187: Money Talks #50 | Techstars Demo Day Recap | Building the Bear | EU’s MiCA | Web3 as Embedded Finance

0:11 Hey there, I'm Pete Townsend and this is money, never sleeps. We look inside the minds of entrepreneurs and at the crossover of startups and our prize Finance technology and Life. As We Know It, This episode of money. Never sleeps is sponsored by Phillip Lee, one of our Islands fastest growing corporate law firms and expert advisors at the heart of the Dublin in London startup fintech and crypto communities. Just a heads up before we dive in will be moving to a monthly release for the summer, instead of weekly this time to recharge after a few months of running at full speed, we'll check in in early August with an episode. And that will return to the regular weekly Cadence come September. As for this week Owen Fitzgerald and I recap techstars first-ever demo day in Dublin as part of the launch pool web three techstars accelerator. And we wrap up that our hats and mittens for a look at crypto winter, with FTX block, Phi and Voyager with a Similar story at hand for the likes of Clara and they're down round. We also look at those continuing to build in the face of the overall Financial downturn with revolutes new card reader and Al Gore and bringing Napster back to life that we hit on some of the highlights of the recently agreed Mica or markets and crypto assets regulation in the EU before closing with a riff on open, banking the crossover from embedded finance and to crypto and digital assets.

1:25 All right here on money never sleeps. Oh, and we're back on at night. Peace. It's been a while. I know it's been two months since my last confession. No, it's been two months since I was like, I know, I know since we've been have we've done it episode. Just you and me. You did it. A few of the tech sergeants we did ya but ya know. Good too good to be chatting. It was good to see it in person on Thursday night I know brilliant. Yeah. D techstars and the event. I was brilliant and the and The team's I couldn't believe how far they'd come after the Thirteen weeks. Yeah, that's a point that acceleration, right? So, this is the launch pool.

2:07 Where three textures accelerator? It's the first techstars program in Ireland. The first chain agnostic program for techstars in the very first textures, demo Day in Ireland, which is kind of, you know, expected. I had to come up with three first though, right? Of course, if there's a first techstars program and I know it's gonna be the first textures, download and Ireland, unless you take a demo day on the road, but it was awesome to do this at the button factory, as you know, which is a no Some music venue I saw Airborne Toxic Event play there a few years ago and just being up on stage there, with the lights with the smoke, the fake smoke, whatever it is, it was incredible. And I absolutely enjoyed it and it is by far the single most joyful moment of my career in seeing each of those nine Founders get up there and Pitch their hearts out and just do so well, it was an awesome feeling for them and someone said to me afterwards Pete, you must feel great about this and I'm like, I do.

2:57 But you know what? I'll feel a lot better. When the first investor turns up and writes that first check for one of those, not yet, a couple of them are already well on their way to funding. But, you know, coming out of this, obviously, that's going to be a big Benchmark of success. Right? So it was brilliant because it's awesome experience. Awesome. I remember texting you after the first Mentor, modernist a and specifically about one or two companies and saying, I genuinely spent half an hour with him and had no clue what they were doing. Yeah. Yeah. And yes I was you, I was there my wife care, and she was there, too. Be 21 or 22 companies, specifically and but like she totally got it, you know, you sitting there listening to the presentations completely could understand not being.

3:37 Someone can barely up to speed on Reb tree and blockchain but completely understood what each company was doing what they were offering and ins and outs of it. Like so, you know, someone not not aware of what's going on that space, you know. We just showed a far. They come from and I'd met them. Yeah. Do a testament to the program. Yeah, I mean, that's what it was all about. Is about making web, three more accessible and everyone needs to tell a story. Three. And at the very beginning, what their pitching is a product, not a vision. Now, they're pitching, something that they figured out that they think that they can wrap some technology around and saying, we can deliver acts, but it's really about, and I went through this so many times, because we probably did 10 pitch practice sessions across the last couple weeks of the program. And then they did, the founders would do their own practice with each other.

4:23 That was one of the best things about this program was seeing how the founders all came together as a group. As a unit, we're just friends and relying on. Each other and helping each other. But going through all those pitch, practice sessions and getting those reps in was critical and I kept score every single time. What's your hook? What's your problem? What's your solution? What's your Market? What's your business model? But your traction, what your team, what's your vision, right? Those eight things and kept score in my little notebook the whole time and just saw them all come along and eat. They need to be able to not just pitch their business, but pitch it in their own. Own narrative. So many of them wrote scripts that then they're like this isn't me talking. Yeah right it was somebody else and the words that they thought they should be saying and then when they all got into their own story and told it in their own words, that's where it just went through the roof.

