Asia's Crypto Boom, Stablecoin Wars, and Crypto's Global Shifts | Roundup

Transcript

it's a good reminder of this industry is actually like really big and like of course it's like you know it's big it's like a two trillion yeah but when you when you see it like this in a conference it lends a different dimension that it's just pretty awesome to see actually I got to spend a good amount of time with the okx team yesterday like they are not a crypto exchange they are the next WeChat built on crypto rails exceptional storytelling goes far longer and is is a bigger DET has been a bigger factor to success in the space then underlying Tech and whatnot this episode is brought to you by anoma the universal intent machine introducing a new era of applications where you define the outcomes you want to stay up to date with anoma you can

follow them at x.com anoma or sign up for the newsletter at ana. net special thanks to anoma for sponsoring today's episode let's face it building on crowded l1s or expensive l2s is just not going to unlock the next generation of applications super containers offers dedicated customizable app spaces running on supra's 500 ktps layer one blockchain giving you complete control over gas tokens and fees get notified when super containers are ready for Builders at super.com containers hey everyone the polygon Community grants program was launched with 1 billion tokens All For polygon

Builders really excited to share that on today's episode of Empire season 1 of the polygon Community grants program is now live it features 35 million in madic to support the next generation of polygon projects join the aggregated future today by applying at [Music] polygon.net YouTube there's a 5050 chance this podcast is going to be the worst that we have ever recorded on Empire or the best or the best so we are currently sitting in a hotel room yeah

sitting in a hotel room in Singapore um so we're in the lobby we're putting in that work we're in the lobby and uh and Yano looks at me deep deep stare and says hey you want to come up to my room and I and the two other guys we were with were very confused so I was like this is what happens when you do podcast for multiple years you know you develop a a strong bond strong bond strong bonds but our clothes are on shirts are on so we're good right they may not stay on for the duration yes exactly but uh we wanted to record this to tell you guys about token and tell you about Singapore and Santi might talk about rate Cuts I should not talk about macro because that's a horrendous thing you don't want to hear that but uh how's the conference

been oh not much man well they have great kombucha here in uh great Kucha cheers Che pink Apple and you know if remedy wants to sponsor user Cherry Plum Cherry Plum Cherry Plum uh it's good to be back in Singapore I'll I'll start by saying um I'm not a fan of conferences but it's really nice sometimes to come in Meet Founders get a Vibe for the room uh what people are excited about um just some data points yeah 20,000 attendees last year guess how much how many 10,000 yeah 2X and it it feels packed like not only that but this feels more like a SAS conference like a dreamforce conference yeah uh like over here conversations people are like closing deals and I it's it's one of those things where like

every other crypto conference that I go to like breakpoint which is happening tomorrow I'll be there debating um salana versus eth um you go to Devcon you go to uh ECC and it's like very crypto native you kind of recognize most people I don't recognize anyone in the and they don't even know they don't even recognize you they don't even know who I am I'm having an identity crisis no it's it's actually it's a good reminder of this industry is actually like really big and like of course it's like you know it's big it's like a two trillion yeah but when you when you see it like this in a conference it lends a different dimension that it's just pretty awesome to see actually yeah so in in my in uh before blockworks I

worked at this data analytics company and we would always go to the Gartner conferences there these big B2B events and this feels much more like a Gartner conference where you know there were 10,000 people and it was all very B2B getting deals done not saying this is all B2B but yeah just the size and scale this is easily the I mean this is the biggest Conference of the year I think this is the largest crypto conference ever yeah ever ever yeah period like more so than um like uh consensus yeah the the biggest consensus ever I think was probably 2018 you remember that one in New York yeah New York blockchain week 2018 yeah yeah yeah there were probably 10 or probably 15,000 people there yeah is great too like in Marina base sand like it's it's

very concentrated like multiple floors yeah yeah okay so one takeaway that I okay so I have this is my first time in Singapore and I've actually I've been to Asia before but Thailand and Vietnam I've never actually been to never actually done like a work trip in uh while working in crypto to Asia and there was this idea in my head that token was just a bunch of Americans who fly over because a lot of the speakers are just us yeah yeah crypto companies um I'm trying to figure out the right words so I don't get canceled but like you're still getting get canel the the attendees are I need to like all I mean they it's not American attendees like it's all Asian attendees rest of the world yeah

