from the Hard Rock Hotel in Las Vegas it's the cube recovering no joke on 2018 brought to you by Osho okay welcome back everyone we're here live here at hosts show con in Las Vegas the first security conference for blockchain its inaugural event and we're here with Gabriel Shepherd VP of strategy at Global Strike for host show they're the hosts of the event although it's an industry conference for the entire community all coming together Gabriel thanks for coming on and spend the time yeah thanks for having me thanks for you know supporting the event and we appreciate your team coming out and covering what we're trying to build here well we think it's super important now so you guys are doing a great service for the industry and stepping up and put in the event together and so props to you guys thank you this is not a hosts show sales like conference you guys aren't selling anything you're doing the service for the community so props to you guys in the team great stuff and we know this is a kernel of all the smartest people and its really an industry event so it shows in the session so appreciate that yes we think it's important because you know we see a lot of trends the queue has a unique advantage in how we cover hundreds of events and yeah so we get to go we see a horizontal observation space from the industry and when you have formation like this with the community this is important you guys have up leveled the conversation focused the conversation around blockchain where security is the top-level conversation that's it no I feel pitches right so for the folks watch and this is really one of those events where it's not a huge number of people here like the thousands and thousands of other blockchain shows that make money off events this is about community and around getting the conversations and having substantive conversations so great job so for the folks watching the content agenda is super awesome host show con-com you go browse it but give us some color commentary on some of the types of speakers here the diversity yeah I think I think the first thing that we wanted to accomplish was with Hojo Khan was we we wanted to put front and center the conversations that were not taking place at other events there are plenty of platforms and opportunities for companies early-stage companies to go pitch there are other great conference organizers that do events and have their own wheelhouse but what we wanted to do was put together a conference that was focused around a type of conference that we ourselves would want to attend as a cybersecurity firm and you know after traveling the world I mean you know you you and artesia spoke many times and hosho has sponsored quite a few events around the world after attending by the end of 2018 will attended something like a hundred plus events in some capacity and so it was clear to us early on that companies weren't our conferences weren't going to focus on security or at least put them on the main stage where I believed that they should be at least with all the hacks happening so what we wanted to do was bring together thought leadership with respect to security technical leadership with respect to developers and security engineers and we wanted to bridge those two what I mean by that is we wanted thought leadership that could get executives to start the non-technical people so start thinking about security in the larger format and how it's applicable to their company but what we also wanted to do is we wanted to connect these non-technical people with the technical people in an intimate setting where they could learn think about the brain power that we have in this hotel for hosho Khan you've got the minds of Andre Assante innopolis Diego's LDR of RSK Michael berkland of shape-shift josub Kuan of hosho we've got Ron stone from c4 you've got an on Prakash a world-class white hat bug bounty hunter consider what he's top-5 bug bounty hunter for our top top bug bounty hunter for Facebook five years in a row the the level of the calibre of technical talent in this building has the potential to solve problems that Enterprise has been trying to solve individually for years but those conversations don't take place in earnest with the non-technical people and so the idea behind hoshikawa was to bridge those to provide education that's what we're doing things like workshops sure we have keynotes and panels but we also have the ability to teach non-technical people how to enable two-factor authentication how to set up PGP for your email how to set up your hardware wallet these things aren't these conversations are not the bridge is a clearly established we interview people from on the compliance side all the way down to custodial services which again the diversity is not a group think events just giving them more props here because I think you guys did a great job worthy of promotion because you not only bridge the communities together you're bringing people in cross functionally colonizing and the asset test for me is simple the groupthink event is when everyone's kind of rah rah each other I know this conditions we got Andre is saying hey if you put database substitute database for blockchain and it reads well it's not a real revolutionary thing and oh all you custodian services you're screwed I mean so you have perspectives on both side that's right and