10 years every company that navigates or leads in this industry will have to be an education company 1st and then they'll have their core service because it's just still so foreign these concepts, the asset, the volatility, the custody and there's a big component especially in the financial services of building trust and all of that. And so that that content, these podcasts, they they build trust over time. Like they they build it whether people know it or not in the sense of you build relationships with individuals. It's very hard to fake authenticity over every every week through the writing in these different forms. And when that happens, the trust accompanies it. And then that's how you're able to kind of like pull down that guard of, oh, well, you're just trying to like take my money Or you think about the past 15 years and the the craziness we've seen in the market where your counterparty, the difference between your counterparty being good and bad was effectively A0 and what you ended up in your allocation. And so that still exists and it'll probably exist for the next 5 to 10 years because people don't forget that easy that you that this stuff has happened. And so that trust and that education is very important in the front end. So then when they're ready and there are their ears and eyes are open, it's like OK that that guards down as far as like OK, this is a good actor. Now let's just have the discussion on like what you know what do I need? How do I custody at what's an allocation. How do I think about this from an inheritance perspective. All of those things you can't really get there unless you have trust built be built into the to the process. Yeah, fully agreed. One thing sorry I got let's clear this right. It's 60° in the the studio this morning, so shivering here as we talk. But one thing I wanted to touch on, Allen Farrington's written a lot about this. There's a lot of discussion. There's a bunch of bitcoiners I follow from the Middle East that are adamant that Bitcoin is the Sharia compliant money. And from the people that I follow, they seem to believe that that really at that meme or that idea hasn't really caught on in the Middle East. Is that conversation happening in the circles that you're in? To all Have you heard people really pushing Bitcoin over Fiat currencies because of this sort of the way it fits into Sharia law from the finance perspective? Before to start off, Sharia law doesn't permit usually or the interest basically does not allow like basically if I'm going to you know you need to do a first specific economic activity that adds value for you to get paid. You can make profit or loss but debt essentially or interest is not something that is allowed. And if you think of how the dollar is based, how many currencies that are pegged to the dollar are based. It is literally by the government issuing treasury bills that have interest in order to create this dollar. So inherently by design it cannot be Sharia compliant. So gold, which is a Sharia compliant asset or Sharia compliant money was the preferred method of transacting for thousands of years. And then as as the world became more global, as the world became more global and and you needed a better way to transfer value because gold is a pain in the ass to move and and store and whatnot, those governments ended up going for a non Sharia compliant form of money that is based and backed to the US dollar. Now with the emergence of Bitcoin you have something that is similar to dollars but digital. So I've actually looked into this quite heavily and Bitcoin is a Sharia compliant asset in my opinion. But again Sharia compliance is there's no one that plays the role of like the auditor for religion. You know it's it's as per your your perception. You know, for example, you can get an auditor to testify your financial statements and tell you if you have enough capital or not. But you can't really get someone that definitively says it's Shariah compliant or not, like an ISO approval or like AFDA approval for a drug or something, you know, But there are scientists or I guess they call them muftis, like clerks that look into this and give their opinion. Last year there was a very popular clerk in Saudi that came out and said Bitcoin is Shariah compliant and he had a very elegant analysis on why. At Coin Mina we don't offer margin, we don't offer leverage and we don't have any interest bearing instruments. So we are Sharia compliant as well. And I guess Bitcoin specifically is, by the way, Sharia compliance matters in some markets more than others. If you look at the United Arab Emirates where over 2/3 of the population or even more is not local, it's not Middle Eastern, it's not from the country. Sharia compliance is less important. I would say somewhere like Saudi Arabia, which I guess is is primarily Saudis that are Muslim. Sharia compliance becomes a significantly more important point. But in principle, Sharia compliance is revolves around risk mitigation and all of the principles of Bitcoin are fully aligned to Sharia law and finance, which I actually think is IS is a great way to look at things. It will open up markets in Indonesia and Malaysia and Saudi where Islamic finance or Sharia compliant finance, is the