Mary Long (5:27)

Tariffs are kind of taking up a lot of the air in the room, understandably. But there are some other policy economy stories that are maybe slipping under people's radar that I want to take a moment to hit with you. One of those stories is that BlackRock has agreed to buy a majority stake in two of the four major ports along the Panama Canal. So BlackRock is going to be acquiring these ports from the Hong Kong based group CK Hutchinson. The total price tag for this deal, and it includes more than just these two ports in the Panama Canal, the total price tag for this is about $23 billion. And it allows BlackRock and co so a crew of other investors that they've rallied together to gain control of in addition to these two ports in the Panama Canal, more than 40 other ports across 23 countries around the world. But most folks know BlackRock as an asset manager. Is this company new to the port business and why is it trying to enter into it?

Assit Sharma (6:21)

Well, they're not exactly new to this business. Believe it or not, BlackRock has an infrastructure arm for them. When you manage 11 trillion-odd dollars in assets, of course most of that is in ETFs and stocks and fixed income assets, you have a lot of money to put to work. So the infrastructure practice has been a thematic practice for BlackRock for some time and they have really changed a little bit of their philosophy of being sort of a passive manager in these events to being a bit more active. And to do this, they purchased a leading infrastructure fund last year. This is Global Infrastructure Partners. This is a business that also invests a bit passively, but it takes direct interest in different types of infrastructure from ports to airports. They own part of Gatwick, for example. And so great timing for them. If you're thinking maybe this is a political move by Larry Fink and BlackRock, actually, I don't see it that way. They've been preparing to make some big deals in the port space. And that transaction, which is only now a few months closed, which was a sort of big investment. BlackRock's part, they borrowed about 3 billion bucks to pull off this deal. Now they can go ahead with what is sure to be a lead partner out of that consortium, their own gip, Global Infrastructure Investment Partners, and be more of an active participant. So going to an operator, owner Type model. This is something that's good for their margins, but it does introduce a little bit of volatility into their business model, which until today has been very passive and fee based.

Mary Long (7:58)

We talk a lot about how do you value a company, how do you put a price tag on this, how do you value a deal like this one? Is $23 billion a good deal for over 40 ports around the world?

Assit Sharma (8:10)

Funnily enough, the way you evaluate a port is not that different from some other industries that we're all familiar with. Most buyers take an income approach, so they want to understand what the future cash flows the port can generate are going to derive. And you do this by looking at a few things like the geography of the port, you evaluate its infrastructure. You do a lot of due diligence to understand if there are any environmental issues. You conduct a strategic review to see if a port might be able to be automated. So there are so many factors that go in, but at the end of the day you're doing the same exercise that we do when we buy a stock. And when I hear that price tag, to me, I think they probably have done a pretty good job. The group I mentioned, gip, is particularly good at due diligence. So I think they may have a very decent handle on what they can extract out of those ports. And keep in mind these are very, very long term assets. So if you stay good with the government, you can operate a port for a long time. So it probably is a reasonable price. Though the price tag seems very big. It's a lot of breakfast cereal for me. 23 billion bucks.

Mary Long (9:15)

Our third policy adjacent story of the day that we'll close out on. Trump has also unveiled a plan for a strategic crypto reserve. Now this is slightly different than what's been floated in the past. Previously we'd heard about plans for a bitcoin only reserve. This newer proposal includes not only Bitcoin, but also Ether, xrp, Solana and Cardano. What is the benefit of the US having a crypto reserve at all? Why is this being pushed for?

Assit Sharma (9:40)

Marriott's being pushed forward because it is an alternative asset to Bitcoin. Let's focus on Bitcoin for a second. Is an alternative asset and theoretically it has value vis a vis, maybe an eroding dollar. So this is one reason it could be important. It's also something that mirrors what the US has done in many other areas, although I will say that it's differentiated here. The US has strategic reserves in different places, like oil is one we've all heard of the strategic reserve in oil. We've got a helium reserve, we have a bullion reserve at Fort Knox. But each of the assets I mentioned has intrinsic value. And this is where we start to get on a little bit of a gray area because Bitcoin has no intrinsic value. So when we create a reserve, what we are positing is that the value of Bitcoin is either going to remain stable or increase. Otherwise why would you invest in something which has such a fluctuating price point? So those are the positive or pro arguments for the reserve.

Mary Long (10:43)

So what are the downsides for the reserve?

