#38: Barak Ben Ezer on Building The World's First Sovereign Cryptocurrency

Barak Ben Ezer is the CEO and Co-Founder of SFB Technologies and the SOV Foundation, a blockchain-based currency and the legal tender of the Republic of the Marshall Islands.

In this conversation we discuss:
- What is SOV?
- Convincing the Marshall Islands to adopt crypto
- El Salvador's adoption of Bitcoin
- Hodling Bitcoin
- SFB Technologies
- Challenges of integrating crypto into the world’s currency system
- Y Combinator 

SOV Foundation
Website: sov.foundation
Twitter: @SOV_Foundation

Barak Ben Ezer
Twitter: @barakbenezer

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Transcript

Matt Zahab: 0:09

Folks, I am very, very excited to have today's guest on the show. This gentleman is a serial entrepreneur who has founded and co founded three startups and advised many others in the areas of strategy, tech, business development, capital raising, go to market strategy and marketing. He's been all over the block with a proven track record. He's a true man of the people going after a massive problem. Have you ever wondered how we can create a monetary system that serves the people and only the people? Well, this gentleman is solving this problem with his organization, the SOV Foundation. Before the SOV foundation he was with Microsoft, graduated from Y Combinator, and also graduated from Columbia University with a degree in computer science and economics. Not too shabby. I'm very pleased to welcome to the crypto news podcast, Barak, Ben Ezer. Barak, welcome to the show.

Barak Ben Ezer: 1:05

Thank you, Matt. Great to be here. I see you've done some research,

Matt Zahab: 1:09

Have to. Got to do a little bit of research before having the guests on. This has been one that I've been looking forward to for a couple of weeks now, since we first got in touch with each other. Now, you've been all over the web recently. I do want to get in to the SOV foundation and exactly what that is, how you're helping a country and how you have a goal of helping many more. Before we get into that though. I'm a huge fan of Y Combinator. for short It is YC. Paul Graham and co. founded that and have turned that into a startup incubating behemoth. Some of the biggest startups in the world have gone through Y Combinator. I'd love to kick it off with that, if you could tell me how cool it was being there? How much did you learn? And what were sort of the biggest points that you took from graduating from the winter 17 class of Y Combinator?

Barak Ben Ezer: 1:59

Oh, wow, Y Combinator is amazing. It's highly recommended and actually wrote a blog post on how to improve your chances of getting in. I think the number one thing I got from YC is, you know, the moto - make something people want. Very often entrepreneurs, you go into the game and you make something that you want, but you don't bother to check if other people want it as well. So, you know, as simple as it sounds, make something people want. And maybe the number two thing is just dream big, you know, everything is possible. And you see the guys who founded the Airbnb, you see the guys who founded WhatsApp, you know, they're cool, cool people to just like you and me, you know, they're not gods. So if you have the determination, and the street smarts and the grit, everything is possible, just dream big. I think in large part thanks to YC and this dream big mentality and that everything is possible. I got the confidence of actually pursuing this SOV project.

Matt Zahab: 3:10

So I guess that makes a good time to jump right in. One last question on YC before we jump into the SOV Foundation, what was it like working alongside other entrepreneurs who also had these huge, massive dreams of building the next unicorn? Was it motivating what was that like?

Barak Ben Ezer: 3:26

Yeah, it was amazing. It was highly inspiring. And you know, they say that on average in every batch, you have at least one unicorn and our batch I think we already have like a unicorn and a half we got breaks and you know, the credit card for startups and rippling, and you get to know those guys, you make friends for life. It's a support network, you help each other. And it is an experience that I just cannot speak highly of. You know, enough is incredible.

Matt Zahab: 4:04

That's awesome. I'd love to be there one day. Let's jump right into SOV. Now to begin, can you tell me exactly what is SOV?