5:15 So it's great to see them all. Come along so far. You know, like I said, really, really proud of all of them. That's really interesting about this. Best thing about this is that this is for Life. Yeah, so it'll continue obviously the 13 week program is over. But now I'm you know, I'm invested. So this is, you know, I'm going to be following up with each one of them on a regular basis and, you know, just being as helpful as I can and it's really know my my partner-in-crime human burger from the program, you know, him doing that. You know, with me is just going to be, it's going to be awesome. So shout out to you, he was incredible throughout the whole programs made this happen at a team was brilliant. Yeah, yeah, yeah.

5:55 Fantastic team had adopts and Paula Palermo. Sorry as the Leslie Winston are experts and residents with Dave Cunningham. Big shout out to Dave, he knows where he is, he knows who he is, Dave out there and Barna and then and Roots is Ali from Phillip Lee and Mary Hennessey from Phillip Lee along with Paul Smith, our coaching residents who was just amazing and then Tim Boss, who was our CTO and residence, and then Laura Walsh. The CEO of gamify. Part of the alphabet group, along with being Robertson, chain McQuillan who lobbied so hard to get this program to Ireland. I could go on and on and naming. All the people mentors, Jesus, Christmas, the loss. They were fantastic including yourself, mr.

6:36 Owen Fitzgerald. And it was just seeing how people just really embodied give first, you know, so, but you know, some of it. Some of the takeaways for me is like I said, getting your reps in and just getting out there and telling your story and pitching it to whoever will listen, you know going through and pitching it to a hunted 90-plus mentors over the course of those three, four weeks of Mentor, Madness. That's where it just all begin. Is all that magic begins and when you're pitching to really, really smart people like yourself rather than just random errs. That's where it's like, okay well that doesn't work. Yep. You know, or I don't get that or what are you talking about? And that's where they got to go back to work, right? And and figure it out. The other thing, this is not an easy program. You know, there are companies out there that just looks a. Well, let's go from one accelerator to the next, but this one is an easy.

7:26 You got to get full commitment or you'll get much out of it and alongside add that there's no silver platter here. Put this wonderful, Mentor group, in front of you this network, but if you don't use it, It's not worth anything. Right, so you got it you gotta just run after every single opportunity. So you know, it was a fantastic experience to go through myself and I'm really looking forward to doing the next one because of all the lessons learned the first time around and it's just going to make it that much better. The second time around and how soon does the next one follow applications will open in September and then we've got and then 13th of March, 20, 23, cool. So we'll have all the founders in Ireland for the two weeks of the program in Dublin.

8:08 Just like we did this time except the first Friday, the program will be st. Patrick's Day. Oh nice. So that's going to be interesting but you know just out on the investor side of all this Owen. What was really interesting was just with all the investors that we engage with throughout the program. But really in the last month of the program to get them all interested in demo day. And whether that was a live stream or turning up in person at the button factory was seeing how the Tech investors are very much interested in defy and those forward-thinking fintech investors or even just fintech investors in general. Are really looking at defy, and they want to learn more, and they're making bets, and they're making Investments.

8:50 Those that had been looking at consumer, been looking at media. They're now, looking at those that are bringing the sports, the gaming, the metaverse projects, to life, right? And talking to a number of those VC. He's who are really interested in the gaming, the sports metaphor swans and then on those VCS that we're investing in Marketplace, they're really excited about the Creator economy once and it's really interesting and seeing how the mindsets are shifting. Is that web 3 as a segment is becoming less and less of a thing already. Dare, I say, I know, I can't say that what three isn't really a segment. It's an in the way that we're classifying, all of these, all nine of these projects is that okay. You are Gaming first You Are music first, you are entertaining.

9:40 You are, you know, financial services fintech and then great will grab the tag for crypto or blockchain or web three whatever you want to call it and put that on it as well because you want to, you know, you want to get both kinds of investors in there, but it's really about bringing these real-world projects to life. And you know what? That piece is a key best. You know, making us kind of clear because, like I said, I remember meeting some of them and, you know, we talked about this sort of stuff a lot and I read about it. A lot but I'm not as far down the web tree tunnel is most people would be so like they did a great job of bringing it back towards real the real world. Whereas I think when I first met a lot of it was you know, it was all on web tree and crypto on blockchain and you're trying to see well, you know, where where does this fit, and what does this look like? And is this, you know, does this may even make sense? Does this need to be a product?