Assit Sharma (10:47)

Yeah, the downsides are we are running sort of a large deficit. So when we think of where the US can place its money, it becomes curious if we are putting money into an asset which is so volatile because we have to raise money to bring the deficit down. 90% of the funding for the US government comes in the form of taxes. So payroll taxes, personal taxes, corporate income taxes. The rest is a mishmash of other stuff. So in the future, if this comes up just like any other reserve, it's going to be funded from taxpayer dollars. Now the so called crypto czar said, wait a minute, hang on, tweet it out. Don't assume that this is going to come from some big spending program or taxes up front. Wait till you hear the details. But inevitably, once we establish reserves, future additions to the reserves are based on tax revenue money coming in. One of the arguments is that we are potentially taxing US citizens to invest in something where we can lose value. And there are some other assets that have been floated. I know, Mary, you had a question about that as well. It's not just bitcoin we're talking about.

Mary Long (11:58)

Interestingly, some crypto leaders have come out against this idea of having a reserve. A crypto reserve that includes more than just bitcoin ether is a pretty legitimate coin. It's another big name that probably even the crypto ignorant will likely recognize. But what is the deal asset with xrp, Solana and Cardano? How do they get early inclusion into this potential strategic crypto reserve list?

Assit Sharma (12:22)

There are a lot of people scratching their heads on why these smaller cryptocurrencies, digital assets have been included. One theory is that David Sachs, who is the crypto czar I mentioned, has sort of a background in promoting a lot of different crypto assets. And so he is very positive about the industry and wants to broaden out any kind of governmental or sovereign investment in digital assets. And this has caused, as you mentioned sort of a rift in the crypto community. Even those who are very pro Trump and pro crypto are scratching their heads, many of them at this inclusion. So this brings up more of the cons of the argument if this goes through because you could potentially with your tax dollars, one really great characterization I read be bailing out some crypto bros so they can cash out as your hard earned tax dollars go into the reserve. So this of course that still has to be put into or onto paper and it's maybe jumping the gun to say this is how that reserve is going to pan out. But if this comes to pass, I think we're going to hear more discussion, a lot more debate around what exactly this reserve is supposed to achieve. Is it really all about creating the strategic asset for the United States or is it something else that lets one industry sort of capitalize on a lot of interest from the very highest levels of the US Government?

Mary Long (13:53)

We'll end it there for now, but if anyone listening is craving more crypto talk, we do have it coming up for you right after this. Later on today's show as Ricky and I debrief our time at ETH Denver, which is a crypto conference that came to our very own backyard. Until then, Asset, thanks for coming onto the show. Always great to talk to you and to get some of your insights into what's going on in the world.

Assit Sharma (14:14)

Say Mary, Thanks a lot. Schwab Trading is now powered by Ameritrade to give you a new elevated trading experience tailor made for trader minds. Go deeper with thinkorswim, the powerful award winning trading platforms now at Schwab. Unlock support from the Trade Desk, our team of passionate traders who live and breathe trading like you do and sharpen your skills with an expanding library of online education crafted just for traders, all designed to help you trade brilliantly. Learn more@schwab.com trading.

Mary Long (14:54)

Last week the crypto world came to Denver. My colleague Ricky Mulvey and I decided to take a little field trip to check it out. We saw lots of flashy people and products, including Doge covered sports cars, magicians, spiritual guides, and an NFT backpack. But amid all that, did we find anything worthwhile for investors? Up next, Ricky and I debrief on our time at ETH Denver.

Ricky Mulvey (15:20)

Mary A few days ago we got back from ETH Denver, which was a cryptocurrency conference in our backyard. This is not a world that we play in much, but I think it was kind of interesting getting a peek into the world of crypto. Some Good, some bad. But when you think back on your experience at this conference, this gathering of cryptocurrency enthusiasts, speculators, investors, business people, what were your high level takeaways from visiting this eth Denver?

Mary Long (15:48)

Ricky, you say some good, some bad. I say all interesting. I think my highest level takeaway was just. It is one thing to read about and think that you have gotten a glimpse into the other world, the culture that is crypto. It's another thing to really see it and be walking through it. And something that really stuck out to me is truly just how crypto broadly feels like a whole other language to me. And so a big thing that I walked away from was as we're passing through these different booths on the convention floor and you and I are trying to figure out what Matcha XYZ or Gelato or the World of Newton. These are names of different booths that are exhibiting there as we're trying to figure out. And we're talking to people to figure out what it is that these platforms do. And we're kind of struggling to get answers. One of the things that I kept thinking to myself was how is one of these platforms differentiated from another? And so that got me thinking a lot about Moats and how we think about them in more traditional businesses, in kind of the, the traditional world of equities and how we think about them in this crypto world. Because it's one thing for me to articulate what the difference is between say Coke and Pepsi. I understand those products as a consumer, I understand the difference between them as a marketer, as an advertiser, I can compare the fundamentals of the businesses. It's another thing for me to walk through the differences of. Again, I'm just going to pull out two random names of exhibitors there. Gelato and the World of Newton. Those are businesses that I, I don't really understand. I don't understand what to grade them on because I'm not deep within that world of crypto. So it's a harder thing for me to evaluate though upon after being there, I do think, okay, there are probably people that could articulate that difference. I just don't speak the language well enough to do it.