it's the rest of the world and um it's very relevant to the last two podcasts that we've recorded the Roundup that we did and then the the episode that I did with Allen where there's this idea that it's like oh big in Asia right and then the other side says no no no Asia is just a bunch of like Bots and incentive farming and being at this conference I can assure you it is not just bot farming in Asia like the there are the sheer number of people here using crypto is just hands down bigger than the United States well I talked about in the Roundup we did I was in Korea at the time at Korea blockchain week and um this idea that like I feel that the way that Consumer Finance has

evolved in Asia and the whole like internet Giants and the like the apps that have been built um you know when people use you look at WeChat you look at cacao you look at grab like so grab has a grab has a wallet so grab for people who haven't been here is like the Uber of it's like uber and Uber Eats and door Dash combined basically in one app they automatically give you a crypto wallet built on polygon and then today I got a push notification from grab saying go sign go get your py USD inside the app like that's imagine Uber gave everyone a crypto wallet and Uber was giving you push notifications about stable coins yeah Asia in some respects is uh a good window into the future of how I think the West will like I mean

look outside it also looks like a sci-fi movie yeah like Singapore feels like a very s like it's a like Japan too um and uh but yeah it's it's a good uh reminder that like there is like underlying utility and I think it it sometimes requires you to come to places like Singapore or you know elsewhere to discover how other people are using these applications and and it's actually quite um interesting yeah would have been go ahead no I was just gonna I'm pulling up the uh the other crazy thing for me is just I don't know any of these companies so I'm I'm pulling up the website right now just to Rattle some of these off like the sponsors sonum zebu oros I guess they're Market maker 4E

credit coin like these are the top sponsors of the event credit coin cross Finance dop fast X incentive Cava K coin somnia MTT Sports Peak Sahara AI Tomy Valor like how many of those companies do you know you know it's not it's not many no there there's a there you walk around the booth and there's a lot of these products that never heard of them before never yeah ever interacted with but so what have been um I was in two pan yeah I've been on two panels the first one was uh I moderated a panel on crypto Ai decentralized Ai and then today was I was speaking with like

liquid versus Venture like allocation of money with uh you know a bunch of other investors multicoin dragonfly um Defiance did I see you with the exchanges too uh by bit was that or is that no I didn't do that and then you were you actually went right after me a really cool one but yeah I moderated one with Lando Norris which was funny because he knows nothing about crypto and I know nothing about F1 so that was it was with Norris and then the CMO of okx Hider and then another one just now about like is this cycle cooked like what's the meta of the cycle with Antonio from dydx mert uh Alex the founder of hack VC and then Jason Troy so I mean I think everyone wants to know how what was the conversation with Lando

like what you guys talk about I mean l so Lando was crazy because first off we were in the speaker loung he walks up with like 30 people like bodyguards and all these people and I'm talking to him beforehand uh right we go out on stage and this big boom mic comes over my shoulder and uh and then these two cameras come right in our face and I was like uh what is this like a normal for you and he's like oh yeah that's NE he's like that's Netflix mate oh I was like I was like oh that's Netflix he's like yeah yeah say something funny you'll be on Netflix I was like obviously couldn't say something funny so but no that was good that was good um all right so one of my take one of my takeaways from the conference is just how much the Asian

exchanges are printing like the asan like we think in the US that you know who is it coinbase obviously dominates then it's Kraken right the Asian exchanges are so much larger than than in the US it's just remarkable right so binance obviously everyone knows how big binance is bybit bybit is going to make three billion in profit this year profit profit a three billion in profit uh bit get like I think bitg is fifth biggest right now in perss so I think it's I forget I forget the order of these exchanges now but I think bitg is fifth biggest in perss

they'll do a little over a billion in profit and that's bitg like I don't know one person who trades on bitg in the US and they're a billion in profit yeah so these exchanges are just printing money out here I was talking to um an individual from binance right before going on stage and he he handles a lot of BD work and he said that internally they feel that so so there I think their biggest Market is or first or second is China and he said we actually think that India will be our largest market in the next five 10 years I was like is that because of demographics and he's like just everything um so so when you imagine what that looks like yeah uh um

you know if India comes on like he said obviously get he's like what other regions he's like he's like we think of Asia as a whole but it's like they're very different markets like Vietnam the Philippines are like a lot of the demand comes from there um Vietnam's a lot of like devs too uh but he said like Indonesia and India like it's just these are massive markets that are just gonna that are gonna totally Leap Frog not just they don't have any Financial infrastructure but also from the demand side it just it's not just play to earn it's it's a whole host of things that are going to get built and so um the question is like I guess if you think about what does that look like imagine a world where like what the next 10 what the next 10 cent build without crypto