Barak Ben Ezer: 4:13

SOV is a project that we're helping make into reality in the Marshall Islands. And the Marshall Islands is passed along to create the world's first crypto legal center. Now also, you know, El Salvador is making Bitcoin legal tender, but in the Marshall Islands, and the sov or sovereign is going to be basically they've never had their own currency. They had the dollar. So now they're going to issue their own money. It's going to be called the SOV and it's going to be fully crypto on the blockchain. And the feature that to us, is the coolest maybe is that the money supply is limited just like Bitcoin. So the government cannot manipulate the money supply, cannot print more money. And we believe this is very important in the age that we're now entering where, especially since COVID, where governments are just printing money left and right. And that is already leading to inflation could also spiraled into hyperinflation. And so we believe it's very important to show an alternative model for government currencies, that is more similar to the gold standard where there's just limited supply, and the value of the economy and the growth of the economy reflects into the value of the currency. So it's a currency that's designed to appreciate with time as opposed to be inflationary.

Matt Zahab: 5:44

So there's only 24 million SOV that will ever be created, and 40% of these will be available for sale to people around the world. Now, did you guys work with the government to create the tokenomics? How did that work?

Barak Ben Ezer: 6:00

Yeah. One of our economic advisors is the former Secretary General of the Bank for International Settlements, Dr. Peter Titos. And the idea here is basically to have a currency, we're going to incept a crypto hub in the Marshall Islands with special legislation, there's another law in the making now, that will basically take one of the states of the Marshall Islands and make it into the most hospitable jurisdiction for crypto wealth management in the world. So we'll be able to issue bank licenses there exchange licenses, and incorporate companies on the blockchain, get the equity as tokens on the blockchain, everything will be basically blockchain based. And that's where people that have made money in crypto would come to basically manage their wealth. And so the SOV of would be the currency and unit of account of this special economic zone, and obviously, the Marshall Islands as well. And so as the special economic zone will grow in value, and the GDP of this special economic zone grows, so also the value of SOV. And because the government is not going to print more of them, then this ecosystem is bound to make and sort of appreciate and value as this ecosystem grows as well.

Matt Zahab: 7:31

That is crazy. Wow. How did you and the team come up with this idea? Was this were you thinking about, like the Caymans, or maybe Malta and all these cryptic organizations and companies who are HQing there, setting up camp there to confer maybe the tax havens or whatever the case may be, but this is a whole new ballgame you're getting into? How do you think of this?

Barak Ben Ezer: 7:52

What I realized a couple years ago, is that there are certain things that only a sovereign entity can do. A corporation, it could be the biggest Corporation in the world could be faced with COVID, Google cannot do those things. Only a sovereign entity can do it. For instance, only sovereign entities can legally issue money, real money, legal tender. And that's why for instance, Bitcoin was not considered real money because it was not legal tender in any country now is El Salvador. In El Salvador, we might change. And another thing that only countries can do is give grant bank licenses. Another thing is to issue sovereign debt. third, fourth thing is to incorporate companies, etc, etc. So understood that there's special power in funding was a sovereign entity. And there's only 196 countries that are a member of the UN. So the idea was basically to partner with a country that doesn't have any legacy banking system that would object to the move, you know, because like in Switzerland and other places, the banks they see crypto as competition, so they're very apprehensive. So we went to a place that is very remote. And Marshall islands is really remote to get a flight to Hawaii, and then for another five hours. And then because there's no legacy systems, the idea was that it will be easier to innovate over there, and really create the legal framework that would make it possible to work in a very compliant manner. But also, at the same time, very innovative, and as you know, Matt regulators around the world, they're unable to move fast and keep up with technology. So the idea in the Marshall Islands, is that we will be able to really create those regulations to be compliance and move as fast as crypto moves basically, or try to move as fast as the technology moves.

Matt Zahab: 9:50

How did you pitch their government on this? Like what? I'm just picturing you in the team walking into their Parliament or whatever their government building is there and put the suits on and the whole nine yards. Would you say to them? Well, like what was the pitch? What was the PowerPoint presentation?

Barak Ben Ezer: 10:11

First things first we didn't have a suit on and we didn't have a Rolex. They told us later on that that's how they identify the scammers that come to pitch their ideas, they always wear a suit and have a Rolex on their hand.

Matt Zahab: 10:29

You had the Apple Apple Watch, or sorry, you had the Hawaiian shirt and puka shells?

