Transcript+
Thank you for joining us today. We're excited to bring you a brand new show from the On Ramp Media umbrella. Wake Up Call is a weekly show that will be streamed live on LinkedIn every Monday morning. To catch the premiere of each episode, follow On Ramps LinkedIn page and add Wake Up Call events to your calendar. After the live premiere on LinkedIn, we will distribute each episode across On Ramp Media's podcast channels and YouTube page. Wake Up Call aims to educate financial professionals on the merits of the Bitcoin investment thesis, how this asset represents both a threat to legacy financial service businesses and an opportunity to differentiate oneselves and retain and attract new clients. Hosted by Mark Connors on Ramps, Head of Global Macro Strategy and Rich Kerr on Ramps, President of Managed Wealth, this show seeks to provide financial professionals the wake up call they need, prompt them to have an open mind with respect to Bitcoin, rethink their prior assumptions, become more educated on the topic, and learn from others who are already farther down this path. Mark and Rich bring a combined 60 plus years of experience across traditional markets and financial services and will share their unique perspectives and how their peers and colleagues can approach the realm of Bitcoin. Wake Up Call will feature guests from various backgrounds and industries will also share their own journeys to Bitcoin and how others can get up to speed. Now time for the show. All right. Well, good morning everybody and good afternoon to some that are joining us from I guess the East Coast. Welcome to the wake up call. I'm Rich Kerr, your your host and our Co host Mr. Mark Connors, the head of global macro at Onramp. We are very excited about this morning. We have Krista Edmonds on the show and Krista is a gosh 20 plus year veteran in the trad vice space and working with Barclays and and many other banks and and broker dealers along the way. And and Krista has just so many amazing stories. I want to just First off apologize to everybody for being a little bit late to the show. We were having such an incredible conversations going over the breadth of her career and the impact of her work and and the things that she's very excited about in the Bitcoin space. And so Krista, we're really thrilled to have you. Before we do that, maybe I'll just kind of credential eyes you a little bit so that everybody understands a little bit about your story. But you are the founder of Access Tribe Limited and Access Tribe is a group that focuses on bringing women to the Bitcoin industry. And so I we're thrilled to kind of explore a little bit about that and many of the stories about how you found Bitcoin and and what your thinking is in the space. And at the same point in time, you've done a number of other different things that you've been a Forbes feature Bitcoin educator and you've you've done some work or you helped Co found the Bitcoin policy group in the UK. And and you know, we could go a million different directions, talk about your time at Barclays and things on that nature. But we're thrilled to have you on the show today. So welcome, Krista. Thank you. Thanks for joining. Pleasure to be here. Yeah, we're excited. Before we do, maybe we'll we'll, we'd like to start with, you know, some of Mark's, you know, observations and then we'll kind of dive in and, and have some fun conversation with you this morning. So Mark, what are you keying on over the course of the past week? Thanks, Rich and I'll echo really excited about having Christian and it's going to be a different show today. We've done a lot with advisors specifically saying how can advisors help get Bitcoin on their platform from the logistics to the to the investment opportunity. And today's a little different. We're going to talk about Tradfi versus Bitcoin and about the environments in both. And then we'll always land on why Bitcoin and why multi institutional for sure. So why Bitcoin comes right out as 8:00 AM Ed Yardini, storied economist, investment analyst, comes out and says, you know, inflation is decline. It's because of productivity. You know, Thanks, Ed. Yes, we agree. And that that's what's going to drive the equity market higher. The equity market listened. It's up again today, but it's also up because another news release, rich was Neel Kashkari, who said, you know what, we're going to do another 50 basis points. And then ghouls Kashkari's the Minnesota Fed president. Sorry to back up and give some context, he's also the person in 2008. Chris, if you remember in, in O eight, were you at Barclays or were you? No, I, I. Cap there and I cap doesn't exist anymore. It's now part of Tullett. So TPI cap now. And that's another they're, they're all trying to tie their boats together to stay alive, right? Because there's no more margin for them like we had in the fun old, old days. But I'm going back to 08 because Kashkari is the Fed president who said that the Fed has an the ATM's are OK, the banks are OK. Why, Rich, do you remember what he said? Because we can print endless money was that, but what do? You because the Fed has an infinite amount of money. Exactly. He said that a while ago. And when he say today more not only do we have enough money, we have cheaper money. And and and the reason we're getting on this horse here is because the other Fed office down in Atlanta has a a forward-looking GDP tool called Fed now, I'm sorry, GDP now and it has GDP up at 3% or so in the following quarter. So as far as soft landing like where I'm going with this is one part of the central Bank of the government's acting as if the house is on fire and by cutting rates because we have a problem that's employment, employment is declining. We had you know revisions etcetera, but the equity markets higher and GDP is going well. And that's because the big thought of the day just we were talking earlier, we try to have not chart of the day, but the big thought of the day is that inflation is not one number. The government is using a lower CPI number, which I guess was like 2.5 announced. But we all know that things are going. It costs more money to go to college. It costs more money to buy a house. So there's asset inflation and that's because of debasement. So since we're this is a different show, we want to kind of go back to one O 1. Like why did Christa Edmonds leave Travis and come in and we'll go into what she does for a living. Why did Rich leave Schwab and why did Mark Connors join on ramp from a multi coin place to only focus on Bitcoin? And and that's because, all right, Rich, I'm going to try to RIP it here with some charts. Wish me luck here for sharing screens. Not going to say technologically disabled, but let's let's go to the share function here. It's to show that again, there's a vector. You know, you don't dress for average rainfall and you shouldn't invest based on average inflation that the government says is is out there. So hopefully you can see the returns that we have. Is that right? We're. Not seeing? No, we're not seeing your chart. Oh. Good, because I got to hit the other. There it is, all right. There it is so. This is what all bitcoins talk about. They're like, you know, Bitcoin really makes a lot of money. So I'm going to show you 3 charts and then kind of and then have Krista talked about her career and why people are listening and getting more and why she's getting more attention in her initiatives. So Bitcoin has made more money than other investments. It's flat out, that's undeniable. Over a one year, three-year and five year. It's against the NASDAQ, gold oil and the 10 year, which obviously is the easiest benchmark to be. It's also up about 58% over the last 10 years