194: MoneyTalks #55: FTX and Visa | Google Cloud Goes Crypto | Mumsnet and Community Fintech | Public Fintech Utilities | Meta’s Metaverse Mess

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, Enterprise Finance, technology and Life. As We Know It, This episode of money. Never sleeps is sponsored by security. Centrex security, Centrex is a trusted cyber security company. With offices, in Dublin, Cape Town, in London, security. Tetrax provides expert advisory Services. Primarily in the finance and fin Tech Industries with tailored Security Solutions to fit your specific needs and Regulatory challenges in this episode. All in Fitzgerald, my Riff on crypto exchange FTX in their partnership with Visa enabling users to spend crypto. Anywhere Visa is accepted. We also dig into how Google cloud or opening up to crypto payments in partnership with coinbase. We look at the state of community fintech Through the lens of Chetwood financials deal with mumsnet in their eight million strong.

1:00 We also look at Nova credits, Big 10 million dollar investment from HSBC is a rallying cry for Public fintech Utilities. We also look at the latest on metas metaverse world and finally it's backs against the wall time for Goldman Sachs has Marcus and Banknorth. All right here on money. Never sleeps. Hey, Owen a piece. How you doing tonight? Yeah, wonderful. And this, lovely Wednesday evening. Yeah. Yeah. You tired at all today? How how is today? I'm very tired. Yeah. And month, almost 11 months. Old has not grasped the concept of sleeping at night if I imagine more awake at night. So my what would I call him? Now my 120 months old.

1:46 He didn't sleep till he was twenty six months and it it's something he remembered how fun that was over the summer and I did teach him a few things to calm his mind that I learned from doing this positive intelligence course called PQ that I did with sure Zod. Shh mean actually, it was Paul Smith, shout out to Paul from Top tier Recruitment and from possible that IE who introduced me to this and brought me through the course but these little techniques that you can use to quiet your brain such as and that they're kind of meditation techniques, which is breathe in through your Those breathe out through your nose, breathe in, through your nose, feel the temperature, the air is enters your nostrils, and then feel the temperature of the air as it exits, your nostrils, right? And then rub your finger together, your thumb and your forefinger just so gently that you can feel the riches of your fingers and just concentrate on that. That's way too quiet your brain.

2:39 So don't think you can teach that to Sebastian, just yet know when he's 120 months old, he may be ready for that might help. Yeah. Somebody help for me when I'm trying not to be frustrated in the middle of nice. Yeah, nose listen to Brian Armstrong, talk about this to Tim Ferriss on his latest episode. Tim Ferriss show and talking about you know, waking up in the middle of the night rolling around thinking about stuff. And I'm like, yeah, I know that. But thanks to shoe Sasha mean, and Paul Smith and PQ of kind of learned a little bit of way to quiet. My brain know, I talked to Brian McNulty about this as well from fun admin chain and I'm like that ever happens like, yeah, dude, I'm so over it. Like, you got to figure that out. There's ways to do this. Get yourself back to sleep.

3:20 Come on. Just Like okay so we figured it out go up shout out to Bryant as well but listen where we're going to start this week. We've got FTX. We talked about Sam Bank been freed last week. He's a CEO of FTX comes from a Quant trading background with Alameda research. Obviously the big crypto player and they are partnering with the VISA in a bet that Shoppers still want to spend cryptocurrencies in a bear Market. That is, this was on CNBC on the 7th of Tobar effectively, what's happening is that FTX are launching a debit card whereby you could spend cryptocurrency. I think the way that it works, I only saw this in one other article was that whatever your highest balance is across different cryptocurrencies, whether that be Bitcoin theorem or even stable coins, like we talked about USD, see it will automatically go to that balance and will debit for you.

4:14 Now, the merchant doesn't get paid in crypto. It's that behind the scenes visa and ft x, or converting that From crypto into Fiat into, you know, traditional currency that can float through the credit card debit card payment networks with Visa. Mastercard has been doing a bit around this as well. So I think it's, you know, there's reading into this a bit, there's a little Latin America play here. There's an inflation Play. And unbanked play in that, it's far, easier for, and I've been, because I've been digging into this big time with techstars helping out getting the the Legos program off the ground. And seeing how many systematic infrastructure in efficiencies are in Nigeria. For example, with how much fintech is coming out of that market, and that there are just, you know, so mobile money while it's become a huge thing in Nigeria and West Africa in general, because of just how hard it can be to get a bank account and how unreliable the banking infrastructure can be. So go that even a step further.

