Not Just Money

Blockchain Isn’t What You Think It Is | Saqr Ereiqat

• Hantec Markets

Share episode

Use Left/Right to seek, Home/End to jump to start or end. Hold shift to jump forward or backward.

0:00 | 1:09:09

Saqr Ereiqat is the Secretary General of the Dubai Digital Asset Association, driving the growth of the digital asset ecosystem. With over 20 years of experience in technology and innovation,  he brings deep insight and a grounded perspective on whether blockchain is truly transformative and how regions like the UAE are positioning themselves at the forefront of innovation.

In this episode, we explore the real impact of blockchain beyond the hype, the historical patterns behind technological shifts, the rise of digital currencies and why trust not capital will become the most valuable currency in the future.

Key Learnings: 
Blockchain’s impact goes beyond hype
Tech adoption follows predictable cycles
Governments are accelerating digital currencies
Trust will become the most valuable currency

0:00 Intro
3:27 Saqr’s background
5:45 Will blockchain change the world?
13:09 History of tech adoption
23:24 Why are governments globally seeking to create digital currencies / stablecoins?
28:31 The cypherpunk movement
34:36 How the UAE’s leaders fuel innovation?
38:24 Is energy limited?
47:15 How has the talent landscape changed in the UAE?
53:06 Trust is the currency of the future
59:41 What is blockchain

Follow Saqr:
Linkedin: https://www.linkedin.com/in/saqr1/

Follow Not Just Money:
Linkedin: https://www.linkedin.com/company/hantecmarkets/
Instagram: https://www.instagram.com/notjustmoney_podcast/ 
Tiktok: https://www.tiktok.com/@notjustmoney_podcast

SPEAKER_00

The biggest lie ever told to humanity that we believe in until today is that resources, energy particularly, are limited. I don't make many fans with this, but I don't believe that the democratic process can keep up with technology at its pace. I do believe that trust is going to drive the change. Not better technology, not the better use case, not faster processing, not speed of no, it's trust. The matter of the fact is, and let's say it plainly, blockchain is boring. Blockchain isn't sexy. Whereas crypto, crypto is boom and bust. Put a dollar, get a hundred out, put a dollar, get a thousand out. Crypto was the best and worst thing to have with the blockchain. Blockchain, the only other technology I can compare it with is the internet. Blockchain is foundational technology. I think it's unfair of me to expect that within 10 years this technology is just going to come and take over. When the internet took decades and decades, when AI took decades and decades, blockchain isn't for everything. Nor will it be used for everything. I actually don't believe that the entire world is going to be running on blockchain. I spend more time convincing people that they shouldn't go on blockchain these days than I convince them of going on blockchain.

SPEAKER_02

The dumbest, simplest question just to round off for people to finally understand. Sakhar, what is blockchain? Please explain it to us.

SPEAKER_01

It's a pleasure being here. Thank you for having me. Thank you so much for your time. Really appreciate it. So, Sakar, I'd like to give always like to give the audience context of how we met. So, coincidentally, guys, Sakhar and I actually were at the same crypto the hack seasons conference back in 2025. I was the MC for the event and he was one of the panelists speaking at the time. And that conference was centered around leaving hype and going into real-world use cases, which I think over the last year has been the biggest shift in the in the blockchain and the web 3 space because people are like, halas, okay, Bitcoin, this, that, but we need to figure out if it's all just hype, how are we gonna use this? What's he gonna do for us, right? And he's the Secretary General of the Dubai Digital Asset Association, he's advisor for the Pakistani uh association as well. Pakistan Digital Government. Pakistan Digital Government as well. And he's you've worked across lots of different governments. I've done my research and you've been instrumental, you with, of course, Dr. Marwan, as well as one of the earliest people in this space here in the UAE launching the blockchain the blockchain strategy in 2016 and to see where it is now in only 10 years, mashallah is incredible. Alhamdulillah. But before I'm gonna have so many questions, Saqqar, but before we dive into everything and you know, into more of the work you do on your background, why don't you give all of us, for the people who don't know, a little bit of background about yourself and we'll take it from there.

SPEAKER_00

Sure. Um, first of all, it's always a pleasure to be here. So thanks for having me. It's a beautiful Sunday morning. Um, whenever this is going to air, but today is a very good thing. It's a beautiful day, alhamdulillah. Um my name is Saqar Erikat. I'm um, you know, really everything about me professionally you can find online. Uh so um so I'm born and raised in Germany. I left Germany at 18, studied in London, and then moved to Dubai. Um when I moved to Dubai, then uh I was uh lucky enough that IBM had just switched um their entire organizational structure around. So Dubai became the center of Middle Eastern Africa. So uh we became our own little geography. And um, you know, I was 21 at the time, and uh I became somewhat of the yes man within IBM consulting. And this is how I found myself living in nine countries with them, um working in 23 countries, um, developing, you know, work that I could only dream of, uh changing the laws uh Bafatulanam Rabbilal Amin in four countries, uh Pakistan being the most recent of them. And um and yet and at some point uh entrepreneurship was calling, you know, and this is really close to home because uh my father, may uh may God bless uh your parents and your loved ones, is someone that's never been employed a day in his life. Entrepreneur from day one. From day one. He doesn't know it any any other way. Um and and I've always been fascinated by that. So then I think five, six years ago, I left uh I left IBM. I partnered with the government, with a bunch of uh guys from Switzerland to help build that bridge to move um because you know you've alluded to it in your in your introduction and when we're gonna go into it, and to help guar uh to help blockchain companies move to the UAE. And that was Crypto Oasis, right? Now it's Crypto Oasis. Uh we partnered with uh Dubai multi-commodities centers, the DMCC. We opened uh uh the DMCC Crypto Center, which was the first of its kind in the UAE, and and until today, I'm pretty sure holds the most number of blockchain entities of any jurisdiction, as far as I understand. And then, you know, the rest is really history, and we're gonna dwell on it, I'm sure.

SPEAKER_01

Well, thank you for giving the audience context of your story and how we got here. So I want to start the conversation here because I think this is the important thing to do. Now, in all the conversations I've had on my podcast, when it comes to this space, it was always about crypto. It was about the Bitcoin, you know, it's the new gold and it's the only asset class that has lasted 10 years, and blockchain was built on it, and so on and so on. But the problem is, I in my experience, because I've been in crypto, I FOMO'd in in 2020 like everyone else, because I'm like, everyone's making money. Like, I want to make money too. And then I made all the wrong decisions. So I'm like, you know what? I'm gonna take a break for the market, let me go away. If I don't understand, I'm not gonna come back and over the last year because my wife is now leading the space as well. So I'm like, okay, let me get in and like understand more. The issue is that crypto is like the carrot that got the world involved because it was not about what crypto is and technology, just like people want to make money, right? And want to make money quickly. But behind that is blockchain and the that technology. And from your experience and your story, you believe that's the technology that is trying going to and is already transforming the world. So, my question to you to start us off is why does crypto steal the limelight? And how I think we need to now reach a stage to shift it to blockchain because that's where the actual use cases are gonna come from.

