Blockchain Insider Ep. 43. Sexism in Crypto, Pornhub takes Verge, and Binance Denies the Dollar

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SK:  We are here, in the 11FS offices in WeWork Aldgate in London, for Episode 43 of Blockchain Insider. I'm Sarah Kocianski, filling in for Simon once again, whilst he's away. Today, we bring you, Wikileaks has its Coinbase account suspended, Verge goes 18+ on its latest partnership, and Amber Baldet has her say on sexism in crypto.

[Break]

SK:  I'm not all alone today, however, I'm joined by four delightful guests. We have regular co-host Sara Feenan, how are you doing, Sara?

SF:  I'm very well, thank you, Sarah.

SK:  Once again we have the two Sarahs, good luck to listeners for determining between us. I'm also joined by Noelle Acheson of CoinDesk, how are you, Noelle?

NA:  Great to be here, thanks, Sarah.

SK:  And could you give us a little bit of an overview of what you do, Noelle?

NA:  I can try. It sort of depends on the day of the week. I'm with CoinDesk, I develop new media products, I host the webinars, and I contribute to research and features.

SK:  Not much, then [laughter].

NA:  It depends on the day.

SK:  I'm also joined by Olivia Vinden. How are you, Olivia?

OV:  I'm very well, very excited to be here.

SK:  Brilliant. Lovely to have you. And can you also give us a little bit of an overview of what you do, on a day-to-day basis?

OV:  Sure. So, I'm Head of Fintech for Alpha Financial Markets Consulting, which is a buyside specialist consultancy firm, but I'm a massive blockchain, sort of, geek, and at the end of last year, I did a six-month secondment to Rise Financial, which is a blockchain startup, aimed at CSDs.

SK:  Brilliant. And last, but by no means least, we have Jo Lang. How are you, Jo?

JL:  I'm good, thank you, a little jetlagged. I'm at IBM, so I've been there for a little over a year. I have been the offering leader for our payments and blockchain product, first announced in Sibos of 2017, and now I'm leading our market research and go-to-market strategy for this product and beyond-, and broader blockchain.

SK:  Brilliant. Well, thank you so much, all of you, for joining us. Before we get started with the show, I just wanted to say a quick word about our sponsors. 

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So, let's get on with the news. First up, we have a story from the New York Times about the, I think it's fair to say, embattled Cambridge Analytica. Apparently, they had plans to launch their own virtual currency. It says here that they "quietly sought to develop their own virtual currency in recent months," but I'm not sure it's so quite anymore, but apparently, the goal of the-, the initial coin offering, was to raise money that would pay for the creation of a system to help people store and sell their online personal data to advertisers [laughter]. Controversial? Well, Tim Swanson thinks that there are only a handful of more controversial things they could have done. Who wants to jump in on this one?

NA:  It's a fascinating topic, when you think about all of the scary buzzwords that you can get in to one story. Apart from just Cambridge Analytica, you've got the artificial intelligence, you've got the cryptocurrency, you've got the data mining-,

SF:  Yeah, and Chinese gangsters, as well.

OV:  Chinese gangsters I loved. Um. I'm quite a privacy geek, and I quite like the idea of your data is your own data, and you can monetise that yourself. So, if it weren't associated with Cambridge Analytica, and-, and ICO, then I-, I think it would be quite an interesting idea, but, um, obviously, it is, [laughter] so I'm not sure it's going to really have legs these days.

JL:  I would also question, maybe because I'm the only American in the room, exactly what they're doing with the data that they're-, like, they're still holding it, they still have custody of that-, those assets. What's to stop them from using it? And are they getting-, are they the data broker? Like, what role exactly are they playing? And if they had such a good business model, I realise ICOs are the hot thing, but why not actually get market acceptance from, at minimum, have VCs look at it, "Is, like, this a real, viable opportunity?" I think that's unclear. And also, you know, who else are they selling it to that we've-, if we're giving them the data, for them to be custodians of, clearly they have some unsavoury partners. 

NA:  All very good questions, and especially when you take in to account that what they're saying the ICO would be for, is to give users control of their data, is completely against their to-date business model.

SF:  Yeah, exactly, and I think, from what we can gather, they've been helping out some ICOs with marketing before, although they hadn't played a-, a lead role in that. So, I think it says, in some of the marketing material sent to investors, Brittany Kaiser, who left Cambridge Analytica, and has been quite critical of them since, said they were helping blockchain companies using predictive modelling to target investors for token sales, and I kind of wonder about the implications of that, with regards to marketing of unregistered securities, as well.

JL:  Well, and hasn't also Google and Facebook all been banning, um, the advertisements for these tokens?

SK:  Yes. Interesting that Facebook's been banning them, huh?

NA:  Yes.

SF:  Yeah, I mean-,

OV:  I also-, I really liked the angle of the story, which is when this part of the world, sort of, comes in to the mainstream media, because even just the way that the New York Times described it, they were like, "A 'so-called ICO'," like, in-, in air quotes, and-,

[Laughter]

OV:  I-, I think that's really interesting, about how well this story plays in to mainstream media, and how well people understand it. You know, you see these big headlines like, "Facebook bans crypto adverts," or whatever, but I think, when normal people are reading the New York Times, who don't work in this sector, they really find it difficult to understand, even, what an ICO is, or-, or what's going on.

