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CRYPTO 101
Ep. 673 The State of the Crypto Markets with Jason Urban the Global Head of Trading at Galaxy Digital
00:37:46
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- [00:00]
Jason Urban
Foreign.
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Podcast Host
Citizens of Crypt Nation, I hope you guys are having a fantastic morning, noon or night, wherever you are in the world, listening, you're certainly in the right place because we've got a, a crypto heavyweight titan joining us. And I'm not making a joke about his height. This is Jason. No, not your weight. This is J. Jason Urban, who is the global head of trading at Galaxy. Jason's been on the show before, but we're, we're really excited to dive into some interesting market dynamics and themes. Jason, how are you doing, my friend?
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Jason Urban
I am, I'm busier than a one armed paper hanger. But that's okay. That's busy's good. If it was the alternative, I don't know that we'd all be smiling. Yeah.
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Podcast Host
No, seriously, wherever there's volatility or markets to be made, I'm sure you guys are sitting pretty and you know, we want to just touch base real quick on for those who haven't listened to some of the prior episodes we've done with you just like high level on Galaxy, high level on yourself. And then we're going to get into some current market dynamics.
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Jason Urban
Yeah, absolutely. Yeah, it's. Galaxy is kind of a full service merchant bank in the space. You know, I always jokingly say that Galaxy strength and our weaknesses, that we do everything in crypto, everything from tokenization to the liquid side of things, to the fund structure side of things, advising on investment banking deals. So we really are touching all parts of the ecosystem and are highly incentivized to make sure that what we're doing is always constructive to everything that's happening. This is where we hang our hat. We don't play around in tradfi. We don't. We are a crypto, cryptocurrency centric firm.
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Podcast Host
Absolutely. And prior to running trading, you know, you were at drw, you're doing other things. Tell us a little about your history.
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Jason Urban
Yeah, so I mean the first 10 years of my career were at Goldman and Tradfi. I always consider myself a Tradfi refugee.
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Podcast Host
You know, happy to have you on this side of the.
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Jason Urban
Well, I'm happy to be here, let me tell you. Left Goldman in 09. At that point I was running the index flow business, the index volatility flow business. Went over to drw. They were just getting into equities at the time and so, you know, took that business there was there for another decade. That's where I got my entrepreneurship bug. Started a bunch of companies, some of them inside of drw, some of Them outside of drw. Now, you'd know drw, Harris Cumberland, one of the ones that I started outside, was a crypto lending business that Galaxy invested in and then ultimately acquired. And that's how I came over to run the trading business markets business here.
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Podcast Host
So I love it.
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Jason Urban
20 years. 20 years on the TradFi side and, you know, eight, nine over here, the eight, nine over here feel like the other 20. But that's okay. That's. That just means it's fun.
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Podcast Host
Yeah, I love it. No, you guys have got a great team and, you know, we're really excited about, you know, you guys really being at the epicenter, like you said, of every different, you know, vertical or sector here within crypto. But one thing I really want to just get out of the gate real quick at the top. As much or as little as you can speak on it is just super relevant because it just kind of happened over the course of the past few weeks and the whole market, like, was freaking out and all. My entire X Twitter feed was like, galaxy, Galaxy, Galaxy processing a $10 billion transaction with some kind of whale. We don't want to ask who it was or anything like that, but just walk us through as much as you can about that situation.
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Jason Urban
Yeah, you know, we, because of who we are and how we're structured, you know, very regulatory first, very client centric, you know, the white glove approach to things, we tend to attract larger transaction sizes. And that's not just on the spot side, that's on the fund side, that's in a lot of places, derivatives, everything, the whole, the whole nine yards. And so, you know, from time to time we have large clients approach us and they have difficult problems. Sometimes it's something like this that's a spot transaction, sometimes it's something a little more esoteric. But we are, you know, we have a level of professionalism and appropriateness that, that I think attracts that kind of clientele. This particular transaction was, you know, a very large one, as you, as you mentioned. And, you know, we, we did everything we could to ensure that we were being, you know, responsible and fiduciary to our client, making sure we weren't doing terrible things to an ecosystem that we've all given our lives to because handled it inappropriately. That could have been a very terrible outcome. But we did it in a way that was thoughtful, smart, and over a period of time that was both safe for the client, safe for us, and safe for the ecosystem. And so when you think about that, that's why people come to Galaxy and that's why we, you know, have the role we play, the role we do in the ecosystem as a whole.
