What the West Misunderstands about Crypto in Asia | Allen Ng, Everest Venture Group

Transcript

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 hey everyone I'm excited to tell you about fbtc an omni chain Bitcoin asset being used throughout defi today so far it's accumulated about 100 57 million in tvl making Bitcoin more accessible and useful be sure to check out Sparkle the rewards program where you earn points just by holding fbtc get started at

fbtc ongoing Dash campaign 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 polygon.net polygon for sponsoring empire real is a permissionless L2 designed for tokenized real world assets they've just launched their Rewards

program so get started at re. / rewards and be sure to use the code in the show notes below special thanks to real for sponsoring today's episode all right everyone welcome back to Empire um I'm taking this one solo santi's already in I think he's in Korea today uh so we're recording this on September 12th it's going to go live I think on September 13th on Friday my vision for this episode we're joined by Allen uh who's quickly become a a close friend after meeting him about a year ago and he's taught me a lot about how uh crypto Works in Asia and how to really do business in Asia I would say um something two topics that I really

didn't know much about before meeting meeting Allen so my vision for this episode is that you're you're on a flight you're headed over to token and breakpoint and uh you know evg's party and all that kind of good stuff and I want you to listen to this to try to learn how uh just I think the differences in like what what it's like to do business in Asia and what the crypto scene really looks like in Asia because it is quite different from from the state so Allan Man welcome to Empire thank you for having me man yeah you're you're absolutely you know flight of me man like I don't think I know everything about Asia but I would love to share my experience for sure yeah okay so we usually skip intros on Empire but I think uh you might be a new name and a

new face for a lot of people listening to this so the way that I think about evg is so so Allen is the CEO and founder of of Everest Ventures group a lot of people not as evg um been around for a while in crypto and the way that I think about it which is a rough comparison because there's maybe maybe not a good one to use anymore is kind of like the people in the US will know dcg and digital currency group and Barry silbert and folks like that and they they had a they were a holding company um right owned grayscale and Genesis and coindesk and all these different brands um but they also made a lot of Investments and they're just a very influential player and obviously dcg had their hiccups along the way with Genesis they sold off coin desk but that's like

my mental model for how I think about evg but i' would love for you to share the the just your like who are you and where are you from and like what what is the evg story yeah I I wouldn't say you know you mentioned DG is wrong um in fact when we when I decided to start a company uh it was definitely one of the comms at the market we would kind of look at um and and my journey is quite simple I was Bing race between different places China Philippines a little bit of Hong Kong us and then um I I started you know doing startups like what two startups like 12 13 years ago in college and uh was was startup first become a word um and then was lucky to so you know have two small exits early on and and as any founder who made a little bit

of money early on and not knowing what to do you start a lot of fun approach you to become Venture Partners or entrepreneur residents and things like that um and and end up joining one of the um private goody firm to help them start a rent of practice so I was there for about four years help them do tmts T entertainments everything um and and I was not one of those OG who who have Bitcoin in my computer um I extended Ganda space during the Ico wave and then uh at the time Asia was actually was the center I would say of Ico you know of everything um so it's quite easy to get into the scene and then uh I kind of observed about 18 months in late 2018 decided that um you know there might still be a chance to BU a tensent or bu

a uh bu a bite dance equivalent in in in we three so I started evg in my apartment with a couple of my partners so that was a you know backdrop the story so what are what is evg today how do you like even how many employees do you have how many holding companies how many Investments like what what what are you guys yeah so um as of today we have about 300 people across our I would say three main divisions right so we have uh the socialy division which quickly has become our largest uh you know practices and we have you know uh open show show protocol is the infra and on top of that we got multiple different deps you know composed on top of that and also we got a gaming culture which is like a you

know I would say where we had the initial success um by because when evg started we we took a about in gaming coming up so we were the lead advisor and which help also uh publish the like sandbox animal adaper Etc and they kind of make our first in credibility in the industry and that due today like a 90 90 to 100 people operation there and then the third pillar is the Strategic pillar where we have uh significant sticks in media in conferencing Brands and also in Asset Management platforms and etc etc so the way I kind of think about it is is really just like we're very consumer focused um and we simply I'll look at ourself as like a multi-product complex or in a simply manner is we build

products right that's how usually I like the ca of as product buties and do you raise do you have an outside fund like have you raised outside capital is it all internal prop Capital yeah so we raised a little bit of um not a lot we raised probably like $10 million when I started a firm um most of them are my XLS I would say um but it's largely just prop cap and then we we were lucky that we took a bat on the right narrative I would say um and we you know quickly accumulated you know sizable violance sheets and then ever since then we've been using our violance sheet to kind of continue to do Investments and build products and and lucky enough like over some of the product they're successful many of them a cash FL positive so so we're able to continue to grow um and

usually the model is we will build his products and usually you know closer after at least we see the PO Market fit or go to certain scaling phases then we'll start showing our slates or the Productions to maybe some of the VC communities and where you know or exchanges and where they would pick up some of the products inter to fund the scaling phases so let's get in let's move past evg and just talk about um maybe this first big question about I'm curious what you think the West gets right about crypto in Asia and what the West gets wrong about crypto in Asia yeah that that's a really good question I think most of the um I think there's only very few people that cat Asia right unfortunately um simply because I think

most of them have not spent enough time or or really have traveled here um um it is is really funny and um and then I I think people's mind for example like you know I think Loosely people know a couple of things people think if I'm a project from the Western world uh Asia maybe have tvl for me or Asia might have the exchanges and liquidity for me or Asia would have uh maybe some chip developer for me or there's a bunch of farmer out there that's probably I think I think the high level what they know um and I wouldn't say like the these brackets are wrong I would say just like you know the understanding of it is it really depends on whether do you spend