there's contentious conversation that's right and that to me proves it and as well as the sessions are highly attended or we don't want it we don't want a panel of everybody in agreeance because we know that's not reality i mean that you you bring up the issue of curse of custody a prime example is we had a great talk a four-person panel led by Joe Kelly who's the CEO of Unchained Capital he had a panel with traditional equities custodian Paul pooi from edge wallet Joseph Kwon is the CEO of hosho and there was clear differences of opinion with respect to custody and it got a little contentious but isn't that the point yeah it's to have these conversations in earnest and let's put them out in the public on what's right and what's wrong for the community and let the community to decide the best way forward that's the best is exactly what you want to do I gotta ask you what are the big surprises for you what have you learned what's the big reveal for you that you've super surprised you or are things you expected what were some of the things that went on here yeah I think the biggest surprise to me was the positive feedback that we received you know I understand that we know people maybe looked at how shock on year one and said hosho like they're a cybersecurity firm what are they doing running a conference right but my background is a you know I've produced conferences I have a former employee of South by Southwest I believe a big an experience and so when we started to put this together we thought we knew we would make mistakes and we certainly made mistakes with respect to programming and schedule and just things that we had didn't think about attention to detail but we had plans far in that the mistakes were mitigated that they weren't exposed to the public right there behind the scenes fires that kind like a wedding or a party but no one actually really notices sure we put them out behind the scenes nobody that the our guests don't notice and that was my biggest concern I'm pleasantly surprised at the positive feedback we've yet to get any negative feedback publicly on Twitter telegram anecdotally individually people now they made just being nice to my face but I feel good about what the response that we've got it's been good vibes here so I gotta ask you well sure the DJ's were great last night good experience yeah experience and knowledge and and networking has been a theme to correct I lost him the networking dynamics I saw a lot of people I had I had ran to some people I met for the first time we've had great outreach that with the queue was integrated in people very friendly talked about the networking and that's been going on here yeah I mean this panels are great I'd love to hear from from panels and solo presentations but a lot of work gets done in the hallways and we have a saying in the conference business hallway hustlers right the ones that are hustling in the hallways are those early stage entrepreneurs or trying to close deals trying to figure out how to get in front of the right person serendipitously are at the bar at the same time as somebody they want to meet that is to me conference 101 that is the stuff I grew up on and so we wanted to make sure that we were encouraging those interactions through traffic flow so you'll notice that they're strategically the content rooms are strategically placed so that when you're changing rooms people are forced to cross interact with each other because they're forced to bump into each other and if you look at the programming we purposefully to our demise to be honest year one put a lot of programming that was conflicted with each other we made people make a decision about what talk they wanted to go to because there were two really compelling people at the same time or 10 minutes off yeah and so you had to make a decision vote with your feet you got to vote with your feet and and and from a conference perspective we call that FOMO right we want our guests to FOMO not because we want them to miss a particular talk but because we want them to be so overwhelmed with content and opportunity with networking that they when they walk away they've had a good experience they're fulfilled but they they think I got to go back here too because that thing I missed I'm not gonna miss this yeah we will point out to you guys made a good call on film all the session everything so everything's gonna be online we'll help guys do that yep so the video is gonna be available for everyone to look on demand you also had some good broadcast here we had a couple shows the cubes been here your mobile mention the DJs yeah yeah so good stuff so okay hallway conversations our lobby con as we call it when people hang up a lot on it's always good hallway con so what Gabriel in your mind as you walked around what was some of the hallway culture that you overheard and and that you thought were interesting and what hall would cartridges were you personally involved in the personal conversations I was involved with is why isn't somebody not this station why someone not Gardens but I will tell you i from what I heard from from conference attendees the conversations that I heard taking place were and I hope Jonathan doesn't mind but Jonathan Nelson from hack fund spoke on our main stage and I hope he doesn't mind me speaking out of turn but he came to me said this is one of