eToro US CEO on Retail Investor Excitement; ‘Ready Player One’ Enters the Metaverse

I think the one thing you, you, you can tell about retail investors is that they're getting smarter and smarter when it comes to their proximity to the smarter money. So none of them are betting against the fed. Um So they're really looking at sort of like if interest rates go down, they feel like it's gonna be that much more reason for uh to have a bullish thesis going forward. Um You know, nine out of 10 of them still say they're going to increase their portfolio contribution rather than decrease it. That was etoro us ceo Lule demise on the growing excitement amongst retail that interview in just a few minutes. Welcome to first mover on this show. We bring you all of your top news headlines of the day and interviews with industry heavy hitters. Let's get right into it and talk about what's happening in the news this morning. Crypto friendly us presidential candidate, Vivek Ramaswamy has suspended his campaign for Republican leadership after finishing fourth place in Iowa as part of his campaign, Ramaswamy laid out a crypto plan that emphasized safeguarding software developers and Unho wallets treating most crypto as commodities and reducing sec influence over the sector. Here's what he told first mover, late last year, whatever the rules of the road are, they deserve to be clear. And my litmus test of whether or not they're clear is if the head of the SEC or the commissioners of the SEC cannot instantly answer whether or not some widely used Cryptocurrency or coin Co Council security or a commodity. That means the rules that we have right now are a failure. In his concession speech. The former biotech executive thanked supporters and endorsed former president Donald Trump. Trump won the Iowa caucus by around 30 points over his closest rival, Sla of Mobile will sell a second crypto smartphone. That's according to a person familiar with the matter, the upcoming phone will have the same basic features as its predecessor called Saga. The features include an onboard crypto wallet, custom android software and adapt store for crypto applications. The person told Coindesk that the phone will be cheaper than the first one and have different hardware Saga gained unexpected popularity when crypto traders realized the phone came with an allocation of bank tokens causing the phone to sell out in less than a week. The original phone cost $1000 when it launched but saw prices reduced amid struggling sales at price time on the Saga. Phones were listed on ebay for as much as $3900 and the true US D stablecoin was knocked off its peg according to Coindesk indices. Data from Binance shows that in the last 24 hours, there have been over $444 million in T US DC orders versus $301 million in buy orders resulting in a deficit of around 100 and $42 million. Crypto quant analyst, Bradley Park told Coindesk on telegram, quote T US D is related to Justin's Sun and its market cap is constantly shrinking. He added that it is likely due to the impact of the HTX. And Polonius Hacks Park also pointed to Binance killing fees on first digital's FD US D trading pairs with EB and B dot And Soul. As another reason for the decline with the exchange, not including T US D as an option for staking new tokens on its launch pad. Let's take a deeper dive into retail now, what do retail investors want in the United States? I had the chance to catch up with it to us, Ceo Lule Denise last week. But what's driving excitement for retail investors? The interview was done before the approval of the bought Bitcoin ETF. But even so demise said that the crypto thesis is becoming more and more appealing for retail investors. In the interview. She says investors are getting smarter and smarter and are increasing their portfolio contributions rather than decreasing them. Let's take a listen, Etoro Us recently added 700 new US stocks to its platform, expanding investment options available to users to almost 5000 options. Joining us now to discuss is Etoro us, Ceo Lule demise Lule. Welcome to the show. Thank you for having me. Pleasure to be with you. All right. All anyone's been talking about for the top of January is the spot, Bitcoin ETF. This interview we're doing is pre-recorded. So I think by the time we talk, we would have had a decision, but let's uh zoom out a little bit. How are you watching the news? Yeah, and the same sort of excitement and anticipation that everybody does, you know, as a, as a platform that already offers several coins, uh We're always welcoming new ways for retail investors as well as institutional this time to access this instrument. I'm curious about your users. You know, this news has caused a lot of excitement within the crypto industry. Are you seeing new users coming to the platform looking to explore Bitcoin because of all of all of this excitement around the spot Bitcoin ETF? Yeah, not just because of this uh spot Bitcoin, but also, you know, uh there have been so many other news events as you know, Bitcoins up a sizable amount year to date already. Um So there's been so many events that have really sort of made the crypto thesis more appealing for retail investors are also um you know, offer so many coins. So already our investors are aware of crypto what it means. So when they're engaging, it's not from a fervor of a new, but from a, do I believe