Making Crypto Accessible to Millions! with MoonPay's Keith Grossman

Episode Transcript
Available transcripts are automatically generated. Complete accuracy is not guaranteed.
Speaker 1 (00:00):
People really misunderstand crypto because it's treated like a vertical
category when it's really a horizontal category. And what I
mean by that is going back to my time in media,
TV or broadcast or radio. Those are vertical categories. You're
either linear television or terrestrial radio or you're not.

Speaker 2 (00:16):
When you get to digital, digital.

Speaker 1 (00:18):
Is a horizontal platform. Anything that can be digitized ultimately
will be digitized. So now take that step one step
further into the crypto space. What is crypto really right?
Crypto is tokenization, right, so if it can be digitized,
once it's digitized, it could be tokenized. So what does
that make crypto. It makes crypto a horizontal platform as well,

(00:38):
not a vertical category.

Speaker 3 (00:45):
This episode is brought to you by Treasure. Treasure makes
beautifully crafted hardware wallets that'll allow you to easily and
safely store your crypto assets. Treasure has been in the
game for a very long time, since twenty thirteen. They
were the pioneers of hardware wallets in the seed phrase setup,
and their hardware wallets are open source. In fact, my
favorite is the Treasure Save five. It's a beautifully designed

(01:08):
and easy to use hardware wallet. Guys, and it's my
go to and they support a variety of coins, all
your top crypto tokens, your big coins, your x rp Ethereum,
Solana and much more and even new coins even black
Rocks Biddle token. So they support coins on the institutional
side where you have tokenization of different assets and much more.

(01:29):
And they even offer a great service that helps you
to get your treasure device set up. You get one
on one customer support from their team, so you can
check that out as well. So once again, I'm a
big fan of this hardware wallet. So if you'd like
to learn more, visit the link in the description. Hey, folks,
welcome into the Thinking Crypto podcast. I'm your host Tony Edward,
and today we're recording at Station three in New York's

(01:51):
Financial District and my guest is Keith Grossman, who is
the president at Moonpay.

Speaker 2 (01:56):
Keith.

Speaker 3 (01:56):
Great to have you.

Speaker 1 (01:57):
Thank you, Leally. This is Thinking Crypto. This is between
two ferns. That's right.

Speaker 3 (02:01):
I'll be Zach Galafanakis.

Speaker 1 (02:03):
So sweet, Okay, thank you, Okay, like I was, I
just didn't want to take that role on Okay, good,
So Tony, thank you so much for having me.

Speaker 3 (02:09):
Yeah, I'm so excited to learn all the details around
what Moonpay is doing. But also your background fascinates me
and I have a lot of question with your time
at a Time and even Wired and much more. But
let's kick it off with your background. Tell us about
where you're from and growing up in professional background.

Speaker 1 (02:27):
So I mean I'm boring Tony like I grew up
in New York City on the Upper East Side. I
now live on the Upper West Side. I grew up
in an apartment nine F. I now live in apartment
nine F. I went to school upstate, and outside of
Moonpay being downtown, my entire career has been midtown New York. Right,
So I'm like, as as mentioning to you like a
two mile bubble boy, right. And I started my career

(02:50):
out of college. I was a government major in you know,
at Cornell. And I started my career at Wired as
an allociate on the business side. And I rose up
at Conde Nasts from intern up to associate publisher and
then went over to Bloomberg and I rose to become
global chief revenue Officer and then from their time where

(03:14):
I was president for four years, and then came over
to Moonpey, and I've been at Moonpey for the past
three years.

Speaker 2 (03:20):
It's been a lot of fun.

Speaker 3 (03:21):
So what a transition? How did you discover blockchain and krypton?
What made you want to come work in the industry?

Speaker 1 (03:25):
Well, well, so I was never a journalist, right, so
I was always on the business technology innovation side, right,
so I get Wired. If you saw, like in twenty
ten the tablet edition, like when the iPad came out
that Steve Jobs held up, I was part of the
team that did that with Scott Dadag and Maya Dresen
and Harardmittman. And when we took over Ours Technica, we

(03:46):
launched a predictive algorithm called the rs Accelerator that won
a Project ISAAC Award for Best Digital Invention. And at Boomberg,
it was really about bringing all these disparate pieces together
to launch Boomberg Media. And then ultimately, like we launched
the events, we launched Boomberg Quick Take, which was social
mobile video and time was about modernizing this brand, right,

(04:06):
which explains like why we took.

Speaker 2 (04:08):
It into web three.

Speaker 1 (04:09):
But for me, like I fell in love with crypto
back in twenty ten, and the editors of Wired came
to me. I was the associate publisher at the time,
and they said, will you write a check for us
to mind bitcoin in our offices? And I said, what's that?
And they explained it to me and I was like whatever, okay,

(04:34):
And like the check was I think it was like
sixty eight hundred dollars and it was when you could
mine bitcoin with the CPU, like you can't do that.

Speaker 2 (04:41):
Today, right.

Speaker 1 (04:42):
Maya Dresen was actually in the office when this happened,
which I love because like I have like a like
I have a validator for this story, like this moment,
and and like from there they wrote the article and
like I kind of was fascinated with the space. If
you ever curious, like why Bloomberg has at crypto as
a handle, right, Like, like I was part of the

(05:02):
team that secured that and then ultimately we launched the
Crypto vertical within Bloomberg, right, you know. But it's always
been a topic that I loved. It wasn't It was
really COVID that made me realize and understand what the
technology could do in terms of connecting people, communities, what
digital ownership really meant, what the what was actually happening,

(05:27):
you know, and I think the big epiphany for me
over that time was that the Internet was absorbing value
and the movement of value, similar to like back in
the day when the Internet absorbed telephany, right, like very
few people remember, there used to be these ads on
AT and T that were like call call Paris for

(05:50):
two dollars and fourteen cents a minute, called Japan, or
for like two dollars and ninety nine cents a minute.
Those ads don't exist anymore, and it's because the Internet
absorbed telephany with voice over IP and like drove the
price down to zero. The phone company still exists, but
they had to find new ways of making money. I
saw the same thing happening with blockchain technologies, like value

(06:11):
was all of being absorbed, and like the movement and
the distillation of value, all of a sudden was going
to be democratized, and I thought that that was just
one of the biggest evolutions you could possibly imagine.

Speaker 3 (06:22):
So, Keith, you are an og I mean twenty ten.

Speaker 1 (06:25):
Look like in media, I was the youngest person almost
every job I ever took in crypto, I am a cryptogeriatric.

Speaker 2 (06:30):
I think I'm fifteen years older than the median age
at Moonpay.

Speaker 3 (06:34):
So what's it like looking back now? You know, crypto
has grown significantly, we got legislation, all of wall streets here,
all the banks and so forth. What's it like looking
back and seeing that growth?

