The Future of Crypto: Regulatory Uncertainty and the Path Forward - TOKEN2049 Singapore 2023

all right that was high energy I'll try and match it for you guys this morning but I think this topic of Regulation and putting it at the start of token 2049 as we just heard there the biggest event on the crypto calendar in Asia at least for the course of this year it just tells you how much this has been at the Forefront of everyone's Minds in the community given yes a degree of progress that we've seen in a lot of jurisdictions here in Asia Hong Kong Singapore Japan for instance making modifications but then you've of course got what's going on in the US and so I think it probably makes sense to start there given that's we're all of you are based so I'm going to kick off with just a a broader question here what would constitute a degree of a breakthrough for you in terms of the US regulatory landscape given we just heard from the SEC chair overnight really sticking to his guns Gary gendler and his Senate hearing committee uh hearing so I I'll not just because you're from Ripple but I'll kick off with you Brad sure so I guess I would argue we have had that breakthrough uh you know I I I will start by saying I'm always an optimist and so maybe I'm clouded by that but uh you people will often tell you and frankly Mike and I were talking back stage uh like you don't want to fight the SEC people will tell you the SEC always wins in the United States and uh having the SEC lose not just the Ripple case but also more more recently the grayscale case uh I think is you know really a hard-hitting combo the other thing I'll just call out there were a couple of things that were said in the grayscale case where the a three panel of three panel three judges all unanimously agreed and they used the words that the the SEC is being arbitrary and capricious I mean these are like harsh words for one government agency in the judicial system to say about another government agency so I I would like to think the Breakthrough has happened and the call to action I think really is on Congress and I I think uh hopefully with some of these uh rulings that will change the the the tenor in Congress and we'll get some activity Hong do you think we've already started to see some sort of change I would I would agree um I think the the thing that I like about us the most is the rule law and now regardless of the case of Ripple or the uh Bitcoin ETF you do see the court stepping in and making their voice heard uh and I also think that you know in us when it comes to exchange landscape there have been regulation on the ground but more at the state level so I think the next one that we will be looking at is more clarity at the federal level where there is a you know more unanimous and cohesive Federal uh guidance when it when it comes to regulation but I think that that second step probably will take a little bit more time following on with that from what Hong just said like the states are ready to go like State Regulators are actually excited about digital assets crypto um they know that their constituents want to see this so we very much have an Alexander Hamilton versus Thomas Jefferson debate going on inside the US haven't had it for a long time so you asked like what's the one thing I'd like to see I'd like to see the politics removed from this thing because at the end of the day this is actually about better money for people and it's really pretty surprising that any political party is taking this as their we're going to go kill a whole asset class because it fits well with our political Ambitions but it is so political though that's the money is power well part of the industry I would argue it's not poit I mean again you we talking about the us because it's a big economy and they're quite hostile towards crypto but I think you know it it doesn't feel political here in Singapore it feels like they're making smart policy that's driving Innovation here locally it doesn't feel political in the UK or Dubai or Switzerland where you know it feels like they're actually being good government citizens and you're saying hey what's the right thing to protect consumers to have regulatory Clarity and yes some of it should be strict and some of it should be you know challenging for companies to operate in but to to kind of leave the ambiguity is you know allowing the SEC that that confusion gives them power and they're using that through their unlimited legal budget of just filing more lawsuits but sorry on the political front I think it's more of yeah a US story but you either have a chance that you see some sort of progress on the crypto bills or whether there's something that reaches the Supreme Court in the US instead saying that the SEC possibly have had some sort of regulatory overreach what do you think could be more likely we uh we have been observing we are hoping that there is some uh um law coming out of this U particularly you know I think us is in a very uh interesting uh um time in its own political environment but you know that's something that that we as industry participants as Builders cannot control we can only control what we can control which is to build the right product continue to focus on the technology and uh to uh support uh responsible uh regulation and and engagement uh so that we can actually make sure we have a healthy environment and I actually think that this uh regulatory uncertainty this you know increasing scrutiny over the