time here or not and it often will surprise you uh in in many ways tell me I mean let's go deeper like what is what is one thing that U okay so here let me maybe I'll tea up this this question differently so one thing that I hear a lot in in at least in New York where I'm located is yeah you know there aren't users in New York because the users are all you know the regulations are too tight for the user so there's a lot of money in New York in San Francisco and in the west like there's all these great Venture firms but to get a lot of users I've got to go to Asia yeah true or false that there are just a lot more crypto users in Asia that's totally true like even look at statistically speaking six of the top

six or seven of the top 10 country in terms of crypto penetrations they're all in Asia like and I think there there there's a reason for it uh partially because you know like like uh even when ethereum started you know the basis was in Asia a lot of people embrace it and also I think a lot of people naturally saw uh or you see the benefit of crypto like the liberty of money the liberty of controlling your assets because we have to understand most of the Asian country are fundamentally autocrit country right like you you look at most Asian countries they have even Korea it has for Forex control that means you cannot move around you cannot swap your Korean one into US dollar freely there's a budget of quot how many you can actually do it a year so so naturally people see that benefits you know really directly I

would say um and owning your data own your assets and willing to try new things and uh um yeah so I would definitely say the penetration rate uh is very very high um and even though these users don't speak English but there's a lot and a lot of them right I mean I think but I think one thing that people usually get wrong right there is people think about hey there are just mostly just Farmers or they're they're these people are fake they're here just for the incentive and they're non-sophisticated um I think that's largely popular for statement um yeah how how come yeah so I think I think yes there is a lot of uh people here like that would they're willing to jump on something because there is incentive but I think also let's not pretend that the Western

project have not used incentive mechanism and you know Bitcoin as core has a billion in incentive models and oh so it's more in the project it's less that the users exactly um are different it's more that the projects in the US maybe bash projects in Asia for using incentives and it's uh it's like don't don't throw stones from glass houses I see what you're saying okay yeah totally totally I mean those inen mechan mechanic exists everywhere right in vampire attack air you know what it kind of reminds me of is um is actually the U is um like global warming or like climate whatever you want to you know just the environment it's like the us obviously got to where we are from like Mass pollution and coal and whatever you want to call it I'm not gonna wait into that whole uh topic that is feel

sensitive these days these days but the the truth of it is that the US did all these things and now that the US is is is on top we're like hey India hey China like you're not allowed to do all these things and they're like whoa hold on take a look in the mirror guys so um okay what about so one thing that I was um I had dinner with uh Bic from hashed uh several months ago and you know we were just talking about the the differences of the impact of terara versus FTX so I think people in the US don't understand I love to just hear your your discussion and conversation of like what happened in the last like year or maybe the last two years like so Tera

blew up in what may of 2022 yes and it was a there there's a lot of users in Asia um it's like people especially in Korea and then FTX blew up in what November of 2022 and obviously there's a lot of you know there's there there were a lot of users in Asia as well but like I feel like FTX really had this horrible impact on the US regulatory market for crypto I'm curious did like did FTX have as big of a impact in in Asia was Terra like the blow up of Tera bigger like tell me about how the I personally think it's even bigger like from a real money or a real flow you think Tera was even bigger than FTX no no FTX is bigger oh FTX was bigger okay yeah yeah yeah yeah this probably because biggest Korean

so he a friend but um but but I I think I think obviously both of them impact the M country uh I'm not saying which one is worse but uh uh we have to remember actually FDX started in Hong Kong their office is right next probably like 10 minute away from mine walking distance from my office um and then when they first um started how did they pick up the flow and trading flow and users is because they pitch every single major Wells and trading funds at the time was a lot of like Wells Family office to trade on top of them um and so and for example like you know entire like for example look at Taiwan there's a lot of user that suffer from the losses from from FDX in Hong Kong as well and honestly at the time they're really good at user experience right you can

transfer the money into silver game and you get a money in right away the onr offr was good so a lot of users account with them um I think is only has a bigger impact in the US is because in the later part after they use Asia for the success for for for the business they raise a lot of capital from the US right and then they bring in a lot of famous people to get involved so that become much more a bigger optic thing where Luna don't have that kind of I would say um success in the uptake to be honest During the period of time yeah that's fair that's fair who um who who leads um okay thinking about like I'm trying to articulate this question on the go but like when you when when you when it comes to like narratives for

example do you think that there's um like the US leads and then Asia kind of follows or does Asia lead and the US follows or is it like two things happen at the exact same time in both locations or look you have two totally different things happening in two totally different areas of the world yeah I think in terms of narrative wise uh um I would say definitely at this time if I have to come with number I would say us has a little bit more power uh because narrative is largely I would say um um influenced by by Venture Capital shops right uh this where the money go there what captures most media report that's what kind of people was like this is hot versus that's hot right and

naturally a lot of Founders especially the more garage Founders they would kind of try to gear towards the the the topics um that where you can raise funds right right and there's nothing wrong about it it happens in web web to as well AI is hot everyone is AI startup right um and then but I do think you know on a lot of narrative you will see very different interpretations or a very different um flavor of how do you see that narrative right or try to build product around that narrative right like recently if you for example look at DP right like previously when I was in America last early this year a lot of deep project was about solar panel building on your rooftop and it kind of earns you know turns energy into whatever and then you know mix your tokens and about destion of deepen yeah

let's put a solar panel you look at Asia our interpretation is paa right wait is what is what if paa right like like basically VAP to ear right oh Pop yeah yeah VAP to okay like that that is the Deep him because you know what there's a product you gotta use every day you have addiction to nicotine you just you just have to use them and so you don't force their behavior which we consider like haex is a very high hurdle in friction so you might as well do something with it and that's why also we investor in them so I I think look at like even like show show look at many different topics they tend to be very different in terms of the product because that that I would say understanding or appetite or