Speaker 1 (06:46):
Look, it's fun, right, it's awesome with any technology, Like
in the beginning, it's always it's always beautiful in the beginning,
because in the beginning it's really pure, right, and it's
always sort of set forth by technological purists, and like that,

(07:06):
that purity is what sort of attracts, you know, a
lot of the thinkers to come in and build within it.

Speaker 2 (07:15):
To me, like, I'm.

Speaker 1 (07:18):
Always intrigued by the purity of that moment, right like
the Internet saw it like the cyber of punks. What
I love, though, is the moment where it is in now,
where it's like we're no longer these crazy people streaming
from the hill top, but like the wind is in
the sails of the of the ecosystem.

Speaker 2 (07:38):
And I definitely think that.

Speaker 1 (07:40):
And you mentioned this between legislative clarity, regulatory clarity, banking clarity,
accounting clarity, the industries seeing sort of like this Golden
age emerge, whereas for the past fifteen years, it's had
to sort of build and sort of like the fog
of grayness.

Speaker 3 (07:59):
If we were to make the analogy comparing the Internet,
are we at the broadband phase or the mobile phone phase?

Speaker 1 (08:06):
Okay, so the analogy I would actually give is, do
you remember, like back in like the early nineties, like
there were three eighty six chips for eighty six chips,
pentium chips. People would talk about their modems they had
fourteen point four bps motives, you remember, Okay, Like, do
you remember what was the number one ad campaign at

(08:28):
that time?

Speaker 2 (08:28):
Do you remember that?

Speaker 3 (08:30):
Was it around AOL?

Speaker 2 (08:31):
No? It was Intel inside right on tell in side.

Speaker 1 (08:35):
Yeah, was the biggest ad campaign you could imagine everyone
would talk about when the pentium chip came out. It
was the only thing people talk about. Then all of
a sudden, Steve Jobs comes out with an iPod, right,
and he says, thousand songs in your pocket. I realized,
since we're going to be on YouTube, this is not
an iPod, this is an iPhone. It was the closest
thing I have to it, right, right, But he says
thousand songs in your pocket, and all of a sudden,

(08:56):
everyone says, I want that, right, it's they don't want
they don't care about the upset anymore.

Speaker 2 (09:00):
They care about the experiences. Right.

Speaker 1 (09:03):
Where I genuinely think we're at right now is that
moment where we are in between the chips and the experiences, right.
And what I mean by that is is when people
are talking about the blockchains that they're using or that
things are built on, that's still a chip. That's still
the technology.

Speaker 2 (09:24):
Right.

Speaker 1 (09:24):
And two years ago I wrote this up ed and
it's on Nasdaq.

Speaker 2 (09:28):
It's funny. It's called nobody Cares how your toilet works? Right?

Speaker 1 (09:31):
And like what's funny is like, think about do you
care how your toilet works?

Speaker 2 (09:35):
That just work? Right?

Speaker 1 (09:36):
If you go onto Wikipedia and you type in how
does my toilet work? You get a ten thousand word
article with eighty two reference points. Yeah, right, and like
nobody cares, right. And so what we're going to start
to see is these adoptions in the crypto space, with
these technologies that are going to be more like the

(09:57):
thousand songs in your pocket emerging. You are also the
same way that like high definition emerged, right where you
got a high definition TV and all of a sudden,
you go, this is just a better experience, And like,
what does a better experience look like? I mean, it
looks like a cheaper money movement, It looks like twenty
four to seven money movement. It looks like money movement

(10:19):
to your phone as opposed to having to go to
a physical location, right, right, And so I think that
like a lot of this evolution that's going to occur
with tokenization and cryptotechnologies is going to work against the
bigger backdrop of what's happening, which is this trend line
towards a world that's getting faster, more efficient, cheaper.

Speaker 3 (10:40):
Absolutely, And you know, with your background for example at
Time and Wired and so forth, how do you feel
in Bloomberg these companies will transition to web three? Is
it using the blockchain for content verification, weeding out deep
fakes and things like that?

Speaker 1 (10:55):
Yeah, So, like I think that there's gonna be a lot.
I don't think any of them are going to consciously
do it, right, Like, I think it's going to be
an adoption based on how technology evolves.

Speaker 2 (11:05):
Right.

Speaker 1 (11:05):
So you bring up verification right.

Speaker 2 (11:10):
First?

Speaker 1 (11:10):
Like in information in the information age, I feel like
I'd have to sort of ask you.

Speaker 2 (11:15):
It's like like.

Speaker 1 (11:18):
The problem that people are having with verification today is
they're trying to verify truth. And I would argue we
are in a and this is on content right, right,
And I would argue, we're in a post truth era
of content. And what I mean is is not that
truth doesn't exist, but we're more in a trust era, right.

(11:39):
And it's evolved because of the way in which information
is now disseminated and accessed.

Speaker 2 (11:46):
Right.

Speaker 1 (11:46):
It used to be that there were three news sources
in America. You could have a Walter Cronkite who was
the most trusted person on the planet. And distribution, the
means of distribution we're controlled right Today, you know, consumers
have infinite choice to get any type of information, and
then you weigher that on with paywalls, which gate information

(12:09):
and access right to certain certain areas, and you start
to realize, like people are getting their information in bubbles, right,
And the infinite information is actually creating an opportunity for
brands that are trusted by certain constituencies because the consumer
would probably think, I want infinite, but infinite is paralyzing, right.

(12:30):
You have a read Berry Schwartz's book The Paradox of
Choice right, right, And so the consumer ultimately wants to
go back to Time or to the Wall Street Journal,
or to Fox News or to CNN. It doesn't matter, right,
and to them what those really are. And I used
to say this all the time of time. It's like
that red border was a trusted filter, right, It's not

(12:53):
necessarily truth, it's trust that the consumer is coming for.

Speaker 2 (12:57):
Right.

Speaker 1 (12:58):
So like where I think blockchain technology will come in
in that space is by saying Time actually verified this picture, right,
like that this originated here, right, not this is true
or not that you're trusting that if it came from
this place, it's true. The other area that I think

(13:21):
that a lot of brands are going to really jump
into is prediction markets. And it's a weird way of
saying it, but like why wouldn't Bloomberg or CNBC start
to highlight prediction markets or use prediction markets on their sites?

Speaker 2 (13:37):
Right?

Speaker 1 (13:38):
Like, if you think about information, like information is really
just in three forms. It's you know, you're informing someone,
you're providing insights, or you're entertaining.

Speaker 2 (13:47):
Right.

