← CRYPTO 101
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- [00:00]
Bryce
Foreign, everybody. Welcome back to another episode of the Crypto 101 podcast. We've been putting the industry on our backs and our shoulders recently. I think Brennan was carrying too heavy a load recently with all the work he's been putting in here. Brennan, we're happy to have you back off some, some double shoulder surgery. How are you feeling after a kind of a crazy week for yourself? Glad to have you here.
- [00:34]
Brennan
I'm making it through it. I'm making it through. That was my, my first experience with something like that. And I have to say it has encouraged me to never do something silly in the gym again. And that's what I did. It's kind of like when you're crypto trading and you get a little bit too hot handed because you're winning too many trades and then you get over levered because you get so confident and then you get burned by it for the first time and you're like, don't think I'm going to do that again. I'm going to be a little bit more careful. Well, the same situation over here and.
- [01:02]
Bryce
It really reminds us to focus on the fundamentals, focus on the things that are long lasting, things that aren't, you know, whatever. Get rich quick or get strong quick. But the slow and steady innovations, the slow and steady wins. And we've got a great guest on the show. Not to talk about her weightlifting regimen, but really the backbone of this industry is policy in regulation and regulatory clarity. Stuff that we haven't had in this industry since the beginning of the industry, whatever it was, you know, 15, 16 years ago. So I'm so excited for this episode with the chief policy officer of Hedera Nilmani Rubin. Welcome to the Crypto 101 podcast. And how are you doing today?
- [01:42]
Nilmani Rubin
I'm doing great. Thank you so much for having me.
- [01:46]
Bryce
You are very, very welcome. And we've got a lot to do, so we just want to jump in before we get into policy. And really, again, we had a guest the other week said for every line of policy that's written or removed in, you know, in the industry, it, it adds or subtracts like a billion dollars of market cap. So the thing that this hedge fund manager pays attention to most is policy. And so, you know, you're here, you're going to be talking to us, but you've got an extensive background. You didn't just kind of come up overnight in the crypto world. You've worked and advised in D.C. for a long time. So give us a little Bit of your background before we dive into crypto specific stuff.
- [02:22]
Nilmani Rubin
Well, thanks for asking. I am a DC rat. I came to DC from Palo Alto in 1999. Thought I'd be here for a couple years and it's been 26. And between that time I worked at the Treasury Department. I worked at the White House eight years when this in the Senate, four years in the House of Representatives. I was a lobbyist, I worked in industry. So I've kind of done all of the different pieces of policy in D.C. that add up to crypto policy, because I did global policy, because everything crypto is global tech policy, which we are an emerging tech. And I did finance, which is really what connects us. It's kind of the financial space space, the global fintech space. So between all of those parts, I had, I had like, kind of like what was like the natural lead into crypto policy. And I'm really happy to be here, especially now, because we are like literally in the green field of crypto policy. And it's ridiculously fun.
- [03:31]
Bryce
I want to, I want to jump straight into that. So, like, we've had, like I said, you know, a policy backdrop that has been horrifying for the industry because there has been no policy. It's kind of been the Wild West. Everybody's like, do we do it in America? Do we not? And the kind of the, the de facto answer for a lot of people was we're just not going to test the waters in America. We're going to go to some of these other smaller, you know, international jurisdictions that do have some clear policy frameworks and we're going to go there. So our lack of policy has really driven innovation in crypto offshore, and it's something that the current administration has noticed and really trying to make amends for. But you say, we're here, we've got these green fields, this blank space. What are those sort of main pillars that we're missing that we need?