NA:  You can get the drama. I'm, sort of, waiting for Netflix to make this in to a mini-series.

[Laughter]

SF:  Oh god, somebody-, somebody must have the rights already, and if it's not Aaron Salkin, I'm very disappointed.

NA:  I want to see it!

SF:  Yeah. By the way, that's registered to us, so anybody who does go out and do that, that was our idea. Trademark.

SK:  So, from one controversy to another, with-, the blockchain world is anything but dull, um, this is a story from CoinDesk, and it's entitled, "All About Verge," and it says, "The $1 billion cryptocurrency that's pumping on porn." Thank you to whoever made me read that out-,

[Laughter].

SK:  "Cryptocurrency enthusiasts were shocked at the recent news that Verge (XVG) had been officially added as a payment method on adult entertainment website Pornhub." The cryptocurrency's users paid to incentivise the deal, apparently, which doesn't sound like a great start. In a matter of weeks, global Verge users, or the "Verge fam", as they're sometimes know, raised 75 million XVG, or-, which is worth $5.2 million in, it says, "donations towards the partnership," but, again, that's one of those words that, when you're talking about these coins, what does that even really mean? I think we'd better start off with-, Sara, if you can give us an explanation of what Verge is aiming to do, or-, or what it's designed to be used for, and then we can go in to this story, which has many, many facets to it.

SF:  It does have many facets, yes. So, first up, Verge is a-, effectively, a decentralised, opensource cryptocurrency, on which all of the transactions are in the clear, effectively, but the identities of those users are apparently masked using technologies such as Tor and I2P. Now, these are technologies that have been around for a while, Tor, for example, stands for The Onion Router, and is a way to-,

[Laughter]

SK:  Sorry, I just sniggered, carry on.

SF:  [Laughter] it's all to do with the layers, you see, of obfuscation. So, if you were connected to the Tor browser, then you could send a request, and it would be bounced across a number of relays before it actually reached the server, so, it-, it masks your identity and your jurisdiction, as well, so you could appear in Holland, Iceland, or a completely different jurisdiction from where you're actually based. So, that's the privacy features that Verge offers, and now that's out of the way, let's dig in.

SK:  Off you go. I know, Noelle, you had some thoughts on this one.

NA:  Yeah, this is another one from the "you just can't make this stuff up" file, really, and I'd like to give a shout out to my colleagues, Rachel and Lee, for their excellent reporting on this. It's fascinating, the publicity angle here. I mean, Verge are using this in a publicity that is both ingenious and questionable. And it's ingenious because, as we know, Google, Facebook, Twitter, they have banned crypto ads, and they have banned porn ads. So, crypto-porn ads? I mean, can you be double banned? I'm not sure. But what they're doing is they're getting the media to do their publicity for them, and we have to report on this, because it's also questionable, I mean, what they have done, as-, as you said, Sara, they have bought their way in to acceptance here, they are basically paying Pornhub through donations for the project, to list them as an accepted medium, and that's misleading, as well. It's misleading investors that Verge is being used, is going mainstream, when it's actually really not, and how legal this is going to be, going down the line, again, that I don't know.

SK:  Mm, yeah, and they have been involved in a so called "pump and dump", with our friend John McAfee-,

SF:  Although he did then retrace his steps and say that his account was hacked, but I think the Verge currency went up from $0.02 to $0.25, in a matter of days, which is quite the rise.

JL:  I would also say that, following the announcement, there was a lot of unhappy investors, uh, or donators, who noted that the price after the Pornhub announcement didn't go up.

SK:  So what was the point of all that effort, if-, and making these questionable connections, if-,

JL:  Because they-, you know, yes, everyone was talking about it, and sharing the articles, but at the same time, you know, it clearly didn't have the right result, because that's what these announcements tend to drive, whether intentionally or not. I think that that's also showing a couple of things. One, I don't know if maturity is the right word, but I think that the markets are slightly less volatile to PR by valuation, which, by the way, is a Tim Swanson concept, which was even more noted, with all the ICOs coming out. I think, also-, the one thing though is I do think it's interesting with porn, because porn is always used as an example of how the internet came to be, and so it's almost like-, I have had people, you know, talking about, "Well, now it's going to be legitimate because porn is actually really innovative, and if they're taking it on, then the rest of the world is," and I think that it's interesting, because maybe that's true, but it's also, what about the rest of us that have been doing this for a while?

OV:  But there-, there's two things that I didn't understand about this story, and Jo, maybe you're in a great position to-, to talk to one of them, which is that I thought that there's a slight difference between the UK and America, in terms of how crypto can be seen as a payment transaction, and so I'm interested in that angle of it. But then also, and without, like, betraying, like, a massive knowledge of porn, but Pornhub is broadly free, I mean, so I don't really understand, like, what they're paying for on Pornhub, and how that's used. Because, in the story, it seems to imply that people were just handed out these tokens, they can then exchange the token for the currency, but then, what, they go on Pornhub and they look at free porn? So, I didn't really understand how those two things, on-, on crypto for payments, really connected.

SK:  This is something that I hadn't understood. I, sort of, assumed you used the tokens-, you exchanged them for access to more levels of things, or hidden videos-,

OV:  Super levels of porn that we haven't ever breached.

[Laughter]

SK:  I mean, I wouldn't be surprised.