Speaker 1 (13:47):
If you're informing or providing insights, why not give the
consumer the chance to be entertained right within a manner
in which they can now you know, use their knowledge
as a form of sort of like advantaging themselves or
disadvantaging themselves.

Speaker 2 (14:04):
Right.

Speaker 1 (14:04):
So I think there's just like all these small things.
And then the final area I would say is is
I do think that, you know, a lot of media
brands will move towards evolved subscription models, right, And I
think that the ability to start to use a token
as a sort of like a CRM mechanism to gather
information around the consumer horizontally to be able to get

(14:26):
a better picture of who they are, will will enable
them to create better communities and monetize differently.

Speaker 3 (14:32):
Let's double click on that last one, sure, where you
know you mentioned the token being used to kind of
build brand resonance, keep the community going engaged. Do you
see the different companies out there to Amazon's the apples
creating their own token, rewarding you for holding it and
allow there may be interoperability with other companies and brands

(14:52):
that you can take that token and spend it there
and things like that.

Speaker 1 (14:55):
I think that that's a real use case that could exist.
I don't think that we're there yet, right. I feel
like that that's the thing that everyone wants to do
right like, or that's the promise that it goes towards.
You know, there's a lot of things that you have
to think about when it comes to blockchain technologies.

Speaker 2 (15:13):
Right.

Speaker 1 (15:14):
One of the best aspects of blockchain technology, right is
it's transparency, right right, you could see where someone goes
like but you know when you read the press around
like Amazon launching like its own token, the question you
have to ask is is, like, until there's a privacy
factor right associated with the token, why would Amazon ever

(15:36):
do that?

Speaker 2 (15:36):
Because if I.

Speaker 1 (15:37):
Was Walmart, I would literally just be looking at Amazon's
token and I would see what all their customers are doing,
right r and so like this is where you start
to see a lot of the tokens out there push
for privacy features right like and and so like when
you start to think about stuff like that, like you're
seeing an emergence of like privacy or or like regulated privacy.

Speaker 2 (16:04):
Emerge. And the one challenge.

Speaker 1 (16:06):
That people have is full privacy right will violate a
lot of the regulated money transmitter rules. And so you
do need some sort of privacy initiative that allows for
it to be private, but if needed, unzipped to be
able to be accessed by regulators.

Speaker 3 (16:23):
Sure, so if they weren't to launch a coin, they
have to have some sort of ZK technology and you
can't see everything, you know, the supply maybe to token
and it's interoppable with different blockchains. But that's it.

Speaker 1 (16:36):
And like, and the way to think about it though,
is is people really misunderstand crypto if we were to
step back, because we've gone down a rabbit home one area, right,
but like but you know, like let's let's step back,
Like why is crypto misunderstood? It's misunderstood because it's treated
like a vertical category when it's really a horizontal category, right.
And what I mean by that is like going back

(16:57):
to my time in media, print, Print is a vertical category. Right,
You're either a magazine or a newspaper, or you're not right, right.
TV or broadcast or radio, terrestrial radio, those are vertical categories.
You're either linear television or terrestrial radio, or you're not right.

(17:20):
So you're following me so far, right? These are analog
vertical categories. When you get to digital, digital is a
horizontal platform. Anything that can be digitized ultimately will be digitized.
So you could have digital text, you could have digital audio,
you could have digital video, you could also share digital.
You could target digital differently. You could do things with
digital that you cannot do in verticals that are analog. Right,

(17:41):
So people understand that, right when it comes to media,
that digital is a horizontal correct, right. Okay, So now
take that step one step further into the crypto space.

Speaker 2 (17:51):
What is crypto really? Right?

Speaker 1 (17:52):
Crypto is tokenization, right, so if it could be digitized,
once it's digitized, it could be tokenized, right, So what
does that make crypto? It makes crypto a horizontal platform
as well, not a vertical category. And why is it
covered by vertical as a vertical category, because it's just
misunderstood by the media. And what does the media like

(18:13):
to cover? They like to cover really three things, right.
They like to cover bitcoin, they like to cover fart coin,
and they like to cover stable coins, right, And like
why do they like to cover bitcoin and part coin?
I told you I could make the cameramen smile, right,
Why they like to cover bitcoin and part cooin? Let's
start there, right, Like, Bitcoin's the largest asset class in
crypto and fartcoin's the most ridiculous set class in crypto, right,

(18:33):
and everyone looks at it and goes, how could you
have something called farkcoin the is three hundred million market
cap at this time and day, and then stable coins
they're just covering because there's so much commotion about institutional adoption.
Let's unpack this for a second. Right, Bitcoin is its
own vertical, right.

Speaker 2 (18:51):
I can argue.

Speaker 1 (18:52):
That the usp, the unique selling proposition of bitcoin is
that it's just an alternative asset class. You can argue
with me whether or not that is a valid statement,
but like that's the usp of bitcoin. Really at the
end of the day, the ETFs, that's their own vertical
in crypto. Right, what are the ETFs really? The ETFs
are really a container for traditional financial institutions to be

(19:16):
able to hold these new asset classes in a manner
that is highly regulated and compliant to their existing infrastructure.

Speaker 3 (19:22):
Right.

Speaker 1 (19:23):
What are stable coins? Stable Coins are you know, tokens
that are pegged to a currency at a one to
one ratio, primarily the US dollar.

Speaker 2 (19:31):
Right now, Right, that's the unique proposition of it. Right,
you have.

Speaker 1 (19:35):
Stability and that you can digitally move money in the internet.
What is real world US It's it's just the tokenization
of these commodities, right, So they could be traded differently.

Speaker 2 (19:45):
What are mean coins.

Speaker 1 (19:49):
Gambling?

Speaker 2 (19:50):
Right?

Speaker 1 (19:50):
Like, so like what is like what is Maybe that's
the wrong term, but like what is fart coin really?
It's the ability Like if you really wanted to distill
this down to like, how could you justifiably with a
straight face talk about parkcoin, Like it's you have an
entire society that, over the past, you know, twenty years,

(20:10):
has fixated on attention, and now you have a technology,
with blockchain technology that allows you to monetize attention. And
so what is farkcoin really? It's the monetization of attention
by groups of people, right, Yes, And like when you
step back and you're like, what can a blockchain really
do that you can't do without a blockchain, it's really
just three things. It's authentication, digital ownership, and the removal

(20:35):
of intermediaries, right and and so like when you look
at it from that angle or that vantage point, you're like, oh,
that's so interesting that for the first time ever, if
the only way to monetize attention historically has been through
influencers and that's been siloed to individuals, this is almost

(20:59):
like the democratization of that. Whether you buy that or not.
Like it's an easier mental model to understand why can
that have value?

Speaker 3 (21:09):
And it's offline activity, human behavior and networks. We form
groups around things, offline ridiculous things, whether it be politics, religion,
any type of movement. But it's now, like you said, online,
tokenized on the blockchain and financialize.

