Transcript:
This podcast was transcribed through a third-party application. Please disregard any misrepresentations.
Intro:
Hello listeners, welcome to this episode of Cryptonomix. Before we jump into today’s discussion, please keep in mind this recording is for general education and is not intended to constitute investment advice. Any opinions expressed are those of the participants and do not necessarily represent those of Withum.
Mark Eckerle:
Hello listeners. Welcome back to Cryptonomix, brought to you by, Withum. I am your host, Mark Eckerle, and today our guest is Ryan Shadel, who has been heavily invested in the web3 space and most notably, is the CEO of Metavesco, a publicly traded company that has gone all-in as a web3 enterprise company, investing in various digital assets, NFTs platforms, and generating income as a liquidity provider. So, we’ll take a deeper dive into what all of that really means— welcome to today’s show, Ryan.
Ryan Shadel:
Hey, thanks for having me on.
Mark Eckerle:
With that kind of brief intro, why don’t you give us some further background on yourself and kind of your journey into the digital asset space and how you got to where you are
today?
Ryan Shadel:
Yeah, sure. So, you know, I first started looking at crypto, really not even crypto, but I was interested in the technology: the hyperledger technology, the blockchain technology and its applications for things like tracking billable hours for employees on a worksite, and then tracking that billing to the, accounts payable team from the client. And so the Hyperledger, the technology behind it, I was probably more interested in than the idea of trading some, you know, currency. My son told me to buy Bitcoin in, probably was it 2013 or 2012. And, I wish I had, uh, or would’ve listened to him because I would be a very wealthy man. But I did not. I actually laughed at it and completely dismissed it and he reminds me of that frequently. A couple of years ago I started looking at it more and, when I actually researched it and spent the time to understand, and it started with Bitcoin, you know there are a lot of cryptocurrencies, but it started, for me at least, it started with Bitcoin and, kind of evolved from there. Once I understood the mechanics of it and the intention, um, the purpose of Bitcoin and the idea of a peer-to-peer network of exchanging monetary value without outside interference or oversight, it, you know, I went down that rabbit hole and, you know, I really never came out the other side. So, you know, that’s, that’s, that’s it for me. And that’s, that’s what got me interested in crypto. It started with the technology and then it evolved into the, you know, the economic proposition of it.
Mark Eckerle:
Yeah. I find that a lot. Once someone actually takes a deep dive into the rabbit hole, it’s tough to, to come back out. You’re kind, you’re kind of all-in.
Ryan Shadel:
It really is. It really is. Well, there’s so much that you can do. Um, if you shed the, uh, the preconceived ideas that we might have about money, monetary policy, there’s a middleman in everything that we do. Once you shed those ideas and you start thinking, um, on a global scale from a monetary standpoint, the things that could be done and the potential economic value that could be unlocked, uh, I, I personally feel, and I’m not the only one, obviously <laugh>, but I feel that there’s, you know, tremendous opportunity there, you know, for humanity. I’m not a humanitarian. I’m made it for the money, don’t get me wrong, but there’s a lot of opportunity for the betterment of humanity, in my opinion.
Mark Eckerle:
Yeah, I mean, early on the whole crypto space kinda had that negative connotation that was gonna be used for the black market, right. With the whole Silk Road scandal and, right? Once individuals educate themselves and understand some of the use cases for the, what crypto can do as a new form of currency, I think that’s really shedding that bad reputation almost and bringing it to the forefront to help get that, that mainstream adoption almost.
Ryan Shadel:
Right. Well, so, and that’s probably one of the things that interested me most was, and going back to the, you know, my original interest was in the technology. So if you look at Bitcoin, um, it’s extremely difficult to hide things using, um, blockchain currency. Okay. Which is what we call cryptocurrency, because it’s all on the blockchain. I mean, literally, you can go look at transactions, it’s public, everyone can see you moving money around. Now it might be, you know, somewhat anonymous to a degree, um, but you can’t really hide a transaction. You know, there’s no backroom deal. I mean, it’s all out there. Everyone sees it. So it was funny, there was a, I think about a year and a half ago, there was a, uh, a hack of the colonial pipeline, if you recall. And the whole thing was a, you know, they were, uh, demanding Bitcoin as the ransom.
Ryan Shadel:
And they, they, the reason those guys got caught was because they demanded Bitcoin as payment, because it’s traceable and trackable. And you know, the thing about it though, it’s permissionless. There’s no middle person who says what you can and can’t do with it, but it is viewable and trackable by everyone who wants to see it. And that is powerful if you believe in a global economy, um, and the potential that a global economy can bring to, you know, all corners of the earth. You can move money across borders without an intermediary taking their cut, their 2%, their 3%. It’s a currency. And now I’m strictly talking about Bitcoin. Cause I, I do classify everything else as a different thing, but Bitcoin specifically, it is a, a currency that is, is not, um, poisoned by eight or nine different central banks trying to do their own thing. And, uh, and that’s why you see, you know, a lot big swing recently in, um, you know, the four X market. There’s big swings in valuations, uh, like USD to Euro I think hit parity for the first time in like 20 years. I mean, you know, that’s great. If you own US dollars, it’s not so great if you own Euros and you’re buying things in US dollars, but hey, one Bitcoin is one Bitcoin, yeah. So…
Mark Eckerle:
Exactly. It’s still denominated in the same dollar. Right? But I know, so, so to help take a deep dive in some of the other assets, um, cause I know Vesco is kind of like I said, all in on crypto. So there’s, they’re not just focused on Bitcoin. Right? Um, so tackling the crypto space from a few different angles, what are you most excited to explore, um, and where do you really see the future of the company as a whole from a sustainable operations perspective?