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- [07:25]
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- [08:27]
Podcast Host
I love to hear that. And you know, you guys were just doing your job. And I saw so many misinformed, ridiculous takes from people on X. Even prominent people that had no idea like how an OTC transaction works. They're like, oh my God, Galaxy's dumping all this on the market. I'm like, by the time they're, you know, you know, people hear about this transaction, it's probably already been done and in the, you know, in the past and all that kind of stuff and it was just really interesting. And so I mean, you know, instead of having, you know, a big 10 billion dollar dump on the market, it makes sense that this person, you know, wanted to slowly over time have the professionals executed, you know, probably pay a little bit of a fee to you guys for doing all that work. I mean it's not like you guys are out here giving charity and doing all this stuff for free.
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Jason Urban
Yeah. I mean here, that, that's part of the business. Right? That's part of what, you know, like anything you're. Everybody needs to be compensated for the work they do. And we think we did it. We do a good job at what we do and so we, we like to be paid for that like anybody else.
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Podcast Host
No. So that, that was, that was a fun one. I just wanted to get your hot take. Cause I know obviously the head of trading you were probably structured some of that, but we'll leave that where it is. We want to talk about some of the really interesting things as well going on in the DAT digital Asset treasury world, because this has become like the hottest thing out there. I don't know how many of their. How many of these there are for Bitcoin, really, Micro strategy was the first one. And then many other copycats came up for Bitcoin. And then somewhere along the way, and I don't know, maybe you'll have a better history than I do, somebody said, well, we could do this for Ethereum and we could do this for any of these other altcoins. So what's the scoop here in digital asset treasury world, and how does Galaxy maybe come to play on this?
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Jason Urban
Yeah, so at a high level, Michael Saylor has been very successful in what he's done in terms of doing a Treasury strategy with Bitcoin. I think as people start to look at that, they were like, huh, this could be a successful vehicle. There's clearly demand in the market for it, and let's try to make that happen. Where Galaxy does well is we straddle that line between tradfi and behaving in a regulated fashion in an appropriate way, as well as operating responsibly inside the crypto universe. And so as you start to balance those, we become a natural place for a lot of inbound. I think there's over 200 of these. We've talked over over a hundred of them. We do everything from helping with formation to managing on the asset management side of the house, where we're an advisor to just pure execution and services on the market side, where it's people who need to buy or sell or stake or hedge. So we have that full menu for these people. And so we are a conversation that if you're starting one of these, you're definitely going to come and talk to us. I think part of why this is attractive beyond on the success that MicroStrategy and some of the other ones have had, is if you think about the evolution of the ecosystem, when L1s were coming out, when new tokens were coming out, there was a high focus on, is this a security? Is this not a security? The efforts of others. And so a lot of these projects became foundations. And that was a way to ensure that this wasn't a security under Gensler's interpretation of that. And so that was the legal advice that people got to be safe. The world has evolved and how the world views and how the regulatory bodies view digital assets now. And so people are starting to recognize that there's a real need for a way to access Some of this. And so it makes a lot of sense that either directly or indirectly, with tacit approval that these foundations look at these and say, hey, this is actually a really interesting way, way to access some of the traditional markets. And so I think that that's only going to evolve, that's only going to become more and more apparent. We're, you know, depending on where you look, we're either in the third inning or the sixth inning of these things because at some point you can't have an infinite number of these. Right. It becomes dilutive. But you know, there is a need for these and there are, you know, they serve a purpose. You know, there'll be a lot of people who will look at the multiples and things and I'm going to stay away from touching that third rail to say that these things should trade many multiples or you know, they're accretive or et cetera. There are other people that were going to weigh in on that. I think that like anything, there's a role for everyone and everything to play in the digital asset ecosystem and crypto broadly. And this is just another role. Now does this become the thing that wins the day or does it become just another part of it? I don't know. I think only time will tell and we'll figure that out as we go now.
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Podcast Host
Very well said. And I want to kind of zoom in on one, one aspect there. You said they serve a purpose and you know, full disclosure, you know, I've got through our fund investments in the Nakamoto deal. And so we're excited about this and there's some other ones that are, that are coming up. But I want from your perspective, you know, they serve a purpose. Who's buying them besides hedge funds or what sort of new capital inflow is sort of being unlocked by these digital asset treasury deals.