in the CSIS today? And do I think valuations are the right place and it's that kind of sort of trade off? They're thinking about earlier this week. It Toro launched their retail investor beat survey. Uh a bunch of statistics released there. Anything surprising that stood out to you uh when it comes to retail investors in the United States? Yeah, you know, I think the one thing you, you, you can tell about retail investors is that they're getting smarter and smarter when it comes to their proximity to the smarter money. So none of them are betting against the fed. Um So they're really looking at sort of like if interest rates go down, they feel like it's gonna be that much more reason for uh to have a bullish thesis going forward. Um You know, nine out of 10 of them still say they're going to increase their portfolio contribution rather than decrease it. So you definitely, you know, one of the things that you see is the sort of like the continuous leaning in, even though we've had a little bit of uh richness evaluation in the last few months, especially the, you know, the top names. Um You're still seeing people leaning in the other thing you're seeing is also a cash build up. So again, like we've been talking about this ambidextrous investor for a long time, um you know, 45% of them are still building up their cash reserve so they can be opportunistic as new, new um means of getting into the market begin. Are you surprised to see this continued interest given, you know, Binance settled a very large fine by multiple government agencies. Earlier this year, we had Sam B and Fried convicted of several fraud related charges last year. Is it surprising to you to see that people are reading these headlines um reading some of the more negative news that comes out about the industry and still exploring on platforms like E Toro. Yeah. You know, it's, it's delightfully surprising meaning that um it's good to know that the retail investor doesn't easily get triggered as they used to, right? That they can have two things in their minds which is like one is it's not good to have a lack of regulations or cleanness of operating model. And so seeing that happening and still saying, but that's not the same thing as the thesis of defi still being viable, right? So they're literally having two thoughts in their minds, which is something I feel like this last round. Not just for Bitcoin across the board, you see that among retail investors to be able to parse out facts. If you will. In my intro, I spoke about the 700 new US stocks. Of course, Etoro also allows its users to trade crypto as we've been chatting about, I know uh when the SEC sued Binance and Coinbase back in July, a few of those tokens were delisted. How are you deciding what tokens to list and what tokens to delist? Especially when we're still yet to get regulatory clarity here in the United States. Yeah, we've not listed new tokens for some time right now. So a lot of our procedures and processes still hold though, which is we review the validity of the actual project, the the soundness from a due diligence perspective of the facts around it. So all the things you would imagine in assessing a token, but we've not necessarily listed anything new since the uh regulatory uncertainty began. Uh primarily because we wanna make sure that that that sort of certainty and clarity arises before we create uh more disruption on our platform. But we're excited to have the ones that we do. Um And as you said, we are a multi asset platform. So whether it's stocks ETF S our hope is that when the spot ETF is approved and our clearing broker lists it that we'll be able to offer that to our customers, we have options on our platform. So definitely Toro is all about like engage in the markets, how you see fit and that's what you're seeing in our survey as well. People are engaging in the market as they see fit. Um We have interest on cash in our offering. So, you know, for those who are, remember that 45% I told you that are sort of holding powder dry, they're able to make their money work while they're keeping their powder dry on our platform. When you're going through your survey results, are you able to tell if people are actually understanding crypto, are they here to stay? You know, you often hear people are so confused, especially when they're starting to learn about crypto when they're going to some of these platforms that aren't like completely dey or even some of the more uh large centralized exchanges, are they understanding it? Are they thirsty for more information? Do you have any kind of insight into that? Yeah, I think at the beginning, what you saw is a shake out of those who are not really necessarily crypton natives but who were um just wanting to ride along on this sort of on the the valuation ride that came about. I feel like now what's left over is people who understand the thesis. It doesn't mean the asset class is any less volatile. Um It like any young asset class, it will continue to be volatile. Uh But you do see that there is an intellectual understanding of, of what it is regardless of the fact that indeed people need to understand that volatility is a part of this asset class. Uh I steered us away from regulation, but I want to come back to it because you actually have a voice here in the U SI know late last year you joined at Finra Fintech Committee. Are you able