Ricky Mulvey (17:43)

Yeah, and one of the things that struck with me, we would go to these booths and ask what's going on with these, like essentially play to earn video games. There was like a Robo advising product that was very odd. A couple of tokens that we didn't quite understand. You would talk to the person at the booth and then Once you asked basically two questions, they would say, oh, well, I'm really not the person to talk about this product in that level of detail. You should talk to someone else. And there were parts of it that were cool. I'm glad that I'm thinking more about things like AI agents from this. But so much of this felt like unnecessarily complex. We went to one booth that was like allegedly a type of financial advising product. There's a big wheel in the back that you spin to earn credits for this thing you don't understand. And you know this. There's like a couch and I'm sitting on the couch in one of the, like the, the workers at the booth, she like sits right up next to me and asks like, how much of your life is predetermined and how much is free will? Which was odd. And I don't, I still don't know what the product is. I go, I go basically 60, 40 predetermined. I grew up in a two parent household in a good part of America. You can't discount that. And then I find. And then I get a 20 sided die. And then they. And then you figure out that this is for some AI agent that allegedly invests cryptocurrency on your behalf. That, that I still don't quite understand. And to me that was one of the biggest themes is like, even for someone who's into the world of investing, there is this deliberate obfuscation of a lot of what this stuff actually is and does.

Mary Long (19:17)

I think that booth in particular looms so large in my takeaway from this event because it was so much about showmanship. And I think broadly, when we talk about crypto, we think a lot and talk a lot about how it kind of represents the gamification of everything, right? And you see that on a very real level in these products and these platforms that like are, with that make up the world of crypto. But you also see it in the real world when you go to a crypto conference and you see this, the whole booth that's supposed to be advertising and drawing attention to this product is not actually centered around explaining to you, potential user, investor, whoever, what the product is. The whole booth is centered around this, this game, this quasi meme where the employees can't actually articulate, oh, we do xyz Instead they're all dressed in black and they're speaking this language of are you ready to embark on a journey? How much of your life is predetermined? Touch the crystal. Here's a Die, and you and I are left going, sorry, what did we just experience?

Ricky Mulvey (20:22)

Is that supposed to make me want to give you money? The other thing that kind of struck with me is one the big themes in crypto that I don't really think about is these, like, play to earn video games. And honestly, that made me a bit cynical about the utility for a lot of. A lot of cryptocurrency stuff. We went to one booth where we ended up playing some sort of crypto game where there was no explanation for how the game worked. Your character would, like, bump into another character and then nothing would happen, or you'd, like, jump on a treasure chest and then nothing would happen. And then the game just goes off after a minute and you have no idea what happened. That's in one case. In the other case, there's literally a whole booth for, like, crypto video games. And you're thinking, what is that? Well, in this case, and for a lot of these games, they are. These basically play to earn games where you start with characters and through the game you're able to build up the skill and health in these characters and then you can turn them into NFTs, which then you can then sell for money. And it just struck me as like, first of all, there's an unfairness associated with, with this. You're. You're kind of playing a game that's rigged if a lot of people are starting with that are better than you. In this case, it was a soccer management game. And then secondarily, I was also thinking that for a lot of these games, I'm not even allowed to demo them. I can't. I can't go in. I'm watching this guy, like, click around and explain how we could possibly earn money by playing this soccer management video game where we can play matches, win them, and then use those points to increase the health of these players, which we can then sell on an open NFT market.

