What the Crypto Shift Means for Your Money, with Tatiana Koffman

Summary

Afford Anything Podcast: What the Crypto Shift Means for Your Money with Tatiana Kaufman

Release Date: December 3, 2024
Host: Paula Pant
Guest: Tatiana Kaufman, General Partner at Moonwalker Capital and Author of "The Myth of Money"

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Introduction to Cryptocurrency's Impact on Finance

Paula Pant opens the episode by addressing the polarizing nature of cryptocurrency. She emphasizes that regardless of one's stance—be it skepticism or enthusiasm—understanding crypto is essential for modern financial literacy. Paula introduces Tatiana Kaufman, an expert in digital assets, who brings deep insights into the evolving role of cryptocurrency in global finance.

Cryptocurrency as an Amplified Version of Traditional Markets

At [05:31], Tatiana Kaufman describes cryptocurrency markets as "a caricature of real life," highlighting that the volatility, risk appetite, and potential for insider manipulation are magnified a hundredfold compared to traditional financial markets. She advises caution for those participating in crypto markets due to their intensified nature.

The Tidal Shift in Financial Systems

In [06:19], Tatiana outlines the ongoing major transformation of the financial system influenced by Bitcoin and thousands of other cryptocurrencies. Drawing parallels to historical financial overhauls, she suggests that early adopters who withstand volatility may achieve significant generational wealth. She also notes that Bitcoin's integration into regulated assets like ETFs marks the tail end of this shift, presenting a final opportunity for retail investors to capitalize before crypto becomes fully absorbed by traditional finance.

Bitcoin's Value Proposition Beyond Fiat Currency

[07:38] Paula Pant raises a critical point about Bitcoin's intrinsic value, questioning its differentiation from fiat currencies. Tatiana responds in [08:05] by emphasizing Bitcoin as one of the best-performing assets, programmed to be scarce with a maximum supply of 21 million coins. She explains Bitcoin's unique role as "digital property," likening it to gold but with superior transferability and ease of storage.

Understanding Stablecoins and Bitcoin's Scarcity Mechanism

At [11:31], Tatiana delves into the mechanics behind Bitcoin's value, explaining that its programmability and scarcity—enforced by halving events every four years—ensure an increasing production cost and a rising price floor. She differentiates stablecoins like USDC and USDT, which are pegged to fiat currencies, from Bitcoin, which operates independently of traditional monetary systems.

Regulatory Landscape and Mass Adoption

In [18:21], Tatiana discusses the significance of Bitcoin ETFs and their role in facilitating mass adoption by making Bitcoin accessible through traditional investment vehicles like Roth IRAs and stock portfolios. She highlights JPMorgan Chase’s initiative to hire advisors to promote Bitcoin ETFs as a major endorsement for crypto's mainstream integration ([20:16]).

The Collapse of FTX and Its Implications

[20:38], Tatiana provides an insider perspective on the collapse of FTX, explaining how interconnected issues with banks like Silicon Valley Bank led to a temporary depeg of USDC from the dollar, inadvertently harming the crypto market. She clarifies that crypto was not the root cause but rather a scapegoat for broader financial mismanagement.

Crypto Adoption in Global Economies

At [40:45], Tatiana analyzes El Salvador's proactive embrace of Bitcoin, noting the country's economic boom and repayment of loans through sustained Bitcoin investments. She contrasts this with Dubai and other UAE regions, which are becoming crypto-friendly hubs, attracting major exchanges like Binance due to favorable regulations.

Africa's Crypto Footprint and Potential

[48:56], Tatiana explores the burgeoning crypto adoption in Africa, particularly in Nigeria, where instability in traditional banking drives interest in decentralized finance (DeFi). She mentions Kenya's integration of crypto with mobile money systems like M-Pesa and highlights Cardano’s initiatives in Ethiopia for everyday payments. South Africa's evolving regulatory stance is also noted as part of the continent's diverse crypto landscape.

Inflation Debate and Its Impact on Crypto Perception

In [52:16], a heated discussion unfolds between Paula and Tatiana regarding the reported inflation rates in the U.S. Paula presents the official rate of 2.6%, while Tatiana disputes its accuracy, asserting that real-life experiences reflect much higher inflation. This exchange underscores the disconnect between economic data and individual sentiment, highlighting the broader implications for financial trust and crypto investment.

The Future of Reserve Currencies and Bitcoin's Potential

[56:26], Tatiana expresses skepticism about the BRICS nations successfully creating a sustainable alternative reserve currency. She remains optimistic about Bitcoin's long-term potential to become a global reserve currency, contingent on its integration into global treasuries and widespread adoption over the next few decades.

Understanding Meme Coins and Responsible Investing

At [67:00], Tatiana explains "meme coins" as low-cap cryptocurrencies often associated with brands and speculative ventures. She likens investing in meme coins to gambling, advising investors to treat them as fun, high-risk bets rather than serious financial commitments. For practical investing, she recommends ensuring substantial exposure to Bitcoin through secure platforms like Coinbase or ETFs, while allocating a smaller portion of the portfolio to innovative yet higher-risk assets.

Practical Advice for Ordinary Investors

In her concluding remarks, Tatiana Kaufman urges investors to secure their Bitcoin holdings through reputable platforms, implement robust security measures, and diversify their investments with a mix of stable and speculative assets. She emphasizes the importance of integrating crypto into long-term savings and retirement strategies while cautiously exploring new financial innovations.

Closing Thoughts

Paula Pant wraps up the episode by highlighting Tatiana’s comprehensive analysis of cryptocurrency’s role in reshaping financial systems globally. She appreciates Tatiana’s candid distinctions between serious investments and speculative ventures like meme coins, as well as the nuanced discussion on inflation perceptions. Paula encourages listeners to engage with the content through social media and explore Tatiana’s work for deeper insights.

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Notable Quotes:

• Tatiana Kaufman [05:31]: "With cryptocurrency, we have all the volatility and craziness of traditional markets, but times 100."

• Tatiana Kaufman [08:05]: "Bitcoin becomes digital property… but better because it's easily transferable and can be moved across borders seamlessly."

• Tatiana Kaufman [14:21]: "Every four years there's a programmable event in the code called the bitcoin halving."

• Tatiana Kaufman [20:23]: "Wall street is funny. Everyone disdains everything until it starts making the money and then they're all becoming big fans."

• Tatiana Kaufman [31:19]: "Shouldn't we be allowed to choose the risks that we want to bear? Why do I want to be parentified by my government to tell me what I can and cannot invest in?"

• Tatiana Kaufman [48:56]: "Nigeria is hungry for this type of innovation because they really don't have a stable banking system or a stable currency."

• Tatiana Kaufman [67:00]: "Meme coins are essentially a way for you to get behind brands that you like… they're no different than buying a Supreme t-shirt for $500 because you like the brand."

Resources:

• Tatiana Kaufman’s Social Media:

  • Twitter/Instagram: @atianacaufman
  • Newsletter: Myth of Money

• Podcast Show Notes: Links to Tatiana’s book "The Myth of Money" and additional resources can be found in the episode's show notes.

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This episode serves as an invaluable resource for both crypto enthusiasts and skeptics, providing a balanced view of cryptocurrency's potential and pitfalls. Tatiana Kaufman's expert insights elucidate the complexities of crypto markets, global adoption trends, and the intricate relationship between traditional finance and digital assets. Whether you're contemplating your first investment in Bitcoin or seeking to understand the geopolitical ramifications of crypto, this conversation offers a comprehensive guide to navigating the ever-evolving financial landscape.