industry to some extent is actually a good thing because it Sparks discussion it Sparks the discussion around what is right what is wrong and when it comes to crypto to web 3 it's new technology there is a lot of blurred boundary around certain Concepts and I think having that discussion period and pushing people to actually focus on what actually matters for for the customers which is customer protection is actually a good thing and for that purpose I think regulation and you know Technology Innovation is kind of in line so to speak do you see any Silver Linings to the lack of regulatory Clarity in the US well I don't know I think uh all of us here by the way have a responsibility to stay engaged even though it seems like it's outside of our control and to some degree as individuals that's true but in aggregate it's not but if we're not careful the easy path is to turn all of the benefits of blockchain transparency risk reduction openness back into the existing Financial system and we really do have to make sure that the the laws that get passed are responsible ones and you know blockchains are already Superior to existing Financial assistant markets I go examples around travel Rule and other things you you don't need the surveillance that you used to need in Old systems and so that's going to free up people that's going to make better products that's going to open up markets I just hope we don't end up with what we had before the SEC has indicated that it's intending to possibly appeal the US Court decision in terms of the xrp token which is the native token of Ripple what was your reaction to that well first of all there's a Nuance there that the SEC has requested a permission from the court to file an appeal they actually can't appeal right now so they have to get permission from the court to appeal because the case isn't fully closed uh what's interesting though is they're not actually appealing at least they haven't signaled the intent to appeal the idea that is xrps security so the law of the land of the United States right now is xrp is not a security full stop the judge was very clear on that so uh I view that as a very very positive thing I think it sets a a very strong precedent for the whole industry I think it's great for exchanges I think it's great for custody providers uh and I think again you're seeing a momentum shift I think that it used to be I think a lot of Judges were like well the SEC is always right and uh they you know weren't fighting that I think you're starting to see that the tenor change even the coinbase case I'm sure people are paying attention some of the questions from the judge in the coinbase case are downright hostile you know towards the SEC so look the frustrating thing and I kind of alluded to this yes or earlier uh the SEC has an unlimited budget you're you're literally fighting the man you know can go and go and go and they can keep appealing appealing appealing but as Hong was saying you know the judicial process in the United States while sometimes slow sometimes frustrating it's it's actually working and uh I I think you have seen to your initial question I think the tide is turning and I think the the the road map for how other companies can go after the SEC they're following some of the exact same things Ripple did and I think that's great for the whole industry what about the Bitcoin spot ETF do you see that changing at all any sort of approvals by the end of the year um my my personal view is that if the future ETF has been improved I cannot see the spot ETF not be approved anytime um it's a matter of time I think um and you know we saw the Court ruling and I think it would be hard not to see it being approved or unless the the the future is you know overturned basically which is probably hard but that's my personal point of view I don't know black Rock's participation is a big a big difference from where we've been in the past uh it's absolutely going to happen all of us know that uh and it's just a matter of of time at this point my guess is that the uh the current SEC is going to continue to fight it um I hope that we do see an approval uh I wish I could be more optimistic about it but at least so far yeah we saw Gary gendler's comments yesterday um and you know he's doubling down on kind of the same things he's been saying uh so I think until kind of they they get a little more capitulation on like hey this has to happen it's your job to make it happen that's the will of the people um as soon as he turns the corner of that then maybe we can start to talk about a spot ETF coming to life until then unfortunately probably not in the US opportunity abroad for others to step in and fill the gaps in other other jurisdictions what sort of impact do that would have on the market dynamics if one way were approved um actually it's interesting there could be downward pressure by the way yeah I you know so if you start to see like the the gbtc starting to have a a conversion and then a way out there's probably a lot of people locked up in there that would love to have an ETF and then be able to to exit um but that would be temporary I mean overall this is massive flows that can come in um there are definitely uh elements where digital asses have not been able to permeate in the markets the one I would I would highlight is the Pension funds like Pension funds uh obviously they're some of the largest flows of money that that exist and they have stacks of committees that