Barak Ben Ezer: 10:35

Something like that, you know, we came, we had like a buttoned down shirt. And you know, we obviously being respectful, but I think we put we became very, you know, we didn't just come and pitch we literally, we moved to the Marshall Islands, to them to the capital Island call module. And the idea was, basically, we're not coming home until we get this thing done. And I think I'm a people's person. And I really believe in relationships, first, you know, relationships even before outcomes, because if you take care of the relationship, the outcome will come. So we really got to study their heritage and history, and the customs and the language, they have a beautiful language. For instance, the way they greet each other is Yaqui, which means you are rainbow. So that kind of gives you a glimpse of who those people are, and we networked our way in, you know, we met one person that leads to another person that leads to another person, it is a small place. So eventually, we got to the government, and a young minister named David Paul, he got really excited about this idea. And then he made it possible to pitch it to the Presidents at the time, Dr. Hilda Heiner, and she really liked it, we basically told them, Listen, you are a country. And you can do things that a corporation cannot do. And one of them is to issue a currency, but you don't have a currency right now using the dollar. And this rights to issue currency is worth a lot of money, if you make it into a crypto, so why not assert your sovereignety, and monetize at the same time. And what we also told them is that we don't ask them to pay us a dime in dollars. In our cash, we said, we're going to help you create this currency, we want to be paid in this future currency. So if this thing succeeds, then obviously the country get rich. And hopefully, you know, our founders and developers and investors get rich as well. But if this thing tanks, there's no risk for you guys, we lost the money that we put in and you're not taking any risk. So I think they liked it that we were so confident, and we're willing to take the lead and basically take the risk on us and only get paid in the future currency. And I think also, there was trust that was built over the two months that we were staying in the Marshall Islands that allowed for this law to eventually pass. It's a long story. And I also, I think it shows, you know, I think it was very important to get our economic adviser Dr. Titos because he gave the monetary credibility. He's a person that basically was running the Bank for International Settlements, which is like the Central Bank of central banks. And when this person with so much credibility comes into the parliament and says, we're going to make it alright, and it's going to be lucrative for the country. And that goes a long ways. And I think we're able to be convincing, because we really believe that we're doing something good for this country. They're struggling with global warming, and a lot of financial, you know, shortfalls. And so making them into a financial crypto hub makes a ton of sense.

Matt Zahab: 14:04

That is one of the most incredible stories I've heard on the pod and just in general, one of the most incredible stories ever. So kudos to you and the team. So so cool. A quick question I have for you on SOV. So now that I know a little bit about the pitch. I'm sure they asked you back. They're like what makes SOV sustainable money? And how can this last long term? Now we talked about the 24 million SOV that will only be created and the 40% that will be available for sale to people around the world. What else makes SOV sustainable money in the long term?

Barak Ben Ezer: 14:40

I think that you know, I told you that we're creating this special economic zone and basically, all the transaction in this economic zone will take place with SOV and so if you believe that there is a need for you know Like crypto islands, a place where you can go and bank with crypto, we can open a bank account denominated in crypto, we can trade all kinds of assets, real assets that are tokenized. and diversify your crypto portfolio into other asset classes. If you believe that there is a space and in need for like a digital Switzerland in a 21st century, a crypto Switzerland, then you should believe in, in the Marshall Islands economic future. And if you believe in this economic future, you should buy SOV because this is the only currency that is going to be used to fuel this ecosystem in the same manner, that Ether is the gas for aetherium. If you believe in the Ethereum ecosystem, then you buy ether. If you believe in the Binance ecosystem, you buy binance. And so if you believe in the future of this country, becoming a financial hub for crypto, then now you can buy Sov, and it's like, it's basically the first time I would say in history that a sovereign country allows you to quote unquote, participate in its seed round, you know, because by buying his currency early on, you're basically saying I believe in the economic future of this country, because they're not going to print more of this currency. And so this is basically the idea. Now, if mind you Cayman islands, has the same amount of population as the Marshall Islands about 50,000. Also, Bermuda. Cayman Islands has a GDP of billions of dollars, it has, like, I think$6 trillion of Foreign Assets in its financial institution. And I read the story of Cayman Islands, it was not really different than what happened in the Marshall Islands, like 34 years ago, a bunch of Europeans went there and pitch the idea of let's make Cayman Islands into a financial hub for private equity and hedge funds. And they made it into a reality. So I think we're going to make the same thing in the Marshall Islands. But for crypto. What hedge funds was, it were, you know, 40 years ago, crypto is now in 21st century. And so SOV is going to be the currency serving this ecosystem. So buying SOV, basically, is equivalent of saying I believe in this country. Now, obviously, this is not an investment advice. And I want to say that this is a highly risky project. Because you know, in other projects, you have the technological risk and all that here, you also have political risk. You know, governments can change. There's a lot of issues here at play. So it's not only all roses, you know, but I obviously really believe in this project. Because of investing the last couple years of my life into it.

