What the West Misunderstands about Crypto in Asia | Allen Ng, Everest Venture Group

This episode is brought to you by Anoma, the universal intent machine, introducing a new era of applications where you define the outcomes you want. To stay up to date with Anoma, you can follow them at x.com/anoma or sign up for the newsletter at anoma.net. Special thanks to Anoma for sponsoring today's episode. Hey everyone, I'm excited to tell you about FBTC, an omnichain Bitcoin asset being used throughout DeFi today. So far, it's accumulated about $157 million in TVL, making Bitcoin more accessible and useful. Be sure to check out Sparkle, the rewards program where you earn points just by holding FBTC. Get started at fbtc.com/ongoing-campaign. Everyone, the Polygon Community Grants program was launched with 1 billion tokens, all for Polygon builders. Really excited to share that on today's episode of Empire. Season 1 of the Polygon Community Grants program is now live. It features $35 million in MATIC to support the next generation of Polygon projects. Join the aggregated future today by applying at polygon.technology/grants. Big thanks to Polygon for sponsoring Empire. Real is a permissionless L2 designed for tokenized real-world assets. They've just launched their rewards program, so get started at re.al/rewards and be sure to use the code in the show notes below. Special thanks to Real for sponsoring today's episode. All right, everyone, welcome back to Empire. I'm taking this one solo. Santi's already in— I think he's in Korea today. So we're recording this on September 12th. It's going to go live, I think, on September 13th, on Friday. My vision for this episode, we're joined by Alan, who's quickly become a close friend after meeting him about a year ago. And he's taught me a lot about how crypto works in Asia and how to really do business in Asia. I would say something— two topics that I really didn't know much about before meeting, meeting Alan. So my vision for this episode is that you're, you're on a flight, you're headed over to Token and Breakpoint and, you know, EVG's party and all that kind of good stuff. And I want you to listen to this to try to learn how just I think the differences in like what it's like to do business in Asia and what the crypto scene really looks like in Asia because it is quite different from the States. So, Alan, man, welcome to Empire.

Thank you for having me, man. Yeah, you're absolutely, you know, you flatter me, man. Like, I don't think I know everything about Asia, but I would love to share my experience.

Yeah. Okay. So we usually skip intros on Empire, but I think you might be a new name and a new face for a lot of people listening to this. So the way that I think about EVG is— so, so Alan is the CEO and founder of Everest Ventures Group. A lot of people know it as EVG. Been around for a while in crypto. And the way that I think about it, which is a rough comparison because there's maybe, maybe not a good one to use anymore, is kind of like the— people in the US will know DCG and Digital Currency Group and Barry Silbert and folks like that. And they, they They had a holding company, right, owned Grayscale and Genesis and CoinDesk and all these different brands. But they also made a lot of investments and they were just a very influential player. And obviously DCG had their hiccups along the way with Genesis. They sold off CoinDesk. But that's like my mental model for how I think about EVG. But I would love for you to share the— just your— like, who are you and where are you from? And like, what is the EVG story?

Yeah, I wouldn't say, you know, you mentioned DCG is wrong. In fact, when we when I decided to start a company, uh, it was definitely one of the comms at the market we would kind of look at. Um, and, and my journey is quite simple. I was born and raised between different places— China, Philippines, a little bit Hong Kong, US. And then, um, I started, you know, doing startups, like, what, 2 startups, like, 12, 13 years ago in college. And, uh, was, was startup first become a word. Um, and then was lucky to so, you know, have 2 small exits early on and And as any founder who made a little bit of money early on and not knowing what to do, you start a lot of fun approaches to become venture partners or entrepreneur residents and things like that. And I ended up joining one of the private equity firms to help them start their venture practice. So I was there for about 4 years, helped them do TMTs, tech, entertainment, everything. And I was not one of those OGs who had Bitcoin in my computer. I accidentally got into this space during the ICO wave and then At the time, Asia was actually the center, I would say, of ICO, of everything. So it's quite easy to get into the scene. And then I kind of observed about 18 months in late 2018, decided that there might still be a chance to build a Tencent or build a ByteDance equivalent in Web3. So I started EVG in my apartment with a couple of my partners. So that was the backdrop of the story.

So what is EVG today? How do you, like, even how many employees do you have? How many holding companies? How many investments? Like, what are you guys?

Yeah. So as of today, we have about 300 people across our, I would say, 3 main divisions, right? So we have the SocialFi division, which quickly has become our largest practices. And we have OpenSocial protocol as the infra. And on top of that, we got multiple different dApps composed on top of that. And also we got gaming and culture, which is like, I would say where we had the initial success. Because when EVG started, we took a bet in gaming coming up. So we were the lead advisor, which helped also publish the Sandbox, Animoca, Dapper, et cetera. And that kind of make our first credibility in the industry. And that is still today like a 90 to 100 people operation there. And then the third pillar is the strategic pillar where we have significant stakes in media, in conferencing brands, and also in asset management platforms, and etc., etc. So the way I kind of think about it is, is really just like we're very consumer-focused, um, and we simply look at ourselves as like a multi-product complex, uh, or in a simple manner, is we build products, right? That's how usually I like to call us, product builders.