Speaker 1 (21:24):
And so like here's a really interesting mental model just
going back to media and then bringing it back to crypto.
People used to ask me all the time because I
have Time magazine, you know, Bloomberg, BusinessWeek, Wired magazine. They
would say, is print dead?

Speaker 2 (21:40):
Right?

Speaker 1 (21:41):
And I would say to people, I don't know if
print is dead, but I do know that every day
someone is born and every day someone dies, Like talk
about the most morbid.

Speaker 2 (21:49):
Example I could possibly give and go from fart point
to death.

Speaker 1 (21:51):
So I apologize, right, but every day someone is born
and every day someone dies, a new print reader is
not replaced at a one to one ratio, right, Like
if you think about it from a replacement theory perspective,
like print is on a downward trend.

Speaker 2 (22:04):
I don't know if that trend is like.

Speaker 1 (22:05):
This, if it's like this microphone like thing right right,
it's like even deeper, but it is downward right, based
on that, and if you'd agree with me on that,
now flip it around. Every day someone dies, and every
day someone's born, someone who feels comfortable being a digital
native and by extension, having digital ownership, Yes, and understanding

(22:27):
digital ownership is born at a higher than one to
one ratio. So like, now you're looking at a trend
line that's actually going up right, and so like, when
you think about that against the ridiculousness of something like
fart coin, against the ridiculousness of the fact that we've
become an attention based society, it all of a sudden

(22:49):
makes sense why that area of sort of the ecosystem
would exist.

Speaker 2 (22:55):
When people look at.

Speaker 1 (22:56):
Crypto as a vertical and you try to combine all
of those different sort of verticals that I had just said,
the only sensical way that you can describe or explain
crypto is through gambling and speculation. When people look at
it through a horizontal and you look at each individual
vertical in it, then you start to understand the unique

(23:17):
value proposition of each.

Speaker 3 (23:19):
So Keith with that said, right, with this horizontal landscape,
and you have all these new use cases and utility
with the tookenization. Tell us a bit about moonpay and
what your mission is and how you're helping to facilitate
the use of cryptocurrencies.

Speaker 1 (23:33):
Sure, so, like what moon Pay's ultimately building is the membrane, right,
It's the highly compliant membrane that allows people to move
from the world that they know to this new sort
of like DeFi you know world, these decentralized world. And
you know, when moonpay was originally founded back in twenty nineteen,
like Ivan's big vision was, you know, how do I

(23:55):
take what I have in my pocket, my credit card,
my debit card, and just to fix it to be
able to access sort of this really cool crypto thing
that's happening out here to buy things like bitcoin and
others right today, Like what we've looked at is is
like how do you expand our payment stack? Right, So
it's like how do you expand trading? How do you
expand the infrastructure for stable coin money movement? And the

(24:17):
easiest way to sort of think about it from a
mental model is it's essentially the PayPal of crypto, right,
And that's and we work very closely with PayPal. They're
amazing partners for us. But what is our partnership with them.
It's a compliance partnership, right, Right. And when you think
about like, think about this table for instance, right if
this table was all the people in the world, right

(24:41):
and out here outside the table was all of the
really cool decentralized applications that are available, whether it's poly market,
whether it's exodus wallet or you know, trust swallet or metamsk,
or whether it's anything that is in the decentralized space. Right,
Moonpey is essentially the membrane around the outside of the

(25:03):
table that allows you to move from being in the
world that you're in to access this world.

Speaker 2 (25:08):
And what do we do.

Speaker 1 (25:09):
We ultimately manage the you know PII of the consumer right,
the personal information. We make sure that we have all
the licenses necessary to be able to move between sort
of the ecosystems in a highly compliant way where you're
not sort of money wandering or doing something illicit, right,
and we provide access right And you know, ultimately, you know,

(25:32):
the thesis that we're building against is what I had
mentioned earlier, which is the world is going faster, it's
getting more efficient, it's getting cheaper, right, and you know, ultimately,
you know, as that's occurring, like value, the movement of
value is changing, and Moonpay wants to ultimately allow you
to take any sort of payment method and access anything

(25:56):
tokenized in that new world.

Speaker 3 (25:58):
And that's such a critical component for adoption, right A
building those on and off rams totally. So tell us
about the type of folks that are using Is it
both retail and institutionals?

Speaker 2 (26:09):
Yeah?

Speaker 1 (26:10):
So you have to remember on one end we have
thirty five million customers, right, that's retail. These are people
who are saying I want to buy this tokenized asset, right,
and they don't do it solely in the moonpay app,
like where sort of decentralized. And the reason I say
PayPal off cryptos is it's actually a good mental model
right right, Like if you go to any of the

(26:30):
top major decentralized apps out there, right, like moonpay is
most likely there as you're.

Speaker 2 (26:36):
On ramp or your off ramp.

Speaker 1 (26:38):
Right, people don't go to eBay and think PayPal, right.
They go to eBay because they want to experience eBay
and then PayPal enables them to transact on eBay. Right,
That's how they started started to get going the Moonpay app. Right, Like,
as you have to think about that is more like
how do you get a complete vision of all of
your access points into this network that you've now sort

(27:01):
of accessed. Because the original thesis of you know, like
decentralized world was that you'd only want one wallet, right,
and you'd go very deep in that one wallet. And
like what we've seen is that based on people's moon
pay accounts, about fifty five percent have three or more wallets, right,

(27:21):
nine percent. I think I have something like twenty five wallets, right,
So you're like, huh, Like what we need to do
is we need to just give you a holistic vision
of what you have out here, but like we want
to empower you however you want to go out and
experience this world.

Speaker 3 (27:36):
So when you're pitching or talking to institutions about adopting crypto,
are they more open minded now given the regulatory landscape
has changed.

Speaker 2 (27:46):
Yeah.

Speaker 1 (27:46):
So look like I would say, and I'd mentioned this earlier,
like we've gone through this golden age. We're entering into
this golden age. We've not gone through it. Sorry, we're
entering into it. And it really is based on like right,
and most industries flourish if they can get just a
little bit of clarity, right, yes, but crypto is going
through massive clarity. Right, It's going through clarity from a

(28:09):
regulatory perspective.

Speaker 2 (28:10):
And what does that mean.

Speaker 1 (28:11):
It means that, for the first time ever, the SEC
and the CFTC are actually defining what does an asset mean?

Speaker 2 (28:17):
What is this? What is that?

Speaker 1 (28:19):
It's not it's not irrational definitions. It's just clarifications of
this is this, this is that? So you could start
to build. Right, We're going through legislative clarity, like what
is genius? What was so important about the Genius Act?
It all of a sudden defined what is.

