344. What Are the Real Uses for Crypto?

Crypto is often associated with speculation, volatility, and investors trying to pick the next big token. However, the digital asset space continues to evolve beyond that narrative.

In this episode of A Wiser Retirement® Podcast, Casey Smith speaks with Robert Swarthout, owner and founder of Teton Crypto Capital, about how blockchain technology, digital assets, and crypto-related companies are being used in real-world applications today.

Related Podcast Episodes: 

Ep 326. Why Crypto Still Confuses Investors

Ep 306. Crypto in Your 401(k)? The Future of Retirement Investing

Ep 301. Crypto Update: Clarity Act, GENIUS Act, and Stablecoins

Other Links:

Teton Crypto Capital

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Transcript

Why Utility Matters In Crypto

SPEAKER_01 0:00

Curious about the latest crypto news and which companies and tokens have actual real world utility? Stay tuned.

SPEAKER_04 0:06

Welcome to a wiser retirement podcast, where we cut through the noise and bring you real, honest conversations about investing, retirement, and building lasting wealth. No sales pitches, no gimmicks, just insights to help you stop guessing and start planning your financial future.

SPEAKER_01 0:25

Welcome to a wiser retirement podcast. I'm Casey Smith. Today I'm joined by Robert Swarthal, owner and founder of T Time Crypto Capital, to discuss the latest in crypto and what are some real uses for it. Before we get started, uh we have a uh book coming out. Not Robert and I. Robert, you should write a book.

SPEAKER_02 0:42

I have no patience to do that.

SPEAKER_01 0:45

Um so Shauna, Andrew, and I put together uh a book called Everything Your Financial Advisor Won't Tell You. It comes out June 10th. You can find it uh anywhere you can buy a book online, specifically Amazon. Uh we uh uh we took over about a year and a half to put this book together, uh, mainly just to talk about what real financial planning uh looks like. And uh I think this is a great book to give uh friends and family, people who are thinking about maybe a second opinion or just want to learn something about finance. We kind of wrote it with uh a little bit of everybody in mind. So um, if you have uh an opportunity to support us, please do that by picking up the book through Amazon. Uh everything your financial advisor won't tell you, you can search under my name as well, Casey Smith. All right, Robert. I don't know if you're ordered 10 copies.

SPEAKER_02 1:34

Um I well, I believe you're doing an audio book. That would be the way that I would listen to it.

SPEAKER_01 1:38

Yes.

SPEAKER_02 1:38

I'm not gonna do that. There will be an audio version.

SPEAKER_01 1:40

There's a Kindle version, there's a hardback, there's a softback, there's you we have we have what everybody prefers. Yeah, you know, chiseled under rock would be my preference.

Book Announcement And Quick Banter

SPEAKER_01 1:49

All right. So let's talk about um and we have on our list here, we have quite a bit of uh cryptos and companies that are in the digital asset space. And we thought it would be a great idea to go through this list and put the real world application behind each of these cryptos. I still think that people go and they uh they hear about this digital asset stuff and they they log in, they go to um Bitcoin. Uh well, yeah, they all buy Bitcoin, but then they look at these others and it's like walking into the casino and all these slot machines and they go, hey, I'm gonna bet on this one, I'm gonna bet on this one. And I don't know, that's not really how any investing should be done with real money. Correct. So let's talk about um let's talk about some of these and then we'll we'll kind of uh round this whole conversation out with what's happening in the uh with legislation related to around this.

SPEAKER_02 2:44

Sounds great.

USDC Stablecoins And Faster Payments

SPEAKER_01 2:45

First one on our list is uh circle or USDC.

