The Future of Finance, Built in America

Transcript

Token 2049, Eric, coming to New York? Well, how cool is this? Every time I speak at one of these events, I'm either in Dubai or in Singapore. Now it's in my backyard. I'm a New Yorker. I was born in that city and you know, my father actually developed a lot of the Javits Center in New York and that's the big convention hall that that Token 49 is going to be in. So, we can't wait to host you guys. We can't wait to have you all in one of the greatest countries, the greatest country in the world, America. And America is doing so great right now. The way it's embraced cryptocurrency under my father's administration has been amazing. Crypto was dead in the United States until 3 years ago. And so, to bring this to New York, to bring this to the kind of the, you know, the the

the the the most capitalistic city anywhere in the world, to bring it to a building that we know very well, um, you know, kind of brings all all of these roots together and we can't wait to have you all there. Well, thank you, Eric. I'm excited also to be back in my hometown uh next year and and we'll get it there. But in the meantime, it's actually all of our hometown. We were all born in New York. Yeah. There we go. So, book your tickets ASAP. Folkman, um, and I'm saying Folkman just because there's two Zaks on stage. Let's go back 2 years ago.

Um, I remember when World Liberty was just getting started. Uh, before the controversies, it was it just an idea. What was the original vision of World Liberty at the time? Yeah, I think, uh, when we all sat down at where uh, it was a Trump Dorrell, I think, and we were talking about how crypto hasn't really gained mainstream adoption simply because it's not user-friendly. It's not easy. It's not something where mainstream users can pick up an app and simply pay for goods and services the way they're used to doing through traditional payment methods. And so, our entire vision has always been around to make crypto

user-friendly, whether that's through USD1, a globally accepted stablecoin that is essentially just a digitized dollar, or the application that we're rolling out very soon, which makes it very simple for people to hold, earn, and spend with their crypto through a card or tap-to-pay, and abstract away the difficulties that have kept people outside of experiencing the benefits of crypto, which everyone in this room obviously knows it's faster, it's cheaper, it's easier, and there's better yield opportunities. So, that's always been the foundation of everything that we've built, whether it was a stablecoin or our lending market or our consumer

app and debit card. >> So, you stuck to the mission. >> And and I'll say this, um, you know, there's a lot of talk about USD1, um, because it's been, you know, such a successful product. We're currently the second biggest genius compliant stablecoin in terms of both market cap and volume. Um, but we're also, uh, building a lot and, you know, in the on top of the World Liberty Ecosystem. So, we just enabled staking for the World Liberty Financial W LFI token. Um, you're actually paid in USD1 by staking that WLFI for 180 days.

>> Which, by the way, is a huge, huge opportunity because typically with staking, as all of you know, you get paid in the actual token that you are staking, right? So, typically you stake a token, you receive more of those tokens. We wanted to do something that was a little bit different and provided more value for people, which means rather than paying rewards in WLFI, paying it in a US-denominated stablecoin. >> Well, and interestingly, David, these rewards are funded, um, from protocol revenues from from WLD.

So so things like, you know, World Liberty Markets, right? And so, you know, token holders are now starting to see the benefit of being a token holder. And we're excited to provide a lot more value to them you know, in the future. >> Yeah, as the ecosystem continues to grow, the utility and the value around World Liberty Financial will continue to grow with it. >> I mean, you've seen the start of this seed and and to your point, it's this is becoming a very sophisticated ecosystem. But Eric, I mean, the the germ of this idea was that simply banks didn't work.

And you know, we see on Wall Street a lot of transformation right now, but no one has had a better view of this than you. How have you seen Well, first, what did you see the problem with TradFi previously and how are you seeing it change? >> Yeah. Well, there's no bigger critic of the big banks than than me. We were debanked. My father got into politics by every single one of the the big banks and they hated crypto. They they hated the people in this room. They didn't believe in what we saw. They didn't believe in making finance more efficient and faster and cheaper and just a better user experience, right? And and everybody in this room saw it and everybody started driving toward it and the big banks around the world certainly in the US, but all around the world, I mean, they did everything they could to

hamper progress in the financial industries, right? I mean, they did everything that they possibly could and including debanking so many of the people in this room and we were certainly getting debanked at the time and I'll just never forget that. I That's when I met these guys and the same hell that they were getting was the same hell I was getting and that kind of made us almost best friends and you know, we we made it a mission to change that and we won. We beat the big banks around the world, guys. All of us in here beat the big banks because every single day you see another one of these banks, JP Morgan, right? Embracing cryptocurrency. You see what BlackRock's doing. You see what Schwab's doing. You see what Fidelity's doing. You you see the biggest banks on planet Earth that are running toward cryptocurrencies in