And do you raise— do you have an outside fund? Like, have you raised outside capital, or is it all internal prop capital?

Yeah, so we raised a little bit of, not a lot. We raised probably like $10 million when I started the firm. Most of them are my ex-LPs, I would say. But it's largely just prop cap. And then we were lucky that we took a bet on the right narrative, I would say. And we quickly accumulated sizable balance sheets. And then ever since then, we've been using our balance sheet to kind of continue to do investments and build products. And lucky enough, over some of the products that are successful, many of them are cash flow positive. So, so we're able to continue to grow. And usually the model is we will build these products and usually, you know, closer after at least we see the product market fit or go through certain scaling phases, then we'll start showing our slates or the productions to maybe some of the VC communities and where, you know, where exchanges and where they will pick up some of the products into the— from the scaling phases.

So let's get in, let's move past EVG and just talk about maybe this first big question about I'm curious what you think the West gets right about crypto in Asia and what the West gets wrong about crypto in Asia.

Yeah, that's a really good question. I think most of the— I think there's only very few people that gets Asia right, unfortunately, simply because I think most of them have not spent enough time or really have traveled here. It is really funny. And then I think in people's mind, for example, I think loosely people know a couple of things. People think if I'm a project from the Western world, Asia maybe have TVL for me, or Asia might have the exchanges and liquidity for me, or Asia would have maybe some chip developer for me, or there's a bunch of farmers out there. That's probably, I think, the high level of what they know. And I wouldn't say like the— these brackets are wrong. I would say just like, you know, the understanding of it is it really depends on whether do you spend time here or not, and it often will surprise you in many ways.

Tell me, I mean, let's go deeper. Like, what is, what is one thing that— okay, so here, let me— maybe I'll tee up this, this question differently. So one thing that I hear a lot in, in at least in New York where I'm located is, yeah, you know, there aren't users in New York because the users are all, you know, the regulations are too tight for the users. So there's a lot of money in New York and San Francisco and in the West. Like there's all these great venture firms, but to get a lot of users, I've got to go to Asia. Yeah. True or false that there are just a lot more crypto users in Asia?

That's totally true. Like even look at statistically speaking, 6 of the top 6 or 7 of the top 10 countries in terms of crypto penetrations, they're all in Asia. Like, and I think there, there, there's a reason for it, uh, partially because, you know, like, like, uh, even when Ethereum started, you know, the basis was in Asia. A lot of people embrace it. And also, I think a lot of people naturally saw, uh, or still see the benefit of crypto, like the liberty of money, the liberty of controlling your assets. Because we have to understand, most of the Asian countries are fundamentally autocratic country, right? Like, if you look at most Asian countries, they have— even Korea, it has four forex control. That means you cannot move around, you cannot swap your Korean won into US dollar freely. There's a budget, a quota, how many you can actually do in a year. So, so naturally people see that benefits, you know, really directly, I would say. Um, and owning your data, owning your assets, and willing to try new things. And, um, yeah, so I would definitely say the penetration rate, uh, is very, very high. Um, and even though these users don't speak English, but there's a lot and a lot of them, right? I mean, I think— but what I think one thing that people usually get wrong right there is people think about, hey, they're just mostly just farmers, or they're— they're— these people are fake, they're here just for the incentive, and they're non-sophisticated. Um, I think that's largely probably a false statement. Um, yeah.

How come?

Yeah, so I think— I think, yes, there is a lot of, uh, people here like that would— they're willing to jump on something because there is incentive. But I think also, let's not pretend that the Western project have not used incentive mechanism. And, you know, Bitcoin at its core has a few incentive models.

And so it's more on the project— it's less that the users exactly are different, it's more that the projects in the US maybe bash projects in Asia for using incentives. And it's, uh, it's like, don't throw stones from glass houses. I see what you're saying.

Okay, yeah, totally, totally. I mean, those incentive mechanism exists everywhere, right? In Vampire Tag, airdrop.

You know what it kind of reminds me of is, um, is actually the US is like global warming or like climate change, whatever you want to, you know, just the environment. It's like the US obviously got to where we are from like mass pollution and coal and whatever you want to call it. I'm not going to wade into that whole topic that is feel sensitive these days, these days. But the truth of it is that the US did all these things. And now that the US is on top, we're like, hey, India, hey, China, like, you're not allowed to go do all these things. And they're like, whoa, hold on, take a look in the mirror, guys. So Exactly. What about— so one thing that I was— I had dinner with Bayek from Hashed several months ago and, you know, we were just talking about the differences of the impact of Terra versus FTX. So I think people in the US don't understand. I'd love to just hear your, your discussion and conversation of like what happened in the last year or maybe in the last two years. Like, so Terra blew up in what, May of 2022?

Yes.