the best run blockchain conferences I've ever been to and to have somebody like Jonathan say that who has done hundreds of talks and thousands was really meaningful but but what was more important is to talk to him and him feel comfortable enough to sit down with me and just talk generally that's the vibe we want for every attendant we want you to feel comfortable meeting with people in the hallway who you've never met and be vulnerable from a security perspective you know Michael Turpin for example sitting down and talking proactively about being the AT&T hack great these are opportunities for people to really talk about what's happened and be vulnerable and have the opportunity to educate us all how to get better as an industry you know the other thing I want to get your thoughts on is obviously the program's been phenomenal in the content side thank you but community is really important to us we're of a community model to q you guys care about the community aspect of this and as a real event you want to have an ongoing year after year and hopefully it'll get bigger I think it will basically our results we're seeing talk about the community impact because what you're really talking about there is community that's right well I mean Vegas we talk about there's multiple communities right regionally post-show is a Vegas based company we're born here we close I think forty some employees all based here in Las Vegas which is our home so the first thing that we did with respect to community as we created a local local price if you're a Nevada resident we didn't want you to have to invest a significant amount of money to come to something in your own town the second thing we did is we've invited the local Vegas Bitcoin meet up in aetherium meet ups to come and partake and not only participate but contribute to the content and opening day in fact there was so much influx of people from those meetups it wasn't official it wasn't like a program where we had actually a VTEC set up I thought I was gonna be like a meet-up there were so many people that attended we had to on the fly provide AV because we were overwhelmed with the amount of people that showed up so that's a regional community but with respect to the community from blockchain community what we wanted to do is make sure we brought people of all ethnicities all countries we have 26 countries represented in the first blockchain security conference and you had some big-name celebrities here yeah Neil Kittleson Max Keiser you go mama Anan Prakash Yakov Prensky a layer from your side pop popcorn kochenko has some big names yeah I'll see andreas yes here keynoting yeah I'm Michel parkland andreas Diego Zaldivar I mean these lena katina Viren OVA I mean these are big names yeah these big names okay what so so what's your takeaway of you as you know my takeaway is that there's a there's a yearning for this type of event my takeaway is that we're doing something right we have the luxury as hosho and that we're not an events company people think that might be a disadvantage to run a confident you're not a cotton vent company I think it's an advantage yeah because it holds my feet to the fire yeah much closer than an event organiser who doesn't have a company reputation and brand to protect hosho as you know has a good brand in the cybersecurity world with respect to blockchain we don't have the luxury of throwing a poor event giving you a bad experience because that would tarnish house of but also your in the community so you're gonna have direct feedback that's right the other thing too I will say I'm gonna go to a lot of events and there are people who are in the business of doing events and they have a profit motive that's right so they'll know lanyards are all monetize everything is monetized yeah and that sometimes takes away from the community aspect correct and I think you guys did a good job of you know not being profligate on the events you want to yeah a little bit of cash but you didn't / yeah / focus on money-making finding people right for the cash you really needed about the content yeah and the experience for and with the community and I think that's a formula that people want yeah I would like to see the model I would like to see the model changed over time if I'm being honest a majority of crypto conferences today are paid to play so a lot of the content you're getting this sponsored so I'm okay with that but I think it should be delineated between con disclose your disclosure you don't want water down the country but but the conference circuit and crypto is not ready for that it hasn't rest in my opinion hasn't reached that level of maturation yet like I told you I I'm a former South by Southwest guy that like my belief is you create the content and the sponsors will come I don't I don't begrudge conference organizers for for for sponsoring out events because they're really really expensive a cost per attend to manage demand to this hype out there yeah hundreds of dollars per attendee I get it I understand why they do it but what I would like to see is the model change over time whereas as we get more sophisticated as a technology space we should also grow as a vent and conference circuit as well what I mean by that is let's change the model that eventually someday it's free for all attendees to come and those conferences and the