rails or with crypto rails or with the next caca in these local markets so I think these are the next big companies yeah that's yeah these are the next like like OK what okx is doing right now I got to spend a good amount of time with the okx team yesterday like they are not a crypto exchange they are a they are the next WeChat built on crypto rails um now I don't know if it's going to be okx or it's going to be someone else but and I I think another big theme that I've learned from being out here is the m&a market is getting very hot very quickly um the exchanges are all pushing into uh so so basically the exchange space has been very regionalized so in Vietnam there's a different exchange than in

Thailand there's all very regionalized and so now if you're let's say okx or bybit or bit get you want to push into these into these different regions so let's say you want to expand to Thailand or you want to expand to Vietnam you have to the governments are now starting to enforce their licenses more strictly than they ever have but they're not allowing new licenses because they say you acquire basically a license you have to AC you're acquiring licenses so there's a crazy amount of m&a activity that's starting to happen in uh where where these exchanges are racing to acquire licenses and it's no different than you know uh yeah Banks you know and and you know Kraken acquired trade station crypto right they did right for the licenses like I think I think that's

a big theme that's happening right now yeah for sure yeah it's a really good point like you know when you think about the as so in fintech um the value of a customer the long-term value of a customer is extremely high um you know if if your parents use JP Morgan you're likely going to open an account with JP Morgan they're gonna open it for you and then you're likely gonna stay with them for life right um and you could argue that in crypto the barriers to entry and exit are lower like people can just switch exchanges open onchain they are but I think with the exchanges you pick one and you stay that's my point like it's still very much that relationship um people don't want to think about switching providers opening accounts

elsewhere so um there's there's the point to be made around like if you're sitting at the exchange you're like okay I already I'm already the onramp and probably with stable coins a primary Bank relationship for younger Generations what else can I build right uh and I think you can sort of Imagine That in their whiteboard they have a whole road map of owning that relationship with the customer yep uh okay I have another takeway okay there is about to be a proliferation of new stable coins that are yield generating stable coins and this is important because it's going to you we're it's going to be really interesting to see how usdc responds so uh let me explain

this relationship right now so uh circle circle and this is all public information coinbase and circle have a partnership ship for usdc so there's so coinbase and circle have created uh have cre basically create usdc together Circle creates it and coinbase is basically the distribution uh engine engine for them they have like roughly a 5050 rev share with a little bit more I think going to coinbase um everyone has woke has recently realized two things one hey we all compete with coinbase right if you're a custodian you compete with coinbase if you're trying to build a prime brokerage you compete with coinbase if you're an exchange you compete with coinbase if you're L1 or in L2 you now compete with coinbase because of Base uh so they've realized that there uh and then the second thing is

they've realized that usdc captures all the yield right so buying treasuries and keeping that 5% they they mo yeah they keep the 5% so anytime someone's minting usdc holding usdc on behalf of customers and their clients you are funding your competitor so a lot of the there's a couple things in motion right now there's all these new stable coins coming to Market y USD PayPal stable coin pays pays users 10% or 5% right now compare that with usdc which takes the 5% for themselves so there's that and then there's all the custodians and Prime Brokers and exchanges Etc and l1s and l2s who don't want to be funding their competitor in coinbase so they are now thinking about hey how can we actually move out of

coinbase and into something else so well I'm very interested to see how usdc responds I had a I had a conversation with one of the best uh VC investors out there um and he said everyone he was he he oftentimes comes to me talk about crypto and so we were having conversation he says everyone in pal Alto everyone in Silicon Valley is talking about tether and the sheer like profitability of this like that headline like tether is making more money than like every other B than Black Rock right tether make more than black Ro that headline has been circled around to pretty much every investor and was like how the hell did these guys get to where they are yeah and so your Point's a good one which is um you know there will be a

proliferation of stable coins the question is so fast forward five years from now how does how does a stable coin market look like then and there is tether still the dominant one do we have C you know Central Bank digital currencies like I think tether will remain the dominant one but I actually think folks like I was very I was originally bearish on things like py USD because I'm like oh that's PayPal like Enterprise stable coin whatever W you bearish because it's like because they're Enterprise yeah because they're corporate of like yeah exactly but then this guy Paul came on Empire and you weren't able to make that episode but he runs their stable coin I was like oh this guy kind of gets it actually like