And it was a— there's a lot of users in Asia. It's like people, especially in Korea. And then FTX blew up in what, November of 2022? And obviously there's a lot of, you know, there's— there are a lot of users in Asia as well. But like, I feel like FTX really had this horrible impact on the US regulatory market for crypto. I'm curious, Did FTX have as big of an impact in Asia? Was the blowup of Terra bigger? Like, tell me about how the last—

I personally think it's even bigger, like from a real money or a real flow perspective.

You think Terra was even bigger than FTX?

No, no, FTX is bigger.

Oh, FTX was bigger. Okay.

Yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah. This is probably because Big is Korean, so he's a friend. But I think obviously both of them impacted many countries. I'm not saying which one is worse, but We have to remember, actually, FTX started in Hong Kong. Their office is right next, probably like 10 minutes away from my walking distance from my office. And then when they first started, how did they pick up the flow and trading flow and users is because they pitch every single major wealth and trading funds. And at the time, also a lot of like wealth family office to trade on top of them. And so, and for example, like, you know, entire, like, for example, look at Taiwan. There's a lot of users that suffer from the losses from FTX in Hong Kong as well. And honestly, at the time, they're really good at user experience, right? You can transfer the money into Silvergate and you get the money in right away. The on-ramp, off-ramp was good. So a lot of users account with them. I think it only has a bigger impact in the US is because in the later part, after they use Asia for the success for the business, they raise a lot of capital from the US, right? And then they bring in a lot of famous people to get involved. So that become much more bigger optic thing. Where Luna don't have that kind of, I would say, success in that uptake, to be honest, during the period of time.

Yeah, that's fair. That's fair. Who leads? Okay, thinking about like, I'm trying to articulate this question on the go, but like when you, when, when it comes to like narratives, for example, do you think that there's like the US leads and then Asia kind of follows? Or does Asia lead and the US follows? Or is it like two things happen at the exact same time in both locations? Or look, you have two totally different things happening in two totally different areas of the world.

Yeah, I think in terms of narrative-wise, um, I would say definitely at this time, if I have to come up with a number, I would say US has a little bit more power, uh, because narrative is largely, I would say, um, um, influenced by, by venture capital shops. right? Uh, that's where the money go. That's what captures most media's report. That's what kind of people's like, this is hot versus that's hot, right? And actually a lot of founders, especially the more garage founders, they would kind of try to gear towards the, the topics, um, that where you can raise funds, right? And there's nothing wrong about it. It happens in Web2 as well. AI is hot, everyone is AI startup, right? Um, and then, but I do think, you know, on a lot of narrative you will see very different interpretations or a very different flavor of how do you see that narrative, right? Or try to build product around that narrative, right? Like recently, for example, look at Deepin, right? Like previously when I was in America, launched early this year, a lot of Deepin project was about solar panel building on your rooftop and it kind of earns, you know, turns the energy into whatever and then, you know, makes your tokens and about building a—

Description of Deepin. Yeah, let's put a solar panel.

But if you look at Asia, our interpretation is pop-pop. Right?

Wait, is what? Is what?

If PuffPuff, right? Like, like basically vape to earn, right?

Um, yeah, yeah, yeah.

Okay, so it's like that is the deep end because you know what, there's a product you got to use every day. You have addiction to nicotine, you just, you just have to use them. And so you don't force their behavior because we consider like CapEx is a very high hurdle in friction. So you might as well do something with it. And that's why also we invested in them. So I think if you look at like even like Shou Shou, look at many different topics they tend to be very different in terms of the product because that, that I would say understanding or appetite or determining what is beautiful or not is, is a little bit different. But I would say largely that both sides of the world has understand these narratives, right?

Yeah. What are the, what are the hot projects in Asia? Like, do— okay, when it comes to, you know, exchanges or like in DeFi, like, is Uniswap and— are like Uniswap and Aave and EigenLayer like the, the tier 1 DeFi players in Asia, or is it like Mantle and other people? Or like, everyone knows the exchanges are different, right? The US is dominated by Coinbase and Kraken and folks like that. Asia is like OKX, and I don't know where Huobi is at these days, but obviously Bybit's had an amazing last couple of years. Binance as well. Like, tell me about the differences in the companies, I would say.

Yeah, yeah. I think definitely in Asia, the exchange has a lot more power for sure. It's not necessarily in a bad way, the way I kind of look at it. Asia, because if you look at, for example, if I try to throw a statistic on, if you look at the people, the company with the largest number of employees, almost all of them, I guarantee you, are exchanges. Right. We're talking about 1,000, 2,000, 3,000. Right. Some of the exchanges get like 500, 1,000 compliance people.

Right. Yeah.