JL:  Well, I think that actually goes a bit in to-, you know, we look at how Facebook has struggled to monetise, like, these new ways of trying to monetise a business which doesn't have a-, you don't buy a-, you know, click a button and buy a product for a specific price. So, I mean, we're laughing, because it's porn, but it's-, it's actually-, it's a massive website, it's a massive platform, you know, this is not-, they're not the only ones that are probably also struggling to figure out, "How do we monetise all the content in a way that maybe doesn't put us quite at the same mercy of the Cambridge Analyticas of the world?"

NA:  It's a massive platform, it's also a massive industry, period-,

JL:  Yes.

NA:  And privacy is an increasing, uh, worry, I guess, an increasing worry-,

JL:  Ashley Madison?

NA:  For users. I mean-,

OV:  Yes.

SF:  Yeah. Exactly.

JL:  It's not porn, per se, but it's kind of a similar-,

SF:  Yeah, I mean, the lengths people will go to, in order to hide their own embarrassment over whatever it is they may be doing, and, you know-, you know, there's two levels to the privacy thing, isn't there? There's one that's like, "I don't want you doing stuff with my data," and the reason you don't want people doing stuff with your data, I guess, is partly because you don't want them to impersonate you, but also because you don't want them to, like-, you don't want people to know what you do on the internet. Does anybody want everybody else to know what they do on the internet?

NA:  Especially when it comes to porn.

JL:  Well, I-, I-,

NA:  I'm guessing. I'm just guessing.

[Laughter]

SF:  And, worryingly, on the privacy front, with Verge, there were some privacy concerns before, when there was a data dump of IP addresses, which were released on a website, and Verge did claim that they were Tor relay nodes, which is the, sort of, exit nodes, the ones that are bouncing around the-, the traffic, but, I don't think anyone's stepped forward to confirm or deny whether that is, in fact, their IP address. So, I think they've-, they've added stealth addresses, and they've got ring signatures on their roadmap, but we will remain-, it remains to be seen, I guess, how robust the tech is, aside from the business.

JL:  And this actually goes back to a different problem, which is, you have all these-, these networks coming out, and they're building for the sake of building technology, not necessarily for use case. Because, rather than building on what exists, and, granted, there, right now, is still a lot of money to be made in ICOs, and seeing if you can be that platform and that coin, but, you know, they're adding all these things to their platform to what end? You know, what's the actual return on investment of all this time and money that they're putting in to it, when, you know, as we're seeing, they're essentially being accepted payments for things that maybe why would you need to pay for it? People-, I mean, it's not hard to find porn.

OV:  It's a solution without a problem-,

JL:  Right, which I think is the space in general, if you look at most of these ICOs. Like, these white papers-, I mean, it's kind of embarrassing-, it's insulting to academia to call them white papers.

OV:  Yeah.

SF:  Yeah.

OV:  The paper's white, so-,

[Laughter]

NA:  But it also does touch on the whole ICO space, as you said, not only through the-, through those particular incidents, but also, we have here something that's used for something, but, in itself, trades on an exchange, so whether it actually ends up being used perhaps is not the issue. Whether we think it's being used might be the issue, which brings back to the point, will Verge actually be used?

SK:  Well, I guess we're going to have to wait and see. We have-, of all the things, we have a wall-, you know, we could fill an entire wall with, "We're going to pin that, and see what happens to that. We're going to pin that, and see what happens to that." We can-, we can add this one to the list.

NA:  And add it to the list of things that Netflix has to really start taking a look at.

OV:  Yeah [laughter].

SK:  I think Netflix Originals is set for life. So, moving on, our next story this afternoon is from Bloomberg, and it's a story that says, "Crypto Exchange Binance denies it will introduce dollar trading." And, originally, an article claimed that Binance would introduce dollar transactions, and it got picked up, and it went hugely viral on cryptocurrency websites on-, like, last Friday. Binance have now denied the rumours, with a spokesperson saying, I quote-, I kid you not, literally, "It was fake news." The reason that this is important is that Binance, right now, you can only-, it's an exchange where you can only exchange one cryptocurrency for another cryptocurrency. You cannot move those cryptocurrencies out in to fiat. People got so excited by this, that the value and the price of several cryptocurrencies shot through the roof, and then when it was announced it was all, you know, fake news, they came back down again. I think maybe this is a really interesting one that the-, as we, sort of, touched on earlier, how seemingly little things can have such a huge impact of the price of-, of these things. Even the more stable, regulated-, not regulated, even the more stable ones that are not [laughter] associated with Pornhub, etc., I don't know, who wants to jump in first on that?

SF:  I-, I think you've covered it, pretty-, pretty much.

JL:  I think it's the size of Binance, and the sheer speed with which they've grown, and I believe they have been, or still are, considered the cheapest way to buy in to these currencies, through-, via Ether and/or Bitcoin, and so that just removes a step. So, one of the biggest concerns with cryptocurrency adoption and trading is how hard it is to get access to it, to get liquidity in to the market, because there are so many steps, and to be honest, they're not-, it takes some concentration, on the behalf of the person you're explaining it to-,

SF:  Mm-hm.

JL:  To understand what they're supposed to do.

SF:  Yes.