he's talking about like putting it onto margin fi and a and I was like oh [ __ ] he kind of gets it and then uh I'm re and then I I basically think either usdc will have to respond and change how they offer the yield and they'll on that point people go listen to the episode with Jeremy fantastic one we asked him this question yeah and he said we can't do this right regulatory we can't do this yeah so what gives I don't know how others are doing it like I don't know how py USD is giving it because that well it's not I I think I think the Nuance is and I'm speaking out of turn but my hypothesis people should comment and tell me I'm an idiot they are giving you a yield but it's not directly attributable to what they're earning

from um the you know their you know treasury management business it's more so they're giving you it's like acquiring a customer like a marketing expense how you where where the where the expense is coming from it's not that they're classifying it as pass through Revenue I think that's right but like at the Grand like at the end of the day it doesn't matter right yeah so uh I I've spent a lot of time with Rune you know you end up at conferences running into you've got like five people you just keep running into run has been that person for me so I moderated a panel with Rune actually as well and then I was at the r uh Rune announ had this big announcement where they they updated maker into Sky and they had a party last night and

there was like this big announcement big big party announcing the the launch and sky. money went live and run uh R run was also backing this up by saying look there's we have this new stable coin and it's a yield generating stable coin and I asked him this question I said look die is big but it really hasn't been able to get like that big um relative to usdc and tether how big do you think your usds will be which is their new stable coin relative to die and he thinks within two years usds will be a hundred times larger than D because there's going to be a demand for yield generating Stables as people don't want to sit in tether or usdc which gives them no money so I think actually we're

going to see some really fun stable coin competition for the first time in years yeah you could argue that you had we had Nick from Castle Mountain call I mean M's been trying to do this for a while have they M's doing a good job I was with Martin yeah yeah they're they have some really good stuff coming I'd love to look at the actual traction that you get because they've been again the key is you have to get in with the exchanges and the custodians it all comes back to the exchanges I was with a guy from Athena I mean him and I go way back and we're talking about this yeah I mean it's it's really a dist game and the question is again to your point on exchanges if you're an exchange and you appreciate that then you know you kind of hold the keys to the kingdom now the

counter argument of that is so like every exchange launches her own stable coin fine you capture your user base and your user B grows but I think like there there likely is uh the stable coin that actually wins is sort of a Switzerland model which is you have to sit a layer on top that is neutral like neutral so whether it be a central bank digital currency or like some new start like tether is just like a independent entity that has all these relationships and everyone has to at this point work with it the best model is probably all of these exchanges and custodians coming together to launch like one a yeah in the same way that Circle and coinbase came together yeah so there's one way like yeah yeah they they there should be like some consorti trade Association oh

yeah Consortium of like 20 of these coming together sure yeah then there's probably an incentive for someone to detract yeah exactly yeah but uh hugely profitable businesses I mean my God I mean it's almost like too obvious right it's like yes people want to hold dollars and this is a digital dollar and you go to these places xus and like the demand for Euro dollars is really high yeah and it's insatiable demand like it's a unmet demand and so it's you're just meeting people and like um I think if if you walk around uh these like I think in Hong Kong in the FX markets like they're they're quoting you on Tether you want to exchange like they're quoting you in Te is crazy yeah yeah so okay so one takeaway the exchanges are

bigger than I even realized uh number two the users are real like there are just a lot more users here than than in the states um three m&a markets are picking up four I think we're going to start to see the proliferation of stable coin competition what else have you thought about uh um I think there is growing cynicism in the industry yeah again there's a distinction between being I mean Antonio on this panel said [ __ ] all the new l1s that's how I mean he's coming out and just saying [ __ ] all the new l1s ton has never been afraid to speak his mind no he has not but yeah hey everyone Jason here I wanted to

