Evolving Money: The Blockchain Revolution (Sponsored Content)

Since you're a subscriber to this Bloomberg podcast, we thought 0:00:04.120 --> 0:00:07.480 you'd be interested in a new four episode sponsored podcast 0:00:07.640 --> 0:00:13.240 called Evolving Money, produced by Coinbase and Bloomberg Media Studios. 0:00:13.640 --> 0:00:17.680 It explores some of the monetary system's biggest changes over 0:00:17.760 --> 0:00:22.480 the centuries and today's companies that are making big bets 0:00:22.880 --> 0:00:28.960 that cryptocurrency could be money's next evolution. You can subscribe 0:00:29.000 --> 0:00:36.839 wherever you listen to your favorite podcasts. Here's a recent episode. 0:00:36.920 --> 0:00:40.760 It's nineteen sixty eight, Buffalo, New York. On a road 0:00:40.800 --> 0:00:43.680 that runs along the Nagara River, a truck takes its 0:00:43.800 --> 0:00:47.920 daily route, laden with boxes containing thousands and thousands of 0:00:48.000 --> 0:00:53.519 small slips of paper, paper checks, birthday checks, rent checks, 0:00:53.600 --> 0:00:57.280 big fat checks for local businesses. Now, these checks have 0:00:57.280 --> 0:01:00.880 already been filled out, signed and cashed, but there's one 0:01:00.920 --> 0:01:04.040 more crucial step. They're on their way to the Buffalo 0:01:04.080 --> 0:01:06.880 branch of the New York Federal Reserve, where they have 0:01:06.920 --> 0:01:11.000 to be recorded and reconciled, a process that ensures that 0:01:11.120 --> 0:01:15.760 each bank actually gets the funds their owed. But the 0:01:15.880 --> 0:01:20.280 truck swerves, It skids, It careens off the road. The 0:01:20.280 --> 0:01:23.880 boxes tumble out, and checks totaling millions of dollars fall 0:01:23.920 --> 0:01:28.560 into the river and float away downstream, never to be 0:01:28.640 --> 0:01:37.000 seen again. Decades ago, a simple accident like this could 0:01:37.000 --> 0:01:40.720 throw the financial system into temporary chaos, and even today 0:01:40.720 --> 0:01:44.640 our system remains vulnerable to potential disaster. It's always been 0:01:44.680 --> 0:01:49.720 a system begging for change. From coinbase and Bloomberg Media Studios, 0:01:49.840 --> 0:01:53.360 this is evolving money, and I'm Paddy Hirsch, your host 0:01:54.280 --> 0:01:58.040 on this podcast. We're taking a different look at cryptocurrency. 0:01:58.960 --> 0:02:02.160 It's been cast as a radical departure for the monetary system, 0:02:02.840 --> 0:02:05.200 But what if it wasn't radical at all, just the 0:02:05.240 --> 0:02:08.120 next logical evolution of how we pay for things and 0:02:08.240 --> 0:02:11.760 store long term value. Along the way, we'll explore how 0:02:11.800 --> 0:02:14.960 money has changed over the centuries, looking for lessons that 0:02:15.080 --> 0:02:19.800 predict its next evolution. You may think that today, in 0:02:19.840 --> 0:02:21.880 an age where money has been reduced to a series 0:02:21.919 --> 0:02:25.200 of ones and zeros on computers, the problem of paper 0:02:25.280 --> 0:02:28.440 checks has been pretty much solved. Well, in a sense, 0:02:28.480 --> 0:02:31.520 you'd be right. Records of transactions no longer travel on 0:02:31.520 --> 0:02:34.760 the highways, for one thing. But in another sense you're 0:02:34.760 --> 0:02:38.360 dead wrong. The cost of the paper check system, both 0:02:38.400 --> 0:02:41.000 in time and money, are still very much with us. 0:02:41.720 --> 0:02:44.640 But there's a new technology called blockchain that looks as 0:02:44.680 --> 0:02:47.760 though it could provide a solution with an online ledger 0:02:48.120 --> 0:02:52.720 universally accessible and completely transparent, that can't be hacked