Exploring the Proposed IRS Ruling With Ron Quaranta of Wall Street Blockchain Alliance

Listen in as Mark Eckerle and Ron Quaranta, Chairman and CEO of Wall Street Blockchain Alliance discuss WSBA’s activity within the crypto ecosystem and its plans for 2024, along with an examination of the IRS release on the proposed rules for brokers.

Transcript

Speaker 1 0:00

Hello, listeners, welcome to this episode of Cryptonomics. Before we jump into today's discussion, please keep in mind this recording is for general education and is not intended to constitute investment advice. Any opinions expressed are those of the participants and do not necessarily represent those of ham . Hello everyone. Welcome back to another episode of cryptonomics, brought to you by Ham . As always, I'm your host, mark Eckley, and today I welcome to the show a good friend who I've known for quite a while now, Ron Konta , chairman and CEO of Wall Street Blockchain Alliance. Welcome to today's show, Ron.

Speaker 2 0:31

Mark , it's good to see you, buddy. Thanks for having me. I'm really looking forward to it. Yeah,

Speaker 1 0:34

I'm looking forward . I'm glad we connected. Gotta bring back a meeting in the minds. We've got a lot to dive into today. Oh ,

Speaker 2 0:40

Yeah.

Speaker 1 0:40

The one thing I like to start off on is really, especially being first time here, I mean, definitely have you back on down the road, talk about more topics, but the first thing I like to learn your crypto journey. Right? How did you get into the space? Um, so let's start with like intros background and kind of how did your rabbit hole experience begin? Right? Everyone has one.

Speaker 2 1:00

Everyone has one. And , and half the times it almost sounds like myth, but I promise you this story is true, mark . Uh, so I come out of financial services and financial technology. I started working in 1989, freaks me out every time I say that year. Uh , I got involved in crypto probably around 2014. And the , the origin story there was, I had a gentleman on my sales team who called me up in 2013. He had left the company and moved on to a different organization, but he calls me up on my cell phone and he goes, Ron, I I need your help. So like, you know, I'm gonna make it sound like a bit of a movie mark, but when someone calls you on the cell phone and says that, and they're in financial markets, that's probably not a good phone call to take <laugh> . So I said, you know, bill, what's, what's going on? What's wrong? He goes, I've got a customer, one of my hedge fund clients, he wants me in on something called Bitcoin, but I think it's illegal. Oh God, what do I do? And that's literally the story. And ever since then, it's been me certainly trying to understand what the hell is a Bitcoin, what is a crypto? How might it impact financial markets? How might it change how we do what we do? So that was my intro to the world of crypto, and it's been the, the rollercoaster , uh, that you and I have been on ever since. Prior to my current role, I was CEO of a small company called Deriv Trusts. We were in the swaps market. We made middleware for swap execution facilities. Before that, I spent well over a decade at a company. I suspect everyone knows Thomson Reuters. Uh , I was their head of exchange trading for the Americas and what we called Global Trading Analytics. So the boring plumbing that makes Wall Street work, it was, it was price feeds and data feeds and SEC compliance reporting. And it's interesting, as I looked at that evolution of crypto and , and blockchain, that kind of background. Yeah . What was it? Steve Jobs's old saying, you can never connect the dots looking forward. You can always connect them, only connect 'em looking backwards. I realized my understanding of the frictions involved in lots of the things that are happening in the markets really informed my approach and my thoughts about what blockchain and crypto could do for financial markets. And that's kind of what got me here.