costs associated with them are subsidized by companies that want access to the people that are tending them it sounds like an upstream open source project sure how open source became so popular you don't screw with the upstream yep but you have downstream opportunities so if you create a nice upstream model yep that's the cube philosophy as well we totally agree with you and I think you guys are onto something pioneering with the event I think you're motivated to do it the community needs it yeah I think that's ultimately the self governing aspect of it I think you're off to something really good co-creation yeah I'll see we believe in that and the results speak for themselves congratulations thank you so much I appreciate you guys coming here and investing your time and I hope that all our staff has been accommodated and the hard rock is treated you well you guys been great very friendly but I think again you know outside of you guys is a great company and great brand and you guys and speaks for itself and the results this is an important event I agreed because of the timing because of this focus its crypto its crypto revolution its cybersecurity and FinTech all kind of coming together through huge global demand I mean we haven't gotten into IOT and supply chain yeah all the hacks going on with China and these things being reported this is serious business is a lot on the line a lot and you guys having a clear focus on that is really a service business Thank You staff doing it alright our cube coverage here in Las Vegas for host Joe Kahn this is the first conference of its kind where security is front and center it is the conference for security and blockchain bringing the worlds together building the bridges and building the community bridges as well we love that that's our belief as well as the cube coverage here in Vegas tigress more after this short break

>> Narrator: Live from San Juan, Puerto Rico. It's theCUBE. Covering Blockchain Unbound. Brought to you by Blockchain Industries. >> Hello and welcome back to theCUBE's exclusive coverage in Puerto Rico for Blockchain Unbound. This is where global event from Silicon Valley, New York, all around the world, investors, entrepreneurs, all coming together to build this industry. A lot of great conversations, a lot of conversations around Puerto Rico as a place to domicile all these great investments and companies. Obviously post-hurricane, lot of action here, lot of interest. Blockchain for good, crypto for good, also for money making. Our next guest is Scott Mize, who's with Network Society Labs. Welcome to theCUBE. >> Scott: Thank you. >> John: Good to see you again. >> You, too. >> You have a knack for being in real inflection-point markets. When we first met, almost 15 years ago in Silicon Valley, nanotech was a field that was a great track, it's doing great work, has great impact. We see each other around. Hey birds of a feather flock together. You're doing crypto, doing some work. Take a minute to talk about what you're doing Scott. What's the work? Network Society Lab, what's that about? >> Right. I guess we're both living on the bleeding edge. I'm the C.E.O. of Network Society Lab, and we're a venture development firm, so we provide the same services as an incubator or accelerator, but primarily for the portfolio companies of Network Society Ventures, which is another company that's in the Network Society keiretsu, which is headed by David Orban, who's speaking here today. >> Is that a investment group? Or is that more of an advisory service? >> The fund is a seed stage venture capital fund. >> John: The deploy capital. >> Yeah, that focuses on exponential technologies in decentralized networks, companies that are driven by that. We work with those companies to help them be successful. >> Great, so two different groups. >> Scott: Two different-- >> The lab team is get down and dirty help advisory, accelerate the mission? >> Right. And in that same keiretsu there's also Network Society Research, which is a think tank, and Network Society Media, which is a media company. >> All right so what are the things you're working on? Give us a taste of the kind of ventures and projects you're working on right now. Most of the work we're doing right now is what we call token sale management, and that's basically taking responsibility for executing a token sale from beginning to end, all of the activities, and bringing together service providers that are world-class in each one of the responsibilities that you need to be executed, in order to have a successful token event. We manage them the same way a general contractor in a construction environment manages subcontractors. >> Is that because there's too many moving parts? There's a lot of lawyerly going on, you got tax advice. Is that the reason? Or-- >> Why we structure it that way? >> Well we want to keep a lean internal staff, so we don't want to have a huge head count, and also this allows us to work with world-class people, like for instance, on two of the projects we're doing now, Michael Turpin's the P.R. guy, so that automatically means that among the team, there's over 50 ICO's under the belt, and it's the same for every service provider. They've done some significant number of these, and the combined experience, the combined capability, is really the best team you could get together