SPEAKER_02 2:49

Yep. So circle's the company, USDC is the stable coin in this case. Um they are a publicly traded company, and we should stay up front. We're not endorsing any of these. Yes, correct. Thank you. Like um we uh, you know, there's some great things on this list. There's some other things that are more early, and you know, who who knows how they'll turn out educational purposes as well. Yes, for sure. So, but yeah, so Circle, um, you know, they've been publicly traded for I guess uh six, nine months at this point. Um, but yes, they are the US, the the largest US-based stable coin. Um we have stablecoin legislation as of roughly a year ago. The Genius Act. The Genius Act, yep. Um, and we'll kind of get to it. They're trying to make some changes to that. Um, but at the end of the day, we have legislation. It's been moving forward. And stable coins are really just digital dollars. In this case, uh USDC is actually a digital dollar. There's a digital euro in Europe and some other ones around the world. But um, circle is uh, you know, the whole idea is, you know, if you hold it, it doesn't change in value like a token um on a traditional crypto network may.

SPEAKER_01 3:53

So again, it's backed by the treasury. So this is not or no, I'm sorry, not backed by this treasure. Yeah. They buy treasury.

SPEAKER_02 4:02

Yeah, they buy treasuries and hold them and in other cash equivalents. Yes. Um, and then this in the Genius Act basically gave them a structure of what they could and could not buy. It's largely just straight treasuries and cash.

SPEAKER_01 4:12

Um so this is not something you would buy and expect a run up in price like uh Bitcoin did or anything like that.

SPEAKER_02 4:17

You know, some use cases for this may be that oh, you just want to be able to pay with crypto in your everyday life in places that do it. You don't want to be using a token that changes value because that coffee that you may buy today may be more expensive or less expensive tomorrow. Right. Um But I think more of a use case for stable coins these days beyond payments is purely just if you're using decentralized finance in other parts of the blockchain and you want to park your money for the time being, you're not gonna move it back to a bank account. You would move it into a stablecoin like USDC or or or Tether USDT.

SPEAKER_01 4:51

So what has Visa done with with the USDC?

SPEAKER_02 4:55

Yep. So V Visa's been doing some testing, and it's really cool because if you look at like the way credit card networks work, you know, you charge a card and you you think the merchant immediately has your money when you get your receipt and you walk out the door. That is 100% not the case. Right. Um, it can take um 24 to uh 72 or 96 hours in a lot of cases for them to get their get their funds. Um so what this is doing is really just speeding up the um um the money rail there. Um so they they can get their money the same day. Uh we don't necessarily have it in these notes here, but some testing has been done with Uber and basically paying drivers real time, um, which can be rather impactful to those drivers because you know that they are um especially the ones doing it full-time, um, you know, it could be a big deal. So it's it's pretty cool to kind of see. Uh are they getting paid in stablecoin? Are they getting they've tried stablecoin um and they've tried a few other networks. I think stablecoin only makes sense because it's like there could be confusion around, oh, Uber sent me so much in X cryptocurrency, but it's worth less now than when they said they sent it. Like, what did I really get paid? Right. I think the taxes get very confusing around something like that. Yeah. Um, so there's still a lot to figure out. Um, you know, this is you know, we we've said this for years, but it's still early days for crypto. So like taxes around crypto are still not super clean cut, um, when especially when it comes to transactions, and they're trying to change that in some some of

Chainlink Oracles And Tokenized Funds

SPEAKER_02 6:23

this legislation.

SPEAKER_01 6:23

So all right, let's move on to Chain Link Labs and uh the Chainlink.

SPEAKER_02 6:28

So Chain Link Labs is the company or foundation. Chain Link is the token. Um L-I-N-K is the ticker for that crypto token. So they're trying to bring um different blockchains um on-chain data, um, excuse me, off-chain data and connect it with on-chain data and kind of be be an intermediary, if you want to call it that. Um, another company doing this is Quant. Um, QNT is the token there, the kind of a competitor chain link. But they um are really just trying to bridge the two worlds because there's really two different universes. Obviously, the um the off-chain world is much larger than the on-chain world currently, but over time I think that the that kind of morphs. And pulling them together allows you to use off-chain data in ways through a smart contract and a blockchain to automatically do things is is one of many examples we could talk about. But the you know, it could execute a contract automatically versus having to have someone decide, oh, so-and-so has fulfilled their responsibility and now send a payment, for instance.

SPEAKER_01 7:32

So, how did UBS asset management use those?