or altered, 0:02:52.880 --> 0:02:56.560 and costs next to nothing. That may sound too good 0:02:56.560 --> 0:02:58.600 to be true, but a look back at how the 0:02:58.639 --> 0:03:01.320 paper check system was improved by the rise of digital 0:03:01.360 --> 0:03:05.320 money demonstrates that what sounds like a revolution today can 0:03:05.360 --> 0:03:10.160 often become commonplace tomorrow. So could blockchain be the next 0:03:10.160 --> 0:03:13.120 big step in overhauling highwaymove money from one place to 0:03:13.160 --> 0:03:13.600 the next. 0:03:14.120 --> 0:03:14.440 Well. 0:03:14.680 --> 0:03:17.919 Later in the show, we'll discuss with Sandy Cole, head 0:03:17.960 --> 0:03:21.440 of Industry Advisory Services at Franklin Templeton. 0:03:32.720 --> 0:03:35.320 The physical processing of checks with such a mess. 0:03:35.760 --> 0:03:40.000 That's Roy Friedman describing the time before digital money. He 0:03:40.040 --> 0:03:43.920 teaches financial history at New York University's Tandon School of Engineering. 0:03:44.360 --> 0:03:47.200 He says, back in the late nineteenth century, clearing houses 0:03:47.240 --> 0:03:50.000 allowed banks to settle their accounts in a central place. 0:03:50.560 --> 0:03:54.720 The New York clearing House developed all kinds of standards 0:03:54.760 --> 0:03:59.560 for clearing and settling checks and money. They basically would 0:03:59.560 --> 0:04:02.840 meet in a in exchange paper according to certain protocols 0:04:03.440 --> 0:04:05.320 and tally up their ledgers. 0:04:05.880 --> 0:04:09.000 The system took a step forward in nineteen eighteen when 0:04:09.080 --> 0:04:14.480 banks established a proprietary telecommunications system fed Wire to process 0:04:14.560 --> 0:04:18.440 the transfer of funds. The system connected all twelve Federal 0:04:18.480 --> 0:04:22.320 Reserve banks, the Federal Reserve Board, and the US Treasury. 0:04:22.839 --> 0:04:28.359 The entities communicated by telegraph using Morse code, and for 0:04:28.440 --> 0:04:32.800 decades the system remained largely telegraphic. But then in nineteen seventy, 0:04:33.120 --> 0:04:37.320 the New York clearing House tried something radical, settling transactions 0:04:37.400 --> 0:04:42.960 using a new technology, computers with an electronic system called chips, 0:04:43.200 --> 0:04:47.000 the clearing House interbank payment system. Banks could do something 0:04:47.240 --> 0:04:52.200 revolutionary settle payments in real time rather than once daily. 0:04:52.800 --> 0:04:54.920 The system was a lot faster, but it was still 0:04:55.000 --> 0:04:58.600 vulnerable to the occasional error, and those errors could be 0:04:58.800 --> 0:05:00.240 unbelievably cost. 0:05:00.640 --> 0:05:04.120 A major New York bank lost its fedwire connection. 0:05:04.279 --> 0:05:07.320 So losing a connection midway through a transaction. 0:05:07.160 --> 0:05:10.760 Yes, well that was expensive and the end result was 0:05:10.800 --> 0:05:14.840 that the bank was short. So if I'm short at 0:05:14.839 --> 0:05:17.120 the end of the day, I have to pay somebody 0:05:17.839 --> 0:05:21.679 to stay solvent. In that case, twenty three billion dollars 0:05:21.720 --> 0:05:24.880 with a b overnight four or five million dollars of 0:05:25.200 --> 0:05:28.919 interest and that was a software error. 0:05:29.839 --> 0:05:33.320 Eventually, as technology evolved, so did the process. Today, the 0:05:33.360 --> 0:05:35.400 floor of the New York clearing house has been emptied 0:05:35.440 --> 0:05:38.680 of couriers and bank exchanged large sums of money the 0:05:38.720 --> 0:05:42.279 same way you probably do digitally. The system has evolved, 0:05:42.440 --> 0:05:48.880 but it's still far from perfect. While computer systems have 0:05:48.920 --> 0:05:51.080 allowed us to digitize ledgers and made it easier to 0:05:51.160 --> 0:05:53.760 update or search them, they still require a lot of 0:05:53.839 --> 0:05:57.240 human help. Different systems don't talk to each other easily. 