annualized. That's what people sort of understand. But I think to put it in context, let's look at what the Fed tells you. the Fed says don't worry about inflation because the CPI is only 2.9%. That's averaged since 88. Now wages as measured by them have gone up. We take issue with that, but they say that we know home prices are higher, but if you want to send your kids to college, it's even higher. And those numbers compound over time to make it almost unreasonable to say CPI is the actual inflation if you ever want to buy a house or send your kid to college. So that is probably and Chris, I don't know if this is and we'll come back to you or when you kick off. I'd love to know is the idea about what is money which we which we talked about the the last chart I want to show is a concept about why BlackRock. So that's a problem. CPI is a problem, but people at Fidelity, BlackRock, places like 2 Oceans and Onramp have discovered why asset managers are adopting and that's because as opposed to regular assets like equities and bonds that have more downside volatility. I'm introducing a concept here of splitting volatility just like we split inflation. Things aren't simple. Things are a little bit complex. On an average, when the equity market goes down, it goes down greater versus its trailing average. Then it goes up. It's almost what we call like the the elevator shaft down is what markets take and they then take the escalator or longer ride on the way up. Makes sense. That's what we grew up with. Same thing for bonds, more downside volatility than upside. But Bitcoin is different. Bitcoin has more upside volatility than downside. And that's why when you add a little bit of Bitcoin to a portfolio, it actually makes more money and reduces risk, which we're not going into. So I definitely took a little bit of time here to go aside to do kind of a Bitcoin one O 1. But I I did it as as a launching point for for Christa, because what we were talking about offline and part of our time in prep is that 3020, thirty years in the business, we had to relearn what money was. No one. Everyone taught us how to trade, take a client order, maybe do a convertible bond arbitrage, but we really didn't understand how money and economics work. But so with with that sort of overview about what's going on in the market, everyone is now looking at the Fed. What we think you should be looking at is how much money is being printed because we're now printing 9 going on 10% annualized increase in the money supply. And that's the highest rate since 1970. So a little context there, Chris, or bring us back land the plane on what's going on with you and your initiatives at Access? Well, yes, I spent about 20 years in Tradfy. So I started my career at Bloomberg and did about four years there working in various divisions, ending up in their brokerage sales division for their equity brokerage platform. And then went to what was then ICAP, which was an interdealer broker based in the UK. Worked there for four years in a very woeful Wall Street kind of environment and then moved on to work at investment bank. So Barclays, I worked in their markets business for eight years in London and then in New York and then moved into their corporate innovation division where I ran A-Team there and ran some of their accelerator programs for North America as well. So I was in that segment for three years and then exited, moved N to Canada to the true north, strong and free and and went down the Bitcoin rabbit hole about the same time. So here I am three years later and trying to get more of my sisters in Tradfi over to this space, at very least holding Bitcoin, but ideally get them really invested in understanding the technology and and seeing the trajectory of innovation. I guess that it's going to bring, which I think is going to be the most radical thing we've ever seen in our lifetime, certainly. Rich before you, I know Rich and I are both like pushing each other aside to get into conversation with with Christa. It's there's so much the part that I like that I thought was was relevant is because we shared it. So that's at the banks. I worked at credit First for a number of years where again, I was before that in sales and trading like you not I would say Wolf of Wall Street and we talked about mine was, you know, I've seen the boiler room approach, you know, on the sales Commission side where people we'll do and say things and at the bank. So they were very good at at selling products and they had the tailwind of interest rates going from 20% to 0. They had a bunch of they had captive markets excellent and very narrow. But over time as it got tougher. Krista, when do you think? And this is where the the part that we both shared is we're like, hey, listen, you're thoughtful. Krista, can you come to this thing called the innovation Lab? Hey, Mark, we're thinking about doing something with data. You do something with data over in prime. Can you help us? We're going to, we're going to hire some people. We're really going to try to innovate and advance our tech stack. So what was that? How did that work for you? And was it different? Was it successful at the banks that you were with? Yeah, I mean. I would look at, I mean, I worked in the fixed income market. So it's very, for people who don't know, it's very OTC like over the counter. It's not electronified in the way that the equities markets are just because of the nature of the product. But there were lots of pushes to make it more electronic. And I was part of the team that was responsible for driving a lot of that change much to the resistance of what we would call the voice business. So they would call themselves sales and trading. We called them voice sales and voice trading, but even amongst our client base, a lot of the perception was that if you were trading on Bloomberg chat, so you were just talking to your sales personally, a trader on the chat, you were actually trading electronically. And so I would look at what was happening in the outside world and I'd see in the retail space, you know, the Googles and the Apples of the world making moves into the payment space. I'd see all of this kind of technological innovation happening. And then I'd sort of look out our trading floor and I'd think to myself, well, how much longer is this, you know, thing going to last when there's this avalanche coming down the mountain? And so I started to worry about my own skill set because I thought, well, at some point either the market's going to go completely electronified, in which case I'm kind of not needed very much because, you know, it's just going to be electronic and that's it. Or I am going to leave at some point and have no skill sets whatsoever to offer outside of a traditional financial environment. And we had this nascent innovation team that had been around for a couple of years, but they were kind of running it almost as a not-for-profit type of enterprise. And then they'd recently hired a guy from Goldman to run it. And he was very charismatic. And he came and did a few talks at various divisions. And I thought, Oh my gosh, you know, I've got to work in this division. And so I started off actually volunteering. They wanted point people within the businesses to help them identify where there were challenges that could be solved by innovative technology. And so I volunteered to be the representative for my division. And then I think it was about six months after that I I joined the actual department, like the court was then called corporate innovation and we covered pretty much all of the business globally. We were kind of split up into teams that had either regional or business division coverage. And we also had an accelerator program that