SPEAKER_00

It's a really good question. I I think I've answered it in in in so many different ways over the years, but but the matter of the fact is, and let's say it plainly, blockchain is boring. Blockchain isn't sexy, blockchain doesn't make you money, blockchain saves you money. Blockchain doesn't help you invent something new, it makes you more efficient, right? It's it's a it's a grown-up technology. Whereas crypto, crypto is boom and bust. Put a dollar, get a hundred out, put a dollar, get a thousand out, put a thousand, get nothing out, right? So so so it's it's much more exciting. Yeah. Plus, this entire notion of of freeing the money from institutions or freeing moves of value, that's also, you know, that that appeals to a lot of people's anti-establishment sense, right? And I won't lie to you, I started there as well. Only to realize it doesn't work like that. You know, people are saying, you know, everyone's tall calling the demise of the dollar. What no one realizes is the demise of the dollar is the demise of the the world as we know it, right? True. Um and and and with that, if we if we paint a picture, and we're sitting on this table here right now, and this entire table is blockchain technology. I think it'd be fair to say that not more than maybe this corner over here, um, which is a very small corner, not even the size of my hand, I'd attribute to crypto. But blockchain technology is everything here. That's a great way to put it, actually. Yeah, you know, I also believe that blockchain, the only other technology I can compare it with is the internet. Right? Blockchain is foundational technology that's going to make the world work without the world realizing. And that's where we've gone wrong. Because we constantly want to talk about blockchain and how blockchain is going to make this work. Nonsense. A decade into more than a decade. I've spent so much time trying to convince people of blockchain, only to realize no one cares. You know what people care about? I can do this faster, I can do this easier, I can do this. And you know, when you say login with your wallet, that's not faster, that's not easier, that's not less friction. But when I tell you that based on the flight information of your flight and the insurance that you bought, if the flight gets delayed, you automatically have the money in your bank account because your insurance realized that the flight is delayed and is now reimbursing you, right? That's now a cool use case. Do you care what technology this was built on? Should you care what technology this was built on? Do you understand the internet? No, absolutely not.

unknown

Right?

SPEAKER_00

And it's only then that I realized that we've been going at it. So I think if anyone is at fault, I am. And people in my industry are as well. And, you know, we're we're we're learning to not have the blockchain conversation anymore. And I'll tell you another thing. I spend more time convincing people that they shouldn't go on blockchain these days than I convince them of going on blockchain these days. That's so interesting. Could you elaborate more on that, please? It's it's freaky. I realized the other day, literally, it was a roundtable, and suddenly I'm the guy arguing against blockchain, not because I'm against blockchain. I I I think I'm fascinated by this technology. Now, mind you, it still hasn't met its promise that I originally had in my mind, this vision that I originally had in my mind, but I still believe in it. You know, people someone picked me up the other day and it's like, he's literally because if I think back, I think the first thing I think the first time on stage for me was 2015. I must have gotten into this 2014. Anyhow, so we're we're well into it. What is it, 2020? That's 12 years. Yeah, yeah. And I still maintain that this is going to change the world. But I've just now understood that it's not going to change the world on my timeline or on anyone's timeline, but it's on its own timeline. Right. So with that, with that, I guess, and I have to admit that with that maturity came the understanding that blockchain isn't for everything, nor will it be used for everything. I actually don't believe that the entire world is going to be running on blockchain. Right? But I do believe, and again, another analogy to make this closer, because you know, what's blockchain? And until today, so the internet, we're all users of the internet. Anyone listening to this today is listening to us over the internet, watching it over the internet. Cool. So there's this open internet that's accessible to everyone. But when you go to your office, you log in. Do you log in to your company's internet or you have a little intranet? Right? Similarly, I believe that a lot of the world will then transform to run on blockchain in one case, but that doesn't mean that other bits will disappear and then suddenly everything is on blockchain because everything shouldn't be on blockchain.

SPEAKER_01

So that's it's very interesting to hear the blockchain argument in the sense of to your point, I the way you describe that, I liken it to like AI, for example. We can have, I've had 20 billion conversations about AI, and I'm so AI'd out at this point, you know, figure it out, learn what to use, and like use it. But to your point, which is very important, is with AI, did anyone go and read, like, oh, how do I build an LLM? How do I do this? No, they're like, oh, I have this thing, this app, this AI, this product that will deliver me this result, make me help me make content faster, help me do this, this, this. So people only care about the outcome, not the underlying technology, or like, yeah, I'll put this there and whatever. Now, what's interesting, what you said, is the vision that you had like when this started and that will it will change the world, has not, at least at this point yet, not hit where you expected it to go. So I'm curious from my perspective, I look at it as blockchain has been is what fintech was built on. You know, it was the key to this whole fintech space. So I would say it really has changed the world. So I'm curious for you, where is the gap that is not there yet, or you expect it or think it will go?