to tell us how you're speaking about crypto in that committee? What are you looking forward to in 2024? And what can folks expect when it comes to Finra? Yeah. So, you know, for etoro we function in over 100 different countries, we really regulation is at the core of what we do, right? Because at the end of the day when you're in financial services, you can't fight that and you have to make sure you do right by your customers. So this was just another extension of our presence in a regulatory infrastructure and making sure in the US that we have a voice, there's three things we really champion. So one is to make sure that whatever we do from a regulatory perspective doesn't have a negative unintended consequence of icing out the retail investor sometimes in doing the, you know, what you think is prudent as a regulator, you might, you might really thaw and chill um regulate an entry point for retail investors. So that's one of the things we're always going to be championing access, lower barrier to entry to retail investors. The other is to make sure that the regulations that we formulate actually allow for innovations to happen while still making sure that we're not, we're, you know, we're sort of ironing out all the uncertainty and making sure that bad actors don't thrive in this space. But for us, you know, and then lastly, it's really just making sure we're always partnering with our regulator whenever we're innovating something. Um Finra is a great uh regulator in that sense, they really do try to understand where innovations are going and making sure we're, we're making sure we're keeping a good line of communication with them. The big question everyone's asking is if we'll see any crypto legislation ahead of the elections later this year, what do you think? You know, I, I wish I was a, a clairvoyant futuristic person. I would say, I hope so. Um It seems highly improbable just because there's so many things that are occupying our country right now, but it's great that they, that the, the legislation has moved at least out of committee, the first version of it. Um And that, you know, my hope is that at a minimum, there's something that's shovel ready that, you know, whatever new administration it is, whether it's this one renewed or next one that that can be something that can be advanced fairly quickly. You know, the an overarching theme I hear when you talk and not just on the show, but when I've listened to you speak before is the, the commitment you have to financial inclusion and equity. That's a narrative that I think sometimes gets lost. When we talk about this space. It is one that underpins Cryptocurrency. But, you know, when we're watching that price go to the moon and then come back down. Sometimes we, we forget about that. What do you think about the industry? Do you think that it's doing enough to include those who have been traditionally, traditionally left out by financial systems? You will never find me saying it's enough and partly because enough is only going to be known when there is actual distribution of ownership that feels like it represents our population, right? Um You do see in crypto ownership, that is the case, right, more than 50% of it is people of color, very heavy in terms of ownership, that is very heavy ownership among young people. So you do see it in the asset class of crypto, but I'd love to see it across the board. Um because we know, right, you know, there is no wealth building without participation in capital markets and investing in these kinds of spaces. So I think that it will be enough when we see an equal representation of what the population looks like and how what the investing public looks like. Do you think something needs to change though? Do you think that in some ways the same barriers and challenges that existed in traditional finance are being replicated within this industry? And and maybe we don't know we're replicating them. But, but we have to be honest, when we look at the industry, I see some of them being being replicated. Do you think we need to be a little bit more thoughtful. Yeah, I mean, for sure, more thoughtful. I do think that a lot has happened to date to make that access possible. Right. So when you look at minimums that have dropped, uh, fractional shares, when it comes to ETF S and stocks, so many things have happened commission free that have really, I think that that's where you have entry point, right. When you have less barriers to entry, I think as I said, regulation making sure that it doesn't unintentionally make it exclusive, right? In, in the attempt to try to be um protective of the investors to make sure that it doesn't end up um icing out um new to investing or people of color investing. Um and then the other thing is, you know, it matters who's, who's speaking, right? So the more of a rainbow, the people who are talking about investing look like the more inviting that is we know this to be the case, right? People end up being who they see. Um So this conversation we're having and so many others like it is going to be important to show that everybody can invest no matter what their background or, or creed. All right, we are going to have to wrap it up in just a moment. But since we're sitting in January, what do you think is going to be that key narrative that drives the industry this year? What are you watching. So, you