ways that 18 months ago you couldn't even possibly imagine. And so, you know, cryptocurrency was built off of the retail investor. It was It was built off the back of individuals who who had an idea and thought it could be done better. And now all of a sudden you've got the biggest institutions in the world who are sprinting toward it, who are putting billions of dollars into it. You know, and it's making it mainstream. I don't think if you went back 3 years you could have ever thought that the adoption of digital assets would have taken, you know, the course that it's taking and as fast as it's taking. And now all of a sudden you you you look at, you know, what you're doing with the tokenization, right? You're tokenizing everything, all different types of products and we can get into that in a

little while, but you're tokenizing real estate, you're tokenizing Hollywood, you're you're you're tokenizing commodities. You know, you can tokenize music and the arts, you know, and and and valuables. You know, it what crypto's doing and the way it's permeating every aspect of our lifestyle, the way it's making our lifestyle better is just really fantastic. And again, go back 18 months, you you would have never seen the acceleration that that we've seen. And frankly, it's because of all of you. It's because of this conference, it's because of the people in this room, it's because people dared to push back against major headwinds, guys. We pushed back against incredible headwinds.

And and honestly, I think today we can all declare victory. >> And and this is a big part of our mission at World Liberty, by the way. We're doing it today. So, we're we're tokenizing the Trump Tower in Dubai on Sheikh Zayed. Um everyone in this room will have an opportunity to own a piece of the Trump Tower in Dubai, right? Like who who would have thought that was possible? >> announcing the Trump International Hotel in the Maldives. >> Yeah, that's right. Um and so, that you know, these are things, David, that nobody thought would be possible 5 years ago. If I told anyone in this room 5 years ago, you could own a a single share token of of, you know, one of the best hotels in the world operated by, you know, some of the most successful

real estate people in the world in in the Trump family, they would they would say that's impossible. >> But do you think this is a sign of things to come or is this like a one-off? Look, it's it's great, to be honest, to have an opportunity to invest in in a unique property like this run by great people. But is this the beginning of a trend or the end of it? >> It's got to be the beginning of a trend, right? So, you know, Zach and I were both in commercial real estate and are in in commercial real estate and you go around the world, how many how many banks around the world can finance Trump Tower in New York on 57th and 5th in New York? What, five, six, seven? Right? Why?

Why is that? Why is it that, you know, people in this room who might not have the kind of money a big bank has, a Deutsche Bank or one of these, you know, why can't you own part of a a company, part of an asset that you otherwise believe in? Right? And now all of a sudden you can do that through tokenization and so, you know, in a certain way it's it's actually philanthropic. It's philanthropic in terms of giving people opportunity to invest in things that they believe in that they could have never otherwise had the opportunity to invest in. Again, the average retail investor would never have a chance of even remotely considering owning a piece of property on 5th Avenue or, you know, to Trump Trump International Hotel and Tower in Dubai or a Trump property in the Maldives.

But but guys, if you if you extrapolate this trend out, go further out, you know, why can't you own a piece of a Monet? You might not be able to buy it for $40 million of a Picasso. You know, but maybe you can own 1/1000 of that, right? You're an art collector, you love it. Maybe you love Taylor Swift, right? You like her her music, you know, why can't she go out and sell a million shares of of of the the revenue of her next album? And every Swifty fan in the world can go out there and buy a piece of it. And you know what that does? It brings a community together. It it it makes you more involved, you know, in terms of a hotel, it's going to make you more likely to stay at that hotel, to utilize that hotel because you have ownership of

something that you could have never otherwise had ownership of. And so that's happening across every sector, every industry. That that's going to come incredibly quickly. And then you're going to have the tokenization of equities, of stocks. You know, again, just allowing more people vis-a-vis a smartphone to to access financial freedom. That's what digital assets are doing right now, and it's just amazing to see that that train going down the tracks as quickly as it is. >> And and I'll just add Sorry sorry, David. I'll just add you know, what you're also seeing is a democratization of the lending markets.