Transcript

[Paula Pant]

Today, I'm bringing you a conversation that can divide rooms faster than almost any other topic in the world of finance, and that is a conversation on cryptocurrency. If you want to elicit a strong response from anyone, just mention crypto at a dinner party, because some folks are going to get super enthusiastic and others are going to roll their eyes so hard it will get stuck in the back of their head. Crypto is one of those topics where many people have automatic knee jerk reactions. You're either a total skeptic or you're a total enthusiast. It's an incredibly polarizing topic. But here's the reality. Whether you're a believer or a skeptic, the reality is that cryptocurrency is a significant player in our financial landscape and we cannot ignore it. So whether or not you plan to buy cryptocurrency, understanding it just at a minimum, understanding it is a core piece of financial literacy. By definition, it's impossible to have an informed take on something if you lack information about it. And so today's episode is intended to build your financial literacy by bringing you more information about an asset class that is becoming a bigger and bigger player in the financial landscape. Welcome to the Afford Anything podcast, the show that understands you can afford anything, but not everything. Every choice carries a trade off, and that applies not just to your money, but to your time, your focus, your energy, your attention to any limited resource you need to manage. So what matters most and how do you make choices accordingly? Those are the two questions that this podcast solves. We cover five pillars financial psychology, increasing your income, investing, real estate, and entrepreneurship. It's double I fire and today's episode pertains to that third eye investing with a focus on the subcategory of cryptocurrency. To aid in this discussion, I have invited Tatiana Kaufman to be our guest on today's episode. Tatiana is a general partner at the digital assets investment firm Moonwalker Capital. She's also the author of the Myth of Money. She has enormous knowledge about the current cryptocurrency landscape, about its evolving role in global finance, and about where this technology might be headed. In our upcoming conversation, we discuss everything from why Bitcoin might be considered digital property to what happened behind the scenes during the FTX collapse. We discuss El Salvador, Dubai, Saudi Arabia, Africa. We talk about the distinction between meme coins and serious investments. She explains what makes bitcoin unique from other cryptocurrencies, and she shares practical advice for ordinary investors who might be crypto curious. Now at One point in our conversation, we hit a discussion about inflation rates, and she expressed a feeling that many Americans share, which is that the official inflation numbers don't feel like they match their daily reality. Certainly feelings are valid. The stress and the frustration, the worry that relates to those economic conditions, that's enormously valid. But I, as your host, believe we need to separate feelings which are valid from factual claims that need solid evidence. What afford anything stands for? The core cornerstone of this brand, is to think from first principles and to ground our discussions in evidence. Numbers are numbers, feelings are feelings, and both matter, but they serve different purposes. I tell you this because it's rare that I push back on a guest. I'm here to listen. But when it begins to cross beyond what is known, then my job as your host is to clarify what constitutes a feeling and what constitutes a fact and to never let the two conflate. Now, thinking from first principles does mean that I have no attachment to a given outcome. If there is any evidence, even a shred of evidence whatsoever that the Bureau of Labor Statistics made up any of the numbers that they reported, man, I'd be the first in line to be taking a look at that. I would read the full report. But currently, there is no evidence of that. So with that lengthy disclaimer out of the way, I do hope you get a lot of value out of this episode, because we cover many, many topics around cryptocurrency, and I believe that this episode will help you understand the crypto landscape, because crypto is a force that is absolutely fundamentally reshaping our financial world, and it's very much worth learning about. So with that said, here is Tatiana Kaufman. Enjoy. Tatiana, you often say that cryptocurrenc is a caricature of real life. What do you mean by that?

[Tatiana Kaufman]

When we look at the traditional financial markets, we experience certain types of volatility and certain types of craziness. And I feel that with cryptocurrency, we have all of that but times 100, right? So the volatility is that much crazier. The risk appetite is that much crazier. The opportunity for insider machinations is much crazier. And so you have to be a little bit more cautious when you're participating in the cryptocurrency markets, because it takes what we have in the real world and exacerbates it and kind of puts it on to a different level.

[Paula Pant]

Right. Given that huge volatility and all of that risk, why would a person, why would an ordinary individual want to have cryptocurrency as part of their portfolio.

[Tatiana Kaufman]

I think what we're going through right now is a major tidal shift. And it's been happening for a little while. You know, bitcoin was introduced in 2009, and then thousands and tens of thousands of cryptocurrency afterwards. And what you're seeing right now is an overhaul of the entire financial system. And usually when these types of overhauls happen, it's a little bit of a wild, wild west, right? So when you think back to how America was created when people came and they were looking for gold and natural resources and they were creating railroads, the people who came earlier and were able to stomach the volatility and the lack of regulation oftentimes were the people that actually were the most successful and created generational wealth. And so this is an opportunity now. I would say we're actually at the tail end of this tidal shift that's been happening over the last 15 years because Bitcoin is now a regulated asset that is part of ETFs. And we're about to see positive regulation with this new administration for the rest of these assets. This is kind of the last opportunity that retail investors are going to have to participate in these outsized returns before everything gets absorbed into the traditional Wall street system and the returns become dollars and cents rather than what people are seeing now.

[Paula Pant]

Well, we've seen historically, through all of the boom and bust cycles of bitcoin over the last 15 years, outsized returns coupled with outsized losses. It strikes me when we discuss those that that discussion inherently is dollar denominated. So when we discuss the value of bitcoin, we talk about it in dollar denominated terminology. But isn't the point of Bitcoin to be separate and distinct from Fiat currency?

[Tatiana Kaufman]

Absolutely. 2 Answers to that question. The first is Bitcoin is one of the best performing assets of all time. So even with all of the volatility, if you look at the chart, it's really been up only for 15 years and it is positioned to continue to do well over the next couple of years. The second thing is it is a very interesting conversation when you try to ask people what they want to denominate their wealth in. And so we're kind of going through that shift right now where people aren't quite ready to denominate their wealth in bitcoin, but they're already starting to think that way. Traditionally, when you define money, when economists define money, they define it in three parts. It's a method of exchange, it's a Unit of account, and it's a store of value. And somehow we've just accepted it as a truism that all those three things are present in all of money. And it's not true. There's thousands of methods of exchange around the world. Every currency, stable or not, if it's used somewhere, is a method of exchange. There's only a handful of unit of accounts. So in terms of stable unit of accounts, I would say there's the dollar, there's the euro, there's the Chinese yuan, maybe the Japanese yen, so that's four. And maybe we're adding bitcoin right now as a fifth.

[Paula Pant]

Let me just interrupt you there. Why wouldn't something like the Thai baht or the Laotian kip be a unit of account?

[Tatiana Kaufman]

Because there's very little faith in the stability of its value. When I say unit of account is what do I measure my wealth? So I've made a bunch of money, what do I measure that in? Or I own a building that's worth a certain amount, or I own a business that's owned a certain amount. My family's from Eastern Europe. We didn't measure our wealth in rubles. That would just be silly. You always measured your wealth in dollars. And so most of the world actually defaults to the dollar. And if not the dollar, then one of these other major currencies that I've mentioned. So there's really only four global units of account. But when you talk about store of value, none of these things suffice as a store of value. No American billionaire is storing value in cash. They're storing value in buildings, in businesses, in sports teams, in gold and all of these things. And so in that sense, bitcoin becomes digital property. It's property like all of these other stores of value, but better because it's easily transferable. You can move it across borders very seamlessly. You can buy it and sell it at will versus trying to buy and sell a building. And you can easily pass it to other people. And so it becomes property, but better. And so we're actually going to see a lot of people who traditionally buy real estate in the US or in Canada, especially wealthy buyers from around the world who are trying to find a safe place, a safe harbor for their wealth. They're just going to store it in Bitcoin.