make investment choices they need to know what risks are being taken at each step of the process everything from you know when they deliver those funds through how it's custody through how it's traded which parties are involved Etc on an ETF they could start to have exposure on these things um without uh without having to worry about that part part of the problem I I I think that there's huge implication on custody institutionalized custody for Bitcoin um I also think that um the the the the question I have on my mind from a personal perspective is whether our industry is actually ready for it uh because once you have um spot ETF available for Bitcoin yes a lot more retail money will come in through pension fund and other institutional money you will Pro we will probably see Bitcoin as an asset class really grow but but there's also volatility on the one hand on the other hand are we really ready as an industry to build more um applications related to bitcoin so that it's not just a financial asset because remember that we started as an industry to think that we're not just creating a one different asset class we're actually creating something that is new that we can build on top of a a new set of monetary system that hasn't come to fruition yet um so I don't know whether we're ready for that yet from a from a industry uh infrastructure perspective you I I I before we got in this panel I was walking around obviously it's very early in the day uh I had some caffeine not as much caffeine as our host but uh I it was awesome to see kind of to Hong's point I the amount of activity out there and companies building you know people talk about you know crypto Winters crypto spring whatever like people are building right now and I think we've gotten you know less focused on just specul speculative trading and more focused on what actually are we what utility are we building and I think some companies lost sight of that at various times and look a lot of companies had layoffs this year a lot of companies have struggled I think those that have taken a Long View are as Ripple is we're we've made two Acquisitions we're going to keep investing our balance sheet is strong we're hiring uh you know I think this is the time when you want to actually build when you know there's there's fear out there I now is the time to actually lean in and so I'm optimistic that it drives the exact activity we're seeing out in the hall when you talk about building it's also the question of who you're building for and the amount of investors that have left the space and the amount of interest that has perhaps gone into other sectors even from the VC funds for instance going more into AI but I question when you take a look at the liquidity in the market so far whether there's going to be enough of an audience whether that trust has been built up because you instance just mentioned that the Acquisitions you've made and one of those Fortress trust just came out overnight and said that they had been hacked The Exchange and I know that you said Ripple has made those customers whole but it still points to to issues that are within the sector in terms of accountability and H how do you think we're going and cleaning that up so look I first want to clarify something because the the incident that happened with Fortress trust there were four accounts out of about 200,000 that were compromised and they weren't compromised by Fortress they weren't compromised by the infrastructure bitgo performed exactly as they're supposed to and very well fire blocks same so what happened there was the Compromise of a third-party tool and uh it was basically a spear fishing attack which isn't unique to crypto and so I think when we talk about this yes the the quote negative the victim if you will was uh a crypto outcome but look Fidelity suffers from spear fishing attacks every day Black Rock I mean you name it when someone compromises an endus users credentials that creates problems it doesn't matter if you're talking about crypto you're talking about Banks you're talking about Securities uh so I think sometimes we talk about it as there's still something quote wrong with crypto you know these are uh problems that affect I think the whole industry look when it comes to custody you have to be perfect um you know so securing billions of dollars of assets uh we like to think of like well maybe there's a platform just around the key management that matters it's actually layers and layers that matter everything in your platform from the very bottom of your stack to the very top has to be uh considered for security and and and there it's possible failures uh so the good news here I mean we didn't have a catastrophic loss um to to to Fortress it might have been somewhat catastrophic you know fortunately they found a way to make all of the customers whole which is great Ripple stepped in so it's really got a pretty happy ending there I think if there's anything that's not as good as it could be is just like getting the transparency out so that people can see what's going on um kind of inside of inside of custody um in terms of infrastructure I tend to agree I think we actually have the infrastructure today to be able to support a Bitcoin uh ETF type of product we definitely have robust custody um however uh to your point about liquidity that's dried up because there's a lot of lack of confidence in the post FTX world so bringing this back to regulation for a moment regulation