So Eric mentioned groups like JP Morgan, Bank of America. These are the groups that traditionally had a monopoly on lending. Well, now everyone in this room can be a borrower or a lender, you know, for these premium assets, right? So I can take my hard-earned money, you know, put it in World Liberty Markets, and all of a sudden I'm a lender against, you know, a Class A piece of real estate, or a lender against Bitcoin. Um and so I I think this is this is definitely the the start of something very big, and this isn't just a flash in the pan.

>> Well, we've seen that as >> Sorry. >> I was going to say the funny thing is to Eric and Zach's point, retail investors are now getting the value of these sorts of platforms like World Liberty Markets. But now we see, back to Eric's point, there are institutions that are already coming and utilizing these platforms because they see that it's better. So for example, on World Liberty Markets, people that are holding assets in qualified custodians, they're able to now supply on markets and borrow against those assets. So that unlocks things like Dats, institutions, funds that are holding Bitcoin and other assets in these qualified custodians,

they're now able to borrow against it using decentralized platforms. >> So is that >> Just because you can, are people actually doing that? Are you seeing institutions use the same platforms that retail can? >> Yeah, that's absolutely right. I mean, we haven't even been live for a year on World Liberty Markets, and already we're at a billion dollars in TVL, making Markets one of the top 10 lending markets in the entire industry. We have 300 million dollars of USD 1 being supplied, and half a billion dollars of stablecoins total on Markets right now today. We have people that are holding assets in qualified custody, borrowing against those assets on Markets, and it's just continuing to grow as more and

more people want that option. >> So so Witkoff, are you seeing that sometimes the demographics of your users might be younger, and this is part of their portfolio composition might be being a lender, for example, as one of their income streams. It's totally novel. People couldn't do this before. >> Yeah, sure. I mean, our our demographic, I think, you know, maybe maybe skews younger. That's just kind of the nature of digital assets, but as the industry matures, you know, Zach was talking about the qualified custodian lending.

Um, you know, that universe is starting to expand, right? Uh, what do institutions want or need? They want all of the benefits of DeFi with, you know, none of the DeFi risk, and that's exactly what this product gives them. Um, so yeah, I mean, we we serve young customers, we serve institutions, um, really anywhere where someone's using a dollar, you >> But it's been democratized, right? I mean, you're seeing access to very sophisticated tools that simply wasn't possible for, and if I'm not mistaken, that's kind of in the gold paper.

>> Yeah, sure. I mean, that that was the exact vision for the company when we laid it out 2 years ago. I mean, I think, you know, we we have a lot of detractors, a lot of haters >> Oh, yeah? >> because of who we are, but we're doing exactly what we laid out in the gold paper and we're going to keep our heads down and we're going to keep executing on behalf of our customers and be on behalf of our employees. >> So, we've now crossed is it 4 billion dollars in USD 1 circulating supply? >> A little shy of 4 and 1/2 billion of circulating supply today. Um, you know, routinely trades between a billion and 3 billion of volume a day, um, making us I believe we're the

actually the number three stablecoin globally in terms of volume behind only, you know, USDT and C. Um, and again, we're going to keep our heads down, we're going to keep executing, you know, we're only you know, not even two years into the journey of USD 1, um, and I think the next two years are going to be much, much bigger. >> Well, I do want to ask because we do see this from the press. They say, you know, World Liberty's launched this USD 1, uh, and you mentioned earlier Zach Folkman that the app is coming. This is a long-awaited app. Um, you know, maybe you can expound a little bit more about why World Liberty has made certain strategic decisions and focused on certain things first as

opposed to others. >> Yeah, I mean, I think it makes a lot of sense the way that we've actually gone about executing to Zach's point. You know, the first fundamental layer of having a new financial ecosystem is to have a digitized dollar. Everything around the world, all global payments eventually flow through the dollar. So, making sure that USD 1 had distribution and liquidity was absolutely paramount to actually achieving our goals. Everybody in this room has seen that. We have partnerships and we're listed on all the major exchanges around the world. You can use it on crypto platforms for trading, collateral for perps, you name it.

Even borrowing and lending on markets. Building that markets component was absolutely critical because it allows people, like Zach was saying, to be able to supply assets and borrow against it and earn yield. The next layer is to build that mainstream consumer application that allows users to be able to hold, earn, and spend those digital dollars. And back to what Eric was saying, when we sat down and really wanted to revision how this entire ecosystem worked, it was about abstracting away the difficulties around using crypto in everyday transactions.