Actually, sometimes I argue they have better compliance than TradFi because TradFi don't even get that many compliance people. Um, and, and so, so they are the biggest organization. They have the most budget. They have, you know, the most complete suite of product. And often they don't just do exchanges. They also often have their structured product desk. They would have their media arm. They would have their venture capital arm. And they have many, many different arms to operate the market. So I would say definitely they're like a— I would say, you know, very powerful players. And then, um, the second bucket of company I would say is like, you can think of like um, there are gangs or mafias or groups of like, um, of companies, right? You can think of them as almost like a little bit like a PayPal mafia, if I have to use like American reference for it. Um, like for example, in Vietnam, you will have the Sky Mavis gang, you have the Coin98 gang, and those are all, you know, they're successful builders, and that's why they also attract the other team around them. Um, they also back the other younger guy who coming up, so they have their own you know, your teams in Mavia. And obviously in Hong Kong, like, you know, we and probably N Moka Brands are the two biggest larger building groups headquartered here. And then so in different places, there are, I would say, teams and groups that build products. And then I would say the product groups have largely exists and they work cohesively together. And then also I would say there is a lot of like individual, like family offices, whales, the new money. Because we also have to remember in crypto, especially early days, a lot of the biggest whales in Bitcoin, Ethereum, they're all Chinese, right? Back in the day, it's hard to get miners, right? And then, um, so, so a lot of them are here, so they're, you know, a little bit more distributed across different places as well.

Maybe a really dumb question, but why are all the whales in Asia?

Um, I think it's, yeah, had to do with that. Like, you know, for example, when, when Vitalik, you know, started Ethereum here, those what we call Ethereum angel who bought at 0.29 very theorem. They're launching at the time all in Shanghai or Zhejiang or all near the area. And there's probably like 5, 10 major backers that at the time trust this, you know, at the time a skinny kid who speak Mandarin and talking about decentralization, right? And it was like, I don't know, it's like, and that gang just spread, right? And they encourage more people to come in. And then I think for Bitcoin mining, it was Also the same thing is that obviously, except the early days where you can mine Bitcoin with a computer or a laptop, once you get into the ASIC chip kind of like era, all those chips and miners were made in this part of the world. And obviously the pools are all in this part of the world. So you can't even get— at the time, it's very hard for you to get like an NS9. You can't even get one, right? So that's why a lot of like mining facility will stack up here. So naturally they have more holdings in terms of all these major Huh.

Okay. I want to come back to the whales in a second. Okay. So the 3 buckets of like power, I would say, are the exchanges, the, the gangs and mafias. Well, we should find a better word to describe them. And then the, the family offices and the whales.

Okay.

So with the gangs and mafias, what— who— tell me more about this group. Like, okay, EVG, Animoca, like Sky Mavis, Sky Mavis in Vietnam. Like I've noticed I've noticed that in Asia this exists, in the US it doesn't exist that much. Okay, so in the US you might have like Brian Armstrong starts Coinbase. Yeah, it just turns into like Coinbase. I don't know, they've got obviously Coinbase and Coinbase Ventures and stuff, but like, I don't know, Jeremy Allaire starts Circle. It's kind of just like he's got Circle, like he's just trying to build that. But in Asia you kind of get these like branching out of these founders. Um, okay, so take, take Bybit for example. Like Bybit gets like Ben turns Bybit into a very successful thing. That turns into like Nirvana Ventures, like BitDAO and Mantle. Like, it's kind of— and now it's kind of this whole, like, I don't know, got your arms in kind of everything. Like, why does that dynamic exist?

Yeah, I think it has to do with, um, um, I think it also— it doesn't just exist for Web3, right? If you look at realities, like, if you look at Asia, like for example in China, like yeah, there is, um, you know, hundreds of public— publicly listed internet company, but there's largely like 2-3 gangs, right? There's Alibaba gang and they have many products and their major or significant stakeholder of many other platforms. And then there's the Tencent gang. If you look at Korea or Japan, it's similar. There's Naver, there's Kakao, and there are many products under them. Um, and look at Southeast Asia, it's also similar. And I think it fundamentally has to do with a little bit of a culture and how to actually, I would say, do business here. I think in Asia, like, it's much harder for— because I was a startup, and I didn't talk about this because I was, you know, I came up from grassroots as well. I was a— when I was first doing startup, it was really difficult, right? Uh, because like, you're, you're the whole garage founder or mentality, or like, hey, I'm a college kid, I'm really smart, I'm talented, and I'm the chosen one. That kind of story really don't exist because people look a lot about your relevancy. People look a lot about your reputation, your track record, your credibility. It's almost like you have to earn these things, right? And, and honestly, it's not, not something bad. It's just like in Asia, when we look at a business, we don't necessarily just look at, hey, is your idea good or are you talented? We also look at the fact that what have you done in the past? How do you treat people? How do you deal with your highs? How do you deal with the lows? How do you deal with those stress times and how to deal with temptations, right? Can you resist them, right? So you look at all those things. Do you do right by the people? So those things become a really important part of you. And also, for example, a lot of time people will also look at like, um, who are your mentors, who are your senseis, to a certain degree, right? So I think there is a little bit of like that, almost a little bit like hip-hop, right? Like, like, you know, when Eminem won that, the guy needed to hop, you know, uh, Rock and Roll Hall of Fame, he would address like, you know, Dre, he would address Pac, he was just many people who was like, they're my teachers, they brought me up. And there is that kind of, I would say, culture in Asia, uh, in Asia. So that kind of also makes like— it is a little bit, I would say, harder for a very talented individual who has no shortcut, you know, whatsoever, to come up because he had to go through this process. Um, but for the people who already go up, obviously they have natural advantage in terms of like having already the trust, having already a shortcut, and they're much easier to kind of leverage those social capital and everything to branch out into other business and attract better talent, attract more capital, attract better opportunities around them. So, so I think it's a little bit of that culture, uh, cultural phenomenon as well. And I think that is just getting amplified in crypto, because in crypto, obviously, like, we all know, like, there's so many startups, so many founders, so many ideas, um, but the percentage of, I would say, the people who are not capable or not sincere is just even a little bit higher. The market is even a little bit more chaotic. Right. So you leave you a handful of people who are trustworthy and they tend to attract even more. It's just a power law. Yeah.