Ryan Shadel:
Um, there’s a lot of unpack there. Um, <laugh>. Yeah. So, yeah, I mean, we are a web, I call us a web3 enterprise, and, and I think web3’s a very broad umbrella. You know, it, it, and it’d be like saying, yeah, we’re an internet company. You know, it’s a pretty broad, you know, it could be a lot of things. Um, but, you know, web3, I essentially, you know, look at web three like this: You’ve got, uh, the, uh, metaverse. Okay, which is the environment. And that’s, um, you know, maybe it’s vr, maybe it’s ar, maybe it’s not, maybe it’s just a webpage. Uh, but it’s the environment. Okay. And it’s an environment where you can own part of that environment and you interact with that environment with what I would currently say would be NFTs Okay. Non fungible tokens. And you transact in that environment with decentralized finance, which is Defi.
Ryan Shadel:
And so if you look at Vesco, that’s really what I’m looking at as those three areas. How can we get exposure to them? And, um, so I think, you know, the term Metaverse was really, you know, pop culture last year when Mark Zuckerberg, you know, changed the name of Facebook to Meta Platforms. The thing is, he had talked about the Metaverse previously on a, uh, earnings call. And that term has been around for a while. So I think we’re still understanding, or still trying to determine what the metaverse, you know, quote unquote actually is, will do what it looks like. And, uh, um, there’s a company called Improbable. They have put some really, uh, awesome tools together. Uh, and they’re working with, uh, other side Yuga Labs. I know we’ll probably talk about that a little bit to help them build out their Metaverse platform.
Ryan Shadel:
But I think in terms of what I’m excited about, I definitely think, uh, what the Metaverse can be, what we’re building it into be. And, and, and I equate it to being back in like the early 90s, you know, what’s the, you know, information super highway, we gonna look like, you know, we eventually stopped calling it that, and we called it the "Worldwide Web". And, and then we just, I don’t, we, ".com". And now I think we just, we don’t call it anything. It just is right, <laugh>. So, you know, I mean, that’s, we, I mean, as far as excitement, I I, I’m definitely there in terms of our, our operations. Um, so the bulk of our dollars are invested in, uh, liquidity pools. Okay. And that’s defi where we are providing liquidity to the market. So if you want to trade a certain pair of cryptocurrencies, you’re swapping one currency for another, uh, we’re the middleman there, or we’re providing liquidity at least to the middleman.
Ryan Shadel:
Uh, and, and in this case, it’s usually Unis Swap, which is a, uh, uh, automatic market making platform. Uh, we’re providing liquidity to the market so that you can come in and outta the market and have good price discovery. Uh, we get a fee for doing that. So we’re literally cryptocurrency market makers. Okay. Not unlike, um, you know, big Wall Street firms, you know, Goldman Sachs being a market maker in, in stocks and bonds and whatever. Um, so it’s kinda the same thing. I mean, literally the same, uh, functionality at least. So that, I mean, it’s not as sexy and fun as the metaverse stuff, okay? But this, the, the liquidity pools, as long as there’s good volume, we generate fees off of the capital that we have tied up in those liquidity pools and those fees pay the bills. And the idea is that we’re able to take those dollars and we can either compound them or we can take them and, and invest those dollars into NFT products that we like, which are currently mostly limited to things that are at least in some way connected to Yuga Labs, not exclusively, but for a large part of it.
Ryan Shadel:
Um, and so that’s kind of the model that we have. We wanna put money to work in liquidity pools, and we wanna take those gains, uh, when we have them and put them into, uh, NFT projects that we think have moon shoot oppor, you know, potential down the road. And I, and I do think it’s down the road. It’s not next week, you know, we’re not gonna all be in, you know, ready player one next week. That’s, it’s some years away. Yeah.
Mark Eckerle:
It doesn’t happen overnight.
Ryan Shadel:
I always said it did <laugh>, but no, it, that’s, and truthfully, we want it to take a little while because we need to build up our asset base, you know, so I mean, as a company, you know, this dip that we had, yeah, it hurt to look at that over the last, you know, what, 60 days, 90 days. I mean, that, that hurt to look at that in the portfolio at the same time, it’s like, well, I mean, we are getting a better price point for some of the things that we want to buy. So if you have a long term, uh, you know, investment horizon like we do, this is actually an opportunity, you know? And, uh, at least that’s how I’m able to sleep at night when I see Ethereum down 50% in the last two months.
Mark Eckerle:
Yeah. I was at a conference, um, a month or two ago, and Ryan Selkis from Messari basically said, "A bear market, if you could sustain the hit a bear market presents, right? Opportunities for growth and builders to really establish themselves. So when the next bull run does happen, everyone’s kind of prepared and ready to go to hit the ground running.