determining what is beautiful or not is is is a little bit different but I would say largely like both side of the world has understand this narratives right yeah what are the what are the hot projects X in Asia like do okay when it comes to you know exchanges or like in defi like is is unis Swap and are like Unis Swap and a and igen layer like the the tier one D5 players in in in Asia or is it like mantle and and other people or like the everyone knows the exchanges are different right the US is dominated by coinbase and Kraken and folks like that Asia is like okx and I don't know where H's at these days but obviously buybits had an amazing last couple years um bu as well like tell me about the

differences in the companies I would say yeah yeah um I think definitely in Asia The Exchange has a lot more power for sure um it's not necessarily in a bad way the way I kind of look at it um isia because if you look at for example if if I try to throw a statistic on if you look at like the people the company with the largest number of employees almost all of them I guarantee you are exchanges right like they're we're talking about 1,000 2,000 3,000 right some of the exchanges get like 500 ,000 compliance people right yeah actually actually sometime I argue they have better compliance than than trfi because trfi don't even get that much many compliance people um and and so so they are the biggest

organization they have the most budget they have you know the most complete Suite of product and often they don't just do exchanges they also often have their structure product desk they would have their media arm they would have their Venture Capital arm and they have many many different arms that operate in the market so I would say definitely they like a I would say you know very powerful players and then um the second bucket of company I I would say is like you can think of like um there are gangs or mafas or or groups of like um of companies right you can think of them as almost like a a little bit like a PayPal Mafia if I have to use like American reference for it um like for example in in Vietnam you will have the sky Mavis

gang you have the coin 98 gang and and those are all you know there're successful builders that's why they also attract the other team around them um they they also back the other younger guy who coming up so they have the own you know your teams in marious and and obviously in Hong Kong like you know we and probably Ena BR at the two biggest larger building groups headquarter here and then so in different places there are I would say um teams and groups that builds products um and then I would say the product groups have you know largely exists and they work you know cohesively together um and then um and then also I would say there is a lot of like uh individual like family offices Wells the new money because we also have to remember in crypto especially early days a lot of the biggest Wells and Bitcoin

ethereum they're all Chinese right day is hard to get the miners right and then um so so a lot of them are here so they're you know a little bit more distributed across different places maybe a really dumb question but why are all the whales in Asia um I think it's yeah had to do with that like you know for example when when when Vidal you know started ethereum here those what we call ethereum Angel who bought a 0.29 for ethereum they launching at the time all in Shanghai or CH down or all near the area and there's probably like five 10 major backer that at the time just this you know at the time of skinny kid who big manering and talking about decentralization right and it it was like a I don't know it's like

and that gang just spread right and there's encourage more people to come in um and then I think for Bitcoin mining it was also the same thing is obviously except the early days where you can buy Bitcoin with a computer or laptop uh if once they get into the ASAC trip kind of like era all those chips and Mining minor were made in this part of the world and obviously the pools are all in this part of world so you can't even get at a time it's very hard for to get like ns9 you can't even get one right so that's why a lot of like Mining facility will will stack up here so naturally they have more Holdings in terms of all his major equs huh okay I want to come back to the whales in a second okay so the three buckets of like power I would

say are the exchanges uh the the gangs and mafias well we should find a better word to describe them and then the the family offices in the whales okay so with the gangs and mafias uh what who tell me more about this group like okay evg Anoka like Sky Mavis Viet uh Sky Mavis and Vietnam like I've noticed um I've noticed that in Asia this exists in the US it doesn't exist that much okay so in the US you might have like Brian Armstrong starts coinbase yeah it just turns into like coinbase I don't know they've got obviously coinbase and coinbase Ventures and stuff but like I don't know Jeremy AA starts Circle it's kind of just like he's got circle like he's just trying to build that but in Asia you kind of get these like

branching out of these Founders um okay so take take bybit for example like bybit gets so like Ben turns bybit into a very successful thing that turns into like marvana Ventures like bitow and mantle like it's kind and now it's kind of this whole like I don't know got your arms in kind of everything like why why is that Dynamic exist yeah I think is has to do with um um I think it also it doesn't just exist for we three right if you look at realities like if you look at Asia like for example in China like yeah there is um you know hundreds of public publicly listed internet company but there's largely like two three gangs right there's Alibaba gang and they many

product and their major or coder of many other platform and then there's the tenent gang if you look at Korea or Japan is similar there's neighor there'sa and there are many product under them um and look at southeast Asia is also similar and I think it fundamentally has to do with a little bit of culture and how to actually I would say do business here I think in Asia like is much harder for because I was a startup and I didn't talk about this because I was you know it came up from grassroot as well I was a when I was first doing startup it was really difficult right uh because like you're you're the whole garage founder or mentality or like hey I'm a college I'm really smart I'm talented and I'm the

chosen one that kind of story really don't exist because people look a lot about your relevancy people look a lot about your reputation your TR record your credibility is almost like you have to earn these things right and and and honestly it's not not something bad it's just like in Asia when we look at a business we don't necessarily just look at hey is your idea good or are you talented we also look at the fact that what have you done in the past how do you trip people how do you deal with your highs how do you deal with your lows how do you deal with those stress times and how to deal with Temptations right can you resist them right so you look at all those things do you do right by the people so those thing become a really important part of you and also

for example a lot a lot of time people will also look at like um um who are your mentors who are your senses to a certain degree right so I think there is a little bit of like that almost a little bit like hip hop right like like you know when &m won that needed to you know Rock and Roll Hall F he would address like you know Dre he would address Pac he was just many people who like they are my teachers they they brought me up and there is that kind of I would say culture in Asia uh in Asia so that kind of also makes like it it is a little bit I would say harder for a very talented individual who has no Char C you know whatsoever to come up because he had to go through this process um but