Matt Zahab: 17:59

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Barak Ben Ezer: 19:16

Yeah, it's very, it's going to be very similar. In fact, people are going to have an app for payments, and they'll be able to share $1 to SOV very easily within this app. And the merchants will have a point of sale. But you know, unlike El Salvador that has like 6 million people, and most of them are, you know, don't even have cell phones. The SOV is going to be launched in the Marshall Islands where there's only 50,000 people so it's I think it's much easier to get complete coverage. And then we're basically farmers will run on SOV.

Matt Zahab: 19:55

Interesting. So Barak, the one thing that I'm extremely curious about like you've sold On this project, I want to get in on this, how do I buy some SOV? Or how do I pre register for the SOV monetary issuance?

Barak Ben Ezer: 20:08

So I think the best way is to go on the website of the foundation SOV dot Foundation, and sign up for their mailing list. And once we're about to launch, you'll get, once the Marshall Islands to be exact, is a ready to launch, you will get a notification. SOV dot foundation.

Matt Zahab: 20:28

I love that and the blockchain itself, Where are you guys? What platform Are you launching on? Or is this going to be in an SOV blockchain as well?

Barak Ben Ezer: 20:35

So right now we have a partnership with hour grant. So probably is going to be based on their topology.

Matt Zahab: 20:41

And can you tell me a little more about that? Can I use a meta mask account for that? Do I have to download an app like just for the average Joe or the average Jose, how do you how do you actually have access or how can you use and store your SOV once it is live?

Barak Ben Ezer: 20:58

Yeah, we will have a wallet just like you have a wallet for you know Bitcoin or algos or what have you. And that's how we're going to be able to store your recipes with a private key, because also there so there's going to be issued in the context of a country with a special economic zone as I said, We also plan to have a bank governor that will be able to open just a depository checking account in the bank. And that will be another way to access SOV because you will have a bank account and just like like you have $1 denominated bank account, you could have an SOV account, and just like open a bank account like this, wire some dollars and then get a SOV into a bank account. So SOV will be able to be you'll be able to connect is on both rails, the banking rails and the crypto rails, which is quite cool in my opinion.

Matt Zahab: 21:55

Gotcha. Very interesting. I want to go back to El Salvador for a second, huge news that the country has legalized Bitcoin for legal tender, just a huge step for mankind any major step for Bitcoin? What are your two cents on that?

Barak Ben Ezer: 22:10

First of all, it's amazing. You know, the initial idea for SOV was the American IRS said that Bitcoin is not money. And that's why you need to pay capital gains tax because money is real money is only something which is the legal tender in a sovereign nation. So that's why we said okay, so let's create, let's pitch the idea of SOV to Marshall Islands, because then that would be a crypto, which is also legal tender, and that will be real money. But the guys who've done the thing in El Salvador, in a way is very cool, because they made Bitcoin legal tender over there. Now it remains to be seen, if really the powers to be or the American IRS, etc, would say, Okay, now Bitcoin is indeed real money because it's a legal tender and sovereign entity. And I don't know, it could be contested, because legal tender is a very strong legal definition. And I can, because of so much research into that I maybe I can share. Okay, for instance, the dollar is the legal tender of the United States of America. In Israel, where I'm from the shaker is the legal tender, you know, and so it means that if every merchant and the government are obligated by law, to accept payments in the legal tender. If you refuse to get, let's say, if an American merchants refuses to get paid in dollars and say, Please pay me up in gold, or in Bitcoin. I mean, he could get paid in Bitcoin or gold, but he must accept payments in the legal tender which is dollar. If he refuses, it's actually a criminal offense. So I don't know if the El salvadorians will actually treat Bitcoin to such a high bar. Would they actually, you know, force the taco setter in the market of some village in El Salvador to actually accept Bitcoin? It remains to be seen. And that's why a source remains to be seen If this announcement that Bitcoin is legal tender and solidor would actually be taken seriously by the likes of the US IRS and the CFTC etc. If they will say our Okay, Bitcoin is now the legal tender of El Salvador therefore, we also think that Bitcoin is real money and For instance, there's no capital gain tax on it. I don't know, remains to be seen. I hope so. Obviously, I'm a big fan of Bitcoin. And I'm a big fan of the guys in El Salvador. I haven't spoken to them. I would like to speak to them because it's pretty phenomenal what they're able to achieve whether,