Speaker 2 (28:34):
A stable coin? Right?

Speaker 1 (28:36):
And you know that creates an underpinning sort of foundational
base for so many applications to be built on top
of it? Is what is market structure really like? When
you think about it, because everyone's like, oh, market structure,
this market structure that it's really about what is the
definition of DeFi?

Speaker 2 (28:55):
Right? How do you access DeFi?

Speaker 1 (28:58):
And really, if you want to step one step further,
it's about how do you ensure that innovation can continue
to flourish in America so that way there's American jobs right.

Speaker 3 (29:06):
Right.

Speaker 2 (29:07):
When you look at banking.

Speaker 1 (29:08):
Clarity, like when the occ all of a sudden says
banks are allowed to do this, banks are not allowed
to do this, It all of a sudden allows businesses
to feel more comfortable about these assets and like what
is actually happening with these tokenized sort of products. And
then when you look at at accounting clarity, right, Like,
one of the reasons you're seeing like this rise in

(29:30):
these you know, digital asset treasury companies is because for
the first time ever it's clear as to what it
means to hold crypto in your books or not from
a definition perspective. All of that is getting sort of
institutions more comfortable with how can they participate in this
evolution in value and the movement of value?

Speaker 2 (29:53):
Right?

Speaker 1 (29:54):
And I think like we're just going to continue to
see it take place. Right, Like I always use this
really good example of sorry I'm so long winded today,
but it is like I feel like I'm like, just
like so absolutely aloviated. Abboviated today have a lot of
knowledge between eighteen seventy nine and nineteen oh four, right,

(30:17):
in a twenty five year period between eighteen seventy nine
nineteen oh four, the airplane, the automobile, the light bulb,
the telephone, All of those inventions we came to market, right,
So like pictures twenty five year period eighteen seventy nine
to nineteen oh four, the airplane, the light bulb, the automobile,
and the telephone. Right So, if you were born in

(30:37):
nineteen oh five, you only know this world. If you
died in eighteen seventy eight, you don't know this world
at all.

Speaker 2 (30:46):
Right, where are we today?

Speaker 1 (30:47):
We're like nineteen ten, right, Like, we don't know what
the third level, fourth level, fifth level order of magnitudes
are of having the airplane or the light bulb, or
the telephone or the automobile. We are is we have
a group of people who are like, this is cool,
Like I'm going to adopt this early. And there's also
a bunch of people who are like that automobile thing

(31:08):
is really interesting, but I'm gonna stick with my horse
for a little bit, right right, And there's nothing wrong
with that, right, Like, but that's kind of where we
are in this evolution of like blockchain and AI and
like and these changes in the world.

Speaker 3 (31:22):
I read one in these institutions you're a partner with
is MasterCard. Tell us a bit about that? How how
they are viewing this and how you're helping them.

Speaker 1 (31:29):
Yeah, I mean, look like I think I think MasterCard
and Visa have both been really uh you know, front
and center in a lot of what they have been
thinking about. Right, Like, the reality is and we're talking
about this in the beginning, right, like the purity of movements.
The reality of decentralization is is it cannot and it

(31:51):
will not replace centralization.

Speaker 2 (31:54):
Right.

Speaker 1 (31:54):
There will always be some sort of centralization, right, And
the reason is is someone always has to be held
acount uptable somewhere, right, And so like the real way
to actually evolve your mental model about what's happening is
that decentralized technologies are going to remove inefficiencies in centralized
processes and create better experiences holistically, right, like even moon

(32:19):
pay right like, and we are all about the promotion
and success of this decentralized ecosystem. We are that throat
to choke for regulators if something goes wrong, because we
have all the licenses and hold all the compliance and
we hold all the information. Right, So like, you're always
going to need some sort of centralization, and so like

(32:41):
what's interesting about Visa and MasterCard and the likes is
you have these beautiful membranes around the world, right with
access points on ramps and off ramps or off ramps
really into consumers, right and on ramps into sort of

(33:02):
like the movement of value into this ecosystem at the
point of purchase, right. And so so you start to
look at this and you go, huh, where can these
technologies help, Like they'll help when it comes to like
unnecessary costs taking place on MasterCards end. Where are on
visa's end, Like where will it help? It will help
from an information perspective on moving and identifying, you know,

(33:25):
individuals across a cross border. I think that you're going
to see these technologies adopted by these these two players
increasingly also by like the Paypals of the world. Like
I don't know if you know my or if you've
if you've spoken with the PayPal crypto team. They're unbelievable

(33:46):
in terms of some of the stuff that they're working on.
But I think you're going to see these technologies adopted
by all the big players because they're going to increase
the sort of value proposition that that that they can
provide their consumers and are going to also be able
to remove costs from the equation on their back end.

Speaker 3 (34:03):
Right, There's something I've been thinking about. You know, this
technology brings you highlight a lot of benefits, right, it
eliminates costs and makes things more efficient. But these traditional
companies like your master cards and the banks, they are
used to the world being a certain way and collecting
revenues and certain things. How do you think they adapt
to this? It is they lose some revenue, but yeah,

(34:25):
there's some new avenues that didn't make money.

Speaker 1 (34:27):
You know, tokenization is going to do to the financial
industry what digitization did to the media industry. Right, So,
like when one thing that like I never really talked about,
which is really interesting, was like back in two thousand
and nine twenty ten, I think it was Howard Mittman,
Mayadres and myself when we were leading Wired. We were

(34:48):
the first brand a Conde Nast to digitize what like
the brand, like we had over fifty percent digital revenue.

Speaker 2 (34:54):
That sounds so stupid.

Speaker 1 (34:55):
And silly today, right, but in twenty ten, it was
like a really big deal, right that, like we were
commanding more revenue from digital revenue than from print revenue.
And guess what, like there were a ton of people
who like were like, how could you do that? That

(35:15):
is such a silly approach because print revenue is a
high CPM business, right, and they were driving all of
their profit off of that. Digital revenue is a scale game.
You have to play a speed game. You have to
quickly go up. The same way that you know the
phone companies didn't go away when they lost a long

(35:36):
distance right, the same way that you know that you
know a lot of media brands did go away, but
like some are still thriving and doing well because of digital.
I think that the financial industry is going to go
through a reckoning, and you shouldn't look at blockchain technologies
in a silo, like you should look at blockchain technologies

(35:58):
and AI technologies as two sides of the same coin.
And this is actually where I'm gonna actually give John
deu Gastino over at coinbase has any right. I'm so honored, Like,
did you know, hold on on a totally random throwout
on this and don't edit this out, Okay, I want
this piece in this Okay.

Speaker 2 (36:17):
So I love Ben Mezrick.