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Jason Urban
You know, here everybody, the thing that people lose track of from time to time is twofold. One, there's utility in that we've got traditional securities markets that many firms have built plumbing, have built risk frameworks around and it's very easy to take another security and put that into that framework. And there doesn't have to be a lot of rejiggering. You don't need to worry about your wallet management and your multi factor sign offs because that's already in existence. And so it's one, either your charter or whatever governing rules you operate under are such that you can't maybe touch crypto or you haven't gotten there yet. But this is a way to get to market. Now, I think that there's an element of people who look at this and say, this is a little different. I don't need to worry about the operational management issues that come with this. I don't need to worry about these factors. And this allows me to get into that. And so everybody's got a different reason. There's definitely an element of this, that there's punters, but there are punters in every asset class. It isn't any different than people specking on oil or corn or Microsoft the fangs. There's an element of that and there's an element of people saying, I really want to own eth. I love the story of Solana. I think that Avalanche is the best or sui or whomever. As people go down the list, they're like, I love this and I need this in my portfolio and this is a way for me to do that.
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Interjecting Guest or Co-host
Right.
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Jason Urban
If you think about it, millennials are going to be taking over from the boomers in terms of that demographic. The great wealth transfer. There will be a wealth transfer and people are comfortable with that. But maybe they have a fund or a collection of funds that they can't for whatever reason participate and they're like, I really believe in this story or this narrative or what's happening. And so people will go there. So I can't speculate that there's this great, you know, this, this great group of people that are. New capital formation is coming in and this is going to change. You know, I don't know that. I know that there are reasons that people do things. And you know, our, our personal feeling is, is that if there are people, if our clients have demand one way or the other, we're here to service that demand.
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Podcast Host
Yeah, absolutely. And I think just like from that, like, I like how you kind of take that like sort of market neutral approach and, and I think these volumes, and I believe I read something from Galaxy maybe about kind of projecting these volumes for these companies to explode. Because there's going to be a lot of arbitrage opportunities between the balance sheets of all of these different companies who kind of all say, you know, we're kind of doing the same thing, we're trying to acquire more Ethereum and like that multiple to book value. And there's like so many different things, but at the end of the day, there's going to be volume because there's going to be huge, huge inefficiencies and huge arbs. And that's where you guys are also going to clean up, I think.
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Jason Urban
Yeah, I think that's one element. I think another part of it is also how are they going to produce yield? Right. So if you have a bunch of ether sol or whatever, like there's staking, there's an ETF that people can buy. So you can put the ETF next to the treasury company and as you start to think through that you're like, all right, well if you're an etf, you have to balance creates redeems and how much. If you're a Treasury company, you're not saddled with that. And so in a lot ways you can deploy the full balance sheet into whatever particular ecosystem you're looking for. And so you are a better alternative to an ETF in that regard. And then when you look at that, there's multiples that have different strategies. Some of them are a handful that are put together and we're going to be like a mutual fund. Some of them are going to be solely in one field. And so as you start to look at where this goes, I mean it really is the sky is the limit in terms of opportunity. It's just a function of what the individual investor wants and what the individual investor. This one we're doing 100% staking, this one's 100% on chain defi yield generation. And those return profiles are going to be different, their risk profiles will also be different. But people will then weigh those against each other. I really like this and I really think this is a bad idea and I want to put on that pairs trade. Well, that's volume and there's going to be people that are just long onlys or shorts because they're like this is terrible idea. I want to, you know, I want to short them all. You know, like you have all of that.
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Interjecting Guest or Co-host
Right.
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Jason Urban
But that's what a healthy, that's what a healthy market, a healthy ecosystem does.
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Interjecting Guest or Co-host
Right?
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Jason Urban
You, you're allowing people to invest, you're allowing people to speculate, you're allowing people to, to, you know, take advantage of the things that they see.
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Podcast Host
Yeah, and, and as you guys, you know, bring your crypto native and crypto centric expertise to the digital asset treasuries, are you, you know, in one way actually helping these companies earn yield and doing some of the staking or doing some of the defi yield farming on behalf of these companies or where do you guys kind of sit?