10:29 You know, we're not something already out there so I think like what kind of stood out for me was the fact that they were able to bring all of it into the kind of real. World and into the almost, you know, they did a great job of showing how relates to the kind of Web 2.0 World which I think would help a lot of investors to kind of come to terms with the stuff better. Yep, absolutely coming to terms with. It is one thing, but then investor having the ability to be able to sort out the wheat from the chaff. When it comes to those that are building, economies, not just companies. And that's one of the key things here. But in reality, in order for you to take the position of hey, I'm building an economy, I'm not building a company, you need to be fully decentralized, and no one can be fully decentralized from the start unless you are Bitcoin, right?

11:15 That is the only truly, really decentralized project but you can look at maker Dow but that's become truly decentralized over the years. But, you know, it's hard to start out as truly decentralized. So you need to start out with an MVP just like any other startup and you need to get something live and get it out there and you need to get it to you needed, something recognizable and people's hands and then over time. I'm if you decentralized and whoever built the network to begin with just becomes a user, the network they built rather than the owner and operator, well, that is when you become truly decentralized, but that's going to take time, but will take time and how I know because we're about to move on to that topic. But the timing wasn't idea loves the in terms of what an economist cryptic crypto Palace or is a. Yeah.

12:00 Calling it pretty much everything crashing down from all around. You guys just come in today. End and coming near demo day. Yeah well like the world like they say about the weather in Ireland, there's no such thing as bad weather, just inappropriate clothing. So as we head into crypto, winter, are you prepared to weather the storm, right? So yeah, and the, a, a storm is underway. And the, you know what, started with, well, you could call any starting point you want, but the one that I'm focusing on is Tara Luna and what happened with call it a trade call. And attack depending upon how you want to look at this. But, you know, there were reserves backing UST or the Terrace table coin in Bitcoin and in aetherium and when they're a bunch of withdrawals, those need to be sold and we got that much of a big balance in volume, a bit coin, and a theory of these major cryptocurrencies out there being held as reserves.

13:00 They got to go and that's downward pressure on price and yesterday obviously down below 20,000 again. So for Bitcoin which is the The the Bellwether but it's a lot harder to finance a crypto project when Bitcoin is at 20,000 versus when it's at 60 or 70,000. Yeah, you know. So yeah, we're we are in the bear Market, everyone saying Build The Bear, right Bill? The dip that those that come out of this will be the best position to and we've got there was a comment that nft NYC conference where someone said there was so much dead wood on the trees. We just needed a big, big storm to come and blow. Have it off. Yeah. Sounds like it just it actually shows what from the outside. It shows how interconnected everything was and which is not necessarily what a good thing, Totally Secure, so Voyager, domino effect, everything started falling. Yep.

13:52 So Voyager one of the funds that is, you know, entering into liquidation. Now 60% of their loan book was in three arrows Capital, which just went under into liquidation last week. So all of this interconnected stuff smells Smells and tastes a little bit like, you know, Lehman Brothers to AIG with credit default swaps and all this other stuff. You know, the difference is that you can trace all this and you could see all this. So it should have been not. That was preventable, but that you can move from ether scan, two blocks can two polygons can to whatever and be able to see all of this in real-time and see these assets moving around. You need to know what the address is our. But, you know, this stuff is traceable and more traceable than these opaque credit.

14:34 Default swaps were, everything was just me Moved around from one letter to the next, you know. But I'd say the biggest, you know, one of the big signs of what's going on right now. FTX are stepping into a JP Morgan. Yeah. Right. It was back on Friday and this was in CNBC that it was announced that FTX closed in on a deal to buy block 5, the embattled crypto lender for 25 million dollars in a fire sale. Now that turned out to be false, right? It wasn't actually 25 million and I think it just Monday. It was announced that it's actually an option to buy it that FTX now have to buy block fi for. I think 240 million, which is still way below their original. You know what, I think their last valuation was somewhere up around.

15:21 Well, 4.8 4.8 billion is what it was. Yeah, so you ever use block fi I have not. It was pretty easy. All I had to do was send over my etherium from my coinbase wallet, over two blocks. Do the kyc, open an account and I start getting 5% interest on that or whatever it was, it was somewhere around five percent but whatever was happening in the background, I don't know. But I mean, obviously with the drop in the values, I don't think anything untoward was going on in the background. I think it's just with drop in the values of everything. People were just withdrawn, and if it gets withdrawn to a level below a certain, you know, low-water Mark. Then there's not much of the business can do.