JL:  The number of times I've been asked, "How do I buy this?" and I'm like, "Well, you have to do this, and this," and if they don't understand markets-,

SF:  It's new systems to a lot of people, isn't it, looking at, kind of, currency trading systems-,

JL:  Yeah, (? 15.36) to buy to buy, and then, forget that, the whole tax implications of that. So, I think, when you have the-, probably the biggest exchange, at this point, from, you know-, and-, and they've also done, I think, a much better job than some of the others, from a customer service point of view. Like, when they've had outages, they've been open about it, rather than trying to push it to the side, and they've expanded so quickly-,

SF:  Yeah, and when they got hacked, as well, they came out and moved some funds from cold storage in to hot storage, to effectively prove it wasn't happening, um, which is-, is great customer service, uh, but they have been quite, I suppose, open about being clandestine in their operations, and they will not give any indication as to where they are located, and which has implications for jurisdictional, or money services business-,

JL:  Right, and I-, and I think some of that might also be because it's a Chinese company, and I'm not sure-, and there are so many questions about, you know, what the requirements are, and, you know, are they going to be shut down tomorrow? And I think that's also true in other jurisdictions. I mean, I think the US has done a pretty good job of confusing everyone as to what is a commodity, a currency, and so forth, but I think when an exchange like that's so big, is even the idea that there is some sort of, let alone US dollar, but fiat liquidity on the market, I think that's-, that's a huge step forward. Or, it could be seen as that way, and also what seems to drive the price up, and some stability, because then you have more liquidity in trading. Unfortunately, or fortunately, depending on how you look on it, that was not the case.

OV:  I think what's interesting is that, clearly, there's a demand in the market for fiat gateways to a broader access of-, of coins, that just doesn't exist, and I'm-, I sort of question why that hasn't been filled. It's quite rare that there's an obvious gap in the market that no one's stepped in to.

JL:  It's not easy.

SF:  It's regulation, yeah.

JL:  I mean, you need a banking charter, a lot of the time-,

SF:  E-money licence, being registered as a money service business in the US. It's hard, it takes a long time.

JL:  And to even have reserves. So, it's-, there's being a money services business, then there's actually being able to accept deposits, on behalf of others, and then there's, you know, actually having enough liquidity to-, to service the market. So, one of the big issues that you see is you have a lot of regulated institutions, like banks, that they have-, maybe they don't even believe that crypto is so bad anymore, but they're like-, "The volatility, it's going to kill us, because there just isn't enough in the market, and accessing it, and they're not going to go on to GDAX.

SK:  If you think about a-, you know, an old-fashioned run on the banks, like, the idea of a run on the cryptocurrencies, the-, you know, the thought, perish the thought, like, that could just take an entire bank over in 30 seconds flat, if something-, you know, one little thing happens, somebody tweets something, John McAfee does something, even that could have such a huge impact.

NA:  And given the Basel rules these days, which are increasingly onerous. One thing I'm confused about this story is that, I don't know, about a week ago, two weeks ago, I forget, and this was even on Bloomberg, if I remember correctly. They reported on an interview with Binance's founder, saying that he was setting up a fiat to crypto exchange in Malta, and the Malta Prime Minister even tweeted, "Welcome to Malta, Binance." And so, if he said that, and I'm going to presume the reporting was correct, then why is he now denying it?

JL:  Is he denying the US dollar, or denying fiat?

NA:  That's true, maybe it's non-dollar fiat. Right.

JL:  Because US dollar represents 90% of all the FX flow in the market.

NA:  Yeah, it could be non-dollar fiat.

SK:  It could be-, it could be euro-, it could be euro, you know, literally, that could be it, or-,

JL:  What's interesting is, if you actually look at the trends around trading between fiat to crypto, is that, unlike regular FX, and funding of payments, which is 90% the US dollar on one side, crypto is much-, is still heavily dollars, but it's actually much more represented by euro, pound, I don't believe as much, Japanese yen, and other Asian currencies, as well.

SF:  I think, on the pounds front, it's probably just lack of availability-,

JL:  Right.

SF:  Because you look at-, Coinbase recently got a banking, uh-,

JL:  Yeah.

SF:  They got registered by the FCA, and now have a banking licence at Barclays, so now they can provide faster payments in the UK, so that might change, but it's admittedly a smaller market, anyway, than the rest of Europe.

JL:  Right, but I think you can see that there's a change away too, because I think even one of the reasons that there is interest in using cryptocurrencies for payments is because of a-, they don't want to rely on the US dollar, and the US dollar banks.

SF:  Yeah, I mean, it's-, I think that that's one of the-, the most easily understood problems here. I mean, I know we've just said, "Oh, we don't understand it," but actually, the-, if you know anything about finance and banking, the very idea of having to go through all those regulatory hurdles just makes you want to curl up in a ball and cry, so, you know, I can absolutely understand why they want to shut down any thoughts of it, as you say, especially with the US dollar.

NA:  This is also an interesting jurisdiction story. I mean, the day after, Japan started taking a look at Binance, and the day after, hints started flowing that maybe Japan was going to shut it down, which they then denied, but they are taking a closer look. The same day, it announced, "Okay, we're moving to Malta," which shows the fluidity of jurisdictional reach.

SF:  Yeah, and the problem with the regulators-, not the problem with the regulators-,

SK:  There are no problems with regulators! I don't know what you mean, Sara-,

SF:  The problems FOR the regulators, I should say, in aligning themselves globally.