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Jason Urban
Yeah, no, we, we, we are definitely, you know, from the asset management side. They're advisors, right. So they come in and they say we really think that you should do A, B, C and D. Here are the risk profiles associated with each of those activities. Here's what you need to be mindful of, and here's what, you know, here of portfolio mixes within those choices. On the market side, it's more of an arm's length transaction where we say, okay, here is the price to do X and here's what the world says it should be worth. And if you want, this is the price and we'll go accumulate that for you.
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Interjecting Guest or Co-host
Right?
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Jason Urban
And so, you know, when you think through it, that's where the power of Galaxy comes in. Now we're one provider, right? It's an arm's length transaction to our asset manager. But we're approaching this because we can deliver the entire firm.
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Interjecting Guest or Co-host
Right.
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Jason Urban
And that even extends into our investment banking advisory business where we're like, here are the things that you need to be mindful of as you start to think about how you want to go and create your treasury company. And this is what SPAC versus pipe versus all of those different things we can step in and be helpful.
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Podcast Host
Yeah, awesome. And so, yeah, the DAT stuff is awesome. And it sounds like you guys are really making waves. And I'm, I'm curious just, you know, kind of to, to pivot a little bit, you know, to another side of the business that you guys have made waves in. Was. And I don't really know how to call this, but like, basically when companies go bank, I guess, distressed investors, like when FTX goes bankrupt or Celsius and all this kind of stuff, y' all kind of step in to help that process. And I think, you know, it would be really helpful for, for me and a bunch of the listeners to kind of of unpack that. Like, for instance, the locked Solana, like, how does that all come to be as much as you can share?
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Jason Urban
Yeah, no, no, 100%. So. So again, that's, that's one of those interplays between what I'll call our asset management RIA business and our markets business. So the asset manager was an advisor to, you know, to the estate that's very public out there. And they ran processes and we as a markets business, entered into that auction process at any given point. No different than anyone else.
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Interjecting Guest or Co-host
Right.
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Jason Urban
Matter of fact, it was probably harder for me because we knew there were a lot of eyeballs on it. And so I was the last to find out rather than the first to find out often. And I understand it. And listen, I'd rather we did things at 110%, the right way than be accused the other way. And so you get involved and then what you try to do is go out and find clients that would be interested in that.
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Interjecting Guest or Co-host
Right.
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Jason Urban
And so from that perspective, that was exactly what we did. No different than other groups. You know, Pantera had an offering, like there were many people that participated in that. We were just one of them and happened to step in. It's something that we do again as a firm where we can deliver the entire company and the levels of expertise. Right. What used to be a huge mining operation, now it's pivoted to AI. We do all the tokenization, you know, have advised on multiple deals inside of crypto. In addition to being one of the largest trading companies, derivatives trading, lending houses on the street. We do a little bit of everything. And it's really for the benefit of our clients at the end of the day because we're able to bring in a different perspective than somebody who only does one thing or only does another. We're able to go and find like, hey, there's actually a pool of capital over here that would be interested in lending to you. Let's see if we can't put something together and you know, you get a better deal than you would have if you just went, you know, somewhere else.
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Podcast Host
Yeah, no, that makes, that makes a lot of sense. And it's, it's really good to have that clarity and kind of, you know. One of the things that I'd like to ask you kind of surrounds this idea of this time is different. It's one of the, the most dangerous words as an investor or a trader. But I really do feel like this year, knock on wood, is a little different than the past four year cycles where Bitcoin just tops out because it's, you know, driven by this four year having cycle. In the past four year having cycles. We didn't have, you know, JP Morgan Chase, you know, directly connected to your Coinbase account. You didn't have these Bitcoin ETFs that are breaking records. You didn't have, you know, Fidelity or, you know, large, you know, retirement plans, like, you know, T whopping into crypto and all this stuff. So is it, is it different this time? Are we gonna, you know, see this huge bear market come like we always do?
