>> Announcer: From New York, it's theCUBE. Covering Blockchain Week. Now, here's John Furrier. >> Hello everyone and welcome back to theCUBE coverage here exclusively at the block party, at the Crypto-House's part of Blockchain Week in New York City, Blockchain New York. Also, Consensus 2018 is having a variety of other events. I'm here with Allan Rothstein, the co-founder of Strategic Coin, also managing partner at Decentralized Ventures. Hey welcome to this Cube conversation. Nights, night party here, exclusive event here in the East Village, thanks for joining me. >> Thank you, thank you for having me. >> So, co-founder of Strategic Coins doing some great work in the maturization of this sector. Still in the first in the half inning, bottom of the first, some would say but also Decentralized Ventures, which I love the name because what does it mean? I mean, it means crypto, token economics, block chain, brand new field. >> Exactly. >> Emerging very very fast. >> And it's global, so it's decentralized. Right now we're in Malta, but we're going all over the world, Estonia, other countries because that's where this market is going. >> So for the folks that don't really grock all that, how would you describe it to your friend that says Hey Allan, what is this all about? What is this decentralized tokens, ICOs, blockchain, bottom line me, what's going on? >> Blockchain is probably the first really global business model that is not controlled by anybody, by any single government, by any single company, by any single industry. It dis-intermediates all of these industries that are filled with middle-men and which prevent end users and peers from interacting with each other. >> I was told by some guy I was interviewing in Puerto Rico, you know the United States is the place where all the money went into because that's where the entrepreneurial energy was. And Europe was the entity that was slow, antiquated, all these rules, hard to make money, hard to be a capitalist. He goes: "now, the United States is turning into Europe." We are the new Europe in the US and all the money is going outside the US, into massively growing middle-class economies outside the United States. And the perfect storm is the crypto token economic model, where money is just running hard. Your thoughts on that comment and reaction. >> I think it's exactly right, and more importantly the road blocks being set up by the US government are not only sending the economics to other places in the world, they're actually sending the technologies to other places in the world. So I've lived in New York all of my life, I've been on Wall Street; the reason I'm setting up in Malta is exactly for that reason. Because it is very difficult to work in Blockchain and crypto here. We don't know what the definition is. The IRS says that cryptos are property. SEC says that they're securities. SFTC says they're commodities. The FED says they're currencies. So you have four different agencies claiming jurisdiction and you don't know who to report to. You don't know what the rules are. >> And all the service providers like law firms, and advisories, accountings, they all come to a screeching halt because they don't know what to say. They don't want to get sued. Entrepreneurs give up, that stifles innovation. >> It stifles innovation, but it, more importantly, it's really sending potentially the most important technology overseas. And you have other jurisdictions that are grabbing at it. You've got Bermuda, I work with the government in Malta, and they are setting up what they call Blockchain Island. They are setting up a crypto-friendly regime. This will be the first EU country with a full set of regulations. It's not that the regulations are easy but you know what the rules are. And at the moment, that's the only EU country that you know all the rules. >> As all these regulations, I mean GDPR is happening this month, I still think that's a shit show, in my opinion, but we'll see what happens there. This is, all these regulations, I get it, but I think that as the economy starts to go global, it's a competitive opportunity for our country and nation to be a digital nation and do it right. And also, people need advisory. What the hell is the playbook? You can't just go to the manual, there's no manual for this. There's no playbook. Strategic Coin, Decentralized Ventures, other leaders in the community on the finance side are pushing the envelope to try and lead by example. Because, as you just said, things are pretty much sideways from a regulatory standpoint. >> Yeah, that's exactly what we do. So at Strategic Coin, we help with jurisdiction. We help with the regulations, we try and direct companies to understand what they're dealing with. We do deep research for companies, we help them work on the corporate side, we really help them navigate some very difficult and choppy waters. >> What's the biggest challenge that companies have right now? Is it domicile, is it token economics? >> The biggest challenge is, there are two. One is regulation, knowing what the rules are. Second one is banking. Without regulation, bank will not allow companies who are getting funding from crypto to open accounts and accept funds. Once regulation is in place, the banks understand that they're no longer at risk of violating laws because they know what the laws are. So banking, in particular is a real issue around the world. >> What's the overseas outlook, obviously age is booming, there's been some, you know here sound here and there, shut it down, build it out, other countries are saying we're going to be the first global Wall Street, clearing out crypto, the Fiat, moving it around. This is all up in the air. Who's