in the world. >> So talk about the global impact of this, cause we were talking last night, we were saying, "Hey, you know, killer app is money." And that's what Blockchain, cryptocurrency, essentially decentralized apps are all going to have flowing through them. >> Scott: Right. >> Value creation, value capture with money is the killer app. What kind of projects you working on that go outside the U.S? And is it a global phenomenon? And what's your take on that? >> I'll give you a specific example, one example, which is called Wealth Migrate, and they have a coin called the WealthE coin, wealth with a capital E on the end, and what they are is a fractional real estate ownership company. So if you're someone who's in the emerging developing world, and you want to begin to build wealth, and you'd like to own a piece of first-world real estate in the U.S. or Australia or UK, you can go to this website, and today the minimum is about $1,000, but by implementing the Blockchain further, they want to eventually get down to $1, you can buy a piece of real estate and enjoy the returns on that. So this is closing the wealth gap, it's giving people who are just getting into the middle class the ability to own real estate and build wealth. >> What's going on in Puerto Rico here? If folks couldn't make it here, what's the dynamic here? Obviously the hurricane pretty much crushed the island. It's well documented, but the entrepreneurial culture here is coming together with outside ecosystem communities. What are you seeing here in Puerto Rico? What's your observation? >> Well it's actually a pretty fascinating experiment. Michael Turpin of the Transform Group has been living in Puerto Rico for quite some time, and he was kind of the Pied Piper, evangelizing this place, and saying, "Hey, this is a great place to come live, it's got a favorable tax structure, etcetera." And I think it's fantastic that the crypto community is essentially adopting Puerto Rico, and also moving here. All this activity is really going to give a shot in the arm to the Puerto Rican economy, and people are doing that very intentionally, as a way to give back and help to rebuild the island. >> So what do you say to the folks out there that say, "Well it's not just Puerto Rico, there's other domicile digital nations out there." I mean today the U.K. announced, or yesterday announced, that they are going to convert to Fiat currency, with a faster payment system, with Coinbase. It's a significant, radical move. So can Puerto Rico maintain a position, and countries like Bahrain which Amazon works with, you got Armenia, you got China, you got all these, Estonia. You have people who are jockeying for similar positions. Is it going to be a new digital nation sovereignty structure? >> I think Puerto Rico has a particular advantage in this part of the United States, so if you're a U.S. citizen, then this is the only place where you can go and stay in the U.S. and get this special treatment. So I think it's always going to have a little bit of a niche there, but this is truly a competitive environment. It's global, it's very competitive. There are certain nations that are very anti-crypto, like the United States for instance, and there are certain nations that embrace it. The one that we like best, and we're doing a couple of token sale events or ICO's, is Malta. And Malta has a history of creating a regulatory environment that's very favorable to things like financial services and iGaming, so doing digital currency is something that's a natural for them, and the government and the regulatory agencies are all in. So they're a competitor, and there are many others as you said, but I think that's all good because competition will bring down prices, spur innovation, etcetera, and that's fantastic. >> John: But regulatory posture and policy will be the gating factor for competitiveness for nations. >> Yeah, that's one of the major factors, It wouldn't be the only one, but absolutely. When you've got a situation where the regulators are saying, "Our mission in life is to have a light touch. We want it to be regulated, we don't want a lot of fraud going on, but we want to make it easy for you guys to be doing these things." It makes a huge difference. >> So what do you say to the folks out there that would say, "Okay you know, Michael Turpin, he's got so many ICO's, he's just pumping and dumping these things, he's got so many ICO's." He's a promoter, basically. He's not really-- >> Yeah I mean he started out as a P.R. firm. >> Yes. >> John: He's a P.R. firm. You got a P.R. firm as a leader in the industry. Some people will say, "Hey, I want to see Goldman Sachs come in. I want to see real players come in, I want to see more validation." The P.R. messaging is not going well, look at Brock Pierce, he got taken down by John Oliver. New York Times wrapped it up-- >> Scott: Bad timing. >> So you have a lot of kind of thud out there. >> Yeah, yes. >> So what do you say to that? What do people say to that? I have my own opinion, but I'll share it after you share yours. >> I mean just one observation is, you can tell a lot about a person's personality type by what their initial reaction is to cryptocurrency. It's almost like a Meyers-Briggs, right? >> Explain that. >> Well just in my experience, I've introduced the idea of crypto, or now that I'm in the