Speaker 1 2:58

It's, it's interesting to see kinda like that first call you had, right? And understanding what is Bitcoin, right? Because the reputation that Bitcoin and digital assets had back in 2014 is completely different than what it has today, right? It's way more mainstream, way more popular. It's , it's common tongue, especially among folks on Wall Street, right? It's, it's another alternative asset class. But back in the day, right, you had, it's the shady currency using Silk Road , these exchanges, you can only buy it in three places overseas . It was, yeah . Very esoteric asset class . And it's crazy to see in such a short time window how far we have come as

Speaker 2 3:30

An asset. I've been exactly, I've been thrown out of more conference rooms in 20 15, 20 14 than I care to remember. And these were with colleagues in banks and , and firms that I knew. But you're right, that evolution of, you know, there are some people who still believe crypto and Bitcoin specifically are only for illicit activity or tax evasion. And I'm sure you and I'll get into that, but that evolution really is something that's very marked and I think very important for the industry. It's a conversation that, you know, we, we all use the phrase trad fi . The truth of the matter is it's all fi in many regards. And a lot of the folks in the ecosystem are coming to understand this is potentially that next evolution and they need to be part of it.

Speaker 1 4:08

Yeah, I wholeheartedly agree and I'm, I'm excited to dive into it. So today's episode is really a two-parter, right? We're gonna start one. I wanna highlight and discuss all the exciting things that you guys are working on at the Wall Street Blockchain Alliance. Um, bunch of projects, white papers, just really a , a leader, a thought leader in the space. And then two is we're gonna dive into the recent IRSI say recent, I think it was in September or so. Yeah. Um, we're recording now in , in early December, the IRS guidance released proposed guidance , I should say it's not authoritative just yet. Yep . On the broker dealer rules, the change that it could have on the digital asset space and companies in the digital asset space , um, specifically as it goes to reporting. So let's start with Wall Street Blockchain Alliance going forward, I'm just gonna say WSBA to get the mouthful away from <laugh> outta this

Speaker 2 5:00

<laugh> . That works. Mark , that works. There are

Speaker 1 5:03

A bunch of different working groups, A bunch of different projects. Yep . Let's dive into it. Tell me some of the exciting stuff that you guys have worked on in 2023 and where we are at today.

Speaker 2 5:11

Yeah, so you know, the little real quick story about the origin of the WSBA, we started in 2015 quietly, and it really came out of the need that built on that prior experience I, me , I mentioned to you, which was how do we have the right conversations with bankers and brokers? And, and over time it expanded to include accounting professionals. You know, we're privileged to be partners with A-I-C-P-A, it included legal professionals as all of the lawyers are trying to figure out, wait, what is this and what does this mean for clients? And what are we doing going forward? So really that was the genesis of the WSBA as a not-for-profit trade association. We don't lobby, we don't buy or sell crypto, we don't give investment advice. I'm not even allowed to take membership dues in Crypto Mark , although we'll have that conversation at the next board meeting. And a lot of what we do, we structure along the lines of our working groups. And those working groups really do focus on professional verticals, like I mentioned. So it's accounting professionals, it's legal professionals, it's our crypto asset working group, which is professionals that are coming from classical Wall Street and are involved in investment management, portfolio management operations associated with global markets. We have an enterprise and technology working group that focuses on the intersection of what are the use cases and the product needs and what's the technology behind that, all that makes that work. So our working groups meet regularly, mark , and we're privileged to have you as a member. We meet at least once a month. Many of them meet at more than once a month. Uh, every month we have a series of meetings with members that really focus on what we call deliverables. And those deliverables can be a wide variety of things. It's submissions to proposed rulemaking by the Internal Revenue Service or the FCC or the CFTC or the PCA ob , you name your, you know, your alphabet soup of regulators. It's educational sessions with participants in the ecosystem that are really on the bleeding edge of everything from defi to the tokenization of real world assets and beyond. And really helping our members do what, what you've often heard me say, mark , which is cross-pollinate colleagues that are doing, you know, accounting work, understanding the technology aspect , technologists understanding the legal aspects. And in our perspective, that's really where the strength in membership lies. We really work with our members to be voice of industry. You don't need to see my big head on a TV talking about or on a webinar at all times, although this is a privilege. Uh, but , uh, talking about what we're doing, we really work with our members to make sure they're talking more widely within their organizations. They're educating where it's needed both for their companies and for their clients, and really where, where the, where the safe space to have those conversations and plan for the future.