for the people who already go up obviously they have natural advantage in terms of like having already the trust having already the CH good and they're much easier to kind of Leverage those social capital and everything to Branch out into other business and attract better Talent attract more Capital attract better opportunities around them so so I think it's a little bit of that culture uh culture from phenomena as well and I think that is just getting Amplified in crypto because in crypto obviously like we all know like there's so many startups so many Founders so many ideas um but the percentage of I would say the people who are not capable or not sincere is just even a little bit higher the market is even a little bit more chaotic right so you leave your a handful of people who are trustworthy

and they tend to attract even more it's just a power law yeah yeah yeah okay let's let's actually like explore that rabbit hole for a second so you know you and I have talked about how it's a little more hierarchical in doing business in Asia where okay in the US it's very like very Bottoms Up very um you know a seller can go like sell to someone and then inside of the company it like hey I recomend a junior person's like I recommend we do this thing and then it kind of trickles up uh in in Asia I feel like it's that it's a lot more top down where you might have a me a mentor um let's say or a a big brother or something like and that person let's say they're the CEO of an exchange and they or the CEO of an L1 or something

and they launch and they're like hey go move your your apps onto this L1 and you're like okay like that's my that's my that's my like that's my guy I do it um whereas in in the US how that would work is like all right like I'm going to the l1's going to go create like a BD team and like hey like I don't want to use my influence to influence anything so like but Asia feels very different so agree or disagree with that statement and we love to would love to hear some examples of like how that maybe works I think totally agree um I think um I have you know experienced this where you know um when things are stuck and and you know you know timately you know when I call my big brother and ask for help and it says just say you know what I know

there's a lot of you know things that are fluid currently you know we can talk terms all day long and think about all this stuff and your team your lawyer trying to counter my lawyer and come with all the you know except things or I'm GNA just tell you that I I'll give my best you know at this right we're going to give it a try and I think a lot of time it's just like okay I I I trust you I believe you right you're you're you're my little brothers or you're my bro and let's go right and we take that word almost as a bond that was like a very important thing because um because you kind of value your reputation a lot what other of people you know say about you you know is is he reliable does he deliver is he sincere like you know it's

not like in as you cannot accept failure I think people often mistaken that like like we accept we understand this is Venture we understand this is hard this is startup so we know there's a high failure rate you know failure is always okay but I think it's more like you know you have this Con construct so that you know people who are not sincere would not be able to get into the I would say top table so easily because you unless they're endorsed by someone right so I think the people who Endor is almost as important as um whatever the idea he he or she want to say um because you're relying on that guy's reference as almost like a data point huh who this might be too personal but who is your who's your like quote like big brother um there's a lot to be honest like like

over my career in Chi and Entrepreneurship and web 3 I I learned I think I I tend to think that I learned a lot of different thing from from different people like for example like um uh you know many people know in the market I work very closely with with Y from enoka right I I know him for uh way before web 3 probably 10 years now um and we went to Battlefield together many times and and he taught me a lot about you know over the especially over the years about how how to articulate a vision um and he's one of the I was the most amazing guy to do it it's like you know you have a vision you have to you don't you can't just chap in your head how particularly for others how to build a culture around you so I think I

learned a lot in that department from him and and he's a guy called you know over midnights like if had a problem about managing teams or or about certain things and there's other people I call for for deals there's other people I call for for products like like you know like I was in Australia once and I was hanging out with Jerry the founder of steppen and you mind my Jerry's definitely no doubt one of the best product manager out there or product genius out there and at the time was bra brainstorming around product I was like how would you do it right so I I think there's like people good at different things and you go to for different idea and advices and and and I think that's all all very very important um okay let's say uh let's say you've got like a BD person a lot of BD

people going to uh go to token this year so you're a BD person you're flying out from New York and you're you're trying to either I don't know break into one of the go meet with some whales to get some tvl for your staking thing or you're trying to strike a deal with someone what is the difference between how maybe sales and Business Development works in the US versus how it works in Asia yeah um so first of all I think um unless they are let's say someone a project that's like you know I will say the five names we all talk about this year right AA and ver whatever you're super hot and everyone will just show up and trying to talk to you um unless that's the case for I think most of the founders you you got to find local Partners you first got

to map your landscape to be honest right because some sometimes talking to the wrong people would do even more damage than uh because like oh my God that's the people you associate with you know you know and then you end up breaking about I just had breakfast with this guy and other people was like oh you know why are you in B of scammer right so or even one interesting thing for me is you told me you're like don't go have breakfast with maybe a lower level salesperson or whatever because people then will associate you with that that level essentially yeah so I think I think there is a high is in a certain way but it come off from a good thing and respect as well it's like um in Asia with this culture that if a if my counterpart is a CEO and he show up I

have to show up I cannot just send my junior B guy is completely disrespecting him right um and and if they send a uh VP I gotta send a VP to to re book but it's not as strict as like Japan where Japan is like you've sent three people I have to send three people exactly to match it uh in in the corporate culture it's not as strict as that but um in generally speaking people do the thing that uh like for example I Cate a lot of dinners over the year I probably Cate I don't know 100 dinner over the year for for friends who come in town I'll match them up I will host other people and I'm always very you know careful about who brings in and and you know uh you know who would they have more interest you know more interesting angles or

synergies that they can chat with and Etc right and I think all these uh you know kind of like you need to articulate that you know social environment as importantly as the idea itself right so um so yeah I think there's a little bit of things that you want to pay attention and also like for example if you want to go to the New Market let's say you want to go to Vietnam right the most effective way for you to do is like you g to map just like who who's the most influential guy there right for example like if I let's say I want to take a D5 product and and try to grow in Vietnam I would try to have knock on let's say coin 8 store and I was like Hey tan tan is the founder of that um this is my

product I want to come into your Market this is what I want to do I would like to collaborate with you and if you get his Blessing actually make the rest of your job so much easier because like that would go a a long way like because you know they're they're you know they're 300 people they're like 12 floor um they have nine million users like so for you to just get his Blessing and that will make your job so much easier talking to other people right and other people probably all invested by him to be honest Alan I feel I feel so bad for your uh for your DMs after this podcast because everyone's gonna say can you make hey Allan I heard you on Empire can you uh make an introduction for me to uh I'm very I'm very happy to all year long to be honest