16:03 So Sam back. Been freed is the CEO of FTX. And like I said, kind of stepping in he's now, and this is in the CNBC article. He has an ownership stake in Robin Hood Alameda. Research is his business, right? And that is the old school business that he started with, and then FTX, there's also a bit W that he has an ownership stake in as well as Voyager. Which is that fun that we just mentioned going into liquidation and he's extended credit lines to Voyager and also obviously to block Phi. So I think there's going to be more to come here. If I think this isn't the end, I We're going to see some more run into trouble. And, you know, the way I like to look at this is that just because these big, big businesses that are unicorns, doesn't mean actually have incredibly well controlled governed product development operations, client service. You know, you start out as a technology company, and then you're trying to become a financial institution. It's really, really hard to do.

17:04 Yeah. And it's not just going after the Elation, it's just the internal mindset that people have on, oh hey, I can just go develop this Tack and we'll solve that problems like now he can't, you know, there's because you forget you forget from the outside like I'm looking at trying to work with a company in the space at the moment. And you know, you forget from the outside that there's an operational entity, there are like there's always an operational entity there somewhere in this scenario. In this case it's an Irish registered entity. You know what has employees? It's trying to run a business you know in the background. That's a We'd be looking to invest in like that, that, that business needs to be run. Well, so I don't know. What do you want to call it? The Crypt APA lips doesn't like, see.

17:44 It's roll off the tongue to, isn't it, you know, it's just a bear Market. It's a bear market, and that's what happens. It's, we it's, you know, sorting out. What is it the wheat from the chaff or whatever they say, you know, it's probably good, but look, it's in the context of a wider you know, I suppose Reckoning for tech companies. So like that in some in some of these cases, there's Oddly not much wrong with some of these businesses order isn't anything wrong with any of these businesses. It's just that they were overvalued, you know, like, you know good. We were going to mention Clara. I like that was a drop from what 46 billion to six and a half billion for a new funding round. Nothing wrong with the fundamentals that a business just heavily overvalued and it's just time, Robin Hood.

18:25 Same as some of the others I guess there might be losing a bit of business or did a bit of tightening and regulation or whatever but they're still fundamentally good businesses. We could users and good user number and underneath them. So it's going on everywhere. Suppose the point of making it is it is and, you know, the FED raising rates 75 basis points and then expecting to raise it, another 75 basis points isn't making it any easier because for years and years and years, it was just cheap money and now it's getting more expensive. So you know, those pumping into 3, 400 million into a single deal because the cost of capital is Tiny, it's a no-brainer because that's the only place you're going to get returned.

19:06 But now, Now, when that interest rate rise, not only puts pressure on the investors but it also puts pressure on the companies as opposite operating entities like you until you start to finally see who's actually got a profitable business or a path to profitability. You know because it's definitely opened and we've talked about it before which Revolution oh consistently relying on a further funding round. Yeah the end and they will keep doing that, you know, and that's other new their new product today with their card. So, I think it's enabling them to skip the merchant acquirers. Perhaps where, if you've got a revolute business account, you can use this revolute card reader and that, you know, for retail payments for point of sale. So and that those payments go directly into your revolute business account.

19:55 So they're going down the ruched us square of come from the exactly. Exactly. My friend. And it makes I mean it makes sense as a an angle for them over decided World. Anyway, I kept, I keep seeing more and more of these examples of, you know, of the, the hardware or this connectivity into in person, it connectivity and to, in real life. And when I read that, bit about revolute today in the card reader, I thought. Okay, here's another one and, you know, stripe or doing a lot obviously, and with square like you mentioned or block now they are going to continue to just plow ahead on all of that but it's can you do this true?

20:37 Vertical integration where you can own as much of that payment flow as possible. And eliminate the external tap, touchpoints means you get you have more control. You have a deeper relationship with the consumer. You have deep relationship with a business. You get your little fintech flywheel going. You know, everyone's happy. You just wonder like when you when you think it through with some of them like there's so many of them now connect competing in numerous different fields with each other. Obviously, there's an example of Revolution know going into this space, that square would be in. Obviously they're, you know, they're encroaching into Stripes space would like realistically, if you've already got the customers, their know you're probably just adding more value to them and you're keeping them are revolute.