Speaker 1 7:41

Mm-Hmm. <affirmative> . And , and one of the things that I really love, there's, there's a bunch of projects in the air by all the ver all the different working groups. Yep . But one thing that I've always kind of followed, tracked closely for, especially the groups that I haven't been part to as or or kid to , I'm not as hands-on, are the, the recurring frequent webinars. The , the daily, I don't wanna say Twitter spaces, but it's very similar that where it's just, it's pop-up, let's have a quick webinar, let's have a quick topic and discuss. And you bring experts in the respective fields together. And it's like really cutting edge news where, like you just mentioned, a proposed regulation just came out. Let's get the minds next day or that week together and discuss how this could impact the space and the companies in that space going forward. And I , I follow that closely. I've been, I've been loving the content, the product. It's fantastic. I can't advocate enough for it. Talk about that a little bit more. Yeah . And how, right, because I , I see there is so much content out in the space now. Yeah . Right. Everyone is doing some form of media content, whether it's articles, podcasts, webinars. How have you helped differentiate yourself from some of the others that might be highlighting similar content?

Speaker 2 8:53

Yeah, it's a really good question Mark and I , I'm grateful for it. You know, one of the, a couple , few of the things that we do, you know , I've got a great team, both the team within the WSBA as well as our working group chairs, all of whom have at least one full-time job. So they volunteer their time to be part of the ecosystem of what we're doing. And what we very much try to do is curate the information overload that so many of us get in this space. You know, we have a weekly newsletter that we share with meeting with members every week and every week my team goes through, oh, look, there's another thousand articles on a potential ETF can't share those all. But how do we cite the best articles? How do we curate through that data for members? Because one of the things we realized is our members' time and industry participants' time is, is limited and valuable. So if we can differentiate ourselves by saying, look, we've curated this based on our understanding of members, based on what you're working on, that's something that's very important to us on an ongoing basis. The other side of that, and I'm really grateful you raised this, mark , is these kind of pop-up webinars that we have for, for members. And there's two types of webinars that, that we've found. What I've also found is you can't plan anything in advance anymore. Just I've given up. So every month or so, we do have a webinar on a set topic. And it could be anything from , uh, the , the impact of ESG on , uh, blockchain and blockchain implementation for things like climate reporting to any number of other, other initiatives. Then it's the, oh my God, what did the SEC chair say this time? Or what is this IRS proposed rulemaking? Or the thing where literally Mark , we're waiting to hit the button on a pop-up global webinar is and ETF approval or not, probably sometime in January. And one of the things we work very hard to do is be ready to get engaged with members as quickly as we can when news breaks. That is what we call market impactful. So arguably an ETF approval. And I'm sure we can dive into that at some point. Probably market impactful when you see things like, you know, the SBF trial has been adjudicated, adjudicated and, and, you know, sentence will be passed early next year. But those kind of impacts on markets are the things we do are our popup global webinars. And the one last thing I'll end with that, mark , is we do that for members on a regular basis, but those kind of market moving webinars are open to the public. Yeah . We , we try really hard to get out there. We certainly have a lot of curated things only for members , uh, which is very important to us. But really we also want to make sure that we represent a voice that's not just the , oh look crypto bad again, and someone did something terrible. And this is only for illicit finance. We're not crypto anarchists. We believe in regulations. We believe in laws. Uh , and part of what our mission is, mark , is to really tell the true story of what's happening in the way that we think is helpful. Mm-Hmm . <affirmative> .

Speaker 1 11:38

Well , I , I usually close with this to help spotlight, but I think it's a good transition now, where can listeners, where can audience members find out that free content? Right? And I think that's something that's always, it's like we're all inundated with data. Yeah . Let's highlight, where can we find those free webinars? There's popup mini podcasts, if you will. Whatever you wanna call it. Yeah. The , the , the ,