SPEAKER_02 7:35

They they tokenized um some secondary uh fund. I I didn't read tons about that one, admittedly, but at the end of the day, there there's a lot of experimentation. Chainlink, um, we'll talk about securitizing in a minute, who's really helping different people do it. But the basically taking secondary funds, tokenizing them on the blockchain, and making them tradable and making a market out of them, really, because in a lot of cases they're rather illiquid and um bringing more visibility and liquidity um potential.

Stellar And Ripple Cross Border Rails

SPEAKER_01 8:06

All right, next one is Stellar Development Foundation for Stellar uh token.

SPEAKER_02 8:10

Yep, Stellar Token. Um, so and we'll the next one after that we'll talk about is Ripple. That these two are married at the hip at some levels, um, because they have a uh um a common co-founder between them. Um Ripple started first, it was XRP started first, there was some disagreement. He left, started Stellar, the Stellar Foundation. Um, took the code base of Ripple was of XRP was public, and he copied it to make Stellar. So they they're focusing on cross-border payments in more of a third-world country, um and like like helping poorer countries kind of have a banking system versus um some other use cases that we're gonna talk about for others. But it it's cool to see. I mean, it's these tokens that have a lot of um uh drama around them. I think at some point they have trouble marketing. Um, this is one that I think is the case. But um, you know, they helping, you know, we have notes uh things in our notes here about how they're helping get funds into Ukraine for the people affected by that. So it's it's you know, it's more of a I wouldn't say assisting charities, but um something along those lines kind of token.

SPEAKER_01 9:19

All right. Um you said it was kind of attached with Ripple.

SPEAKER_02 9:22

Yeah.

SPEAKER_01 9:23

Uh so Ripple's next. Yeah, we've talked about Ripple many times. So that's cross-border payments.

SPEAKER_02 9:28

Yeah. So um, so Ripple, the company, XRP the token, which they're using, they also have their own stablecoin now. Um, and they also use USTC. Before they launched their own stable coin, um, they were 20 to 25 percent of all volume of USTC being um uh of of minting volume, I should say. So um, but yeah, Ripple aims uh to do many things, but in this case, they are um doing cross-border payments. They function, they they focus specifically on businesses trying to solve problems. Um, they're not a retail focused company at all. And um, you know, we talked about years they went to the lawsuit with the ICC, you know, came out that on the better end. Um pretty pretty crazy story there, but they have, you know, they try to do cross-border payments, they're trying to do um custody for um corporations and banks. They have a prime brokerage that they purchased now, it's called Ripple Prime. That is connecting traditional finance with um the state um with the crypto world. And just generally, you know, they they've used for a year or so now the analogy that they want to be the Amazon of crypto. At first, it was like, well, you do one thing, what does that mean? Well, Amazon was a bookseller, um, and now they do lots of different things. So we'll see how that one plays out. But um, they certainly are at least attempting that

Tokenizing Wall Street With Securitize

SPEAKER_02 10:45

strategy.

SPEAKER_01 10:45

Okay, let's talk about Securitize.

SPEAKER_02 10:47

Yep. Securitize, if I'm not mistaken, is based here in Atlanta. Um, so little hometown shout out here. Um, so they're a software company that is helping generally banks and other, you know, financially regulated companies basically create electronic or crypto versions of their funds or bonds or different things like that. So basically bringing that kind of data in those kind of assets on chain. Um they they are helping BlackRock with their with their buildle um tokenized fund, which is a treasury fund. It's B-U-I-D-L. Um, that is misspelled on purpose because misspellings in crypto, like um HODL and things like that, um, often come out. So this is they that was a nod to crypto when they when they did that for sure. So um but yes, uh this is only one of the many examples Securitize has done. And they um I think Builder was one of the first. So it's um I I would imagine you see Securitize's name helping a lot of uh traditional Wall Street over the next six months, um, as especially af after this Clarity Act kind of really gets moving.