[Paula Pant]

But Bitcoin itself doesn't have any intrinsic value. Its value exists only insofar as collectively a group of people believe that it has value. So how can it then have sufficient faith in it as A store of value.

[Tatiana Kaufman]

I will answer your question with a question. How do we believe that there's value in any of the other things?

[Paula Pant]

Sure. So certain things are income producing. So real estate, for example, is income producing in that people occupy that piece of real estate and pay a rental fee in order to occupy that building. Similarly, a business like a Coca Cola has an income stream because it sells cans and bottles of Coca Cola and other products and has some type of an income stream that it generates as a result.

[Tatiana Kaufman]

What about other things that are more akin to bitcoin, like gold or silver or the US Dollar?

[Paula Pant]

So those are speculative.

[Tatiana Kaufman]

All of those things are considered store of value by many people. And at the end of the day, we ascribe value to gold because we perceive it to have value. And the same with silver and all of these other things. I think bitcoin derives its value from a very different equation than all of these other things. And that's math, right? So it's programmable money. It's programmed to be scarce. So you only have 21 million coins. The other thing that's really, really interesting with bitcoin is if you think about how you mine gold, the global gold reserves are harder and harder to find. It now takes extensive surveying, excavation, energy to mine one ounce of gold, infinitely more than it did 10 years ago or 50 years ago or 100 years ago during the gold rush. And so because of that, gold is perceived to be more and more scarce, but also it's more and more expensive to produce an ounce of gold. And so as a result, the floor, the price, floor of gold keeps going up and up every year. Bitcoin has a very similar mechanism. The way it's programmed is every four years, it becomes more and more difficult to mine a new bitcoin. It becomes more and more expensive because the equations become that much harder to verify and mine coins, which requires more energy and more equipment. So the floor keeps going up and up and up, and the production of bitcoin becomes slower and slower and slower as it becomes more and more expensive. So as a result, that floor keeps going up. Today, to mine a bitcoin costs at least $50,000. At least $50,000. So that is the floor price. Anything above that is speculation of, oh, we think it's going to go here. So therefore we're going to run up the price. But there is a floor to it versus a decade ago, it cost dollars, literal dollars. So every four years, it's just exponentially become more and more and more difficult to create one New Bitcoin.

[Paula Pant]

Right. And that thing that you're referring to every four years, that's referred to as a halving event.

[Tatiana Kaufman]

Yeah. So every four years there's a programmable event in the code called the bitcoin halving. We just had one earlier this spring. At the same time we also had the Bitcoin ETF approval and so combined we had a run 74k during that time and then we had a cool off and now we're on the next leg up.

[Paula Pant]

Once the 21 million bitcoin have been mined. Right. Which is the maximum amount of Bitcoin that will ever exist, why wouldn't people, as a collective, move on to Ethereum or any other type of cryptocurrency?

[Tatiana Kaufman]

Ethereum actually has moved away from proof of work, which is what I described, the mechanism of mining and actually needing servers and energy. And it's moved away from that to proof of stake, which doesn't make it a good candidate for money. So Ethereum is great as a supercomputer. It's more of a network that you can build things on, store information, share information, create third party transactions without middleman, that type of thing. So Ethereum will continue to have a role, and Ethereum competitors will continue to have a role in this new world that we're building. But Bitcoin is the first and real true digital store of value.

[Paula Pant]

Why wouldn't people simply move on to any other proof of work type of a coin?

[Tatiana Kaufman]

The answer to that is Bitcoin was built in a very, very beautiful and eloquent way. It was created by either one engineer or a team of engineers called Satoshi Nakamoto. Obviously there's a lot of speculations and documentaries about who it could be, but it hasn't really been proven who it is. And I think it's really beautiful that the founder of this stepped away. He created truly beautiful that hasn't been hacked. And it gives it this ethos that's almost mythical in nature of a commodity, rather than a project that was run by a human being that has a man behind it. So it's become this fully, truly decentralized digital currency, which we haven't seen before, because even though we have tens of thousands of other currencies in the market today, none of them act akin to digital gold.

[Paula Pant]

But what is its moat though? I mean, certainly many people could do something similar to what Satoshi Nakamoto did in designing something that's beautiful and that does not have a particular myth of founder based around it.

[Tatiana Kaufman]

Well, not everyone can do what he did, because what he did was actually technically very, very difficult and exceptional. But also they haven't. I mean, the answer to your question is anyone can go and issue another paper currency, right? To have people actually want to use it, it requires a certain type of buy in. And so we're having economic buy in, which is really important. This isn't just anybody can do it. We're having buy in from regulators, we're having buy in from blackrock, we're having buy in from sovereign wealth funds. We're having global adoption, which is one of the most important things in a network. It's only as valuable as its network. So when you look at something like Facebook, for example, the value of Facebook isn't in its assets. The value of Facebook is, it's in its users. The fact that Bitcoin has now become this prolific thing is really what makes it defensible against all of these other competitors.

[Paula Pant]

So mass adoption, essentially.

[Tatiana Kaufman]

Mass adoption, yeah. Technological prowess and mass adoption, I would say those are the two things you.

[Paula Pant]

Mentioned earlier, that Bitcoin can now be traded in ETFs, there's more integration with Bitcoin and what I'll call traditional finance. How important is that in terms of that mass adoption and in what ways is it poised to continue?

[Tatiana Kaufman]

So I think it's incredibly important. I think one of the biggest barriers between Bitcoin adoption and the regular consumer and the retail investor has just been the difficulty of self custodying it. So self custody is a really beautiful thing and it's something that I practice personally and highly recommend to people who can figure out how to do it safely. And self custody just means that you actually store your own coins on the network using a cold wallet like a ledger or a Trezor. It allows you to store your funds independently from financial institutions and the government. And it's really at the core of the ethos of what we believe in as bitcoiners. However, to assume that everyone can go through that process is a little bit naive. Until recently, the best alternative we had was Coinbase as a blue chip way for you to store your funds, creating a wallet. And there's someone on the other end of the line if you have an issue and you need to call for help, where with self custody you don't have that. But even that was difficult for people. And a lot of people got hacked or lost their passwords and on and so forth. And so now that you have a Bitcoin ETF, many Bitcoin ETFs and then you have either companies like MicroStrategy or mining stocks and all of these other things that derive their value from Bitcoin. You can buy those within your Roth IRA or within your regular stock portfolio or on your Robin Hud. And it's created that much, much easier, greater access, particularly for those of us that want to invest for the long term in our tax free savings accounts. Right. So it's opened up this whole new pool. JPMorgan Chase actually announced several months ago that they were hiring 15,000 advisors to pitch Bitcoin ETFs to their retail clients. So that's a huge vote for adoption right there. Right.

[Paula Pant]

And that's quite surprising because Jamie Dimon was known for his disdain of Bitcoin and cryptocurrency in general.

[Tatiana Kaufman]

You know, Wall street is funny. Everyone disdains everything until it starts making the money and then they're all becoming big fans. For a while it was threatening to his business model, so he expressed his disdain. Now he's figured out how to make it work for his business model, so now he's on board. It's just as simple as that.