SPEAKER_00

Again, I find myself you know justifying, so to say, the the the antithesis to blockchain, right? Um, which is a funny situation to be because I was constantly the guy hey, blockchain, blockchain, blockchain, blockchain or die. I literally said that on stage once blockchain or die. For banks, it's blockchain or die. Um, and I do maintain still a bit of it, so I don't I don't roll back very much. Yeah, yeah. You mentioned AI. And AI is is as I think a fascinating technology that even the most seasoned expert that I know in this space, and you know, I was just with a gentleman that's won the Turing prize, which is you know the Nobel Prize of Yeah, and in AI. And everyone, when you when you spend enough time with them, you push them towards that, and you know, the internet is full of these these examples, will tell you that AI is also this magical technology that God knows how far it's going to drive us. You know, you'll you have seasoned experts arguing that yes, AGI, you have seasoned experts saying this is impossible, right? God knows, I don't know what the answer is. But AI in itself, as a technology, I think we celebrated 70 years of artificial intelligence as a world, as a word, the other day. Blockchain as a word has only been shared for the first time, I think, in the white paper, which was 2008. Yeah, with Bitcoin, right? Yeah, yeah. Right. Bitcoin. So Bitcoin, Bitcoin did the two things. Bitcoin did create that you know, electronic, digital, uh, uh, peer-to-peer cashless society or or network. But it did at the same time also create this blockchain technology. Does that mean that no one had distributed ledgers before? No, no, we had distributed ledgers, we had block the precursors of blockchain technology. But blockchain technology as a word and blockchain, right? That's 2008. All right, now let's let's normalize and let's compare apples to apples. Sure. AI 70 years, and when did we start using it? 21, 22, when was the chat GPT mode? 23? Yeah, yeah, basically. Very recently, right? That took I I remember in 2000 and what was it, 16? We went live for the government of uh of the UAE with an AI that helps you. It's a chatbot, chat GPT-like, for all intents and purposes, that you go log in with, and you know, you can figure out what kind of checks and and and approvals do you need to open a restaurant. Super powerful, isn't it? How's that different to chat GPT? Hardly. Did many people care at the time? No. So again, the technology was there. I think it, you know, respect to the government of the the UAE, the government of Dubai particularly to to actually adopt this technology. But was there uptake for it? No, not much. I mean, it was used, and I think the metrics were solid and everything, but you know, did you at the time hear, oh my god, you can now use AI to set up your company? Yeah, sure, the headlines were around, but do you know five people that did that? Probably no, not at that time. Absolutely not. Yeah. Similarly, blockchain as a technology, I think is mature enough, is solid enough. And this is the one thing that I understood because I was I was really taken by it. And I I I don't have to tell people, you know, you go back and I've seen, you know, that your passion for it is very clear.

SPEAKER_01

I was mesmerized by it, right?

SPEAKER_00

It's no other way of saying it. Yeah. And only because, because if you're listening right now and you're saying this blockchain world, I don't get this word, I don't get it, that's exactly where my my quote unquote passion stemmed from, because I really didn't get it. And in 2014-15, no one, no one was speaking about blockchain as a technology. Let's not say no one. There was a handful of people, and these handful of people are those then that went on to create the first smart contract platforms and the likes. So I think it's unfair of me to expect that within 10 years this technology is just going to come and take over when the internet took decades and decades, when AI took decades and decades, when mobile technology took decades and decades, right? Any widely adopted technology, social media took decades and decades, right, to actually mature to a place where we are today where it's business as usual. And we're still unfortunately now slowly but sure. I'm I'm I'm quite optimistic of this wave, right? And then people are gonna say, hey, but Bitcoin is down, how come you're optimistic? I'm super optimistic because we're getting more traditional people profile. Institutions coming in, right? Not necessarily institutions. I I was never the one to hope for the institutions entering. And I mean, now you know, case in point, um we can see what's happening right now that the institutions are there and it's not positive, right? And it's not good for for for the smaller, smaller users, let's put it this way. But I'm more positive that less and less techies are dominating this place, right? Because typically when you go into a conference 10 years ago, you won't find business people. You don't find, you know, I don't know anyone that entered very early on thinking that they're gonna make a billion dollars with this. Right? People come to me and say, How did you notice that you wanted to buy Bitcoin? How did that make sense to you? It didn't. It was the only thing you could do. Literally, you want to use blockchain? Yeah, you want to touch it? Yeah, you can buy Bitcoin. Yeah, sure. Okay. And then you can look at the blocks and see how it moved, and you look at the hashes and right? Um, but the matter of the fact is the man many of these people, particularly of the first wave, they're pure techies. Pure techies aren't going to change the world. They're too much, too narrow in their thinking that we know it better, everyone needs to do it the way we are doing it. That's not the way the world works. You don't care about how I do things and if it's better, you care about how you do things. Of course. Now, can I give you a small improvement to the way you're doing it and then yeah, provide you with a better outcome? Perfect, you're gonna use it. Even better, can I let you do what you do without any change to what you do, to your behavior, and just be uh more efficient in the background, uh more nimble in the background, more secure in the background. That's when we start having winner products. Now, we uh should mention that USDT today um manages more capital on chain and moves more capital on chain than Visa and MasterCard put together. Yeah. Really? Yeah. You should see the visuals. It's like the visual is even more impressive than Visa and MasterCard put together do not clear as much as as Tether does. That's insane. It's crazy. Right? The DTCC, which is the clearing house of Wall Street, has been on blockchain for years and years. So there are good use cases out there, but I think we're still a bit away from I mean, I I don't think we're out of, you know, when you when you look at innovation life cycles, and and and and there's a really good book uh by Malcolm Gladwell called The Tipping Point. Oh, it's a great book. You've loved that. Yeah, excellent book. And and you know, it talks about how things catch fire, right? He analyzes trends and looks at, you know, what's that and where's that tipping point? I think we're we're still a bit away from that tipping point. I don't think we're at early, early uh adopters just yet. I think we're still adding more early adopters. And then, you know, just to talk about the methodology he talks about, and then you need to come to the wide majority. And I don't think and you know what? I stopped trying to call the future. I can just say this is a great technology. I don't see anything, and you know, the next question might be hey, and quantum, and I don't know, but no, no, that's you know, it's it's all media nonsense if you ask me, right? The technology is quantum ready, the technology is quantum proof. Um, generally, what I want everyone to keep in mind is. If if you know there's swords in the world, then people will be attacking with swords and defending with swords.

SPEAKER_01

Well, first of all, you actually Mashallah, you went to the next question when I was gonna because I was gonna bring up quantum. Not only because I just the the scale of it is something that my mind can't fathom. And I didn't either mind. You know, by the way. I didn't know that. I had no idea though that this blockchain sounds like has been designed in a way to use that. We don't have to get into you know into that that deep of the conversation. But what I wanna what you said what was interesting is when you expand, you know, the internet and mobile and all these game-changing industries that took decades to do, when you frame it like that, and you're like blockchain's been around for basically like two seconds in comparison, like how can we expect it to be where internet is today with that is? And I think that's a very important point that people don't realize. Took me a bit to get there. But because I think no, but I don't I don't blame you though because the hype that's been around it, and I think crypto was the crypto was the best and worst thing to happen with the blockchain. It was the fuel on the fire that got everyone interested in crypto, and then they're like, it's on a blockchain, so people had to learn what is a blockchain. But at the same time, it took everything away, and it all became about you know tokens and crypto rather than the technology, you know, itself. What's interesting from your experience, so you were part of the um one of the earliest people here and advising the government and working with them to like do all that, but you also said you've done it now in Oman, the Pakistan, and so on. So, my question to you is I I still don't understand personally this why governments are now looking to not get on blockchain, but to launch like stable coins, you know, the digital dirham now is available and all this. I don't understand what's the motivation for that and how does that affect the like the financial you know space? Is it protect, defend, is it to hedge? Like, I don't could you walk me through that approach and what what's the mindset behind it?