SPEAKER_01 11:58

So who would who would buy a tokenized security? Like why would you do that? Well are they trying to get access to things they couldn't get access to otherwise? I mean, why wouldn't you just buy an ETF? Um, I think you couldn't buy an ETF.

SPEAKER_02 12:13

You can only buy it in US dollars, maybe that and you only can buy it during certain hours. Um, everything that is currently on Wall Street right now available during nine to five is going to be tokenized. I I will say this with 100% um confidence will be tokenized probably in less than five years, um, potentially even shorter than three. And um the trading will be 24-7, 365. Off off the uh because it's on a blockchain and because it's yeah, yeah, yeah.

SPEAKER_01 12:41

I've read articles about Nasdaq in the next three to five years, wanting to be completely on blockchain to have 24 hour, 24 hour trading.

SPEAKER_02 12:48

They got um conditional approval, I want to say in the last month from the SEC to start tokenizing and running a um a parallel network to their traditional NASDAQ that we know. Um, I think long term everything's on the blockchain and you don't really think about it being tokenized, it's just there. Yeah. Um, so part of it's trading access and hours. Um, I think another part is just settlement. Um, now that it's disjointed, there's the whole T plus one or whatever we're at these days. Right. That goes to T plus or T zero because it can be atomic and like settlement happens once you take custody um or vice versa.

SPEAKER_01 13:24

So securitize is not a token, it's a company.

SPEAKER_02 13:27

It's a company uh running software to help tokenize, basically fractionalize a an investment on a blockchain.

SPEAKER_01 13:34

Okay. Um let's talk at the next one. Undo. Undo. Undoe. O-N-D-O. Is how you spell it? Finance.

SPEAKER_02 13:42

Yes. So another um software company. They're helping create um real-time markets at a cross in help with cross-border redemption. Um, Ripple's done some work with them recently, and they um I think it was, if I'm not mistaken, it was BlackRock, Ripple, and Ondo, with the help of MasterCard at a conference, did the first real-time cross-border settlement of a US Treasury. Um, and it settled into a bank account Ripple held in South Korea. You know, like and I think so.

SPEAKER_01 14:14

Who's the competition for that? Because I feel like we keep saying cross-border transactions on on half of these so far.

SPEAKER_02 14:19

Yeah. Um, cross-border can mean a lot of different things, and that's kind of like the the glossing way to talk about payments that go across international. So I I think the direct competitor is things that settled into dollars and were wired with Swift. Um, so at some level, you don't really have to go back into a fiat currency to get across a border. It just kind of, you know, crypto's, I guess, um, borderless in that sense. Um so it's a um it's cool software. I mean, there's a lot of experimentation. So I don't know if we've really tallied it in this way, but like a third of this, a quarter of this is what we talked about could not happen or happen at at production scale and just kind of just goes away. But they learned something and became something else. Like that is almost certainly going to happen. Um, you know, what Securitize is doing, I think it makes it out the end. They probably end up being a publicly traded company at some point, like unless somebody gobbles them up, which which can happen. Wall Street's getting rather um rather big appetite for some of these crypto companies, and um, it's not in the notes here, but they are doing lots of um a lot of hiring the last couple weeks. They've started posting a ton of crypto related jobs. So it's like you could felt like the Clarity Act has made progress when Wall Street decides, okay, we can start hiring around this.

SPEAKER_00 15:34

Right, right.

Custody Rules For Institutions

SPEAKER_00 15:36

Not all financial advice is created equal. Coming June 10th, everything your financial advisor won't tell you. An eye-opening book that reveals what's really happening inside the financial industry and what it takes to build a plan that actually works. Because what you don't know could be costing you.

SPEAKER_01 15:54

All right, let's talk about Fireblocks.