preferred way of doing business. Yeah, and I think the overarching tell me if I'm oversimplifying, but from like the finance side, there's like debt based money, right, Which Bitcoin isn't. It's you know, gold and Bitcoin bare assets. But then in finance from like a usury perspective in a future state, kind of like stumbled on this and talking with a client about, you know, offering products that would offer yield, right, Because you don't want to sell your Bitcoin in a future state if you're holding Bitcoin. But it's this idea kind of flips on its head of of an equity based system versus a debt based system where you'll you can generate quote, UN quote, yield or return on your Bitcoin. But it's because you are investing in a productive entity and they're providing you returns on the equity that you've invested in. And that is your return versus the the alternative of what we exist today where you you know you're basically taking out debt like in the. The way I think about this in the most simple form is like higher education where you you take on the debt and it's almost like shackles that exist post college and you're kind of strapped to that and sometimes you're strapped to the for the rest of your life where if there was an alternative that somebody invested in you as an individual or invested in the the productive upside of an of a business and you were and they were part of participating in the upside of the entity that you formed and also the downside. But that also makes for just a better society as far as like that person now wants to help you versus just get that dividend return. Does that make sense to all in the sense of, like how a productive society would form around that versus a debt base? Yeah, Yeah. So actually this is a very elegant way of explaining what Sharia law says about debt and equity. So equity is one of the few things that Keynesian Sharia, all different economists agree that it's the purest form of alignment of incentives. And that's why in Sharia, equity is always preferred and that's not allowed because in equity we win together and we lose together. So I'm not, I'm incentivized for you to win and if we lose, we lose together in debt. I could get screwed but you still get paid your money. So it doesn't align our incentives then that usually creates yeah incentives that lead to sub optimal outcomes. So yeah, I'm personally a way bigger fan of equity and I guess here we've looked at two things, the base asset which is not debt based money in Bitcoin or gold case but also financial services because you could lend out Bitcoin for interest and even though Bitcoin is a Sharia compliant, I said that financial service or that transaction wouldn't be. So yeah, I like how you combined it with the equity type and the main concept behind that in Sharia is for basically all parties to win and lose together. So that you think of yourself as as as one unit and not me wanting to win on on your behalf. Yep. Yeah, incentive alignment is very important and we've seen that the proliferation of a debt based society has done culturally to the social cohesion here in the United States and other parts of the world over the last 150 years. And I mean that's part of the reason why I'm in Bitcoin. I mean, even just from the Christian perspective, that's why Jesus went into the temples and chased the money chasers out. The money changers out is because they were doing something that was deeply immoral from a from a biblical perspective. And it is really fascinating that when you first get into Bitcoin, you really don't think about how it can apply to religious law across many different religions. But then you dig deeper and you dive in and it's like, oh wow, like this is actually a money that that has been written. Not Bitcoin specifically, but money has been written into all the religious texts throughout history. And it's funny that we're sort of rediscovering moral money through Bitcoin as time goes on. It's just really weird how this all plays together. It's also weird that we got kind of like psyopt into believing that it doesn't make sense. I we had Matt on and he was talking about open sets and the patronage that they've done and it and it's like so foreign that he's doing something great. But that's how historically you funded things previously. And it's like this idea of who will build the roads is like. Well, if we're all making money and, you know, we want to give back to society, we will produce productive things in the world because you want your kids and you want the people around you to not live, you know, in the gutter. And this idea of like we can't, we wouldn't do it ourselves. We need the government to make sure that they build the right roads in the right, you know, system so that we're all governed appropriately. It's just so foreign. But this is how things have been done for thousands of years, specifically to what Marty mentioned. Yeah I mean honestly Bitcoin is is I think it's absolutely fascinating how people from all different walks of life look and determine what's good in this asset. For example you mentioned the the, the money changers and how the relevance of that in in in in the Christian religion. But it all boils down to what you as a human think is good or