Speaker 3 (36:18):
If you read Ben Mezerick books, interviewed Ben as well,
you even everyone at this point like, I love this.

Speaker 1 (36:23):
It's like Tony between two ferns and you have like
all my friends.

Speaker 2 (36:26):
And this is so good. Okay.

Speaker 1 (36:27):
So Ben Mezick wrote this incredible book and it was
it was called Rigged Okay, yes, And it was about
the New York Mercantile Exchange and this like twenty four
year old phenom in it.

Speaker 2 (36:44):
And that was.

Speaker 1 (36:44):
It came out afterwards that it was John Degastino. And
anyone who's ever met him knows, like, not only is
Ben one of the nicest people, but like John is
genuinely one of the nicest human beings on the planet.
And I was sitting here with John and not here,
but like like together, and I was saying to him,
I'm like, I know, crypto like blockchain technologies and AI

(37:07):
are two sides of the same coin, and I need
I can't place a great mental model for this. And
he said to me, And so I said to him,
I was always going to credit him, right, So I
have to credit him right now. That's why you can't
edit this out, I said to him. He said to me, well,
it's actually quite easy. AI is scalable, truth is scalable intelligence,

(37:31):
and blockchain is scalable truth, right, And so like what
you see is like information is being created and sorted
out through AI faster than ever before, but there needs
to be a verifying factor, which is where blockchain technology
is going to come in, because a human can't keep
up with the pace of AI, right, right, So scalable intelligence,
scalable truth.

Speaker 2 (37:49):
I loved that, right, And.

Speaker 1 (37:51):
So against that backdrop, you have to look at sort
of like what what are we about to see? Unfortunately,
Like I think we're about to see one of the
biggest disruptions ever in white collar jobs, and I think
that people have to wake up to that, and I
think it's going to happen faster than people think. You

(38:12):
can go down on this through a very dystopian path
and it gets very dark very quickly. But you have
to in your mind recognize that headlines in the news
only cover the extremes, and the reality is is that
like the world is ultimately defined by optimists, it's not

(38:33):
defined by pessimists, right, And Like, if you were to
read the news today, you would think the world was ending.
But if you stepped back and you look at some
of the stats, a life expectancy is better than ever before.
Like health care is better, Like like there's so many
things that are actually quite good. What people don't actually
ever talk about is like Keith came to Tony to

(38:55):
do the you know, between two ferns discussion on crypto
and then last and they had a nice conversation. They
both drank spin drift. Nobody cares about that, right, and
so like like the news is only giving you, you know,
extremes in bombarded short term segments.

Speaker 3 (39:12):
Yeah, that's a great analogy you mentioned with John Dangs.
You know, it gave or I think you called it
mindset or.

Speaker 2 (39:20):
It's just a mental model.

Speaker 3 (39:21):
Mental model moel. So on that note with AI, is
Moonpay leveraging AI in different ways?

Speaker 1 (39:27):
Yeah, I mean look like we across every part of
our organization, like we're using the tools that are available
to us. I think that you have to think about
this moment in time as as AI will not replace doctors,
but it will replace doctors who don't use AI, right,
Like somebody.

Speaker 2 (39:46):
Said that to me once.

Speaker 1 (39:47):
I was like, Wow, that is an unbelievably astute sort
of way of framing it. And when you take that
into account, you're like, Okay, well that means that every
person now has in their pocket with whether it is
you know, the tools there like vo three or chat,
GPT or rock or any of the tools out there

(40:10):
you sentially have like supercomputers, like unbelievable powerful tools if
you're not using them right, Like, it's a gigantic mistake.
And so like we've not only rolled it out across
the work, but it's like everything every department, from compliance
to fraud to even you know, the content that we
create for our social feeds is generated you know, through

(40:33):
AI or touches AI at some point or some tool
within the AI arsenal.

Speaker 3 (40:38):
Oh, for sure, this is going to be a really
far reaching question.

Speaker 2 (40:43):
And to prepare myself for this is like, Okay, I
don't know where we're going.

Speaker 3 (40:47):
It's like futuristic because it's like, look, we got space
exploration being worked on. No one's going to use cash
and space. Right, Let's say Elon is able to get
us to marrow not but you know what I mean, right,
it's gonna be digital money. I'm gonna send you. You're
into spaceship, I'm in this that type of thing. But
also AI agents right now being developed, and we know
they're not going to use cash obviously in use stable coins,

(41:08):
and then you have robots, humanoid robots that are being
worked on. So eventually maybe by twenty thirty five, I
have a humanoid robot in my home. I tell it
to go buy me some from home depot. It has
a crypto wallet built in. Is moonpay looking at those
things and how you will fit into.

Speaker 1 (41:24):
The Yeah, so agentic AI is very real, and it's
it's sooner than five years out right. I even always
talks about it. From the wallet is your new bank account?
Like what does that really mean when you think about that? Like,
if you're able to hold value in one of these
digital wallets, then you can all of a sudden program
it to do certain things based on certain interactions. Right,

(41:47):
What's funny about what you said is you mentioned like
you'll have stable coins, you'll do this. This is where
I actually would challenge your worldview. Right for a second,
if you're ten years old today, you know you still
use the word TV, sure, right, But if that ten
year old speaks to a forty year old, the forty

(42:09):
year old also uses the word TV. The forty year
old's definition of TV is most likely linear television, which is,
you know, cable it's Comcast its spectrum if you're in
New York, right, right, the ten year old's definition of
TV is video on a screen. They don't care if
it's YouTube, they don't care if it's Comcast. They don't distinguish. Right,

(42:31):
in ten years or five years, I think that people
will still say us dollar, right, they won't say stable coin, sure,
right like, and it will be the stable coin behind
the scenes that makes sort of the transaction possible.

Speaker 2 (42:44):
Right to do that though, right like?

Speaker 1 (42:47):
And this is where the plumbing, that's it's plumbing, right,
And that's why I'm saying, like you have to invert
sort of like now you've shifted from the technology to
the experience. Right, the world that you defined is actually
very real, right, and picture this right like, why wouldn't
you then say, if the price of eggs drops below

(43:11):
three dollars for a half a dozen, please pick me
up you know, x amount of eggs and deliver them
to my address, right, Like, You're going to start to
see a world where you could program in if then
statements on everything, right, and you just speak it in
to your wallet, and like you all of a sudden
have now necessarily programmed out sort of like how sort

(43:33):
of your AI agent can interact on your behalf sure?

Speaker 3 (43:38):
And in addition, well, let me actually back up for
a second. So what you're saying is not necessarily that
people are going to be running around saying I have
this stable coin that save acoin. They may still be
using MasterCard, but stable coin rails are powering to pay
more time.