SPEAKER_00

Why are governments choosing to go to uh stable coins? Yeah, and like create their own digital assets. Because the thought leadership said so. But what's the what's the advantage? I I tried to convince people of doing this. Now, this is the new the new the new field to convince I was trying so the benefits of it have always been there. And uh, you know, I'm privileged enough to have been in the rooms with the decision makers trying to convince them to do this. And I can tell you why they moved, and they didn't move because I made a compelling argument. Now, mind you, the exception to that rule is the UE. And I really I'm not just giving lip service to the UE, we are here. Honestly, it really is. Here we had the conversation very early on, it clicked. Uh, they they immediately sprung up Project Haber. Project Haber is, I think, one of the most successful CBDC stories of of of and well, maybe not a CBDC, but a stable token used in in government to government anywhere, right? And it's been live, if I'm not mistaken, since 19 or 20, still happening, still has transactions on it. So when you ask me why are governments moving now, because it's the flavor of governments and and sorry, I'm not wanting to say that governments aren't independent or anything. Of course they are, but but the matter of the fact is governments um work with thought leaders around the world and they go after certain thought leader entities, like for example, the the Bank of International Settlements, right? The Bank of International Settlements was saying blockchain, and you know, and they they didn't have a positive point of view, but now the Bank of International Settlements, ever and everyone is a member state, um is telling people you should start figuring out how to use this stable token. Right? So the World Economic Forum is telling people you should use this. Go to any forum, go to any thought leader. So now it's not an innovator innovators' dilemma anymore that should you or shouldn't you? I think there's there's more than 180 active pilots right now on uh on stable tokens that are government-backed, call them uh uh you know CBDCs, call them approved stable tokens, right? There's there's many, and I think we have the entire flavor here in the UAE. So, for example, um most recently, and I find that fascinating, we had the first dollar denominated stable coin out of the UAE. Wait, but the UAE is dirhum. But no, they said there's a use case for a dollar-denominated stablecoin, so we're gonna create a dollar-denominated stable coin. It's called USDU, um USD Universal. Um, we're going to manage it out of 80 GM and we're going to issue it into the market. And you know what? We're going to tie it to a locally stable uh fixed stablecoin, so that's also it's also dirham denominated. Gotcha. Okay. Right. Makes perfect sense. So just to to wrap up that answer, because I could go on and on, but um, I think government banks are doing it right now because it's out of the fringe and it's it's accepted thought leadership that you should have a stable token project that you should explore at the bare minimum. Um but yeah, the list of benefits starts and doesn't end with a caveat. None of this is immediate. Because what it actually does to your entire infrastructure is it, it I wouldn't say doubled, but it is an additional cost to your infrastructure. Because, you know, people think that, hey, you switch on stables and then you can switch off something else. No, that's not the case. The matter of the fact is now you're managing this, which is, you know, 21st century technology, you're managing this, which is, you know, 20th century technology. And that actually increases the cost. And that's that's a lot of the dilemmas that I've seen institutions at okay, we're spending so much money here. Yes, we are seeing savings, but because we haven't scaled this, these savings don't make up for the cost spent. So it's a bit of a dilemma.

SPEAKER_01

Very okay. So it's from what I understood from you, it's more about this is something, it's the on a global perspective, and lots of countries are looking to launch their own because it seems like you have to have this now and have to have this, you know, um this form of digital currency to kind of be playing in the 21st century financial global economy game. That's what it that's what I understood from that.

SPEAKER_03

Yeah.

SPEAKER_01

I'm gonna play devil's advocate for a second. Okay, my theory or my perspective is the biggest attraction of this technology in crypto was that it cut out to your, as you mentioned before, the middleman, and now me and you can trade peer-to-peer, and you know, without anyone involved, government, whatever. Now, in general, a government does not doesn't seem to be the big, and not I'm not saying here or anywhere, I'm saying in general, governments don't seem to be the biggest fans of that. That's why you look at, for example, the US, there's crazy regulation that they're putting in because they want you like they're like, oh, you can't have a piece of this pie, and you know, we don't. So when I look at digital currency, what Khalid thinks is like, uh, let us join this game so that we can regain control of everyone that's not that is trying to do this or is doing this in a decentralized legal way. That's my two cents. Would love to hear what you think about that.

SPEAKER_00

I think um it's important to understand where the culture and movement started that brought us digital money or peer-to-peer electronic cash, which is Bitcoin. And it's much of it is out of the cypherpunk movement, right? Which is I I invite you all to to go out and realize it, but but really it can be summarized in many ways as in an anti-establishment movement, right? Anti-banks, anti-governments, and so forth. And many of the much of the early literature goes towards that as well. And you know what? Although I started so I started in this very contrarian to to to how normally I know anyone that started, because I started with government. From the beginning. Yeah, from the beginning. You were yeah, yeah. I started with the UAE. I mean, I I give all credit to Dubai as a city. If they wouldn't have asked us to research this, we and you know, if they wouldn't have been open to talk about this, then God knows what I'd be doing right now. Excuse me. Now, the matter of the fact is that cyberpunk movement, that anti-establishment movement, that doesn't go hand in hand with wide-scale adoption. That's a very nice way to put it. It's very simple. You can't be out there and say, you know, uh, you know, all the banks are gonna die, all of the governments are going to disappear and expect ever anyone to listen to you. Believe it or not, I was standing on stage and I said banks uh blockchain or die, governments will not exist. And you know what? I've I haven't necessarily changed my mind. So I don't disagree that maybe in a hundred years banking, government, and everything will look very different. Of course. But on the short term or medium term, even this isn't about technology as much as it is about social constructs. This isn't about technology as much as it is about behavior.

SPEAKER_01

Interesting.

SPEAKER_00

This isn't about technology as much as it is about how I feel safe and how I trust. And these are things that are really difficult. Technology is easy, the technology works, right? But the matter of the fact is bringing that technology to life, especially if we talk about the region, I mean, uh here again, give m giving credit to the UAE as a whole, the UAE can be credited as the most advanced country for blockchain legislation anywhere in the world. Absolutely. Now, you may like it, you may not like it. There's enough people that don't like it, there's enough people that have questions, but if you look at the legislative frameworks anywhere around the world, nothing is as advanced as we have, and we have a mirage of them. You know, you you you're you're spoiled for choice. You want to go to the Virtual Asset Regulatory Authority or to the Divide International Financial Team. The IRC, everyone. Right? And everyone in its own right is its own little regulatory framework that is some of the best that we're seeing anywhere in the world. And I've had these conversations with lawyers and people because, you know, am I a lawyer and can I but no, we did and the numbers speak for it. The virtual asset regulatory authority houses more licensed entities than any other licensing framework anywhere in the world. Anywhere in the world. Anywhere in the world. Nowhere are there more licensed entities under one legal framework, one unique legal framework, than at uh the virtual asset regulatory authority. That speaks for itself, right? So I guess in summary, what I'm trying to say is um we don't necessarily need to think about everything as having to burn down the existing structures as much as it is augmenting the existing structures. And I think the cypherpunk movement really wants to burn down. Yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah.