know, one is that, you know, I never fight the macro uh environment and I feel like if the Fed decides to shift, you can't fight the Fed, right? So I think that that will be true for retail investors, for our industry and the broader landscape if that happens, I think that means you're gonna just keep on seeing persistent retail participation, especially if the economy doesn't soften. Um So that's exciting, right? Being able to see retail have stick to itiveness if not more uh more share of the investing pie. Um in terms of like what I'm looking for from our particular industry when it comes to fintech and digital assets. It's really hoping that we have regulatory clarity on a lot of fronts so that we can keep innovating on behalf of the retail investor Lule. Thanks so much for joining first mover. Thank you so much for having me. That was it Toro us Ceo Lule demise. It's time to take a look at the chart of the day. The chart of the day is presented by crypto.com, the leading crypto platform trusted by over 80 million users worldwide. Bitcoin sell the news pullback came from Binance and OX. That's according to new data from KO. The Paris based research firm shows that selling pressure has been concentrated on Binance, OK. X and up bitt, an indicator called the cumulative volume delta or CBD. For short shows, traders from Binance led the pullback in Bitcoin. The CV D tracks the net difference between buying and selling volumes over time offering a total of net bullish or bearish pressures in the market. Positive values indicate excess purchase volume and negative values suggest. Otherwise. Ko said in a weekly report quote, the ETF S began trading last Thursday with a strong surge in cumulative volume delta across all major exchanges. A net of 3000 Bitcoin was market bought on finance in the hours surrounding market open in the U. However, as some had feared sell the news took hold in bins CV D quickly fell into the negative as did OK. X's end quote as of 10:10 a.m. Eastern time, Bitcoin is trading at around $42,600 relatively flat on the day. But you'll remember Bitcoin reached a high of 48,975 on Thursday on the back of that ETF news. It's time for our Beyond Bitcoin segment. On this segment, we talk about everything outside of the Bitcoin Universe. But I have to mention, I think for all in agreeance that Bitcoin paved the way for so many of the innovations we talk about on this segment. But this segment is for the innovation and creativity happening in the broader cryptos sphere. One of those innovations is a new partnership between Future Verse and Ready Player. One to build the ready verse. Joining me now to tell us what that is, is Future Verse co-founder, Shera Senderoff Shara. Welcome to the show. Thanks for having me. Excited to be here. I'm excited to talk to you about this because if you talk to anyone building a metaverse or a web three game ready player, one always comes out. So tell me about the partnership. Uh how did this come to be? So for that exact reason, we also believe that ready player one was one of the most mainstream properties to showcase truly what an open interoperable metaverse can be. And the foundations and themes that Ernie Klein envisioned and were of course, then showcased in Steven Spielberg's Blockbuster film showed the world where, where we're headed obviously to a bright future that allows for a lot more control and individuals over their assets and their finances and, and the promise of Blockchain as we all know. So this came to be a couple of years ago, we got together with Ernie Klein and we realized that his vision in the books was exactly what future verse had set out to build. And we put together the metaverse infrastructure that is needed to actually bring a lot of the themes in the books in the movie to life. And so we started talking to Ernie and ended up approaching Warner Brothers. And through a lot of conversations, we all realized how aligned with were in the opportunities for the future and taking what is in this property and bringing it to life in the metaverse and it, it led us to launch what we announced last week, Ready Verse Studios, which is the promise of the open metaverse but not only using Ready Player one IP, it's a multiworld, multi IP interoperable metaverse where multiple iconic IP S will come to life and, and web three properties and NFT collections that we've come to know over the last couple of years will all be interoperable and, and experienced in their own ways. But then collectively wove it in together. Did you approach Ernie or did Ernie approach you? It was both of us kind of going out at the same time. So Ernie and, and his producing partner Dan Farrow, who produced the movie, they had been talking to all the big usual suspects in tech and Ernie truly has a very specific vision from his heart on what would make him want to do that and it had to be done the right way. And when we sat down with him, Ernie and, and he said this in a bunch of media and he'll continue to say it again. We were the only people that had the technology he was looking for to bring it together now, but also shared in alignment of the values that we want to bring to this so that it's done the right way was his mind was his mind almost like blown that this thing that he dreamt up and created so long ago could actually become a reality. He was, in fact, he said that he thought