Ryan Shadel:
And you’ll see that! So over the last probably two weeks, I can’t tell you how many articles, how many tweets I’ve seen where some startup firm raised…10, 20, uh, there was one two days ago, $450 million. So yeah, there’s a bearer market, but there’s tons of capital still coming in. And, uh, there’s, uh, you know, kind of, it’s kind of a meme at this point, but, you know, in the, in the, in the crypto community bear market, people build in bear markets. And that’s, and I think that’s exactly true. And you know, much like the.com bust, there were, uh, you know, most companies didn’t make it out of that, but the ones that did, made people a lot of money. And I think we’ll see the same thing, but also think it will happen faster. And, uh, and, and I might even argue most of it has already happened.
Ryan Shadel:
I think crypto winter is over. You can quote me on that <laugh>. But, uh, you know, and I’m sure, you know, there’s been a lot of people who’ve had to eat crow for saying that kind of thing. We might get a pullback, but, you know, in the dot com bust, I mean, people thought it was the in:.com. It was a fad. It’s over. And, you know, imagine being that there’s an article I read the other day talking about emails. Is the email fad passing? Could, could you imagine me the guy that wrote that article? You know, I mean, so is, uh, is crypto.
Mark Eckerle:
Anything from…Right, exactly.
Ryan Shadel:
At the time, I mean, they didn’t have really clickbait back then, but, you know, I mean, now you just say it’s clickbait, but mm-hmm. <affirmative>, you know, these companies, these platforms are building. And, um, there’ll be opportunities if you can figure out how to get access to, uh, what they’re building. And that’s going back to the question about what I’m excited about with the Metaverse and the idea of web3, the idea of web3 and like the Major Dickinson web3 and web2.0 Is web3. You own your content, you have potential or, uh, access to own the part of the platform, or at least components of the platform. And so when I talk about other side Meta, which is, uh, a Meta project by Yuga Labs, the idea that I can own part of that environment that I’m transacting in, or that someone else is transacting in, I mean, that’s pretty remarkable for, for an average everyday American, you know, almost quite it like this, like let’s say you go to the mall, there’s a whole bunch of stores that are selling things, right?
Ryan Shadel:
Well, what if you could just click a button and you owned part of that environment, owned part of that mall, or part of that store, you know, or part of the ecosystem that was in the mall, you can do that with web3. Um, and, and I think larger corporations are starting to realize that, and starting to build more and more with that type of focus. Disney recently announced a deal, uh, to develop on Polygon. Uh, Mercedes yesterday announced a deal to develop on Polygon also known as PATIC. Um, but you know, those are, you know, that’s a canary of the coal mine, if there ever was one for what’s coming. I mean, you know, when you see big money start to look at it, it’s, you know, they’re gonna follow into it because that’s where the people are gonna be.
Mark Eckerle:
Yeah. We’ve even seen some financial institutions or accounting firms kind of get some real estate Yeah. In the, in the Metaverse as well. Um, but you, you mentioned Yuga Labs. Um, so I, I, I do wanna transition over to that just to give our listeners kind of some background as to what is Yuga Labs, what is the Board Ape Club and kind of understanding the true, I mean, this is a great use case in my opinion, of what NFTs can do and a true value proposition. So can you just give us a little bit of background? Cause I know you personally as well as the company are, are big on the, um, the future and long on Yuga Labs.
Ryan Shadel:
Absolutely. So the first NFT was created in 2014. A lot of people don’t know that, so it’s not, you know, it’s not that new. I mean, two years ago, you know, it seemed like it was "new", at least the concept of it. The first one was created in 2014. It was really, um, I would say reached, you know, cultural phenomenon status with, uh, crypto Punks in, and I think that was 2017. Um, and it really didn’t, you know, get more mainstream. And I don’t even know if I’d call it mainstream now. It’s still a very small village of people that are in the N F T space. Okay. You know, and we talk about this a lot in the Twitter spaces that I’m on where, you know, I mean, I’ll see some women in there, well, for example, Yuga Labs. I mean, they’re, they raised almost a half a billion dollars, uh, in private equity, you know, a few months ago.
Ryan Shadel:
Okay. So yesterday, I’m in a space. Um, and so someone who has been in what I call an Alpha group, uh, you know, looking for basically information and opportunities for investments, right? Um, he’s, I Ila Dub producer on Twitter, he’s just, um, guy, like a community manager position with Yuga Labs. I’ve been, you know, friends with that guy on Twitter, on Twitter, I don’t know him personally. I mean, we talk on Twitter, but, you know, for like a year. And now all of a sudden he’s like a community manager for the biggest name in NFTs. I mean, that’s how small web3 is, right? I mean, it’s still small. So, um, YUGA Labs come out, you know, uh, early last year, uh, they launched the Bored Ape Yacht Club, and, uh, it actually took a few weeks to sell out. It didn’t min out right away.
Ryan Shadel:
Uh, a lot of people don’t know that either. I mean, it, it, it wasn’t an instant hit, but it was just, you know, it just had this cultural thing. I can’t even really explain it. Uh, and I was late to the party on that. Um, but the community building that they did was, uh, just on something, on a different level. And so if you look at them now, without question, they are the blue chip, uh, NFT company out there. And I don’t even know that I would call ’em an NFT company anymore, because they had really have taken what I think is my idea of, um, what this technology can do and can be. And they, they have really executed really well. Okay? Uh, so the Other Side of Meta is a project that they launched. This is their Metaverse project, and it’s all NFT-based.