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Taiwan and uh Hong Kong and different areas in China and Japan and we're a lot of people are going to Singapore and there's Korea and like uh I have no idea of the differences between those uh communities and the influential people there and the influential companies so maybe you can just give me a like brain dump of okay Vietnam you mentioned like Sky Mavis like uh what is the Vietnam like crypto Community like compared to Korea compared to Japan compared to Singapore like tell tell give me the brain dump of these different countries yeah I can give you the high level of it you know each one of them a lot of uniqueness and uh I'll say for example you mentioned Vietnam versus Korea I'll would tend to say it might be a little bit B at 10 but uh but

I'll say like Vietnam is a lot more aching user for sure um and um and actually it's really funny like you know in Vietnam you look at it it's like only 1% of people have stocks and trade stocks because they're stock market was not so developed um until now and then but actually like over I think 12% of people population on crypto so crypto in there has a word called Magic internet money it's like everyone's quoting that and in Korea where where you know you where I see there's less uning users but has lot higher activity in terms of allcoin trading and the allcoin trading often a premiums and and it's more speculative in in in a certain degree um but on user is a little bit less I would

say um they're less familiar with like wallets Etc and Defi and different type of things um you look at like um like for example like great to China and look at Great of China I think if your wasn't project the thing you're gonna going to think about is how to Leverage The develop pool right like you know I I think people don't understand some time is like China has two time of the engineer or three time engineer that America has and the ray is so much better the ray car is so much better like just to give an example it's like a Fang gr engineer which is the equivalent in Asia will be like Alibaba tenen tikto Etc a three-year experience guy from there if you able to still him um it will probably cost you about like 60k 70k US dollar a year um which I think

America will be three time with that easily or four time off that easily um an eight to 10 year experience like you know from those company will be probably about 150 so that will be still like you know three time more expensive in America but if you think about them it's like you know if you're building a products unless it's something like super W changing or some crypto cryptography stuff that nobody can understand understand except two scientists in Israel other than that um most likely if I have three time of your people I can iterate three time faster and I can almost guarantee I can beat you so it's why Tik Tok beat the Facebook it's like you know it's not nothing about a tech the tech is live streaming is tipping is those type of things it's nothing new

but if I iterate three times faster it's a guaranteed win in three times so this why I always put you know like um a mental you know if you think about a mental framework it's a million dollar raise in America if you spend those a million dollar America for R&D you're going to get three times the result if you spend them versus you know China or Asia um so I think that is the advantage you can possibly think about is like there's so many good developers you can tap if you're L1 you should leverage that um you know if if you are building trying to build a consumer product you should leverage that I I think many people should try to leverage that right uh in general and Taiwan is actually on the other hand like we have a big operation t with about 50 40 people

there um Tai is a very unique Market it's actually really sizeable country it's a it's half of half of the population of Australia and it's very high op right if you look at like for example the App Store spending the aru was like probably you know top five top six in the world in terms of gaming and many consumer category Etc and so so it's it's actually itself a very good market and Taiwan is you know adopting a lot of new crypto regulations like you know by Next by the end of next year you can buy Bitcoin from most of the 7-Eleven and the most of the family Mar the convenience store so so they're pushing regulation pretty aggressively uh versus I think Japan is a little bit different Japan is like they're much more into cultural stuff right nfts IPS and Etc and then in their construct is

very different they got their own set of regulation for listing uh which is governed by the Consortium of exchange on themselves so I would say Japan is a little bit maybe little bit more slightly more isolated and also because the language barrier to be honest but there will be like for example like the biggest da in Japan is called MC da it's run by this villaire called MC who went around the orbit uh he has like 10 million follower on Twitter um and most most of the my friends have never heard of M do and they got like I've never I've never heard of that I've never like a half a million people that that reads the newsletter you know follows everything crazy so powerful right but you probably never heard about how people put out um so they I think they got their own

isolated community and Etc and they the last part that people like to compare Hong Kong and Singapore a lot and and I think they're they're very Singapore get a little bit more I would say um obviously a couple exchanges you know uh headquartered there the owners are there but apart from that it's more like garage teams right and Hong Kong has always been lot you know I would say like a bigger Capital Hub so there's a lot more I was a capital related activity happen in Hong Kong and the bigger groups are usually like um based in Hong Kong right so so I think I think it's like you know that there are many many differences um so there ultimately I think what I try to bring out is like there is different Advantage you can tap into for different reasons got it okay

um what about the enterprise scene so in the US the ENT like uh you know Enterprise blockchain was kind of laughed at for a while and I think even at when a lot of these l1s and L2 started trying to get the corporates onto their chains in 2020 and 2021 it I mean it all it all basically was fluff but in Asia I see you know Sony launching sonum which is and they're and spending I mean they're spending they must be spending like a million bucks at token this year because they're one of the title sponsors and you know that's probably a seven figure cost right there alone so uh what I mean yeah tell me about like corporates and Enterprises getting into crypto yeah I think in Asia uh many of them have tried it I can't

say how successful they are so far like I always have like honestly my fair bit of uh I'm always like a little bit skeptical about you know when okay so maybe it's more similar to the US than than yeah yeah yeah I think outcome is like is is after all you know is when you're big you're have lot more things you gotta you gotta worry about uh one of the product that bill I would say that that fell but taught me a lesson is at the time I partner with this really big 20 billion doll puppet company to build a product and and you know install wallet across you know all their things and and things were going well you raising money build a products finish a six month negotiations it's finally