21:20 Really going to poach customers from Square. For example, a block in in that scenario at the merchant side at the point of sale unless they're already poaching Revit, like revolute customers and they're just adding further features. Yeah you know embedding those customers more maybe but it You find it, hard to see people as well as winning customers from each other. Yeah, you need to have a revolute business account, or do this. And I've got plenty of experience with that roughly business account. Didn't make me very happy. Yeah. So yeah, I wouldn't be the first one to jump in and use that but you know I ate all of these things. Happening still are good. Seeing new product announcement in the face of what's going on in the financial markets overall and the Carnage that's out there. Both in traditional financial markets as well as in crypto. Tickets.

22:07 Seeing the projects, for example, coming out of this techstars accelerator that are like, well, we're going to go out and going to raise an equity round. We may be thinking about a token round as well, a private sale. We're going to wait a little bit on that and they have the opportunity because of the type of business that they're building to do an equity round later, on some may be able to just do a token around in that sit and wait and just keep things close to the vest for a little while. Until the markets return, I was talking to someone today, who is doing an equity round The token round today. Someone completely outside of the, the scope of techstars and I said, well, what happens if you're going to raise your a round, you're not going to do your around until some point next year but you're planning on doing your token round later this year. What if the markets don't come back to a level? He's like well I hadn't really thought about that yet. Mike, I think about that because you need the markets that crypto markets come back to a certain level or people start to feel Optimistic again, I will forever be optimistic about a crypto but that's just me.

23:12 So you need to you know the bigger broader crypto investor base at the institutional level the funds to really feel comfortable to say. Well listen we're going to start opening up Capital again and and that's going to take a little while. What's interesting is that some of the consumer, the media plays like I talked about we're going to one more of those in the second was the we talked about this it at demo day on stage with Laura Walsh in, with Alejandro Gutierrez and Or Cantwell on how we got it. We won't stop saying n ftes or non fungible tokens because that's just how people see them but we really got to Define what they are digital Collectibles. Yep, I mean during this Market if people are still spending six hundred billion a year on sports, right? There's an opportunity there because of where n of T, we're digital Collectibles are moving so fast and that they're available in different formats whether that's picks whether that's videos and with those being I can access card into metaverse experiences like big fan or doing all of that stuff is going to continue and even though the major nft markets like board, apes or down, I don't know. 75% of what they were back in.

24:18 April, there's still some real utility here in new experiences and that's what people want. They want experiences. So I, you know, like we're saying this is, there's no bad weather, just inappropriate clothing. Yeah, I think you gotta, you gotta pick what you're going to wear, you know, what kind of code. Are you going to go into this winter with and it is it a little, you know, windbreaker that you know isn't going to protect you too much when it gets really shivery or you going to put on the big parka, the big Park a cost more, right then a little one breaker but you got to figure it out. I don't know. I like my analogies. You know, I'm not sure that would work, we'll see. We'll see if that one takes off. Hey everyone, this is Pete.

25:03 Let me tell you about the folks at Phillip. Lee few years ago is that my first Venture Capital industry dinner in Dublin and honestly I felt a bit lost. I bumped into and Rita's Ali. One of the partners at Phillip Lee. He bought me a pint introduced me to the team and they took me under their wing. That take you under their wing approach has been what I've heard consistently from fintech. And crypto startups who I know have worked with Phillip, Lee, and Dublin, and London to help them. Wrap the right legal framework around their business, fun. Raising and Regulatory needs, and I can't recommend them enough. Get in touch with a team at Philip lead that IE or on money. Never sleeps. That IE /, Phillip Lee to learn more. The one I wanted to mention that's in this space is is Napster Napster of Sean Parker Fame from the late 90s, early 2000s.

25:53 Did you ever use Napster? I do what I didn't have a computer good enough at home to use Napster but I used. What was it LimeWire things like a further? Evolution of Napster. Yeah. What do you use LimeWire to download songs of it was now Napster you know hit all the legal troubles and for those that don't know, Napster allowed You two, just do this peer-to-peer Music Exchange and it was, they ran into some trouble. I'll leave it at that because some of the big artists especially Metallica, I think Metallica. Want to one of the big ones that gave him. The hardest time said, listen, this is piracy, this is copyright infringement. You're enabling people to steal music and so they ran into trouble. I think I forget who it was, that acquired them but then they ran it.