Yeah. Yeah. Okay. Let's, let's actually like explore that rabbit hole for a second. So, you know, you and I have talked about how it's a little more hierarchical in doing business in Asia where, okay, in the US it's very like very bottoms up, very, um, you know, a seller can go like sell to someone and then inside of the company, it kind of like, hey, I recommend a junior person's like, I recommend we do this thing. And then it. Kind of trickles up. In Asia, I feel like it's a lot more top-down where you might have a mentor, let's say, or a big brother or something like, and that person, let's say they're the CEO of an exchange, and they are the CEO of an L1 or something, and they launch and they're like, hey, go move your apps onto this L1. And you're like, okay, like, that's my, that's my, that's my, like, that's my guy, I do it. Whereas in the US, how that would work is like, all right, like I'm gonna, the L1's gonna go create like a BD team and like, hey, like I don't wanna use my influence to influence anything. So like, but in Asia it feels very different. So agree or disagree with that statement? And we'd love to, we'd love to hear some examples of like how that maybe works.

I think totally agree. Um, I think, um, I have, you know, experienced this where, you know, um, when, when things are stuck and, and, you know, you know, ultimately you know, when I call my big brother and ask for help and says, just say, you know what, I know there's a lot of, you know, things that are fluid currently. You know, we can talk terms all day long and think about all this stuff and your team, your lawyer trying to counter my lawyer and come with all the, you know, except things. Or I'm gonna just tell you that I'll give my best, you know, at this, right? We're gonna give it a try. And I think a lot of time it's just like, okay, I, I trust you, I believe you, right? You're, you're my little brother, so you're bro, and let's go, right? And we take that word almost as a bond. That was like a very important thing because, um, because you kind of value your reputation a lot, what other people, you know, say about you, you know. Is he reliable? Does he deliver? Is he sincere? Like, you know, it's not like in Asia you cannot accept failure. I think people often mistaken that. Like, like, we accept, we understand this adventure, we understand this is hard, this is a startup, so we know there's a high failure rate. You know, failure is always okay, but I think it's more like, you know, you have this construct so that, you know, people who are not sincere, uh, would not be able to get into the, I would say, top table so easily because, you know, unless they're endorsed by someone, right? So I think the people who endorse is almost as important as, um, whatever the idea he or she want to say, um, because you're relying on that guy's reference as almost like a data This might be too personal, but who is your, who's your, like, quote, like, big brother? There's a lot, to be honest. Like, over my career in Shopify and entrepreneurship and Web3, I learned, I think I tend to think that I learned a lot of different things from different people. Like, for example, like, many people know in the market, I work very closely with Yap from Animoca, right? I know him for way before Web3, probably 10 years now. And we went to battlefield together many times, and, and he taught me a lot about, you know, over the— especially over the years— about how to articulate a vision. Um, and he's one of the— I was the most amazing guy to do it. It's like, you know, you have a vision, you have to— you don't— you can't just trap in your head how to articulate it for others, how to build a culture around you. So I think I learned a lot in that department from him. And, and he's a guy I call up, you know, over midnight, like if I have a problem about managing teams or about certain things. And there's other people I call for, for deals. There's other people I call for, for products. Like, like, you know, like I was in Australia once and I was hanging out with Jerry, the founder of Stepin. And in my mind, Jerry is definitely, no doubt, one of the best product managers out there, or product genius out there. And at the time, was brainstorming around a product. I was like, how would you do it, right? So I think there's like people good at different things, and you go to for different ideas and advices, and And I think that's all very, very important.

Okay, let's say you've got like a BD person, a lot of BD people going to Token this year. So you're a BD person, you're flying out from New York and you're trying to either, I don't know, break into one of the— go meet with some whales to get some TVL for your staking thing, or you're trying to strike a deal with someone. What is the difference between how maybe sales and business development works in the US versus how it works in Asia?

Yeah, um, so first of all, I think, um, unless they are, let's say, someone, a project that's like, you know, I would say the 5 names we all talk about this year, right? IGA and Vera or whatever, you're super hot and everyone will just show up and trying to talk to you. Um, unless that's the case, for I think most of the founders, you, you're gonna find local partners. You first gotta map your landscape, to be honest, right? Because sometimes talking to the wrong people would do even more damage than, uh, because like, oh my God, that's the people you associate with, you know, you know, and then you end up breaking about, I just had breakfast with this guy, and other people was like, oh, you know, why are you in bed with scammer, right?