5:15 It's like anybody can open up and FTX account, anybody can open up a coinbase account and that you Then, well, you got to populate that account, right? You gotta get some type of financial balance in there, in order to move from Fiat into crypto. But if someone just sends you say, 1/100 of a Bitcoin, you can then convert that to USD, see you can elect to be paid by someone that you're providing a service for and u.s. DC. And then holding USD see in countries where the local currency Is less than stable is something that can be quite helpful to you, in your quest, to move up the ladder and to start saving and growing it, preserving your wealth and moving up even further into improving your quality of life.

6:03 Right? So I think there's a play here that is perhaps moving ft x more into kind of the coinbase territory of coin basis vision of creating it open Financial system for the world and that you know with with just as I mentioned just listening to It Brian Armstrong, the CEO of coinbase, on the, Tim Ferriss podcast this week and talking about is initial journey and Argentina. And thinking about how people got paid and how difficult it was for people to get into the financial system. It's like just make it open and create these opportunities for people. So like you always say it's good to see right that the FTX removing this direction. Yeah. And it's like, I mean, it seems like a no-brainer in a sense. So for some of these markets, you know, I know from the article der talking about places like Argentina and so if they Eighty-three percent inflation.

6:52 And but the reality is, when you've a lot of people using, like I said, mobile wallets and that's how they're living going about their daily life. Well, you know, this is another extension, it's a, you know, if they're not good payment, infrastructure payment rails in a market. Well then these types of products are ideal, you know, from an adoption point of view. So it seems like a fairly easy way in that sense for a visa to partner with the like 7 ft x and you know, at least get some element to scale then and you know, It's a good entry strategy are from the outside anyway. It looks like it would have you then to be able to do more. Yeah. Absolute move article. Also said that obviously MasterCard has been on a similar spree partnering with coinbase on end of T's and backed to let Banks and Merchants in its Network.

7:39 After offer crypto related services and Max American Express are also exploring connecting its cards. A network was stable coins, so it's all about getting the unbanked. To some type of digital money mode right now and whether that is through a mobile wallet, whether that is through crypto, there needs to be some on-ramp in and I think that is still going to be the struggle. Now, our friends at Pitt Ali, Walsh are working on this and have been working on this for years which is digitalizing cash and enabling you to take your cash that you've earned somehow you've been paid cash and and hand that in to somebody who will convert that into a message, that will be sent over whether that be crypto rails or traditional rails, to the end party, right? And that end party can be your mobile money wallet. So, this is a pretty popular thing to use in Nigeria in Ghana in Western Africa, in general, where you do have cash and you want to actually get that into a mobile money wallet. Well, let's get that from instead of cash into a mobile money wallet.

8:50 Cash into a crypto wallet. I know pit have been able to enable some things like that, with some of the partners are working on so it's all about the on. Ramps are still one point billion unbanked in the world and it they don't necessarily need to move into the traditional banking system in order to move money around the world preserve and grow their wealth. Help out family, friends, and loved ones in need with a, or whoever. When you have money, and they need money, or they have money, do you need money? So, money makes the world go round. And, you know what money never sleeps, Val, memorize. All right. So, next one, I had Google partnering with coinbase to accept crypto payments, for cloud services. I love this one, right?

9:39 And this is where obviously so much of the startup world. And let's look at crypto startups web, three startups rely on AWS, right? And it, that is Just leading cloud provider. You can spin up a business using AWS to get your infrastructure. Sack going wonderful, we have Microsoft Azure in there. We have Google cloud obviously, that's what we're talking about here. Any other big cloud players out there besides Google Microsoft Oracle have something to, as well, I think, but it may not be as big problem. Big no. Yeah. So I, uh, I have this conversation with startup Founders and web three all the time. It's like, kinda get a bank account, such a hassle. We're already paying Paying our employees and stable coins, we're paying them in u.s.

10:23 DC and they're happy. We have a crypto wallet. We received our funding from VCS in crypto in u.s. DC, right? A stable coin and why the hell do we need a bank account? And we're going to actually be able to pay our expenses besides paying our employees will build a expenses in stable coins. So great now, Google Cloud are saying that, yes, start up when you are using Google Google cloud and paying for services, you can pay us in crypto. So I think this is A excellent step forward by Google together with coinbase obviously, to make it even easier for startups to operate, right? Because being able to do so, without having a traditional bank account can be, you know, really helpful. Now it depends on.