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a lot of Founders I I've noticed in my maybe it's just in my portfolio a growing w a new wave of startups closing shop um closing shop because they ran out of money or founder fights or they're just tired no they're tired it's not running out of money actually they're Distributing back 20 30 cents on the dollar like we haven't found product Market fit yeah uh and the question that I only asked him is like what was your learning like why and there was a combination of founder disagreements um but the other one is really like not having very clear what the problem that they were solving was um and I've reflected a lot on that

actually and I tweeted about this yesterday and then I appreciate that the word the wording was not was not off what happened did you get shredded but like very quickly like when my phone's blowing up I was at the gym I'm like and I tweet like okay and someone was like yo do you actually mean to imply this like definitely not did you say what did you it started off like I think most teams are mediocre in crypto ah nice yeah that'll rile up the crowd well and then I was like I but I still respect them for trying because being an investor I appreciate is a it's it's my money so I'm risking my money that I've earned over the years i' like so I'm putting stuff but being a builder in crypto you're risking not just that like it's your livelihood it's it's it's

stressful to building it's and so so I sympathize with builders the the thought that I've had is like for the many years that I've been in the space I felt that every year every cycle we saw the quality of Builders go up and and that to me is like the primary reason why I'm here because I think crypto continues continue to attract really high caliber people of of course there's always normal distribution there's there's just it normally like not everyone is super high talent but I felt that we've either plateaued or gone down on that scale and I don't know if this is a u implication or like a a ramification of like FTX Luna um and and just really talented

Builder just or the regulatory environment I don't think it's that my my take on that is these are probably Founders who you invested in in 2021 who I don't know if I don't know if that's true or not but like I have met a lot of people here who they are they are they're not in it for the long haul and the I'm like when when did you you come into the industry it's like 2021 like oh yeah yeah you came in at the Pico top and a lot of those people end up it's like the founders who came in in 2017 like you know Mike and I did that we launched blockworks in 2017 but a lot of the people that I remember going to these events with like they're they're long gone yeah yeah so so it's it's I've been doing a lot of meditating on this

thought is like is is the quality of Builders going up in the space um and and so and then the second one is like more so because I've been maniacally listening to Founders yeah it's like the founders podcast Founders and and the question that I now really like to ask Founders is like at what point did you know that you were a builder because when you listen to a lot of these episodes of some of the greatest entrepreneurs of all time or athletes a lot of it was just like there's a there's a common denominator of just persistence and hard work yeah and and so the Tweet was something like you know it's it requires a lot of hard work and what I I guess it's like very discouraging when you're really smart

you're you're like but you haven't the users are not there and we haven't had like a lot of this wave of onboarding of users and so in usage is not there there and so there there's exceptions like helium and stuff like that but I guess it could be very demoralizing if you're building something and no one's no one cares no one's using it I was at a dinner last night with one of the best cryptographers in in the world there's like five and he's built a chain um you can try to imagine which which one and they're getting zero attention token is not performing well but he's still really pass is a new one or it's no no it's been around for starware I won't comment on name um because I don't know but my observation is it can you also

see a wave of really talented Builders being demoralized for this reason which is like you have memes and all these things like working and and then no one cares about what I'm building and I think it's just a matter of time like I think really good quality products will shine over time the question is you just have to stay in the game and survive to a point where usage really starts to happen my thesis is there I think the the the bar for being quote unquote successful in the space meaning token go off price your protocol being worth X or Y has been very low for two reasons one one it's like this phenomenon of like

the cardano phenomenon you don't have usage you don't have Revenue so you can paint this Rosie picture and people if you're a good Storyteller yeah you can get away with it and I guess this there's a skill in being a good Storyteller yeah um but when I think of like most teams are mediocre like I appreciate that is a skill in of itself but I just find it that the really smarter teams maybe not are as good I think those are the folks who are the most frustrated right now correct I sat down with uh another guy I spent a lot of time with was Shane from poly Market yeah and um you know he he said he's like I genuinely think we're one of the only people who puts who who operates in this order we go what is the problem in the what is the problem that exists how

do we build a product that we get there that that solves that how do we acquire the users and then how do you put marketing at the end of that supply chain to to boost the users he said everyone right now is because everyone's got a token you actually have to flip that and you have to put narrative at the very beginning H and if you just focus on product it's not actually going to work for you you because and I think some of this is you know we talked on talked about it on this panel it's like there is a downside of having tokens oh yeah the downside of having tokens is you have to focus on the narrative more than you would if you were just building in like Web Two or whatever I guess what I'm trying to say it can be very

frustrating at times like um that you exceptional storytelling goes far longer and is is is is a bigger DET has been a bigger factor to success in the space than underlying Tech and whatnot and and look sometimes you see this BH BX whatever you want to call it like sometimes the best tech doesn't win but I I'm actually optimistic in the sense that if you extrapolate and you say okay when when real institutions come into the space more as more institutions come into the space and they look under the hood they evaluate these protocols they evaluate these vendors of who they want to work with that is where the real Tech not just the storytelling succeeds and we but we just haven't entered that we're