Speaker 1 (43:49):
I'll tell you what, Like, I don't really bet unless
I know I could win the bet, but I'll bet
you anything that in five ten years, Visa MasterCard are
still here, that city and J P. Morgan and Bank
of America are still here. They're not going to go away.
What will happen is is they will enable these new

(44:10):
interactions to take place. Right And that's a really important distinction.

Speaker 3 (44:15):
You know you mentioned, I even mentioned the wallet setup
will replace the account set up. So let's say I
have a wallet with JP Morgan. Will that wallet also
allow me to integrate? Is it like a central wallet
or I will have multiple wallets?

Speaker 1 (44:30):
I mean, it all depends, right Like we think about
the moonpay account, right Like, the Moonpay account essentially is
your sort of dashboard for all of your wallets, right.

Speaker 2 (44:42):
Like, people will.

Speaker 1 (44:43):
Have most likely a JPM wallet, right, or a Bank
of America wallet or a Morgan Stanley wallet, right.

Speaker 2 (44:50):
But they'll probably have like fifty.

Speaker 1 (44:52):
Other wallets, right, and you know there will be instances
where some of them will be interconnected, and there will
be instances.

Speaker 2 (44:59):
Where some of them will be silent.

Speaker 3 (45:00):
Or someone makes some an app that aggregates all of it.

Speaker 1 (45:04):
Maybe they'll call that moon pay.

Speaker 3 (45:07):
Right exactly, exactly, yeah, just exactly the problem.

Speaker 1 (45:12):
But you know, like it's not it's not the wallet
that we want to create for the individual, it's the
membrane that connects people to those those applications that's really important.

Speaker 3 (45:21):
Right, absolutely. And then with a multi chain world, having
interoperability with all these institutions but also the chains and
the different crypto assets if they're running on different chains. Wow.
You know, going back to the far coin example, Okay, you.

Speaker 2 (45:38):
Love park cooin, so everyone loves spark coin. It's like
it's like okay, so yes, you.

Speaker 3 (45:44):
Know, when you're going through the process of looking at
what are the assets we can support or should support,
and what is their demand for Let's say fark I
mean look right, let's say fark con becomes this massive
thing and everybody wants to use it to send value?

Speaker 1 (45:59):
Do you intrad So so now you've asked the key
question of what's the benefit of decentralization versus centralization? Right, So,
like this is where mister Degasino and I have, you know,
inherently different sort of ways of operating. If you want
to buy partcoin with moonpay, like, I don't censor that,

(46:20):
like as long as it's legal, right, Like, my job
is not to make rules, right, Like I don't like
censor this stuff, right, And so we give access to
anything that's in the decentralized ecosystem. We don't have a
listing agent. Right when people at me on x and
they're like, will you list our token? If you're on
any of these decentralized exchanges, you can access it through moonpay.

Speaker 3 (46:44):
Right.

Speaker 1 (46:45):
The flip side is is at coinbase, like they have
to make a conscious.

Speaker 2 (46:49):
Decision to list right.

Speaker 1 (46:51):
So like why and this comes back like if you
genuinely believe that the world is getting faster, more efficient, cheaper,
Like there's nothing fast, efficient, or cheap about having a
centralized actor saying you can or cannot access something, right,
And so if you look and block works actually does this.

Speaker 2 (47:13):
Really great sort of chart on a.

Speaker 1 (47:17):
Weekly basis where they do decentralized. Decentralized exchange volume versus
centralized exchange volume is a ratio, So dex to sex
ratio right on a weekly basis. In January second, twenty
twenty two, that number was under two percent. I think
it was one point four percent last week. Right, what's

(47:41):
today's date? So that way, whoever is it's it's it's nineteenth,
It's the nineteenth of November. I was president of Time,
but I have no concept of time. Right, Like last
week the number was thirty five percent. Right, So in
three years you've seen the dex to sex ratio just
go up. Why because people don't want to wait for
a centralized player to lists to something. People want to

(48:01):
access something with speed. People want like to have that
freedom to be able to move into the space as
fast as possible at their own sort of volition. And
so I think, like what you've seen in the first
fifteen years of crypto has been the rise of these
centralized players. But what you're seeing now is the de
bundling of these services because they are now technically getting

(48:25):
legislated and regulated in a manner where they can exist
outside of a centralized structure and that's what moop is
really empowering.

Speaker 3 (48:33):
And on that note, you know I read recently that
you Integrated would pump that fund yes to power instant
crypto purchases.

Speaker 2 (48:39):
So we're Switzerland.

Speaker 1 (48:42):
Yeah, like this is the the you know, like if
anyone wants to enter into the crypto space, right, like
we are going to help the biggest players, We're going
to help the smallest players. Like we're on the side
of the developers, and like we are as pro competition
as one can get.

Speaker 3 (48:56):
Oh for sure, what's on your roadmap that you can share?

Speaker 2 (49:02):
I mean, look like we we've been very clear that.

Speaker 1 (49:07):
You know, like moon pay is is evolving from just
an on ramp, right and I think honestly, I've shared
almost everything that we're working on, right like with you
and throughout this conversation without bundling it all together like
in like this perfect area. But you know, last week
we announced you know, a stable coin issuance division. You know, uh,

(49:30):
if you look at what we've been doing over the
past year. You know, we started the year with the
acquisition of Helio, right. We then in March acquired you know,
the stable coin infrastructure company Iron. You know, during the
course of the past year and a half, we've brought
on a lot of people from the places like BV
and K, like Rich Harrison who reads payments and banking

(49:51):
for us, or you know Derek you who was like
the head of treasury at Paxos is now our treasurer.
Zach Qualter, who you know led and was Derek's partner
at Paxos. You know, you know product is now our
head of stable Coin and and I think you're going
to see you know, us continue to lean into you

(50:13):
know that business. You know, we just announced a big
partnership with m zero, and you know we're going to
continue to make you know, accessing this ecosystem through on
ramping and DeFi buys like just easier and easier. Like
our goal is just to continuously remove the friction to
enter into decentralization.

Speaker 3 (50:32):
Oh absolutely, And like I said earlier, such a critical
component for adoption to make it easy for people to
be able to access this technology and use it in
different ways. So that's really great. We talked a bit
about the Clarity Act. Are you optimistic that might get
passed by early next year?