Ryan Shadel:
Um, so you have, uh, if you go to Open Sea, you’ll see the other deed for other side. And that is essentially like your deed for that particular land plot in the other side, metaverse, right? Um, so if you’ve ever played, you know, video game, imagine you own part of, you know, the environment that you’re playing in, part of the city that you’re walking to when you’re playing Zelda, that kind of thing. Um, but these NFTs are different. They are dynamic NFTs, which have not really been talked about a lot, but I do believe will be the buzzword, you know, over the next 12 to 18 months. A dynamic NFT is an nft, which is a non fungible token that can be updated and changed based on actions that you or someone else takes. And so this is really going back all the way back to the technology of the hyperledger.
Ryan Shadel:
Okay? It’s trackable. It’s immutable. You see it. Everyone sees it and you’re doing all that with an NFT with a digital item. And so it’s what started out as digital art, you know, in 2014, is now really more about technology that I feel is represented by the, the digital art. And at some point or another, people will still be talking about NFTs not from an art standpoint, because what’s really awesome about an NFT is just the, it’s, it’s really just a smart contract. It’s a smart contract. It dictates if this happened, that happens. And, um, you know, we all know it now as, as art, but that will change as the technology, uh, I feel matures. Um, so with, with other side meta, it’s, it’s an opportunity to own part of a digital environment that’s being created by Yuga Labs.
Ryan Shadel:
And these guys have just done an amazing job of execution. Um, they launched their own token ACO back in, uh, March. Um, they’ve got the board API club. And so right now a… you know, the lowest price board ape, if you wanted to go buy one, it’s 145,000. It reached at one point, I think 400, 500,000 US dollars. And I, I, I, I think that that’s cheap, uh, just from a historical significant standpoint, you know. So, um, they’re continuing to build, they have a huge community that’s behind them, and I feel that eventually they’ll be the Disney of the of web3. And, I think they will build the world’s first really, truly inop or interoperable, uh, metaverse. Okay. And I think that’ll be other side meta it, it’ll take them a couple years. I don’t think the thing will be live tomorrow, but I don’t think, you know, Facebook meta platforms is, is really that much further, you know, far ahead of them.
Ryan Shadel:
Um, so it’s interesting what they’ve done in terms of building their community and, uh, they have constantly kept that as focus for what they’ve been building and that has rewarded them and the community, you know, over and over again. So I think there are a lot of NFT projects out there that, you know, I mean, if I’m being honest, 99% of them are going to zero. Okay? I mean, they’re just, you know, there’s some art value in some of them, right? But in terms of, you know, what they can build or, or will build be, once you get beyond the art, it’s really about having a team that can do that. And there’s, you know, if you’re in that space right now, only a handful of projects that you wanna really attack yourself to, and Yuga owns, you know, most of those. So, you know, it’s Crypto Punks, Bored Apes, they own all of that.
Ryan Shadel:
And, uh, I think other side Meta is gonna end up probably being the, uh, the, the biggest thing that they have in terms of, of total dollars, uh, valuation wise, uh, eventually. But, you know, it’s, uh, it’s early still, and you hear that a lot. It’s almost becoming meme now. But, you know, I mean, really bored yacht club’s been around for a little over a year. It’s pretty early. We don’t know what they’ll end up, you know, finishing with, but they’ve got a roadmap out. You can go check out their website. They have a roadmap. Roadmap, what they’re working on, what they’re building, they’re constantly communicating. Uh, and then, you know, the whole thing with ApeCoin, the ApeCoin Dow, that’s a..I mean, we could, we’ll be here till four o’clock if we start talking about what that’s gonna do.
Mark Eckerle:
Okay. I do have a couple follow-ups there that I just wanted to get your thoughts on. Um, cause I, I do know that Yuga launched the ApeCoin back in April or so. Um, so I’m curious to get, what’s the, what’s the use case behind aco, right? Is that gonna be the currency that lives in the Metaverse?
Ryan Shadel:
So, they have stated ‘want that look to like’ that, uh, it would be the, currency used in Other Side Meta. So if you, if you have a shop or a game that you built, look at if you think about, and this is based only what we’ve read and what we can read, which is in, they did publish a white paper, uh, a couple weeks ago? And so, the way I figure it is, it’s like Roblox, but you actually own the stuff you’re building, like in terms of like the, to the general ecosystem, right? Uh, so in Roblox, you go, you buy Roblox, uh, that go to Roblox, you know, that’s how they earn can uh, you know, earnings, um, well, in, in this case, you would buy something from someone else who had built something and you would have to spend ApeCoin within that ecosystem that is the chosen currency of that ecosystem.
Ryan Shadel:
And so that’s kind of what they put out there. But then beyond that, it’s anything that you want to build within the Bored Ape Yacht Club ecosystem, you would use what ApeCoin. So if you wanna buy any bored Ape Yacht Club merch, like they do merch drop stuff, like it’s all an ApeCoin. You have to have Acorn to purchase this stuff. And then beyond that, you have people like me who wanna build things that use ApeCoin. Uh, recently there was, uh, and I, and I can’t recall it, it’s too early <laugh>, but there was a, a firm who created a, uh, NFT marketplace for the Board Apes, and I think they’re trying to get eight, the eight point out a fund development of this NFT platform. And so the, the concept is, so Opensea currently is the largest NTF, platform in terms of volume.