11:08 Obviously what name are they setting up their crypto wallet under is this, the founder is this the business. It's harder to get a business account, say at coinbase than it is to get a personal account. Do you have all the controls? There and the transparency is you would have around a bank account to make sure this is a company account that there are authorization requirements that it can't just be one individual that then you know controls the purse strings, right? Which is a situation that you don't want all those controls and and options are there to do that. It's just making sure that you're putting that right admin the governance in place, right? So, you know, I was thrilled to see Google stepping forward and doing that no, and you know what, it follows on from the conversation, we were just having your own ft x that gets the more widespread Option even around the fringes. Well, then the better and like that, you end up in a scenario where potentially everything happens around and without the traditional banking system and you can raise your money in u.s. DC or whatever and you can pay our staff in coins and then all of a sudden.

12:07 So it's just if you know, use you want to see more of that because it will then have to someone will have to make a decision. So like it's great to see this and obviously with Google and with ease. And the other example, because the more and more traditional players that start allowing it, well, then order. Thursday should hopefully drag the rest of the market along. Yeah yeah and I think it's, you know, people always say well why USD? And I'm not sure if I shared this before with our listeners because I've been saying it a lot lately is that recent stats released by a trustworthy party. I don't remember who something news outlet that 25 percent of the world's GDP comes out of the United States of America, which is obviously denominated in USD 85% of the world's commercial transactions are denominated in USD.

12:54 So, it's currency especially with what's going on in the world right now. That is looked at is saying, okay, that's pretty safe, you know? So it is easily transferable. It is reliable. It is stable. You know for now you know my views on the US have changed quite a bit since I left 22 years ago, but I don't need to get into that tonight. Do I know? No, I don't. I don't so yeah. That was another notable one that I was thrilled to see. I know. Oh, that you had a couple that you had picked up on that. You wanted to take into? Yeah, yes. I'm just trying to find it again. So this was an interesting one, so this is chatwood financial partners with mumsnet on Family, Focus financial services.

13:36 So Chetwood Financial is a UK. Digital bank mumsnet is a large parenting Forum. Most people are maybe their Partners might be more familiar with to mumsnet as a source of information. I know we look at a loss for uneaten, particularly when I can't get a baby to sleep. Does it usually interested? Fun to Mom's at Forum it. The reason this struck me as interesting is because we've seen and I know it we probably touch our later when we're talking about one of the other ones but we've talked about, you know, Challenger Banks and the opportunity and you know, where where is the opportunity and how are some of them going to stand apart and the ones that seem to have the stronger potential if you're not a revolute or mons or big scale, it seems like you have a better opportunity if you're going with a more specific Niche and like that. This is a massive Community, I think. There's a over 2 million people, kind of followers or whatever on the mumsnet Forum.

14:29 So we're talking about a big community that. Now they're obviously partnering with financial services provider to roll out solutions for their members, you know? So really good move. Obviously, for like to chat would, but obviously it brings more and more value to that moms that forum and makes it wider offering. So like that it's playing on the community piece whereby, there is a captive audience already who would use mumsnet for a lot of different things. So yeah, the why isn't it? That's interesting, don't don't go there, don't go there. Go there. Yeah, no no but you're right, it's reaching communities and when you've got communities it get behind something. I mean we talked a couple weeks ago about T-Mobile partnering with Goldman to reach their, you know, their retail, obviously, their individual consumer Network and that is pretty wide open theme that you're going after while I have a Mobile account.

15:19 But when you are a mumsnet follower, and This, you are actually, you know, part of this community that actually is sorry. I was wrong. Eight million unique monthly users, okay? So one tenth of the T-Mobile audience which is a pretty damn big audience training thousand kind of posts every day. So you know, that's that's a big deal to be able to roll out solutions to for both from both sides. You know chair it's an interesting choice. Obviously chatwood Financial wouldn't be one we'd be overly familiar with over here but look moms that is primarily UK focused. This is a cost-of-living kind of play and having not support for their members, but yeah, big big community of people. Excellent.