Speaker 2 11:59

Sure. Yeah. So a couple of things I'd suggest, obviously , uh, go to our website, wba.co not.com , uh, in our news section, every one of the public submissions that we make is available free to the public. And I'd really advise people a lot of what we've been doing recently, mark , is we do LinkedIn live and X Live. I finally stopped calling it Twitter. I now call it x We'll , we'll do LinkedIn live. As a matter of fact, every Friday at 12 noon, I have the privilege of hosting with , uh, two of our members. One of our board members, Josh k Clayman , who you may know , uh, and David Brill . Shout out to great friends and colleagues in this space. Josh chairs our legal working group. David chairs our crypto asset working group. And every Friday we do a live crypto roundup. Uh, sometimes we'll have guests, sometimes not, and that will be any topic imaginable that's been in the news for that week that will always be publicized in advance. Uh, it's a regular recurring, so follow the WSBA on LinkedIn, follow the Ws BA on X. You'll always see the alert and it will always be publicly available post the recording.

Speaker 1 12:57

That's fantastic. Yeah. Like I said, always great content I've been following for. Thank you. I think as long as WSBA has been in existence , um, 'cause

Speaker 2 13:06

I go back , journey

Speaker 1 13:07

Started, started around the same time. So all exciting stuff. One, one last thing before we put a bow on it. Sure . We can , we can go back last couple years. Tell us about some of the exciting, like , comment letters, white , white papers, some of the, the ultimate deliverables that you mentioned before. Some of the exciting stuff that the working groups are working on. What has been released, what have been some of the key action items that have come out of those working groups over the last couple years that you , uh, you and the working groups are proud of, right? Like the , the ultimate deliverable.

Speaker 2 13:37

Yeah, certainly Mark and I appreciate that. So obviously when we talk about responding to comments, comment letters, a lot of those go through our legal working groups. Several of 'em go through our accounting working group . So obviously the recent , um, department of Treasury IRS proposals on gross proceeds and basis reporting for digital assets. I know you and I are gonna dive into that more deeply. We thought that was very important to respond to at a high level, and we could talk a little bit about why that I think that's important. Certainly SEC proposed , uh, regulations one of the ones we're most proud of. And I think it was something that was very important to the ecosystem, but in my mind, didn't get the attention. A lot of folks thought it , I thought should give it, to give it to, it was , um, the qualified custodian rules that the SEC proposed and put forward, certainly SSAB 1 21, which now is in kind of this weird, I guess limbo, but not depending on who , who you talk to. Uh, because GAO recently cited , uh, this SEC accounting bulletin , uh, 1 21 as potentially a proposed rule that should have gone through Congress versus, hey, it's guidance, do this. So it'll be interesting to see where that goes. So there really hasn't been a major proposed regulation , uh, that we haven't taken a look at , uh, and tried to respond to in kind, in addition to that, one of the things we frequently try to do strictly from an educational perspective, again, we're not lobbyists, we don't employ lobbyists, but we have a policy update that we do every month or so with , uh, two good colleagues that are members in Washington. I am not a Washington person. I don't know how the sausage is made mark , but they educate me every single week. So we do our regular monthly policy update that reviews what's the current state of legislation, what does this legislation do? So those are really important benefits that, that we've put forward and we're very, very proud of. The last thing I'll bring up Mark , is certainly when we look at the other working groups, when we look at our crypto asset working group, when we look at our tokenization working group, a lot of the output of those working groups end up being in-person events with thought leaders from around the world. So the most recent one in October was our crypto investor summit, which happened in person in New York City. And that was investors and lawyers and accountants , uh, really focused on the nitty gritty of, of what it means to be a crypto investor in this space. And we're not just talking about, you know, you and I back in 2013 buying Bitcoin, for example. It's hedge funds and institutional investors. What's their perspective? What's the legal and regulatory challenges for some of that, you know? And the important stuff there is that was Chatham House rules. We didn't record that. That was really meant to be a deep dive of people from Tradify and PHI or whatever it may be. Really try and understand what's our world going to look like together. And I think we're ver we were very, very proud to put that together.