field, a lot of people have approached me, friends. >> John: Who want to learn. >> Who want to learn but they come into it with certain biases, and for some reason, crypto really pokes at people's biases, and some people can't get over the fact that well, "Why does it have any value?" And I go, "Well, why does the United States dollar have any value?" I mean you've got full faith in credit of the government that's in debt by 20 trillion dollars, is that a good idea? But they don't understand-- >> What are some of the reactions you get? across the board what's the spectrum of reactions? You've got the one end which is fraud, it's bad-- >> Scott: It's got to be a scam. >> John: The next revolution is here. >> It's the entire spectrum. Again like I said, it has a lot to do with what people's personalities, If people are very conservative and skeptical, they're going to be conservative and skeptical about it, and look for the negative. If they're very innovative and cutting-edge and open to new ideas, they're going to think it's cool and interesting, and is an agent for change. >> Well a lot of people I talk to, and here's my opinion, I personally believe that you can't P.R. your way to industry momentum. That's the old way, so I'm down on the whole press release model, just pump and dump, and you're seeing a lot of that, and it's not just the Transform Group, it's just P.R. in general. There's also people misrepresentation. So to me that's a communication vehicle, not primary. The key is value creation. Which companies are creating value? Which one's communities are endorsing? Who has real communities? Who doesn't? So I think as investors come in, the thing that I'm hearing is, smart money saying, "I want quality deals, and I got to peel away the promotional layer, and look at the core data." >> Scott: Right. >> That seems to be a flight-to-quality right now in this market. >> There's a major flight-to-quality. We're probably in the third or fourth era of ICO's, and there is a flight-to-quality because people realize, what I call these deals are vaporware or field of dreams. These are the ones where there's really nothing there and it's, "give me $30 million, and I'll build this, I'll boil the ocean for you." That's why we like to work with companies like Wealth Migrate, because what they've done is, on relatively small capital, proven a business model and started a business, and now what they need is money to scale that model, and those are the ones that we prefer, and that's when people can look and say, "I can see that this business model's working, and that's where a lot of the risk is factored out, and now it's just about making that a bigger business." >> The thing I tell people is when you look at selecting service providers or partners, whether it's P.R., strategy, advisory, it's not so much the function. I'm against a P.R. angle, but let's take Transform Group, They have a great social network, so the signaling is, if they are involved, so it's about the network you're choosing, right? So to me it's not so much the functional P.R., or the functional advisory, it's really who's bringing the network effect, investors to the table, partners to the table? >> And that's good and bad actually, because you're talking about hype. There's no more fertile hype environment than social media. One of the things I find to be really scary, is that a proxy for the quality of the ICO is how many telegram followers does the chat group have, which I think is just insane. >> John: You can game that. >> Yeah. >> Well Scott, what are you working on now? What's next for you? What's some of the things that you see happening in the next year? >> Well we're just staying heads down, executing several of these token sales or ICO's, and that's what we're going to do. We're also going to get back to the original knitting, which was our mission, which is expand our venture-development services, so have a full palette of things that the startups from Network Society Ventures can choose from, so that we can help them make successful. >> Token economics is a critical decision every company has to make, >> Scott: Yes. >> And having advisory help is great. Thanks for sharing your opinion here on theCUBE. I'm John Furrier. Puerto Rico, for theCUBE's exclusive coverage of BlockChain Unbound. Back with more coverage after the short break. Thanks for watching. (upbeat music)

>> Announcer: Live from Nassau in the Bahamas, it's theCUBE, covering Polygon 18, brought to you by Polymax. >> Hello, welcome back to our live coverage of this exclusive Cube coverage in the Bahamas for PolyCon 18. It's cryptocurrency, it's token economics, its de-centralized world, it's all about the future of the Internet, Dave. I'm with Dave Vellante here, our next guest is Margaux Avedisian, EVP of Transform Group, and partner and co-founder of Cool Pool Fund. Great to have you on. Thanks for joining us. >> Yeah, thanks for having me. >> So you're on the Women's Panel. I saw you up there: Women in Crypto one of our big focus areas this year, as well as Crypto for Good. So super excited to have a conversation with you, but first take a step back. Introduce yourself, what are you workin' on? What's cool? What's gettin' you excited in the space, in life? What is the crypto thing? What does it mean to you? >> Sure, so I lived in San Francisco in 2011, so