- [04:18]
Nilmani Rubin
Well, you're totally right about people moving abroad and thinking abroad. I was on a call this morning with someone in Hong Kong and who was saying people are actually thinking about what to do now in the US they were, they were calling them constantly to figure out how to, how to launch in Hong Kong. And they're like now thinking about the US because these pillars are being established in the US and that is a clear legislative and regulatory framework. Because as you mentioned, we have this wild West. People were kind of doing what they needed to do. And you had a sheriff in the previous administration that was Kind of making up rules as they go, and we just didn't know how to comply. So now you have an administration that's clearly stated that they are focused on fraud and continue fraud, and they want to see the established, legitimate industry innovate and thrive. President Trump has said that he wants the United States to be the AI and crypto capital of the world. And, and they're through what they can, through the administration, have made it clear that they want to engage with industry. So you have the SEC doing a task force that's engaging. You have the CFTC also engaging. You have treasury talking to industry. It's just radically different. But then the part that's super exciting, especially someone who had spent time on the Hill, is this movement towards legislation, because legislation is the continuity of government. You have a law, you know what it will be, it won't change in four years. I mean, it's harder to change unless the legislatures do somehow change the law. But it's just, it's more stable than executive orders in the administration. And now we have bills that are moving. You have the stablecoin bill moving through the Senate. And then very excitingly, we have the Digital Asset Market Digital Asset Market Clarity act that was introduced on May 28, HR 3633.
- [06:36]
Bryce
She doesn't have notes, by the way, for people who are just watching this. This is all off the top of her head. If you're not watching us on YouTube, if you're not, we advise you to go to. She's got a great smile, too.
- [06:47]
Nilmani Rubin
And so you have this bill moving forward. And it was a bill that they wrote that they shared with the public for comment that they've now introduced. They're having hearings this week on the bill. Both House Financial Services and House AG are doing hearings on the bill, really bringing out the text. So it is like a fully consultative, transparent process. And it is massively exciting because it could put us back in a competitive landscape with the rest of the world.
- [07:22]
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- [10:17]
Bryce
What does that policy process look like? I mean, you guys are working behind the scenes. And I know, like, people think Schoolhouse Rock, right? They're like, oh, how a bill becomes a law. And there's this little, you know, it goes from the House, it goes to the Senate, then it goes to the president's desk and he could veto it. But behind the scenes, there's folks like you, I think, again, I'm not calling you this. You called it yourself, a D.C. rat. Somebody who's just in there looking around, lobbying, talking to the senators, talking to the congressmen, you know, piecing things together. But, like, tell us a little bit about how the sausage is made so that, like, how do these things actually get to be voted on the inside baseball? The inside baseball. That's why we have you on the very coveted Crypto101 spot, the flagship here.
- [11:02]
Nilmani Rubin
So the advantage we all had in 2025 is there had been a bill before. There was the fit 21 act that had been moved through the House in the last Congress. And so anyone who cared about digital assets has that bill and has markups like, what do they like about the bill? What do they don't like about the bill and why? And they would talk to the people who are working on the bill about what they would want to say changed in the new version that was going to come out in 2025 that just came out. And, and that was the starting point. And so we, a lot of people were kind of flying blind this first half of this year because we didn't have the exact text that staff was working on, but we did at least have this reference piece. So people would talk to the staff that care, you know, were driving the legislation, but also talking to members of the committee who maybe didn't have a strong hand but would be able to influence the bill. And then talking to members. This was really important, talking to members that had concerns about fit 21 and really understanding, like, what were your concerns? How can we address it in this new bill? What might work for everyone? Because the goal for everybody is to get a bill that can get passed into law. And, and in order to do that, you need to, you build support in the House. But then when it goes over to the Senate build support. And different members have different concerns and different. And it's not always aligned to party allegiance. It's like, it's literally like different individuals have different concerns and really understanding that. So there was a lot of that going on. And then with, with educational groups, people in the last six months have been doing, you know, just general education. Like, I mean your, your podcast name is perfect. Crypto101. But really like 101 sessions on the Hill, really trying to like teach staff about the industry in a way that was accessible. Because the problem with crypto is that we made up our whole language and then we complained that people don't understand. So like really like speaking to them code switching into like the English that normal people use and making sure that people understood what, what we wanted and why. And, and at least from a Hedera perspective, because we're were naturally global, really sharing what's happening in the rest of the world and why they're choosing these different approaches to make sure that the US was on the level. Us on a level playing field.