SPEAKER_02 15:56

Another software company. So not a token here, but what they do is they help institutions um deal with custody of assets. So you can think of it as software that sits on top of potentially multiple blockchains that you may own tokens in and um helps with custody around rules like how many signers have to be on a transaction, um, how it has to be routed, like who all the business rules that you might have in traditional banking is basically what Fireblocks is doing for the blockchain. Um I just say an endorsement. This is the custody solution that we use for the crypto fund that I run. Um, in the end of the day, it you know, you've may have heard stories or crazy stories about founders running away with keys for um or people's blockchain or Bitcoin or things like that. Fireblocks, in some sense, um help solve that. Um so I put it in place for the fund because it allowed the investors to have a peace of mind. If I get hit by a bus, for instance, like there's ways for them to get back to the crypto. Um, and you know, it's not all lost at that point. So they kind of business rules around crypto, I guess, is the I guess the the tagline they could be using for Fireblocks.

SPEAKER_01 17:04

So you're securitize and like companies like uh securitize and firebox, are those investable companies or are those private subcompanies still?

SPEAKER_02 17:12

Um they're both private. So I mean, if you're accredited, I think you can buy them on the secondary market. But um, but yes, they are private.

SPEAKER_01 17:18

Okay. Uh Falcon Filecoin Protocol Labs ecosystem.

SPEAKER_02 17:23

Let me say one last real quick thing about Fireblocks. So Fireblocks, talk about investable. Um, BNY Mellon is a massive investor in Fireblocks. So at some point, I imagine that gets gobbled up by them being the biggest custody or biggest um not custody, what do they call them? Uh custodian. Custodian, yes, yeah. Um, of traditional

Decentralized Storage And Wireless Networks

SPEAKER_02 17:40

assets. So um so file coin, um, protocol labs is the company, file coin is the token, basically is decentralized data storage. This one's cool. You don't hear tons about it um as much these days. I think it's more of a um when crypto is going well, people talk about it type situation. But you know, if you think about a world where a lot of stuff is happening on different blockchains with smart contracts, at some level you need data storage. It can't just need access to data.

SPEAKER_01 18:06

Right.

SPEAKER_02 18:06

So file coin is basically um think of it as like a iCloud or a Dropbox for the blockchain. So you can pay to store um files or and basically they get fractionalized across a lot of different computers around the world. So in theory, they're always accessible um and available. And you pay a fee to store it, you also pay a fee to access it. So and then uh Helium Nova Labs. They they basically using Helium the token, Nova Labs is the company, and basically trying to create a decentralized wireless network across the world. Um back in the day, I kind of played around with this one a little bit myself. Um, so the idea was you'd buy this small little look like router for your house. Um, your internet would plug into it as part of your house, and then it would broadcast a low frequency signal out. And it wasn't necessarily like you would go in the woods and be able to use your cell phone. The idea was like rain gauges or river gauges or stuff out that needed low data throughput, but needed access to the internet um because you could use a system like this. It was cool because like the signal could travel, you know, a couple kilometers depending on uh the the terrain. Um so it was um cool to kind of see networks like that. I it was more of a I was just scratching my tech kitch a little bit when I was doing this. Um it was cool. Like the the node that I had at my house um just outside of Smyrna was talking to some nodes down in um midtown at one point and just different things. So um kind of building a network and I how how did that benefit you? Um the whole idea was as data would come if there was a rain gauge or something in the area that was using it, um, you would get a portion of the fee they were they were paying with helium token to be able to do that. Um it never really panned out. I I think it was a great proof of concept. I think you're just fighting absolute behemoths when you're fighting an ATT um because all of a sudden they have the towers or they have the tower space rented. Right. They can go and put different antennas up and all of a sudden they have the the wired infrastructure to support it immediately. Right. So I'm not saying that that's happening now, but that's the mountain that they're at helium's having to climb over.

SPEAKER_01 20:17

So all right, let's talk about render network, um the OTOY ecosystem.

GPU Sharing, Privacy Browsers, Carbon Credits

SPEAKER_02 20:24

Yeah. So the idea here is you there's people have computers sitting in their house, largely not doing anything most of the time, and they have a GPU, so basically the graphics processing unit. Um, and to help uh people be able to render games or movies that they're developing, they could kind of pay into the system that fractionalizes that work across all the computers that are participating and um be able to kind of use it, you know. I I think it's less about games and potentially as this is um morphed, because this was all about GPUs initially. Now it's potentially um more or move into more towards um helping with AI models, which is everyone's talking about AI these days. So um how how it works over time, I don't know. I mean, because the cards that you would buy to really train AI are so expensive and so powerful. I'm not sure what the the average AI um capabilities of a laptop or desktop is these days relative to that.