about to launch and the Luna happens and then FD and when that happen uh even the owner is like he believe in blockchain but the problem is just you know he has 20 billion market cap to protect so for him to to to do to take that risk it's like you know it could be res at a 10% 20% job with the share price so you know um and it's just not worth it so I think I think it's on dep part is probably more similar but I think in Asia is like they a lot of them is like making a lot of Trials you saw in Japan you saw a little bit in Korea um but I would say a lot of activity come from bottom up and and actually less institutional like I always tell people like a lot of people obviously ask me

about the activity in Hong Kong ever since regulation come out and I'm like to be completely honest um most people care more about what SE said um than what sfc in Hong Kong said right I think that one thing you can change is the but you're saying the even in Hong Kong they might care more about what SEC says than they because that drives the whole Market of course like like the center of finance and of institutional Finance is in Wall Street is in New York city is in DZ right like these are play who who kind of decide whether you have ETF and Etc and other people follow suit right and and I think I think that is probably the most um for I think for institutional adoption no doubt I think America East

Coast continue will be the most dominent Center everyone else will be followers for Consumer adoptions consumer infra I think it's going to come more from Asia um developer adoption I think you're going to see a little bit both um on both both side of the world um what about the exchange Wars there are like two big I guess I'll call them Wars that I wanted to get your take on like there's the these there's the exchange Wars like buybit okx again I literally don't even know if wobi is still around binance like just want to get your take on like that battle that's going on and like maybe some I curious if there are things that you know about that that people in the west maybe don't have visibility into and then a very

similar question but for like L1 L2 Wars and if it's maybe it's the exact same as us so let's start with exchanges yeah you're about to get me into trov just kidding I I think like wouldn't see you know his complete wall like you see them doing event together you see them sharing panel together um and most of this owner actually they friends yeah and their respect for for each other like U recently in uh in Taiwan I hang out with one exchange owner and he he literally told me like you know I asked my team to to learn more from okx you know like like their product is is so you know crafted in such a such a good

way we should learn more of the user experience and etc etc so I think they have like that that respect for each other um but obviously I think you know on some side like maybe they'll compete for certain markets and Etc they will all try to launch a wallet you know um that for sure the compete for deals right um and I think I think how to for Founders like how to navigate that is is kind of important right like like obviously this year with announced like four group level Partnership of four different exchanges and for different things and and I think for a Founder you just try to you know stay neutral right I I I think ultimately you try to be friend with everybody you know they are very important they provide liquidities uh they provide access to users and but what I fundamentally believe is if you

got a great product in yourself um other people would like to fight over you right so it's just focus on creating your own value than trying to think about how much time I should spend on certain guys or or whatever but I think there is something that I do observe um the differences between I would say you know when it comes to exchanges is that um a lot of my wson Founders they would have less clue about how the exchange listing criteria is and then they would try to also demonize them a little bit to be honest or they're like yeah it's all about relationship right it's all about getting to know who's who there's a back door and in our part world we don't think like that we think like it's almost like applying IV League school so when I apply to let's say Harvard yeah there's

a certain sat criteria you g to you know you you're G to fulfill and then you got to your aisle is going to exit let's say 7.5 and then you got to write article you maybe you need to get a reference check whatever but basically like if you ask like a lot of founder the easy test you as a Founder is like hey okay you're racing this round do you know what exactly is the listing criteria currently if he can't answer you that means he don't even know what's s score I can exactly answer you it's like okay how many website traffic you need to get how many Twitter follower you need to get how to rate as quality project versus a quality project versus you know a plus and B quality projects and what the a category they will look for and honestly to today it's already very

standed it's like exam right you get just got to take this exam regardless how many people you know if your product that do not fulfill these qualities you're not getting into H so it's actually quite you know I would say like a Fair competition to a certain degree of course like among everyone that check all the boxes of hover the ones that's better relationship and better brand and better reputation of course you might be the one that have you know let's say in the good Market you are the one who can go first but then it's not like you can skip those boxes and still jump through them yeah what what about the L like the L1 and L2 Wars What's um what's maybe the difference between how that looks like in Asia versus how that looks in the in the in the states I think L1 and L2 to be honest

like you know there is there's a lot of L1 L2 from Asia but obviously the most talk about one are still the ones from from the West like I have to admit one thing it's like like Asia had many l1s over the years like I can recall from the early days there Korea yeah Neil Q um there is Celica there's many of them they all at one point was springing up pretty high in terms of market cap yeah but I just think it's I I kind of personally my my view is like it's also to do with little bit with culture like why Asian people generally are less good L1 Builder um and I think have maybe have something to do with religion right so um I was actually explaining this to Smokey

yesterday um I was exactly talking about it was Smokey yesterday and I was like we don't go to church when we grow up we we don't have like a father figure who's preaching evangelizing holding hands in prayers and and it's like you know what let me save you Etc right um like we we grow up and when we go to Temple is usually when we need something right you go to Tempo like dude ah help me land this job please right make my BC goes up so you're very pragmatic Asian people are like just super pragmatic like very good at solving problems and then but we're very bad in terms of like preaching like this is good for you you should be one of us

right that kind of things and so when we think about like what kind of problem we should usually will go into a very specific scenario like I'm going to solve this problem better than anyone else it's like almost like you're a good at man right um and so you start with the except use case versus yeah um you're good at really good at preaching so so I think I think maybe just cultural thing I don't know but so far I haven't seen a lot of you know I would say um like in Asia everyone talk about you know barah Monet they talk about the same thing you guys talk about yeah yeah I mean the big difference in my mind seems to be that the L1 and l2s that have done quite well over there are also run by the exchanges and we're we we really haven't seen this

in in the states until obviously uh coinbase and base um and I think there'll be a couple other big us crypto exchanges that launch L l2s um prob probably later this year or early next I would assume but yeah I mean it's like bybit mantle okx obvious obviously has done a great job and then binance has obviously done a phenomenal job with BC too so yeah yeah I think um well obious look at like B&B like uh op like we just recently went up a product just partner of opnb to deploy you know sh graph on top and bu product with them and uh I think all of them are really aggressive and to be honest like you know what matters to