is hard for all of us to think of like what is regulation well I guess it's investor protection maybe that's the one thing that everybody agrees but that is a big big bowl of stuff and if you start to break out like what does that mean well there's some things at the bottom how about like keeping the assets safe so they so they can't be stolen last time we thought about that was about 1850 I think when we had stage coaches you know T taking gold between different parties look with crypto we have to think about that again the the physical safety of the asset is is really important the next rug poles and fraud and things like that you know after FTX happened Elizabeth Warren comes out and she says what we have here is a failure of AML kyc we need those crypto companies to have AML policies look I think that's true but that had nothing to do with FTX so regulators and legislators have to get their priorities straight as to what matters first and frankly the most PRI High the highest priority item when it comes to crypto regulation I think should focus on the basics of making sure the assets are safe and can't be rug pulled now investor protections disclosures best execution self-dealing prevention Insider all of that stuff is bad that needs to be handled but you got to start with the basics anyway right now we're talking about custody a little bit so I think that's how that came came into play for me uh I would like to see The Regulators really focus on prioritizing the stack of what needs to happen make it so we can't have an FTX anymore that'll bring the confidence back we won't have the liquidity issues and then we go on but we have seen regulat progress in other jurisdictions so Hong sorry you were going to no I was actually going to add on what Mike was saying because um you know you talk about building for whom and then Mike was talking about transparency and the pain points and the regulation which is actually what we agreed with because you know when we think about the the pain points for the customers and the liquidity drying up it's exactly because of lack of confidence in the industry and that lack of confidence is because of um the lack of transparency people cannot see when there's intermediary taking custody and um and what we really believe in is you know there are two parallels right one there's the uh traditional regulatory framework that uh we need to embrace but at the same time we would love to be part of developing this in evolving this and and from our perspective we think that adding the technology uh tools to increasing the transparency is really important that's why we have been really focusing on developing the proof of Reserve program um online automated open source uh with ZK technology to really prove that the assets are backed up 100% and people can go and check um on a monthly basis regularly so you know the the platforms are held accountable and you know it's our hope that some things like this can be over time a part of the regulation for our industry so that it's actually technology driven instead of intermediary driven um and and ultimately individuals can take more accountability as well the sooner that The Regulators stop fighting actually the sooner we can help them make the the markets better so you mentioned proof of reserves fantastic right the auditing system that we have in today's markets across the globe is pretty terrible you know you you have your quarter end and then somewhere around 90 days later you get the report on what was happening you know uh almost 180 days earlier inside that company blockchains proofs of Reserve these are real time types of things so if you start to add proof of reserves and proof of liabilities you still need Auditors I'm not saying you don't need it but like we can help The Regulators have like a realtime view into what's going on and that's just help Regulators that ultimately that's about making sure investors are protected but we got to stop fighting on the basics settle on the definitions make sure that every's agreeing that we're moving forward and yeah I guess I'm still a little frustrated with the US regulation uh actually the rest of the world is in a lot better shape and I think the beauty of of having the technology solution is that you know compared to traditional audit traditional audit is a spot is a snapshot of one certain time and you cannot see in between but um uh in crypto in web 3 actually is everything is on chain we put out all our addresses out there everybody can go and check the fund inflow and outflow all the time real time so so I think that's part of the advantage of of our the technology and we should you know try to actually utilize it for people's benefit we have saying regulatory progress so in other jurisdictions across Asia Europe Middle East why hasn't that been enough then to to Spur confidence I I'll I'll uh I'll challenge the question meaning uh look I I remember when Bitcoin hit I don't know 15 or 16,000 I think today it's 25 or 26,000 like there actually you know wasn't that long ago that Bitcoin was at 2,000 so uh I think sometimes it's just you got to zoom out a little bit further and when I when I hear you know why hasn't it spurred confidence look Ripple's growing I mean we're not we're not growing in the United States we're growing outside the United States and so it's because I think there have been leaders who are progressive and thoughtful about where the world is going for a lot of the