SPEAKER_01 21:21

It doesn't seem I think you lose some bandwidth over the interface.

SPEAKER_02 21:26

So I'm not quite sure how that pans out for them, but um, it's another use of crypto in a non-financial form, right? Like we've the first, I don't know, ten of these things that we talked about were some form of finance. This is certainly in in you know, helium before it was definitely getting into um crypto being used in ways that were not financially or not finance first. Um there's always that, oh, what is the token value um piece of it? But um it's trying to solve other problems, and I guess the the financial aspect is more. Secondary.

SPEAKER_01 22:00

So all right, let's talk about Brave, uh basic attention token.

SPEAKER_02 22:04

Yep. So you have many different browsers you can install on your computers these days. So you have Chrome, Firefox, um, you have Edge if you're on Windows, um, Safari. Brave is a version of Chrome. Um, and what they've done is they've become privacy focused with Brave, the the token with the browser. And Brave, the token, the BAT token, um is a way for you to um um earn. So like they would show you an ad in it. Um as part of that, you would be in the revenue share of that ad, you get paid in BAT token. I I prefer Brave the browser personally, just because it's privacy focused. So um, you know, it's it's shows you less ads online. It doesn't let the um different websites drop as many cookies in your browser um to track you as much. So I use it for that. I I could care less about the BAT token, um, and it's purely about a privacy thing for me. Um but you know, this is an example of gosh, the BAT token was launched, I want to say in 2020, and it was one of the first that was trying to do revenue splitting, um in that case ads, with with a secondary with a two different parties effectively. And I it there's not many of them that are still around. BAT is certainly still I don't know how active it is, but it's definitely, you know, I still see them trying to push it through the browser every once in a while. Um so you know. All right, let's talk about energy web. Basically, this is about um reselling uh uh carbon credits effectively around the world. Um, or saying you're buying energy in a cheaper place and you're using it. This gets this is a I will say a little bit of a political statement. Um like the whole carbon credits and buying cheaper power in one place, but you're still using the dirty power somewhere else. I it just blows my mind how it all works. Um personally, I don't think I'd follow it. I I just think it's kind of a bit of snake oil. Um, but it's I'm not just saying the energy token itself, but um just the idea that you're swapping around credits like that doesn't really seem like it's helping anybody. It's just more of reselling an asset.

SPEAKER_01 24:19

So it's any of that uh be a tax benefit to doing that. Maybe that's why they're doing it.

SPEAKER_02 24:25

Um I'm not a qualified tax report.

SPEAKER_01 24:27

Because I would I would I would I would agree with you that just because you're making dirty power here and then you're you're gonna go over there and buy a token. So it doesn't make your power any cleaner. It doesn't make any cleaner.

SPEAKER_02 24:37

Yeah, I I again not a tax professional, so I can't speak to that. Um because I you know there's certainly credits that can be bought and sold here in the US for different things. This is around the world too. So it's like yeah, I there's no way that you would think that there's much tax credit going on um when it comes to different uh you know, if I'm buying some clean power in Kenya, like I just don't think it's happening. Yeah.

Smart Contracts Need Real World Proof

SPEAKER_01 25:02

So which one of these all everything we talked about, which one of these, or maybe there's one we missed helps with smart contracts. I I find that um very fascinating to have a smart contract where you know I promise you a service of some sort, yeah. Service, yeah. Right? And there has to be, I guess, proof of work of some some way. Yeah. And and is that only digital proof of work or it you know, could you build a house?