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Jason Urban
You know, here markets are cyclical, right? I mean, that is just, I mean, all markets are cyclical. We, you know, we hear about that. And I always say, you're never as good as your last at bat and you're never as bad as your Last at bat. It's always somewhere, it's always somewhere in the middle. And so, you know, as you, as you think through where we are now, you know, there's a lot of, there's a lot of great tailwinds right. There are, you know, we're starting to get regulatory clarity both out of Washington and I think the rest of the world. Some places are ahead, some places are behind, but the direction of travel is, is positive. I think that that's, you know, that unlocks new capital bases. I think that when you start to, when you start to say, are we, are we at the top? Are we at the bottom? Where are we? That that's always dangerous because all ass. Something terrible could happen in the world tomorrow that causes everything to sell off. Conversely, there could be, Trump could say, hey, bitcoin's the new dollar and it's off. Who knows, right. It'd be dangerous and irresponsible of me to say this is what's happening. That being said, this time is different. I think what we are seeing is more institutional, real institutional movement. I think the last bull cycle, it was very much crypto. Curious. There were people who had like, but they were like there was also a level of career risk that people took at large financial institutions where it's like that has largely been de. Risked now, now the question is how fast, how far do you want to go? And so I think you'll start to continue. You'll not start, you'll continue to see more and more adoption moving through. You know, I always say that people choose progress.
- [25:58]
Interjecting Guest or Co-host
Right.
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Jason Urban
Like that is something that people choose and this is progress 100%. And so it is different. But that doesn't mean that it can't be, you know, caught in winds that are different.
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Interjecting Guest or Co-host
Right.
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Jason Urban
We don't know what the geopolitical landscape is going to look like. We don't know what the tax landscape, you know, so on and so forth. So all of those things can definitely, definitely impact where we are today.
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Podcast Host
Yeah. And I think it's no coincidence as well that the four year having cycle has been punctuated as well by the four year election cycle kind of in the same exact year. Like every year there's a having, there's an election. So maybe it's getting caught up in that sort of macro cycle. But to your point about, you know, progress, we're seeing a lot of progress with sec, particularly just in the, the recent weeks. Project crypto was announced by the chairman of the sec, Paul Atkins, and he was kind of laying out just this whole, you know, grand vision for what eventually culminates in all capital markets coming on chain, you know, using blockchain, using tokenization. And this is a really, really impactful statement to come from like sort of the head regulator. And I was just wondering if I could get your thoughts on, on this concept of tokenization whereby you could have, you know, real world assets and sort of those, those, you know, capital structures, but no longer just on centralized clearinghouses and centralized ledgers, but you know, on Ethereum or on Avalanche or whatever.
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Jason Urban
Yeah, no, I, I, I hear, I believe strongly and have believed strongly that everything with a Q SIP will end up on the blockchain.
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Podcast Host
Like tell us what the Q SIP is.
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Jason Urban
So, so every financial asset in the world has a Q SIP that, that identifies it, right. So when you transact at a financial house, whether it's your brokerage account or bank or whatever, there are cusips attached to the assets that you buy and that's everything. That's bonds, that's equities, that's other forms of debt, convertible structured products, et cetera. Everything has an identifier and that goes through the traditional finance system as it is set up today with clearing houses and brokerage houses and fcms and so on and so forth and banks, exchanges. I think there'll become a time where all those assets will be tokenized. It is just better. It is better from a settlement perspective. It is better. Now. Does that mean it's going to replace? I don't know, Maybe in time.
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Interjecting Guest or Co-host
Right.
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Jason Urban
But to say it completely goes away when the automobile replaced the horse and buggy. It doesn't mean there are no horses.
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Interjecting Guest or Co-host
Right?
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Jason Urban
I mean they still are out there, people still use them, which is different. I think that's going to take some time. I do think that this concept of a tokenized equity or a tokenized security is something that's very powerful. I would caution people to say it's going to happen tomorrow.
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Interjecting Guest or Co-host
Right.
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Jason Urban
I mean, you know, I can say this. Listen, there are things that our political leaders can say and do and there are outcomes that they can influence. But then there's a whole litany of people downstream that are, you know, career SEC people, career CFTC people, occ, so on and so forth and you have to work through those systems as well. And so not saying it's not going to happen, I'm just saying let's couch a little bit of our exuberance with a little bit of reality at the same time and balance them and say, okay, what can we see and then working with the regulators to actually bring forth product that that conforms to what the vision is as well as what is practically doable in the systems that we have. Because we can't just open it up to the wild and let it run free and clear either. There needs to be some form, I mean, crypto and I believe strongly in this is about the democratization of finance. It is about some of the rent seekers, maybe even Galaxy to some extent, getting marginalized while people take control of their finances, take control of their lives. That being said, also a reality that says these systems are in place for a reason. And, and we need to, to balance both the democratization with, you know, some form of guardrails.