26:37 A basically ran it into the ground and then Al Gore and the blockchain protocol ended up buying the rights to it. And bro, Buying the rights to the name and they bring it now back to life and they're starting at a music streaming service on Al Gore and obviously on a blockchain on one algorithm blockchain and they're now going to be launching a Napster token, which will allow you. Allow you to pay for the music streaming services, pay for songs, but also I think pay artists perhaps as well. So that's like 22 years ago as I was using that when I lived in Bermuda, right? And that was Year 2000. That was a long time ago, crazy week. So I sorry it makes a lot of sense because we've talked about, obviously, you know, that piece and I know it was it was it Stacks they were under Texas program we had them on the steak and eggs.

27:26 Sorry apology steaks. Yeah, obviously looking at stuff in that space around supporting artists and given them that ownership and I find ownership. So I do think it's one of the areas in particular that there's a lot of opportunity to build interesting Solutions there and for someone, you know, I don't know who the winner will be in that space But specifically on The music rights and royalties and all that was definitely a big opportunity there. That makes a lot of sense as a business. We taught it. This area was going to be taken over by block and they're kind of title acquisition and that's what that was gonna end up looking. Like I haven't seen any further announcements because I've been keeping an eye out because again, we kind of were hoping are predicting that. That's what I was going to go. So I haven't seen any announcements on that, nor have I seen anything from Spotify coming out in the token or nft space either?

28:12 No interesting it. They might have been looking to partner with somebody. Yeah. We'd have to think that they're going to have, they may have to reinvent, their Tech stack a bit, you know, after them to do something. So they may start, you know, it may be an idea to start up a experimental product called Spotify digital or something like that, whatever you want to call it. And, you know, just try to get something off the ground and see if it sticks. See if you're cannibalizing, their existing revenue streams. All that type of stuff right buddy. Anyone from Spotify once again, touch He to chat to them. Absolutely. Absolutely. What will Point them in the right direction? Yeah, for a nominal fee. For a nominal fee. Exactly. Yes. So that one, you know, it's interesting to see that one.

28:56 They're launching 10 billion Napster tokens. So I'll keep my eye on this one for you. Yeah, cool. And up like a mixed bag of crypto news over the last couple of weeks, but I suppose the interesting one, and I mean, I haven't read the detail. I'm familiar with where I was going, but obviously, The mica regulation that. I can't remember what it stands for Market in crypto assets. You go. Yep, yep. Land so he you regulation but it sounds good. So yeah, so it got to the level and this was just announced on Friday. Yep. Enfin extra the EU, reach agreement on Landmark Micah regulation for crypto and I've heard it pronounced Mica Mica and yeah, I think that's it.

29:42 That's how you Michael. Mica and mega mega. I've heard someone say make as well, but basically what happened is that the council presidency of the EU and the European Parliament have settled on the the final draft and saying that crypto acid service providers will require authorization to operate in the EU but excluding and ftes or media-related digital assets. Yes. Thank you. Yeah, because that should not be in there. No end to really targeting Financial. That's it for financial services, really? Exactly the other thing that was big was that there was a long discussion and debate about what's called non hosted wallets.

30:26 So these are basically like a metal mask wallet which is just something you download, it's a piece of technology, you own that wallet virtually. It's yours. There's no service provider behind that and that you just use out like you would use a leather wallet and that instead, Ted of someone walking up to you when you taking out your wallet and handing them over you know 50 Euro. It's that you have someone's address for their wallet and you can send them that 50 Euro or $50 and stable coins or whatever. The amount is in any other cryptocurrency, you can send that to them directly. So there was a entry point of debate in this regulation.

31:08 That said we are going to regulate that. I'm like how the heck can you regulate someone walking up to someone Outs and handing them 50 Euro or $50, you can't and do then start to regulate these technology companies like metal mask that you can download it on the App Store, do you say, sorry, you can't download Meadow mask on the App Store. And that was really starting to get into some very, very difficult implementation root. So it's like, alright, that's out, which is great. And then it's, if you are a centralized crypto service provider, you need to get authorized and you need to do am lky see you. You need to I think the limit was anything over a thousand dollars, you need to be able to track and Trace where that's going, which is fine because the most of the biggest players are doing that already anyway. So it's I think we ended up in and we ended up in a good place on that, it's going to be implemented. I think it will go into law in 2023 and they'll be 18-month implementation period.