Ryan Shadel:
And they’re customer service is really not great. Okay? Um, so if you built your own, and by the way, uh, 10% of the volume that happens at Opensea comes from the Board Ape Yacht Club community, um, you know, through either A, A B A Y C, or M A Y C. So it’s, you know, it really just makes sense to have a platform that’s owned by the community, not, I mean, cuz having open C on that is very web2 <laugh>, okay? The community should own it. That’s web3. That’s the whole point of it. These guys built this thing and they’re like, "okay, here’s the platform." You can list your NFTs, you can, and every fee goes to buying ApeCoin and burning ApeCoin. So they charge a, a fee, and those fees go to buying and burning ApeCoin. So I think that the utility case for it is, it can be whatever the community wants to, wants it to be.
Ryan Shadel:
I mean, that’s the beautiful part about it. Um, it, there’s no central party saying do this with it. Uh, in fact, Yuga doesn’t even control a coin. They created the token, but the, the coin itself is, is managed by a Dow. So it’s all decentralized. Um, they, uh, appointed an initial, um, board of advisors or custodians, I forget what they, how they termed it to kind of guide the, the community. But it’s all decentralized. Yuga has very little say so over what happens. They have input. And probably to be frank, if if Yuga said, Hey, do this with it, the community would probably say, yeah, let’s do that with it. Although they, somebody came out and said, Hey, ApeCoin needs its own chain. And the community was like, no, we don’t. And uh, there was an AIP that was proposed to, to, uh, like source, you know, for, for an, ApeCoin chain ‘ape chain’, right?
Ryan Shadel:
And the community said, no, we don’t want that. It’s an eight pin. You define what an AIP is, essentially a proposal to the Dow. So what happens is, if you have an idea, like, you know, let’s say, um, let’s say that, uh, a, the ApeCoin community wanted with them to be the auditor for the ApeCoin Dow, I could go on there and do a proposal. Hey, I think with them would be great. They have a lot of experience saying, crypto, let’s, they should be our auditor if we ever wanted to be audited. And, uh, I could propose it. And if you have ApeCoin, you can vote on that proposal. And if it passes, thenit passes, it’s pretty great. I mean, it’s decentralized management, you know, by the community that, that owns the token. It makes up the ecosystem. It’s, it’s, it’s brilliant and simple all at the same time.
Ryan Shadel:
And the cool thing about it is, I think it’s a very, a scratch of, of the surface of what can be done. Um, as more and more firms, um, more and more communities take to these types of, of things, these types of technologies, using, um, you know, essentially blockchain hyperledge technology to decide what the future looks like and what it can, you know, if I put forth a proposal and the community votes on it, the idea is you’ve already got such huge support, you know, it’s not contentious at all. And, um, you know, companies are catching up. They’re, you know, the NBA’s launching an NFT. Uh, I think there’s a Playboy NFT coming out soon. Uh, you know, I mean, it’s beyond the art. You can take, um, your, your memberships, your monthly subscriptions, your tickets, anything that’s collectible, all of those things can be, uh, put on the blockchain.
Ryan Shadel:
It’s NFT. And eventually it’s just a matter of time. You’re gonna buy a house, and it’s gonna be, although documentation will be through an NFT because it’s trackable, traceable, non fungible, you can’t alter it. And so, I mean, if you’ve bought a house, it takes you forever to get the title work done. And the legal, I mean, it’s archaic, you know, it’s like, you know, 1900, you know, 1905. Yep. You know, uh, protocols here. So eventually the technology’s gotta open up those things and it will make for smoother, cheaper transactions on a host of things. Not just, you know, digital art. That’s really just the, the, the Trojan horse of it.
Mark Eckerle:
Yeah, I went through that: the house buying process, a little over two years ago. And that really helped open my eyes for some of the use cases that this technology can do. I don’t think my deed was registered with the town for three and a half months.
Ryan Shadel:
And there, after closing, cause it takes some person that was pretty alarm, some person who’s getting paid whatever per hour to click on the thing and to stamp the thing and to do the thing and then file the thing. And it’s through, you know? I mean, uh, it doesn’t make any sense to me why you wouldn’t want that stuff to be on chain. And, uh, I think it’s really just a matter of education. There was a long time where, um, uh, Congress was, I think, suing banks to keep them from using computers. So <laugh>, you know, eventually.
Mark Eckerle:
Yeah, I I think any governmental agencies, well, they are, agencies are always a little bit behind, I shouldn’t say significant. Yeah. They’re
Ryan Shadel:
Significantly behind. You know, what you part hurdles, that’s a nice segue into, uh, regulation. Um, once the s e C and or the CT ffc or whomever, whoever just says that we’re in charge of the regulator, we need to figure that out first. Who’s in charge of the regulation? And then what is the regulation? Once that is done, it’s gonna open up so much innovation and so much investment into this space. There are huge funds that cannot put big dollars in this space because of so much uncertainty, um, with regulation. And, uh, you know, there’s just a host of problems that, that will get solved once there’s regulatory clarity.