16:00 Now it's, you know, and where you know, how much further can we go with Neil Banks digging into certain themes, right. So I just saw recently something come back up for green light and what to green-light do? They are a Neo back. They were on the fintech 250. So CB insights release. Their fintech. 250 and green light were on there. So they are a debit card for kids and teens we might have talked about them before. Oh yeah. Learn to Earn save in The kids and teens banking app with investing. So they were obviously being part of the CBN sites, fintech 250. And there's five, ten different categories.

16:41 Crypto lending Neil Banks Bank as a service and infrastructure. So, you know, bunch of different categories but the total amount of companies they named in this was 250. Interesting. One now I won't get into that the so you've got this, we We see them also coming up for migrant Banks, right? Yeah, in the USA like I've mentioned before stilt which is the, my current lender raised a good chunk of money last 100 over 100 million last year to build out its or to broaden its offering, you know, and they're specifically targeting immigrants and a lending side. I know there are a number of challenges banks in the u.s.

17:22 targeting the African-American Community as well. And then there, I think there was one launched recently which targeting Native Americans Denise of American population as well. So, you know, are they all going to survive, not necessarily but in this example, you've got you've got 8 million monthly users. You got a very big audience to start rolling out something to especially where it's trying to be specific to that market or that audience? Yep. The one I was thinking of was majority right. That all-in-one, mobile banking for migrants now, like I mentioned pit before and I lie Walsh and they are, you know, they have released their new connect, then you connect product, right? Which Is moving, you know the whole migrant Financial infrastructure or financial system. Financial rails, really away from the traditional rails and leveraging stable coin rails which is very quick rather than waiting for 23 days.

18:15 A day or two or three for money to move through. The traditional banking framework, right? So to end up moving your cash hand it over to a pay Point gets digitalized and moved into a mobile money. While at that process can take a couple of days. Why don't we just Leverage The coins into that instantaneously, right? So they're building a whole product set around this and majority obviously working on this in the US but it's a little bit of a different story working on, migrant corridors from the UK to say western Africa than it is working on the migrant corridors from the u.s. to Latin America, right? So there's you can see that by going down that kind of Niche vertical, you know, you can offer more products than your if you can work with them specifically. You can then roll out additional product. So it like I think that's where you'll see, you know, we'll see lots of consolidation or businesses closing down in the Neo banking space.

19:09 But you probably should be the ones that are survival. Be the bigger ones or the ones that are very specific on their target audience. Yeah, yeah. And it's like, you know, moms that in Ireland is revolute. Right. So, you know, all the payments going around for? Well, we got to pay for this kid's party. We got to pay for, you know, this group birthday party. You know, school, you know, payments for this, that the other thing, you know, it goes through revolute primarily right now. So, you know, let's see if Chetwood can step up and and do it better, right. Cool. One of the other ones that you wanted to talk about. I just saw something else mentioned on them. So, so dive into this one. Yeah.

19:50 Oh yeah. So this is Novick reddish. So obviously anyone regular listeners and know I'm more than fascinated with the credit world. So, Nova credit, Our across our position themselves as a cross-border kind of credit bureau. So they have a their main product is credit passport, which allows people moving to a new country that, you know, won't have a credit history in that new country to bring their previous kind of credit history with them. So, they were really strong coverage around. They launched 2016, their relationships with about credit bureaus and about 20 countries, and obviously, that's really beneficial for immigrants, but not just immigrants. Like, obviously, you moving from the u.s. to Arland you. Had credit score. You know, if I move to the UK next week, I'd have a history in Ireland that I can't bring with me unless I'm using a product like, Nova credit, under credit passport. So nice, autumn, in the news I've seen the last two weeks because HSBC had put ten million dollars into them through HSB Ventures.

20:47 And I mean d list of things, existing investors quite impressive Kleiner, Perkins General, Catalyst index Ventures. And then you've private individuals from Goldman, JP Morgan and city of all put money into it. So And quite significantly. And again, deepening its relationships with the banks who would be its primary kind of customers who are using the kind of Novel credit platform. So I thought it was really interesting. Another bank put money into them and obviously HSBC are trying to do more in Asia and that's where they see the opportunity by partnering with them. So an interesting one, it's a big challenge, like we just talked about immigrants and you know, this is another issue but like that we think immigrants or even migrants and you think unbanked towards it's not it's the simple case of someone Even moving for work, taken a job in a different organ.