So, pretty much everyone in this room is probably a crypto native, comfortable using things like MetaMask or other non-custodial wallets, but if you really want to onboard that next generation or that next cohort of users into crypto, it needs to be so easy that my mom, your mom could go out and actually do it in a way that's seamless, the same way they're used to using Venmo, Cash App, etc. And so, one of the biggest reasons that we didn't prematurely release the application was because we wanted to make sure that we really achieved the experience that we set out as our standard. And now, fortunately, through partnerships with companies like Mesh

and Visa, we've been able to build what we believe is really going to be a change for the entire landscape. And so, that means now we're ready to release the World Liberty Financial app that we've, you know, announced, I don't know, maybe a year ago or so, and everyone's waiting when it's coming. It's now ready to be released. >> Well, you know, Apple only releases products when they're ready, and I think it sounds like a pretty good philosophy, Eric. Uh, you know, another thing I wanted to to to bring up is that we've seen the real growth of USD1, but what's important about that is it's a US dollar stablecoin. And Eric, something like 98% of all stablecoins in circulation are US dollars. So, first, A, why do you think that's the case? Why is it US dollars

that are so popular? And B, is this good for the US dollar and what does that mean? >> Yeah, this is very good for the US dollar. The US dollar is a reserve currency of the world. Like it or not, everybody wants it. You know, they launched stablecoin that was denominated off of the euro and literally only half of 1% of all Europeans wanted a stablecoin denominated against the euro. You know what they all wanted? They wanted the US dollar. You go to South America, guess what they all want? The US dollar. Even the countries that actually have different forms of currencies down in, you know, South America, Central America, guess what?

They all still trade off of the dollar. You look at so much of Asia, guess where they where they want to put their money? They want to put it in in the dollar. Look at the Middle East, they want to put it in the dollar, right? So, the dollar is is is is such the dominant currency of the world and and and that's why this works, right? You've got the security of the United States of America, you've got the the security of the superpower of the world, you've got security of the greatest financial system in the world. I mean, right now, if you look at, you know, the financial system in in the United States, we're a $35 trillion uh economy a year, right? And and that's off of a a population of 350 million people. Just comparing that to China for a second, you're at about, you know, 23

trillion and that's off of a population that's obviously, you know, four to five times the size, right? So, you know, the power of of the US is is astronomical. The growth of the US right now is something that I don't think we've ever seen before. We've got about $20 trillion of inward investment that's coming into the US. And so, um but but but the putting, you know, it's stablecoins, it's bringing trillions and trillions of dollars into the US economy is a wonderful thing. It's a great thing for the reserve currency. It's probably a great thing for the stability um around the world. It it it just further kind of fortifies um you know, the safety of all of our investments and I think that's a a really net positive for for everybody globally, which is why they're all gravitating toward the US dollar.

>> I mean, Zach Witkoff, you've seen that it's in order to comply I should say with the genius act. It's essential that every one of your USD one tokens is fully collateralized by US dollars and cash equivalents housed in a US regulated bank. So one thing I think that we have to talk about to the audience is something that's happened since last year. You applied for and so far I might understand is have conditional approval for an OCC chartered national national bank charter. Can you first tell us a why you decided to go that direction and be what this means?

>> Yeah, sure. We received our conditional charter August 14th. It's actually the same day that my second son was born. So it was a quite an eventful day for me. >> It's like two birthdays. >> Yeah, [laughter] exactly. You know, it was a very long process. We answered all the you know questions and policies that the OCC you know demanded of us and you know, ultimately we were granted our traditional our conditional charter.

Why did we do this? A, we need to control our own destiny. Right today we're issuing through BitGo. In the near future we'll be issuing ourselves. So it lets us take our destiny into our own hands. But B, this is the highest bar in American finance, right? Um Ultimately we're dealing with people's money here, right? And I said earlier during our announcement there's trust me and there's show me, right? And this is us showing people, right? That we follow all of the policies, all of the procedures, whether it be AML, KYC, one-to-one backing, you know, the tens of policies internal policies that

we'll have, you know, per OCC guidance. Um so you know, ultimately this this builds a lot of trust in our institution. But I want to be quite clear. We've done this in spite you know, of all of the attacks against our company. We're probably one of the most attacked companies anywhere in the world, not just in crypto. Um whether it be the mainstream media, you know, some of these politicians with nefarious motives. Um but we've done it in spite of all of that and we're building an institution that people can really trust. Uh people can really depend on. Um and ultimately we're doing that, you know, for our customers.