reasons why Hong and Mike have already articulated the benefits of blockchain and crypto Technologies so I I I think uh you know I I don't look at it and think oh the Market's really suffering I I think sure it's nicer when you know Bitcoin was at 60,000 but uh I I I just think we should zoom out a little bit and be like wow this industry has come a long way there are 10,000 plus people here for token 2049 I'm guessing by the time Dubai comes around for next year's event like there's going to be more people but you know I I remain very optimistic about the direction of travel and part because of the court system and part because other uh jurisdictions are providing that Clarity and even like these are major economies the UK is totally leaning into crypto they're they're yes they're making sure there's consumer protections but uh I mean as Mike just said like the only country I would not encourage people to start a company in right now as the US there's probably some others but the US is a big one to call out what do you make of the the progress that we've seen in other jurisdictions this year look uh I think we've all actually been in the space for a long time I think Brad said it pretty well like you know this space has come very far very fast the conversations that we were having having back in 2013 and 2014 about what was the what was the industry going to look like and you know back even back then people recognized that sooner or later there's kind of a budding of heads between regulation and and digital assets we have to have it we have to have safe markets we want that we want investor protections we don't want scams everybody's in that same boat um but it's going to be a tumultuous time and and it certainly is so I don't I I I share BR Brad's optimism about it's actually a lot better than you think it's just that the US is right now now the third rail of crypto regulation the one thing maybe I'll say which to add a bit of controversy to this I I I still think there is an underlying uh segment of the crypto world that is so anti-regulation and you know uh all about anonymity all the in my judgment if we want this industry to thrive and Achieve I think what it can to fundamentally rewire how Financial infrastructure works we can't protect tend that like government regulation doesn't matter and I still think you know I think frankly one of the problems of the United States is you have even within the industry infighting right you got these various uh you know lobbying organizations in the United States in Washington DC with lots of members from the crypto community and they all don't agree and so you know if I mean I've been to Capitol Hill I'm sure maybe both of you have as well you go to a senator or representative's office and there have been two other crypto people in there earlier in the day saying saying different things than what I'm saying and like there's some basic things I feel like we have to agree if we want that progress we have to agree on some basic things and I think you know I still do find categories of the crypto Community fighting some of these basic regulatory Frameworks you know AML is going to matter kyc is going to matter and if you if you're taking the point of view that we're going to circumvent those things that's not the industry I see out five and 10 years from now that really is thriving and growing uh uh because I think that just gives fuel to the fire for politicians who do like to you know just make noise uh and they don't understand you know what's going on in crypto or what brought down FTX what about the strictness of regulations because Hong okx for instance is applying for the license in Hong Kong by the end of the year that's a that's a jurisdiction that's very high on investor protection it's very expensive to get the license there and it also is very narrow the legislation where you can only trade a few tokens so it's quite a tough environment what do you make it when the regulation goes that far um I would say you know we actually have quite a few licenses um in process and uh with basically all Regulators that we are having conversations and um discussions with all of them are very focused on customer customer protection you there are very constant themes coming up customer protection corporate governance uh with the you are uh um separating the customer assets whe whether you are actually having uh trading against your customers you know those are very constant themes and I I think those are heading the right direction uh and with almost all Regulators they also take a very experimental approach um they want to take baby steps and figure out what actually works and make sure that they are doing the right thing for their uh jurisdiction which I also think is the right thing so from our perspective we are very um uh supportive of that and and in every jurisdiction that we operate where we are pursuing license we make sure that we actually have active engagement with a c uh with a regulator design our product um at the MVP level and then gradually Push It Forward uh and I I don't think there's a problem with that and I think back to your question of uh uh why you know the market is where it is you know I think we still need more clarity it down the road uh because you know different jurisdictions are shaping up Hong Kong Singapore EU we're seeing more clarity but it's still in development people I think a lot of people are still kind of in a watching mode uh and then