close I think we're entering that stage where you see helium for instance like you know there are carriers offloading the network on the helium Network because it works like it wouldn't do it otherwise it wouldn't jeopardize or compromise their ability to service their user base if they didn't think that healing was a good product and so naturally I think the space more competitive as this space continues to grow more people enter and so the the the caliber of Founders will have to go up yeah and so I'm excited for that I just think we've been in this weird stage where um the the quality yeah in order to be successful quite low yeah all right so another thing I've noticed

at the conference is the lack of the big l2s there's no conversation about optimism Trum and what do you what do you make of that well it's not an ethereum centering conference yeah so you appreciate Tron is very prevalent here and always has been I remember come here 2018 2019 for the bance first binance conference like Tron had the same boot in the same place like it's just um yeah it's uh but it's true though yeah you know who's done a phenomenal job of marketing to this part of the world is bear train I noticed that I've met more people here building on be chain that I have buil that I've met building on optimism

arbitrum Stark differ from the US yeah yeah so they built a really good like their their MVP program I funded three or four yeah startups and I'm not an investor in Bear chain or or in any company building on but you know as a non-biased person like I it's just been very like wow a lot of talk about bear chain yeah they there was a people posting pictures of they they did this event I think there was like 10,000 people that signed up only 800 GOT in Smokey tweeted something to the effect of like I'm the founder I can't even get I can't even get in yeah that's funny uh so I wasn't here for that but yeah uh another non- crypto takeaway first time Singapore person

here this country is amazing it just runs so flawlessly and actually I've had some you can always learn a lot about a country by the taxi drivers and the taxi drivers are first off so friendly but I had a long I went and played paddle this morning and the paddle place was like 30 minutes away thanks for the invite you're not you're not no you're not a team sports kind of guy not a team sports kind of guy more of a runner biker you know uh This Is What You Get by working with years it was actually good that you didn't come I almost passed out the heat was like just debilitating but he was RA this guy was really ragging on the US he's like you guys have homeless people everywhere um he's like he was laughing that we zero homeless people zero

homeless people so they have a they hang people for drugs he's like yeah yeah as he said he said as they should they should be hanged if they're if they're using drugs why wouldn't they be hanged uh they have they cane people it's like caning adult spanking adult spanking it hurts it hurt I've heard it hurts like a oh yeah I've I've heard yeah a friend told me yeah the reason why I'm sitting on the couch yeah yeah uh no but he was just kind of ragging on the US he's saying like he's like we view the is a dysfunctional system at this point um he said it's obviously great that you guys are big and stuff like that and it's very your history is very impressive but you know you're you're you have very high crime you have these two

politicians running for president who are both imbeciles in you know his words uh uh you've got like this prol like proliferation of drugs basically all all around uh your your public transportation doesn't work uh he was really laughing at the fact that we give free money to people like stimulus checks and all that stuff he's like we would never do that here um and they he was just explaining these little things they do that make the country run better for example the air quality here is really good um whereas in a lot of other countries it's really bad and one of the things that they've done is uh you have to give up your car after 10 years if you're a taxi driver seven years if you're a regular driver 10 years and the

reason cars cost twox here terrify tariffs are crazy but also you have to get a paper that cost $770,000 just to apply to get a car so you can't walk up to the car dealership and get a car you have to apply then you pay $770,000 to get a piece of paper then you can get your car um but then at the end of 10 years you have to give up your car and they export the car to third world countries as he said because the pollution generated by old cars is so much worse so they have all these little policies and then the last thing he said is he said politicians the United States are he's like it's the you get you get the worst people running for office like the best people go work at tech

companies hedge funds build things Founders Engineers uh whoever it is PhD people scientists he said in in Singapore he said the the the elite of the elite the best of the best go work in government yeah they're very successful before coming into government yeah and he said we pay really well in the government so I just found I've just been blown away by uh how how intensely they run the country but how amazing it has turned out so yeah i' I've had the benefit of coming to Singapore over the years many times and the the criticism of a city state like Singapore Monaco some of these is can you scale that yeah can you

scale the model that has worked in Singapore elsewhere um I don't pretend to be a political expert but that is always been just the criticism I guess you can relate it to you know skillability crypto and and but it's it's can you create well I think you can talk about it in the light of this whole founder mode thing which I don't know have you've been seen have you seen founder mode okay uh it's you know I I had lunch with Alex the founder of Manson uhu and he was telling me there's this great book that I want to read about I forget the guy's name but it's called I think it's called third world to first world it's about the who's the guy who's you know did I don't know the guy who did all the changes in Singapore Singapore uh but lean Yu I think yeah and he ran the