Speaker 1 (50:49):
Look, I was at the was that one of the
Senate Banking committees, And I was talking about this this morning. Actually,
I think that what people misinterpret is is what the
media says first, what's happening on the ground, And like
I was taken aback by how deferential and cordial the
Republicans and the Democrats both were towards each other. Right,

(51:12):
There's a lot of respect from the Republicans towards you know,
Warner and Gillibrand as it relates to you know, illicit
finance and you know the definition of DeFi and vice versa. Right,
Like I've seen the same respect to you know, Tim
Scott and to Bernie Marino and to you know, John
Kennedy and to Lumis who've done exceptional jobs when I

(51:36):
was there, Right, Like, my biggest sort of comments were
like I think, you know, we have to focus on,
you know, ensuring strong illicit finance definitions, right, Like that
ultimately is our business is like making sure that the
right actors can enter into the ecosystem and exit the ecosystem.
And then also the definition of DeFi. That's a really

(51:58):
important one, right because depending on how you definite, depending
on how you define DeFi, it will either burden one
group or another group with the onus of regulation, right,
and I advocated and I did this on behalf of
moonpay and hopefully on behalf of the DeFi ecosystem. That

(52:19):
DeFi should be regulated at the intermediary level, right, So
it should be moonpay, it should be Coinbase, it should
be Cracking, right, whether you're centralized or decentralized. It should
not be the protocol. It should not be the developer,
right because when you start to look at all of
our organizations, we spend so much time getting licenses, we
spend so much time with compliance teams, we spend so

(52:42):
much time building our fraud models. This would ultimately if
you put that burden on the developer or on the
protocols like, it would stifle innovation, would make it cost inefficient,
right and so like, I think that if you could
properly regulate access into the ecosystem, let the ecosystem build
for like where they want that to go. And if

(53:04):
you could do this correctly, it ultimately fosters innovation in
the country and it will foster more jobs.

Speaker 3 (53:10):
Absolutely, I'm excited Keith to see post that bill getting
signed to law. The innovation and impact on the economy
and jobs and all these things that are created.

Speaker 1 (53:20):
Yeah, like, I look, I don't normally bet, but I'm
not a betting person, but like I feel confident that
it will happen, you know, no later than the first
half of next year, probably in the first quarter.

Speaker 3 (53:31):
It's tough. Keith got some wrap up questions here for you.
Here we go first, if you could create your own metaverse,
what would the theme be?

Speaker 1 (53:40):
Okay, well, like, well like, like I will get metaverses
like like horizontals and verticals too. So this this would
be a four hour question, but it would be the
sleep metaverse, where.

Speaker 2 (53:51):
Like I could go in to just go to sleep
for a few hours.

Speaker 3 (53:54):
Yeah, I mean, like for me, it would be like
space or you know, being able to explore a wild West.
I don't know.

Speaker 1 (54:00):
I think I would just want like a sleep capsule
that I just had, like nice music on him.

Speaker 2 (54:06):
Everyone left me the fuck alone.

Speaker 3 (54:07):
Excuse rapid fire questions.

Speaker 2 (54:10):
Favorite food, favorite food?

Speaker 1 (54:14):
Oh geez, like that's.

Speaker 3 (54:17):
New York question. I got to see what we're you
going to answer here.

Speaker 1 (54:20):
I mean it's probably shun Lee's on the Upper West Side,
Chinese food.

Speaker 3 (54:24):
Nice, favorite musician or band.

Speaker 2 (54:27):
Bruce Frinksteen hands down, but I was named.

Speaker 3 (54:29):
After Keith Richard's favorite movie.

Speaker 1 (54:33):
Coming to America or Monty Python The Holy Grail or
The Departed, which just takes in a dark, dark, different twist,
but like definitely Coming to America or a Monty Python
The Holy.

Speaker 3 (54:43):
Girl, both both well all through great favorite.

Speaker 1 (54:46):
Book, favorite book, best. My favorite book of all time
was Hemingway's The Sun Also Rises.

Speaker 2 (54:52):
My favorite.

Speaker 1 (54:53):
The most important book I ever read in my career
was Clay Christiansen's Innovator's Dilemma.

Speaker 3 (54:59):
M check that one out. And when you're not working,
what are you doing for fun?

Speaker 2 (55:03):
Working?

Speaker 1 (55:04):
Oh?

Speaker 3 (55:04):
Come on, you got to be doing nothing you need
So I'll.

Speaker 2 (55:07):
Tell you what.

Speaker 1 (55:08):
Like many years ago, I was at a dinner with
a bunch of a therapists. It was a fantastic for
it right, and I'm really esteemed psychologists. And I sat
next to one of them and I turned to him
and I said to him, I have a real problem.
And he said to me what, And he said and

(55:29):
I said, all of my friends have hobbies and all
I do is work, and I feel like I'm missing
out on something because I don't have a hobby. I
don't I don't paint. I don't you know dance, I
don't you know, do anything? And he goes to me,
do you love what you do? And I said, I

(55:52):
love what I do so much and he said, and
what do you need a hobby for? And that conversation
has stuck with me forever, Like I am having so
much fun with the team at Moonpay, with Ivan, just
building towards this future that we see and which value
can be moved freely online and you know, in the Internet,

(56:13):
and I think it's so utterly transformative that like there's
nothing I want to do more. And so I wake
up and I do it. I you know, on the weekends,
I think.

Speaker 2 (56:22):
About it and I do it.

Speaker 1 (56:23):
You know, like if I had to be forced into
a hobby, i'd be reading right or my peloton. But
like outside of that, like I just like it's work.
Like and I'm sorry, I know it's a crap ass answer,
but like genuine hopefully you could hear it in my voice,
like I love what we're doing.

Speaker 3 (56:38):
I mean that's great. I mean you love what you're doing,
so it doesn't feel like work, right, Yeah, Well, Keith,
absolute pleasure. Thank you for taking the time and I'm
looking forward to having you back on since you are
in New York, to give the latest and greatest about
Moon pay. Possibly maybe early twenty twenty six. We can
do another way.

Speaker 2 (56:54):
Well, thank you, thank you so much for having me.

Speaker 1 (56:56):
I really appreciate it, and I'm glad I was able
to make your guy over here smile a few times.

Speaker 3 (57:00):
Sound good stuff. M.

All Episodes

Episode Transcript

Popular Podcasts

Stuff You Should Know

Dateline NBC

The Bobby Bones Show

.css-15opob5{left:0;position:absolute;top:0.8rem;} All Episodes

.css-14f5ked{margin:0;word-break:break-word;display:-webkit-box;-webkit-box-orient:vertical;box-orient:vertical;-webkit-line-clamp:2;overflow:hidden;}Making Crypto Accessible to Millions! with MoonPay's Keith Grossman

Episode Transcript

Popular Podcasts

.css-r6mb8g{margin:0;word-break:break-word;display:-webkit-box;-webkit-box-orient:vertical;box-orient:vertical;-webkit-line-clamp:1;overflow:hidden;}Stuff You Should Know

Dateline NBC

The Bobby Bones Show

All Episodes

Making Crypto Accessible to Millions! with MoonPay's Keith Grossman

Stuff You Should Know