I had a bunch of nerd friends, and you know, I heard about this crazy crypto currency called Bitcoin. I had free office space for my startup, so that meant free electricity, so I was like, oh, let's start mining, 'cause we have free electricity. You know, we're not really raisin' money with this thing. (laughter) And I ended up not doing that. I thought that'd be a jerk thing, but I'd be retired by now, so kind of regretting that decision. So 2012, I met the people who were re-launching the first American bitcoin exchange, Trade Hill. I ended up joining that, and at that time, I used to say, oh, I'm the leading woman in bitcoin, but I was also the only woman in bitcoin. (laughter) And then after that, I ended up co-founding another bitcoin exchange called Alpha Coin, which pivoted still around, and then I co-founded another exchange called Magnetico, pivoted also still around, and then I joined Transform Group as EVP, and we're the leading PR firm in the bitcoin and blockchain ICO space. So we've done most of the big ICOs. We did Ethereum, Auger, Made Safe, Gollum, Nosis, Quantum, Unicoin, Wax, Bancor, et cetera. We've done over 70, 60 at this point, so I have a lot of experience seeing ICOs, how they've kind of changed and evolved. Then I started a pre-ICO syndicate, so getting in before the public sale, getting a super discount, which then turned into a fund, because people were like, can I just give you money? This is really complicated, like I don't know what I'm doing, so I was like forced. My hand was forced. (chuckling) >> Yeah, I'll take your cash. Just send it to me. No contract. >> Well no no no, actually the space, you really have to have a team of lawyers. It, you know, they're not too big to fail. >> Just take the cash and say you were hacked, and then disappear, right? >> Yeah you know, that's getting a little more difficult to do that. It looks like they're tracking now. >> Margaux wouldn't steal electricity. (laughter) She's not going to do that. >> That's actually true. >> Of course, I'm being facetious. I'm a comedian, for crying out loud. I'm trying to get her on a roll, here. Okay, funniest story in crypto for you right now that you've seen, could be back in history in time. >> Yeah. >> What's the funniest thing you've seen? Or the most outrageous thing? >> Is this PG? Or like, what can I? >> It's Internet, it's unrated. It's NC-17 or unrated. >> Alright, you mean the time when one of the crypto, hedge fund people took a ton of liquid acid and then I had to take care of him, and he ended up eating all of my birth control pills, and I had to take him to the hospital because I thought he was going to die. (laughter) So that was pretty crazy. >> Anchor: OD'd on birth control pills. That's a first. >> That would be a first. >> 'Cause the only person that was awake at the time that I could ask who was a chemist and who was an EMT said his body temperature, but when I took him to the hospital, the nurses, I thought he was going to die, and then the nurses are all like, well, he's not going to get his period. (laughter) >> That's for sure. >> I'm like, is he going to die? They're like, bring him back if he's spotting. (laughter) I'm like, so he's okay? He's alright? And so, yeah, it was fun, they were like, we're more worried about the acid. So, yeah that's I guess maybe up there in the top five. >> So you've seen 60, 70, you've seen a lot. You've got a good observation space. Tell us what that's like, I mean, public relations for me is hard, like messaging, I don't have that gene, as you know, John. So, how have you been able to shape it. Do you get a lot of 'em and just go oh no, these guys really need tons of help, or take us through some of the examples, maybe not specifically but just generally how you would approach that problem. >> Sure, so first of all, we don't just take anyone. We do vetting and it has to have a story we can sell. Luckily at our firm, we have a lot of people, including the founder Michael Turpin and myself, who have a background in this space, so we understand really what they're saying. And our job, really, is to break it down so regular people understand what the heck we're talking about and why it's important. So I think a lot of, part of the problem with people not getting into crypto currency is that they get too hung up on the technical details. You know, I don't know how my television turns on. I don't know how my debit card works. There's so many things we do without knowing the technical backgrounds of it, and we don't get hung up on that. And for some reason, this industry, people get really hung up on the technology instead of understanding the uses and the purpose of it, and so that's what we really do. We talk about what is the purpose of this? How is this important? How is this changing an industry? And relating it, maybe, to news that's going on right then. So it's really just making it understandable to regular people. >> Yeah, some of the women in crypto conversation, women in tech >> Sure. >> Dave and I have a passion for this because we have a lot of women friends that are either executives and or in good positions, and we interview them, like they were a guy. So we never really got into that whole thing. Turns out we got a big library of women in tech, and it's been so politicized and it's so important. And certainly we agree