[Paula Pant]

He was also, though, very involved with the collapse of Silicon Valley Bank. He was very involved in that, that bailout and picking up the pieces of all of that. Can you talk about how that whole episode was kind of related? How did that flow into where we are now?

[Tatiana Kaufman]

It's so interesting because when SVB collapsed, there was also Signature bank and there was a couple other small ones that were hurting during that time. Everyone blamed crypto, but it actually had nothing to do with crypto. And crypto was hurting as a result of what was happening with those banks. But the reason those banks were collapsing is because they had a collateral problem. During a period when we had 0% interest rates as a result of COVID they were significantly encouraged to buy bonds at 0% that were then subsequently devalued when rates went up. They weren't marking that on their balance sheet. And then eventually they had to mark those bonds on the balance sheet. So their collateral was much, much lower than what was expected of them once it started spreading that they might not have enough capital on their books. There was sort of a run on the banks that was orchestrated by Silicon Valley. And it's just really interesting now because back in the day when you had a run on the banks, it took a minute I had to tell you that I thought maybe something was wrong with our bank. Then you had to tell someone else and that person told someone else. And then eventually something would appear in the paper three days later and it would take a minute. And now it's so easy because I can just send you a DM and you can send someone else a DM and then you go into a chat group and everything just can go like wildfire within hours. What was really interesting and how it actually ended up hurting crypto, aside from Silicon Valley. So obviously many, many tech companies were banking with SVB and First Republic was hurting during that time. A lot of these banks, they were banking really the technology sector, which was very, very scary for the founder community, but they were also banking the reserves for usdc. So Coinbase has a spin off company called Circle, which is its own now standalone entity. And Circle issues one of two major stablecoins called usdc. So there's usdt, which is Tether, which Cant Office Gerald actually was in news today, about 5% of which is notable because their CEO is now being appointed to the cabinet for Trump. So very bullish. But USDC is the other major stablecoin that a lot of capital and crypto flows through. And how USDC works is they basically take your dollars and they issue you an IOU called USDC, right? So you give me $10, I give you 10 coupons a mark to USDC. And it's an incredibly profitable business because what they do on the other end with the cash is they put it into the bank and then they buy Treasuries with it. So on a float of $80 billion, they now can clip a 5% coupon or a 4 1/2% coupon on US treasuries and they have to hold a portion of that obviously in liquid and bank accounts. So USDC Circle was spreading the amounts across different banks, including Silicon Valley bank and Signature and a lot of these banks. And so when there was a run on those banks, USDC started to depeg from the dollar. So people started to lose faith temporarily that those IOU coupons were actually going to be worth a dollar. Because what if the cash that sat behind those disappeared? And so we dropped almost to 80 cents on the dollar one evening when this crisis was happening. But crypto didn't cause the re the banks, the actual collateral structure of the banks that had nothing to do crypto is what caused it. And then it hurt crypto at a time when crypto was already not doing well because of Luna and FTX and Three Arrows Capital. And this added fuel to the fire. So I think crypto just becomes a really easy scapegoat these days. By a lot of the regulators, which are thankfully all leaving office now, including Gary Gensler, because crypto was not the problem in that situation at all.

[Paula Pant]

How high is the interest rate for.

[Tatiana Kaufman]

The new Laurel Road High Yield Savings Account?

[Paula Pant]

This high.

[Tatiana Kaufman]

The air is really, really thin up here. The Laurel Road Very High Yield Savings Account Variable Annual Percentage Yield APY is subject to change at any time. No minimum balance required. Fees may reduce earnings on the account. For full terms and conditions, see laurelroad.com savings. Laurel Road is a brand of key bank member FDIC.

[Paula Pant]

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[Tatiana Kaufman]

What.

[Paula Pant]

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[Tatiana Kaufman]

Because he's a pain in all of our behinds. Gary just, he has a very, very anti crypto stance. So a lot of the things that he's proposed have been anti innovation. So the crux of this whole regulatory debate is whether cryptocurrencies are securities. So there's something called the Howey test, which we apply to see in it. You know, it has to do if you're investing in something with the expectation of profit, that makes it a security. So a stock is a security, a bond is a security, an ETF is a security. Right. You're investing in something with expectation of profit. A lot of these crypto tokens were created. Sure, people gamble on them because they want to create a profit, but their real use behind a lot of these cryptocurrencies is actually not about creating a profit. It's about creating a utility within a network. They're almost like air miles tokens within a closed network that you need to perform a certain function, usually some sort of technical function. And Gary kept trying to regulate them as securities, which means that a lot of the issuances of those tokens would be illegal. A lot of the platforms that allow the buying and selling of those tokens would be operating without a license. It threatened the industry in a really, really big way and the persecuted also a lot of people as a result. So I think there needs to be some regulatory framework, but it needs to be reasonable so that people can participate. I think at the end of the day, the debate that's simmering underneath that's not talked about as much is the ability for retail to make real profit. Right? So we have these accredited investor roles which require you to have a certain amount of wealth to be able to participate in unique and new innovative opportunities. Which leaves regular people who are working really hard for their money and want to invest in also profitable opportunities, they leave them out of in the cold. And cryptocurrency created this new age frontier where they could Come in and they could play with meme coins or they can invest in networks at a much, much earlier stage at a seed or startup level. And they were able to create these like 20x returns and 50x returns. I think it's beautiful that a lot of retail investors got those types of opportunities. Because if you look at that type of investing in the public markets, usually there is a venture capital company, they'll, you know, they'll do A, C, they'll do series A, B, C, D, E, F, G, then they'll go into the public markets at a 20 some billion dollar valuation and then you as a retail investor can invest. Well, how much upside is there at that point? Sometimes stocks still do okay. You know, if you invested in Apple early on 10, 20 years ago, you still would have done okay. But for the most part, by the time these stocks get to the public markets, you're happy with an 8 to 10% return.

[Paula Pant]

Right. And that is because early stage investors, you know, VCs and angel investors do bear a pretty significant amount of risk and many of the projects that they invest in go to zero.

[Tatiana Kaufman]

And so the conversation is, shouldn't we be allowed to choose the risks that we want to bear? Why do I want to be parentified by my government to tell me what I can and cannot invest in? Right. So that's the debate. How much do we protect investors and how much do we coddle them? I think most investors would rather have the opportunity to choose than to not.

[Paula Pant]

Right. If crypto is not regulated as a security, you mentioned earlier that it has a utility value. Would it be regulated? What else would it be regulated as? Would it be more akin to almost. When I think of it, I think of it as analogous to a foreign currency in that, similar to forex investing with a foreign currency. I mean, you're converting US Dollars into an alternate form of currency that lives inside of its own currency ecosystem.

[Tatiana Kaufman]

I think currency is a little bit misleading. It's almost, it's more of a crypto token. Because when you're saying currency, my mind all of a sudden goes to money. Right? And currency is money of a certain country. And so a lot of these things aren't really currencies, they're tokens. And tokens are used for different things. So Bitcoin is regulated, it's regulated by the CFTC as a commodity. Ethereum is not regulated as a security. It's been debated in government quite a bit. Gensler wanted to call it a security. But I think the utility value for Ethereum is Incredibly obvious because there's so many things that are currently being built on Ethereum. So you basically need to buy Ethereum to build on Ethereum and to create and run things on top of Ethereum. So there is a definite utility case for Ethereum. When it comes to other things. There will be a framework that is created. So some of these things are securities. So there's this new category, RWA tokens, which give you profit from real world assets and those should be securities and they should be sold on platforms that have a license because you're buying a piece of a business or a piece of a building or a piece of an asset that generates a profit. Right. So that is a security. But then other things which are more akin to Ethereum, which you need to operate within a network, should be more of a technology token that you need to code and operate on a network. Those things should not be securities. So there will be a new framework created where we will have new subdivisions. And I think under this new administration, it's actually really, really exciting. I think they're talking to the CEO of Coinbase and a lot of really incredible leaders in the space onto how to practically regulate these types of different crypto tokens.