leading and who's not leading? >> Right now, obviously Malta's leading because of the first EU country with a full set of regulations that they've proposed. Singapore is looking to do this. South Korea is starting to now turn. They were looking to shut down exchanges and they're actually now starting to realize that they're just sending business and technology overseas. >> What's your story these days, what are you working on? What did you do last week? Did you fly to South Korea, I mean you traveling a lot? What kind of, what are you working on? What kind of things? Give me a little taste of how your life goes every day? What are some of the challenges, opportunities you're working on? >> Well, one of the challenges is trying to filter all of the business that is actually coming to us with Strategic Coin and with Decentralized Ventures. We can handle the business because we have a lot of the answers that people are looking for. >> So you need to hire people? >> We are continuing to hire people. What's important with Strategic Coin is that we're hiring Wall Street people. We're hiring veterans in the industry. Many of these companies out there now are 25 year old kids, mom and pops, who really don't even understand what they're looking at. >> You know, baseball, the old expression about a five tool player, what's the equivalent, crypto young gun that you look for? What are the attributes that you look for in a candidate that really can handle the pressure. I mean it's not pressure, it's really just more of the pace. You need smarts, you got to have energy, got to have integrity but also you got to push the envelope. >> They have to work about 35 hours a day. They have to have the capacity to really continue to learn very very quickly to understand, to take direction. And to really understand what this business looks like and where it's going. >> And good money making opportunities as well. >> There are tremendous money making opportunities as there are in any new industry, in any new technology. >> Before we came on camera, we were talking about your background, some of the things you've done entrepreneurially and also growth. What's your assessment of the current wave we're in? Compared, you seen many waves, of all the waves, compare and contrast order of magnitude, this wave versus other waves. >> What's interesting about this wave is there have been paradigm changes in industry, technology, and they've taken generations. So, an understanding of how that change happens, generally is from text books, you had the industrial revolution and first software revolution in these generations for people my age, or people in their 40's. You've seen the software revolution then you've seen the internet revolution and now you're seeing this, so you actually have experience in seeing how these play out. And that's part of the reason that this technology is moving so quickly. I know how it's going to go, I've seen how it's going because I was involved in the internet. >> Software economics, you've seen software economics before, you know what it looks like. >> I've seen software and I've seen internet. And with blockchain, we know blockchain is here, and we don't know what use it's going to be, we know a lot of these companies are going to fall by the wayside. We know a lot of these companies set up a mom and pop will disappear and we know a lot of these ICOs will be acquired by bigger ICOs who have more experience. >> Well you know, just to add two things to that list of awesome commentary is add in open source software and cloud computing and you got the perfect storm. On top of what you just said, that is the magic. Alright, so I got to ask you for the young people out there, what's your advise, or if you could talk to your 22 year old self right now, what would you say to yourself, walking into this new landscape that's exploding with opportunity, change in all theaters? >> That's a really good question. I would say to try and find mentors, learn from industry veterans, as opposed to setting up your own shop, setting up your own ICO, thinking you're going to raise 50 million dollars and you're going to conquer the world by the time you're 25. >> Allan, thanks for coming on to share. I know you had a big party, we're having a great time here. Thanks for taking a minute out of the networking and schmoozing and to come in and speak with us on theCUBE here in New York City. >> Thank you. >> Alright, I'm John Furrier, we're here at Blockchain Week, New York, of course theCUBE's continuing coverage. Go to siliconangle.com, thecube.net for all the videos. We'll be at Consensus 2018 all week. More coverage on Silicon Angle and thecube.net. I'm John Furrier, thanks for watching.

>>Live from the Mandalay convention center in Las Vegas, Nevada. It's not cue at IBM insight 2014 >>you're all your hosts. John furrier and Dave Volante.. >>Okay. Welcome back everyone. We're here live inside the cube at IBM insight. I'm Sean with Dave Volante. We go after the events, extract the signal and noise. We go wall to wall covers what we do here. I don't, of course we're excited to have awesome gas. We talked to the executives, entrepreneurs, but we get the media stars in here. Uh, Katie Lyndon doll. Welcome to the cube. You are with CNN, the today show. You're the tech correspondent and you get a lot of energy. I could just tell this is going to be fun. It's been fun to hear the last few days. So I mean, Watson is the geeky story of any what, what are you seeing? Let me get the wife in a second. But outside of Watson, what's the coolest thing you've seen? >>I'm constantly on the hunt for the latest innovations in technology and I think that's probably the best part about my