0:05:57.680 --> 0:06:00.680 They're always being upgraded and patched. They're kind of like 0:06:00.760 --> 0:06:02.919 a bunch of ships sailing past each other in the dark, 0:06:03.400 --> 0:06:07.960 only able to signal each other in different languages. I mean, take, 0:06:07.960 --> 0:06:10.000 for example, how we settle equity trades. 0:06:10.680 --> 0:06:15.000 We still, even after all of these years, cannot settle 0:06:15.120 --> 0:06:19.320 an equity trade in less than an entire trading day 0:06:19.480 --> 0:06:22.800 after and when you're settling a US equity and you're 0:06:23.120 --> 0:06:27.760 buying that US equity as an Asian client, it's sometimes 0:06:27.800 --> 0:06:28.480 three days. 0:06:29.440 --> 0:06:32.840 That's Sandy Coal, she's head of Industry Advisory Services at 0:06:32.839 --> 0:06:33.760 Franklin Templeton. 0:06:34.240 --> 0:06:37.280 There is a lot of inefficiency still in this marketplace, 0:06:37.800 --> 0:06:41.479 even amongst the efficiencies that we have put into the system. 0:06:42.040 --> 0:06:44.799 The inefficiency comes from the fact that settlements are based 0:06:44.839 --> 0:06:48.480 on different ledgers, with each side of a transaction owning 0:06:48.560 --> 0:06:49.640 its own ledger. 0:06:50.080 --> 0:06:52.600 You see all the trades you did with me and 0:06:52.640 --> 0:06:57.720 with everyone else, and I need to reconcile my version 0:06:57.880 --> 0:07:01.600 of truth, which is my leisure, with your version of truth, 0:07:01.640 --> 0:07:06.080 which is your ledger, and any discrepancies in our versions 0:07:06.120 --> 0:07:09.600 of truth require teams of people to come in. 0:07:09.640 --> 0:07:10.440 Right, we're going to have a fight. 0:07:10.560 --> 0:07:13.800 Well, this is why we have middle offices, and we 0:07:13.880 --> 0:07:16.760 have back offices, and we have lots of people whose 0:07:16.920 --> 0:07:21.720 entire job it is is reconciling different versions of everybody 0:07:21.800 --> 0:07:22.640 else's ledgers. 0:07:23.240 --> 0:07:26.160 Sandy and her colleagues at Franklin Templeton thought, hare's got 0:07:26.160 --> 0:07:27.040 to be a better way. 0:07:27.920 --> 0:07:31.720 Our CEO, Jenny Johnson, she was the head of Technology 0:07:31.760 --> 0:07:36.000 and Operations, so she was very aware of the infrastructure 0:07:36.040 --> 0:07:39.080 we had, the costs that we were accruing and running 0:07:39.080 --> 0:07:42.520 that infrastructure. And then she said, Wow, we run so 0:07:42.520 --> 0:07:46.240 many ledgers. There's this new ledger technology. Let's experiment and 0:07:46.280 --> 0:07:48.960 see if we can actually maybe save some costs or 0:07:49.000 --> 0:07:51.240 gain some efficiencies in using this new ledger. 0:07:52.520 --> 0:07:56.880 That new ledger was a single public ledger shared by everyone. 0:07:57.240 --> 0:07:59.120 It was blockchain. 0:07:59.680 --> 0:08:05.360 There is only one version of the truth, and everyone 0:08:05.480 --> 0:08:11.360 sees every transaction that takes place, and every transaction can 0:08:11.440 --> 0:08:15.840 be linked back to the original or what they call 0:08:15.920 --> 0:08:20.200 the Genesis transaction, which was the first transaction ever done 0:08:20.400 --> 0:08:21.160 on the blockchain. 0:08:21.520 --> 0:08:25.800 It's possible then to have a complete history and complete transparency. 