[Paula Pant]

Will we start seeing crypto as a payment method option in more instances of our day to day lives? When we're buying coffee, when we're buying a newspaper or a burger?

[Tatiana Kaufman]

Yeah, so that's a really interesting question. I think personally we're just going to use stablecoins. So it is going to be USD denominated cryptocurrency which is USDC or usdt. And I think other countries will have their own stable coins to denominate for their currency. And it's actually a very, very useful tool for the government in terms of being able to charge taxes and track certain types of transactions and just make the flow of capital much, much more efficient and much more regulated to the extent that it needs to be regulated. However, when it comes to bitcoin, Bitcoin on its own doesn't make sense to buy things like a cup of coffee. It's just too expensive. It makes sense through other alternative layers like the Lightning Network. So if you go to a place like El Salvador for example, which I've written extensively about, they do have a place called Bitcoin beach and they do transact in Bitcoin and they do it on the Lightning Network, which is kind of like a layer two on top of Bitcoin. That makes it cheaper and faster and much more practical. There will be Pockets of the world that will choose to transact that way. I don't know that it's really needed. If you have stablecoins that sit in your digital wallets. If you look at somewhere like China, for example, they basically transact now through a digital stablecoin. So they have the digital Rubini, which is integrated into WeChat and a lot of their wallets and apps. They're basically cashless society now. You can just go and scan. So I see us doing that maybe in a few years, but not necessarily saying, okay, let me go spend my bitcoin on a coffee.

[Paula Pant]

Right, right. I was in China last spring and I was actually shocked by. I was there for two weeks. I did not see a single paper or coin currency at all. Oftentimes when I travel, I like to see. Save a rupee or a bot or, you know, I like to save some of those as, like, souvenirs.

[Tatiana Kaufman]

And those are collectibles now.

[Paula Pant]

Yeah. And in China, I was like, I literally don't know what their currency looks like, having been here for two weeks.

[Tatiana Kaufman]

Yeah.

[Paula Pant]

Everything was completely digitized.

[Tatiana Kaufman]

Isn't it beautiful?

[Paula Pant]

It was. I mean, it. The prospect of losing my phone frightened me because, man, there's no backup.

[Tatiana Kaufman]

You should always have a backup phone. I think it's beautiful. I think it's also kind of scary for people because it's a privacy concern. So if you're transacting digitally with everything, then people can track your transactions. But my view on that is if you have nothing to hide, who cares? Who cares if the government can see where you bought your coffee that day? Like, it really shouldn't matter. People talk about how bitcoin is used for all of these illicit activities, but really it's bags of cash that are used for illicit activities. Most crime takes place with physical cash being dropped off places. And so actually, if you can eliminate the cash out of the system, you can eliminate a lot of crime that way.

[Paula Pant]

Right. But I certainly am sympathetic to. On principle, you want privacy. And certainly there could be times in the future where perhaps you are gay or lesbian in a country where. In a country that has penalties, legal penalties around that. And you might not want somebody knowing that you spent money at a gay bar.

[Tatiana Kaufman]

Yeah. The world is a work in progress. Bitcoin in that sense is the private money in that situation. And I've interviewed a lot of people who've had to run for whatever reason from Lebanon or Ukraine or a lot of these places. And the reason they were able to take any wealth out whatsoever is because they stored some of it in Bitcoin. And in that sense you can just memorize your seed phrase and you can leave. Right. If you can get out versus if you're trying to run with gold bricks or bonds or stocks or transfer something out of your bank account, those things are not feasible. So Bitcoin is free money in that sense.

[Paula Pant]

You said seed phrase. Can you describe what a seed phrase is?

[Tatiana Kaufman]

Sure. So on the network, on the Bitcoin network, you create a wallet. That wallet will have 24 words that will give you access to it. And they're randomly generated and you write them down somewhere. You put them somewhere safe in a safety deposit box, for example. Usually it's recommended that you split it into at least two parts and hide half somewhere and hide half somewhere else. You can also memorize it. And so in situations of war, people have run with it just basically in their head. And then it's also recommended that you have a cold wallet to pair with it that way, day to day. For example, if you have a ledger, you have a pin code on it, and that's much easier to kind of go in and out and transfer things as you need to. And then long term, if you lose your ledger or you know you don't have anything with you, then you have your seed phrase memorized or store it somewhere safely to restore that from the network. But then for your regular daily activities, I would keep that on a hot wallet. So Coinbase has a hot wallet. Metamask is an example of a hot wallet. There's several hot wallets out there. There's lightning network wallets as well. So you can go and scan those for coffee if you're in El Salvador or something like that. So it's almost like there's three levels of security here. One is like, this is my long term wealth. I don't want to touch it. I want it stocked away as far as possible, as safely as possible. That's on your seed phrase. Medium term, I would use a ledger to access that. And then short term, I would keep a certain amount of money on a hot wallet. And that's the least secure, but that's the easiest to transact with.

[Paula Pant]

Right. And when you say ledger for that medium term, you're referring to a cold wallet.

[Tatiana Kaufman]

Yes. So ledger is a brand. It just happens to be what I use. This is not an ad. It just happens to be what I use it. But people use Trezors, there's dozens of different brands. So ledger is one of the ones. Well, I would say ledger And Trezor are the ones that have been around the longest.

[Paula Pant]

Right.

[Tatiana Kaufman]

It's kind of a USB key looking thing, but it's not quite.

[Paula Pant]

Yeah, I have one and I'm terrified of losing it.

[Tatiana Kaufman]

But the thing is, if you lose it, it's okay because if you lose it, as long as you have your seed phrase, you can just open up a brand new one and you can restore that wallet onto a new led.

[Paula Pant]

Right. Can you talk about what has happened? You know, El Salvador formally recognized bitcoin as a legal tender a few years ago. How has that changed the economy there?

[Tatiana Kaufman]

El Salvador is booming. Like they've had so many warnings from the IMF and the World bank that they're going to default on their loans and they're going to collapse. And they, you know, the world gave them all these scare tactics and they're just booming. Like they're buying a bitcoin a day. They've been buying all through the bear market. So their entire treasury is like 3x right now. They repaid all their loans. They created a tax free tech hub in San Salvador that a lot of people are moving to now. I mean, Bukele, I think he just crushed it. He crushed it. And the President of Argentina is looking to do something similar now in terms of his innovative policies there. So I think what you're seeing is a lot of the South America and Central America is now saying, okay, we've been at the mercy of the American dollar system for so long and at the mercy of their economic policy and our Federal Reserve and what we said here. They want to be independent and they want the value of their economy to be attached to something else that's not just America. And so this is a way for them to have an alternative because as history has shown, usually their currencies are not so stable. The Argentinian peso has a very violent history of hyperinflation. Right. And so for them, they said, you know, going back to this unit of account, the peso would have never been the unit of account. Right. Anyone wealthy in Argentina or in El Salvador is counting their money in dollars, not in pesos. So this gives them an alternative to that.