Speaker 1 16:16

Yeah. As anyone that's listening, you could tell there are a lot of moving parts here. Definitely a well oiled machine, I'll call it WSBA. There's <laugh> a lot of great and exciting stuff that's being worked on. But let's dive into what you touched on earlier. The IRS proposed regs on the gross proceeds and , and the basis reporting by brokers. And who really falls under that broker name now I think they're trying to loop in digital asset companies. So let's, let's start off with, I know the WSBA responded to the comment during the comment process, the window with kind of the group's point of view and responses. If you haven't read it, I highly recommend anyone taking a quick pass at it. It's a different take on maybe some of the other firms, right? 'cause I think this IRS proposed reg received a ton of comment letters from firms in the space, right? Everyone was, I don't wanna say outraged to speak for other firms, but I think a lot of people were outraged at the end of the day, <laugh> . Yep . And it was neat to see your take, and I don't want to give away some of the meat potatoes, but let's start off with, tell us what the IRS is trying to accomplish here. Let's take it from the top. Yeah. What did the guide , what did the proposed regulation say? And then we could dive into kind of the response and the outcome and where we might shake out.

Speaker 2 17:27

Sure. And , uh, full disclaimer for everyone watching, mark knows this all too well. I'm not an accountant by training. I just spend an unbelievable amount of time with accountants , uh, which is always really fun. So Mark , you know, based on my understanding and the work that the team here did, when we look at what the IRS's proposed regulation, it was really about understanding , uh, the taxation of gross proceeds and the calculation of basis for digital asset transactions and how that reporting might happen. You know, and it's interesting because you're absolutely right. It was, it was a pretty meaty proposed , uh, regulation , uh, and and series of , of , um, rulemakings. And one of the things that we really tried to focus on, we knew A-I-C-P-A , we are partners with 'em , very proud to be partners with 'em . We , we give very granular perspectives. We knew great firms like your firm and others would give, you know, granular perspectives. We really tried very hard to hit on some themes. And one of the themes we tried very hard to hit on was, and I mean this with full respect to do Department of Treasury and the IRS, is I believe that some of the complicated capabilities that exist in the world that they're looking at and responsible taxation's important. We're not advocating for anything other than that. It's just a lot harder than I think regulators understand in some contexts. So when you look at, and I'm just paraphrasing some of this, the way that the IRS worded, the proposed guidance , um, what was a broker expanded into a world that I had not seen before, even in my previous history. So , uh, when you look at what the definition of a broker is, you're now potentially looking at peer-to-peer transactions, payment processors, automated market makers, or liquidity pools. And one of the things that I was very concerned about is that some of what's proposed doesn't seem to account for the fact that some of that is truly automated. I might not know who the other counterparty is to a particular transaction, if there is one at all. And what if the counterparty to the other transaction is a smart contract embedded in an A MM an automated , um, market maker, for example. So one of the things we tried very much to do is hit those high level themes. We think this is a mistake, or we think this is a bit problematic because it is very difficult to do this. It puts an undue burden on some participants in the market to try to understand, oh my God, where did these 10 million Defi transactions come from and how am I supposed to report on them? There were other nuances in there as well. I, I think, you know, I don't envy the IRS's task and, and all kidding aside , I don't envy any regulator's task innovations accelerating you. And I've seen this in crypto markets and other markets as well. So I don't think they appropriately accounted for the nuances , uh, of defi. Uh, I think they don't, didn't appropriately account for, don't seem to, you know, they seem to be silent on appropriate treatment of NFTs, or it seems to be a disproportionate treatment of NFTs and not fully understanding how that might be treated. I even think things like the , you know, lending in the crypto space hasn't really been thought through in the context of how lending and liquidity pools work for crypto. So again, yes, appropriate taxation makes sense. We would ask regulators to realize how hard the task they're putting forward is. And to the comment you made earlier, I looked it up earlier this morning, I think that it topped out at over a hundred thousand responses, mark. So that requires in my mind someone to say, maybe we should give this another thought. Um, so that's really where, where we tried to hit it up. It , it was a short response, four pages, I think, give or take. But we thought the themes were important because they informed the granular details.