SPEAKER_02 25:30

I mean, that's yeah, so I mean that's part of there's a couple different questions and answers there. I think part of it has to do with um so a couple of enterprise level blockchains doing smart contracts, Hedera and Algorand come to mind. Um there's others, but we'll talk and I guess Ethereum at some level, but I'll focus on Hedera and uh Algorand. Um so they're all about throughput, they're all about um low-cost transactions, all that kind of stuff, both of those level playing field, I guess. Um I'm saying. So, you know, part of it's like what Chainlink and what Quant would be doing is bringing off-chain data on-chain. Um, they call them through an Oracle, is what they call that. And that would prove so it could be that as part of that smart contract, there's a fee in there to pay a third party to go by and document or take photos or something. Maybe it's a um an appraiser, who knows, um to take to watch the progress of a house being built. Right. And then once they deem progress is made or it's complete or whatever it is, they they can um input that data and then that goes into the smart contract that decides what to do. Okay, I'm making a monthly payment or um or a monthly draw to help build it, or okay, yes, this does convert at this point into a mortgage. Like, I mean, there's it's code you can pay the builder or right. I mean, there's all sorts of things. And I think you could have a full life cycle of a, you know, it's your example of a house being built from purchasing a parcel to, you know, um construction design fees all the way through being built and a mortgage, you could have that as one smart contract, albeit a long one, or it's a series of smart contracts, probably more specifically, that um in in that world exist um or could exist, almost certainly doesn't exist today. Right. Um, but you know, I was as we were kind of do looking through these notes, and I was thinking, um, you know, when we when we first started talking about crypto, gosh, 2020, 2021, I forget when we did the first podcast, everything was theoretical. There was nothing that was happening in real life. Right. Or very, very little to the point where it was like basically zero. Now it's like we have all these examples and we could talk for hours. I mean, like this list could be super long. Um, and again, not that all of them will make it out the end and become, say, a massive company as your blockchains, but like it's cool to see the progress. It seems like it's taken forever, but at the same point, a lot of the progress that we've talked about today has happened in the last year, 18 months.

SPEAKER_01 28:03

And you can seem to continue building. But and I think that's why uh we had this topic as a podcast, because I don't think people see any of this, they don't realize what's really happening.

SPEAKER_02 28:11

And then that's part, admittedly, part of my thesis around crypto is you the the average consumer will not think that they're or know that they're using crypto because it's going to get re-plumbed behind the scenes. So businesses will solve the problem because it saves them money, increases that, or yeah, different reasons. Um, and then I think consumers end up being using crypto as more of a second wave once all the plumbing's in place and it and it makes it easier to do that. Right now, it's just crypto is really just a way for consumers to gamble.

SPEAKER_01 28:40

So And that's what we're trying to get away from. Correct. Yes. And what will help us get away from that not all of it.

SPEAKER_02 28:46

I mean, there's a Bitcoin Ethereum. I mean, but like any of these other more esoteric things um are definitely areas where it's it's more speculative

Genius Act, Clarity Act, And What Changes

SPEAKER_02 28:54

for sure.

SPEAKER_01 28:54

So what will help us get away from that is legislation. So let's talk about what's the latest uh in in uh crypto regulation.

SPEAKER_02 29:02

Yep.

SPEAKER_01 29:03

So or lack of.