21:32 Different party organization, a different country. And all of a sudden you've no credit history to bring with you, you know. Yeah. Huge opportunity to be able to be the person who were to provider that allows you to do that. Yeah, sorry, Ali, Ali, Walsh move from Galway to Sheffield and the UK to get his to get pipit set up initially. He could get a freaking bank account to get an apartment to pay red. Yeah. It's like, what the hell. So, that was one of The Inspirations for starting a bit because he was a migrant, you know, going from Ireland to the UK to get a business off the ground. So, it was Nova credit. Is, I saw this when I was just looking for the name of majority, right? The migrant Bank in the US and Google search automatically return for me and changed it to Immigrant banks in the USA instead of Migrant Banks, the USA and said, including results for and Banks.

22:24 The u.s.a. the first thing that came up was Nova credit listing. The best bank accounts for us newcomers in 2022. Yeah right. So being able to create this portable credit score for yourself is fascinating and you know what I'm seeing and talking about mobile money wallet as well. Is that when you are when someone is setting out to build a credit score for you, they need to be able to dip into the data that is representative of your true Financial. Life not just your bank account and if that is a mobile money wallet, if that is a crypto wallet, right? So here's a challenge. I'll throw out for anybody. Is that for example I had to download my, you know, transactions off coinbase for tax. Reporting going through all my us tax reporting this year. A my Irish want as well and it was there was a lot of noise in there, right?

23:14 A lot of different transactions converting between different cryptocurrencies and you know inbounds out bounds whatever and it was like all right. How is my accountant going to actually make A sense of that. So I there are apps, like, I think tactic is called one of them. Crypto taxes, another. I think they were actually in a fintech 250 that do this, right? And they will take this data, download it from coinbase and they will actually, you know, turn it into tax reporting. But what about ciphering through that for figuring out, someone spending habits Just like some of the better players like an over credit or whomever have figured out. Here's how we're actually going to sort through, not only bank account data, but Marvel, money data, your Telecom, Bill your heating bills, whatever, all this type of stuff. Please.

24:01 How can you sort through my crypto account to be able to decipher what is representative of a healthy Financial life, right? So I'd love to see someone come up with a solution for that and Joanna's you were talking to true. It made me think and it maybe it's maybe not something we know and I'd love to. I'd love to have the conversation, like, it'll be a great one for a panel or something, you know, taking over credit or you take a plaid or something like that. And you say, okay, well if you're plugged in and you're the Connecting Point like Nova credit is a good example there, 20 bureaus that they partner with so obviously they're you know, they're selling into Banks but are they structurally now getting to the point that they're important to the industry that you couldn't necessarily allow someone to just acquire them. Yeah then you know they just BC were acquiring them. Does that lesson the you know the potential of what they're doing for the the industry it does, it's an industry utility and I've had this conversation with other folks before is that when you're building something that you want to be an industry, utility obviously utility brings with it, a certain connotations about maybe not Venture style returns, right? Because who's going to buy them, right? Yeah, unless they eventually go public and when you are a public utility Ility, it's doesn't scream, you know, fat, you know, Jaws effect, tight margins, right? So yeah, totally agree, but I'd love to hear who would take a dissenting voice on that and say no actually what could a big Bank do with this?

25:32 Could they actually take once big step ahead and kind of corner their ability to provide the best risk management type approach to learning? Yeah. Because if you think like the Visa, Plaid acquisition had to go gut, you know, pushback from the Department of Justice in the US, but yes, the who was ignored again, got acquired big open, but you keep coming back to this. No, but it'll give you, if you draw, you can draw parallels between, you know, day of 3200, banking partners that they're providing open banking solutions for you know. Can you allow can the regulator allow one player to acquire them could the regulator allow one Player to acquire Nova credit and Corner Demarcus or control accent.

26:20 You know. Is I, is that not a monopoly question? I think. Yes, but are the regulator's? When they're looking at these decision, when they're looking at, you know, these and Blatt for example, were they thinking will platter kind of a public utility or are exactly doing it. That direction is that the way they looked at this? I don't think so. No I don't think they have that foresight to be able to do that. I think they're they're looking and saying you know, probably from your angle. Well you know. What is this the same thing? Now that I'm my my brain wave is jumping two sandwiches ahead of my mouth so that you know The Regulators looking at Visa plaid and saying well plaid obviously has connectivity with so many different financial institutions by Visa buying them does that then allow visa to Corner the market in terms of connectivity with financial institutions and perhaps, get a leg up on MasterCard, American Express, squeeze its discovers, you know, right?