it would take 10 to 30 more years to come to life. And so he's been in a lot of shock when we lifted up the hood and showed him a lot of the components of the technology under the future Verse platform. He couldn't believe it. He was like the fact that this can happen in 2024 was not what I thought would be. But here we go. Let's let's make it a reality. And he wanted to be a part of it, which is a huge part of what makes this really special is the creators are a part of what we're doing. And him being a founder of this company showcases not only a signal to Hollywood that we're approaching this from the creator first perspective, but he's completely involved with working on narrative game loops, quest loops of what the experience will become. And he's one of the greatest storytellers in the world. So I think people don't realize that these experiences that we'll see develop over the next few years, not only in what we're building, but the interconnectivity of what everyone's building will will and can be built on incredible stories. What part was he most shocked about when he saw the technology, when he saw what could be built? What was the part that was most shocking to him? I think for him, it was around digital ownership. It was the fact that and the true interoperability of finances and assets because the way he outlined his vision in Ready player, one, he showcased the ability for an avatar to become anything they wanted to be for you as an individual to choose who and how you wanted to show up in the metaverse and then effectively take in your wallet. All of the things that you own and move through different experiences, pay in real time and interchanging currencies. And for you not to think about how that worked. And that was the beauty of the movie. When you follow pars all he goes through games and experiences and he doesn't like take out his wallet and think, oh, I just moved worlds now. I have to switch my currencies. It all operates invisibly and seamlessly. So the user experience can allow for the wish fulfillment that we saw in the books in the movie. And that's truly what this will become. And that was the biggest part for him of saying, wow, this can come to life right now. You know, I've, I've dabbled in some of the metaverse platforms that are out there. I've tried to play some of the web three games that are out there. And the experience is quite rudimentary at the moment, I think to say the least there are still a lot of moving pieces, still a lot of problems to solve for folks who are building in this realm. What's different about ready verse? Do you see yourselves um at the very beginning of a long journey? And if so, how long do you think it's going to take to reach that ready player, one type of world? So I think that the beginning of this will roll out in experiences this year and will continue to roll them out over the next few years. I think there's going to be a lot of things that are going to change how the evolution of this works from things like the Apple Vision Pro that we're going to see come out in, I think a month now, maybe three weeks, we're gonna start to see different elements of technology that are going to accelerate different pieces. So this isn't uh we'll see you in 10 years type of situation. This is something that we've been building over the last we've as future verse, we've been building for 5 to 6 years, the pieces of technology that are needed for this and specifically for the ready verse, we've been building for the last two years. So this is coming this calendar year and over the next few years, different components of it will roll out. But the hardest challenge in this space, truly live and interoperability, the ability to move a particular asset from one place to another seamlessly. And that's what we've been building technologically for and solving for which are some of the hardest things out there. And that's why you haven't seen a truly defining experience for what the metaverse can be because the interoperability hasn't been there yet. Now, we're about to showcase all the components of what we built that will make that a reality. Let's talk about what interoperability means. Uh You know, I think we use the word so, so often. But what does that actually mean? Does that mean I can go from universe to universe just like I can from country to country shop to shop in the physical world. I'm so glad you brought that up because I, I talk about it all the time and I, I explained it to my mom like this if I and I did this this morning. So I'll take you through the interoperable existence that I had in the real world. I went to Starbucks and I used my Starbucks stars to get a coffee. Then I went and had a meeting and I used Apple Pay because the restaurant was an Apple Pay only. And then later I went to a store and bought a book and I used my credit card, I didn't think. And then I took that coffee with me to my meeting and then I took the book back into my house. So from that experience, we're living in an interoperable world. Yet, digitally, we're not, we have to have different logins for different systems. We can upload different assets on different platforms, but then we can't take them somewhere else, they're watermarked or they're simply not allowed to exit. So if you think about the fact that our real life is interoperable, just like you said, I can get on