Interview with Zoltan Vardai, Breaking News Reporter at Cointelegraph | EBC10

[Music] hi everyone welcome we're at abc10 here um basically covering the Buzzy scene here at Barcelona at the event uh was a very special guest with me now uh I'm Anin Co CEO at re blon PRC sitting here with Zan V uh working news reporter at coin Telegraph how are you Arona it's great to meet you it's been an exciting today and I must say I'm personally very very excited to be interviewed cuz in the past two days I spent interviewing some of the brightest Minds in blockchain web tree and web tree gaming so it's it's it's nice to sit on the other other side of the chair yeah we felt like it would be very interesting to also hear from journalists you know their perspective and not just talking to the to the big players in the scene I think in my opinion at least the uh point of view of journalists are usually the ones that are the most interesting I I very much appreciate that and if if I may just share my point of view I feel like this event and the whole year 2024 has mainly been about institutional adoption and the institutional legitimization of crypto because obviously we we've got the MAA Bill coming up which is going into effect for crypto service providers at the end of December and then we we also have this this interesting thing that happened with the ETFs whereas it's it's not a complete regulatory approval from the US but a lot of people are seeing the the Bitcoin ETFs and especially The Ether ETFs as as kind of a de facto approval from the SEC and from the security these Regulators that crypto really is here to stay so I feel like this has been a bit of bit of a main conversation here I I feel like these um these ETFs have really bought a lot of um I would say confidence not just confidence for investors but I feel like people for the first time don't feel like Bitcoin or ether can disappear from one day to another so I feel like that has really legitimized the industry and my takeaway is that most of the institutions are saying the same thing and they're saying that banks are here institutions are here and um I I guess established players are finally joining crypto yeah I mean we' we growing through Evolution right from a complete uh Wild Wild West Market that everyone is just you know trying to figure out what's fraud and what isn't we're now at a much more established grounded uh fa forward- facing uh market and that's great the first is of course they can come in and and share their uh wealth as well so um any specific companies or or trends that you have seen here on the floor in those two days that you feel like are more interesting or perhaps provide a good perspective on what we have uh coming in the future h i i it's very hard to single out one company but but just to go with the topic of this institutional adoption and institutional legitimization of web cheat I would have to mention bit Ponda bit Ponda I I've had a fires side chat with them yesterday um bit Ponda is one of the leading crypto finex in Europe and it's Hol stre has first um unicorn companies why why bit Pand is so interesting for me is because they just just partner with societ general which is the 19th largest bank in the world for a stable coin for a Euro denominated stable coin and why this this is all kind of culminating now is because they're preparing for the first session of the MAA and and they want to serve the European market to the stable coin and I I feel like on firms like bit Panda which which offer infrastructure which offer which offer go to market stretches there so much more will be really important cuz we have all these Banks and all this trat fight we really have no idea how to go about just whole crypto and web and say pointing so I I feel like I I have to shout out Banda and uh and Shout them out for they continued institutional option they're also working with deuts bank and I'm sure they have a lot lot more Partnerships in the pipeline especially after we see Mika drop in December yeah sure so uh talking to all these uh companies here and you know as part of your ongoing work do you feel like they uh put a lot of weight on what's going to happen with the US election coming up in the next couple of weeks like are they uh considering whether or not it's going to affect the industry yes or no what are you hearing from them I I I I love having touch on this because I I feel like the US election is kind of like the elephant in the room right now even though the US is the biggest biggest economy in the world and they kind of dictate the face of global regulations in terms of uh Financial technology I I feel like for the first time they're lagging behind and it it's interesting because the first time also speaking to the adoption to The Wider adoption of the industry crypto has become a focal point of the US elections and for the first time votes could potentially swing because of crypto on the other hand I I must mention that I feel like there's still a bit of an unclarity because Trump is uh is often being seen as the pro crypto candidate whereas this is also something I mentioned during our panel discussion he he's not always delivering on his promises in in terms of he he was supposed to launch a crypto platform on September 16th that that didn't quite happen right it could still happen but um my my personal concern is that just because a candidate promises everything for crypto and blah blah blah it doesn't necessarily translate into regulations when they get into office so it's it's still going to be a huge um I I feel like it's going to be a huge divide building up to it but I I simply feel like uh both parties will be um forced to adopt more crypto crypto friendly policies just because of the voters and just because of these younger Generations wanting crypto exposure okay so we'll go a bit of a macro perspective now outside of like the day-to-day uh life of the event uh so you're breaking news reporter um do you want to maybe share with the audience what does that mean for you like how your day-to-day look like what you focus on sure so as a breaking news reporter as going as first breaking news reporter by the which I'm extremely proud of if I may say that um it's uh breaking news for people that don't know is is news that is either Market changing meaning that it will Shi shift markets upwards or downwards or whether it's something very very significant that happened in the in the past few minutes few hours so from my perspective it's um it's quite difficult obviously because it's not like a Commodities Market or G or regular Market I I think the first thing for me is keeping in touch with everyone which is why conferences like this are so so important and uh even even if I don't find the breaking news here the relationships that are for that I Forge and the Partnerships I get is often what leads me to the breaking news which if if it doesn't come through these Partnerships it usually comes through data which which is something that we have to find we have to go to and uh sometimes I I must say it's really quite disheartening because because at times I I I I look at data and I aggregate data for 3 hours only to end up with with no story right yeah that's a very interesting uh take I think I'm not sure the audience is that well aware the differences between the different uh news segments in the new so thank you for that um anything you'd like to add maybe uh that we haven't touched upon or you want to kind of like take the stage and then and share with the world I um there's it it's very hard to just say one thing after having so many great conversations and and not just the panels and fire sides but so many great interviews um I think what one thing I'm very interested in is uh is what will happen in the next year until 2030 we we've already SE heard this 2030 being floated around not just by crypto but also by Trad fight um I I feel like the road to to 2030 will will kind of become this this Battleground between cryptocurrencies stable points and decentralized Technologies versus Central so Bank digital fancies and uh just I I I don't mean to Ste the spotlight here but I'm extremely concerned about cbdcs and I'm extremely concerned about about the types of controls that they are going to toward Central Bank because um I I I feel like um central banks are have become less frusty through all the years I feel like the monetary the basement they've uh uh they've led us to is is is nearly unprecedented we we haven't seen such inflation in nearly 14 years OB now it's coming down but I feel like changing paper money to digital money if it goes into cbdcs we're giving from most of the control to S giving them all the control so I I think this is kind of a Battleground that needs to be fought and I like to quote with Al G on thec during token 2049 he said that the industry needs practicality and it needs decentralization but we can't we can't quite sacrifice decentralization for practicality I I feel like this is this is the same with um with with the future of money as well right now stable coin infrastructure or defi infrastructure may not be where banking infrastructure is but we we really need to look at what we're sacrificing with cbdcs and and why giving all the power to the bands it's very interesting tape thank you so much for sharing with us thank you for pona of course have a great conversation thank you