we ran in partnership with Techstars. So we would bring early stage companies in and have them work with the businesses and see if we could adopt some of their technology. And I guess this is kind of the point where you start to realise that a lot of this is what we would call innovation theatre. So we had this beautiful building with lots of early stage companies renting space. We had this very heavily promoted, you know, accelerator program inside of the business. Like the innovation division was seen as this really sexy, cool place to work. You know, everybody's walking around in hoodies and we're all kind of working with interesting technology. But then you come to realize the realities of like the traditional finance system and you realize a few things that when you can print money, you don't actually need to be efficient. So that's the first thing. The second thing is that efficiency is not necessarily desirable because it means that you don't need all of the staff there. So I would have very interesting conversations with heads of businesses where I'd say, well, you know, if you use this automated, you know, natural language processing system, you can save a ton of time on research. So you don't need 300 people, you maybe need 20. And you'd have these conversations where they'd say, well, I've worked here for 30 years and these people are all my friends and I don't want to fire them. I mean, I literally had people say that to me. I'm not going to adopt this efficiency play because it means I might have to get rid of staff. And, and they're people that I know and like, which is very commendable, but it's not really a way to run a business. But then you kind of realize that it doesn't really matter because they just keep kind of plodding on and, you know, you can just print money, lend it out, take take the revenue back in and you don't really need to produce anything that's especially innovative in that process. So I guess that kind of got me interested in in, you know, what we would then call blockchain technology. So we did a lot of projects around block to blockchain technology and how to make the business more efficient by using it. And I'd like to give anyone listening a spoiler alert. It doesn't. And then eventually I fell down the Bitcoin rabbit hole when I left SO. Well, let's talk about that, actually the Bitcoin rabbit hole for you. You've got quite an interesting story because you, you first kind of put your eyes on Bitcoin very early, I think through your husband in 2011, if I'm not mistaken. And, and so maybe maybe share with our audience how you actually got to that space and, and, and share that story a little bit. Yeah. Well, it's interesting actually, because the, the, the dynamic between my husband and I is that he's very technical and I'm quite ideological. And so he first told me about Bitcoin in 2011. And he was working on a project with a friend of his who worked in the music industry. And it was something, I guess akin to smart contracts or NFTS as we might know them now. So it was tying, you know, content essentially to an immutable Ledger that that was kind of the project they were working on, which other people have sort of taken and run with. And, you know, life things happened and the two of them sort of moved on and didn't end up working on the project. But I remember distinctly him. Telling you the huge excitement about this decentralized Ledger and you know how it was going to change everything and it's this amazing technology. And he sort of sat there and explained it to me and I looked at him and I said, that sounds really boring. And of course, now weep because I'm like, I bought Bitcoin in 2011. We all, we all think that we all think we're late. And then when I was at the bank, we were working, as I said, on lots of blockchain projects. So there were lots of consortium projects with banks looking to make efficiencies, you know, with various different private blockchains. And at the time I said to my husband, I said, oh, you know, it doesn't this kind of, you know, from what I remember back in 2011 when you first told me about this tech, does this not kind of invalidate the whole point of it because it's it's not widely distributed and you don't have a network of computers, you know, securing that that network doesn't that isn't the whole value prop lost. And he was like, basically, yeah. And so it kind of got me questioning. And we did, you know, we hosted some sessions on on kind of Bitcoin and blockchain at the Innovation Center. And I'd attend them, but it came across as a very just like a technical solution. I mean, I guess a database. I mean, basically database management, if for want of a better word. And then as I was leaving the bank, I was thinking, what should I do? I want to do something different with my life. And I had a bunch of colleagues that had gone off to crypto companies. And so weirdly, it was my mum that actually orange peeled me. So I called her up and I said, you know, I think I want to do something different with my life. I don't want to work in a bank anymore, but I'm not clear on what it is. But I do have a bunch of friends who've gone to crypto companies and they all seem super excited about working in that industry. And she's really into this Canadian clinical psychologist for those who don't know who he is, Jordan Peterson. And she said, oh, he interviewed 4 Bitcoiners. I'll send you the interview. I haven't watched it, but you should watch it and see what you think. And I thought that was really strange because I thought, why is Jordan Peterson interviewing Bitcoiners? This is so out of his wheelhouse. And it turned out it was actually a group of Bitcoiners who had a Bitcoin book club and they were reading Jordan Peterson's very heavy tone Maps of Meaning, which is a kind of a psychology book that maps the whole way that I guess our, our society works. And they were interested to talk to him about it because it tied into Bitcoin for them. So he sat down with these four guys and had a conversation and they recorded it. And so I watched this thing. It's 90 minutes long. Highly recommend it to anyone who is curious about why this was such a monumental moment in my life. But it's called, I think the future of money question or Bitcoin, The future of money question mark from back in, I think he recorded it in May 2021. And so I watched this thing. Next day my mum calls me up and she said, so have you watched it? Is it any good? Should I bother spending time watching it? And I just said, it's completely changed my life. She's like, what do you mean? And I just said, did you know? I've worked in finance for 20 years and I understood nothing about money. And it was just this real aha moment for me. And I think it was slightly ideological in some respects because I'd had so many questions throughout my career in Tradfi that had never been answered satisfactorily, like, never. And in 90 minutes, it was like the scales just fell off my eyes and I suddenly understood why none of it had made sense. And so then you go through this kind of trauma period where I think you were talking, you were talking about Rich, where your entire world view has to now change and you have to start questioning and rebuilding everything you believe or you've believed. And that's pretty much been the journey for the last three years. I think once you go down that rabbit hole, it just doesn't stop. Yeah, yeah, yeah, it. It's so funny when you were sharing that I, I, I just was right there with you. I just an unbelievable when you start really kind of coming to a level of awareness of what Bitcoin represents and, and then start questioning the, the things that you thought you knew and, and, and what is