So even one interesting thing for me is you told me, you're like, don't go have breakfast with maybe a lower level salesperson or whatever because people then will associate you with that, that level essentially.

Yeah, so I think, I think there is a hierarchy in a certain way, but it's come off from a good thing and respect as well. It's like, um, in Asia with this culture that if a, if my counterpart is a CEO and he show up, I have to show up. I cannot just send my junior BD guy. It's completely disrespecting him, right? Um, and, and if they send a VP, I gotta send a VP in to reciprocate. But it's not as strict as like Japan, where Japan is like, you've sent 3 people, I have to send 3 people exactly to match it, uh, in a corporate culture. It's not as strict as that. But, um, in generally speaking, people do tend to think that, uh, like for example, I curate a lot of dinners over the year. I probably curate, I don't know, 100 dinners over the year for, for friends who come in town. I'll match them up, I will host other people, and I'm always very, you know, careful about who brings in and, and, you know, uh, you know, who would they have more interest, you know, more interesting angles or synergies that they can chat with and etc., right? And I think all these, uh, you know, kind of like you need to articulate that you know, social environment as importantly as the idea itself, right? So, um, so yeah, I think there's a little bit of things that you want to pay attention. And also, like, for example, you want to go to a new market. Let's say you want to go to Vietnam, right? The most effective way for you to do it is like you're going to map just like who, who's the most influential guy there, right? For example, like if I— let's say I want to take a DeFi product and, and try to grow in Vietnam, I would try to have knock on, let's say, CoinID store. And I was like, hey, Tan. Tan is the founder of that. Jason Yanowitz, this is my product. I want to come into your market. This is what I want to do. I would like to collaborate with you. And if you get his blessing, you actually make the rest of your job so much easier because like that would go a long way. Like, because, you know, they're, they're, you know, they're 300 people, they're like 12th floor, um, they have 9 million users. Like, so for you to just get his blessing, and that will make your job so much easier talking to other people, right? And other people probably all invested by him.

Alan, I feel, I feel so bad for your, for your DMs after this podcast because everyone's going to say, can you make it? Hey, Alan, I heard you on Empire. Can you make an introduction for me?

No, I'm very, I'm very happy to do it all year long, to be honest.

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Yeah, I can give you the high level of it because, you know, each one of them has a lot of uniqueness. And I would say, for example, you mentioned Vietnam versus Korea. I would tend to say it might be a little bit of a bold attempt, but, uh, but I'll say like Vietnam is a lot more on-chain user for sure. Um, and, um, and actually it's really funny, like, you know, in Vietnam you look at it, it's like only 1% of people have stocks and trade stocks because their stock market was not so developed. Until now. And then, but actually like over, I think 12% of people population own crypto. So crypto in there has a word called magic internet money. It's like everyone's calling that. And in Korea, where I see there's less on-chain users, but has a lot higher activity in terms of altcoin trading. And the altcoin trading often have premiums and it's more speculative in a certain degree. But on-chain user is a little bit less, I would say. They're less familiar with wallets, et cetera, and DeFi and different type of things. If you look at, for example, Greater China, and look at Greater China, I think if you're working on a project, the thing you're going to think about is how to leverage the developer pool, right? I think people don't understand sometimes is China has 2 times the engineers or 3 times the engineers that America has. And the rate is so much better. The rate card is so much better. Like, just to give an example, it's like a fang-grade engineer, which is the equivalent in Asia, will be like Alibaba, Tencent, TikTok, etc. A 3-year experienced guy from there, if you're able to steal him, um, it will probably cost you about like $60K, $70K US a year, which I think America will be 3 times of that easily, or 4 times of that easily. Um, an 8 to 10-year experience, like, you know, from those companies, will be probably about $150K. So that will be still like, you know, 3 times more expensive in America. But if you think about them, it's like, you know, if you're building a product, unless it's something like super world-changing or some cryptography stuff that nobody can understand except 2 scientists in Israel, other than that, um, most likely if I have 3 times of your people, I can iterate 3 times faster and I can almost guarantee I can beat you. So it's why TikTok beat Facebook. It's like, you know, it's not nothing about a tech. The tech is live streaming, is tipping, is those type of thing. It's nothing new. But if I iterate 3 times faster, it's a guaranteed win in 3 times. So that's why I always put, you know, like, um, a mental— you know, if you think about a mental framework, it's a million dollar raise in America. If you spend those million dollar America for R&D, you're going to get 3 times the result if you spend them versus, you know, China or Asia. Um, so I think that is the advantage you can possibly think about, is like there's so many good developers you can tap. If you're L1, you should leverage that. Um, you know, if you are building, trying to build a consumer product, you should leverage that. I think many people should try to leverage that, right? Uh, in general. And Taiwan is actually, on the other hand, like, we have a big operation in town. We have about 50, 40 people there. Um, Taiwan is a very unique market. It's actually a really sizable country. It's half of the population of Australia, and it's very high ARPU, right? If you look at, like, for example, the App Store spending, the ARPU was like probably you know, top 5, top 6 in the world in terms of gaming and many consumer categories, etc. And so, so it's actually in itself a very good market. And Taiwan is, you know, adopting a lot of new crypto regulations. Like, you know, by next— by the end of next year, you can buy Bitcoin from most of the 7-Eleven and the most of the Family Mart, the convenience store. So, so they're pushing regulation pretty aggressively, uh, versus I think Japan is a little bit different. Japan is like, they're much more into cultural stuff. right? NFTs, IPs, and etc. And then in their construct is very different. They got their own set of regulation for listing, uh, which is governed by the consortium of exchange on themselves. So I would say Japan is a little bit, maybe a little bit more, slightly more isolated, and also because the language barrier, to be honest. But there will be like, for example, like the biggest DAO in Japan is called MCDAO. It's run by this billionaire called MC who went around the orbit. Uh, he has like 10 million followers on Twitter. Um, and most, most of the my friends that have never heard of MZDOW, and they got like—