SPEAKER_01

That's a that's going too hardlined over there. But honestly, you mentioned something, Sakhar, just now, that is so important because, like you said, the technology is easy, but it's human behavior, the social construct. To trust, for Khalid to trust to send his to money to Sakhar directly, you know, on chain, whatever. So that took a obviously now it's more common, but that took a long time. There's still people uh you mentioned it in the park, even when you you've transacted many times, but even when you still transact, there's that little nervousness that like which I appreciate.

SPEAKER_00

You know, I I transact mostly on uh uh uh blockchain-based forms of money, sure, right? And one should think that by now I I'm not scared anymore. Maybe scared is a bit of a paranoid, I think that's the right word. Yeah, yeah, yeah. I go through every single character on this address, even if I've copy-pasted it at least three times for the past decade or so, right?

SPEAKER_01

Um so yeah, yeah, and coming on to your point about regulation now, okay. We mentioned VAR, ADGM, DIFC. Now, I think a lot of times historically, people have looked at regulation as a roadblock to progress. But here, to your point, why the UAE has been positioned and been able to position itself the way it has is because regulation has been the enabler of all of this. It's made it easier for companies to get set up, it's made it more, it's built a framework that is more flexible for the space and so on. So when we're when we're talking about regulation and stuff, my and this is more maybe of a general general broad question, you because you know you work with the government quite closely, so you'd have maybe more insight, is I'm always blown away by how fast things move here. Yeah. From a not and not from and from a regulation perspective, you know, in crypto, in AI, in medicine, in sports, whatever it is, it just moves so fast, faster than anywhere else in the world. And I've always been curious. I'm like, how are you guys moving so fast? Like, how is that bill just getting we have an idea in six months?

SPEAKER_00

Yeah, the answer is super simple. It's leadership, it's accountable leadership. It is one decision maker. I don't make many fans with this, but I don't believe that the democratic process can keep up with technology at its pace. Case in point being, why is the UAE so successful? I mean, obviously for a million reasons. Of course, yeah. But in the UAE, his highness wakes up in the morning and says, We're doing this. I mean, obviously, it's more complex than that. You know, everything, you know, as they say, Rome wasn't built in a day, and you know, everyone uh uh Dubai, everyone sees Dubai or the UAE or Abu Dhabi today, but no one knows how much work and effort has gone into this, right? And ADGM, for example, issued its first rule book in 2018. Dubai had its uh blockchain strategy in 2016, right? No one cared at the time, but it was there, and the effort was there. And and the matter of fact is you have leadership that have had the pleasure of of interfacing with that the that really gets it, understands the benefit of it. And I believe that what the UAE has done is really a a masterclass in strategic diversification if it comes to AI or blockchain or many other technologies. Manufacturing now is manufacturing, 3D manufacturing, for example, right? It's a masterclass in economic diversification because they've said, you know, we're going to open our doors and all you innovators of the world come home here. Whereas Mica, by the time Mica was issued, and you know, I have friends of mine who've advised actively on this process, by the time it was issued, it was not relevant anymore. And and here, the reason why it can move fast is because the leadership is accountable to a level that they say, when something needs to get done, they say now it needs to get done. And this is what we've seen over here.

SPEAKER_01

And I think to your point, you're as his highness has been referred to as the Sheikh CEO, you know, as well. And when you explain, when you frame it like that, it makes a lot of sense why if you have one person making the decisions, you can make that change. Like you said, wake up tomorrow, guys. All right, we need to do this and we need to do it now and get it implemented and move things, you know, as as fast as possible.

SPEAKER_00

To add to this, uh I know you wanted to go to another point, but if you look at you know, leaders that really wanted to make a change, they always tell you four, five years, three years is never enough to enact real change. But here you have leadership that knows it's here for a lifetime, that is building this for an entire generation.

SPEAKER_01

It's not just a four-year term, whatever, you know. I can see that change through, you know, for the next 20, 30, 40 years, and I will be in charge, like leading that, right? And to your point about you mentioned earlier you touched on it's sustainability. So now, obviously, as you know, with AI coming into the space, the energy costs have gone through the roof. There's limited, you know, people are launching data centers in space. I've interviewed some of those people. They are now um, I think open AI is gonna build like a massive like thing here that's gonna be the size of Monaco too. So energy, data, whatever is now, I think, a new economy that is really gonna be like the maybe the accelerator or the roadblock to to blockchain and to AI and all this. So, and as you know, sustainability is part of the UAE's D33 agenda and you know, 2040 as well. So you're like, okay, we want to go into the space more, we want to invest more, we want to bring more and more and more, but there's also, you know, like as you've mentioned many times in the conversation, like you have to there's all the good, yes, but we also have to look at what is going on alongside it and how is that gonna affect it. So, when it comes to the sustainability question, what are your thoughts on that and how do we build or move forward in a way that can be sustainable for this pace of change that we're moving at?