Matt Zahab: 25:16

Yeah, crazy. Shoutout jack Mahler's and the strike team. So there's been a lot of kerfuffle regarding the IMF and their criticism towards El Salvador's decision to declare Bitcoin is legal tender. I'd love to ask like, what would you comment on that? if let's say, I'm interviewing you, and I got the mic right in front of you, I guess I technically I'm doing that for what would you say? What would you know? If someone were to ask me that? It's like, okay, like who might a really comment on that situation? But you actually have skin in the game as you're doing this for Rmi? How would you comment on the IMF criticizing El Salvador's decision to declare Bitcoin is legal tender?

Barak Ben Ezer: 25:58

Okay, we had a fair share of issues the IMF ourselves. So I would say, first of all, IMF is not a regulator, meaning they cannot order a country to do something, you know. However, the IMF, the International Monetary Fund, has leverage if they lend money to the country. Marshall Islands actually didn't borrow any money for the IMF, but, or not significant amount of money. But El Salvador, I think owes to the IMF, like a billion dollars. So the IMF in the case of Salvador, they have much more leverage. So I really like that El Salvador will be able to withstand this pressure. As for the position of the IMF, I can tell you that I've met the people who work there several times in the Marshall Islands and also in DC. The people who work there, you know, they're hardworking people, they're professionals and also good people, I would say. That being said, it's a highly conservative organization. And for them, their mandate, I would say, almost is just to foster monetary stability in the world. So for them, anything that could threaten the status quo, changed things around and is procedural threats, and they will criticize it and probably try to kill it. And it's unfortunate, because I think that they could do a better job trying to think, you know, who am I to criticize, to say they could do a better job, the IMF is just my opinion, you know, I might be wrong. But I think in the case of like small countries, it makes a lot of sense to foster cryptocurrency, as legal tender, for several reasons, a lot of those economies depend on remittances. My previous company, was remittance companies. So I know how, you know, it's such a big problem, it's so expensive to send money internationally. So having a crypto legal tender, makes remittances, cheaper, or very cheap. Secondly, and because crypto has actually is a decentralized database, where you can see all the transactions, it could be used as a tool to fight corruption, because you can see the digital trail of all the transactions and can say, Oh, this minister got money from this guy, guy from that guy was affiliated with this oil company, for instance, you know. Third, small countries developing nations, it's oftentimes very hard for them to foster monetary stability, and not going to inflation hyperinflation, if you have decentralized money, with limited supply, while basically controlled supply, it could really help with monetary stability in those countries. And lastly, compliance, because Bitcoin is kind of quasi anonymous. So the IMF, and all those other international bodies, they tend to think that it's like a haven for money laundering, etc. But you can actually combine identity with a decentralized ledger. And then you can actually have a highly compliant system, like a gated community where you can know who's entering into the system, and they can really have all the checks and balances to make sure that there's no money laundering being done, and also no tax evasion, because everything is digital. So I think perhaps with time the IMF will become more open to it. They might see that there's actually real real benefits for developers, especially for developing nations to adopt digital currencies as early as their legal tender.

Matt Zahab: 29:42

Well that there? Can the IMF do anything to ruffle your feathers with the Rmi? Could they say or do anything and really impact this whole situation with making sov a reality?