money is, I think a very, very foundational piece, right? You know, 'cause we, we take it for granted, we understand it's, you know, something that we exchange for value and, and, you know, the whole 9 yards, but we don't ever really sit down and think about, you know, the store of value impacts and, and, and all of that. And I think that that's commonplace in, in, in discussion today, you know, which is I think a very healthy, you know, conversation that's occurring. And I find it everywhere that I go. But that being said, you know, when you really kind of dive, dive in and you start saying, OK, well, what is money? And then why is scarcity so important in, in assets? And you really start peeling apart all of the things that you knew or thought you knew. You know, Bitcoin really kind of brings everything to to life for us, I think in many respects. And it, it does, it shatters, you know, your, your initial, you know, boy, I thought I was a subject matter expert in this space of wealth management. I thought I really understood asset allocation and, you know, modern portfolio theory and all of these different things. And, and, you know, everything just starts to kind of crumble and you start recognizing, you know, the, the faults, you know, that live inside of our, our, our system of systems, you know, as it relates to money. And, and you were sharing a story a little bit about the complexities that have been built into this system, right? And I think you were describing this, this, this chart that you kind of start drawing these circles, right? And how everybody plays this role and how complex, you know, we have created the system, including, you know, the policies that that we have and, and including the, you know, tax law and all of these different things. It just changes and forces, you know, so much complexity that frankly, I think, you know, the common investor is confused and they have to seek out help. And they're seeking out help from people that are saying, OK, well, I kind of have an understanding of how the system works and I understand these these fundamental approaches to asset management. Bitcoin helps kind of tear that down and simplify it in many respects when you really understand what that asset is. And, you know, it's been kind of a fun adventure to be on. I think, I think for me that was one of the things in tradfires that nobody really talks in first principles. Yes. So that like you say, there's lots of complexity, there's lots of watching numbers. I mean, I have a friend who's been an economist for 20 years and, and I asked her one day and I said, why is it that everybody, why is it non farm payroll? Why is it non farm? And she just sort of looked at me blankly and she couldn't really, she said, I'm not sure. And I thought, gosh, everybody sits there and waits for this number to come out. You know, it's like everyone in markets is on tenterhooks. And yet you ask somebody why is it that particular number? Like what is it? And they're kind of, they're not sure. And that the circles. Yeah, it was interesting because in my career I've sort of been a data provider with some like brokerage experience, then being at an inter dealer broker that, you know, for those that don't know, facilitates trading between the banks. And then obviously worked at a bank where we were working with the asset managers and we're facilitating trading between the asset managers. And so I used to explain to people who didn't work in finance or maybe they were new and they didn't have a finance background. And I'd kind of draw them these circles. And I'd say, you know, there's the outside circle, which is the retail investor. So that's you and I. We go off to our pension fund or to an asset manager and we put our earnings in there and we try and earn yield. Those pension fund managers and asset managers, they then trade, you know, in and out of their portfolios. So they use exchanges, they use different brokerages, they use investment banks, and then you have the banks, you know, who are managing all of this process. Obviously they do other stuff as well, but in in a markets context and they're all trading with each other. But they need to do that anonymously as well because they can't disclose their positions. So then you have the interdealer brokers that are sat there kind of facilitating that trading between everybody. But every layer of those circles, somebody's taking their cut. So entire businesses are being operated that function solely on like the cut that they're taking of that money that you as the retail investor originally invested in, in your fund. And I used to ask myself, I was like, this is ridiculous. So what would happen if I just took that money and I saved it and I didn't give all of these people and all these businesses their cut? But then you very quickly discover that a rate of inflation is eroding that and that that's not an option. And I remember very early in my career asking one of the economists at Bloomberg that was doing a training for us. We were doing bond math, and she was talking about, you know, how to calculate bond prices, et cetera. And of course, the conversation about inflation comes in. And I said to her, why do we have inflation? Like, what is the point of it? Like, what's driving it? And I will never forget her turning around from the whiteboard and just looking at me as if I was, like, stupid. And she said to me, well, because people keep asking for higher wages, obviously, that's what's driving inflation. If people didn't keep asking for higher wages, we wouldn't have inflation. And I remember thinking to myself, this doesn't even make any sense. If you come into a corporate world as a junior, you get paid less because you have less experience, so you're less valuable. As you move up the rungs, you can have more experience, which means you can do more, more efficiently. So you're more valuable. Your time becomes more valuable. Eventually you exit and you go into retirement and then, you know, a new group of people come in. So higher wages can't be the problem because this is just a constant conveyor belt that just adjusts itself as one retires and one comes in. So it wasn't a satisfactory explanation. But, you know, I was kind of sat there thinking like, this is so weird. And I remember sitting on the trading floors and just looking out all this like activity and thinking, gosh, this just all feels like unnecessary, but I can't really put my finger on why. And then 90 minutes listening to Bitcoiners and I was just like, Oh my God, you know, This is why, you know, we can literally shatter all of this complexity. None of this is necessary if if our wealth just holds its value. And then that brings a whole other kind of series of, I guess, ideological ideas and questions that stem from that. Kristen, we had a similar in, in Canada at a conference, one of the large banks economist was talking about the chance of recession a while ago and what would the bank do on rates. And she said that, well, we're hoping we don't get a recession and we're trying to do XY and Z. And I sort of raised my hand and I said, well, we really haven't had a, a long and laborious session since O 8. And do you think that we're in a period where we will never have recessions? And would that be a good thing? And she had no answer. I, I and she just evaded it as if why of course we don't want recessions. And you know, and then obviously the, and maybe the not obvious question is, and well, how does value reset in a asset deflate, you know, asset debasement or asset inflation environment? Yeah, it's your, your point about the room leads me to bring the, the observation about productivity that we talked about in the beginning of it and about