Speaker 1 20:57

And I agree. I mean, I think anyone that has listened to me in the past, I am a proponent of regulation. I am a proponent of right following the rules. I , I think anyone that's in this space for the long haul isn't trying to skirt around anything. I think the key objective here, and you hit the nail on the head, is we wanna just make sure that the regulation bodies or regulating bodies, whoever it might be, right, alphabet soup, S-E-C-C-F-T-C-I-R-S, that they get it right for this asset class because it's something unlike any, we have seen before, the proposed regs did seem like it was almost an attack on this new defi world that crypto opens up, which hasn't been seen in anything that we have transacted in before. Right. Nothing that Wall Street has seen. So that's

Speaker 2 21:45

Right .

Speaker 1 21:46

When you think we all want proper regulation, we all want the K-Y-C-A-M-L procedures in place when you're dealing with third parties, some of that just might not fit into this, right ? Right. You're putting a square and a round hole or whatever the saying goes, <laugh> . Yeah .

Speaker 2 22:01

Yeah. I mean, it's a really good point, mark , because, you know, we talked about the technology of it. When we talk about defi, and I don't mean to keep saying smart contracts or amms, but for those of , of the folks in the audience, those are important components of the world that we know, including defi. It's not for a lack of wanting to comply. I think in many regards, particularly for technology providers that are offering FinTech services in this space, they may , they just don't know how to comply. Yeah . How do I get KYC am ML information for a smart contract living on a server someplace that was coded to do a specific activity? And I'm not, you know , I'm trying to minimize the importance of those transactions. Those are the things that we really hope regulators give deeper thought to. And you know, we're , again, I keep saying it , we're not a lobbyist, but we've met with regulators, we've met with legislators to have these conversations from an educational perspective, people like you and I and and your company and our organization, we always are ready to have that conversation to, to peel back the layers of the onion, so to speak. I think, mark , if I could, one other thing that I think is very, very important, and it's this misperceived conversation, and I I'm just saying mainstream media, not from a political perspective, just the way general media reports on crypto and defi, there are true privacy concerns. You know, and there's this, this weird dichotomy when you talk about privacy. There's a camp of people who say, well, you want privacy because you're doing illicit activities, you wanna avoid taxes. And we get the bad actors and we understand how important it's to stop the bad actors. But there really is a concern about individual persons privacy and the management of personally identifiable information. And it's everything from cybersecurity. Pick a government regulation regulator that , uh, or agency that hasn't had some type of cybersecurity breach to individuals are entitled to a degree of financial privacy within the confines of the law law . And again, to the point you just made, that means regulators and legislators need to sit with industry and have the conversation around, here's what the law requires, help understand what can be done to do that. And I think that's a very critical conversation.

Speaker 1 23:59

Yeah, I wholeheartedly agree. I think that is one of the core components when you boil down the digital asset, right? One of the benefits of digital assets and, and wallet security and all that stuff is the, I don't wanna say anonymity, but it is that comfort in your back pocket that I am not giving up all my personal identifying information with third party , and now they know everything about me and they could just take, freeze my assets whenever they want. Right ? That's one of the core benefits that I foresee with digital assets. Agreed .

Speaker 2 24:28

Agreed. And you know, the , I think a lot of people have made the comparison, well, you know, the dollar in your pocket or the $20 bill, the hundreds in Mark's wallet just for, for argument sake, within , within the context of this, this discussion. But the money in your wallet certainly has a serial number, certainly can be traced, but no individual transaction is saying, Hey, mark, where'd you get that dollar? And I think, you know, citizens are entitled to that level of privacy and discretion, again, fully within the confines of the law.

