Scaling Human Expertise in Crypto and AI (EP. 304)

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It's one of the things that
drove me to amplify myself.

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Once I amplified myself, my work
was better, it was faster, and

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then the next Phase I knew that
we needed is not just amplifying

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yourself, but scaling yourself.
This is Money Never Sleeps.

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Sharp riffs, big ideas and real
insights from smart people.

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I'm Pete Townsend.
Let's go money.

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Never sleeps, pal.
So Joanie Perovich, founder of

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Crystal AOS and The Walking,
living version of The

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Innovator's Dilemma.
Disrupt before you're disrupted.

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Welcome to the show.
Thanks for having me Pete, good

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to be here.
So listen, you pinged me last

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week and you said that you'd
like the predictions that

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Alejandro and I did where the
headline was.

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Crypto is getting boring, OK,
and crypto doesn't get boring

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because it failed.
It's a sign of maturity.

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So when people hear crypto is
boring, why do you think they

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misunderstand what that actually
means?

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Well, I think crypto has had so
many highs and lows over the

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last decade that it's probably
about time that it got boring.

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Totally thinking back to your
life before becoming founder of

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Crystal AOS is that you're a
lawyer and still are to this

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day, obviously, but in terms of
that expertise that's required,

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that doesn't scale.
Were you ever that bottleneck

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yourself as a lawyer?
All the time.

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And it's one of the things that
drove me to amplify myself.

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And actually, when I first
started playing around with AI,

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my first AI application to make
to amplify myself was what's now

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called Crystal Chat.
And it's a global repository of

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all of the crypto laws and
regulations around the world and

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policy announcements.
And I could chat with that daily

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to check my work to make sure
that I had identified risks and

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best practices around the world.
Singapore's doing this on stable

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coins.
Hong Kong's doing that.

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How does this feed into what the
US is negotiating at the moment?

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And even though the profiles of
projects and people that have

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come in and out of crypto over
the last decade have changed a

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lot, actually being a crypto
lawyer and advising on best

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practice standards hasn't.
And I couldn't do that fast

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enough without tools like
Crystal Chat.

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So once I amplified myself with
Crystal Chat, my work was

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better, it was faster, and I was
billing my clients less for

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better work.
And then the next Phase I knew

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that we needed to move into for
hyper performing advisors is not

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just amplifying yourself, but
scaling yourself.

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Totally.
I just, you know, when you

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mention all the different crypto
regulations that are coming up

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in the world and that trying to
cross reference between all of

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them and advise your clients on
all of that, it seems like AI is

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a survival tool.
It has to be.

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It's a non negotiable now.
And so then the next step is how

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do we use AI with guardrails?
Because it's probabilistic, it's

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not always going to produce the
same outcome as it did the last

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two times or the last 200 times.
So how do we step up our systems

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to incorporate AI responsibly
and safely?

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And that's the problem I've been
working on for the last few

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years.
Thinking about things like what

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changes when compliance stops
being something that people do

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as an add on to their business
and become something that just

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runs in the background.
Yeah.

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And I actually have bought a
Tesla in the last year.

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And the best analogy I can give
is in previous cars, I would get

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a sticker to have the car
serviced at 10,000 kilometers

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and then 50,000 kilometers and
just these sort of seemingly

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arbitrary numbers.
And I didn't know what parts

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needed to be changed at each
service or really how much it

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was going to cost.
But now with the Tesla, there's

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no such thing as a 10,000
kilometer service.

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I get notifications to say your
tread in your left rear tire is

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low, it's time to get it
changed.

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And so this is the perfect
analogy.

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I think as our compliance
systems get smarter, we're not

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just arbitrarily doing an annual
business risk review or these

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check the box type things that
are ad hoc and not in the

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moment.
You're actually getting

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notifications that are
meaningful that you can respond

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to straight away.
And your day-to-day becomes

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focused on the quality issues
that are really going to lead to

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the business growth and more
choice for the users.

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I've got to upgrade my car.
I'm about to spend another

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probably 2000 on a catalytic
converter for my 12 year old

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car.
But yeah, the warning lights on

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that weren't very helpful.
It was just blink, blink, blink.

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And that's, you know, kind of
looking at compliance today in

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in crypto exchanges, they're
lucky if they get the blink,

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blink, blink.
You know.

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Never mind a message that comes
to you that says you were

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potentially in breach of this
regulation.