- [13:49]
Brennan
Yeah. You know, I'm curious to hear your experience in how you've seen sentiment shift so rapidly because it almost seems like a fever dream with how much federal and state level support the crypto industry has gotten now. Because you think back a couple of years ago and there might have been a few people who owned a lot of bitcoin or a lot of altcoins here and there, and they were big advocates of it. But now it seems like, I mean, we're getting support from everywhere, from every level of government. We're getting it in the House and the Senate, we're getting it in the White House. At a state level, we're getting crypto reserves and tax cuts. And like, what has that been like to just see that unravel right before your eyes?
- [14:34]
Nilmani Rubin
I definitely have whiplash because I started a Hedera in August 2022 and things were really good on policy. Like it was. Everyone was interested in our industry and then FTX and it was like, boom. And then, you know, it was. We were the pariahs of policy. And yes, now it's great that we're back. There's definitely like stronger support. However, it is not all like unicorns, fairy dust. There's definitely people with real concerns about the industry and wanting to see robust regulation and then kind of emerging concerns around meme coins that we need to be thoughtful in how we address. So it's definitely not all going to be easy, but it's certainly better it's certainly a lot, lot better.
- [15:49]
Brennan
You know, the reason that I asked that is because I'm curious, you know, does this feel authentic to you, or is this something that might just be a facade? Like, is this all going to shift under a new administration and potentially four years, or is this different kinds of politicians that are actually genuine in what they believe for the crypto space?
- [16:13]
Nilmani Rubin
I think it definitely could change if there was a new administration, because so much that's come out has been executive order and direction from the administration because there's been like a massive amount of flexibility. So that's definitely something to be aware of. And I think that's why there's so much enthusiasm about the legislation, because we know we really need to nail this down. I do notice in talking to new members of Congress that there is definitely an openness that there wasn't with some of the members that retired.
- [16:48]
Bryce
Okay.
- [16:49]
Nilmani Rubin
And maybe that's just like a basic understanding of technology. Some people have argued that it's just generational. You know, there's, there's definitely a generational change in acceptance of crypto, but I, I don't, I don't think it's fake. Like, I think that it's like really, people have taken time to understand this new thing, and that is really, really good for us. When you see like the hearings, you'll see that, like, not every single member is won over, you know, when we see the hearings this week. So in a way that's good that it's taking people a while to move and they're moving with facts and that's good.
- [17:42]
Bryce
It's like sometimes those trends that maybe take a little longer to unfold, they're actually real substantive trends because they're, they're really grokking this new asset class and this new technology, this new sort of security layer of the Internet. Like, there's so many things that are packed into blockchain and crypto that have applications across every field, whether it's medical, financial, voting, even you could put votes on the blockchain. I mean, there's, there's so many different implications for this. Having sort of, you know, a trustless, you know, ledger that could keep account of pretty much anything. And so I want to zoom in on, on how Hedera is really attacking this industry because we've in the past, we've spoken to Mance Harmon, we've spoken to Lehman Baird, these are two of the co founders and leaders of Hedera, who built out Hashgraph and all such great things. And we're great. Greatly appreciative that we get to round out the Hedera ecosystem with their, you know, global chief of policy. And, and we want to know what are you focused on? Like, where does Hedera come in? Because I know Hedera just there was a company called Canary Capital that announced they want to launch a Hedera or hbar etf. I know there's a, the proof of stake consensus mechanism that you guys utilize. So where are you really focused on to make sure that Hedera's interests are protected and propagated?
- [19:03]
Nilmani Rubin
I have two tiers.
- [19:04]
Bryce
Perfect.