job. And always chasing down high level stories. I recently just came back for a dive with NASA. I learned that NASA astronauts actually train underwater to simulate microgravity and I'm like, Oh my gosh, no way. And they're like, do you want to come down to the world's only Marine underwater habitat? I was like, yes, please. So went down to the Florida keys, it's an hour off the coast and was diving literally with NASA European space agency and the Canadian space agency underwater. And again, it's the world's only underwater Marine habitat and seeing how they train in everything from asteroid mining to um, underwater surgery to actually seeing how the body responds to exercise. I guess water simulates one sixth of gravity. So it was a pretty dynamic shoot. >>I was doing that for NBC news and it's just I, those are the types of stories. I, I am a diver. I actually was doing a story on big data last year and it required me to get my dive certs and the Island of Bermuda feel very bad. It was a presentation that I was speaking on here at insight a, there was all this crowdsourced information about how the lion fish, if you've ever heard of the lion fish has been, it's an invasion in the Atlantic ocean. I took all of this information and metrics and made a story for CNN and it required me to get my advanced dive certs. So now I'm getting all these dive stories cause there's not a lot of us dive reporters. So the lion fish story for CNN too. Another good example of a piece that I go after. >>So you, you bring a lot of energy. What do you see here? I mean you see a lot of stories and you get pitched stories. I can imagine that your email box flux, I mean it's like, Oh >>I have 78,000 unread emails right now. I'm not proud of that. But yes, constantly being pitched. >>I had 40,000 I'm a little bit blind. I'm going to give that to you in the today show. Not too shabby. But what do you do? You get pitched all the time and so you got the vet stories. What's your formula for vetting stories? I mean, what gets your attention and how do you go outside your comfort zone to select good stories? What your attention. It's funny, >>you know, so I've been in television for the last 10 years and I feel like now I have this internal barometer and knowing when something's very good and the scope of the things that I cover from, you know, in the past month alone when I was talking about the NASA piece and then I'll flip the next day and do top Halloween gadgets on today's show. So it's, it's very vast, but I can instantly tell and it's, it's come through experience and being in a background in technology and knowing what's gonna work for the consumer and knowing a hot product. When I see it and I I T I gotten pretty good I think at it spotting a product that a consumer is going to love but also finding a story that is, maybe it's super nerdy, but my job is to take it and to bring it down to a level that's entertaining for any kind of audience, whether it be CNN or whether it be today. >>So it says your Guinness book of world record holder, share that in little nugget with the folks in. Yes, that is a true story. I have a Guinness world record holder in the most high fives and one minute. Okay, so this probably solicit some like how the heck did that happen? I've always been fascinated with Guinness world records and I always wanted one and I've always been obsessed with a high five like I am paranoid of huggers, there's nothing that scares me more or good high five just go for the five. I don't want to bring it in and okay, it's a little OCD. I will completely aware. So anyways, I found that this Guinness world record was held by a clown in England for the most high fives and one minute. So I convinced I was hosting a show on spike TV and I convinced them to allow me to break this record. >>So we had all these people line up in the MTV cafeteria and you have a Guinness world record adjudicator come onsite, you get two tries and if you win you get a plaque in a formal ceremony. The cube before we should do the most consecutive interviews to having a drink of water. We want to just come here and we could break something able to break something or like you said, it's his official. Yeah, we started to get like real nervous and like hot and yeah, so I had two tribes. Oh I was, I was giving him a big ass big fitness person. So I was like ready. And if clown beats me at this point, it's over your careers. division. You'll never work again because I beat it on the first try and then I advanced it on a single hand or you go, there's a whole process as you can imagine with the adjudicator's she's like real intense. >>She's like counting with her clicker on the high five so I go down this line of people and it has to be over there can't be like a mailed in like you know like a high five you go for the five names and then I got a couple that were disqualified, you know like a couple didn't count because it wasn't like a full on five four so like a film replay. Super slow motion. I like argued a few. I was like no, I was for sure up on that one. The flag, it was sponsored by PRL. It wasn't but it should have been but it was fun. So I have a plaque how many? 107 heard rumors that it's been broken but I didn't care as long as I've got a plan to that plan at one point. Okay. Let's cut to about IBM because Watson is the coolest thing I'll say is pretty mainstream. >>It hits your wheelhouse. I'll see for the day I've seen jeopardy. Absolutely. Now how does that translate into a story for sure. Stuff going on here. What do you, so what's very cool about Watson? I called my boyfriend because I've had a relationship with him now over the last few years, a few years ago on CVS. I