32:07 So a lot more to come on that because I was in the industry in the financial services industry when that piece of Regulation, All the alternative investment fund managers directive went in and that was a big piece of work for everybody to do and that was basically regulation on a hedge funds and we knew it was coming for 18 months. All the big for Consultants made loads of money with all of their prep programs, all their Consulting programs, not that there's anything wrong with big for and, you know, it was all. Hey, we got to get ready for this new regulation, coming at the same thing will happen again with mica and, you know, it will go in and hopefully, It's going to bring everything to to another level. But like I said that one of the best things about this is that the media assets have been left out of this because they just don't belong and people talk about well you know, man united launching digital Collectibles and that you know they're going to launch them and then the value will drop and it's like well that's what that's what's that going to make me do right?

33:04 Is that going to make me go on to open sea and make me sell and liquidate my, you know, Cristiano Ronaldo digital collectible. I won't say n of T, I just did but you know, my digital collectible. No, it's not. I want to hold onto the Cristiano. Ronaldo. I actually don't, but my son would ya, you know, hold on to my Cristiano Ronaldo digital collectible because he's a fan. So, you know those things just don't belong and Mica no, or under regulation, I'm glad they're not. Because, you know, I'm gonna there's going to be a situation coming up in the next week or so, we're all be able to be looking at all of my old baseball cards, right? And if any of those were two regulated, I would just, I don't know what I do. Yeah.

33:44 But if that's the equivalent of, you know, trying to put those things into in Tamika. So that was that was a wind, see that. And I think there was more stories out there that will put into the show notes on, you know, cryptos, free reign coming to an end. I think it was wired that. Had that headline and saying that not only in, In Europe. But also in the US the US or at kind of some of the beginning stages with some bills being introduced and there's a lot longer that the US needs to go on this. So you know, the EU setting The Benchmark here which is pretty cool to be over here while that's all going on. Never mind. All that other crap going on in that country. I came from we leave that one alone we will we absolutely will. But yeah that was that one I know that our friends Mike Brennan at Finch capital Out to Mike, but really helpful to me today on one thing actually, social again, shout out to Mike and I don't finish Capital, put out a, an embedded Finance Report with stripe, didn't they?

34:44 Yeah, yeah. I have it open here. I've glanced through it. H look at in more detail, incredibly detailed by it's by Far and Away one of the better reports I've seen. So I'm slowly making way through it and it's great aside from anything else that has some great charts in it but no it's really good. It's heavily obviously leaning towards Type with examples, but it talks about obviously, it was a number of kind of industry. Deep dive gives you some value to the market investor perspective. Yeah. Really. Really good. Really good. Detail. On embedded Finance, something. I'm looking to quite closely in a number of different ways at the moment but it talks about them in different Industries like Financial Services platforms and marketplaces travel Hospitality retail and e-commerce. So there's lots of different use cases that Ox, true predictions takeaways, that sort of thing.

35:28 So yeah, shout out to Mike and the team there. It's And you've done some great work on putting together. What is probably one of the better reports out there on a European point of view. Anyway, on embedded Finance. Yeah, yeah. They're two inches. Really double down on this whole area and bedtime reading. Yes, Sophie gebo who was on the show last year. She has written a book with and it will co-authored a book about embedded Finance. Yes, shout out to Sophie and I haven't picked that up yet, but it is on my list. So no, yeah, I was going to mention it. Bring it in, then on the back of that, so we Obviously, we didn't get to chat about Apple and pay later, but that kind of came on the back of we talked before about their acquisition of credit, Kudos, in the UK, which was the UK open banking provider and then on the first of July go cardless, which is I'm going to read from their website because I'm familiar with them but at the same time not familiar with them but it's today.

36:21 So go card is our paycheck firm. They are acquiring North again which is a Latvian freemium open banking data provider so really interested wants So go cardless are the global leader in direct Bank payments and they have acquired. So northagen has its connectivity to 2,300. 2,300 banks in 31 countries and it's bringing go-kart, is it, bring it all into its account account Network. So it's free open banking connectivity at scale which is, you know, another huge investment in the node was no price announced on that, but I'd imagine it was quite a considerable deal, but it's another big flag being planted in the open banking. Case. And I had a really good conversation with a mutual friend of ours. This morning around open banking in the UK. And he talked about the fact that, you know, Nordegren was kind of disrupting some of the other players in the market because it was offering everything for free. Yeah.