Mary Long (21:54)

Yeah, the thing that sticks out to me about that game, because it's so interesting to your point, Ricky, you have these screens and you think, oh, of course I'm going to be able to try this game out. And in fact, you are not able to try that game out. That just hits home. That obfuscation point that you made about, okay, there's a visual offering here, but try to dig a little deeper and actually play the game yourself. Ask questions to figure out what it is, and you come up very, very short with that game. You know, I kept thinking, okay, managing a soccer team, I liked playing Sims. When I was a teenager, I get this idea that sounds fun to me. The NFT piece is where I, and these are my biases up front, but that's where I get lost a little bit. Because again, I think back to what I liked about playing the Sims, and it was just the act of creating and like, living this life, managing the soccer team. I can theoretically understand the appeal of playing a game and making money off of it. But then my question is, how do you know when you're playing the game, when you're playing the game not just for the joy of creating, playing, etc. But instead to turn a profit? It's one thing if you know how to turn that profit, if you know what the value of these NFTs and what your players are based on. But there aren't any rules, so it's still kind of a crapshoot. And that's another thing that kind of just was echoing through my brain of, wait, what is the value here? And that was, I was asking myself that as we're looking at the soccer management NFT game, as we're looking at the booths. Wait, hold on. If you're an investor that wants to put money into these platforms, what are you basing that judgment on? What are you looking for? Are you betting on the founder? Are you betting on the product? If you're a player in an NFT game, how are you trying to build your soccer players to create a more valuable nft? I don't know the answer to any of those questions.

Ricky Mulvey (23:56)

And this is kind of pulling back the curtain a little bit. I went into this conference and still have, I would say, a large amount of skepticism and distrust. There was a version of this where I was like, oh, we could find some interviews and put them on the show. But then I thought, Mary and I think we kind of came to agreement on this. We don't know this well enough to know if we'd be putting a scammer on the show.

Mary Long (24:18)

Totally.

Ricky Mulvey (24:19)

When I'm thinking about, like, going through that conference, I'm, I'm still not like, oh, I wish I grabbed that interview to present this to the listeners of our show. And, you know, one of the things I, I went in with this, like, if I invest in crypto, how should I do it? Or speculating crypto would be a more, maybe a more accurate way of putting it. I, I kind of came away thinking just like, do a little bit and do it simply. Like, if you just buy a little bitcoin enough that it can't Hurt you. Maybe that's a good idea for the next five to 10 years. Yes, it could be a tulip bulb thing, but a lot of people seem to be accepting it as a sort of digital gold. But then once you get more complex than that, I think there's so many ways that you can step in a pothole. They asked me to host this panel about the next billion dollar idea in crypto and of course I said yes because I thought it would be fun.

Mary Long (25:07)

And you'd learned something.

Ricky Mulvey (25:09)

Yeah, I basically came away from that with just being like, all right, you should just like maybe buy a little bitcoin because I don't understand the rest of it. Like one of the questions I had for, for the panel is they kept talking about these like defi loans and staking. The idea is you can take stable coins, coins that are attached to the value of a US dollar or US Treasuries and then lend them out and then get an apr. And I looked at one of these offers when I got back. There's one stable coin offer where you get these stable coins and you lend them out onto the blockchain and you can get about six and a half percent per year. So if that's your goal is to just generate income on the assets you own, I don't see the reason to do that versus just buying a large basket of high yield corporate bonds, especially if you're an American investor. Ushy, it's backed by BlackRock, it'll pay about 7%. And I asked this to the panel and the explanation was basically like, well, not everyone has access to invest in that. And moreover, you're investing in these cool projects that allow people in developing parts of the world to build and create things. And for me as an investor that I'm like, you know, trying to protect my capital and generate income on some of it, I didn't find that exactly satisfactory.

Mary Long (26:24)

Well, totally. I think the access point is a really great one because access sounds awesome and in a lot of ways is awesome, but just because you have access to something doesn't mean that you should invest in it or that it is the next billion dollar idea. And so knowledge is important too. And just because any investor, anyone on the planet might have access to all these different crypto platforms, coins, blockchains, fill in the blanks. I still think it takes. Access is one step. Yeah, but you need some knowledge in order to act upon that access in a wise way.

Ricky Mulvey (27:01)

So there was one honest moment too, I think, of that convention and that was it. We Went to the crypto booth and we basically asked like, what are the use cases for all of this? And the guy told us, he goes, yeah, it's stable coins and gambling. What did you take from that interaction?

Mary Long (27:20)

Well, one, I was so stoked to have found the seemingly the one person at this conference who could actually explain a use case for this to us after we had asked so many people very similar questions. So immediately I, this person had won a little bit of my trust. But also, yeah, I bought it. I mean again, before we went to that booth, we had been checking out these, these games that are kind of scattered around the convention area. And so I'm thinking about, okay, the game. I can see that crypto is kind of like, it's the, the extension and potentially the end of the gamification of everything. That theme is kind of running through my mind and then to wind up at the end of the day at this booth where basically you have this guy going, yeah, no, a use case for this is gambling. And just like the implementing this into games, I thought, yeah, sound sounds about right. And I think that that can work for a lot of people. Like there is a conversation about crypto that paints it as the future for everyone. And I wonder, I don't know that that is the truth, but is it a future for some people? Yeah, totally. I can buy that. But that doesn't mean that it's going to be the next thing that takes over the entire world. It can still be an important piece for some people that exist within that culture and choose to interact with that world.