>> And just to further Zach's point, despite all of the, you know, controversies that has come up around this, we've done this because we want to be regulated. >> We've gone out of our way to subject ourselves to all of the different, like Zach was saying, policies, guidelines, et cetera that anyone else who would want to issue a US denominated stablecoin would have to go through. We went through all the proper channels and we asked to be regulated, which sets a much higher standard on USD1 and demonstrates what we're really trying to build here.

>> Exactly. >> And and I I might be biased here, but I got to say, I mean, like if it's my hard-earned money, there's no way that I'm, you know, putting my money in an unregulated stablecoin that, you know, has none of these checks and balances in place. It's it's, you know, my hard-earned money and, you know, when you're putting your money into a product, you deserve transparency, you deserve trust, you deserve to see, you know, monthly attestations and yearly audits and things like that, right? So, you know, uh we try to put ourselves in our customers' shoes, right? Um and if it if it were me with my hard hard-earned money, I would only want to be putting that into, you know, regulated stable.

>> Well, it's worth noting a couple things. First, isn't it true that first this was approved by career staff of the OCC, a regulator? And second, that these controls and these supervision is going to survive the current administration and many more. Zack. Bookman. >> I think that's a Zack Wyckoff question. >> Yeah. Yeah, I mean this was reviewed by career staffers at the OCC. These aren't political appointees, right? These are people who have been there 20, 30, 40 years in some cases. Um like you said, this will, you know, survive any one administration. And and you know, that's the whole point here, right? As you know, Zack said it earlier, we ran towards regulation.

Um you know, we don't we don't really look at, you know, what party is in, you know, in control or not in control, you know, we're worried about building a business here. That's that's what we're worried about and we're worried about, you know, ultimately earning the the the trust of our customers. >> And Eric, this is a business that was built, even initially, for the long run. You know, this vision is much bigger than a year or two years. It's the a vision as big as crypto. >> Yeah, there's no question, guys. You know, the the the banks treated people so poorly. If you think about it, I mean you had yields out there that were 10 basis points. You go put your your your money in a just a regular savings accounts and the banks were absolutely ripping you off. They were taking you

for a ride. And and guess what? You wonder why they're building this, you know, 6 7 billion dollar buildings on, you know, Park Avenue and Madison Avenue in New York. Where where the hell do you think they're getting that money from? They're they're getting it from deposits of people that they're paying zero yield on and then all of a sudden you have an industry, you have people go out and say, you know, we can do this better. We can do it cheaper. We can do it more transparently. We can give back to the the very people that have have gotten nothing out of the banking system for so long. And then the, you know, banks come out and they fight and say, yeah, how dare you? You know, how you dare you suggest something like this? You know, we must all play on an equal playing field, even

though they've been absolutely ripping people off, you know, for years and years and years. I mean, look at the Swift's wire transfer system. I talked about this all the time because it drives me crazy, but you know, every single week in kind of the hospitality side of what I do, we build a lot of these things, right? A lot of a lot of the greatest hotels and golf courses and residential buildings and commercial buildings in the world, but every week we're waiting for a wire transfer to come in. Right? On on on a Friday afternoon or we're sending one out. You know, most of the time they don't come in, guess what? You know, the the the intended recipient doesn't get that wire transfer until, you know, Monday afternoon.

Are you getting the interest on that money over the course of a three or four-day weekend? No. You know who's getting their money on, you know, JP Morgan and all the rest of the banks. Is that fair? Why wouldn't you just settle it immediately? You can settle it even worse if it's international. >> You can say you can say Yeah, of course. I mean, you're sending money across, you know, a a How do you send money from Singapore to New York, you know, right now? I mean, just tell me. If you want to go buy a watch in New York right now, how do you do it? What bank do you go to? How do you do it? What's what's the conversion rates? What's the, you know, how do you know how much of the FX trade is the bank going to take? How are you know, is

it going to ever get to the intended recipient? You know, versus David and I, we could take our phones, we could touch them together, we could, you know, we could have the transaction happen 2 seconds, the money can hit the wallet instantaneously. Why do you have that middleman? What what good does that middleman serve? Right? And this is why the banks push back so hard against all of us, right? They they realized they were on the losing end of this trade. It's why they fought it like hell. It's why they continue to fight all of us every single day. And but but but yeah, again, as I said before, it's we're we're winning because stablecoins are being adopted. They're being adopted by the credit card companies. I mean, Zach was just talking about Visa a second ago. You see what PayPal's doing.