- [19:06]
Nilmani Rubin
One is minimizing risk to the network and then the second is regulatory change that enables the network to thrive. So one's defensive and one is offensive. We have a very small policy team. It is just two of us. It's myself and my colleague Isadora Arredondo, who's based in Zurich. And, and so we have to ruthlessly prioritize and we want to do work everywhere, but we cannot. So this year I'm painfully saying no to travel and I'm really focusing in on the US and she's spending a lot of time on the us, the UK and eu. We would like to be doing more in the Middle east and Asia where, in Australia, where rules are being developed right now. But we, we try to, to keep a side eye on that through a bunch of trade associations and some of consultants. And in the us, we also, in Europe, we also consultants. So we are, when we think about like what is like the biggest risk, we think about like, what do we need to do to protect our, our framework, which is unique. Like, one of the things about Hedera that's really special is that we have a governing council of up to 39 established entities. And we want to make sure that that's not misinterpreted as control because they are, they are not controlled by each other. They're all making decisions by themselves. You know, because we have members like Google and IBM and London School of Economics. They have their own interests. So it is a stable. But sometimes people get confused with that. Our nodes are permissioned nodes because our council members are responsible for running them. And we actually, that gives us a level of decentralization that's really special because it's run by different industries and they're in different geographic locations. And some people would say, oh well, that's not good because it's permissioned, but it's actually a strength because we know where our nodes are. We're not sometimes with Permissionless nodes that are decentralized, they actually might be clustered by 1nd or in one location, but you just don't know because they're permissionless. But we know Rs are spread and they're running by unique things. So for us it's really ensuring that our, our model is taken into account in the different emerging regulations. The other piece of it is, you know, you touched on it that this is beyond just financial. Right. There's a lot of real world applications and so we spend a lot of time talking to regulators to ensure that it's not. DLT and crypto are not just looked through through a financial lens that you don't want to inadvertently block out. Use cases like tokenization of data that goes into an AI, those are really, really important and, and sometimes based on who's making what rule, people forget that there are these non financial use cases. And then on the kind of the positive side or the proactive side is we spend a lot of time in coordination with our marketing team on education, whether that's through events or thought leadership pieces. We just did a piece on decentralization through OMFIF and a piece on interoperability in DeFi through the world Economic Forum. So really kind of messaging in a way that both people in business and in policy can grasp the potential and understand what policies that they have control over that they can adjust to ensure kind of a wide range of solutions going forward.
- [23:23]
Brennan
I think one of the cool things about the crypto space is that it is global in nature and that's how it was intended to be. And you know, one of the things about Hedera, you know, for the listeners out there, if you aren't familiar, you know, Hedera is a global network and you all are actively involved in what I believe is pronounced the, the MICA Crypto alliance and the Global Blockchain Business Council as well. And so you deal with crypto on a very global scale and you all are self aware, like you want to be a part of this. What has been the single I guess latest cross border challenge that's at the top of your mind right now or the single biggest.
- [24:01]
Nilmani Rubin
Yeah, the biggest challenge right now is I think is the over glorification of permissionless.
- [24:10]
Brennan
What do you mean by that?
- [24:12]
Nilmani Rubin
That people think oh well, permission or you know, that you have some people promoting the idea that permissionless is the only way to have a decentralized network network. And we, we want to make sure that people understand that there's, there's nuances to it, our network is permissionless in that anyone can build on it. Yeah, it's just not permissionless in terms of who, who can run a node.
- [24:41]
Bryce
And who could be the validator.
- [24:43]
Nilmani Rubin
Yeah. And we had, we have trusted entities being those validators. And so we've, we're spending a lot of time educating people about how like a system of decentralized permissioned nodes can be more robust than just a pure permissionless network. Because we have this breath and. Yeah, and I think that just, it's like a knee jerk. The word permissionless sounds like nice. You know, anyone can do whatever they want.
- [25:17]
Bryce
Indifferent.
- [25:18]
Nilmani Rubin
Yeah, it sounds amazing different. But if you think about it, permissionless means like it literally could be clustered. It could be run by like a couple people because no one needed permission to run it. And it could be in, in a country that's considered, you know, a national security threat or a, you know, a bad actor.