Barak Ben Ezer: 29:54

Oh, they've done it. I mean, they've issued the report saying that Marshall Islands should not go ahead with this plan. And even though they don't really have any jurisdiction over the Marshall Islands, they cannot, you know, they're not a regular, as I said. And also Marshall Isalnds does not really owe money to the IMF. Their reports, it really deterred the government of their kind of changing the Marshall Islands and deterred the new guys from falling through, basically, issuing the SOV, and it caused the entire product to get delayed. And that's why the currency hasn't been out yet. Because we're now in the dialogue with those people in the government's showing them that we can, yes, the IMF are saying you shouldn't do it. But it doesn't mean that you must oblige. I mean, El Salvador is going through with this plan. And many countries and this, you know, the same Yes, thank you very much for advice, the IMF, but we are a sovereign entity, and we're entitled to our own opinion. And that's, and we'll follow through. So I hope that the IMF report would not be a detriment, and we'll be able to issue the currency after all.

Matt Zahab: 31:09

amazing this is, this has been a blast prac I really appreciate you coming on couple more rapid fire questions before we wrap up here. Bitcoin to 100k what do you think that's gonna happen?

Barak Ben Ezer: 31:21

If I think bitcoins going to go to 100k? Yes, I believe so.

Matt Zahab: 31:24

When's that going to pop off?

Barak Ben Ezer: 31:25

I can say to this, okay, I've been saying before COVID. When COVID started I said, we're going to see Bitcoin 100,000 soon, and we got to 60,000. Because with the monetary expansion you see all over the world, especially now in the US, President Biden just announced another $1.2 trillion monetary expansion, when you come to think about it, like 30, or 35% of all dollars that were ever created, were created in the last 12 months, you're gonna have to see inflation, the inflation is really already raising its head. And the rich people already understand that. Bill Gates is buying farmland like crazy in the United States, because he understands that inflation is coming. So it's trying to hedge. And so when inflation is coming, people are going to look for hard assets. It used to be gold in the past, but now it's much harder to obtain gold, like physical gold. And so more and more people come to Bitcoin as an inflationary hedge. And so the more inflation pressures we're going to see in the world, the more people are going to buy bitcoin. And I think the inflationary cycle is only just beginning. So we are going to see Bitcoin 100,000, and also in a million dollars, I believe. When is going to happen. I never tried to time the market. That's why I don't do any day trading, I believe in buying and holding. I believe, if you look in the Bitcoin graph, in the last 10 years, it's been a clear exponential growth, a hockey stick with some ups and downs, it's highly volatile. So that's why I think you need to buy bitcoin and just hold it. And you know, like this sale in the Hanukkah candles, you light them up, and then you only look at them, you don't touch them. Same with Bitcoin. You buy it, and you hold it for at least five, five to 10 years. You know, I love that. So hold on to your Hanukkah candles and wait for the 100k, maybe $1 million.

Matt Zahab: 33:19

Wow, I love that analogy. Well said very well said. This has been a blast. I do need to ask you, if you don't mind me asking. And I don't want to be political or anything. But how is the COVID situation in Israel? Because I understand that Israel had one of the best vaccination rollouts of any country in the world. I read stories about pulling over, you know, like, Uber Eats guys on bicycles and being like, Hey, we got your Vax. He's like, nope, you're like, Okay, come on in and the army was involved. Just a very solid effort overall, what is COVID Like in Israel at the moment?

Barak Ben Ezer: 33:50

No, I just want to say By the way, nobody was forced to vaccinated it's not true. It just like they made the vaccine readily available to everybody. And so they got like, I think by now, maybe 80 or 90% of the country vaccinated. I think we're the first country in the world reached that. Part of it was because our Prime Minister was able to negotiate a very good deal with Pfizer. And the other part is because we have really good, I guess, public health systems, and the IT systems are great. So they're able to, it was like done beautifully the entire vaccination process. But what's going on right now is we have those new strains coming in, and the Indian one, and, you know, it's called the strain Delta, I think, and I can tell the Delta variant. Everybody here, by the way, got the Pfizer vaccine, which is supposed to be the best one. And people are getting here. COVID even though they're vaccinated, they're getting the Delta strain. So, it's too early to understand what's going on but they're getting it. They say that the people that vaccine are getting it like very mild, you know, so the number of cases now is growing again. But the number of people that are like critically ill or something is actually stable. So maybe, yeah, I hope that the vaccine will hold against the Delta strain. You know, time will tell,