You see what what all these companies are doing. You see how much faster transactions are taking place. You see how cheap [snorts] transactions are taking place. Right? This is a beautiful thing for for society. It's a beautiful thing for kind of globalization and and and and business, you know, across borders. This is a great thing for humanity and um you know, fortunately fortunately, the banks are going to be on the losing end of all of this, which truly, truly warms my heart. >> That [laughter] is a heartwarming thought indeed, but you know, you were talking about the benefits to humanity. I want to talk about the benefits to maybe another type of species, superintelligence as they call it. So, uh just today, I believe, OpenAI had yet another monumental achievement of

proving 300-plus mathematical problems. And Folkman, you know, you came up on stage at the World Liberty Forum at Mar-a-Lago, and you talked a little bit about agentic commerce. So, a couple questions. First, I don't personally use any agentic commerce. A, am I behind the times? Or is this coming, and if it comes, how fast is it coming? >> Yeah, that's a great question. So, at World Liberty Forum, we announced our agentic SDK, um which essentially allows any user of any AI platform. It's completely agnostic. So, whether you're using ChatGPT or Grok or Claude, it doesn't matter. It allows users with a single command to be able to load a USD1 wallet onto their agent, and then enable those

agents to be able to go and transact either with other customers, with vendors, or even with other agents. And so, you're not behind the times, don't worry. Um the reality is is that we are going to see a world where the amount of transactions that occur person-to-person are massively eclipsed by transactions that are occurring agent-to-agent. Whether these are, you know, just regular payroll or, you know, paying vendors, whatever, or even just looking at microtransactions, which could never actually be settled using an actual dollar. You can't send fractions of a penny, but you can send fractions of a

stable coin. And so, right now the volume is very small in the Agented Commerce space, but in the next 1 to 2 years even, we are going to see it eclipse the amount of transactions that are actually happening uh in terms of real people that are going to be transacting, and USD 1 is already positioned to capture those transaction flows. >> Yeah, we're seeing just enormous growth in the AI space, and it it does seem to make sense if you see >> SI >> SI, that's correct. Super intelligence, let's not forget. Um well, you know, the there's supposed to be uh Mr. Folkman also a card coming out. Can you tell us a little bit about an update on the

World Liberty debit card? >> Yeah, sure. So, the debit card is going to be linked to our consumer app. People can load funds onto it. They can earn in the app, and then they can spe- like spend those same dollars at point of sale, whether it's with the the card or linking your card to your Apple Pay so you can use tap to pay. Um but the thing that I think is really exciting about our card, cuz there's other crypto cards out there, when you deposit funds into the World Liberty app, and you choose to earn, like move it into the earn function, you're going to be able to be earning right up into the second of point of sale. So, I can keep all my funds in my earn account, and then go pay for a

coffee at Starbucks. >> That's like paying with a savings account with actual interest. Exactly. But you can't do that right now. You got to like transfer it from the savings into your checking. >> Typically with crypto cards, what we see is a user can load funds onto those card, and then they can go spend it. It's almost like a prepaid card. What we've done is we've actually changed that model, so now users can be earning, and the the rates are insane. Like to Eric's point before, we're not talking 10 bips. I mean, it's obviously a fluctuating APY based on what the rates are at any given time. So, we're talking multiple percent. Like multiple percent, hundreds of basis points that you're earning in real time up until the exact

moment that you want to spend that money, which we think is a massive game changer. >> Well, and as we continue to build these layers, David, on top of USD1, like I was saying earlier, you know, you're going to see real value accrual if you're a W token holder. So, you're already seeing that today in the form of staking. Right? That's funded through various protocol initiatives. Um like Zach said, that's actually paid in USD1. Um not W. I think you'll see some more stuff soon on on the value accrual front, but um you know, as we continue to build these layers, um there's going to be a lot of value accrual to the token holders.