- [25:37]
Bryce
We saw this with, with China, right? I mean they, they cornered like over 50% of the Bitcoin mining market. And it wasn't necessarily like just China as a state level actor, but it was like all of these entities in China. Then you sort of back out and you realize, all right, well, if you're a company operating in China, China basically owns you. And so it was kind of like an issue. And like we see like kind of the opposite with, with Hedera, which is interesting is like, you know, you have all of these different competing interests that are also running a validator. And so, you know, there's, there's no collusion going on sort of between all of these validators, which is always the risk because if they were colluding, it would go kind of against that game theoretic sort of outcome where it's like, well, you're not going to be colluding with your, your direct competitor, but what if we all, as direct competitors come to the, the playing field? We all have the, the rules of the game. We all sort of operate by this and they're, you know, you have a level of, you know, permissioned entry to that, but also decentralization. So, you know, that's, it's, it's, it's heady stuff and like getting Lehman or Mance on here to talk about like how they, how they architected this just blew my mind. But it's, it's really cool to see just the continued growth, the continued applications that are growing on here. But I want to, I want to hone into to some of the stuff coming out of the sec. I think it was. It might have been last week or the weekend before. There was kind of. It flew under the radar. But like they. The SEC started talking about staking in the ETFs and how potentially there, there could be a path forward for that. Have you. Are you privy to any of the discussions going on with staking and the sec?
- [27:19]
Nilmani Rubin
We haven't been working with them on staking. I will say though, we are in the final hours of working on our RFI response. So what is that?
- [27:31]
Bryce
Your what?
- [27:32]
Nilmani Rubin
Hester Pierce, who is a commissioner at the sec, had written a blog, how do we Where Do We Go From Here? And in it she had a long series of questions that she asked for response from the public and we have worked on our response and plan to submit that in the next couple days.
- [27:56]
Bryce
Is that going to be public? Is that going to be some. Oh, awesome. We'll definitely keep our notifications on.
- [28:01]
Nilmani Rubin
So companies have an. Or not just companies. Anyone has the option to either submit it publicly or submit it privately just to staff and we're going to choose the public group.
- [28:14]
Bryce
Awesome. It seems like that's also kind of a lot. You know, that spirit kind of trickles throughout Hedera. I know there was a recent article where you donated some level of software to the Linux Foundation. Was it the entire code base or kind of. What was that move?
- [28:32]
Nilmani Rubin
Yeah, we transferred our code base to the HERO project at the Linux foundation and that enables Hedera to be open source going forward.
- [28:42]
Bryce
Wow, that's pretty cool. What went into that decision? Was it? Yeah, what went into that decision?
- [28:48]
Nilmani Rubin
I guess I think it was a recognition of the maturity of the network and our desire to. To make sure we had continuity and it was kind of finally time. I think it took years to get ready and to prepare for that decision. I do know that they looked at so many different partners to consider for moving our open source and really valued the Linux foundation and its ability to manage such a big part of project. So we are really, really excited to be be working with them.
- [29:28]
Bryce
That's awesome. Yeah, I mean.
- [29:29]
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- [29:34]
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Nilmani Rubin
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Nilmani Rubin
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Nilmani Rubin
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- [29:51]
Nilmani Rubin
I don't really have much in my purse. Oh, let's see. Hand sanitizer. It's lavender.
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- [29:57]
Nilmani Rubin
Let me check this pocket. Oh, mints.
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Nilmani Rubin
Oh, I have raisins.
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Wait, wait one sec. I've got cupcakes in the car.
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- [32:00]
Bryce
After so after that you know, kind of what do we, what do we have to look forward to here for, for Hedera? You know, that was a, that was a big jump. I know that you guys are doing a lot with AI. I saw something in the news recently how Hedera is either already or working towards being quantum proof. What are some of the cutting edge stuff that you're seeing from, from the team?