bad. You know that based money if you think about it, if you want to say good or bad, I think you know anyone that spends time studying it will be able to come out to the conclusion that it is overall net bad. And if and when I say net bad or good, I know that's a very over generalization. But I'm talking about society in general and Marty I think you you nailed it on the head when you said the impact of the past 150 years is there. Society is not progressing in the way that I think it should and and debt based money plays a very big part in that for sure. Yeah. The other thing that's very fascinating is so the, I think Tal are you going to go to the Bitcoin Oasis conference? Yes, yes, in Dubai. OK. So I think it's is it the first Bitcoin only like conference happening in that region? Maybe of this scale, yes. Of this scale, yeah. Of this scale, yes. There's definitely some bit up to that. But yeah, this this would be, I'd say the, yeah, one of one of the more, the bigger ones that are only Bitcoin focused. Yeah. So we look forward to meeting in person. We'll see if we can convince Marga to go out. One of the things that's been fascinating talking with the group there, Lauren Lena with the the UA Bitcoin Association is they were describing a lot of the the conversations and the the way business is done in the region and they talked a lot about reputation and you know trust in in looking you know individuals in the eyes and you know shaking hands and all the things associated you come out and it's not about doing a deal or selling somebody. And I looked at him and it sounds like it sounds a lot like Texas. You know we we're just we wear different hats over here and I was like writing down we just wore different hats and I'm writing down like if you made a a case for somebody to move to a a friendly region they were coming from let's call it New York City and you're like and they were interested in getting into the into Bitcoin or or working in digital assets and you're like it's going to be hot but there's heavy oil and gas from AGDP perspective it's attracting a lot of talent in the ecosystem. From a Bitcoin perspective, the taxes are very friendly and it's all really trust and reputation based how things have been done for, for hundreds and thousands of years. Would you be describing Texas? Would you be describing Dubai and some of the other countries that guys are operating they're they're very similar. And so it's exciting to be participating and then finding out that there's a direct flight from Houston is going to is going to make things a little easier as well. Very nice. Yeah, it's you. You basically describe both. You could replace Dubai or Texas in in the description that you that you've had. And yeah, I've I've thought of this before for sure than the first time that I've heard this or thought about this. And yeah, excited to meet you guys in person. Hopefully, Marty also now that that we know that there's a direct flight from Houston that hopefully makes the pitch slightly easier. And it's not. It'll be well, I'll. Have my wife. I'll have my wife text, text his wife because she's she's not too happy so she'll watch. When is it? Next month? Yeah, February, February if anybody wants to jump on the Emirates train. February 6th through 9th or 7th through 10th? I need to. I need to visit the Middle East. I've never been. We'll see. We'll see if I can do a three-week turn around here. It's time. It's time. If there's a well, there's a way. And honestly, it's a good, it's a good event to come to and it's a very good time to visit. Debate in general. Like February is not as back as New Year's, but it's also beautiful weather. Yeah, would would love to have you here. I mean, all the bitcoiners I know that have moved to Dubai, absolutely love it. They rave about it and that's I need to, I need to add some stamps on my passport. So this could, this could happen. That's gonna happen. By the way, I don't think they stamp. They don't. They no longer stamp in Dubai. You just scan it. That's you. Just scan. Yeah, you just scan it. There's no more stamps. Where you scan the the the pass or the eyeballs? Because yeah. Yeah, so actually if you're a resident here, you don't need to scan your passport anymore. You just walk through the door, that's obviously your face is being scanned and they know either you're coming in and out. Let's see. The physical stamp I don't think exists anymore. We'll get you one for like as a souvenir we can. We can easily do that. It's for, yeah, it's you. You go through your passport every once in a while. You look at the stamps like, yeah, I remember this trip to Costa Rica. I remember this trip to to Latvia. I remember this trip to Dubai. It's a trip down memory lane in the in the passport stamp book. I've definitely. Done that before that's that's been one of the most the past few weeks. I think the West in general and this is maybe a generalization, but a little bit ignorant to what's happening in the Middle Eastern region and and the prosperity that that's going on. I think I I kind of understood that what I was more ignorant to was just the the friendliness from making it easy specifically in Dubai to move there. You talked about it. Laura was on Stefan Lavera's podcast