that, you got to do all that, but if we're even having the conversation, that makes it a problem. So at what point, then, do we need to do kind of keep the vibe going to saying, okay, let's focus on positive, and what's your just view of how to make it engaging, 'cause women make up 50% of the population. >> Yeah. >> And so, what do we do? >> First, I want to say, there are actually some badass women in crypto. Two of the biggest ICOs had female founders. They're Bancor and Tezos. I would say more than you would expect, but they're not as loud and brash as I am, so it might be harder for you to see them. Conferences definitely need to be putting more women on these panels. >> This conference here has a lot of representation, by far, really strong. >> Yeah, well, to be honest, like putting me on a Women in Blockchain panel. I love talking to women, and it's inspiring them, and telling them you can do it, 'cause part of the thing is, nobody's a blockchain expert, alright? There's no such thing because it's just changing so fast. There's too much information out there. And I think sometimes women get hung up on needing to know everything before they do something, and I like to say, you know, probably 80% of the men here have no idea what they're talking about. So, you don't have to >> John: I mean, always be learning in this space. This is an evolution. >> Yeah, and in doing, when I first got into this space and started the first American bitcoin exchange, I didn't even know what an exchange was, you know? But I met one of the co-founders of YouTube, who was into bitcoin, who had a fund, and I ended up leveraging that to get into this, and I learned as I went, and what's so exciting right now about blockchain is that it's really integrated in pretty much every industry you can imagine. I mean, people are doing ICOs in health care, in fashion, in anything you can think of. So if you have experience and skills in one industry, you can then leverage that in another. So if you're a woman in finance, guess what? If you join someone's ICO, and they have someone from a traditional finance world, you're lending credibility, and that's valuable. And that kind of experience, and we need to bring more mature industries into blockchain. >> This is what I think, I mean, you've heard me say this, like never before, you could see, because it's digital, because it's data, as blockchain is, people can traverse industries like never before. >> Yeah. >> It used to be, if you're in health care, you're in health care for life, that's it. >> Yeah. >> But some of the digital skills that people are learning are applicable to other industries. Do you feel like, I think you just said it, that that will promote more woman involvement. You're saying it's disproportionately high here. I don't know. >> I thought it was a little interesting that they put me on a Women in Blockchain panel instead of putting me on a panel that I could talk about my experience, since I have a lot. >> Dave: That's my point. >> Instead of that. >> Winning Women, or whatever, I mean. >> Well, I wouldn't segregate all the women into one panel. I would want to put them on other panels, I mean. >> Yeah, I mean you want to put them on panels where there are pros, and they can do the job independently. >> Exactly. >> Just being a player. >> Alright, Margaux. >> A lot of women say that though. They say, let's not make this about women in tech or you know Lara Logan, and that crew, Naomi Tutu. It all depends >> And so their social justice gene >> but I'm curious how do you feel about that? It was shining a light on whether it's women in tech or women in crypto, does that, is that offensive to you? Do you welcome that? Some welcome it, others? >> I think it's weird because I've been in this industry for so long, and now I think it's good that it's becoming a topic, but it was never anything that I even paid attention to. In fact, I'd rather focus on the positives, 'cause being a woman in this industry is great because, guess what, I can just say whatever I want. I can get away with saying things and calling out the elephant in the room where most men can't. But it's, I think part of the problem is these guys here want to hire women, but how do they find them? And I just had someone come up to me from Zedd saying, we want to hire a female CMO, like how do we find that? And the jobs are out there, it's about being able to get these women who want to do this and connecting them to opportunities. bUt on the other hand, women really need to be more assertive and be like hey, I don't know anything about blockchain, but I want to learn. So I'm going to go to a conference instead of being like I don't know anything, and I'm scared, so I don't want to go to a conference, you know? Like I said, most men don't know what they're talking about here. >> Well I mean, everyone's learning. We're trying to figure it out. Margaux, thanks for coming on, appreciate it. >> Yeah, thank you so much. I really appreciate it. >> We're looking for the stand-up comedian act. We'll get that on our next episode Thanks for comin' on. >> Yeah! And check out my videos, too, if you want. >> Alright, what's your YouTube address? >> It's youtube.com/margauxwithanx. Thank you. >> Alright, we'll put it on the blog. We'll be back with more live coverage after this short break. (electronic music)