Mark Eckerle:
Yeah. Once there’s some guidance. But no, that, that is to your point, a good transition to, um, a quick question I had on, so being, being a, a public company, right? You’re Yeah. Required for certain disclosures. And I know you personally are very open and transparent on the company’s operations, the company’s strategy, the things you’re interested in, what you’re looking at. Um, so I’m just curious, I mean, being very active on social media with, with Twitter postings, you mentioned Twitter spaces earlier. I believe you also, um, record some spaces on Twitch, so you’re kind of yeah, educating the masses from every angle as best as you can. Um, but I, I’m, I’m curious with all that transparency, what are the pros? And then conversely, what are the cons do you see with that level of disclosure, almost just being a web3 company? Because it is limited oversight, right? So you could be giving a little too much away
Ryan Shadel:
There, well, there’s the thing about Metavesco specifically, we are a web3 company, and so there’s, and generally in web3 , there’s potentially a lot of anonymity. Well, we’re also a registered SEC filer, so we don’t enjoy that luxury of anonymity, but our investors and potential investors and shareholders do enjoy all that disclosure and accountability. So it, you know, it is, it is definitely a trade off. Um, but that’s kind of why I set it up this way. Um, okay. So a lot of these dows and, uh, currencies are going to be deemed securities at some point. I mean, I’m fairly certain of it, not all of them, but a large chunk of them. And, you know, do you want to have your money tied up in something that invests in the metaverse and then find out that they’re, uh, an unregistered security and you can’t get your money out, right? <laugh>?
Ryan Shadel:
So, okay, fine. I mean, I would love to not have to file because it cost a lot of money to be public. Why can’t I just make a token and just be a dow and just, you know, sell $5 million worth of tokens? I mean, it’s so much easier. And you know what, in 2014, you probably could have gotten away with that. You can’t today. Um, at least not without getting, you know, an unfriendly knock on the door. So it’s kind of a blend. All right, so Meta is like a blend web two and web3, web two, and the fact that, all right, we are very, um, transparent as we’re required to be, um, as a, as a filer through the S e C, but I personally feel like that’s not enough. And the thing about web3 is if you’re doing everything on chain, it’s all visible.
Ryan Shadel:
Remember, if it’s on the blockchain, you can find it, you can track it, you can trace it. Our wallet is public information, okay? So people can see everything that we have in, in our wallet, which is, you know, we have multiple wallets, but there are a couple big ones. And, you know, you can see what we’re doing with the money that is in the company. And if you’re an investor, I mean, so part of the thing you’re talking about Twitter and social media, we are an OTC traded company that’s in crypto and NFTs, which is a very contentious regulatory space right now. To me, I feel like it’s, it should give us an advantage with investors that we’re just being so overly communicative and transparent. And that part of the pros with that is that if you’re looking at a company, uh, that’s on the otc, you can, I mean, look, you can see what we’re putting our capital in.
Ryan Shadel:
I mean, there’s so many OTC companies, you have no idea what they’re doing. And you find out once every 90 days when they file their quarter lease. And usually what you see on the OTC at least, is they didn’t do anything except spend money and issue shares, right? Well, most of what we do, you can just see it in real time. Right now, if you want to know how our apr coin Ethereum liquidity pools doing, you just check it the same way I do. I pull it up on Zappy every morning, and I look, I I’m using the same tools. Everyone else has access, it’s all free. That’s cool and awesome. And hopefully we will translate into a more liquid stock, a more vibrant community of shareholders. And I think that is something that, um, is going to be, uh, a new thing, uh, and a more prominent thing in the, the trading community.
Ryan Shadel:
So you look at amc, they’ve got an awesome, huge, very vocal community of shareholders. Well, I think every company should strive for that, and I think we can do it, and it can just be, you know, inherent just because we’re into web three now, let’s talk about the cons to being so out and open. Uh, it’s great when everything is going up, not so great when things are going down. So, um, you know, how do you answer, uh, somebody on Twitter says, "Hey, you know, your portfolio on unit swap is down 50% in the last 60 days." How do you answer that? Well, I mean, that’s gonna come, that’s gonna happen, you know, if you’re out there being that transparent. But I think it opens up the possibility to have those types of discussions with people that you want as investors. And if they’re truly investors and not just day traders, I think that they will value that because everyone else’s portfolio is down too.
Ryan Shadel:
So it’s not like, you know, not like anyone’s immune to the, the drop that we’ve all seen, not just in crypto, but in everything in the last couple months. But the idea that you can just sit there and have an open conversation. Now, initially, the SEC did not like this kind of stuff. Back when Reid Hastings, he got a wells notice for he, he is, or was, I don’t know if he still is CEO of Netflix, but he got a wells notice for talking about the Netflix financials on Twitter. And he argued, Hey, I mean, it’s publicly disseminated. Everyone sees it. Yeah, it’s, it’s, you know, material information, but it’s in the public, you know, square. And then eventually the ecc I’ll say, wow, yeah, I guess you’re right. So, you know, that’s another one of those things where it just took, took care everybody a little while to get it.
Ryan Shadel:
And I think open and honest community town hall type communication with your shareholder base should just, it should just be SOP, should be standard operating procedure. And, uh, that’s what I’m striving for as, as a CEO of, of Metavesco. And, um, I think you particularly should consider that if you’re an OTC company, because everyone just automatically assumes if you’re otc it’s a scam. And I personally, I assume the same thing. You know, stuff I’ve invested in it’s otc, I automatically just assume that’s a scam. Um, but if a company goes out of their way to give you access to the, the officers access to the books, which are on blockchain, I mean, where else can you get that? Right now? It’s a huge selling point, but eventually, I think more and more companies will do these types of things and it’ll just be the norm, or it should be, I think it should be the norm.
