>> 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.

>> Announcer: From New York it's theCUBE covering Blockchain Week. Now here's John Furrier. >> Everyone I'm John Furrier, the cofounder and cohost of theCUBE. We're here in New York City for exclusive coverage of Blockchain Week New York put out with a variety of events. One is Consensus 2018 sold out packed house as well as another event Cryptohou.se here in East Village for a great event. And I'm here with Patty Perez who's the owner of the Cryptohou.se, used to live here. Hey thanks for having us today and I want to What's the story, you own this place. It's now a great venue for inspiring a lot of entrepreneurs who couldn't have an outlet to have their voice heard. >> Well originally this was my yoga school. It was a live work house for ten years and I closed it seven years ago and just lived here and, and now I'm ready for my next venue and I was telling my boyfriend that, you know, I really want to do something with my house. Sort of like the yoga school, but I'm so excited and interested in Blockchain for the last year and wouldn't it be great to have a social club or an education hub for this because I have no idea what's going on and I want to learn. And so why not have all the thought leaders come to my house and, and teach each other and just open it up to all of us because I know you're learning every day. I know I am. >> That's fantastic, and then in forces they learn the whole time and that's why they make some influences, but I think what's important here that I want to just share and it's a great story and I think you really deserve a lot of credit for it is that it's a venue for people to not only learn and share their experiences but it's also an outlet for some collaboration in the open in a way that's community based. It's not like a structured event, big tent event, sponsors everywhere, you know, make money. This is about people, the community having a access. And so I got to ask you when did this happen? Like just, 'cause I love this place. >> Well we've been coconspiring it and I've been speaking with Strategic Coin like come on, let's do this, let's do this at my house and they're so busy with you know a million projects and but somehow the waters parted and here we are and we got a great team together and Strategic Coin has been just amazing and >> Well I got to tell you in California, last week I was in San Francisco for some events, Red Hat Summit, big open source community. Of course we watched the Twittersphere and the Snapchat sphere, Instagrams, Facebooks of the world all that place. You guys had great buzz over the weekend and even coming in yesterday and today. A lot of great community conversations, not just people promoting their, their event at like Consensus, hey come to our booth. There's just authentic knowledge being shared on the digital sphere and that works, that connects with people so congratulations. >> There's a great need obviously, above and beyond us or anyone, it's so organic and today, yesterday there were a series of speakers and they were all amazing and interesting but today the conference took on what we coined as the unconference and sure enough it was more of a boxing ring than a conference, of debating and just sort of being in the vulnerable place of actually not knowing something and being in the inquiry in that uncomfortable space and people felt so comfortable to take deep dives into what they're actually wanting to create or, you know, so it's-- >> That's great progress too, when you have a debate and not have to worry about being judged doing a learning exercise. >> Exactly, and you don't have to, you know, look a certain way or have your, you know everyone was really like, you know what? And you don't know what you're talking about. It's like wait a minute. >> Sounds like my Facebook feed. >> (laughs) >> What did you learn this week? What was the big surprise for you? What was a cool thing you've learned? Can you share an anecdote so far from this week? >> Wow, that's a good question, and I have to respond right this moment. Well, the greatest thing that I learned is how much people need education around this. You know it, not just businesses, but everyone because it ignites, I think so. And also one thing that I've noticed more than anything else is that there is an interculteration between the old bankers and the new kids that are really and the old bankers are saying well you kids are idiots. There is an interculturation between the old bankers and the new kids that are really and the old bankers are saying well you kids are idiots. >> Cation like this in a way that can be contentious, offending sometimes, on the other side of the debate. But it's floating in the digital sphere so we believe at theCUBE, we've seen it with content. Good content, authentic, genuine content codeveloped creates community karma, and you're doing that here. >> Yes, I think so, and also one thing that I've noticed more than anything else is that there is an interculturation between the old bankers and the new kids that are really, and the old bankers are saying well you kids are idiots. And the new kids are like oh my God. >> John: Get off my lawn. >> And so it's so much fun just meeting in the middle and it's a whole new culture that's being created. >> Well I was having a conversation with Richard from Arcadia Crypto Partners and I was, and there needs to be some mentoring because this is an opportunity for both. I mean I know some of the smartest guys from Crypto are old dogs and gals, they're out there but the young guns have the energy and the ideas as well so I see a mix and I think it's important that the older generation, if you will, that's like I'm talking about me myself, you know, really kind of let the young kids in-- >> And there's a young kid in you that is so excited right now, I see it in your eyes. >> I wish I was 20 something, I wish I was 20. It's the most exciting wave, I've been involved in a lot of waves of innovation. This one, by far, is the best. >> I see the inner teenager right now. >> Okay we're bonding here on theCUBE. Patty thanks so much for doing what you do and Cryptohou.se is an amazing initiative and project, very strong mission, love the mission, and I love to promote it. Thanks for having us on theCUBE, thanks for having us-- >> Thanks so much, thank you. >> We appreciate it. I'm John Furrier here at the Cryptohou.se for the Block event but there have been events all week as part of Blockchain Week New York. Of course theCUBE is there covering it as usual. Thanks for watching, see you next time.