Ed Yardini's comment that don't worry about it, the equity markets are going to go higher because of productivity. But the question is who benefits from that? If are more people being put out of work and you know, then are only places like Citibank who employs about 240,000 people, the same amount they did 30 years ago? Are they the one of the only government subsidized entities that's going to be allowed to keep people employed even though their stock is lower today than it was in 1993? And without that 12:50 stock split, it would be a $6.20 stock today? Yeah. So your your observation about looking around the room totally had that that it was a narrow value proposition given that didn't really need to be, you know, spread across hundreds of people And and the text act that was trying to be innovative. Like what you know, right, you know, upgraded as a Kabuki theater that you alluded to that was going on to say, well, you know, we got this. But Rich, I don't know if you saw that, you know, through the what the Rias are doing. Are they are they, you know, a counterbalance to this kind of big hulking mess of financial institutions. I can't, you know, deliver the same value. You know, the Rias deliver an important role in many respects, right? And there is value that's being delivered at that because it's at the relational level, people need coaches, right, to help them make make good decisions. And, and there are things that we're all good at in life. And, you know, in many respects the registered investment advisor is very good at helping people that don't have the time, that don't have the inclination, you know, or the competency per per SE to, to really manage, as I guess Krista was kind of describing, which is the assault on, on, on their, their savings, their life savings. And so, you know, I think they have a, a very important role over the next, you know, 5-10 years to really help people understand what their money is and what store value is. And, and, and I think that Bitcoin plays a very, very critical place. And I think there will be those Rias who recognize it and will have done the work. And we'll think about the integration of Bitcoin into the, the portfolios to help people. And, and that's my belief. I think they play a fundamental role in, in the adoption curve of Bitcoin. And I think it will probably come sooner than later. That's my belief. I think we've got a lot of roadblocks in in place for them. And in speaking with the firms that I'm talking to every single day they have, they have a unique challenge because they're, they're an intermediary, right? They're, they're managing the relationship, the coaching, the financial coaching, the life coaching, all of these elements that that people say, Hey, I really want you to be a part, a partner to me in this space. But they have to deal with the system as well. And one of the biggest challenges is the custodial layer and making certain that that, that they're that they have access right to the right solutions. I think, you know, ETFs are in many respects great for Bitcoin because you get the marketing that comes along with that, but it's in it, it's, it's a flawed way to enter Bitcoin in my opinion. It's not secured correctly. We had that conversation on past shows about, you know, what 9 out of the 11 are on Coinbase and, and you know, you've got, you know, major concentration risk on a single on a counterparty. And, and that's, that's a concern. And many haven't really thought that piece through yet. And so that's where we step in to try to help them understand. Hey, look, understand, you know, the risk profile in the digital asset space, it's just as important as anything and that's part of your fiduciary responsibility. But I do think they've got challenges that they have to overcome and we need to help them in a, you know, kind of work around that. And that's where we come in at on ramp. Of course Mark is saying there's better ways to access Bitcoin for your clients and, and, and better ways to secure that Bitcoin for your clients over the long term and I think. I think old habits die hard. It's, it's interesting. I remember visiting Japan in 1997 and going to the bank to withdraw money. And, you know, my sister had, she was living out there and she'd sort of prepped me with the phrases in Japanese that I needed to say. So I'd, you know, go up to the count and say hand over my passport and say cash called us I, which is like cash, please. And the crazy thing was they had ATMs, but they were only open during banking hours. So you couldn't access an ATM at, say, 10:00 at night, which is just nuts. And I couldn't wrap my head around this. But it was interesting the ritual that came with it, you know, so they take my passport and then they went off and they put it into a plastic bowl. And then they came back to me with a different plastic bowl with a number, a little like token in it, with a number in it. And they gave me that plastic bowl. And I had to take that plastic bowl and go and sit down somewhere while they went off with my passport and did whatever they needed to do, you know, to, to get my money out of the bank. But there was all this changing of like plastic bowls and, you know, tokens coming in and out of them and things like that. And I just remember thinking, why can't I just go and put my card in the cash point at like 10:00 at night and take the money out? So it just, it really struck me that there are just certain rituals that form around things. And I think a lot of the mental leap for people is, you know, if you're an investment advisor, you've spent your life analysing different assets and figuring out what their risk profile is. You know what, you know what asset allocation you should have over a certain period of, of your life, depending on where you are in your career and whatever. And then all of a sudden something comes along that virtually wipes out the necessity for all of those other things like do you really need to invest in real estate if you've got Bitcoin, You know, do you really need to invest in bonds if you have Bitcoin? And I think that that doesn't just challenge the financial structure of things or the logical side of things. It's like a ritual thing. There's this ritual that's grown up around our financial system. And it's suddenly, if it's, if it's no longer relevant, what do you do now, you know? At Onramp, we believe that Bitcoin is the most important asset of the 21st century. The hard part is securing it right. There are shortcomings with keeping your coins on an exchange, but also with setting up your own self custody arrangement. Onramp solves for these concerns. Our multi institution custody solution maximizes security and minimizes counterparty risk, ensuring that your Bitcoin remains securely in your possession and provides built in inheritance planning to ensure your family is protected as well. On Ramp provides Peace of Mind for your Bitcoin journey, whether for your whole stack or for part of it as a compliment to your existing self custody setup. For more information, check us out at on rampbitcoin.com. That's an interesting point, the ritual and I and I, and it kind of makes me think about the industry as a whole. It's a, it's an industry of storytelling, you know, and, and so, you know, I, I have to think that advisors are probably sitting back kind of saying, well, jeez, you know, this is, these are the stories that I tell, you know, and it, that help, that have helped in the system that, that I'm given to operate. You know, now you're sitting back and you're saying, OK, well, jeez, how do, how do I tell this new story? And, and doesn't it nullify all of the great stories that I've told for the last, you know, 1520 