SPEAKER_02 29:05

Yeah, correct. Um so we mentioned that the Genius Act got signed last summer. Um, that was for the stablecoin legislation, and that was purely stable coin legislation. And a quick refresher that means that a stable coin issuer, circle or ripple or tether, they can have a stable coin, but it basically made it illegal for them to pay rewards or interest on holding a stable coin. People didn't like that, but having legislation was better than nothing, so it kind of moved forward. Um, the Clarity Act um is trying to, or otherwise known as the market structure bill, is trying to bring um literally market structure to in rules for the road for crypto when it comes to traditional finance. What what is a security, what's a commodity, all that stuff. A much more complex bill than um the Genius Act would ever um dream to be. So obviously there's a lot more um people fighting for and against it. Um this is something that would have never happened in the Biden administration. Trump is very much pro-crypto, is pushing for it, and he has SEC head that's pushing for it. He now has a Fed chair um that is pro-crypto. Um and uh and CFTC as well. So it's gonna by by putting things in law, right? It makes it harder for administration to come in, not say it can't, um, but makes it harder for administration to come in and all of a sudden, oh, decide we hate crypto again um now that there's rules in place. They can do things behind the scenes, much like they did um with trying to debank the crypto industry um during the Biden administration. But I I it puts rules around the road in place so innovators can come in and feel safe, um, I think is the easy and I guess the squishy way to feel uh to talk about it. Because it's a um if you don't feel safe, you're not gonna spend time or investors' money trying to build a product when you can go to a different market. Um admittedly it's AI right now, that's where everyone seems to want to go. Yeah um but I think that what's interesting is cross-ridge. AI is rather popular right now. Crypto, maybe, I mean, there's rumors that Trump wants to see this on his desk by the um by the July 4th recess for Congress. Um, so we should have said up front. The Clarity Act is out of the banking committee as of a couple weeks ago. It kind of got through its amendment process. Now it's waiting for a discussion and vote on the Senate floor. The House already passed their version of it last summer. So it is, it's purely like this is the last step. The question is, when will it get done? If it gets done, you got midterms coming. There's a lot of things that could slow this down. Um fingers crossed, it does get done. It was a bipartisan um vote out of the banking committee, which is great. Two Democrats um voted for it. Um, and I and I genuinely am optimistic that it can still be that way when it goes to um the full Senate for vote.

SPEAKER_01 31:57

So okay. That would be very useful. Do you think that changes the price of uh the you know the top 10 cryptocurrencies? Or you think that that has less to do with price, more more of uh uh industry adoption after it comes in or innovation?

SPEAKER_02 32:12

I I've long said it's a I believe the Clarity Act to be a catalyst. It's not a catalyst for price to immediately start going on a tear the minute after it's passed. I would not be shocked to see a spike of 10 or 15 percent crypto. No investment advice. But like, you know, that's what happened when it came out of the banking media. It was basically the hours leading after it, it was um up 10% and now it's down 15. So it's kind of like you know, it's crypto. But um I think it it allows things to move forward to the next step um and innovators to do it. Admittedly, crypto is waiting on a better investment environment, I'll, you know, or in less geopolitics, I think. So Clarity Act plus that, I think you end up with a a good crypto uh situation and an easing Fed that crypto has never had a run when the Fed was not easing. Um, so we'll see what happens with this new chair.

SPEAKER_01 33:03

Yeah. Okay.

How To Reach Us And Final Notes

SPEAKER_01 33:04

Thanks, Robert. Uh, thanks for listening to today's episode. If you're interested in learning more about wise wealth management or want to schedule a consultation to meet one of our fiduciary financial advisors, you can do so by going to wiserinvestor.com or you can click on the link in the episode notes. You can also reach out to uh Robert at T Ton Crypto Capital. Robert, what is your email?

SPEAKER_02 33:22

Robert at Toncrypto Capital.com.

SPEAKER_01 33:24

Very original. If you enjoyed this episode, please leave us a review wherever you're listening. Thanks. See you guys next week.

SPEAKER_03 33:33

Thanks for listening to a wiser retirement podcast. We hope you enjoyed today's episode. Make sure to subscribe wherever you're listening. That way you don't miss any new episodes. We'd also appreciate if you could leave a rating and review. If you have any questions about anything that was discussed today, head to wiserinvestors.com and reach out. This podcast is strictly for informational purposes only and is not to be considered as investment advice or solicitation to buy or sell any financial products, securities, digital assets, or any other investment vehicles, or basis to make any financial decisions. Wiser Wealth Management Incorporated is a registered investor advisor with the SEC. The host and or guest may personally own securities, digital assets, or other investment vehicles mentioned on this podcast. Neither the host nor guest of the show are compensated for their participation, and no referral fees are paid to or received by any host or guest for clients, listeners, or similar interests. Investments involve risk, and unless otherwise stated are not guaranteed. Feature to first consult with a qualified financial advisor, tax professional, insurance professional, andor legal professional before implementing any strategy discussed herein. Past performance is not indicative of future performance.