a plane and fly to see you in person. We can't do that easily online. And that's because of the structures and the systems and frankly, some of the control that has been built into a lot of the technology platforms that we use every day. So in order to change that we have to create interoperability assets, engines, smart contracts, I don't want to get too much in the weeds, but we have to create all the systems with which these things can move through and assets can move through. So for example, think about how you might have a digital asset in NFT that that's 3D game ready looking, but then you might have a flat two D JPEG style image. Well, that, that image shouldn't not be able to come to life. So how do you bring it through? How does it turn into a 3D asset? And then if it is a 3D asset, but one looks low poly or more pixelated and another form of creative looks totally 3D and photo real. How do you exchange the two and that has to happen through a piece of technology we built called the asset register that allows those assets to, to evolve based on where they're going. So that just shows you the complication of this type of technology. It's not easy and it has to be built at every layer of how an asset can move. But eventually, and, and not too far out will be there. And that's how our existence digitally will start to take shape in a way that is much more similar to how we exist in the real world. She, you brought up the aspect of control and we're dealing with intellectual property here. And my mind often goes, you know, when we're talking about interoperability online across different IP that has been governed by these ironclad contracts for so, so long, how does interoperability actually work? Like let's, let's take two big IP S like Harry Potter and Lord of the Rings and Ready player. One, if I want to move between those three universes one day, uh does it become difficult based on the different properties and, and the different contracts that were put in place years ago? No. So that's the beauty of Blockchain and that's where I think this buzzword soup as I like to call it. We're throwing out Blockchain metaverse. A I all these different terms, the biggest and most important piece of that is the Blockchain because it authenticates and it tracks the copyright and the ownership back to the person who originated it, the creator or the rights holder or whatever it may be at that, that entry point of that. IP So if we create assets related to ready player. One, for example, those assets will originate on the Blockchain. You will always be able to track where they go, how they're traded, the revenue and micro transactions coming off of that particular IP and it will go back to the rights holder. That's the problem right now. In, in the real world, we don't have the ability to track and, and identify and authenticate and, and properly funnel the right compensation back to the right creators. And so that's what Blockchain as the piece of this puzzle helps us do. I guess my question is when I think about this, it's like, let's say, maybe I, I can create a different scenario, let's say there's a Disney Metaverse and a Netflix Metaverse and, and for their own reasons, Disney doesn't want me going into the Netflix uh Metaverse. Is there a world in which a company could still have that kind of control over which, which universe I'd like to visit online or does the technology solve for that as well? So that's exactly what we've set out to do is create the open metaverse. And the reason for the focus on the open metaverse is because all of these things need to be interconnected so that a consumer has a better experience, you brought up a really good point. We always like to really emphasize that it, there aren't, it isn't a metaverse, there aren't Disney's metaverse and this person's metaverse, it's the metaverse just like the internet. If I came to you and, and you were interviewing me now and I said I'm gonna build an internet. You'd be like an internet. Well, it's just the internet that there's just one internet and everyone builds on top of it. The same as for the open metaverse. It's an interconnected foundation. It's the metaverse everyone builds and everything is interoperable by way of all the technology underneath. So Disney might have an experience that is separate from Warner Warner Brothers. Their IP might exist in a particular way where they can focus entirely around a particular product, but someone could go in and buy an avatar or a car or a, a article of clothing and then they could leave and take it into another area or another world. And it simply serves as marketing just like it does in the real world. If I'm wearing a Disney sweatshirt and someone walks by me on the street, they're like, oh yeah, I wanted to watch frozen because you were wearing a frozen sweatshirt if I was wearing a frozen sweatshirt. But so that's the example of the true promise that Ernie Klein outlined in Ready Player. One is the open metaverse where you still have control over your IP. You still get to make creative decisions that respect the way you own that property, but it's all interconnected in a way that, that adds value to everyone. So I think that's the thing that people are missing here is that this isn't going to jeopardize the opportunity and the revenue opportunities, especially for rights holders. It's only gonna