country like a Founder he just basically I mean like a good dictator basically just went into founder mode and put in place all these changes yeah yeah that that's always been the challenge um and I'm not like convinced it's not possible um now do you want to create there's reasons why people wouldn't want to live in Singapore and I appreciate what you know that but it's hot it's really hot no well like it's you know um I guess people if you like vaping you can't Vape in Singapore you you know there's the the there's always that tradeoff of some Liberty very strict rules some some pure expression to of doing what you want with uh order

cleanliness security and and you know that's a trade-off that you can make but yeah it's it's actually um it's very nice coming here being able to walk not think about security not think about of other things that you know are a problem in other places yeah any other takeaways from the conference so there are 900 side events uh it's yeah 20,000 people like Santi was saying there are five floors at this event um and 900 side events over the course of the week combined that with there's also breakpoint happening right now and there's Formula One it's and there's a milk in my hotel there's a milk in Asia Summit is there really crazy bunch of like bankers and

headphon guys what do you think of this whole side event thing uh well it's nice you know like there's like a lot of people like I don't even want to go to the conference they just go to the side events um they're more intimate you can get you know closer to people and have actual conversations conference is crazy yeah uh but uh I'm yeah that's good you go to any nice ones or have kind of some good side events yeah good some good side events but there's just a lot so anyways are you speaking at break point no not speaking are you excited San's got a nice little debate salana vers eth yes is uh the name of the panel is what's more future proof salana or ethereum and

I'll be doing that with vichel from Electric you can guess who's taking the four a vichel I don't think of him as a big see Big E no initi yeah I guess uh you could bring on someone that is a bit like she probably like would be more like uh oh here's another takeaway from the conference the big Venture funds there is a uh I think a lot of people put like panta polychain dragonfly electric Paradigm like all these big kind of tier one framework uh like in this one bucket and uh you know is like the best Venture firms in crypto there's a stark difference in how in the return profile

of those funds uh all I mean all of them are out raising right now it sounds like yeah and some of them have done incredibly well and I think are GNA have it sounds like are having a easy time raising not not easy but are having they'll be able to raise a good amount of money other ones really had a tough couple of years and I think they're really struggling give some numbers um I mean there are folks who raised let's say 300 400 500 million last time who I think are going to raise funds of 100 or 200 but like the return profile realize because that vintage has not been crystallized still it it hasn't it hasn't and I I honestly don't know what the norm like you know you talking

like DPI and yeah I I actually don't know the norms and what's good or what's bad but but if you were to Canvas like what is a tier one Venture fund vintage pure Venture like what are the return that they delivered in their last fun that was probably raised 2020 uh I actually don't know 10x 30X is it 25x uh I actually don't know the answer to that because in traditional Venture if you've in the 3 to nvca National Venture Capital Association puts out these numbers um and they survey you know these funds and Pension funds that are investors because they have all the data I think if you are 4X four to 5x places you in the top tier Venture fund four to 5x over what the

lifespan of a fun which is what seven years or something yeah but but it's the Vintage right it's the 20 the latest fun is probably raised over the last five years yeah or seven years because most of these funds have a 10- year life and crypto it's a bit shorter than that but yeah that return is uh from what I can see as an investor in some funds and yeah it's uh we're able to it's multiples that yeah yeah so I don't think the same thing that's happen happens going forward the same thing that's happened with retail where if you if you didn't buy salana or meme coins this cycle you have not made money same thing with these Venture funds and now they have to go to their LPS and the LPS say well why are your returns bad and yes you can say well it's only been two

years since we raised the last one but you know a lot of the LPS invested in eight different funds and if two outperformed and six have underperformed those six aren't getting your money again you would think you would think you you would think but also it's a a in crypto much like inventure a lot of it you would think that rationally speaking you would invest in the in the manner that is outperformed historically but a lot lot of times it's like come to the Rel storytelling pedigree of the founder yeah um and so yeah um the other thing I've realized is you really only have to hit one or two you have to always been mymo it's you have to get one or two things exceptionally right cycle yeah