37:13 But like that its range of connectivity was better than most other players. So that's obviously a big big deal for go cardless but the latest data out of the open banking the obiee, which I can't remember what the i in the E stand for but it's the UK entity that kind of runs the open. Or manages everything related, open banking, in the UK, they were talking about the fact that, you know, took them, nearly 18 months to get to kind of two to two or three million people using open Banking and other at six million. And it's only it only took four months to go from 5 to 6 million or from 4 to 6 million. I think it was very short space of time to get more and more. People know using open banking understanding is trusting it and now allowing it to be used in more kind of financial services products that they're trying to get access to. So you know, clearly is a lot more growth to go there. Are in the UK alone but more broadly across Europe, then so yep, I know it away.

38:06 It's all going, it's a way it's all going. It's like open banking for me and having a bank account number. And if there's a bank account number, then you have there, there's access to data that you can grant others. Their just like on either scan. If you have a crypto address, you haven't etherium address, you can go look and see the transaction data on either schizo. Can everybody else and it there is no permission required, right? Yeah. And I think it's That's a way this is all going. Yeah, it gives rise to what I've seen referred to in other places, cash. Flow underwriting. What? Ultimately, it's underwriting people on their transaction history, live, transaction history, as opposed to your typical credit score model that you get from, you know what Equifax and Experian or one of these.

38:48 So, you know, it opens up far more opportunities because obviously, we're seeing the, the blowback now, on the buy, now pay later companies and the default rising and the regulation coming because obviously they weren't underwriting. They weren't on the writing any of the loans and they weren't necessarily reporting credit bureau. So people's loans are like death has been run up and it wasn't being factored in then on, you know, normal underwriting process. But, you know, that's just one example of where open Banking and make a huge difference. The ability to really understand your customer and their transaction history and the good bad indifferent of what they spend. Their money on provides, huge amount of huge opportunities in terms of providing a better service to your customers. Mmm, it's all there, it's all there and now I'm looking at my chart here of the nine companies in the accelerator and thinking about, obviously the defy ones being X attacks, your diamonds and secure, I'll Finance obviously, you know, think about defy Alig ously to fintech. When you look at a, you know, a financial Marketplace or and an emerging market economy, which is example I gave. And then when you think about the others that are in gaming and metaverse and media, Mega fans, big fan, live dual crowd class in the crater economy, barter chain in the crater economy, steaks that a lot of this is embedded Finance. That's what it is that you're in. And and I got to talk to Sophie about this. I got to talk to to finish about

40:20 this because there is a nice parallel there. Yeah, because you are embedding Finance into these consumer apps that are doing other things out. So keeping an eye My and staying close to where this all came from, for me for you, in terms of fintech. Absolutely critical. That's cool. Yeah. There we go. And anything else to Riff on this fine evening? No, I've come on a really interesting projects I'm working on at the moment. Couple of interesting other side projects. I'm looking at as well. It's plenty to keep me busy. No, I suppose. I'm looking more closely at lending for my suppose in terms of the day job and a few other things. But yeah, really kind of getting up to speed on Open Banking and what's going on across in the UK, and across Europe, had a real, like I said, a deep dive this morning with a good friend of ours, who kind of really kind of opened my eyes to some of the opportunities.

41:11 And some of the stuff going on there, I've always kind of had lending in the background in terms of their job. So, it's always something I've kept an eye on. So yeah, trying to see about doing a bit more and not space good and where that goes to. So, yeah, that's me. I put speaking being busy, obviously, this is the summer and we haven't done this before but we are To do it. Yeah. Now we are going to move to monthly for the summer and obviously we didn't have an episode the last two weeks with all the demo day prep going on for me. Yeah, and but we'll have this episode 4 July will have an August episode and then we'll be back on a weekly Cadence in September. So everybody enjoy your summer, that's a little check-in.

41:55 Midpoint, see how everybody's doing? And then like I said, we will be back. In full swing, come September of this year. So listen, I'm going to say sayonara for this evening on. Adios, amigo, That does it for this week folks, you can learn more about the stories we covered in the show, notes on our website money, never sleeps that I eat. Also, thanks to Conan Brophy from creates, an for mixing and editing this episode, Conan is an excellent medium and get in touch with when you're thinking about launching your own podcast. As for me, I'm an early stage, startup investor and advisor. Focus on where fintech meets crypto, and crypto me to up three.

42:36 If you like to talk to me about your business, drop me a line on info at money. Never sleeps, die. Finally, till next time, Time. Thanks for listening. See you