0:08:26.440 --> 0:08:29.960 The system is simple, streamlined, and it doesn't run the 0:08:30.040 --> 0:08:32.679 risk of a tiny connection issue that can cost an 0:08:32.720 --> 0:08:34.120 institution millions. 0:08:34.559 --> 0:08:38.760 You do not have this delay of days or multiple days. 0:08:38.800 --> 0:08:41.679 You have maybe at most a delay of ten minutes 0:08:41.760 --> 0:08:46.440 between the transaction getting submitted in it being finalized and recorded. 0:08:47.000 --> 0:08:52.719 So this takes out so much uncertainty and friction in 0:08:52.760 --> 0:08:56.560 the system, and it would be able to create a 0:08:56.600 --> 0:09:00.800 whole new foundation for us to run more efficial payments 0:09:00.800 --> 0:09:03.000 and more efficient marketplaces. 0:09:03.480 --> 0:09:06.559 Sandy and her team were intrigued by the possibilities. 0:09:07.040 --> 0:09:10.640 What we found was that the blockchain based transfer agency 0:09:10.640 --> 0:09:15.640 system was more accurate, fewer errors, and this gave both 0:09:15.920 --> 0:09:18.880 us and it gave the SEC some confidence that we 0:09:19.120 --> 0:09:22.840 could keep the transaction records for the funds where we 0:09:22.920 --> 0:09:26.160 are the transfer agent on the blockchain, which was a 0:09:26.200 --> 0:09:27.640 big improvement. 0:09:28.000 --> 0:09:31.560 Sandy and her team saw a quantum leap forward in 0:09:31.600 --> 0:09:36.320 the evolution of financial ledgers. They wondered, what could the 0:09:36.400 --> 0:09:43.600 first decentralized public ledger mean for the entire financial system. 0:09:43.679 --> 0:09:46.920 The move to the blockchain could represent a shift from 0:09:46.960 --> 0:09:50.080 one kind of economy to another. The economy we rely 0:09:50.160 --> 0:09:54.920 on today runs on various apps and platforms offering siloed services. 0:09:55.200 --> 0:09:57.959 This is what's called the platform economy. There are a 0:09:57.960 --> 0:10:00.640 lot of inefficiencies here, but one big one in in particular, 0:10:00.880 --> 0:10:04.120 is that the apps that we use are each individually 0:10:04.160 --> 0:10:08.600 their own platform. They actually don't work together. The move 0:10:08.679 --> 0:10:11.040 to blockchain would be a move to a new economy, 0:10:11.360 --> 0:10:14.880 the protocol economy, an economy that could provide scaffolding and 0:10:15.040 --> 0:10:19.520 interoperability services that could actually speak to each other. That 0:10:19.600 --> 0:10:24.160 means that transactions could move freely across the blockchain without intermediaries. 0:10:24.840 --> 0:10:28.720 Instead of a platform sitting in the middle of multi 0:10:28.720 --> 0:10:34.160 sided buyers and sellers, in the protocol economy, an open source, 0:10:34.679 --> 0:10:41.600 easily accessible a completely free set of services sit in 0:10:41.640 --> 0:10:45.800 the middle that are offering us plug and play capabilities. 0:10:46.600 --> 0:10:50.320 In these new protocol economies, we're going to have protocols 0:10:50.400 --> 0:10:53.560 that can do thousands of things. You can call up 0:10:53.559 --> 0:10:57.240 a protocol that will allow you to hail a ride, 0:10:57.559 --> 0:11:00.120 just like you could go to the Uber platform, or 0:11:01.160 --> 0:11:04.880 you could go to Teleport, which is a new protocol 0:11:05.120 --> 0:11:09.800 based ride sharing service. It's a free service that people 0:11:09.880 --> 0:11:13.200 can access and then they can use it to connect 0:11:13.320 --> 0:11:16.480 with each other to be able to transact, and then 0:11:16.520 --> 0:11:19.720 they work out the terms of their transaction. But the 0:11:19.760 --> 0:11:23.280 protocol that sits in the middle is free. They don't 0:11:23.320 --> 0:11:26.120 have to give you permission to use it, and they 0:11:26.200 --> 0:11:29.360 don't have the right to shut you out of the system. 