- [30:24]
Podcast Host
Totally agree. And like, from your purview as like a global head of trading and somebody who's traded, you know, all around the world, like, does tokenization make your job? If it actually came to be, would it make it easier and better now you're able to trade these assets that have deeper liquidity and things aren't fragmented and it's all just kind of unified. Is that the vision and would it make folks in tradfi is like that what they're going after? I know we know about cost.
- [30:50]
Jason Urban
I don't. That's a good question, because I don't know that it's going to be. I think there's going to be a fragmentation before there's a consolidation.
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Interjecting Guest or Co-host
Right?
- [31:00]
Jason Urban
Because things that you can do in Korea, Japan, uae, you know, Berlin, go around the globe, New York City, there are different rules for different reasons that address different things. And so each of these will be a little different at the beginning. And so you might end up with, let's just say you tokenize a share of Galaxy stock, right? You're going to have tokenized shares that are going to be trading in the United States, in Canada, in Europe, in apac, and they're all going to be a little bit different. Now there has to be, you know, a group of people, market makers, whomever, who hold that in line. So you don't see something trading way out of line unless there's a reason for it. And so, you know, I think you initially start off with fragmentation that ultimately ends with consolidation, where things become ubiquitous. And I can take my tokenized Galaxy stock that's in Tokyo and I can, you know, swap it with somebody that's in, you know, the UK in London. And so that's just. That takes time. There's going to have to be some homogeneity across regulatory structures which we still don't have, like, even in TradFi. And so there's different rules with MiFID versus US, et cetera. And so I think you'll see some fragmentation, but because of that, you'll be able to reach wider audiences because things that are unique to the Seoul market, let's just say in Korea versus you might want to own that asset. I don't, you know, we don't know what it looks like yet, but though there will be things that make people want to do certain things. And so it'll be, it's exciting. It truly is exciting.
- [32:45]
Podcast Host
No doubt. It's, it's super exciting. And we'll see where it goes. At the end of the day, I mean, really, we're at the very, you know, precipice of this whole movement and it can take many shapes, many forms. And it's just exciting that there's a lot of smart people working on it from a lot of different sides. We have like the technologists and like the, the, the inventors and engineers, and then we have, you know, the big investment banks and they're trying to get involved. So it's cool just to see the worlds come together finally and like have, you know, America finally lead and say, you know, this is not something that we want to continue being a gray area. We see it being a really big hotbed for onshoring capital and bringing innovation back and GDP growth. And also, you know, not to mention Secretary Scott Besson, as, you know, a bond salesman, essentially finding a great home for a lot of these bonds that he needs to sell in stablecoins, saying, you know, stablecoins right now are 2 or 300 billion. These are going to go to 3 or 4 trillion and they're all going to be holding American bonds and all that stuff. So it's just a really great setup.
- [33:47]
Jason Urban
It feels like 100%. I mean, it is. Stablecoins are a national security. I mean, we've been preaching that. I've been in D.C. a lot. It is a national security issue.
- [33:57]
Interjecting Guest or Co-host
Right.
- [33:57]
Jason Urban
I mean, you, you want to, you want this to be out there. You want the dollar to be, you know, the base instrument from a, from a national perspective. And so it, it really is, it's exciting to see.
- [34:11]
Podcast Host
Yeah. And I, I wanted to, to touch on anything that you guys are doing with AI because AI has been a hotbed topic and a lot of our subscribers and listeners, and as I was kind of doing a little bit of research beforehand, I, I saw some, some incredible reporting on Galaxy's recent Partnership with Coreweave and you know, kind of switching things over from Helios. I think you guys acquired a plant called Helios, which used to be a bitcoin miner. Now it's going to be an AI play. How much can you tell us about kind of what's going on there?
- [34:50]
Jason Urban
So, you know, again, because we're public and I have to be cautious, I'm, I'm thinking through how to, how to posit all of this in a way that doesn't get you, me or anyone else in trouble. We made a conscious decision for a lot of reasons, because we felt it was so important for us as crypto people to be a miner.
- [35:11]
Interjecting Guest or Co-host
Right.