[Paula Pant]

What's happening right now in Dubai? I know you were just there recently.

[Tatiana Kaufman]

Yeah, So I spent most of COVID in Dubai. Very, very fond of the innovation that's taking place there. Very particular place. So they actually recently legalized payments and cryptocurrencies, which is great. They have a very robust framework for exchanges. And it's not just Dubai. Dubai is just A part of the uae. It's UAE more generally. So between Abu Dhabi and Dubai, there's a lot of incredible regulation that's coming out. And you'll see a lot of the companies and exchanges that have moved there. So Binance is now set up there, for example. A lot of people are moving their businesses there because they feel that it's more friendly, especially given how aggressive Gensler has been over here. Right. And that's part of the problem. So we're having an incredible brain drain where not only do we have fairly high taxes in this country, but we now have regulation that's really prohibitive to try new things. And it's not just prohibitive of, like, you might not be able to run your business. It's prohibitive in a way of you can start a business at the risk of ending up in jail. And that's a pretty scary thing for a lot of people. Right. So if they want to build a business in the space, oftentimes they're looking at other places to go to. And so I'm really hopeful that with this new administration will be able to create a workable system and a lot of those companies will come back and the new companies won't have a reason to leave.

[Paula Pant]

I've just asked about Dubai and the UAE more broadly. You mentioned Abu Dhabi, but Saudi Arabia is trying to emerge as a player. What is the scene in Riyadh?

[Tatiana Kaufman]

I haven't been to Riyadh. I have a lot of friends there. So I'm really excited to go and visit some time. Saudi is modernizing. It's really, really incredible to see because even five years ago, when I was talking to my peers, female executives, and they would go there, they would give me horror stories of how they would have to behave or what they have to wear or who they could sit next to and things like that. And so it's really, really becoming a much more modern place. They're building tech cities. The alcohol restrictions are becoming looser. Women can start to wear more modern clothing and drive and do all these things. Right. If you look at Dubai, Dubai has created an interesting blueprint. Dubai, Abu Dhabi. Abu Dhabi is this kind of demure, classy place. It's modern as in the women are allowed to do anything that they to do, but it's demure. Right. So cover your shoulders. And when you're in a mall kind of thing, Dubai is not demure.

[Paula Pant]

You know, Dubai is like the Thailand.

[Tatiana Kaufman]

Yeah. Dubai is like Vegas of the Middle east is what I called it in my book. So you know, girls walking on the street with bikinis, beach girl ups galore, quite the nightlife. So if you want that experience, you can go to Dubai, but I think Abu Dhabi is still a place where, you know, I can go, dress like myself, go for a nice dinner. I'm just like a little bit mindful of like, maybe I'll throw a shoal over my shoulders or something like that. Which to me I think is like a very culturally reasonable request when you're in a foreign country to be respectful of where you are. So I think Saudi is heading hopefully in that Abu Dhabi direction. You know, we don't need it to be heading in the Dubai direction, but in the Abu Dhabi direction where I as a foreign woman can come and have a business meeting and feel comfortable.

[Paula Pant]

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[Tatiana Kaufman]

So I took a little tour of Africa over the last few years. It's been really interesting to see. So I would say Nigeria is the hungriest for this type of innovation. And the reason why is because they really don't have a stable banking system or a stable currency. But unfortunately there's also a really thick layer of corruption there. It's been really hard for companies to innovate and build in Nigeria, even though the market is hungry for it. A lot of times the young people will come to more of the decentralized marketplaces. So they'll trade on DEXs through DeFi, and we can talk more about that later. But you know, places where they can show up anonymously and participate in crypto economies. And for them, it's. It's a lifeline for many of them. It's a way for them to participate in the global marketplace in a way that they couldn't before, because those people, they don't have access to the American stock markets. Like we said earlier, the returns in the stock market aren't always that great versus in crypto they can start with a very small amount of money. Sometimes they can start with no money because a lot of networks out there will give you airdrops, which is if you're coming on and you're testing something and you're an early adopter, you'll get kind of a gift of a few tokens here and there. And so they'll start with nothing. Then they'll accumulate all these gift tokens and they'll trade them into something Then they'll trade them into something else. And lo and behold, they're really talented ones, have been able to trade nothing to a million dollars, you know, or millions of dollars. So for people that, you know, they don't have a lot of opportunity domestically, this is a way for them to engage globally, especially for those that are brilliant and talented. And that's really wonderful to see. Kenya has had a more moderate approach. Kenya has a lot of regulation left from colonial times, from when it was under Britain. It has a bit more of a stable system. It's still in Africa, so it still has certain growth aspects to it. However, they have mobile money so they don't have as much of a need for day to day stable transactions. They have M Pesa for that. But they're innovating and trying to integrate money in other ways. Ethiopia is a really interesting place. Cardano does a lot of work in Ethiopia. Cardano is one of the big players in the cryptocurrency space and they are actually finding ways for people to make everyday payments in Cardano for things like utilities, which is really neat to see. South Africa has been looking into crypto as well. I'm unsure what the latest is there, but when I was there maybe four or five years ago, I know the presidential family was very, very involved in the innovation there. And they were throwing conferences and inviting global leaders in the space to come and speak and find ways to innovate in the country. So again, I think Africa also doesn't want to be beholden to the U.S. and to our currency. So they want to find a different way to engage with the world economically over the last few years in particular, unfortunately, Africa is parts of it are siding with China and Russia because of all of these economic sanctions. So you have brics, which is meant to be an alternative alliance to what we have here as an economic union. And they're talking about creating their own currency. That's unlikely to happen.

[Paula Pant]

Yeah, yeah, I've been reading about that. They're trying to build their own payment rails to create some type of an alternative currency that they're hoping will be the world's new reserve currency, or at least an alternative reserve currency.

[Tatiana Kaufman]

Creating a stable currency is really, really hard. I think people just assume that money is fine everywhere and it's just not creating something that's stable, that doesn't hyper inflate away. It's just incredibly difficult. And so history has shown that unless you back your currency by something like gold, your currency will inflate at various rates. So the Currency in America also inflates, but we're trying to keep that to a moderate amount. Although the last two years have been not great for inflation in America. I think we're reporting at 3% now or somewhere in that 2.6 as of October. Do you feel that it's 2.6 when you go to the grocery store, do you feel that it's 2.6 when you look at the real estate prices, do you feel like it's 2.6 when you look at the rest of your monthly bills? Because I feel like it's much higher than 2.6.

[Paula Pant]

Well, 2.6 is the current rate, but so if you're driving a vehicle down the road, right, that vehicle was accelerated at 60 miles per hour. Now the vehicle is accelerating at 20 miles per hour. The vehicle has still traveled down the road. So the inflation rate, which is the rate at which that vehicle is traveling is 2.6. The prices are higher because in previous years, you know, in 2022 and 2023, the inflation rate was higher and those prices are fixed because we don't live in a deflationary environment.

[Tatiana Kaufman]

That's a really great explainer. I still don't think it's 2.6. Even if you're just looking at inflation growth, I don't think it's 2.6. And the way they calculate inflation, a lot of times they'll take out things that are incred high because they'll consider that an outlier. But it'll be things that really move the needle for people, you know, like the price of food. So when you take out certain items out of the basket from there, you're not giving people a full calculation.