- [32:21]
Nilmani Rubin
I, I'm really excited about the AI piece because like AI is this challenge, right? Like how do we deal with, with AI, how do we, you know, I've used AI and how to hallucinate. I'm sure everyone else has. Totally. What's really exciting about the types of products that are being built on Hedera, which include climate, GBT and prove AI, it's that it allows you to tokenize the data that goes into Aya. So you know, the provenance of the data. You can turn on and off the permissions of the data. If you don't want it to be used anymore, you can do micropayments for the use of the data. So if it's copyright written material, you can pay someone for use of their data and then you can pull it out if it's wrong or biased. And it's like that is just a really exciting, clear use of this technology to make other emerging technologies even better. So I think that's very exciting.
- [33:28]
Bryce
I love it. It sounds like all that's going to be rolled up into hbar, like, you know, all these things that are sort of valuable are going to trickle back down to hbar. Brennan and I were talking about the HBAR etf. We've already kind of mentioned it here on the show already. But what do you guys, is there anything that you can do or are you doing to make this hbar etf, you know, come to fruition and be like a really comfortable spot for, you know, regulated institutional asset managers to sort of get altcoin exposure along with sort of this AI exposure or is that sort of stuff that you, you don't touch on.
- [34:06]
Nilmani Rubin
I personally don't touch on, on the, the product piece, but we do work with regulators. So whether it's the Treasury Department or engaging, I did roundtable the Federal Reserve or different regulators, just making sure that they understand the underlying technology and understand the ecosystem and then recently had meetings over at the occ but sharing how we work so that they can have comfort with things that are built on Hedera. So we definitely do a lot of outreach to regulators. We also work with groups that are more in the traditional financial sector because I think in crypto, like a lot of us just talk to other folks in crypto and we don't realize like so much is moving forward in TRADFI that is kind of similar or intersects with what we are doing. So we also engage with regulators through, through iif, which is the Institute for International Finance. And whether that's like comments to the Financial Stability Board or to other global regulators, we really like work with them and some of our other trades to ensure that the regulators have the information that they need to make a really solid decision.
- [35:35]
Bryce
Yeah, that sounds awesome. And yeah, you guys work a lot with different partners, not just in dc, but I saw Hyundai and Kia are also sort of leveraging the technology in order to push forward real world blockchain adoption in the automotive industry. Are there any other partners that you wanted to highlight that we haven't already touched on today that might, I don't know, might be something recognizable for the Crypto101 listeners?
- [36:07]
Nilmani Rubin
1 well, one thing that I think is really interesting is Red Swan, the real estate company. And their company allows like fractional ownership of real estate assets. And they've tokenized 5 billion in real estate and they have over 13,000 investors. Like when I go downtown in downtown D.C. is struggling right now, you know, post Covid, it just hasn't, it hasn't recovered. Like, there's just a lot of empty commercial space. And when you like look at companies like Red Swan, you see how it can really provide liquidity and lower the barriers to entry for people who want to go into commercial real estate and not just in the US because they are operating in Africa, in the Middle east, kind of all over. But I just think really close to home. You can see like, oh, that's a really important use case.
- [37:09]
Bryce
Yeah, no, I mean, I love it. It's one of those things, fractionalized real estate. It really showcases one of the greatest parts about tokenized investing is that you no longer have to come up with a million dollars to get real estate exposure. And especially as the prices are going to be going, you could get fractional real estate exposure. And so say I want to get, you know, put a hundred bucks or a thousand bucks to work in a very specific market. You could start to do that. And you know, before the, you know, advent of crypto and blockchain, it was just impossible. Right there was so man, that, that yeah, real, real world assets. We could have a whole nother conversation on that too. Because I want to bring on, you know, TiVo make a note, one of the other people I want to bring on is somebody who's, you know, dialed in into like the mortgage business and like the real estate business because apparently, like, real estate is one of the most heavily paperworked industry and it's like, it's just really, really, really difficult to scale that sort of tokenized stuff. So I think that, you know, a year or two from now, this is going to be no longer just a pipe dream. But like you said, like, it's, you know, we're doing the legwork. We're tokenizing, you know, $5 billion of real estate and that's just going to keep growing. But yeah, it'll be, it'll be very cool to see how it plays out. And with the end goal of being able to get the everyday investor very specific real estate exposure, which is super cool, super passionate about it.