27:15 Right if they're still out there. So probably looking at it from that angle, which is a close cousin of looking at plat as a public utility that should just be an independent utility, right? But you know, let's see what happens with plaid stripe. True layer. You know, all these other players. What was the one tank in Europe that we've talked about recently and see how, you know, should they just all merge together? Strike would say, no, I don't call us brothers and say, because they're looking at this whole Space bit. Early, right? I think I want to go down this Rabbit Hole a bit further. So I'll come back to you on this topic. Please do. Now, I'd love it. If you would and we'll come up with something out on this.

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28:44 Get in touch with the team at security. Centrex.com to learn more or email info at security. Centrex.com, that's SEC. You Ric, entr I x.com. Couple more that I I picked up on because we talk so much about Marcus and shout out to Pat fintech because I am doing some educational delivery for them as we talked about last year, I don't feel like I'm lecturing some trying to get people involved. I don't feel like I'm teaching because I don't think I'm a very good teacher but I am part of the guests faculty so I'm fuck halting. Write it so that and in the deck, Jack I that I use I feature this page talking about traditional financial institutions versus fintechs. And one of the pages has Goldman Sachs listed on there as being an old-school financial institution. Average age is 100 years but there's a little footnote that I put at the bottom of the slide.

29:45 It says if they're Marcus app which is their investment and sit where the savings and investment is any indication, hopefully they'll be the one that actually survives with this. And they've done had done really well and bringing Marcus to Market expanding it then. They're investing app, but what it looks like now is that it's getting a bit shaky and that they're pulling back and only offering Marcus accounts. Now, I think two employees and then corporates that are also wealth management or sorry, wealth management customers because it's expensive to run this. I think they spent 100 early analysis. I think it's something like that. Yeah, and that when you have a big, huge banking institution, running a fintech. It's hard to say to someone. Okay.

30:25 Your Chief product officer has left so So I need the CTO and the co o to kind of split their duties to save some money because we're running out of Runway here. So the next, you know, six months because you don't you just Lop someone else in there and pull them out because that's the difference in the financial model. So, you're spending a huge amount in the anticipation, to be able to get a huge amount of customers on what, which they did, right? They got loads of customers well over 100 million I think and but interest rates are going up, right? And you know, more expensive with and Patient finance things. So the pressure is on Marcus and it looks like they may not survive. So yeah, so I know just loads of commentaries on room but I saw someone say that all those McKinsey and all those post-grad MBA students be crying into their into their books now because this is the ideal case study Innovation by a big bank and now looks like it's gonna work out.

31:21 It is it is no and I saw what I thought was a McKinsey or BCG style deck for a fantastic glass. Last week or a couple weeks ago and I'm like, oh dear, oh dear. No, let's just focus on the 10 pages. It really matter, it took to know what it's the one that we should have expected wasn't going to work out before, whatever reason, I believe that it was they seem to be putting everything behind it and spending, yeah to spending a bunch of money on it and then eventually you got to look at a business unit and say, is it profitable or not, right? And make some make some decisions around it on what to do because you know, money doesn't grow on trees. Yeah. Contrary to popular. Belief in some circles. So yeah, that was that one. The other one in trouble, obviously Banknorth there.

32:04 Looks like they're on there while they definitely are on their last legs. They're selling their SME lending business to L, HV, L HV, R in Estonian bank. They have a UK Branch now as well. So I think it was like, some some like 17 million pounds worth of an open loan book which would be good for LH V, LH V, or the Fiat on ran for coinbase in Europe. Okay. All right. So, you know, when I I send my money to from revolute to coinbase goes through, lhv first, and then instantaneously, it's in my coinbase account. So, but lhv took a stake in Banknorth last year, didn't they 5 Min? I don't remember. Yeah, I'm just looking at here. Yeah, four and a half million. So I mean, they obviously knew the business. Well, the SME lending piece seems to fit which what I'll HV do anyway and they're applying for their own license and a tree is applying for its banking licence in the UK it submitted earlier this year.