Speaker 1 24:55

I agree. I agree. So I'm excited to see what next steps come out of this. Yeah . Um, I know there are a couple firms that the IRS has brought down to DC to help kind of discuss the comment process in further detail in person that is ongoing currently. So it's gonna be, I , I mean, I think it's all boils down to 2024. There's gonna be a lot of exciting stuff for good or bad, we're gonna see where it goes. Yep . But 2024 is really gonna be a big year. I think 2023 we're coming out of that bear market, and 2022 was not the best year for digital assets space, the blockchain technology, whatever you wanna call it. We've moved past that. We're, we're kind of seeing the light at the end of the tunnel, and there's gonna be a lot of exciting announcements releases in 2024. One thing that's coming up , uh, hopefully shortly is , um, accounting guidance from the Financial Accounting Standards Board. So we are moving in the right direction, right. We're, we're kind of taking that next step as an asset class, which is exciting. So to pivot quickly to the, the WSBA, what do you guys have on the time horizon for 2024? What are you most excited about next year? And kind of going in , I , I know we touched on the etf , so January could be a huge month and just throw a wrench in everything and that'll be Yep . The focus for the year. Is there anything else that kind of peaks your interest a little bit? Yeah ,

Speaker 2 26:16

Yeah. It , you know, it's funny, just back real quickly, mark on the, you know, 2022 is a terrible, awful, horrible year. Uh, 2023 I 2020, the latter half of 2023. I was joking with my wife about it. It feels like if, how you feel when you recover from the flu, when you feel like you're alive again and you're just starting to come back. So we're hopeful that 2024 is like a , gonna be a really good year. So certainly the ETF uh, response and where that goes, you know, the WSBA will be hitting the road in 2024. So we've marked right now , uh, Boston, New York, where we're headquartered, Washington, DC pardon me, or , and probably Chicago or San Francisco. We also have members overseas, so there might be a London trip in my future. Not sure yet. Certainly our working group meetings continue to move forward. We're looking at some very different initiatives as well for 2024. Mark , I mentioned tokenization a bit earlier. Uh , you and I could spend another hour on that, both the tokenization of, of digital assets as well as the tokenization of real world assets. Our tokenization working group is really launching a series of initiatives around the publications of everything from a framework to understand the tokenization of real world assets, benefits, and risks. So some level of a scoring to understand for those companies and those individuals whose roles require them to understand, I need to tokenize Ron's mortgage, what does that mean and what does that look like? The checklist of how does this work? And the framework around understanding what that means. So we're looking forward to working on that. The other thing we're putting forward, mark , and you might have seen this as well, and it got pretty quiet later on in this year, but earlier this year, the WSBA worked with a series of our members across multiple firms and, and profess industry professions to launch what we called our crypto industry principles. And the principles were very much focused on not guidance, not even necessarily best practices, though we suspect a series of best practices might be needed. It was really focused on how do you wanna behave in this ecosystem? What are the things individuals and corporations need to focus on, both as participants in the ecosystem that is crypto and blockchain and defi, as well as those firms and organizations trying to understand participants in crypto and , uh, blockchain and defi. And it focuses on everything from the basics that you, you would've thought we knew in the world prior to FTX and SBF. So no commingling of customer funds, full disclosures, the ability to understand segregation, for example, we're gonna be hitting the road again, really participating with both , uh, WSBA members as well as wider industry participants, really getting them to be behind these industry principles. Because again, one of the things that gets lost in the noise, mark and I , I , I suspect you agree with this, is the bad news always gets the big headlines, but it omits the people who are , and the firms that are building and the builders you continue to build. So that's gonna be a good chunk of what we do for 2024. Our regular meetings will continue. Uh, mark, as you know, we do our own share of socializing, socialization, and networking events. So every month we have our networking and cocktails with , uh, new and old members , uh, in New York City. Uh , always an opportunity to chat with friends and colleagues. So there's a lot of opportunity, again to cross pollinate , uh, for members. And Mark , I've just had you invited to every one of them, so you're on every list, so be prepared.

Speaker 1 29:27

Looking forward to it. I can't wait. Um, I'm excited. Is there, is there anything personally that you're excited about in 2024? I know from a professional side, right? We, we discussed all the exciting stuff that the organization's going on, on. Is there any like sub-niches, sub-verticals in crypto that you're kind of excited to see? Maybe take the next step, maybe something that's new or pop off? I know, like personally, I'm , I'm excited to see one way or the other, the happening impact every four years. Yep . That's gonna be fun in the spring or early summer. Yeah . Um, that's been a hot topic as of now, especially with Bitcoin miners. Anything that, just from a personal level, I mean, I know we're both in this space personally and professionally, so it's <laugh> it definitely keeps it interesting.