Ricky Mulvey (28:42)

Yeah, I think that's, that's the disruption that I came away from. Thinking about is the gaming element. Where you have these sports books right now you think about DraftKings, FanDuel, that kind of thing. And there is a take rate that they're taking on bets going in between during a game. One could imagine a crypto market where there are smart contracts being used and there's more visibility into the markets where people are betting on certain things that I think could absolutely be disruptive. And you could even imagine a, a sports league like the NBA having a sort of NBA token where people can bet on games with it. It's an open market and then maybe the league is taking between 2 and 5% is profit. The league wins, there's a more open market and it becomes more, more efficient as well. The problem with that, I found one league that was doing it and I wanted to check it out, but I immediately got locked out of my account. I had no way of going back in to try to check out the token. And then I'm being told that it's not a gambling thing, it's a play to win thing, which means you can't lose your tokens, you can only win them, which means that when you win, there's a slightly inflate. The word was slightly inflationary supply that you have to worry about. So then you don't really know the value of the token. I'm like, all right, this is. This is too difficult. I don't want to deal with it. So maybe a good idea. But the execution is still incredibly, incredibly tough.

Mary Long (30:00)

One more use case, potential use case that you and I mentioned before. I think a lot about the loneliness epidemic. You and I talk a lot about the loneliness epidemic. One other use case might just be friendship. Ricky.

Ricky Mulvey (30:13)

It is very odd. There is this, you know, the idea of speculation intermingled with friendships. And that seems to be the promise of a lot of these coins. You're not just buying something, you're joining a community. And I had kind of this odd moment where I was walking in on. On the second day, and I'm seeing these people exchange phone numbers. And one of the guys said, like, oh, we were friends on the Internet, but now we're friends in real life. And the guy just kind of like shrugged him off a little bit. And I realized that, like, you can try to find shortcuts for friendship, but you. You don't just find someone and then decide that you're friends forever now. I found it. I found it very odd, but also maybe a good representation of a lot ways that human relationships are made in this space. Last thing, as we close out, we're going to do high, low, buffalo. I think we've gotten to some highs and lows. High was definitely the sleight of hand magician. We saw a sleight of hand magician that almost explained what was going on at a booth, but did some, like, sick card tricks.

Mary Long (31:13)

That was my high, too.

Ricky Mulvey (31:15)

That was. That was a great high. I think the lows we've gotten into. But let's do a buffalo. What was a buffalo for you at this cryptocurrency convention?

Mary Long (31:25)

Well, I know we talked about this one booth with the Wheel of Fortune type exhibition, but truly, that was my buffalo. I saw there. A doge covered McLaren, a doge covered cybertruck. Those were all kinds of things that I expected to see. There were these weird mascots walking around also kind of expected to see that. But this, this witchy Wheel of Fortune booth that where I got to walk into a journey and I came away with a 20 sided die that I think was and forever will be my buffalo from eth Denver.

Ricky Mulvey (32:02)

You didn't want to give them your savings?

Mary Long (32:05)

Yeah. Despite the fact that they swore they would retain no ownership of my assets. I said no. I think I'll stick on to those. Thanks.

Ricky Mulvey (32:11)

My buffalo came at. They had a combat sports event called Karate Combat and shout out Karate Combat. The boys and I had fun. Sometimes you got to take the boys to the fights. If you get it, you get it. My buffalo. There was. There was a guy walking around with a LED backpack that was displaying all of the NFTs that he owned. Which I thought was probably the most interesting answer to the question, when you buy NFTs, how do you show them off to people? And the answer, Mary, is that you buy a backpack with an LED screen and then you walk around a professional theater fighting event and try to show them off to every single person who is in the building.

Mary Long (32:48)

Makes perfect sense to me, Ricky. Even if we're not load enough on on shares of these different crypto platforms, maybe a backpack is in our future.

Ricky Mulvey (32:55)

Let's end it there. Thanks for your time and your site. Appreciate you going to Ethan.

Mary Long (33:06)

As always. People on the program may have interest in the stocks they talk about. And the Motley fool may have formal recommendations for or against throw, buy or sell stocks based solely on what you hear. All personal finance content follows Motley fool editorial standards and are not approved by advertisers. For Asa Sharma and Ricky Moby, I'm Mary Long. Thanks for listening, fools. We'll see you tomorrow.