JL:  I think also in attracting new business. So, you know, in being-, wanting to be that hub, one of the things that, you know, London did a really good job of, in the beginning, was not taking a stand, you know, versus, you look at what New York did, which-, with BitLicense, which has created some challenges for other businesses, especially, you know, coming from New York, in particular. So, that is one part of it, and then, you know, places like Malta may be looking at this, saying, "What do we have to lose?"

SK:  Yeah, and as we said-, we covered this a couple of weeks ago, but it's absolutely something that, you know, we've talked about a few times here, is that Malta doesn't shy away from financial opportunities, especially when it's finance and tech crossing over. So, moving on from Bloomberg to a story that was on CNBC.com this week, the news is that cryptocurrency firm, Coinbase, has apparently suspended Wikileaks's Bitcoin account. So, Wikileaks has claimed, I don't think I need to explain what that is, has claimed that Coinbase has suspended it from using the cryptocurrency firm's payment service. Coinbase offers a feature, apparently, that lets online shops accept cryptocurrencies as payments, but Wikileaks posted a tweet over the weekend, showing a message it had received from Coinbase. The cryptocurrency firm said that Wikileaks was in violation of its terms of service, but did not really specify why. This is-, it's an interesting one, you know, I don't know who wants to tackle it first, or from which angle, actually-,

SF:  Coinbase are regulated now, so they're going to have to be able to adhere to some of those regulatory oversights, and Wikileaks has been beleaguered for almost a decade now, or more.

JL:  I'm actually surprised Wikileaks had a Coinbase account, and not just a Bitcoin wallet.

NA:  They sell t-shirts. Did you know that? I didn't know that.

OV:  I didn't know that either.

SK:  Wikileaks sell t-shirts?

SF:  Mugs, posters-,

NA:  They sell t-shirts, mugs-,

JL:  Well, I guess they have to-,

SF:  Rugs, probably tea towels-,

NA:  Yeah. On my-, on my Christmas list.

JL:  But I guess there's the donations-, I mean, I guess then it would be a question of which account, because if they have different, then they may have to have segregated accounts, although it's Wikileaks, so I might take that back. But I was just surprised, because, at first, I thought it was that Coinbase had identified the address, and were saying, "You can't send to Wikileaks," but if it's the other way, I was honestly just surprised to hear that they had a-, an actual account, with a registered entity that they could send money to, because that just meant that they were also going to be able to stop the actual redemption of the Bitcoin for dollars-,

SF:  Yeah, I mean, I think-,

JL:  Or fiat.

SF:  I think the point-, I think, as far as I understand it, is it's literally just that they want to do ecommerce, it's-, and MasterCard won't serve them, Visa won't serve them, PayPal won't serve them, so the only way to do it was Coinbase. I mean, I just want to say how stroppy Wikileaks were. They called for, "A global blockade of Coinbase, because it's an unfit member of the crypto community!"

OV:  Bullying, no?

SF:  Well, just stomping-, feet stomping, actually.

JL:  Well, it kind of reminds me of when Bitcoin and blockchain first started, and the idea that you would even have blockchain without Bitcoin, or even the Bitcoin Cash/Bitcoin debate, from 2015, going back that far, like, it kind of reminds me of that mentality, and let's just say, like, generally, people follow the money. They're going to have to fund their ideal somehow, which apparently is through t-shirts and mugs-,

SF:  Yeah, and, actually, Wikileaks, themselves, in 2011, suffered what was a-, also called a "financial blockade", ironically enough, and that was, as you say, Bank of America, Visa, MasterCard, PayPal, Western Union, and there was uproar from Wikileaks, trying to, you know, boycott all of those firms, as well. But now, it seems, kind of-, 

OV:  It sounds like a bully-, it sounds like a bullying tactic.

SF:  They're trying to do-, blockade themselves.

SK:  Yeah.

JL:  It also-, the one thing it does bring up is that we always think of Bitcoin and crypto as the Wild, Wild West, but when you have a company like Coinbase, that has terms of service, that the epitome of the Wild, Wild West has violated, and they're cut off, it kind of tells you that we've entered a new era-,

OV:  Yeah, a new regulated era.

JL:  And also that, you know, Bitcoin, cryptocurrency, in and of itself, isn't the issue. It's what's-, what's the governance around it? What are the rules around it? What are the rules of engagement, whether it's through Coinbase and the banks, or through the dark web, they're going to be different.

NA:  Apparently, they have-, Wikileaks has made a fortune on their Bitcoin holdings. I mean, they've been-,

JL:  Oh, I'm sure.

NA:  Accepting Bitcoin since, you know, back in the beginning, and we know what the price has done, so they're not exactly lacking for income. The merchant services, I guess, are a different revenue stream, but Coinbase is not the only option out there, and their reaction seems a bit overreaching, or overreacting, compared to the harm that has actually been done.

SF:  It's not new for Wikileaks to overreact [laughter].

JL:  Coinbase was the easy one. They're the ones that most closely resemble selling out.

SF:  I mean, I think the interesting thing, which is-, yeah, I mean-,

JL:  So, they're the easy target for everyone. I mean, they have minor customer service problems, Twitter and Reddit go insane. But Poloniex, or some of these others, which are less polished, it's like, "Yeah, it's-, okay. Understandable."