users I think what matters to developer ultimately is is a couple of things right and I think for any good developers money should not be a problem because if you're a good developer you can attract Capital that's shouldn't be a problem um and I think if you're a good developer you should handle the tech that's no problem at all as well uh especially getting today all the TCH STS are getting I would say more or less similar um but the you number of users compared different chains indeed has a gaps right and obviously exchange has that huge advantage of having the most users so um so you naturally see a lot more activity so I I don't think it's because like hey I want to I just want to like the balls of bance so that I'm building on top right that's some some

people will kind of see it like that and I think there's a very superficial way to kind of understand it like you know the way I look at this building on top is because they just can give my more give my more user to my product you can help me test my product Market fit better so you know why not right so so you're definitely open-minded to to all these potentials right okay I'm going to do a interesting thing maybe where I want you to help me with blockworks strategy like live live on the podcast so we are we're a very Western based media company and you know we have different we have like three parts of our business right we've got we've got the the media business uh own the largest podcast Network in the industry newsletters own

the largest newsletter Network in the industry um uh we have big news team right so that's media business then we have a conference business right we have two conference FS permission list digital asset Summit permission list in the US digital asset Summit in London and New York and then we have a research and data platform where 90% of our customers are in are in the US okay if you are sitting in my there's this whole bucket of people and potential customers and sponsors for the media business and audience for the media business uh and big conferences to be built in Asia is it worth doing something in Asia or not if you're in I think I think it's totally worth it um

like like honestly I think in in in terms of media and everything like America definitely has the advantage that the size of business is much bigger um and the revenue dollar is bigger the level I would say you know sophistication is is higher and um it's not like you know I'm looking it's not that I'm saying the Asian player not great it's just like you know the industry nature and and but there is a lot of audience here and honestly as a Founder like what I saw even for myself or for other people like historically I would say you know it's very hard for Asian Founders or Asia players to get access to what media or or International media um but it is not the case for for let's say web 2 or in finance in finance like

people in Hong Kong who go to work they read Wall Street Journal they read Financial time those are the things on the desk they don't read like local there's no local version of Wall Street or Wall Street Journal right so so they still go to wsj they still go to Ft um so so it's it's largely the same I would say so the way I look at that is like you if your quality of content is good people's going to get naturally attracted to it it's just like you probably have need to have probably let's say two to three key elements first of all you probably need to have localization of language right because you know a lot of this you know Asia is not one language as well right like yeah Chinese probably is the largest you know I would say populations uh or you have the most speaking

populations but there for example in Vietnam there's 100 million people there you know they speak their local language um inali different career is different so you got to pick out few key markets you know you need to make sure your content got translated because otherwise most people cannot assess or understand so they're missing out on your great content EMP part on on your website Etc and so localization is important and you also probably want to have some of the local interviews and exclusives and Etc and programming um and the second part is um you know I think Commerce is definitely you know something that's very interesting as well it's like historically when you see a lot of uh probably except 2049 I would say a lot of conferen tend to be more localized uh there uh like Le where less conference

where is truly truly is Mid West right it's either lot more dominant representation from west or just all the way around so I think there's a unique Market there um so we can potentially let's say bring per permissionless to to Singapore to Hong Kong to to all this places and I do think there's enough room for multiple players and and also I think the third part is the uh you need also need local local Partners too in each of the different Market need different local partners and and I think that's also a generic would that apply for other business as well um is if you decide to come into Asia it better not be something that's half asked you better be something that's you take it seriously and if local partner who can navigate those terrains and navigate you

know who she'll work with and how to cut through the trade so you save a lot of time you don't hit the wall as much uh you come much better result immediately um you talk to the right key decision makers um so so yeah so but in generally I think I think for in your case it's easy because you got a killer product you got killer brand you get killer content that everyone love so so it's easy and and I think I think it's very funny it's like if you come to like you know I think next week when you come to Singapore you you realize on the street how many people were able to spot you and just say hey J I'm a big fan of yours um and and this is like a generic phenomenon so it's very funny so last year during the F1 weekend uh post is

post Malone's first trip into Asia and his manager Austin Rosen is a friend so so we help organize some after the party we hang out Etc and it's the first trip and they're like oh my God I didn't know I have that many fans in Asia it was his first tour and there's so much love it's like you know here actually quite International they actually look at International content there's actually fan base out here but you might not just know so so I think I think it's it's funny you might see those reactions so what you're what you're saying is I'm a lot like post Malone basically in crypto okay um tell tell me about how the event scene is different like it feels like okay so you were telling me so I think can I share the numbers of

your event next week like you've got this you got this event so Allen and evg are hosting an event with bear chain and there's like I mean it just came up as like an Aluma event and there are 7,000 people registered to attend there's going to be over 10,000 people at this thing um and it's I mean it's this ma it's like the massive kickoff party for for the week obviously but like getting 10,000 people to a party in the US I mean that it I mean it just doesn't happen actually like it just does it literally doesn't exist um so why does that Dynamic exist like it feels like I mean maybe it's just there's just a sheer number of people but it does feel like there's a difference in almost

economics of events there too like people don't really buy as many tickets it looks like but it's all extremely sponsorship based so maybe just tell us about and tell and and educate me on like how conferences and events are different in Asia versus in the US yeah I think I think here is like uh for example next week let me give you another figure that's asish which is uh there is already over 700 side events next week it it was absolutely insane so there's seven days if you deduct the last two day for F1 whatever it's literally over 100 side events a day on some of the days I actually got seven overlapping dinners yeah my big brothers right so I have to literally show off for 10 minutes shake