and if you're not in that you missed it yeah and it's like you know dragonfly hitting near framework hitting what chain link or something first whatever they hit you know Pary we early in you know or something you have one or two things that it's very much parine you return to fun on that basis yeah they so I've been just as a closing thought because we always give homework to people sure I've been on this point around returns and you know you you read books on your phone uh I have a Kindle actually and my I I usually always do it on my phone it's a bit marginally more distracting but I just because I always have it on me I can read like when I'm in a taxi or like not want to talk to people I just Theo like I'm very busy I do that a lot

sir I'm actually reading right now I was I was on a date once we go to you go to dinner and then we go to this like nightclub and whatever she goes to the bathroom you took your date to a nightclub in Monaco okay and so she goes to the bathroom and I was reading this book I was like like you know like you want to finish it and I popped up the Kindle Apple I'm like sitting there and she comes back and she's just like like took a while I'm like God this you know dinner must have been heavy I look up and she's like looking at be like what are you doing why are you reading I'm like I guess just reading at the nightclub you keeps reminding me of this we're still friends I guess um but anyways I do read on my phone but people

should buy the it's really good a lot more questions about your dating life but we'll we'll uh stop the record not existed uh there is this really good vog I've been thinking a lot about um success um the difference between like skill luck in investing a lot of it is it's not like pure skill-based um activity in certain sports like you're a sprinter you're a swimmer individual sports like it is um there's less element of luck like Michael Phelps he can have a bad it is only you yeah but there's there there are not many variables but you like basketball basketball is very different than baseball basketball because there's many points yeah like the teams that have the

best Shooters the like they tend to win uh there's many games and there's many points so the there's always an element of luck but the degree by which luck plays a factor is is quite low on that Spectrum uh then contrast that with soccer there's one or two goals one or two goals in the referee offside all this stuff penalties and it can and I guess there's an element of why people like soccer because it's very like um in developing it's like very aspirational sport anyways so the really good book shout out to Michael um um Jaye who recommended this book it's called the success equation untangling skill and luck in business Sports and investing fascinating read by the way the best um

book that I've read on this but the go subject interesting okay um really good it it also is kind of fun too because you're reading about these Sports and investing but there's a whole chapter dedicated to um investing and I hav't think about that a lot you know in the context of like our rates going to go to record low lows as they did for the last decade no so you invert and you say I'm I going to continue to be successful implement think the same strategy um how much of it was lock how much of it was driven by I feel like you've been thinking about that a lot we're going into like this this interest rate we have we haven't even talked about interest rates but I I I bring this up because obviously rates have come down but we're not I I ascribed the Howard

marks um thinking which is We're not gonna go back yeah to zero zero and and so that matters and it probably matters more so than people think and so I always second guess myself like I've only started my professional investing career I graduated and it was post financial crisis I've only invested in a record L interest environment yeah and so and also by the way you just saw the formation of a new Asus from zero to two trillion like yeah the I think it's a I'll leave listeners with this I think you ought to constantly be thinking about you know it's almost like a tenx is like underperforming in crypto yeah and I I think it's it's useful to

constantly recalibrate and yeah and remove that anchoring effect and that bias and saying what is a realistic return yeah and I've said it time and time again I think of now I'm trying to optimize for at best capturing like 50% of the return yeah of a cycle because going from 50 to trying to optimize for 80 you're gonna put yourself way much I think you're going to do many more mistakes so if you're trying to optimize for 50% of the cycle does that mean you're selling early or taking less risk no selling early selling early yeah like like Capital preservation and people be like oh you know because your size is different marginally true but I still think that you you invert and you say we have many many more Cycles ahead yeah

and it's always fun funny because when you should be investing no one has money yeah it's you want to be there with money and investing so like right now I'm not doing many privates because I don't just don't think it's we're in that point of the cycle where you should be doing like I don't want to do privs um but who knows you know I'm reading this book Boyd the fighter pilot who changed the Art of War I needed a non- bus book it's good it's really good yeah it's about uh this guy who became the most famous um uh greatest fighter pilot in American history really kind of broke through the bureaucracy of like the military and completely changed how we how we fight in the air um5 F15 uh F15

and f16s and basically transformed uh yeah just like The Art of War in the air so that's my book nice yeah all right folks this is sing than for tuning in look at those those are the gardens futuristic this looks like Star Wars kind of like crazy huh all right folks That's All She Wrote all right see you thanks for watching today's episode just wanted to quickly mention that the wait for crypto's killer app wve is nearly over thanks to today's sponsor anoma the universal intent machine to stay up to date with anoma you can follow them at x.com anoma or sign up

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