SF:  Yeah, I mean, I think the point is there, isn't it, that Coinbase have made a conscious decision that they are going to be the sensible players here, they're going to be big, they're going to be regulated, they're going to take that $1 billion valuation, and if that means that they can only trade four cryptocurrencies, and they have to shut people off, because they violate their terms and conditions, then they will do that, and, you know, it's a conscious decision that that's the route they're going to go, and they're not going to-, they're not just going to take any business, whichever way it comes, because, you know, they've decided they don't need to. Whether that's a sensible-, I mean, I'm looking at this from somebody who's looking at a business model, and a valuation on the amount of money that's gone in to, you know, Coinbase. Whether that's sensible or not, we'll see, but I think that's absolutely behind why they've-, you know, as we've covered here today, why they've made that decision.

OV:  Yeah, I don't really have anything else to add, other-, other than to say that I think for, sort of, traditional crypto, like the originalists, the whole idea was to decentralise, and get away from central banks, and Wikileaks is totally aligned with-, with that idea of, like, taking knowledge away from central repositories, and giving it to the masses, and I think, you know, Coinbase has made an adult decision, and-, and they're going to be, as you say, sort of, the growing pains of becoming more mature in this industry, and I'm sure there are crypto anarchists out there that are a bit annoyed about it, along with, presumably, Wikileaks, but I think it's just a natural progression.

SK:  What do you think the Venn diagram for Wikileaks supporters and crypto anarchists is, just out of interest? [Laughter].

NA:  Is there even one? 

SK:  Yeah [laughter].

NA:  Is it not the same circle?

JL:  But I also wonder how many of them would-, who maybe even have their money in Coinbase, are going to actually take it out, because they trust it, but they can tweet about it-,

OV:  So this is, like, maybe a question of, like, ignorance, for me, but what-, what are your options to convert to fiat, out of-, out of crypto, if you're not using Coinbase?

JL:  Depends. And it also depends-, going in to crypto, it depends what state you're in, or what country you're in. So, coming from New York, you have to get a little creative. Um. Luckily, there are exchanges that do, not many, that-, but also, do they have liquidity? I'd say that there's-, depending on where you are, there are options. Coinbase, you have Bittrex, if you were then to go out again, and I think a certain amount, you have Gemini, the-, the Winklevii-,

SK:  I'm glad I'm not the only one who says that, because I used to say that in my old job, and people would look at me like I was mad, and I was like, "No, it's a thing! It's genuinely a thing." [Laughter].

SF:  There's always pure peer to peer, as well-,

JL:  And until recently, they had much better fees. And then they jacked those up, because market conditions, and so forth.

SF:  Because business model.

NA:  Because investors.

SF:  Yeah [laughter].

JL:  Yeah.

SF:  I was just going to say, about Nakamoto pleading with Wikileaks not to accept Bitcoin, back in the day, I think this was while he was still, or she-,

OV:  Or they-,

JL:  Or they.

SF:  Or they.

[Laughter]

SF:  Was still around on the forum, just by saying the-, the software's still in its infancy, and it wants to grow naturally, and, you know, make improvements as it grows, as opposed to, all of a sudden, all of these Wikileaks supporters suddenly piling loads of Bitcoin in to the site, and-,

NA:  Verge could take a note from that-,

JL:  Yeah.

SK:  So, last but not least, today, we have a story from MIT Technology Review, which is titled, "Is the crypto world sexist? That might be the wrong question." This story came off the back of an interview the Review did with Amber Baldet. So, for those-, I mean, everybody knows who Amber Baldet is, surely. If you do not, you know, you must find out immediately. But, the point being here, the cryptocurrency, sort of, scene, and the blockchain, you know, world, has got a bad reputation for being even more exclusionary, and even less diverse than-, than, A) the technology itself, or, B) you know, other areas of fintech, or insurtech, or anything like that. So, the example that's given, you know, to-, to lead in to this story is that, in January, one of the longest-running Bitcoin events, the North American Bitcoin Conference, put dozens of men on its agenda, and only one woman, and when it came to the schmooze time, attendees were invited to a local strip club. While that's how it started out, Amber Baldet went on to give, what I think was, a very nuanced discussion of the industry.

JL:  So, I guess the reason I-, it's just, I feel like-, I'm not saying there aren't issues, but I feel like we take one event, and we say that it encapsulates everything, and I think that's problematic, too, and it also, I think, undervalues the day to day experiences that people might have, um, and say, "Well, there weren't strippers there, so it wasn't clearly so bad." And I think that that's a problem, more. I don't necessarily think that it's more sexist, and I've worked in finance, technology, my whole career. I do think, though, it's on display more, just on the Reddit feeds. I think when you have platforms like Reddit and Twitter, that are central to the growth of the industry, then-, you know, there's a reason why, you know, Reddit is known of the basement of the internet. I think that it's going to be on display more, especially when the culture, you know, promotes talking about your Lambos, and how you're going to spend your money, and that's just not someone you associate with gender equality [laughter]. Even if in their day-to-day life, that same person could be a very respectful human being.