SPEAKER_00

I'm gonna approach this in a different way. I the biggest lie ever told to humanity that we believe in until today is that resources, energy particularly, are limited. The biggest lie told is that energy is limited. And then you think about the wars that we're seeing around the world, the conflict we're seeing around the world, and how energy is really at the heart of it. And you ask yourself why. Because just a little bit of reading will take you to nuclear energy, safe nuclear energy, will take you to sustainable solar energy, will take you to um examples in in in in in Norway and Scandinavia, how they're using thermal energy and and the energy of water and waves. And yet we're sitting here trying to kill each other over a couple of barrels of oil. Why? Because this is the way we know how to do things. I can tell you about a friend of mine, uh Pablos Hallman, um, an absolute visionary. He's he's you know one of the leading futurists of of of our time, who's developed a way that you can use nuclear waste, um, not even you know, uh any new uranium, but with the waste grade uranium, which by the way, I found out from him is only used for like six percent of its capacity and then discarded and then creates a problem, right? And they've developed a way that you, you know, pretty much every neighborhood could have a little micro reactor that powers us for the rest of time. But see, that doesn't work with the global narrative that energy is scarce and limited. I think energy, if anything, you know, maybe maybe resources like gold are scarce and limited, maybe oil is scarce and limited, maybe gold uh Bitcoin definitely is scarce and limited. Yeah, for that for sure. But um I don't believe that in a world where we're where in the world that we live in today, the 21st century, with the technology advancements we have today, energy is is an issue to to consider. It's an issue sold to us, yeah. Um it's a narrative that we're all supposed to buy in and kill each other over to have more energy, but I don't believe that's correct. And and some of the leading scientists around the world have already solved for it at scale. Um, you know, you you can look up uh the Scandinavian uh cases of of harnessing uh just waves and the energy of waves, and you know, pretty much every country that's by the sea has waves and and how uh you can harness um the uh the the the the the the energy of the heat of the planet essentially. Yes, but then also let me answer the question. So the the the yes, the energy needs will only grow. Yeah. And processing will only grow, but that's also only for a short term. I I and I've said it um before, I really am utopian in my thinking of technology. I can tell for sure now. Don't get me wrong, I can I can put switch on my logical brain and I can tell you about how all the things that could go wrong, of course. And how how you know AI is going to to eat us alive and make us all its my favorite movie of all times is Matrix, right? So I can tell you that but I want to believe in a world and and and in the very near future where the combination of artificial intelligence and quantum computing opens such a new world in our thinking or or develop new materials and new ways of working that pretty much will solve all of humanity's problems. Yeah, no, I I understand how I sound when saying this, but I that's my hope. Why not? Why shouldn't we be able, with with the power of quantum and AI, to arrive at materials that are more sustainable? Why shouldn't we arrive at data processing capabilities that are more sustainable? The way we're moving right now. It's really you know, for lack of a better word, how the the Underthals moved in comparison to us. Do you think that thousand years from now people are gonna look back and say, Oh my god, they had AI? Or do you think that they're gonna look back and say, how how are they killing themselves with so much clean water and food and and resources around how were people dying of hunger when we were throwing away food? Right? So I I really believe first of all, first of all, let's you know, let's break this down because it's very philosophical and I can go on and on about this. Let's break this down. First of all, the technology of solving for energy already exists, right? And and at scale. Forget about nuclear energy or any, you know, some more, even more sustainable stuff like sea and wind and and and and and and and solar. Second, I don't actually believe that the way we are operating right now is very much advanced. I think it's it's it's when we zoom out for a second, we think about you know it I I I love Cosmos. Do you know Cosmos, Needle Grass, Tyson? Yeah, of course, yeah, of course. Do you know that episode where he put the entire um history of of mankind on a calendar? And we're like we're not even like a dot. Right. No, and we're in the so if you if you look at the beginning of humankind or the beginning of of of the universe, it was not humankind, um, and and where we are on the cosmic calendar, then today is the 31st of December. Right? So so all of this has passed, and everything, all of our recorded history has all happened on the 31st of December. And all of it, humanity and the Big Bang, no, not the Big Bang, sorry, humanity and and and and the way the Underthals and the Egyptians and the Pharaoh, everything happened on the 31st of December. So, with that, when you zoom out for a second and you ask yourself, how old is our history with technology? You know what? I'll go one step further. Use even hammers and everything as technology, then I'd still maintain that we're in the first minute of the first hour of the first day of the first year of our interaction with technology. And I do believe that humans to the power of technology can create things that we can't even think about.

SPEAKER_01

Absolutely. And you know, to your point, we could have never, you know, I grew up, I was I was grew up in the 90s, you know, so I grew up through the internet phase. Who would have ever thought that I'd be able to like all the stuff that I used to and like connect and the sounds and whatever, and now it's all on my phones. All your phones. And that the now the power in our phones is more powerful than the technology that they sent people to the moon with like you know, back in the day. And to your point, you've come at it from a very interesting angle. When you frame it in that way, I do understand what you're talking about. Because um, I can see how the resources are available, but we're not probably using the technology in the right way, and there's probably a lot of not gonna go into you know that geopolitical factors and financial factors that are playing into the two that are being a roadblock to this. But on the point about you said for any anywhere to be ready for any type of adoption, you need three things you need infrastructure, you need capital, and you need talent, right?

SPEAKER_00

No, you're listening.

SPEAKER_01

And you're talking, and you're talking about, and you're talking about there was Dubai pre-COVID and Dubai post-COVID. And you said that Dubai pre-COVID, it was people were coming in, you know, and we would get the talent from outside. But now, post-COVID, with and you think you've helped over 600 companies, you know, come here and so on. The talent now is here. Yep. You know, so it's Dubai and the UAE has become the talent hub that now people from other countries want to take, want to take that good luck, you know. And I don't think you're gonna beat the standard of living here. And one thing you talked about that underlined underpinned all that was the safety and the security. Yeah. And that's like the USP that no c no, Ya ni Mushallah, no place in the world can match. But what I wanted to ask you from a talent perspective is when you say talent, the the question I think about is what talent do we have now that has so valuable? And what do you what talent do we need to keep going and to get to that next day to the next stage?

SPEAKER_00

I don't think I have the answer to that question, quite honestly. Having said that, let's look at the talent landscape and look at how it changed. Previously, you'd have to fly in an expert of some sort. Today, go looking for that expert of some sort, if it was an AI or in blockchain or whatever, you'll probably find him living here already. Right? He'll probably engage with you through his US entity or her Australian entity and bill you from there, but she's probably living here. And we've been there and we've seen that. So some of the most successful people in the world, and some of the smartest people in the world, have moved here to the UAE. And with them having moved in the UAE, they're obviously interested in advancing that place that they're living in, right? And it was it was an interview with I think his highness Sheikh Rashid. Um again, what the UAE, what Dubai specifically has done at the time, was unheard of to allow for freehold property ownership for foreigners. Yeah. And was um frowned upon. Now, today it's the standard, but it was frowned upon at the time that, hey, this is our country, how are you selling this to foreigners? And I think it's very relevant to the talent discussion. And and his highness, it was either his highness Sheikh Rashid or His Highness Mohammed bin Rashid, who's asked, Why did you sell your country to these people? And you know, now they own your country. And he said to them, you know, yes, I did sell this land, and yes, I did tell this person that they can only keep this land if they develop this land. So now they're going to develop this land, and then at some point they're going to grow old and think, hey, I need to go home. And then they're going to grab themselves and their belongings and go back to Germany or go back to the UK or go back to India. But that developed land that stays here. Similarly, I think um I think everyone that's moving here right now is leaving his mark in one way or the other, only advancing um this USP of the UAE as the global talent hub. And it's all done quite by design. That's the other thing. That's that's one thing that I have. Yeah. That's the one thing that I have the privilege of knowing. And anyone that goes to research will will be able to find it. That's some confidential information that I have. Um, maybe at the time it was, but right now it isn't. These are all well-defined strategies that they spend a lot of effort on to make sure we are now this talent hub in the world. Now, what talent does the future workforce need? Uh, I can tell you, I've been I've been a subscriber of the Future of Jobs report of the World Economic Forum since its first issuance. And you know, just picking up the first version of it and this version of it, and you're like, okay, so what's next? And and and again, I have the privilege to to sit down with some of the leading think thinkers from from from around the world and hear their point of view. And I'll tell you one thing, really honestly, that they maybe don't say when they're on record, that at some point, right now, we're at the zone where no one knows. Right. Now, you can take that as being scary, which most likely it is, or you can take that as as positive news. But the matter of the fact that the talent landscape of the future, no idea.