- [35:12]
Jason Urban
And we have an enormous validating, staking business and we had so proof of stake, proof of work in doing that, that we acquired this site and it's one of the premier sites in North America, if not the world. And it just so happens that where it was and where it is in its development and where we are and where AI was coming, it made sense to partner with some of the right people. And that's what you're seeing us do right now. And obviously do your own research, but you can see what's going on there and what's on the docket. And so it's important. And while AI is different than crypto, there is a world where this is going to continue to move back and forth as you start to see about how do you ensure that your identity hasn't been created by a computer somewhere? Well, the blockchain can solve that, right? Like it's immutable, it's identifiable, et cetera. And so there's gonna be interplays with that as time goes on. I don't think we're there yet today and there are some great projects that are out there working on some of. But you know, it makes sense being a, you know, a thought forward organization. That galaxy is where we do think that, you know, we're constantly thinking and examining what's changing the world that we live in and what role can we play there. This was just a natural extension of that. And so from that standpoint, you know, it's exciting. We have the best team in the world down there. We have a great group of people working on it, working with our partners. Some of the build out. When you start to see the specs, it blows your mind. You're gonna put how many thousand people there and so on and so forth. So it's really exciting and I think it's something that is important Again, back to the national security issue. It's very important for the United States to be a leader in that as well. And so us liking to think that we're not such a bad place over here at Galaxy, we could play a role both in crypto and AI. And so it's kind of exciting and.
- [37:20]
Podcast Host
I think you're totally spot on. And to, like, further evidence that is, you know, Trump appointed a, a lead or a czar, I guess, for not crypto and then a separate one for AI. But he appointed David Sachs, the same guy, to be an AI and crypto czar because his personnel team very, you know, acutely realized these things overlap. I mean, it all comes down to energy and, and, and servers basically all around the world. And it's really, really interesting. And at the end of the day.
- [37:51]
Jason Urban
The energy, it's all compute and computing power.
- [37:54]
Interjecting Guest or Co-host
Right.
- [37:54]
Jason Urban
I mean, that's where the world is going. And so it's important to, you know, to keep that and understand that sometimes they're complementary, sometimes they're competitive, but at the end of the day they're all additive. And that's what's awesome about it.
- [38:08]
Podcast Host
Yeah. And, you know, there's a lot to be thankful for that, that, you know, we have this timeline that we're living on as crypto guys and not the timeline that might have been extended by the, the past four years of antagonism towards crypto. So it think it feels like things are bright, feels like things are kind of moving in the right direction, certainly for the industry and for the, the Galaxy team. Is there anything that we kind of didn't touch on that you guys are, are actively, you know, wanting to kind of get the word out about?
- [38:38]
Jason Urban
I mean, we, we, we hit a lot of things. You know, I mean, today I, I think that, that it's important to be, you know, again, do your own research. I'll say that because it's easy to take, you know, whether it's something I say or you say, and it doesn't always fit, it works for me, but it doesn't necessarily work for someone else. I think that's something that's important and I think that's something that, you know, you have to do your homework and you're going to hear a lot of things, and it's easy to get caught up in the exuberance because it is awesome there. Every day I see new things and I'm like, wow, that's genius. Or that's brilliant.
- [39:13]
Interjecting Guest or Co-host
Right.
- [39:13]
Jason Urban
And every once in a while I see, when I'm like, stay away from that. You gotta do your homework. But, you know, I think broadly speaking, you're right. It is an awesome time to be in crypto in the industry. We are. It is gonna change the world.
- [39:30]
Podcast Host
Yeah, absolutely. And, yeah, as always, we always like to remind people that we are not financial advisors for you. And we really encourage you guys to go, you know, seek your own professional, personalized financial advice so that you could have the most, the highest chance of success here in crypto. And, man, I'm really excited. So, so, Jason, thank you so much for joining us. Where's the best place for people to kind of follow along on the journey? You got a X account that you're, you're active on or anything like that?
- [39:58]
Jason Urban
I, I, you know, give it. Given the, the nature of what we do, I try to keep a little low profile. Novo can go. Novo can go and do that. I, I just like to, you know, doing my job in the back, take off my minor helmet once in a while, pop my head out and say, it's all good down here. More diamonds. Keep going.
- [40:17]
Podcast Host
I love it. I love it. Risk is being well managed. It's all good. Good stuff, Jason. Well, thank you so much, and we appreciate you coming on and shedding light onto what's going on at Galaxy and your thoughts on the market today. Everybody at home listening. We hope you enjoyed today's episode and come back same time, same place next week. We're going to have some more incredible guests for you. Thanks, Jason, for your time.
- [40:38]
Jason Urban
Awesome. Thanks for having me. This was great.
- [40:51]
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