Mark Eckerle:
Mm-hmm. <affirmative>, no, I, I, I totally agree with you. I think having that level of disclosure is great from investors, just from a general, um, like best practices point of view, almost, right? Where right. We have nothing to hide. We’re fully here, we’re in the crypto space. And I know, again, back to my earlier point, there was that early negative connotation, but yeah, we’re, you could see what we’re spending our money on, you could see what we’re, we’re sitting on and having your full, full portfolio basically published. I think you, you, you posted it yourself on a pretty regular cadence. Um, yeah. But as well, just having anyone else wanting to log in and see how our assets are doing and performing, um, up or down, good or bad, whatever it may be, just helps provide that level of assurance to your investors, to your shareholders, right? Of, of how we’re doing and where
Ryan Shadel:
We’re going. Well, do you want, do you want shareholders or do you want co-owners? I want co-owners. Some companies might just want shareholders. You know, you’re Proctor and Gamble, you probably just want shareholders. Okay. You know, um, but look, we’re, we’re a publicly trade to startup that’s doing something that, that, you know, for the moment at least no one else has done. There’s no other US based, you know, fully audited public company doing what we’re doing. So, you know, let’s have co-owners. I mean, technically when you own a sheriff stock and a company, you’re a co-owner. At least you, that’s how it used to be. Now there’s like, you know, series A prefers that give voting control to Mark Zuckerberg, stuff like that. But, you know, for the most part, if you wanna share in the company, you, you’re a co-owner. So why can’t we have, you know, have conversations like you would with the, if you co-own the, uh, you know, convenience store down the street, you know, you go in, you talk to the owner.
Ryan Shadel:
Yeah. Cause I’m a co-owner, so, uh, why can’t we do the same thing? The technology is there now where you could have a conversation with, you know, 10,000 people at one time if you wanted to on, on, you know, uh, discourse or, um, you know, different platforms that are out there. I mean, you, you know, an investor connect, look at what AMC has done. There’s 75,000 something people on there. I mean, it’s insane. So, I mean, why can’t we, why can’t we look at shareholder, um, activism from the inside out? That’s, that’s fine. I feel about it.
Mark Eckerle:
Mm-hmm. <affirmative>, no, and I, I do have one more quick question for you, um, before we wrap up. So I personally, I just think with where the market has been over the last two to three months, I think this really opens the door for, for some defi opportunities, right? Kind of removing that centralized piece, even though that’s the whole ethos of crypto as a whole, right? I wanna self custody, I want to kind of get away from someone else holding my assets and having title over those, right? Um, which helps bring in the, the defi capabilities. So that’s one thing that I’m pretty excited for, but I’m, I’m curious to get your thoughts on what you’re most looking forward to for the rest of 2022, um, and where you kind of see the year playing out. I know you mentioned earlier that you think we’re, we’re out of our crypto winter, but what does that really look like?
Ryan Shadel:
Um, so I think the crypto winter was caused by two things. One is just the overall market macro caused by the Fed, mostly raising rates and inflation. Uh, and I think that that expo, you know, it’s like, uh, I think it’s Warren Buffet. When the tide goes out, you see, you see who’s wearing clothes and who’s not. And so, um, there were a number of firms that went belly up, um, or, and are in the process of going belly up. Voyager most recently, uh, three AC or three hours capital Celsius. They’re all these firms that are, uh, there’s centralized finance companies pretending to be decentralized finance. And, uh, you know, you had mentioned this previously, you know, I think that kind of illustrates the whole reason why we need decentralized finance. I mean, it, it really just makes sense. Has there been a defi company go bail up in the last 90 days?
Ryan Shadel:
The answer is no. All of these companies that are having trouble are centralized masquerading and pretending to be decentralized. And, and this goes back to my earlier statement about, you know, how blockchain defi can unlock value for humanity. There are people in countries, uh, that are just unbankable and with crypto, and I’m mostly talking about Bitcoin, but with defi and crypto, those everyone is bankable. There is no unbankable, okay? And it’s not about, you know, whether that somebody can write a bad check or not. It’s just about the ability to move money around and have access to economic freedom, have self sovereignty. And, and that’s really what cryp for me at least, that’s the ethos of crypto. So you’re talking about what, what that means, you know, for the rest of the year in, in crypto winter, I think crypto winter’s mostly over because it was exacerbated, uh, it was started by, you know, fed hiking rates and exacerbated by all these other, you know, uh, cause and effect things from three arrows and Celsius and everyone else.
Ryan Shadel:
And there might still be another, you know, shadow bank out there that blows up at some point. But if there were gonna be a defi blow up, we would have seen it already. And so you combine that with, uh, what I am most excited about is the emerge of, uh, Ethereum. So, uh, I just read today, the last Testnet is supposed to, um, merge, uh, August 6th, I think between 6th and the 9th. And so, um, the developers have said that Ethereum 2.0 will be here in September. Man, that’s gonna open up so much potential! There’s so much, um, so many things that can happen. And, and the, and the thing I’m most excited about is the things that we don’t know about yet that will happen once that merge is done. Cuz here’s what I think it will open up. Uh, I think we will see how scalable Ethereum can be.