SPEAKER_01

100% and you know, first of all, I appreciate you know the the honesty and you know being honest about the question. And but hearing your perspective is also very interesting. And hearing the story of how you know the talent now is here, that was not an accident. This was carefully, you know, strategized, and there was a reason it happened, you know, for the long term. Even now, if you look around, they're expecting the population of the UAE to go from I think like or Dubai to go from four to eight million by like 2040. So now, even in the last six months, there's like five new bridges have come up, you know, a lot better than what I when it comes to the talent and work of the future. So I'm very passionate about education. So, and I think education and talent go hand in hand, and I think the education systems personally this is a kind of a tangent, but education systems need to completely change. My dream is to revolutionize the system. It's a long-term goal, but inshallah we'll get there. One thing I think we need to, I wanted to like round off the conversation with more something more general, because I think thank you so much. Um I think still there is a question mark about all of this. I think in the on the on the big scale, you know, to the to the to the average person that might not have interacted with blockchain or crypto or whatever. So, and you said we're still in the earlier, you know, from in your opinion, you said we're actually still in the early adopting phase of this. We haven't even gotten to the maturity side and for it to go there. So when you're looking at web 3, when you're looking at blockchain, we're looking at this space. What's like what's missing? You know, what's the you know, what's missing to get everyone uh or as many people on board if this is the future, you know, technology that's gonna take us there. What's missing?

SPEAKER_00

What's missing is um is us being able to to disconnect from technology and talk about people. When you look at the biggest failure of of projects around the world, IT projects particularly, why do they fail? They fail because of change and change management. They fail because of people. So with that, we do need to go on an education journey, but on both cases. One is we as the people in the industry need to stop talking about the freaky things in freaky terminology and expect people to just listen. On the other hand, people need to start to appreciate that the world that they grew up in, and I don't care if you're 10 years old or if you're 50 years old, the world you're living in today is not the world you were born into. Right? The world post Chat GPT is not the world that we had, even if you're an expert. So and then I think what's what's most vital in this entire equation is that we need to stop thinking that things will happen because or people will start to use technology because it works better. That's not the way it works. I know what's the first social media you've joined? Uh probably MySpace. MySpace? I I I had an ICQ. Oh, I that I haven't heard of that one. I had I had a a page on MSN Mass Messenger. If MSN Messenger, oh, you took me back, bro. There you go. Why am I asking this question? Because that pretty much has nothing to do with the Facebook and the Instagram and everything of its likes. Technologically speaking, though, it was all there. How's MySpace different than than Instagram? How's MySpace uh how's how's that that that messenger different than than what we have with WhatsApp and so so things will take their own time. Not because it's better technology. And I've now more and more gone on this um this point that it's it's trust, it's all about trust. 100%. And I've um I've coined this bit, I've I've I've released a paper, I think it was um in 19, that trust is a new currency of government. Absolutely. Of the world, by the way. Of the world, and case in point to to COVID, because you know you referenced COVID. Why did COVID work so well over here? Because when the government said stay at home, were you here during COVID? Yeah, yeah, yeah. You remember how we were supposed to stay at home over the weekend and then that weekend extended to a month? Yep, true, true, true, true.

SPEAKER_01

Everyone was making like videos like, oh, stock for one day, two days, and it's like it's day seven now. What's going on?

unknown

Yeah.

SPEAKER_00

How many people, even privately, do you know, that were going on about, oh my god, why are they doing this? And I don't know many. Neither do I. We were sitting there, like, yeah, this is not cool, but I'm sure they know what they're doing. And on top of it, they came out with this disinfection campaign. And I remember they passed by and and in front of um in front of our house, and it was really what you'd see in the news with the drones and with the cars and with the people wearing these suits, and I so you could see. I'm sure you remember in in Soutnay, it was when you know they closed down the building, and we could see that these guys are doing something that makes sense for us. So, in return, when they told us stay at home and don't move, no one questioned that. Why? Because we all trust that the government here wants the best for its citizens. I know this is a bit of a tangent, but it's relevant though. I do believe that trust is going to drive the change. Not better technology, not the better use case, not faster processing, not speed of no, it's trust. And trust is going to take time to develop.

SPEAKER_01

You know what? I think you hit the nail on the head with there saying trust is the currency. And like you said, the the world that no matter what age you are, that we you grew up in, I grew up in is not what it is today. Uh the story that you mentioned on the other podcast I watched about how you know one of your proudest moments was in 2017 when your dad had a Finnex Bitfit. Bit FinX, yeah, a bit of it. Bubba was trading on Bitfinex. And you know, what it made me laugh because I'm like, my my dad uh now has like a Binance account. So he'll call me like how do I do this? How do I buy is this a good talking? What do I what should I do? I'm like, that obviously, even I'm not okay, I know a bit more, but like even I'm not in the space. But that these are the signs, right? When I think as you move, younger generations are just excited they want to learn, so they jump in fast, like the Gen Z's. That's why crypto got to where it is. Then you have millennials that are like, you know, we have a bit of this and a bit of the old generation. Then you have this is not just us now, this is in it all in history. Then the old generation that always sits back is like, I did this for 50 years, this will never work, you know, and they just don't get with the times. But you can see it is it does take time, it is slow, but these are the signs when every generation is starting to like take a look at this and be like, what's going on here? This is this seems you know, there's a reason why is everyone talking about this. That is the the signs or the catalyst, you know, for the change. And like you said, trust does take a lot of time. It does. I want to round off the conversation with this last very boring question that you've probably been asked a million times, and but it seems to be sucking. Still one of the still uh because I was speaking to a friend recently, and they're like, Yeah, I have to give a presentation uh to these guys that are like in their 50s and 60s, and like you know, uh, about like and explain to them what blockchain is. And I was sitting there talking to them, I'm like, I understand it, but if you told me like explain it to someone, I'd be like, it's kind of like this thing, it's really secure, but it will give you like I can trade with you, I don't have to talk to this guy.