secondly uh the capital markets what I've learned in from my Wall Street Experience is that Capital markets sometime have to act react to certain things like they need impetus they they need to take pills uh and they they tend to some time over overreact and I don't think we are there yet I think the industry is constantly building um but we're not there yet we haven't seen a new application coming out that is attracting uh uh broad attention you know an example where even you know a spot BTF ETF getting approved can probably serve as a sbus but we we are not there yet but what about the profitability though because when you're in a market where it's it's a tough environment and going back to the example of Hong Kong it's it's a city of s or 8 million people it can't support that many exchanges when you can only offer a few tokens so how do you operate in that sort of environment and why do you continue to pursue licenses in those areas it's important right because I think um either from an industry perspective or from a platform perspective we want to have sustainable growth we want to position ourselves for the long term we have been around for a long time from our perspective there are things you can control there are Revenue stream and then there are cost you have to be very conscious about how you spend money how you grow uh and we are very conscious of that uh we make you know very careful decisions and we manage our risk well as well so kind of uh hitting on on this a little bit the um all the companies here are happy to do whatever regulatory Regulators require and they may set a really high bar and we will meet it and that'll be fine the the challenge we are going to have on the other side is you actually all three of our companies were relatively small just 10 years ago in the land in the landscape of things and we are now big enough that we can afford some of this but if we aren't careful we're going to knock out the innovators and there there's going to be new innovators right every every company goes goes through this um so we need to apply new rules rather than the existing rules and this is difficult because sometimes Regulators hear this and they think that you don't want to obey the rules that's not the truth that's not that's not what I'm trying to say what I'm trying to say is the existing rules will will by definition by having the surveillance by having the teams required just to get started prevent new innovation from happening so I that's that's my big concern um for kind of the way things unfold next how do you look at the question of of profitability in a market like this look I the thing I get excited about and I think I imagine there's a lot of entrepreneurs out here building in the crypto space is I don't think about that at a static point in time right we're you if you were looking at that just today and even to your core question that was kind of directed at Hong around okx if Hong Kong only allows a certain number of tokens to be traded that's limiting I would bet that well I I don't know what Hong thinks what I think is that's a starting point and yes maybe for the next year or two it's a small list and then after that it'll be wider and it won't be just be to seven or eight million people in Hong Kong it turns out there's a few more than a billion in that broader community and look you're betting on where the the world is going to be I fundamentally believe that where crypto is headed where blockchain has for a lot of macro factors the wind is at our back and you know where we if we just look at profitability today yeah it's it's a lot harder to have a profitable business with you know less liquidity today prices where they are that's harder but if you look at where I think the world is going to be a little bit further out uh I you know I'm I'm very excited about what what that looks like call me The Optimist call me naive call me all those things but I've been more right than I've been wrong I mean Ripple's in a very good position so uh I feel good about that bet and we're going to continue to invest and hire more people and acquire more companies uh because I believe about where the world is going when you said more than a billion people it made me think of China so you're saying that you think China could change its stance look if you told me I a couple of us were talking about this before we got up here if you had told me a year or two ago that Hong Kong would change his stance I wouldn't have believed you I don't know let's let's see what Happ I I mean I well you know more about it than I do I'm sure we will take whatever comes we'll deal with it I don't know how to predict where that that's going to go I just think you know again I remember first reading that Hong Kong was changing its posture I mean I I personally view Hong Kong as potentially a leading indic Ator to where broader China goes we'll see I'm not a China expert I don't pretend to be but uh we'll see more ups and downs I mean India has also been an on switch and an off switch I think three times over I I can't keep track of it fully um Hong Kong Was Out 3 months ago suddenly came back surprises everybody uh of course we're all trying to figure out what's the right way to grow in Southeast Asia what's the right place to to plant your your your largest Roots uh this is going to continue to like go up and down a little bit for the short to medium term but in the long term I think we're generally seeing everything