NA:  Yeah, you're totally right. I mean, we are talking about it a whole lot more, in Reddit, and in forums like this, and in MIT Technology Review, of all places, and so that's a good thing. I mean, obviously, there's a lot of work to be done, but it is improving. I mean, look at us here. And we have-, you know, CoinDesk has its flagship conference, Consensus, coming up next month, in New York, and I am on a panel that is all female. We are talking to crypto-, a handful of crypto investors. And the fact that they're female is not interesting. What's interesting is that they know what they're talking about, they are all experts in their various fields, venture, crypto investing, blockchain, etc., and that's what we should be focusing on. Now, Amber has spoken about this, also. It's not the fact that we're females talking about this. It's the fact that we actually know what we're doing, and we have interesting things to say, and that, I'm seeing more and more. Things like the Consensus Conference, for instance, that have all-female panels like this, the fact they're all female is not interesting. The signalling is, however, important, in that not only does it send a message to young women, thinking of getting in to this field, but also to other blockchain events. It is possible to find female panellists who are interesting, who know what they're doing, and are making a difference in the sector.

SK:  Well, yeah, you've got five here to choose from, if anybody needs, uh [laughter] any female panellists-,

JL:  I did hear-, I didn't go last year, but I did hear, last year, Consensus, from other colleagues, it was pretty horrifying how some women were talked to and treated. More, like-, not, you know, on the panels, but more like, "Oh, like-," essentially, "Like, are you a groupie?" or, treated like they were objects, versus there because there was any other reason, other than the fact that maybe, you know, they were-,

OV:  Yeah-,

NA:  Yeah, and hence-, hence the need for more panels like this, to show that we're not there because we're groupies, because we know what we're doing. And the fact that it's even being talked about, the fact it's being called out-,

SK:  Yes. Yeah.

NA:  And that people are being shamed-,

SK:  Well, I think, yeah. I think-, I think that's from a similar perspective that-, we talked about this on, you know, Fintech Insider, we talked about it, you know, today, is, it's actually more about the fact that people are willing to stand up and go, "It's not okay if you only have one woman," and, sort of-, and a lot of men will now say, you know, "I'm not going to appear on a panel if there aren't any women," you know, and the more men who do that, the better it is, because that's actual diversity, because that's everybody knowing that it's better for everybody else.

SF:  For sure, and something that Amber mentioned in the interview was, rather than talking about diversity, you talk about inclusivity, and I think that's a really important point to make, is that it's not just gender equality, or racial diversity, it's making sure that every view is represented-, almost every view is represented. But it's -, it's about having that diversity of ideas, to steal a phrase from Richard Crook, but it's-, it's incredibly important. I wanted to highlight a quote from her in the interview, as well. She said, "While we can probably never spend too much time talking about inclusion, it's unfortunate that the majority of doing so falls disproportionately on to the shoulders of those who are already responsible for doing the real technical work, and also fighting for their own legitimacy," and that ties back to what you were saying there, as well, about-, uh, we're not here on panels because we're a token woman, we're here because we know what we're talking about.

OV:  I think maybe there's a division, as well, in ICOs and crypto, versus DLT, as a-, as, sort of, a bit more of the, sort of, formal, conservative part of the industry. Because I-, it's definitely not my experience that there are-, there are fewer women in this industry, in fact I know lots of-, of women that are working more on the DLT side, and obviously we have Blythe Masters heading up the, kind of, figurehead, as one of the most famous women in that industry. I wonder whether, just because of-, ICOs, like, tend to be, sort of, young men, that-, that buy in to them-,

SF:  And they're headline-grabbing, as well, isn't it-,

OV:  Yeah.

SF:  It's-, the infrastructure stuff is-, doesn't quite make-, well, it certainly doesn't make the mainstream media, like the parties do, and, you know, Jo, yourself, you've been around in this industry for very many years, so-, and-, 

JL:  I have to say-,

SF:  And I have experiences which are great, with both women and men.

JL:  Yeah, and-, and I've had both. I'd also say-, so, I-, one of the reasons I-, so, I've been at IBM now for a year and a bit, and one of the reasons I chose IBM, and wanted to, is when I saw that, not jus the CEO, but her direct report, and actually the head of all of blockchain, were women, and you can see that it has-, it has an impact on how-, the culture of the group, and-, and I think that's been really a great experience for me, to see that, as well. Whereas, you know, R3, there was, you know, a lot of great stuff happening, but it was-, you know, I didn't necessarily find that same role model.

SK:  And I think, the thing is, you-, when you get to be a certain, you know, level of experience, shall we say, you don't mind being the only woman, and you don't mind, you know, batting things off, and handling things, and-, and going, "Right, well, I have a role to play here, and my role is to be the leader," but, um, you have to have survived an awful lot of war wounds, to get to that point, you have to be a certain type of person, and I don't think it should be only those types of people who get to the top. I think, exactly as you say, Jo, the more layers and levels of people you can get in, that act as role models, all the way up, the more that inclusivity and diversity is going to happen. And whether that's in blockchain, or crypto, or in finance, or in tech, or, you know, anything else you want to mention, it is about getting that kind of support network, if you like, in place, and then it doesn't seem weird when-, because this is the way-, this is the way that conferences are organised, a lot of the time, by the way. You go to your friends, and you say, "Oh, do you know somebody who can speak on X," and they go, "Yeah, I do, I'll send them an email." And if everybody you go and speak to is that classic, suited white man, then everybody they're going to recommend is a classic, suited white man, and that's where you get these, as we call them, "manels" from. I actually did inverted commas there with my-, my fingers in the air. But, you know, if-, if you get that network of women in place, then they're more likely to recommend their friends, or people they know, or colleagues they've worked with.