[Paula Pant]

But both core CPI as well as you're talking about the difference between core cpi, which strips out food and fuel, versus more broad cpi. But when you look at all of the indicators, cpi, core cpi, ppi, when you look at that whole basket of indicators, we do have a low inflation rate.

[Tatiana Kaufman]

I just don't think it's true. I don't think that the reporting that we're getting in terms of CPI and core CPI and ppi, I don't think those numbers are accurate. And I think most Americans would agree. If you look at where prices were in 2020 and the inflation rates that have been reported since 2020, and you add those up, where we're at, price wise, is much higher. Most people feel like their shelter costs, their food costs, their transportation costs have gone anywhere from 30 to 40%.

[Paula Pant]

Certainly there is a feeling which is subjective Sentiment, But I mean a major allegation like they're misreporting the data needs to be backed by something.

[Tatiana Kaufman]

Yeah. I think when you look at the price of groceries, when you look at the price of rent, when you look at the price of fuel and then you're looking at what the CPI comes back at, it does not feel aligned.

[Paula Pant]

It doesn't feel. But what do you have to back that?

[Tatiana Kaufman]

Sure. I don't have the numbers to back that for you right now.

[Paula Pant]

Yeah. Unless there's some type of evidence. There is no evidence to back that the inflation rate is different than what has been reported.

[Tatiana Kaufman]

I would gander to think that over the next couple of years as we start cleaning house in a lot of ways with this new administration and clearing up a lot of the bureaucracy and auditing a lot of the work that's been done over the last four years, we're going to see different reports for different things.

[Paula Pant]

If evidence comes up, I'm happy to look at it. But there is none as of right now that I'm aware of. But go on. You were talking about brics trying to create a new fiat currency, a new payment rail system that would be some alternative to using the US dollar as a global standard.

[Tatiana Kaufman]

Yeah. So the likelihood of them issuing a new currency that's actually going to be sustainable and do well is slim to none.

[Paula Pant]

Exactly. Yeah.

[Tatiana Kaufman]

So I don't think that's the threat. I think the threat is them figuring out how to trade completely outside of the Western hemisphere because obviously we benefit from that business as well.

[Paula Pant]

And so is Africa then accelerating its adoption of cryptocurrency. Is the objective to get away from the US dollar or is that a side effect?

[Tatiana Kaufman]

The objective is to get out of the US dollar and also just out of the influence of America as the leading superpower. And I think America has sort of walked into that one right. With the sanctions against Russia and then Russia turned to China and now Trump also, he wants to tighten trade with China and bring a lot of that, the manufacturing home. And you know, as you said, there's economic reason for that. But I think the more we do these things, the more it becomes clear to the other side that they need to be more self reliant and create their own alliances, which is what they're trying to do.

[Paula Pant]

Do you think that the US dollar will continue to be the world's reserve currency?

[Tatiana Kaufman]

I think it will continue to be the world's superior currency. It'll be the best out of the choices that we have for the Foreseeable future reserve currency? I don't know. I think if Bitcoin delivers in the way that we expect it to deliver, if it starts being an asset held in global Treasuries, if we do put it into the US reserves, if other countries start to adopt it, then I foresee a future. In the next 10 to 20 years, Bitcoin could be the world's reserve currency. And by the way, it's really hard to sit here and say I hope this happens or I hope this doesn't happen because as someone living in the U.S. i want us to have the dollar as the reserve currency because it gives us so many benefits globally, so many economic benefits. But it's difficult to continue to imagine for that to be the case down the road.

[Paula Pant]

Many people were scared off of cryptocurrency with the collapse of ftx. There were sort of three parts to that saga. So there was the collapse of ftx. Prior to that there was three arrows capital, and prior to that there was, remind me, there was Luna. Luna, can you explain what happened? Like that three part trilogy.

[Tatiana Kaufman]

Yeah. So Luna was one of these innovative networks that was created. And Luna created an algorithmic stablecoin. Most stablecoins like I talked about, USDC and USDT are backed one to one by the dollar. There is another sort of sect of these stablecoins that are meant to act like the dollar, but they're not actually backed by the dollar. They're usually backed by a basket of things. Could be the dollar, bitcoin, a few other currencies, and then there's a rebalancing algorithm that happens to kind of prop them up. What ended up happening is someone took a really, really big short on Luna. There was two tokens. There was the actual Luna stablecoin and then there was Luna, the governance token. And the two of them had to stay in perfect balance. And so someone took a really, really big short on the governance token and then collapsed it. And basically the stablecoin got out of whack and then the stablecoin collapsed. And they were trying to back it up as quickly as they could, but basically the thing didn't survive. And so the algorithm got battle tested and it failed. Why this was particularly significant was because of how much capital was locked up. I think between the two coins there was over $30 billion locked up. And there was a bit of a domino effect because if you staked the ust, which was their stablecoin, you could earn a very high yield up to like 26% on their platform on anchor. And so a lot of funds put money into this protocol to earn that yield for their investors. And then some of these funds went a step further and they would actually borrow money from places like Gemini. Gemini Earn got caught up in this. So Gemini Earn would promise, say, an 8% yield to their investors. They would take the money that people put in and they would lend it to Genesis and Genesis would give them a spread on that. And then Genesis would turn around and give that money to Three Arrows Capital. And then Three Arrows Capital would put it into Anchor and earn 26%. So everyone got paid a nice little spread on billions of dollars until the thing underneath it became worth zero. And so one by one, these companies started to collapse. FTX also had a large holding of Luna and these related assets. And so FTX also had a hole all of a sudden that they didn't expect to have. But FTX actually had a lot of other problems, so. And actually, Sam Bankman fried, I have known a little bit personally, and not to excuse anything that he did, but I think he got an incredibly raw deal and he's on appeal now. And hopefully they'll give him a more reasonable sentence because I don't think that he deserves to be in prison for life for what he did. Basically what happened with FTX was they had a hedge fund and a VC fund called Alameda, and Alameda was investing in all kinds of things. Then they said, okay, well, we're trading a bunch of money in Alameda. All of these exchanges aren't that great. Why don't we just build our own? Because we're so good at what we do. And so they created this like, pet project, which wasn't supposed to be a big thing. It was supposed to be a pet project for them to trade their own capital called ftx. And then FTX ended up being the best exchange we as traders have ever seen. You know, I run a hedge fund and we trade 24 7. That was the best exchange, a crypto exchange we have ever seen, or really any kind of exchange, it was, it was an incredible exchange and it was an incredibly profitable business. And so he set up a new company for ftx. Then when people started putting money on FTX and trading on it or just using it as kind of a digital bank, in a lot of cases, they just assumed that it was perfectly safe because of how well it was backed by celebrities and politicians. Sam did a really great job at donating money to all the right places and paying for the right endorsements. And then in the back, you know, call it, I don't know, youthful mismanagement. You know, there's a debate as to how malicious all of this actually was. He basically took the money out of FTX and gave it to Alameda to make investments, which is fraud, right? That is blanket fraud. So he took money out of one pile, put it in another, didn't report it properly, didn't disclose it to investors, then he took that money and he invested in a bunch of companies. But here's where it gets really interesting. He invested that money really, really well. So in the bankruptcy proceeding, now we are like two years after the fact of this collapse, and now the bankruptcy proceeding is nearly complete. Everyone's getting paid back what they put in. So they're making everyone whole, at least in dollar terms, maybe not in Bitcoin terms, but at least in dollar terms, everyone's going to get their money back. And so now we have this kid who is in prison for life for this mistake that he made that was essentially a victimless crime where a lot of people are getting their money back. So hopefully, now that he goes on appeal, he'll be able to get a different type of sentencing that's a little bit more fair to this crime.