years that have helped me go from zero to a billion dollar firm? You know, and I think that that's a really big, you know, piece of, of the puzzle for a lot of firms. It's it's saying, wow, was my advice on point and the answer is yes. The answer is yes. It was on point in the system that you have, but now you have a new disruptive technology and asset that is going to make you have to rethink how you tell your stories. And you know, and, and to me, I think that there's a little bit of humility that that has to come to that, that equation. You have to be able to say, yes, our our advice, our counsel, the way that we did things was the very, very best that we had at in that moment. Things have changed, things have evolved, and we're evolving with you. Sorry Mark, jump in please. Yeah, I'll, I'll just say about that, that innovation disruption, I, I just keep going back to the context about cycles. And I, I had promoted this talk by saying I'll answer what Mahomes and Kansas City Chiefs have to do with oil or commodities. And basically the the Hunt family, the owner, he's the grandson of the founder from Dallas who was basically told to pound sand when he came out of UT and wanted to found a football team in 1953, I think. So he went to Kansas City to took his oil money, went to Kansas City, still had some money, was able to, you know, build on the team in the 70s when oil went from $2.00 to $36. And so they still had that kind of cash cow. But what he did is he built what was happening as a brand new network, which was the NFL Network that then leveraged another network called television that came out a technology, a productivity tool. And so they took the same 11 folks in the field and just amped and scaled their talents to billions of dollars now worth over $8 billion. So I, I, I think when you want to look at how things change, it's, you know, this guy was an engineer, happened to be an engineer in the right place. If he was in Florida, you know, maybe be in real estate, but he wasn't, he was in Texas. So he found oil, made money on it, did the right thing, went into another scaling business, which was football. And he did better than his brothers, so, or, and his father did better than his uncles. He the bunker hunts I don't know if you remember they kind of did a bad thing with silver back in the 70s. So they went the wrong way with how to deal with with an opportunity. So I I just think that University of Texas great endowment why because of oil Stanford pretty good endowment maybe because you know, they launched people in the tech sector in the 90s and 2000s as an RIAA. What's, what are you sitting on to give your clients? And I, and we think it's Bitcoin obviously up and down. This is in, in, in. I go back to that thing about to the top of the call about Ed Yardini. He's like, Yep, productivity, man. It's coming, but not everyone's going to they'll you'll be put out of work because of productivity. Microsoft is doing more with less people folks. They spot a nuclear plant in order to power it. They're not getting guys in a coal mine shoveling coal. So I'll, I'll, you know, pull it back. But I, I just want to, you know, sort of sort of share about the perspective about the, the Rias can be that next provider of share They're disrupting. They can basically put their clients on a on an oil field effectively in 1970 terms. I'm curious, I'm really curious what you guys think about this because following on from that point, I've, I've really wrestled with this for years. I very quickly after I went down the rabbit hole, I, I started, I read Jeff Booth's book The price of Tomorrow. And for those that don't know, it's a book that he, Jeff Booth is a Bitcoiner, but he basically talks about inflation and he talks about how there it is. It's isn't, I think it's actually one of the best books I've ever read. I'd say probably that creature of of Jekyll Island and well, probably the Bitcoin standard and the sovereign individual as well. We're such nerds. Oh, that was not planned, folks. Hilarious. But it's interesting because, you know, the book doesn't really talk about Bitcoin at all. I think it mentions it a couple of times in the last chapter. And the rest of it is all about like the evolution of technology and how, you know that drives efficiencies. So therefore everything should get cheaper. But actually it's not getting cheaper because of the debasement of our currencies through money printing. But one thing I always wrestle with when I try and envision this world on a Bitcoin standard, and I think to myself, if I'm working and let's say I don't know, I'm a hypothetical number, but let's say I earn one Bitcoin a year in salary. Well, as my career goes on, that Bitcoin is going to become more and more valuable. So does that mean that instead of getting a pay rise every year, I get a pay cut? And if I'm holding Bitcoin and that's becoming more valuable, what's my incentive to struggle and work more? You know, people produce a lot because they have to. If you start making, I don't know, hats, I used to make hats. I'll use that as an example. You can make beautiful handmade hats, but then the machinery comes along and now you can buy the bases from China at a fraction of the price it would take you to hand hand mould the hat. So now you can produce 100 hats instead of one, let's say every day. But now you're just having to produce more and more to keep a pace because those hats are cheaper. So I just wondering, in a Bitcoin standard world, we will probably consume less, but surely we will produce less. So what does that mean? Does that mean that the quality of things elevates or does it mean that we just do less? I don't know. I mean, how do you guys sort of envision this working from an economic standpoint? You are asking a wonderfully curious question, right? And I don't know that any of us can, can predict it, But, you know, I've come to the similar conclusion. You know, what does it all look like in the end? And in many respects, I, you know, I look at, let's look at the ancient world as an, as an example. Think about the quality of what you saw in art and in construction and the you see some pretty fascinating things in modern times, true, But you look back at the greatest things that we've ever produced in humanity that we sit in marvel and it inspires us and lifts us. And I kind of wonder if maybe you're, you're touching on the quality is going to amplify. And that's kind of where I've landed with what ends up happening. I think when I talk with people, you know, they get frustrated with their work, like, am I what, what am I doing? Is it really adding value? Right. People are frustrated in, in, in what they what they're doing today. And the question becomes, well, maybe it's not really adding that much value to other people's lives. And so is there the potential that that, you know, through technology and, and, you know, Bitcoin and, and, you know, going up, up, up as you were, you know, kind of describing, does that really release us to, to put our focus on things with a higher level of attention and human spirit? And the optimist in me kind of lands in that space. I think, you know, we focus on our relationships in deeper and more meaningful ways. I think we focus on our pursuits in ways that we hope are lasting over generations and generations that impact others. So I do kind of tend to fall in the quality camp that we get back to some more interesting pursuits that really are inspired. That's kind of the way I think about it. Ink that baby. Nice Rich. Well, she, she, she threw the, she threw the softball up. She gave me a second option too. But. That's my hope. I'm an optimist and I, I just really believe in the human spirit. And I think