actually got to challenge Watson on a full game of jeopardy and I think that was of course the most, the most memorable part of Watson when he took on the two, you know, jeopardy champions. But so this is like a lifetime moment for me. I got a full game of jeopardy, me Watson and another individual smoked me and actually I was doing okay and then it was like tennis vocab. I was like, Oh, I got this. You know, like I've been in sports my whole life. I've been worked at ESPN for seven years. >>I got this in the bag, I was doing good. And then they were like, Oh, we had them on the low setting. I was like, all right, really? Like really? Like I was just feeling good about myself. I finished with $2, two bucks. Um, and I thought it was so cool how gimmicky it was, you know, in a healthy beach in the tennis category. Oh, you smoking, you never in the low setting for sure. I got a few of those, a few. I actually got set in Tennessee vocab. You're going to have it right. Even watching tennis your whole life. Right. ESPN is embarrassing and disappointing. And then I weighed you too much and then the double jeopardy. Anyways, I digress. So how cool is it that I got to play Watson but then now years later seeing the power in it in many different developments and most notably I work over at as a volunteer at Sloan Memorial Kettering cancer center for a small group called Candlelighters that works with individuals that come in from around the world for cancer treatments. >>Now Sloan is one of those powerful cancer centers in the world is actually using it as predictive analysis. So here and I work with these kids and I, it's very complex. When they go in for a diagnosis, there's lots of different problems that they have and really it's, it's, it's, it's, it's guesswork for a doctor now. They can put all of these things that are happening with it, with a child into a machine, and they can pump out a hypotheses. Of course, you're going to have to have the human interaction tailored with that to have the emotional side, but I had been fascinated, especially on the medical side, watching your boyfriend at this point. That's interesting. We'll get that to the world of Facebook. It's complicated. I heard rumors that he's talks back and we'll listen to this a true statement. He's a lot smarter than I am. >>I'm intimidated by that, but what's the coolest demo with Watson that you've seen besides jeopardy? Yeah, that would have, well I actually learned something new from a few developers that I met yesterday about the new chef app. So being able to go into your pantry and to do some recipe from what you have, the ingredients you have insider, I think that's a little more consumer friendly. So I was kind of like, um, I'm excited to check that one out. Looking at the tech landscape, what are you most excited about? I mean, what's the coolest kind of consumer meats like gadget, short door, tech cloud. If you could pull a few favorites at what's, what's drawing your attention? Uh, one that we actually had here that's probably popped into mind. There's so many to choose from, but in the world of Oculus rift, and the reason I say that is not for the gaming aspect, but more for the potential in the landscape of physical therapy. >>The first time I got on Oculus raft, I was actually training on a Navy boat and I was doing a segment where all my camera men were all around me. I lost track of reality and I got so immersed into virtual reality and being there and even as a huge diver, I get very motion sick and I got motion sick on the boat. Being in this physical, this augmented reality world, we're actually shooting this at the birthplace of Oculus rift. So we really diving behind the scenes into the actual, uh, software and hardware and it was such a cool, immersive experience and realize that what this could do for physical therapy or even at the dentist at a lower end, I think the capabilities for augmented reality and taking yourself out of that moment are huge. So I think that's very exciting. How about drones? >>Oh my gosh. So yes, let's talk to, and my nephew the other day and he said, do you want to see the drone that I built? And I said, yeah, it's got this four or five quadcopter. It's a quadcopter. Yup. I said, where'd you get the software for? He goes, I'll download it. It's all open source. I hacked it a little bit. I actually have several drones. Okay. Nominal. Because this blew me away. I probably have what I consider is the best prosumer drone. It's a DGI Phantom, a DJI Phantom two and I have got some incredible aerial footage over the mountains of Montana and also over a Bermuda, the Island of Bermuda. I sent it up, put it over a shipwreck, gorgeous. And for me as a flake, being in photo and video and going out and getting my own video and not having to rely on a cop, a copter for, you know, that would be thousands of dollars worth of footage or relying on a cameraman. >>I just sent that baby up. I'm like, please don't hit anybody. It's a little hard to operate when you get the one, the higher end models. I have a couple of the parents too. There are a lot easier to operate and do it right from my iPhone, but I am just like, I'm so into it now. I think it's a little gimmicky when we talk about Amazon and pizza deliveries and taco deliveries and beer deliveries with a drone shooting surprises. Texas man, what am, I don't know about that. But uh, I think it's fascinating. I think it's a really cool technology. And again, I've personally saved tens and thousands of dollars using my drones. So you, when you flew over these sites yet proximate, so you had visual concepts. So the Phantom Jerome that I have, that's my favorite one. I actually attach a GoPro to