I've never, I've never heard of that. I've never—

yeah, they got half a million people that, that reads the newsletter, you know, follows everything.

That's crazy.

So powerful, right? But you probably never heard about how many people— um, so there, I think they got their own isolated community and etc. And they— the last part that people like to compare Hong Kong and Singapore a lot, and And I think they're very different. Singapore get a little bit more, I would say, obviously a couple of exchanges headquartered there, the owners are there. But apart from that, it's more like garage teams, right? And Hong Kong has always been a lot, I would say, like a bigger capital hub. So there's a lot more, I would say, capital-related activity happen in Hong Kong. And the bigger groups are usually based in Hong Kong, right? So I think it's like there are many, many differences. So there's ultimately, I think what I try to bring out is like there is different advantage you can tap into for different reasons.

Got it.

Okay.

What about the enterprise scene? So in the US, the enterprise blockchain was kind of laughed at for a while. And I think even at when a lot of these L1s and L2s started trying to get the corporates onto their chains in 2020 and 2021, it all basically was fluff. But in Asia, I see, you know, Sony launching Sonium, which is, and they're, and they're spending, I mean, they're spending, they must be spending like a million bucks at Token this year because they're one of the title sponsors. And, you know, that's probably a 7-figure cost right there alone. So, uh, what, I mean, yeah, tell me about like corporates and enterprises getting into crypto.

Yeah, I think in Asia, uh, many of them have tried it. I can't say how successful they are so far. I always have, honestly, my fair bit of— I'm always a little bit skeptical about when it comes to—

Okay, so maybe it's more similar to the US than—

Yeah, yeah, yeah. I think the outcome is, after all, when you're big, you have a lot more things you got to worry about. One of the product that Bill, I would say that that failed but taught me a lesson is at the time I partnered with this really big $20 billion public company to build a product and install Wallet across all their things. And things were going well, raising money to build a product, finished a 6-month negotiation, is finally about to launch, and then Luna happens and then FTX happens. And when that happened, even the owner is like, he believes in blockchain, but the problem is just he has $20 billion market cap to protect. So for him to, to do it, to take that risk, it's like, you know, it could result in a 10%, 20% drop of the share price. So, you know, um, and it's just not worth it. So I think, I think it's on that part, it's probably more similar. But I think in Asia, it's like they— a lot of them is like making a lot of trials. You saw in Japan, you saw a little bit in Korea. Um, but I would say a lot of activity come from bottom up and actually less institutional. Like, I always tell people, like, a lot of people obviously ask me about the activity in Hong Kong ever since regulation come out. And I'm like, to be completely honest, um, most people care more about what SEC said than what SFC in Hong Kong said, right? I think that one thing you can change is that—

well, you're saying that even in Hong Kong they might care more about what SEC says than their regulator because that drives the whole market?

Of course. Like, like the center of finance and of institutional finance is in Wall Street, is in New York City. Is in DC, right? Like these are places who kind of decide whether you have ETF and et cetera, and other people follow suit, right? And I think that is probably the most— I think for institutional adoption, no doubt, I think America, East Coast continue will be the most dominant center. Everyone else will be followers. For consumer adoptions, consumer infra, I think is going to come more from Asia. Developer adoption, I think you're going to see a little bit both, um, on both, both sides of the world.

Um, what about the exchange wars? There are like two big, I guess I'll call them wars, that I wanted to get your take on. Like, there's the, these, there's the exchange wars, like Bybit, OKX. Again, I literally don't even know if Huobi is still around. Binance. Like, just want to get your take on like that battle that's going on. And like, maybe some— I'm curious if there are things that you know about that that people in the West maybe don't have visibility into? And then a very similar question, but for like L1, L2 wars. And if it's— maybe it's the exact same as US. So let's start with exchanges.