that we, if we, if we stop and we look around at what is really important, you know, maybe the maybe the biggest reset that comes, you know, when that point in time where technology really evolves at a place where, you know, these, all of these, I don't want to belittle the work that people do, but you know, maybe maybe it's not as impactful as as they had hoped. You know, think back when you were a teenager and you're, and you're like, I really want to do something special. I want to leave my mark in this world. I want it to last. You know, I recognize that I have this very short period of time here. So maybe we, maybe we revisit those early ambitious dreams that we had and we and we do something that's really remarkable that that empowers others to achieve some level of greatness, much like what you're trying to do with, you know, access try right is empower others to engage and, and, and do something of significance in their lives. So. Yeah, I worry. I worry actually about women a lot in as much as I sort of remember, you know, being in finance. We had lots of these women's groups and, you know, like, you know, trying to help women progress in their careers or whatever it might be, you know, get promoted and all these different initiatives. And, and I'll be honest, I'm really candid here. Like a lot of them were just bitching sessions about how men were keeping women down and they were, you know, being, you know, preventing women from progressing and all the rest of it. And I look at the Bitcoin space and I kind of look at it as, you know, probably in a sense it needed the Internet to exist. But in some ways I look at it as a much more monumental innovation because of the societal change that it's going to bring about. I think it's just, it's impossible that Bitcoin won't completely revolutionize the whole way our society works. But what concerns me is that I think, you know, women are kind of like, oh, it's not that interesting to me right now. And then I think to myself, you know, in 10-15 years time, we're going to be over here in the Bitcoin industry and there'll be all these women's groups where the women are going to be talking about all these men that have all the Bitcoin and you know, all this, this gender gender equality gap and all the rest of it and the wealth gap and everything. And I just think to myself, well, you know, you've got an opportunity now to front run basically 99% of the rest of the world and you should take it. And I've said to people even just buy $100, you know, like if you had $100 a Bitcoin back in one, whatever it was 2009, you'd be talking about having about 7 million now. And all you'd have had to do is sit on it. You know, psychologically hard, but not technically hard. I, I love, I, I love that idea and I agree with that. The way it's going now in it's is there's a potential for Bitcoin to have a, a shift, but not a material shift in wealth by social economic gender segment, however you want to look at it. So there'll be a shift, but not as monumental as it could be, which I'll go back to what Rich said about the ancient times. When you have a distribution of wealth, you'll have less social unrest. You'll have people who can pursue purpose and not passion. And you know, purpose is stuff of the hero's journey. It's, you know, how did cathedrals get make? You know, because people were commit, you know, they didn't have a passion. Like I want to, you know, open a bakery. You know, passion can fire on and off. But if you really know your purpose, if you look in what your contract is and it's it's a different animal and having that long site that Jeff Booth talks about or the Bitcoin standard is a big deal. But you can't have that commitment to a purpose if you're on the treadmill, if if you're forced to consume to work because value destruction. It sounds a little bit, it's not exactly this kind of conversation you hear on all financial calls. But we're if you don't think that everyone's feeling it in their household or as an individual. If you have a solo household, everyone is. Yeah. And and it doesn't have to be that way. And it wasn't always as bad as this. It's, it's interesting to me as well because I think with the lockdowns, I was having an e-mail exchange with some friends yesterday with actually one of the articles from how do you pronounce it? Crocius. Is he Jesse? My yes. That's right, yeah. But it's one that he wrote a while back. It was in 2020, but it was about the talking about the yuppie class and why they're the kind of the last one to to kind of on board, which I think is a fantastic article. I've read it I think for the first time in I think it was September 2022. Somebody sent it to me. Tell the. Audience who Crocius is. Jesse Myers I think is his real name. Look our our Co founder of on ramp Yeah, and that article and it's beautiful. It's, it's, it's really incredible actually, because it's so lucid. It's just so simple and so lucid, but yet it makes so much sense. But it was interesting how he was talking about, you know, the, the kind of the level of sort of libertarianism that you have and trust and authority. And then how that kind of impacts, you know, whether you're a maxi or whether you're you're an altcoiner. If, if assuming you're in the cryptocurrency space that these two things sort of diverge. And I think he called them the moon, Moon Bros or something, or moon boys. And then, then, then you have the Maxis. But I thought what was really interesting was that when when we had lockdowns, people were not going to the office and they, many of them and myself included, you know, at the time I was living in New York. And at some point you just go, oh, OK, it's going to be, this is a long haul thing. It's not two weeks. I may as well just pack up and go and live, I don't know, in Florida or whatever because it doesn't make any difference. I'm just sat behind my laptop working. And I think what it did was it broke people out of that treadmill for a second. There was like a rupture of I'm not doing the same thing every day and just progressing up my career ladder and, you know, going through the motions. Suddenly I'm forced to reassess my entire lifestyle. And a lot of people I speak to came into Bitcoin at that point because they started questioning everything. Do I actually enjoy my job? Am I, do I really care about my career? Or would I rather sit on this nice beach instead and find something to do that allows me to do that, but maybe doesn't earn as much, you know, as much money as working on Wall Street? And I think that break got a lot of people questioning and just having and I don't know if you're familiar with do you do you read Rene Girard? His he's a so he's a philosopher. He's dead now, but he was one of the professors, I think of Peter Thiel at Stanford, and he has this whole theory about mimesis. I mean, his his work is a bit heavy going to read. But there's a really nice Laypersons entry, which is a book called Wanting by Luke Burgess, spelled BURGIS. Yeah. And that basically summarizes Rene Gerard's theories. But he talks about this theory about memesis, about how we copy each other and we compete. And very rarely do we stop to look across and go, what am I competing for? Do I actually want that thing at the end? And so I think that Bitcoin journey is very tied with that. You almost have this break where you're like, hang on a second, you know, do I want the prize at the end of this, this endless treadmill for 65 years or whatever it's going to be, or to the age of 65 when I retire? Wow, there's. Another book for Pile Rich. Yeah, I, I'm just, I'm like, OK, I'm going to. I got something to read. He already went to Amazon. Don't worry about it. He's quick on