>> Eric, I wanted to ask you, do you think that people are going to start getting paid in stable coins? Because right now, seems like one of the friction points is that people have to take US dollars or Singapore dollars and then convert them into a stable coin. Is that going to end or are people going to go straight to it? >> Listen, we're an incredibly big employer. We we have tens of thousands of people around the world at all our hospitality offices. There's no question that we're looking at it. I mean, people already are, right? I mean, you you take so many athletes, just using a silly example, you know, look at how many athletes, you know, kind of requested or required that their contracts be paid out in Bitcoin over the years, right? And and by the way, you know how much money was made in

those contracts? Oftentimes, the amount of money that athlete made was so far eclipsed by the actual kind of growth of the the underlying asset. That was the greatest financial deal that they could have ever made, right? And so, you're going to see that. You're going to see that around the world, and you know, frankly, it it makes a lot of people's lives easier. You know, people don't want to have to clear a check. You know, people don't want to sit there with a piece of paper that they're still getting at so many from so many employers. Have to go down to the bank, sign the back of the thing, cash it, you know, wait for that financial institution to you know, 24 or 36 hours to clear that check. They want their money in the in their account immediately. And I think if you go

across borders, right? I mean, so often times we think of things from the most sophisticated financial, you know, markets in the world, the Singapores, the the the New Yorks, the the Miamis. Go to so many countries that don't have a sophisticated system. Go to so many countries that have a crappy currency. I hate to say that, but a currency that's not worth anything, right? That has massive inflation. Now all of a sudden, imagine you're getting paid out in that currency, but you can instantly change it over to USD1. Now all of a sudden, you could be denominated against the US dollar. So instead of having 60, 70, 80% inflation, you know, all all of a sudden, you're pegged to the US dollar, or all of a sudden, you're rolling it into a a Bitcoin, something that can appreciate massively in in value.

That's an amazing thing for the world, right? I mean, again, so often times we just you know, we we we think we represent the entirety, and we we just don't. There's a lot of people who who are in economies that don't stand a chance, that are broken, that are corrupt, that have bad currencies. And I think stablecoins going to change a lot of that. It's going to be faster, it's going to be cheaper, it's going to be more transparent. And again, it can get you away from the very product that you're often times being paid in that that that's almost working to to your actual demise.

>> Speaking of Speaking of the athlete front, by the way, we're already seeing real life examples of this today. So, uh you know, the the UFC event that was uh hosted on the White House lawn. World Liberty was a was a proud sponsor of the event, and uh we actually paid out uh to Justin Gaethje and Ciryl Gane uh the fight of the night bonuses, uh 250K each, paid out in USD1. And these guys received their money in like half a second. And they both actually contacted us to be like, "Oh my god, this is incredible." You know, usually these fighter of the night bonuses will take, you know, a week and I got to call my banker and see if the money hit my account. And in this case, right, they received their money in in about, you

know, 2 seconds. Um so, we're seeing, you know, this this story play out in real life and, you know, like I said, I think the next 2 years are are only going to be stronger than the last two. >> And that changes things. This If you get your money faster, you can also spend it faster and that creates a economic velocity which happens. >> Yeah, you earn interest in real time, right? Like you were saying, um you can spend it faster. I mean, it's, you know, I I I said it before, but um you know, internet moves at the speed of sound, right? Stablecoins are quickly becoming the cash layer of the internet if they haven't already. And we believe that stablecoins and and ultimately money should move at the speed of of

sound, right? Just like the internet does. >> And the internet's constantly growing, especially with with SI and with stablecoins are the currency of choice, we shall see very soon, then if this is going to grow. Because right now the projections are such and I think most of us here have seen the charts. It's now trillions of dollars a year. Trillions of dollars a year transacted in stablecoins and that's projected to be more and more and more. Do you think, Eric, that stablecoin issuers, like World Liberty, are going to be as commercial purchasers of US Treasuries buying up some of the on the demand side buying up some of the US debt that maybe foreign countries that don't necessarily like America are trying to sell?

>> Oh, absolutely. I mean, there's no question about it. You know, I want to bring up a a point that that that Folkman was was mentioning before. You know, with this advent of AI, you know, so many so many people in this room were pissed off and and to a certain degree, I probably was as well, but you kept on seeing this kind of cycle out of cryptocurrency over the last year and into this kind of AI trade, right? It's one of those things that probably depressed Bitcoin prices for a a but you just saw it across the industry and everybody was mad as how is money cycling out of crypto? How is money going into AI? And I kept on saying to people, "No, this is the greatest thing that could ever happen because the faster AI grows, the faster digital assets are going to grow. In

fact, the thing that's going to spawn the growth of digital assets by far the quickest is actually the AI trade and and and and people, you know, how are you going to if you want to take your your your husband or your your wife or your sister or brother, if you want to take them to London, you go on your AI agent and you tell them to book you a a great room at the Ritz Carlton or the Sands or, you know, wherever you're going. You're not going to use fiat currency for this. You're not going to use paper currency. You know what you're going to do? You're going to use your wallet. You know, the faster AI you know, and the faster people embrace AI and and and the technology and the faster that gets integrated into people's life, you know, the the the