Matt Zahab: 35:18

I appreciate you answering that. I know it's not a political or medical podcast by any means. But it's always interesting to get someone's take who's actually on the ground instead of just me reading it on Twitter or reading on the news. So very interesting. Before we wrap up wrap, do you have any questions that you'd like me to answer?

Barak Ben Ezer: 35:35

And yeah, what drew you to interview me about the SOV project?

Matt Zahab: 35:42

I just thought it was incredibly interesting. When I first read about it and it came across sort of our internal team board when it was like, you know, hey, this is an incredible project, who's going to reach out and get either an interview or the podcast or something written, whatever the case may be. And I always have an open mind, I try to at least give everything a chance. And you know, eight to 10 projects I read, and I'm like, that gas it right to the bin. But with this one, I read it and I was like, What the heck, like, is this real life? Are they actually trying to do this? And then I read about it. I've heard of, full disclosure, I've heard of the Marshall Islands a couple times before. I remembered where it was from probably like grade 10, or grade 11 Geography but like, it's been so long that I didn't even know that they were, you know, east of Hawaii, west of the Philippines kind of thing. You know what I mean? It's east of both, I guess. Yeah.

Barak Ben Ezer: 36:41

Smack in the middle of the Pacific Ocean.

Matt Zahab: 36:44

Yes, west of you know much. But again, it's just like, then you look at it. And then I started looking at pictures online. I read more about it. I took a quick read through the white paper. And I was just like, wow, this is a really interesting project. Now I read about you, I saw your background. I'm, you know, not an entrepreneur by any means. But I love Y Combinator. I think Paul Graham's incredible. I've read every one of his essays, and I saw, you know, computer science and economics from Columbia, Microsoft, and it just seemed good. Watch a couple of your interviews. And I was like, yep, this guy checks off all the boxes. And that was it. That was it on my end.

Barak Ben Ezer: 37:16

Great. Thank you. I just want to tell you that Congratulations, because you were very prepared and you ask great questions. And you know, I also appreciate the support because this project needs support, because you know, like the IMF and all those like, international organizations and so the support of the crypto community is very important for the success of this project. So thank you very much, Matt.

Matt Zahab: 37:39

Hey appreciate you coming on. Hope you had a blast. before we let you go. Can you let our guests know where they can find you? The SOV Foundation, and SFB Tech on Twitter or anywhere any socials online let us know where you can find everything.

Barak Ben Ezer: 37:55

So the SOV foundation is SOV.Foundation. And also SOV foundation on Twitter and myself is Barak Ben Ezer on Twitter, one word, and I'll be happy to connect with everybody who wants to support

Matt Zahab: 38:16

Amazing, Barak, thank you so much for coming on. definitely gonna have you on for round two. And once we get started with crypto news tv, which will be a live TV tab on the website, we need you on at least a couple times every quarter just to give folks an update on this incredible project. Thanks again for coming on. And we will keep in touch.

Barak Ben Ezer: 38:34

Would love to. Thank you, Matt. Take care. Bye bye.

Matt Zahab: 38:37

Folks. This was the crypto news podcast with Barak Ben Ezer from SFB tech and the SOV foundation. Partnering with the Marshall Islands, just an absolutely incredible project. I would love to see SOV pop off and wow Imagine if they became the Cayman Islands of crypto and blockchain that would be something else. And I really hope that happens. This was another episode of the crypto news podcast. Hope you enjoyed this one. please do check us out at crypto news.com. If you enjoyed listening to this episode. It would mean the world if you'd subscribe and from the bottom my heart I hope you have a wonderful rest of the day, evening morning, whatever it is, and then even better rest of the week. Love you all stay safe, stay happy and we will keep in touch. See you next episode. All the best.