elevate everyone together and j just quickly before we go, I think you're in a good position to answer this question. How is Hollywood? How are big brands looking at uh Blockchain technology, looking at crypto, looking at the metaverse? Um Is there still that same momentum that we saw in late 2021? So there's a new form of momentum and it's faster and it's better. And now people understand that this is simply an extension of their ability to introduce their IP to their consumers and allow for further engagement and they don't have to build it in a complicated way. I'd say that the over the last two years, there was a bit of a false introduction to this technology because it was clunky. The user experience was not fluid and not seamless and brands. And, and Hollywood IP looked at it and said, well, if it's this clunky, how are consumers going to understand it? The evolution over the last couple of years and we've certainly focused on this at future Verse is to make that much more, easier to digest and easier to use. And so now I've seen a boom in Hollywood, especially since our announcement, raising their hands to say what IP can I put in here? And we've obviously been in conversations with multiple studios for the last year around this IP and brands even we're only a week in to the new year and I've seen 10 times the number of brands calling saying, how do we dip our toe in the water? What does it look like for us to just start? We just want to get in, we just want to experiment and see where this goes because we know it's, it's here to stay, which is a bit of an alternative view based on a lot of the media saying the metaverse is dead. It's very, very much alive. Sure, thanks so much for joining us on first mover. Anyone who watches the show knows I'm excited about the metaverse. So I look forward to following your journey and we'll welcome you back when you have a new update for us. Thank you so much. Appreciate it, Jen. That was Fr co-founder, Shea Senderoff. World leaders are gathering in Davos at the World Economic Forum to discuss the future of finance coin desks, Chief content Officer Michael Casey, who you might recognize from the money reimagined podcast is on the ground here. He is giving us a preview into what kind of talks are happening. Hi, it's Michael Creson, Chief Concert Officer of Coin Desk and I'm here once again uh for the work with forum in Davos. And this year, I would say, you know, crypto presence is, is almost as large as it has been in prior years, but it feels a little bit less bit, a little bit more subdued. We've got file corn here, we've got circle here, we've got Hadera. There is the Casper labs, guys, there's uh CV labs. So on the promenade, the, the main strip that runs into the main congress, you're certainly seeing a crypto presence. I think the big Thees people are talking about. Obviously the ETF approval that's on everybody's mind and figuring out what that means for the future of regulation around everything from stable points to tokenisation, these topics are coming up and all sorts of speaking events on the sidelines of the Congress and some of them are even being talked out talking about inside the Congress. And so you know that along with the fact that A I is on everybody's lips to sort of walk down the promenade, you see multiple signs from companies saying that they are promising that humanity meets A I solution. Ah but you know, not a lot of conversation at the broader level, but a lot of people within the crypto space, at least talking about the idea that Blockchain could be a solution to the uh concerns people have about how large language which models are, you know, potentially impacting uh human lives in a negative way. So the the idea of Blockchain is a proof for the providence of data ownership of the data, the control of information. And that is it's starting to bubble up in a little way here. Uh and, and, and the crypto community is hoping that the uh regulatory organs, the policy making noise won't start listening to them, given the concerns that people have about what a I's impact on community could be that along with the fact that we've obviously got climate change situation in Gaza, a whole lot of stuff going and a lot of people talking about the elections in the US. So as always a big talk fest, lots of people running around trying to network, trying to do deals. Uh It's Davos after all the sun is shining and there's snow and that's it. That was Coin desk chief content Officer Michael Casey who is on the ground in Davos. As you watch this video, he will join first mover tomorrow to unpack more of what he's seeing and tell us about the discussions he's having on the future of finance. Don't miss that. It will be on first mover tomorrow. All right. That's a wrap for first mover. Thank you so much for watching and thank you to our guests today. It Toro Us, Ceo Lule Demise and Future Verse co-founder, Shea Senderoff. As a note, we do sometimes edit interviews for consistency and clarity on this show. If you love the crypto news as much as I do and you just can't wait until tomorrow's show. Check out coin desk.com, all the latest news headlines are there and if you're looking for a markets update, head on over to the Coin Desk podcast network that's on all podcast platforms, check out markets daily that is also hosted by me. I'm Jen Sani. We'll see you tomorrow.