OV:  And I think she talks about it in the article, but one of the things I hate is when there's, like, the conference, and there's, like, the side conference, where they're like "women in blockchain"-,

[Laughter]

JL:  Or the luncheon, too.

NA:  Totally. Yeah.

[Laughter]

OV:  And obviously no men go to the side panel of women in blockchain. So, I think that's it, like, getting women on to the main panels. I have a friend who-, who used to be one of the producers at Newsnight, and he said, one of the problems is that, just, women are much less confident and self-promoting a lot of the time, so he would go to women who were recognised experts in their industry, but they would still say no to-, to being on Newsnight, and obviously that's super high-profile, but I think, sort of, coaching women, and helping them with-, with that, as well, can help.

SK:  And I think offering women slots. Women, you know, when they do get offered slots, quite often get offered moderating roles, and it's just-, I was just thinking what Jo was saying then, of the women I know who are quite senior in tech companies, there tends to be Head of Products, or Head of HR, but if you're Head of Product, you're not actually-, you're organising an awful lot of different complex things, you know, juggling an awful lot of things, and that background can come from anywhere, the same, you know, if they're HR, they tend to be quite female dominated. But, like, when you get invited to speak on panels, nine times out of ten, you'll get invited to be a moderator, for precisely those reasons. You can handle lots of things at once, and you're very good at that. But we need more women, you know, to be keynote speakers, we need more women to stand up there, be the first person on stage, and go, "You know what? I'm here because I know what I'm doing."

JL:  And also to be contrarian. I think-, I think there's a certain sense of, like, where I've been made to feel like, "Well, you just want to be there because you want to talk," I'm like, "Because I have something to say."

SK:  Yeah.

JL:  Shocker. And, I think that being-, without being, "Oh shoot, you know, she was being difficult," or, "She, you know, was trying to make a scene," to be like, "She had a point of view, and she made it."

NA:  Conflict avoidance becomes a thing. I mean, women are labelled as being conflict avoiders, that's often why we are put in HR, and in project management, we get things done-,

OV:  And in moderating [laughs].

NA:  We get things done, but it-, it is changing. I mean, look at the composition of panels that we've seen recently, there are some brilliant female technicians working in crypto, and there are some brilliant people, actually just getting things done as project managers. Maybe we need to redefine what we mean by "crypto".

SK:  Yes. Absolutely. Well, thank you so much, all of you, for joining me, that gets-, brings us to the end of our roundtable. It's been a fascinating conversation, and I'm so pleased we managed to get so many people in the studio for Blockchain Insider. Normally we have-, those regular listeners know, we normally have somebody in a field, so it's really nice not to have somebody in a field, for a little bit of a break. So, stories we didn't have time to cover this week-, um, this is where, again, they make me read out the entertaining headlines. From the Financial Times, we have, "The Vomiting Camel has escaped from Bitcoin zoo." From Reuters, we have a slightly, uh, more-, an easier to read title, anyway, "JP Morgan, National Bank of Canada, and others, test debt issuance on the blockchain." From CNET.com, we have, "Ad-blocking Brave browser signs deal with Dow Jones Media Group," and, finally, from Bloomberg, we have the final confirmation that Goldman Sachs has hired a crypto trader by the name of Justin Schmidt to lead digital assets. So, that leads us on to our Tweet of the Week.

[Tweet of the Week jingle]

SK:  This week's Tweet of the Week comes from Nathaniel Popper, @NathanielPopper, and it reads, "Amid the big regulatory crackdown on virtual currencies, I've heard that Andreessen Horowitz led a group of VC's and law firms that visited the SEC late last month and argued for a 'safe harbor'," inverted commas, bunny ears, "for at least some initial coin offering tokens." Thank you to all our wonderful guests today. Where can people find out more about you? Sara?

SF:  I am @Saronimo on Twitter, or you can tweet us @Clearmatics, or go to Clearmatics.com.

SK:  Brilliant. And Noelle?

NA:  I'm @NoelleInMadrid on Twitter, and don't forget to read CoinDesk.com.

SK:  Brilliant. Olivia, where can people find out more about you?

OV:  I think probably LinkedIn, Olivia Vinden, or alphafmc.com. 

SK:  Brilliant, and finally, Jo.

JL:  On Twitter @ProofofJo, same on Instagram, actually, and also on LinkedIn, Jo Lang.

SK:  Brilliant. Thank you so much again, all of you, for joining us. I also have to thank our amazing production team here at 11FS. We have Laura Watkins, our Producer, Michael Bailey, our Editor, and our Assistant Producer, Petrit Berisha. 11FS, the company that brings you this podcast, are a challenger agency who help banks, asset managers, FMIs, and anyone with a challenge in blockchain or DLT, to achieve more. If you want to understand how to commercialise blockchain projects, or just have a speaker for your next event, we hope that you'll get in touch. Hit up our website, 11FS.com, to find out more. Thanks for listening. If you like what you've heard, subscribe to our podcast, leave us a review on iTunes, those reviews help us so, so much, and spread the word. Tell all your friends and colleagues to listen, too. We'll have more Blockchain Insider next week. Goodbye. 


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