hands and move on to the next one yeah I always it's like ni week is complet is going to be a little beit chaotic but but I also think it's a lot of love I mean you know um it shows just how many people care about this industry and many people like pre-booked at their flight pre-booked at the hotel and everything six months seven months ago like like we have the secure secur anual market like seven months ago and and it it was just like and next week is not just us hosting great things right like you know other is hosting great things uh many other Justin is hosting great thing on Wednesday others I think other is hosting something on Thursday and and Friday right I I think it's going to be amazing amazing week um and and and yeah and I think I think but but you can

definitely tell like there is a lot of players and many people hosting multiple events as well and they're all supporting each other they're putting logos on each other um and I think it's like honestly the market last couple months you know what was in the best I would say and this is so tell me about the economics of the things like is it fair to say that people don't really not not just the side events but let's say blockworks let's say blockworks and evg were hosting a conference and we're like all right we're going to Hong Kong or Singapore or something right now we make you know maybe half our money comes from tickets half comes from sponsorships yeah tell me how you would recommend we set up an event I I I think you have a lot more like dominant percentage from sponsorship from from other type of

things yeah um I think ticket will be slightly less like uh you try not to actually jge people that much for Ticket obviously you will have ticket like even KBW or paent boing submit they all have tickets but Tim when a friend reach out you have to give them tickets you you g turn your friends away and say yo man uh go buy yourself right so so ultimately you're gonna give tickets but um but but I think if you attract a crowd there's many other business model you can possibly slap on it um and then and I think I think there is enough also sponsorship opportunity as well a lot of people will be looking for exposures um and also I think the good thing is the government is also really Keen for example Hong government I I can't say for Singapore government um like hung

government has multiple funds from tourism boards from other bureaus where they incentivize people to hold great international events in Hong Kong and web do because it's an industry that the government encourage so they also give out like averaging maybe like $2 million to support great events right so so they will also cover some of the caes um and then the good thing is that you can also negotiate with venues and other to kind of like you know make your p&l better so so I I think there's great opportunity and and the most important thing is you you get an impact you get even for the first year you don't make that much money you make the impact yeah um cool Alan what else are we missing what else is interesting maybe that people don't understand yet but I for

for people listening who don't who aren't watching on YouTube it's also midnight for Allan right now so I do appreciate you you joining late I I one maybe final look is uh final notes is like uh very funny it's like uh recently went a product got launch and uh some of the Twitter Community are saying certain thing about it and other people saying certain certain thing about it and and I think one thing that definitely come to mind is like you know a lot of people are talking about like we want to bring a billion user to our industry um and I think in the you know sometime I think this not just exists in east and west but I think it's more obvious in the west some of the western user would be like hey this is the way I think adoption should happen like the

rest of the billing people should should be more like me they should be more crypto native they should know how to do unchain they should be one of our crypto buros but I think you you look at Asia the funny thing is I think the adoption is probably that a billion people that M adoption will come in in forms that probably is not your way it's going to come in a different way formans ship right which is like maybe we need to dumb it down maybe we need to adapt to that as well maybe they're going to take the tools and infrastructure that where we invented in into their own hands and give their own spin right and I think I think that is like a real reality where people going to compose in their own ways um and I think Asia has a lot of

teams and a lot of people willing to experiment and I I think it could be interesting like I wrote article recently about the Asia trra and I think maybe next year we'll have like a Asia fi season coming I like it man great article we'll link the article by the way in the in the show notes of this episode for people who want to who want to read it um okay let's wrap with this in um I want to get this is gonna this last one will sound weird to you apps to download food to eat and clothes to wear so if someone if I have a friend who comes to New York you know I say who's maybe from uh from from Hong Kong or something I'll be like okay everyone and usually they already know this but it's like okay you gotta get around with with

Uber right we got door Dash if you want to get food we got Google Maps if you want to get around um what are the apps that you use on a daily basis yeah um you mean Hong Kong or or when they go to Singapore next week uh both actually I'm curious about both okay for Singapore next week download your grab you need that for because it's F1 weekend F1 week so all the RADS are going to get blocked it's kind of messy going around so down your grab just like the Uber equivalent but also in grab you can also order the food just like uber too so when you're hungry at midnight that's gonna help you out um and then uh definitely go try the spicy crab definitely go try the lxa definitely go try those one of the hakas andent which is like the um uh you know

very cheap but delicious food that is always opened um and then um so I think yeah the Singapore and then um what was the food you said spicy crab the the the CH the chicken the what was the third one the latsa so so basically they have this construct called uh Haka Center which is little bit like a foot Court um and then um where they have all the delicious like small store within it there's usually 30 40 of them you can try different things for really really cheap like for $20 you got oh my God amazing amazing meals um um so you should definitely try this local stuff out and then just wear it short because it's gonna be hot next week um that's what I was gonna ask so people so for

the for the the the dress code right is it is it nice is it people are wearing shorts are they wearing pants are they wearing jeans yeah I think in Singapore definitely just just you imagine is hot right so so yeah H whatever you were in Palm Beach probably that's a better idea and he Rings a lot so cool um well people are gonna be on the flight saying crap I didn't bring any shorts but this is uh no alen this is great man I I really appreciate you coming on and we didn't even talk about open social at all but you know I had a tweet that's you know Santi I don't know if you caught the Empire episode last week but Santi and I talked a lot about open social which you're also building um competing with folks like and not even competing but kind of just learning from

what lens and foraster have done and doing it a little bit differently as well and I i' would highly recommend people go check out open social I'm sure we'll do an episode with you on that some point in the future so yeah thanks for all the the advice for us westerners going to going to Asia next week no no no um thanks for a shout out and anyway in town like you know like you said if if anything we can help you off um if you to DMS and and yeah we love to love to be your host amazing amazing 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 for the newsletter at ana. net thanks again to anoma for sponsoring today's episode [Music]