Speaker 2 30:08

Yeah, I , there's so, interestingly for me, aside from my wife wondering why I'm not a bitcoin billionaire yet, we'll have to have that conversation with her , uh, tomorrow. Uh, mark at the , uh, at the event, you know, there are two things that I very much am focusing on in a personal capacity. Um, certainly climate reporting I find very interesting in the, the work that's work that's developing there and the tokenization of climate reporting. And the reason for that is in a different life. Part of the work I did at Thomson Reuters , uh, worked with our , uh, emissions group and kind of the climate group back in the Kyoto Protocol days where hey, emissions reductions, credits, we'll use the free market to reduce carbon emissions, et cetera, et cetera. But no one could prove authenticity. No one can prove providence . And then out of three or four countries, somewhere in eastern Europe, people were just like printing ERCs and selling them. And it turned the market entirely collapsed. I believe we're seeing real evolution in that space and leveraging of both blockchain and tokenization to move climate change and climate reporting forward. I'm really looking forward personally to diving into some of that. The other thing I've started really diving into, and I'm old enough to remember like playing ColecoVision , so I'm not the big gamer anymore, is gaming and crypto and blockchain, and understanding the impact of gaming and Web3 on the generations coming after me. I , and I , it's just fascinating to see digital ecosystems developing solely because they live in the gaming world. And I would love to see understanding what's that impact on the global market. Those kids that are playing games right now, they're gonna be adults one day and they will be fully Web3 ready . And I, I'm hoping to learn, and I'd really love to start understanding the 2024, what does that mean for the future? I think those are important conversations.

Speaker 1 31:49

Yeah, I think that's a great space as well, right? When you think of, like, you coined earlier, the , the cross pollination, it's the younger generation mixing with digital assets or virtual currencies, whatever the end game token is. Yep . With the collaboration of NFTs and how that can kinda mix into some of the open world concept games, the metaverse, I really think that space, we are in the early foray of what gaming could be and the impact it has on NFTs and digital assets. So certainly an area to be excited about. Ron, I I appreciate you joining us today. That wraps up today's episode. It was a pleasure catching up as always. It's been long overdue. Where can listeners, I know you mentioned WSBA, where can listeners go to learn more about the, the Twitter spaces ? You said it's the LinkedIn and the Yeah , I shouldn't say x , I keep saying Twitter.

Speaker 2 32:35

I keep saying Twitter . So WSBA is on LinkedIn. You could look us up in LinkedIn. WSBA has its own corporate page. Uh, certainly you can follow the WSBA. All of our major announcements go there. And every Friday at 12 noon is our , um, crypto roundup , uh, me and smarter people than me. Uh, Josh Kleiman and David Bro will be there every week. And we do everything from market rack wrap up to what the heck does this regulation mean? Um, and usually some funny comments in between about , uh, David's Learjet, but you'll have to watch that to hear . Uh, and then we're certainly, W SBA is on X as well. So , uh, w sba , uh, at wba.co, my god, I forgot our, I forgot our Twitter hand . Our x handle came gonna kill me. So LinkedIn and Twitter generally , uh, we also stream through other channels on, on Facebook and some of the live streaming there as well. Those are the two main places to go. Any additional information anyone wants, it'd be a privilege. And Mark , again, thank you for the opportunity info@wba.co. The team's always happy to respond to questions and looking forward to working with you and the team there, mark more in the new year .

Speaker 1 33:34

Likewise, looking forward to it. Thanks again. And that wraps up another episode of Cryptonomics. Thanks, mark. Thank you. All views expressed in this podcast by Mark Eckley or his guests are solely their opinions and do not reflect the opinion of Ham . This podcast is for informational purposes only.