Ryan Shadel:
Uh, we already know currently, at least right now it is in terms of, you know, the world computer. There is no, no more secure, uh, platform you can be on. Okay? There just isn’t. And, um, it’s decentralized. So if we have that happen in September, I think you’ll see a ton of capital come into the space for building applications on the Ethereum network. Uh, I think, so right now most defi activity probably doesn’t happen on Ethereum because it’s expensive to transact. So if you want to do a transaction, you go to a layer two, like, you know, Solana or you know, whatever, uh, <laugh> one of those things. Um, and they know those are great networks and everything, but they’re not Ethereum. And the minute, uh, Ethereum can process a hundred thousand transactions the second. So there’s just no need for, you know, these layer ones or layer two, you know, that are on Ethereum in the first place.
Ryan Shadel:
There’s just no need for them. So, um, I think that a lot of capital will pull out of the other, um, the other, uh, protocols. And I think that money’s gonna end up in Ethereum in terms of applications being built. And I think a lot of it will be defi applications. Um, one of my favorite yield optimizer, uh, platforms is beefy.com and they have zero vaults available on Ethereum. And it’s because the transaction fees are just so high and, uh, you know, there’s more capital trades on Ethereum every day than all the other networks. So, you know why, why leave the blue chip if it can be just as fast as everything else? And that’s the question:, can it be as fast and can it be as cost efficient? Now, I don’t think it’s gonna be as cost efficient, at least not yet.
Ryan Shadel:
But once, and this is the thing I’m excited about, once that merger is done, we’ll be able to see how scalable it can be. And I think people will start to build and we will see that those gas fees will come down. And uh, you know, I’m just excited about what can be built when, when the speed is, uh, increased that much. Cuz right now it’s pretty slow. I mean it’s, you know, twice as fast as Bitcoin, which is still slow. So a hundred thousand transactions a second. Um, you know, I don’t think we’ll have that right away, but that’s the goal. That’s what, uh, Vitalica said was the goal. So, you know, um, I’m excited about what, what kind of innovation that’s gonna bring.
Mark Eckerle:
Yeah, that’s one of the things with, especially on the Ethereum blockchain. I know this, Bitcoin has experienced it too, and some of the others have, where depending on where the market’s at, the transaction fees are just so outrageous where you’re, you’re basically kind of stuck and you don’t want to pay. Sometimes transaction fee is more than the transaction that you’re trying to do <laugh>.
Ryan Shadel:
There were times, you know, in the NFT bull market where, yeah, I mean, it was so "right now", I mean, you can send a hundred thousand dollars worth of Ethereum for about five bucks, which is still cheaper and send somebody a wire, but that’s expensive. So, um, you know, that should be about 50 cents, right? And, um, you know, there are a lot of really good, uh, alternatives to Ethereum where you can send that type of capital for, for 50 cents. You know, me, Solana? You know, and I knock Solana a lot. Okay? The problem with the biggest problem with Solana, it’s just not, it’s not decentralized, right? It’s just not. And, uh, you know, they shut down the network every, every couple, you know, weeks it seems like, you know, they have to pause the, the chain and, uh, you know, none of these other competitors to Ethereum are what Ethereum can be.
Ryan Shadel:
They’re better than Ethereum now, if you’re just talking about measurements of, of, you know, key performance, you know, indicators, but they can’t be anything better than what Ethereum can be. And so, you know, I’m a bit of an Ethereum maxi on that from that standpoint. It is the world’s computer, and I think it’s gonna be a super fast computer. There’s just so much capital there, and I think even more’s gonna, you know, end up there once this is done. But it’s, you know, there are, um, there, there are a lot of, uh, I think layer twos that, that will help build Ethereum, you know, um, like Manic and other, you know, Polygon that’s, they’re doing some really cool stuff that’s development focused and not so much, um, transactional in nature. And I, and I think that, uh, polka DOT’s another one, man, they’ve got some really cool stuff going on over there for, for if you’re into gaming and in Metaverse stuff. I mean, it’s some really cool stuff that they’ve done with these, uh, these chains. So, you know, I mean, it’s still early. Uh, I think most of these will be gone, but, uh, the big ones, um, that get the most innovation and the most adaptability will survive.
Mark Eckerle:
Yep. Well, I know we covered a lot today. We talked about a lot of different things, and I appreciate you joining me. Um, where can, where can our listeners learn more about Metavesco, learn more about you? Can you, what, what are your socials?
Ryan Shadel:
Yeah, so, uh, vesco.com and, uh, on Twitter, uh, at Meco and my personal Twitter is @cRyanShadel. Um, we do, uh, uh, a weekly spaces, uh, every Monday at 11:00 AM and, uh, we’ve got a, an email list you can subscribe to on the website. Uh, I’m on Twitter, you know, pretty much 24-7 <laugh>. So, uh, you know, always available for questions, connecting, uh, discussion. You know, there’s, I can spend all day talking about Crypto NFTs and Metaverse and, uh, you know, anything that’s a fruitful discussion, I am up for it!
Mark Eckerle:
Awesome. Awesome. Well, thank you everyone for listening today on today’s episode of cryptonomics and, uh, enjoy the rest of your day.
Mark Eckerle:
All views expressed in this podcast by Mark Eckerle or his guests are solely their opinions and do not reflect the opinion of with them. This podcast is for informational purposes only.