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Looking at your kind of the
wedge that you've built into the

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market, Joni, and that you've
got those firms on board that

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know that they have to embrace
regulation and they have to move

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forward with it and actually can
be a benefit to the business.

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Like stablecoins, for example,
that hit 250 billion as an asset

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class before regulation.
And look what now regulation

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will do to that to open up the
universe even more.

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Have you come across yet any
firms that have said we'll

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listen, we're staying away from
regulation and do you think they

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might hit a wall later?
I think the sums are more mature

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now and they're not so much
saying let's stay away from

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regulation, but those that are
choosing to incorporate or to

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remain in I'd say regulatory and
tax friendly jurisdictions,

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those that have very pioneering
innovations that really don't

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fit then a square peg, round
hole problem.

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Those are the projects that they
have a true heart, a true

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innovator's heart to make
change, but they need some

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freedom and flexibility in those
regulatory and tax friendly

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environments before they can
mature into jurisdictions that

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are working on changing their
laws and evolving them for these

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idiosyncrasies.
Just look at the US market

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structure, bill negotiations and
the carve out with the European

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Union for fully decentralized
projects.

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There is a mind towards what
that change is, but there's a

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journey for the regulators and
the governments to go on on how

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to sensibly bring that into
regulatory frameworks.

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Thinking about things like
agentic compliance specifically

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and agentic legal advice.
Talk to me about how this will

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allow you to multiply expertise.
A lot of it revolves around

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there are a set of laws that
need to be complied with or a

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set of internal policies that
all of the internal staff and

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external stakeholders, some to
some degree need to know about

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and follow.
And there's a need for evidence

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that those laws or internal
policies have been followed.

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We need to have guardrails that
say, well, even though the

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process is known, the AI output
could still go off track.

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And so we need the human in the
loop accountability.

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But more than that, we need
another set of AI agents

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reviewing and evaluating what
the primary AI or the eugenic

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processes are producing.
We can see what the AI is doing.

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We could intervene anytime, but
we've got these human

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checkpoints and these AI
detectives making sure that it's

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all working OK.
Within their day-to-day

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business.
Why is that gap so hard to

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cross?
It's such a different way of

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working.
It's it's like the first time

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that a human elevates in their
role from a doer to a manager.

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You have to let go and you have
to learn the new skill of

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instructing the junior team
members how to do what, yes, it

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could be easier if you do it
yourself, but if you're the one

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still doing all of that work,
you're still the player and

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you're not the coach.
And so you never have time to

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scale yourself and the business.
And that mindset change that

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hurts people to go through it.
And and so on a larger scale,

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when an enterprise is saying we
want to lift everybody up to

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manage out or to coach so that
you haven't a workforce of

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agentic workflows and AI agents
working for you, that that is

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going to hurt.
And, and so first of all, it's

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identifying that we are moving
this way whether we like it or

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not.
And that's actually part of why

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just the innovator's dilemma,
why I started it.

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I could see that the traditional
delivery of legal and compliance

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services was going to change
with AI, and if somebody was

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going to change that, then I
wanted to be at the forefront

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and doing it sensibly and
responsibly from all of the

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experience of actually being an
advisor.

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And that's what I've done.
That's what I'm doing.

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You absolutely have.
You absolutely have.

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If someone's still waiting for
perfect clarity before engaging

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with crypto or AI, what's the
risk of waiting too long?

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Well, I say in the same way that
perfect is the enemy of goods,

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waiting is the enemy of ongoing
relevance.

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If if you're waiting, you're
actually not experimenting and

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learning, and you could possibly
be missing out on the skills

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that are going to carry you
through the next shift to the AI

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era.
So start now.

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Stop waiting.
So true, so true.

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And Joni, for people who want to
keep following your thinking,

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what's the best way to get in
touch with you?

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I'm mostly on LinkedIn at
Journey Perovich and they can

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follow the Crystal AOS page.
That's where I share a lot of AI

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developments, how it's being
used in legal risk and

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compliance, as well as global
crypto policy developments.

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But otherwise, on Telegram at
Journey Perovich, I'm responsive

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there.
Fantastic, yes, and I know that

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for a fact you are so.
It's thank you.

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It's the crypto expectation.
Respond immediately.

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Absolutely.
Thank you, Joni.

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Awesome.
Check.

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Thanks.
Thanks.

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No, great to be here.
He never sleeps, pal.