turn on the other thing I would say as a proxy for this one part of Ripple's business is we work with central banks to issue Central Bank digital currencies we've announced about 10 Central Bank deals we're talking to a whole bunch more than that again if you had told me zoom out if You' told me four or five years ago we would have deals with 10 different central banks around the world to prototype test or launch a central bank digital currency i' been like that is incred incredible there is an argument against cbdcs though I I I I agree with those arguments but central banks as a customer want to test they want to evaluate and some countries will go forward and they will do it you know I I think it's unclear to me how that World plays out do you have any views on cbdc you want sh uh look cbdcs are kind of a whole class to themselves actually I do feel are largely out of out of our control has a lot more to do with kind of how the the federal banks decide to move forward but I think some of the concerns we have there actually apply back to the regulation that's being put onto just all the general assets you know I mentioned the travel rule I want to mention this really clearly the biggest recoveries in not just digital assets but any asset ever in the history of regulators have been on blockchains they've been on blockchains without having extensive monitoring and AML kyc and suspicious activity reports fully fully th plumbed through the system how can that happen well it's cuz you have a blockchain right all of a sudden when you are a regulated entity and you're doing transaction monitoring not only do you see who it came from but you see who it came from before that and before that and before that and before that this is like new Power by the way it's dangerous power and and it creates a world where suddenly the travel rule can accidentally dox the the sender of any any amount of coins so we need The Regulators to fully understand what's happening here they should be excited about the features that they're getting but they also should be careful not to Overlay policy on top of it which is too privacy revealing if we do that we could end up with blockchain not getting adopted because actually in the end it not it's not for the people anymore um it actually doesn't work like and I'm not talking about avoiding government regulations I'm talking about you spent on something that you don't want other people to know and we have to be careful that we don't end up in that world got a couple of minutes left so want to end with a little bit of stargazing the topic today kicking off 20 token 2049 is regulation if we were all to meet again in 12 months from now what would be the topic of discussion what be a good topic or the topic of discussion 12 months from now um things will be better uh there will the the judges the judicial system will continue to I think come come to bat and help fix things uh in America I think that we will see more clarity at that level I think the the bare Market is actually kind of good I tell this lot of people I kind of hope that it hangs out for like 18 months because there's a ton of building going on in this room and outside this room right now and when the markets are a little bit more throttled you get to focus on building the plumbing right some is what Hong was describing as well so like I think when we come back in a year uh we're going to be very ready actually for for for big big moves I I I'll try to answer it look last year or the last 12 months and I'm I'm cheating a little bit with how I'm counting months but you know we have had major headwinds for crypto we talked Mike talked about FTX Celsius three arrows uh certainly the SEC more lawsuits like it is massive headwinds and oh my God bitcoin's at 25,000 or 20 whatever it is today uh I view that as a very very positive thing so when you you asked the question a year from now I don't know what the next FTX is I hope it's not one I what I would bet unfortunately is uh I think there will be more unexpected things and it's the resilience of the entrepreneurs in this room and it's the resilience of these markets that it's where my optimism comes from uh the one maybe nugget I'll offer there is I think the stable coin business will be a major topic a year from now because I think A lot's going to change um your question made me confirm one thing which is I don't think I should be in media period CU I don't think I will be able to predict the the trends for for you know next year's topic um but if you ask me what I would want to hear I I think I would um I would hope that we are not talking about regulation not that regulation is not important but but that hopefully there's more um Clarity by then and the focus is around product around technology there's actually a lot of interesting exciting stuff going on in the industry about the layer 2 uh scaling of the layer to through different solutions uh around transparency versus privacy can we actually provide transparency while preserving privacy and there's actually a lot of interesting solutions that people are trying and and um we as a platform uh also invested a lot in those web three Technologies and I hope that next year we actually come back to talk about those stuff uh that actually can lay down foundation for a real longer term you know bull market great well Brad Hong Mike thank you much for your time this morning kicking off token 2049 for this year in [Applause] Singapore