[Paula Pant]

I've heard people argue, though, that given that they're not being made whole in Bitcoin terms, had that money remained in Bitcoin at the time in which they invested it, they would have made significant gains in these interim years, and so they've missed out on those gains.

[Tatiana Kaufman]

It's a fair argument, however, and most times in bankruptcy proceedings, people don't get paid 100 cents on the dollar, even in dollar terms. So I think that this is an incredible outcome for investors. And I will say that those investors that really, really wanted to get out a year ago, before the Bitcoin run, had the opportunity to do so. So you could have sold your claim in as much as 75 cents on the dollar during those times and reinvested it back. So there were opportunities for people who foresaw this run and wanted to take advantage of it, to not miss on all of it.

[Paula Pant]

For the average person who is thinking about putting a portion of their portfolio into cryptocurrency, but they're scared off by the FTX collapse and they're scared off by what we know is a, a recent history of major fraud in this space, how can the average ordinary investor develop that confidence?

[Tatiana Kaufman]

I think Coinbase is an amazing company. They're very well regulated, very well protected. Brian Armstrong has done an incredible job leading that chip. People have been hacked because they're not careful with their passwords. So I will say that as a caution. If someone calls you and says, oh, we're from Coinbase, we just sent you a verification code, can you tell us what it is they're probably trying to hack? You don't respond to that phone call. Generally, Coinbase itself has not been hacked. Coinbase is also the vault provider for a lot of the ETFs that we have in the space, so they are considered to be a good enough fortress for Wall street and BlackRock. So I think if you want to keep your Bitcoin on Coinbase, provided you set up your security and your double and triple authentication on it correctly, you should be okay. You also have the alternative of just buying a Bitcoin ETF in your Roth IRA or something like that. If you want to play coins and you really want to go and do the whole meme coin thing and the Altcoin thing, you can do some of it on Coinbase, or you can do it on some of these decentralized wallets like the one by Coinbase or Metamask or there's a few other providers, Fantom for Solana. There's a whole slew of them, depending on the ecosystem you want to play.

[Paula Pant]

Speaking of which, what is a coin?

[Tatiana Kaufman]

A S coin is a small cap coin that doesn't have any inherent value. A concept that I'm really fascinated about this cycle is nihilism. And I think it has to do a lot with this inflation conversation that you and I just had that we are at a small disagreement over. But I think a lot of people feel like they're really, really struggling. And so 500 bucks to them in the savings account does nothing. Even if they invest it, it does nothing. But if they gamble it and they gamble it, well, it could change their life. 500 bucks can be the start of something really, really beautiful, especially in the coin space. And it's no different than how people used to go to the casino back in the day or bet on racetracks or all that kind of stuff. So because it's become inherently so much more difficult to save and to invest the traditional way, people have turned to gambling and they gamble on coins. The hot coins this cycle are meme coins. The idea here is that you create some sort of a brand, you know, so Doge, for example, is one of the most famous meme coins. The brand is a Shiba Inu. And then there's the derivative of that, which is Shiba inu, which was created by on top of Ethereum. We invested recently in a coin in our very, very professional hedge fund. We invested in a Solana meme coin called Department of Government Efficiency, which boomed as soon as Trump won the election. And the announcement that Elon was going to run this new efficiency coalition took over. So it's just a way for you to get behind brands that you like. But in that sense, it's no different than saying, okay, I'm going to go buy a Supreme t shirt for 500 bucks over what it's worth because I like the brand. So it's kind of like that. You get behind a brand and then the price of it goes up and then people sell it when they feel like they want to sell it. Not meant to be serious, you know?

[Paula Pant]

Yeah, it's the fun gambling. The Vegas gambling.

[Tatiana Kaufman]

Yeah, yeah. And I think that's important to say, like, this is not meant to be serious. You're not supposed to use real life changing money on this. You're not supposed to like gamble your college fund or your retirement on it. This is just a fun thing. So take them out that you would take to a casino and have fun with it. And if you win, congratulations. Yeah.

[Paula Pant]

So meme coins. And coins are sort of the fun Vegas casino gambling side of it. But for ordinary investors who are looking for practical investing advice, what would you say?

[Tatiana Kaufman]

So I think, number one, make sure you have exposure to the Bitcoin asset class. Whether it's Bitcoin in cold storage or on Coinbase or through an ETF. There's alternatives that you can also invest through, like MicroStrategy, although it's much more volatile, so I would expect maybe 3x volatility on MicroStrategy than I would on regular Bitcoin. So keep that in mind when you're investing. But you must have some exposure as your retirement, as your long term savings account. And there's ways to automate this where you can send $500 a month from your bank account automatically to Coinbase on a lot of these platforms. And then I would set aside a small amount of capital and come and play in the alternative asset space and see what you like. There's a lot of innovation that's taken place from decentralized infrastructure and finance to AI, and it's all happening in this new financial sphere. And so there's a lot of incredible upside, both if you're playing these assets in the traditional space and in the decentralized space.

[Paula Pant]

Excellent. Well, thank you. Where can people find you if they'd like to know more about you and your work.

[Tatiana Kaufman]

Sure. So my Twitter and Instagram is atianacaufman. I also have a weekly newsletter called Myth of Money and that's on my website, mythofmoney.com you can subscribe there. And it's a substack that comes out every Sunday and I give you a quick market recap and some investing tips.

[Paula Pant]

Great. Thank you so much.

[Tatiana Kaufman]

Thank you.

[Paula Pant]

Thank you, Tatiana. We covered a lot of ground today, from big picture developments like Bitcoin ETFs and El Salvador's experience with cryptocurrency to more practical considerations about how regular investors might approach this space. One thing that absolutely fascinates me are Tatiana's insights about how different regions are approaching cryptocurrency. We talked about Dubai's emergence as a crypto hub. We talked about Africa's potential as the next frontier for adoption. We talked about how various developing economies are using crypto to reduce their dependence on the US Dollar. She and I are both in absolute agreement that the BRICS countries are not going to be able to develop a cross payment system. She and I both agree that the probability of that actually happening is very, very, very slim. And now the latest news as of yesterday is that President Elect Trump is threatening to impose 100% tariffs on the BRICS countries if they continue their attempts to develop this alternative cross payment rail system, which I think even further reduces the likelihood that the BRICS will be successful in doing so or will even want to continue doing so. So it's an enormously fascinating space. I really appreciate Tatiana's frankness in distinguishing between serious investments versus the meme coins, which she describes as essentially gambling money. And it was also really interesting to get an insider's perspective on the FTX collapse, which I think helps give that saga more context. And although we did disagree about inflation data, I think that that exchange highlighted something important which is the gap between economic data and lived experience. That gap is something that we need to discuss openly while also maintaining our commitment to evidence based analysis and first principles thinking. I loved this discussion. I hope you got a lot out of it. Please find me on Instagram, send me a dm, let me know what you thought, or leave a comment under any of my recent Insta posts. I'm there. Paulapant P A U L A P A N T. You can also find Tatiana on Instagram or LinkedIn or X and her book is the Myth of Money. The links are in the show Notes. Thank you so much for tuning in. My name is Paula Pant. This is the Afford Anything podcast, and I'll meet you in the next episode.