that. That, that we, what you just said about the, about the check, you know, there was a, there's an opportunity for people to review because you couldn't go to work. So then you kind of what'd you do since you, your attention wasn't out to the organization. You actually had to go in for information what's going on. It was an opportunity to reflect and look at all the value. I'll go back to the productivity, the Magnificent 7, 3032% of market cap, which is twice the amount the top seven companies have had over the last 10 years. They're aggregating more market cap. They are 70, sixty, 70% of all the earnings. Who are they? They are attention grabbers. They are the best at getting our attention and they're making money on it. And I think what I heard you say was, well, you know what your attention is worth a lot. Why don't you turn in and figure out what you want to do? And I think when you do that, you're looking at what you want to do, get purpose over passion. You're looking at is money serving me the current monetary system. And that's really this may sound foreign to people who haven't, you know, spent 10 hours on Bitcoin, but the folks here are nodding, you know, Krista and Richard and it's it's been a neat. That's really the, you know, bringing it home about what you just said about about COVID, it was it was 100 year opportunity for us to sort of get off the treadmill. Yeah, definitely a mental shift. Yes, required you had to have the mental shift. Otherwise you're looking outward for what you where you should be, what vacation you should take, what you know, what consumption behavior should be done. And then you're like, all right, well, I got to work this weekend then because I got to. Well, it's. Interesting you say that because when I lived in New York, I lived for going out to fancy restaurants. I used to love going to all these interesting restaurants and having all these different types of food, and it was a real highlight. And obviously during lockdowns that wasn't an option. And it was really bizarre because over that period of time I discovered I don't actually like going out to eat that much. I was suddenly forced to kind of teach myself how to cook a bit better than I had in the past. And I was like, oh, this is actually kind of fun. I'm enjoying like experimenting with all these things and producing different dishes. And I suddenly realized that actually, I don't particularly want to go and sit there with a menu, have a selection that somebody else dictates, wait for somebody to come to the table, you know, go through all of that faff. And it was weird for how how many things that I had held to be of value. Suddenly I realized we're of no value whatsoever. And when they were gone from my life, I didn't miss them. So I think that coupled with the Bitcoin journey, I think it just forces you to kind of re evaluate your whole stance on that. Yeah. Yep. Well, geez, I think we could sit here for another two hours and talk with you, Krista, because the. Easily. I have enjoyed myself thoroughly. I mean, I was, I was sitting here thinking, man, having the chance to meet you, it has really been a joy. Likewise, because I think you're you're just a magnificent person that you know, is, is doing really great work, you know, for, for not just women, for everybody. You're out there, you know, helping everyone in in trying to discover, as Mark was saying, a purpose over over passion. Maybe. But that being said, this has been such a unique show for us and you've got such a compelling story and you've done such tremendous work thinking things through. Can you just maybe in closing tell us real quick what is Access Tribe really trying to do in the space and how can people connect with you? Well, so ultimately what Access Tribe is trying to do is to not exist. So that is the ultimate aim of the company. But in the interim, I'm trying to onboard more women into this space. So essentially I have a podcast and a newsletter which provides sort of educational content and allows women to see that there are many other women in this industry. So 98% of my guests are female and they come from all different walks of Bitcoin. I've had death doulas on, I've had, you know, developers on, I've had like all sorts of people that are using Bitcoin in their own industries. And then I also provide training programs. So I actually have one launching in October, which is called Applied Bitcoin. And that's really to show people how Bitcoin is being used in traditional industries and how it's changing them because I think we think of Bitcoin companies a lot as like a Bitcoin wallet or, you know, Bitcoin exchange. But actually there are real industries today that are using Bitcoin not because they think it's cool or sexy, but because actually it's the best technology. And I have this sort of mantra that I always say, but I sort of had a course that I ran last year for founders and it was called Every Bitcoin will be a Bitcoin Business. What you need to know, and I truly believe that I think there will come a day where we're not really talking about Bitcoin because it will be the backbone and infrastructure of everything in the same way that we use the Internet today. So that's really the mission is I think partly, I think in certainly in the corporate world, you have the individual where there's an opportunity to educate them for their own, you know, their own wealth preservation. But I think at a corporate level, we have a huge opportunity to show businesses like forget blockchain, think about how this can completely upend the payments network. Think about how it can completely upend how we consume media, you know, how we monetize that media, healthcare, energy. I mean, there's a fantastic company called Sinota, which I don't know if you guys know, but if you haven't had them on, you should absolutely have Austin and Lisa on. You know, they're they're basically creating a system where you can pay for your energy in real time by streaming across the Lightning Network, like streaming Bitcoin, which is incredible. So you're de risking all of these businesses in that way. So yeah, I mean, that's really the mission. So my hope is maybe let's give myself a 5-10 year timeline. Access Tribe doesn't need to exist or it's gone off on a different purpose. Maybe I'll build a beautiful building instead. There you go. Well, that's awesome. Well, Krista, I mean, I hope that we have you on again. I mean, I just really, really thoroughly have enjoyed our time together and and it's been a pleasure meeting you, everyone. Yeah, you know. We'll. We'll do our best to make certain maybe we, we'll put, we'll pull you into a couple of different pods. You know that that we can, we can showcase you. But thank you so much for the great work that you do. And and, and more importantly, just joining us this morning and, and speaking with the financial and and investment professionals that watch our show. So thank you. Thank. You my pleasure and thanks Mark. Thank you. You bet. Thank you, Krista. Thanks, Rich. Yeah. Take care all. Thanks for listening to this week's episode of the show. If you found the information valuable, please share the episode with a friend or leave a rating on your favorite podcast app. All the links we discussed in today's show will be in the show notes inside your podcast app. Before we finish, a quick reminder that On Rat Media is for informational and entertainment purposes only, and nothing should be construed as investment or legal advice. Regardless of where you are on your Bitcoin journey, we'd love to hear from you. Visit onrampbitcoin.com/contact to schedule a consultation with one of our private Client Advisors.
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