32:54 So it probably helps strengthen that case in that respect. Yeah. Yeah. So I was always a fan of Banknorth. I think it was someone from 11 a fast who said that if Jon Snow from Game of Thrones was to have any bank account, it would be Banknorth. Obviously with roots coming support. Winter is coming like that. Now, I wish I never had, you know, never had the pleasure of having a Banknorth account anyway. And 26 also post a big loss there, saying they will be able to get the profitability. I saw that pop up and, you know, the thank you for this final one. I wanted to mention to Dave Cunningham, big shout out to To David. He tweeted this. I think it was yesterday or this morning but putting the meth in metaverse. I love that So Meta announces legs in there. What is it called?

33:40 Horizon, worlds, metaverse or something. And it was like, there were so excited. Mark, Zuckerberg Avatar was jumping up and down. It still looks like a 1990s video game version of Mark Zuckerberg, what? Yeah. Just ridiculous. It was a TechCrunch article that made the rounds and that there was no mention In of and FTS, when they talked about, how you could buy digital Assets in this Meta, Meta verse, which is the whole point, right? And being able to buy virtual Goods that you can then take with you in a wallet and bring to other Virtual Worlds, right? You don't want to go by your Nike sneakers in meta Horizon worlds and then only be able to wear them there, you want to be able to wear them at the Central and sandbox and crypto voxels and realm, which is a pretty cool one.

34:26 Shout out to mount larabee. And but that's it. So they all of this negative connotation that we're getting from the community around meta building this and building a closed metaverse is, you know, we see this all planned out because it's just not the way to do it. If you follow the model of gregarious games, which is totally fictional, by the way, which only exists in the book. Ready Player, One, you basically build the platform for the metaverse and build the framework for these metaverse world and let people On top of it. And in this story people built, you know, a planet dedicated to Prince, Right? The artist formerly known as Prince and God, Rest his soul and a city or Planet dedicated to John Hughes who did The Sixteen Candles and Breakfast Club and what was it? Pretty and pink movies back in the 80s and a few others. And so again, I'm talking about science fiction, as if it's actually fact and it's not but science fiction informs. It's reality Bishop, she's right. So look II.

35:31 Just don't see Meta is it pains me to still call them better? Because their Facebook doing this in a way that is in a not in alignment because this stuff doesn't exist yet. But with the true nature of being able to enjoy part of your life in this virtual world, it can't be your whole life because then you'd be, I don't know, I don't know what happened. You turn into Terminator, but, you know, being able to enjoy part of your life in this virtual world, I don't see. Happening with what meta is building. I just don't well, because I know they also announced our Quest Pro their latest headset for your headset and ability to do, obviously far more with it. And I just wonder, I suppose, you know, we're talking about communities earlier on and, you know, we talked about the metaverse and how, at the moment, the kind of real versions that are out there in gaming like Fortnight and Roblox and stuff.

36:25 So you wonder Are, you know, he has obviously a captive audience to degree and he they're building out the metaverse and they're building out obviously the functionality and then they're offering the headsets and everything. So you know, you would, you would think naturally that the smartest way to get people is to try bring some of those games into The metaverse or more bring use gaming as the, as the way to kind of get people engaged as opposed to socially because, you know, there's a very different age profile of people playing Fortnight versus people on Facebook but yeah, somewhere in the middle. Would seem to be the answer.

37:06 Yeah it's there. I think the I think they're they're metaverse. The Meta Meta verse will be like the VCR, right? It's something that was only a holdover from Jesus, what was there before VCRs? That I don't think there was anything was there was that the Super 8, right? So you could actually my dad had a Super 8 camera and you could then watch home movies obviously. But I think there was also a way to order movies as a Super 8 and show that on your projector at home there, the I don't remember from my childhood that us ever doing that, but it's something is tickling at me that that was an option and you know, so VCR was the first real Commercialized big ability to take movies home, okay?

37:54 And then that existed for, you know, 15 years they still do exist but they're not in use pretty much at all and the, you know, the DVD took over and now the DVD hits gonna gone by the wayside and streaming is the way to do it. And then something's going to happen to streaming at some stage. But I see The Meta Meta verse being, you know like a VCR it's going to be a way to get you know, people in But eventually, there's going to be within 10 years, there's going to be something better. That is more open and people just that people will float. I suppose you just, you know, given how we talked about even with watsapp they Rebel roll out payments and all of a sudden it's a massive Revenue line potentially and it opens up a big opportunity. You know the reality is he has a huge audience and while it looks stupid at the moment.