0:11:29.880 --> 0:11:31.960 The idea of a protocol economy is the first thing 0:11:31.960 --> 0:11:34.840 you need to understand to know how this new frictionless 0:11:34.880 --> 0:11:38.520 way of doing business on the blockchain actually works. For instance, 0:11:38.640 --> 0:11:41.960 to transact on the blockchain, you need a token. Now, 0:11:42.080 --> 0:11:44.320 the concept of a token may be confusing, so let's 0:11:44.360 --> 0:11:47.360 get one very basic thing straight. A token is not 0:11:47.480 --> 0:11:48.120 a currency. 0:11:48.400 --> 0:11:50.880 I go back to this idea. You're going to the 0:11:51.000 --> 0:11:54.160 amusement park. You need to buy something that's going to 0:11:54.240 --> 0:11:58.720 get you able to ride the rides or purchase things 0:11:58.720 --> 0:12:02.079 at the concessions. They don't take cash, they take tokens. 0:12:04.360 --> 0:12:09.120 Think about that concept now, translated into this new blockchain economy. 0:12:09.720 --> 0:12:13.440 I don't use money, I don't use a government fiat 0:12:13.559 --> 0:12:19.800 based currency. I use tokens to actually engage and use 0:12:20.480 --> 0:12:23.960 both the applications that are being offered in the space 0:12:24.000 --> 0:12:28.640 and to pay the blockchain to record my transaction. And 0:12:28.720 --> 0:12:31.880 I'm purchasing the block space on the transaction so that 0:12:31.920 --> 0:12:34.160 my transaction could be recorded with the token. 0:12:34.640 --> 0:12:36.680 But doesn't it mean that you have to buy those 0:12:36.720 --> 0:12:38.280 tokens with fiat currency. 0:12:38.600 --> 0:12:41.520 You can buy them with fiat currency, you can buy 0:12:41.520 --> 0:12:44.960 them with other tokens, right, You can buy them with 0:12:45.000 --> 0:12:50.040 a whole variety of different inputs. But the whole point 0:12:50.120 --> 0:12:54.160 is that it is enabling you to do this in 0:12:54.240 --> 0:12:59.560 many different ways, not just through one government dictated financial model. 0:13:00.120 --> 0:13:02.760 Another distinction you should be aware of. A coin is 0:13:02.800 --> 0:13:06.360 a cryptocurrency like bitcoin that can operate independently and has 0:13:06.400 --> 0:13:11.160 its own platform. Tokens, however, don't have their own platforms. Instead, 0:13:11.440 --> 0:13:16.400 they piggyback on another cryptocurrency's blockchain network, and today the 0:13:16.440 --> 0:13:19.640 network that most tokens operate on is Ethereum. 0:13:19.840 --> 0:13:22.280 When you get beyond Bitcoin and you start to look 0:13:22.320 --> 0:13:26.920 at different, more advanced blockchains like ethereum. They have developed 0:13:26.920 --> 0:13:30.640 a concept called smart contracts. If I'm creating a contract 0:13:30.640 --> 0:13:33.800 with you that you're going to give me a ride 0:13:33.840 --> 0:13:36.920 that I have requested from point A to point B, 0:13:37.679 --> 0:13:40.080 that is a contract that you and I are creating 0:13:40.160 --> 0:13:44.960 on the fly. That contract can get recorded in the blockchain, 0:13:45.640 --> 0:13:49.120 and when that ride is completed, and there is proof 0:13:49.240 --> 0:13:52.720 that this ride is completed, and they can use geolocation, 0:13:52.880 --> 0:13:55.559 tagging or anything else to prove that the ride has 0:13:55.600 --> 0:14:01.040 been completed, the money will be automatically withdrawn from my 0:14:01.160 --> 0:14:03.680 account to you as I pay you for that ride. 0:14:04.240 --> 0:14:07.600 And that can only happen because that smart contract is 0:14:07.640 --> 0:14:12.040 sitting on the blockchain, and the blockchain has the business 0:14:12.160 --> 0:14:15.000 logic to be able to execute that contract. 