SPEAKER_02

So the dumbest, simplest question just to round off for people to finally understand. Sakhar, what is blockchain? Please explain it to us.

SPEAKER_00

So I the only way I well, I know a bunch of ways, but the best way I know how to explain blockchain is by not talking about blockchain. Okay. Think of blockchain as cement. With cement, you can build this wall, and you can build a table, you can build a bunker, and you can build a hospital, and uh you can build a wall, you can build anything with cement. So cement is the need of the base building block to build stuff, and that's blockchain. Blockchain is just the technology that makes the stuff work on on the back end. I stopped actually trying to advocate for if this is exciting for you, go and understand it. But the reason I stopped advocating is because I realized for myself, if you'd asked me to explain the internet to you right now how these packets are moving from you know how my voice is being heard by someone in the US right now, I'd have a hard time explaining this to you, but you don't need to look at it like that. Blockchain, you need to think about it as the base building block that you can run value through. But if we want to be technical about it, think about the world as you know it today. The world as you know it today operates as part of a network. And you say, Slack, I don't know about what's the network, right? No, think about it this way: think about your shop experience. You go into a shop, that shop has a supplier that's put some products over there, me as a customer, has the the checkout uh um lady and and has someone that so it exists as part of a business network. That's business as we know it. Nothing that creates a profit pretty much exists in isolation. You always have to interact with people. Sure. When you're interacting with people, you know, essentially you go, you go different places. So that places where different businesses find themselves, that's a market, right? Also pretty base stuff, right? In that market, you interact with value. There's there's goods and services that are being uh being uh exchanged, right? And there's tangible value, there's intangible, tangible goods, intangible goods. Think of your your iPhone right now and and all of the iTunes and the money you spent on iTunes, you know, can you spend that money somewhere right now? No. Is that still of value? Yes, right. So there's there's there's tangible value, there's intangible value, there's there's something that you can touch, and there's something that's digital. When you're uh exchanging tangible items, right? Things of value, they need to to be exchanged with certain business rules and conditions. These business rules and conditions, normally we track them in something called a contract. Yep. The contract says a flacker gives Khalid his car key, Khalid gives him a million dollars. Right. And all of that information is generally tracked once you have that transaction, that is, you know, exchanging value if when you that business network, you know, comes together in a market, exchanging goods and services. There's a transaction going from A to B, governed by certain business rules and conditions that are covered in a contract. You then record that in a ledger. Ledgers are nothing new. We know ledgers from, you know, there's there's there's there's clay ledgers from from the age of the uh of the Mesopotamians, right, for all intents and purposes. Blockchain is just taking all of that and taking it into the 21st century. Your contract is not a contract, it's a smart contract. The funny thing is the contract is neither smart nor a contract. It's business rules that are coded. Exactly. If-when. If you know Excel, then you know blockchain now.

SPEAKER_01

It's like a massive decision tree, basically.

SPEAKER_00

It's an if-when statement. If this happens, then do that. If this happens, then do that. Right? A value for the first time in human history is now able to be represented online on a ledger in a way that is non-duplicable. Right? Think about me taking a picture of you and then sending it to someone. Who has the source picture? Is it you? Is it me? Can we track that this is a change? So blockchain solved for for that as well. So it went in and created and turned the contract into a smart contract. It turned um the asset into something that is digitally backed. Like an NFT and NFT, whatever. Yeah, right. And it can be a real-world representation of it. But yeah, what's what's really powerful is that, and this is the powerful bit about blockchain, is that it was the first technology to solve for a double spend. It's the first technology where you can, through uh an algorithm, um, arrive at that this, even if it's a digital value, only exists here and only exists once. It's legit. It's legit, right? And you know where it came from, you know who owns it, and no one can own it while you are owning it. My Bitcoin is my Bitcoin. You can have another Bitcoin, but that's your Bitcoin. But no one can ever own my Bitcoin unless I transfer that. Sure. Right? So we have the shared ledger, so we have a smart contract, you have the digital asset, and then the idea about blockchain is that the ledger is not centralized anymore. It's shared across everyone that's part of this value chain. And as last but not least, it's privacy, right? Because and privacy means different things to different people. Um, it's essentially being able to to to do what you do by being anonymous. That's privacy. Or doing what you're doing um without being um or with only the right people knowing what it is. Right. So in short, blockchain is just a technology that that allows us to move transactions in the 21st century. It does absolutely nothing new when you think about just the way it's doing things. It's taking everything and putting a 21st century spin on it, which is why I don't think that you know big innovation is going to be driven directly by blockchain, but it's going to be by the business model change that blockchain enables. Gotcha. And back to this great example of, you know, we all take flights, think we all have flight insurance. And think about your flight insurance being being paid instantly as soon as the flight is delayed. That's stuff you can do um with blockchain. And um, yes, I've stopped trying to explain people the blockchain is I'm just telling them that it's a great technology, figure out how you should use it for yourself.

SPEAKER_01

Yeah, and you know, that that um mindset is kind of how what I've reached to with like AI, you know, figure it out, figure out how you want to use it. I I understand I this conversation has shown me your it's been very enlightening to me because first of all, I haven't had the pleasure of speaking to someone who has been in the game for number one this long, and having the conversations with the people who are enforcing the change not only here and across different governments. That's a privilege, I know. And what I've loved in the conversation is there's yes, we've talked a lot of technical things. Thank you for giving us the this is the best blockchain explanation I've heard, guys. So just stick to this one. All right. We're gonna make a reel about this.

SPEAKER_02

Watch this. You don't know blockchain?

SPEAKER_01

This here's two minutes. And what I've really appreciated in this conversation, Sakar, is behind all the regulation, the technical stuff, whatever, the underlying thing in our conversation has been about trust and has been about people, has been about the world, and has been about behavior. That is the underlying thing in this entire conversation, and we that that is the chain that we build everything off, you know, for the rest of the conversation. So I wanted to first say thank you so much for joining us on the show today. You really have given me a completely and I think everyone a different perspective on this space because these and this is not the conversation people usually will hear. They hear, and you've been probably on the other side of the uh the typical side of the conversations too. So I wanted to say thank you so much for sharing your knowledge and enlightening us. It's been an absolute pleasure. Pleasures, man. Thank you so much. Guys, so everyone listening, thank you so much. Uh, and we will see you on the next episode. Take care. Thank you guys for joining us on another episode of the Not Just Money Podcast. If you haven't already, I'd like to invite you to subscribe to our YouTube channel and follow us on socials to continue watching industry leader talk about the mindset, tools, strategies, and share the money truths that no one teaches you. And remember, guys, when it comes to money, it's not about flex, it's about freedom.