38:43 You know, you don't have to imagine, they'll figure it out, they're smart people, they will if they're smart enough. He's Owing to force something. But like I said, the the working solution or the answer is out there in the market, it's Fortnight. It's you know, it's all there is the our learnings, you know, being able to do concerts in a fortnight setting, you know, wouldn't you wouldn't imagine. It would be that far of a jump for meta to announce that they've signed whoever to do their latest concert in the metaverse at some point in the future. Yeah yeah. I mean I've got angel and devil on my shoulders here to look at both sides. This right? And that, I think that in a parallel to what's called Enterprise blockchain, which some people look at, and say, well, you know, it's closed.

39:30 It's it's permissioned in contrast to public permissionless. Open blockchains in use by, you know, that are part of Bitcoin that are part of the theorem. And obviously, any big, you know, crypto asset and that. You know what we're seeing? Is that? That big Financial players JPMorgan Swift, right? And the dtcc in the US, the Clearinghouse all have big projects going around this, but they're all closed blockchains, just like matter or building a closed metaverse. And but there are very very smart people. Working on these projects with JPMorgan, edtc C, and Swift.

40:11 Then I think they realize where this is all going because they're not the only ones that to get a product like this, or get something like this to Kit. You need to do it in a way that people will feel safe. Right? And the way to do it safely is to close it and then if they are indeed, genuinely truly architecting it so that it can be opened. Good. But still You just adding legs to the Avatar. Now, something, we're a bit away. Yes, we are. We are so the again, the Matthew ball book, The metaverse and how it will revolutionize everything points to 2032 is the year, right?

40:51 Which is basically 10 years from the book, it was published. So, you know, someone's gonna write another book in two years from now, that will say, well, it will arrive in, you know, 2034, right? So, we'll see. But I think we won't even know. It's oh, no doubt. We well we won't even know it. We won't even know it. It's just gonna slowly not slowly but rapidly evolved. And it's going to be all of a sudden it's going to be in front of us, you know? And you having this conversation with our avatars. Exactly exactly. So I think we can. That'll that'll be fun. That'll be fun. I won't need it where a deed is track seat for that, but Anyway, shoutout to Adidas. See if we can get them as a sponsor right sponsorship yet, okay? All right. Anything else? You wanted to any more public complaints? Any any complaints?

41:35 No, no, no, no assume. Interesting. Stuff been looking at this week. Reading a great book, actually, which I can't get the name, right? You one second, The Importance of Being interested by Robin ins adventures in scientific curiosity Importance of Being interesting. He's actually a comedian and Presenter on a number of shows on the BBC but fascinated in science and a reformed scientist. I think is how he described insulted amusing, take on, kind of Science and everything. So, all right, The Importance of Being interesting, their Importance, of Being interested to being interested, interested. Yes. All right. I will collect that one for the show notes and just in that Tim Ferriss and bright Armstrong podcast episode just out of that.

42:22 Surely you're joking. Mr. Feynman was mentioned which I do. Yeah. I'm dying to get he supposed to be excellent. Richard Fineman I have to get this book Network state by Balaji sreenivasan which I heard about on a the same podcast and that I need to read we talked a little bit about this few episodes ago Ender's Game which is was actually wasn't on that podcast episode. It was packing McCormick was saying in that latest essay that one of the latest essays, he wrote about being a father that he's going. To get his kids reading Ender's Game early, which is a classic sci-fi book changing world order. So principles for a changing World Order which is Ray dalio his newest book, which I think could be a companion book to network State. Be interesting to read those to one after the other to see how that comes out.

43:10 And then hackers and Painters by Paul Graham who's at start up though, because we go to ride. So I'm going to check out each one of those but few interesting ones, that's our book list for the, for the year, for much, for the year. Yeah, I'll be all set. Ray time getting through pages at the moment. It's pretty, you know, I know thanks again month olds but you know they'll be there good for it. They're good for cool. Well thank you Owen, pleasure. Good night on this fine evening cooking and we will chat shortly. Absolutely adios. That is 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.

43:51 I also thank secona, Brophy from creates on, for mixing and editing this podcast 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 focused on where fintech meets crypto and crypto meets web three there plenty of links in the show notes on money, never sleeps that IE on how to get in touch with us so don't hesitate to reach out finally till next time, thanks for listening. See you