0:14:15.520 --> 0:14:18.160 Of course, smart contracts don't just allow you to get 0:14:18.160 --> 0:14:21.680 to dinner on time. They're self executing computer programs that 0:14:21.880 --> 0:14:25.360 essentially play the role of the trusted third party, or 0:14:25.560 --> 0:14:28.600 put another way, they eliminate the need for that third party. 0:14:29.440 --> 0:14:31.640 When you talk about this, I mean, it's an incredible 0:14:31.720 --> 0:14:34.440 it's a very seductive vision of the future. But I 0:14:34.440 --> 0:14:36.640 am getting a little hung up on the issue of ownership. 0:14:37.080 --> 0:14:42.280 In ownership, I own my transactions, right I am looking 0:14:42.280 --> 0:14:45.520 for a ride, so I own my transactions and you 0:14:45.920 --> 0:14:49.200 own the car that you're using to provide the transaction, 0:14:49.920 --> 0:14:53.600 and so the contract between you and I is literally 0:14:53.640 --> 0:14:56.840 between you and I. Right, the blockchain is simply the 0:14:56.960 --> 0:15:01.680 passive recorder and enabler of us doing a peer to 0:15:01.760 --> 0:15:02.680 peer transaction. 0:15:03.160 --> 0:15:06.720 Those peer to peer transactions are seamless because the blockchain 0:15:06.760 --> 0:15:11.400 addresses the siloing problem of the platform economy. With wallets, 0:15:11.440 --> 0:15:13.520 not the kind of wallet in your back pocket, and 0:15:13.600 --> 0:15:15.680 not even your Apple wallet that you used to buy lunch. 0:15:16.160 --> 0:15:21.800 A cryptocurrency wallet holds your own personal record of all 0:15:21.840 --> 0:15:24.640 of the tokens and all of the digital assets that 0:15:24.680 --> 0:15:28.800 you have in your possession, and it allows you to 0:15:29.000 --> 0:15:35.359 hold all of those assets without revealing your personally identifying information. 0:15:35.560 --> 0:15:40.560 Because all the transactions on the blockchain are completely transparent 0:15:40.600 --> 0:15:43.800 to everyone, and if I had my name attached to it, 0:15:44.280 --> 0:15:46.640 everyone in the world would know exactly where I'm spending 0:15:46.720 --> 0:15:48.960 all my money, right, I don't want that from a 0:15:49.000 --> 0:15:53.320 privacy perspective. So this is a way of me having 0:15:53.520 --> 0:15:58.760 a financial piece of infrastructure where I can hold my 0:15:58.880 --> 0:16:02.960 assets and I can try transact, but do so anonymously. 0:16:03.080 --> 0:16:06.760 Beyond improving existing financial products and infrastructure. The blockchain is 0:16:06.800 --> 0:16:11.520 also creating opportunities for entirely new financial products through tokenization, 0:16:12.120 --> 0:16:15.840 converting assets into digital tokens recorded on the blockchain. The 0:16:15.880 --> 0:16:18.480 assets can be anything from real estate to bonds, to 0:16:18.560 --> 0:16:22.880 intellectual property to bottles of wine. I mean, talk about diversification, 0:16:23.520 --> 0:16:26.160 but there's still that voice in my head that says, 0:16:26.560 --> 0:16:29.520 there's no intrinsic value to this stuff. Why are people 0:16:29.560 --> 0:16:30.080 buying it? 0:16:30.560 --> 0:16:34.240 If I told you you could now own part of 0:16:34.280 --> 0:16:39.160 the Visa network, all those merchants that are plugged into 0:16:39.200 --> 0:16:42.080 that network from all over the world. If I owned 0:16:42.160 --> 0:16:45.880 part of that Visa network, what could I do as 0:16:46.120 --> 0:16:49.760 a business entrepreneur with it? What might I be able 0:16:49.840 --> 0:16:52.520 to save as a consumer by being an owner of 0:16:52.560 --> 0:16:56.640 the network? Right? That sounds like a very interesting value proposition. 