it so I can send it up and I use the gyroscope or just kind of move my GoPro around in mid air. It goes hundreds of feet high. I mean, you've really got to get a grasp on it and know what you're doing. I had it out in a field well before I took it out to an Island on a beach. But I'm not, a drive is not something you really, it's not a remote control car. Now did you build it? Oh no. Goodness. Aww, that's totally on the market. Yeah, I got it at B and H photo >>sending them out. So in San Francisco off their balconies and then they're going out to, you know, angel Island, Alcatraz, and literally they're flying out then unregulated. It's like someday there'll be drone collisions, let's say this is unregulated. This is a huge, people are geeking out with the drones. It's super exciting. Dave camera's shooting down him sending him into football venues or you know, the world series delivering packages. But mom's a streaker. I mean Amazon. I like that. Okay. So what else is new for you? Tell us more about some, some cool behind the scenes at a today's show. Any sad night live, uh, opportunities for you next been >>to Saturday night live. Oh my gosh. By the way, that's like the hottest ticket in New York to get. I've had the opportunity to go to two shows cause my friend's a cameraman over there. The rehearsal for it is like amazing. I know that's a huge digression, but talking about something to see in person, that's one of my bucket lists. Phenomenal. Yeah. Phenomenal. What else is new in New York and the scene there? Uh, Oh, we constantly covering a lot of different pieces. Uh, one, I just came back from Africa a little bit ago. I was doing a number of pieces over there from an elephant orphanage to one of my favorite pieces that we'll be rolling out soon. I did it for cnn.com and also working on a video piece of it. I went in embedded myself in the second poorest part of the entire world in the slums of Kibera, Kenya, and it was amazing to see that in these very poor areas, 70 to 80% cell penetration. A lot of people don't think that a smartphone would be prevalent. It sure is. And these kids, yeah, absolutely. There's cell towers everywhere. These kids were, you know, they don't have much, but they have e-reader devices and they can have thousands of books when they're walking 10 miles to school. You walk into the school that doesn't have any electricity, it's a hundred degrees, but they all have e-readers, Kindles right on their desk. I was blown away. I went to several different schools around Eastern Kenya. Fascinating story to be able to cover. So >>yeah, that's a really good point. In mobile penetration. If I was talking to this startup that where their business plan is to build, sell a solar battery recharging stations because they have the exact points, like they have all these devices but it's not, they don't have the traditional electricity and the parks >>one outlet in the entire school. So fortunately for, you know, with wifi off it's about a week charge on a Kindle. So it is, >>yeah, I think, I think that's a great market opportunity. Certainly in emerging countries, the mobile penetration, I'm so suites about the IBM show here. Is this your first time here or, >>I have had the luxury and the opportunity to be a part of several IBM events and everyone is so uniquely different. And this one all about developers obviously. So something I get to nerd out in myself in that is an it girl and also a developer. It's fun to be able to learn. I picked up so much new information so I just kind of like, they're like, you can, you're done with, I'm like, I'm going to hang out for a little bit longer. >>You know, you know you're a, you know, you're a geek when you're geeking out, when you're off the clock, you know Steve and I the same way. We're like we should stop rookies now let's keep going. So CES, UFC, yes, >>yes, every year for sure. And for anyone that hasn't been to CF, it's kind of on the bucket list for anybody that's attending technology, 35 football fields full of gadgets. Amazing. Yeah, it's always one of my biggest times of the year. So we'll be back here. >>now do you enjoy CES or is it a hard slog for you because you must have to really get down and dirty for CS, I mean a lot of stuff to cover. >>I did and I tried to make it to like the most random boosts. I find someone of my best technology products and like the ma and PA type shops that don't have the million dollar booth and like you know that are really back in a corner and I'm like zero in, >>you go on to cover, by the way, do you go into cover? You kind of sneak in there and you go into the camera guys. No, I go for it. You go for it. Okay. Time. Okay. All right guys. Um, that's awesome. Well can. Thanks for coming on the cube. We really appreciate spending the time. We'd love the personality. I love the energy. I mean Dave and I think you know, we're, first of all we're huge fans of your work. Especially the ESPN part. No, we're, we're big sports fans. In fact we call this the ESPN of tech cause it's our kind of version of like trying to be like ESPN. But we think technology is going mainstream. People at this new generation are geeks and even too, you alluded to ESPN, even sports and technology, I can't tell you how many pieces I've covered in pro athletes and how tech is entering in that space. Everywhere. Disruption in the data, the social media, you know, limiting have agents that go direct to the audience. Just super exciting. I mean I'm real big fan of media, tech, sports and entertainment. Thanks for coming on the cube. We appreciate it. We'll be right back with this after the short break here inside the cube live in Las Vegas. I'm John and Dave. We write back.