faster this industry is is going to grow and we should embrace the hell out of that despite the fact that you're going to see money continuously cycle be between the two. So, now it's cycling back out and it's coming back into crypto, all right? We're seeing that. We're seeing prices go up. But, the faster our kind of friends on the other side of the aisle in in AI can sprint to toward their goal, the better this industry is going to do. And so, um I I think that's a huge part of it. And then and then certainly I I think, you know, the the trillions of dollars that are going to flow from every country around the world into the US dollar, is that a good thing for the economy? Of course it is. Is that good for the, you know, kind of you know, the US deficit? Of course it is.

It just means that your money supply, which is your denominator, you know, is exponentially larger than it's been before, which just gives you kind of more economic power than you ever had before. So, so it's a wonderful thing for the US dollar. We were talking a little bit about tokenization, Eric and I and I promised to go into a little bit further. We've seen tokenized stocks really take off. Um it's actually unbelievable. A year ago, it was essentially just an idea. And now we're seeing, including pre-IPO companies, being purchased, uh you know, very very swiftly. We're seeing huge demand for these.

Do you think that we're going to see RWAs potentially eclipse purely digital assets in terms of trading volume or interest? >> I mean, I think I think the jury's still out. You're already seeing enormous volumes um on on the RWA front. So, USD1 is, you know, paired with things like Micron, uh SanDisk, uh Nvidia, SpaceX. >> For their equities. >> For for their for their equities and for pairs. Um you can trade those on Astra today. A lot of those are listed on Binance and other exchanges. Um but we're seeing enormous volumes there, right? Because, you know, we're ultimately you're democratizing access to these assets too all around the

world. Um and it's, you know, assets that people are really really excited about. And, you know, we think that ultimately almost every asset in the world will be paired against USD1. That's the goal here. >> I think to Zach's point and even to what Eric was saying about democratizing this, the ability for somebody in a village in Vietnam or a country like Nigeria who maybe can't get a traditional Robinhood account or a brokerage account to get access to companies like SpaceX can now go with their crypto wallet and they can go trade SpaceX. And they can get the same access that people in first world countries have been able to have for

quite some time. So, um whether it's securities, whether it's real estate, whether it's tokenized hedge funds, this is the this is literally where things are going right now. And it seems with all the investment that companies like Nasdaq are already starting to make into tokenization and rolling out their own 24/7 trading platforms, there's no doubt that this is going to continue to grow and probably even eclipse the traditional crypto assets that are being traded on chain. >> And to expand on that, this is the reason why guys, right? It's some of the most kind of developing countries in the world world, some of the countries that have gotten hit the worst by wars and and other kind of instability, they're almost the

people that are adopting crypto fastest. You know why? Because this becomes your median to make payment. Like you walk around this hotel or you walk around one of the Trump hotels, you've got really expensive, you know, micros and you've got great point of sale systems and you can run up and you can run cards in the back. You don't have the infrastructure in so many countries around the world to do that. You know what becomes the infrastructure? Your phone becomes the infrastructure, right? You know, being able to tap your friend's phone, that's your infrastructure to making a payment. This is your gateway to the entire modern Without crypto, you would never have that. You know, you you'd be trading shekels, you'd be trading you know, I mean, you'd be using raw currency. Now all of a sudden, the one thing that connects most of humanity at this point,

the one thing that's in in in most people's pockets at this point becomes your gateway to kind of modern financial freedom and uh it's a really beautiful thing. >> Well, I'm excited to hear more about this development, CSI take off its stable coins with it and maybe we'll get a big update next year in New York. What do you think, guys? >> We're we're excited for New York. I mean, Alex and Raphael, the guys behind this conference, they I always say they put on the greatest show I think in all of finance. I mean, look at this room, look at the event they put on. Um the team behind >> Token 2049 is is a really, really talented team and you know, we've been to conferences all over the world. I mean, and and no one does it like Token

2049. So when they bring this thing to the United States in New York City, uh I think it's going to be huge. So I did encourage everyone to go get your tickets now cuz I'm pretty sure this thing's going to sell out pretty quickly and no, I do not have any sort of rev share agreement with Token 2049 nor does world liberty, but I think that thing's going to sell out pretty quick. >> Let's go. All right. Well, thanks everybody.