0:16:57.320 --> 0:17:01.520 So Bitcoin actually did more transact since then Visa in 0:17:01.560 --> 0:17:05.320 both twenty twenty two and twenty twenty three. So owning 0:17:05.400 --> 0:17:10.040 bitcoin actually gives you access to a network that did 0:17:10.160 --> 0:17:14.239 more transactional volume than Visa did. So I think that 0:17:14.440 --> 0:17:17.480 it's a new way of thinking. Do you want to 0:17:17.560 --> 0:17:20.719 own a network? And if you want to own a network, 0:17:21.280 --> 0:17:24.600 this is a really new and interesting way of being 0:17:24.640 --> 0:17:28.080 an owner of a network, not a company, but a network. 0:17:29.119 --> 0:17:32.679 Why is this so interesting and new? I think that 0:17:32.760 --> 0:17:35.600 the more people understand, the more they get towards these 0:17:35.720 --> 0:17:40.640 aha moments of Wow, this could significantly improve the way 0:17:40.680 --> 0:17:44.040 the economy works. And then all of a sudden, you 0:17:44.119 --> 0:17:46.080 have now bought into the growth story. 0:17:46.640 --> 0:17:49.320 So if this is also great, why are financial institutions 0:17:49.440 --> 0:17:50.960 so slow to adopt. 0:17:50.920 --> 0:17:53.840 A few things are holding people back? Right, So we 0:17:53.960 --> 0:17:57.040 need to get regulatory certainty. We have to kind of 0:17:57.119 --> 0:18:01.440 get to a new equilibrium around idea entity. We need 0:18:01.480 --> 0:18:06.880 to get to a new equilibrium around understanding this new 0:18:07.080 --> 0:18:11.399 ecosystem because it doesn't operate in the same way that 0:18:11.440 --> 0:18:13.359 we are used to. So I think there's a big 0:18:13.480 --> 0:18:19.080 educational hurdle and understanding hurdle that people have to get past. 0:18:19.560 --> 0:18:21.959 But I think they'll get passed it through things that 0:18:22.000 --> 0:18:23.600 they do and things that they enjoy. 0:18:23.800 --> 0:18:23.919 Right. 0:18:24.080 --> 0:18:27.320 I didn't know much about the platform economy, but I 0:18:27.359 --> 0:18:29.400 know I lived in Manhattan and sometimes it was really 0:18:29.440 --> 0:18:31.240 hard to get a taxi. So the first time I 0:18:31.280 --> 0:18:34.760 took an Uber, I was like, I love this service, right, 0:18:34.880 --> 0:18:38.040 So you know, now if I can get that uber 0:18:38.400 --> 0:18:42.280 for a fraction of the price that might excite me 0:18:42.600 --> 0:18:45.240 as a consumer. Right, So, I'm not going to care 0:18:45.600 --> 0:18:47.960 that it sits on blockchain rails, or that I'm using 0:18:48.280 --> 0:18:54.040 a cryptographically protected wallet, or that my transaction is pseudo anonymous. 0:18:54.119 --> 0:18:56.400 All I care about is that I got a good 0:18:56.480 --> 0:18:58.159 ride and I felt good about it. 0:19:01.480 --> 0:19:05.280 A more seamless efficient and secure future, well, I think 0:19:05.320 --> 0:19:07.679 that's something we can all get on board with, and 0:19:07.760 --> 0:19:10.119 an online leisure for all might be the innovation that 0:19:10.160 --> 0:19:15.119 gets us there. Thanks to Roy Friedman and Sandy Cole, 0:19:15.920 --> 0:19:18.800 Tune into our next episode when we speak with coinbas 0:19:18.840 --> 0:19:22.080 As CEO Brian Armstrong and look at how crypto may 0:19:22.119 --> 0:19:27.000 help to alleviate the most dire financial crises. This is 0:19:27.000 --> 0:19:31.320 Evolving Money, a podcast from Coinbase and Bloomberg Media Studios. 0:19:31.760 --> 0:19:34.280 If you like what you hear, please subscribe and leave 0:19:34.359 --> 0:19:37.080 us a review. I'm Patty Hirsh. Thanks for listening.