- [38:31]
Brennan
And it feels like every guest that we have, almost every guest, Bryce, comes on here in one way or another. This topic of tokenization and real world assets works its way into the conversation. And I think that's, that goes the distance to really talk about what people are thinking, right. They're looking at this. And the cool thing is that it can be used so many different ways. You know, we were just talking about real estate, but it's nearly endless in its use case. You know, anything that we have is a real world asset, right? That is a literal term. Anything that we have here in the world, maybe it's watch, maybe it's art, maybe it's real estate. You know, maybe it is something that is already virtual. You know, it could be bonds, like we have all these other things that we can tokenize and we're just scratching the surface of it. So, you know, it is ironic and I'm sure the listeners are realizing that as well. They go, man, I'm hearing this, this, this topic, this genre inside of crypto come up a lot. And you'd be right.
- [39:28]
Bryce
Yeah. And also it's not just like us like Scott Bessant, who's the treasury secretary, he's going on CNBC and Bloomberg. I've heard it like a couple times from him. He's like, you know, stable coins, right, are like the most, you know, real world asset thing because it's backed one to one for a dollar in the bank account or T bills or whatever. So he was saying that right now there's about $300 billion worth of stablecoins that they, you know, own an equivalent amount of, you know, US Treasuries and US Dollars. But kind of the undercurrent here with the whole market freak out is there's less sovereign, you know, less buyers of America's sovereign debt because of kind of our fiscal fun, you know, dysfunctions and all that kind of stuff. And so the idea is like, if we have stablecoins on shore, you know, exporting, you know, US Dollars all around the world super easily, they're going to be a huge buyer of US Debt and treasuries and bills and all that kind of stuff to the tune of $2 trillion sort of in the near term. So I think the administration is definitely realizing, hey, like, if we enable this technology, it's gonna, it's gonna be better for, for everybody on many different levels. But before we let you go, a couple, couple final questions since we're on the topic of asset tokenization. I know you have Hedera has an asset tokenization, a studio, I believe it was called. Can you tell us a little bit about what that is and can any of our listeners go on that platform? Or is that like enterprise only?
- [40:51]
Nilmani Rubin
The Hedera Asset Tokenization Studio is available to everyone. And it's kind of like, I think of it as like wix for websites. Like, it just, it's like the backend that allows you to just make, you know, make tokenize your, your assets that, that you have. So it's, you know, I might not be as technical as, as some of the others, so it might be a challenge for me. But I think for your listeners, it would definitely be. Be doable and I definitely encourage them to do it. But we also, in addition to the Asset Tokenization Studio, we just launched an AI studio.
- [41:31]
Bryce
Oh.
- [41:33]
Nilmani Rubin
So. So I would encourage your listeners to look at that. It is also an open source platform and it helps people build intelligent applications and it combines AI with Hedera's infrastructure.
- [41:48]
Bryce
That sounds awesome. Yeah, definitely. If we can get off, swear off the drug that is ChatGPT and OpenAI and they're harvesting all of our data, they're harvesting our eyeballs, they're doing everything. And if we could have more alternatives that are decentralized, that's awesome. So I'm really glad you guys are building that on some incredible infrastructure. And your last question I have for you is just kind of like a, you know, just kind of a softball. But like, what, you know, what would be your, you know, number one word of advice to anybody who's listening to this podcast? They're new to crypto. They're overwhelmed by all this talk of Decentralization and policy. And like, I'm just trying to figure out, you know, if this is right for me. You know, what, what's kind of, you know, from an expert in the space, how would you kind of pair it for them?