and the the the idea of getting a visa established in a country in the region is in in I think getting having only being in the country twice a year, is that correct? It's very easy to actually, you know, set up shop in that market. Honestly, it's not easy only to set up shop, it's easy to get integrated into anything that you put efforts into like. And that's something that I guess I'm a clearly a Dubey fan because I moved here five years ago and have been super hands on when it comes to anything crypto, anything, Bitcoin, whether it's giving feedback on regulations, whether it's setting up my entity here, whether it's bringing, trying to convince people to move to Dubai. I was honored and surprised last in 2022, Sheikh Mohammed, the ruler of Dubai elected an Advisory Board for the debate Chamber of Commerce. I'm not from Dubai and I was elected on that board by His Highness and as a foreigner that came to the country to to like make a living and live a good life, it was shocking because where I'm from if like you have to be not only local but you need to have gone through a specific, let's say, path in order to reach such a government advisory position. I guess Dubai is. It pushes the boundary across so many walks of life that it's it's amazing and I can't recommend it enough. And hopefully Marky were able to show you in person what this city is all about. I love the hard sell. You don't have to sell me that hard. I want to. I want to make the trip. If it's not been Oasis, I'll be there in 2024. We we do have plans on the 10:30 one side of things to get over there at some point this year. Maybe it's in a few weeks, but to all this has been incredible. Is there anything we should wrap up with Michael before we end it here in terms of what you guys are doing together? No, I think we covered. I'm extremely excited like you said, even more so after this podcast to get out there. It's going to be a good, good time from all the things and the programming going on and being able to hopefully go to dinner with you and Zaid and it's going to be, it's going to be very good. What What can we expect from Coin Man? What are you excited for this year, the next few years from the Coin Mina perspective? Yeah, So on the Coin Mina side, the goal is to onboard the million users and get Bitcoin in the hands of 1,000,000 users. So that's one of one of our main goals we set up about two years ago. Now we're the largest of the local players. The goal is to be the biggest crypto business in all of the Middle East. So that includes the finances, the crypto dot coms, the coin bases and whatnot. And yeah, I guess helping improve people's lives by giving them access to a superior form of money. And I believe that if we do that properly, then we'll be able to have a very profitable high growth business. So like, yeah, you're able to do good by doing good. Can you do it for yourself as well? Like, we're not running a charity, We're still making money. But you're doing it in a way that benefits the public, which obviously makes you and the team feel way better about what they're what they're doing. So yeah, very excited to continue growing in the Middle East and expanding our reach as much as we can. Yeah, it's the best part about working in this industry. You don't feel, I don't feel dirty going home to work to your wife. It's like I feel like I did something good today. It's not a 0 sum, it's not a 0 sum game in general, it's a forever game. Yeah. Well, Talal, thank you for doing what you do. You guys are crushing it at Queen Mina and I'm really excited to see what you guys do over the next few years and really excited to meet in person at some point this year, maybe in a few weeks. So you'll go home, talk, talk to my wife and. Maybe, maybe I'll be in Texas as well and you never know, I visit the US often as well. So we'll hopefully have both you guys visit Dubai and and I'll love to come see you in the US as well. Yeah, the Texas Dubai connection is something that needs to be strengthened over the next few years. We have a lot in common. Fully agreed, yeah. Well, awesome. Gentlemen, it's been a pleasure. I learned a lot this episode to LOL, thank you again. As I said in the beginning, the Middle East is a part of the world that I'm frankly not as well educated on as I am in other parts of the world. And I'm extremely fascinated watching from afar what's happening across the region in terms of Bitcoin adoption and integration into industries. And it's probably one of the most exciting parts of the world right now, specifically Dubai, how the city's really leaning into innovating and leading individual age and it's a good example to set. Hopefully it induces FOMO for United States entrepreneurs and regulators to to wake up and say, hey, we're going to get blown out if we don't adopt this type of strategy as well. So you're you're sitting in a good spot and appreciate you coming on talking with us today. No, thank you. Thank you. Great. Thanks so much for your time guys. Really appreciate it. Really enjoyed it. All right. That's all we got. We'll be back next week, Jesse. We'll be back as well. Congrats on the House, Jesse. Congrats, Jesse. See you guys. Thank. You.
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