- [42:33]
Nilmani Rubin
I think that we are, we're in the like early 90s when the Internet was emerging in the early 90s. I remember my high school yearbook was 1989 and this guy wrote, the best way to reach me is on electronic mail. I wrote it out, all these numbers and we all laughed because we were like, oh, he has friends on a computer. And I think that's where we are with crypto. It's like, it's just new, it's kind of. But it's, it's inevitable. Like this is what's coming, these are the new Rails going forward. So totally understand the hesitancy of folks that are coming in, but to just be patient that this is, this is going to be as just like, you won't even notice it. Like, just like you don't think about how the Internet works, you're not going to really think about anymore about how crypto works. It's just going to be like the normal Rails that underlie or dlt that underlie your life online. And, and with the policy work, what's really exciting is that there will be less uncertainty, there will be more comfort and there'll be better rules for the companies to follow so that they know how to innovate and they can safely so that they know. Because companies want to follow rules, they don't want to do stuff that's illegal, they don't want their businesses in jeopardy. So that's really good. But it's also really good for consumer protection. Like the rules that are being promulgated, you know, provide that level of consumer production. What we've seen in other countries is countries that have clear rules have just fared better in terms of consumer production. Like Japan, after their things have gone wrong and consumers were made whole because of the rules that they had. So I think that this is a. Maybe we were in the wild west, but now we're moving, we're moving forward and we're coming into a space where there is going to be clear governance and it's kind of more comforting for people to get involved in digital ledger technology.
- [44:52]
Bryce
Yeah, that's a great comparison. And even just on the policy front, it reminds me of stories that I've read about the crypto wars of like 1999, back when the US government was literally trying to ban encryption on the Internet. And because they were scared of it. Oh, what happens if, you know, all of these encrypted private messages start getting sent around and there's going to be an uprising against us and all this kind of stuff. But, you know, and so they, you know, labeled it military grade, you know, exports for encryption. And of course, now every time you log onto a website, it says HTTPs. Okay, that s. It might not seem like a lot, but it's changed the entire world because it means that you could put credit card information online and not have somebody, you know, sniffing in on it and being able to track it. You could put your personal information and it's, you know, protected for the most part. Of course there's data breaches at the centralized level of these different companies. But, you know, that's kind of the same. Same theme that's been going on with, you know, crypto, you know, Redux 2.0 here with Bitcoin and blockchain. It's like it's now encryption for your money because you can't trust anybody just with your money. Or it's encryption for other sorts of data that, you know. So it's just a really cool sort of analogy that you just drew there. And yeah, definitely encourage everybody to continue following along with Hedera and Neil Mini Rubin's journey, because this is awesome. We really hope to have you back on again soon. And before we let you go, do you have any, like, you know, places that people could follow along with your journey? Are you on X? Are you, you know, a substack blogger? Like, where do people like, you know, kind of get in touch with you?
- [46:25]
Nilmani Rubin
I put a lot out on LinkedIn, so love to have your followers follow me on LinkedIn. I put out pieces as well as our. Just our general Hedera LinkedIn profile and then our general LinkedIn, I mean, general company. The Hedera also puts out stuff on X. I'm just not active on X because it's just too much, too much.
- [46:53]
Bryce
Too much, too much. I totally feel you. LinkedIn's a good place to go. We really appreciate it. And those will be in the show notes for everybody, along with some other show notes. So check it out and come back same time, same place next week. We're gonna have some more amazing guests for you here on the Crypto 101 podcast. Ms. Namini Ruben, thank you for joining us and we will see you soon.
- [47:14]
Nilmani Rubin
Thank you. Bryce and Brendan Foreign.
- [47:27]
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Nilmani Rubin
Thanks. And here's my old phone to trade in.
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Nilmani Rubin
There's always a trade in.
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Nilmani Rubin
I feel like I have to give you something and receive return for karma.
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Nilmani Rubin
I don't really have much in my purse. Oh, let's see. Hand sanitizer. It's lavender.
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Nilmani Rubin
Let me check this pocket. Oh, mints.
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Really, I'm fine.
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Nilmani Rubin
Oh, I have raisins.
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Nilmani Rubin
Wait, wait one sec. I've got cupcakes in the car.
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