Yeah, you're about to get me into trouble.

Just kidding.

I think like I wouldn't see, you know, it's complete war. Like you see them doing event together, you see them sharing panel together. And most of this owner actually, they're friends. And they have respect for each other. Like recently in Taiwan, I hang out with one exchange owner and he literally told me, he's like, I asked my team to learn more from OKX. Their product is so crafted in such a good way. We should learn more of the user experience and et cetera, et cetera. So I think they have that respect for each other. But obviously, I think on some side, maybe they'll compete for certain markets and et cetera. They will all try to launch a wallet. Definitely sure to compete for deals, right? And I think how to, for founders, like how to navigate that is kind of important, right? Obviously this year we've announced like 4 group level partnerships with 4 different exchanges and for different things. And I think for a founder, you just try to stay neutral, right? I think ultimately you try to be friends with everybody. They are very important. They provide liquidity, they provide access to users. But what I fundamentally believe is If you got a great product in yourself, um, other people would like to fight over you, right? So just focus on creating your own value than trying to think about how much time I should spend on certain guys or, or whatever. But I think there is something that I do observe, um, the differences between— I would say, you know, when it comes to exchanges is that, um, a lot of my Western founders, they would have less clue about how the exchange listing criteria is. And then they would try to also demonize them a little bit, to be honest, where they're like, yeah, it's all about relationship, right? It's all about getting to know who's who. There's a back door. And in our part, well, we don't think like that. We think like it's almost like applying Ivy League school. So when I applied to, let's say, Harvard, yeah, there's a certain SAT criteria you gotta, you know, you're gonna fulfill. And then you gotta— your IELTS gotta exceed, let's say, 7.5. And then you gotta write article. You maybe need to get a reference check, whatever. But basically, if you ask a lot of founders, the easy test is, as a founder, is like, hey, okay, you're raising this round. Do you know what exactly is the listing criteria currently? If he can't answer you, that means you don't even know what's SAT score. But I can exactly answer you. It's like, okay, how many website traffic you need to get, how many Twitter following you need to get, how to rate S quality project versus A quality project versus A+ and B quality projects, and what the A category they will look for. And honestly, Till today, it's already very standard. It's like exam, right? You just got to take this exam regardless how many people you know. If your product do not fulfill these qualities, you're not getting into Harvard. So it's actually quite, you know, I would say like a fair competition to a certain degree. Of course, like among everyone that check all the boxes of Harvard, the ones that's better relation and better brand and better reputation, of course you might be the one that have, you know, let's say in a good market, you are the one who can go first. But then it's not like you can skip those boxes and still jump through them, right?

Yeah. What about the L1 and L2 wars? What's maybe the difference between how that looks like in Asia versus how that looks in the States?

I think L1 and L2, to be honest, there's a lot of L1, L2 from Asia, but obviously the most talked about one are still the ones from the West. I have to admit one thing is like like Asia had many L1s over the years. Like I can recall from the early days, there's like Korea. Yeah, NEO, Qtum, there is Celica. There's many of them. They all at one point was ranked pretty high in terms of market cap. But I just think it's, I kind of personally, my view is like it's also to do with a little bit of culture, like why Asian people generally are less good at L1 builder. Um, and I think have maybe have something to do with religion, right? So, um, I was actually explaining this to Smokey yesterday. Um, I was talking exactly about it with Smokey yesterday, and I was like, we don't go to church when we grow up. We, we don't have like a father figure who is preaching, evangelizing, holding hands, singing prayers, and, and it's like, you know what, let me save you, etc., right? Um, like, we, we grew up, and when we go to temple is usually when we need something. Right? You go to temples like, dude, help me land this job please, right? Oh, make my BTC goes up, right? So you're very pragmatic. Asian people are like just super pragmatic, like very good at solving problems. And then, but we are very bad in terms of like preaching like, this is good for you, you should be one of us, right? That kind of thing. And so when we think about like what kind of product we usually will go into a very specific scenario. It's like, I'm going to solve this problem better than anyone else. It's like, almost like you're good at math, right? And so you start with the exact use case versus you're good at really good at preaching. So I think maybe it's just cultural thing. I don't know. But so far I haven't seen a lot of, I would say, like in Asia, everyone talks about Berra, Monad. They talk about the same thing you guys talk about.

Yeah. I mean, the big difference in my mind seems to be that the L1s and L2s that have done quite well over there are also run by the exchanges. And we're— we really haven't seen this in the States until obviously Coinbase and Base. And I think there'll be a couple other big US crypto exchanges that launch L2s, probably later this year, early next, I would assume. But yeah, I mean, it's like Bybit, Mantle, OKX obviously, obviously has done a great job. And then Binance has obviously done a phenomenal job with BSC too.

Yeah, I think, well, obviously if you look at BNB, we just recently went up a product as part of OPBNB to deploy our social graph on top and build product with them. And I think all of them are really aggressive. And to be honest, what matters to users, I think what matters to developer ultimately is a couple of things, right? And I think for any good developers, money should not be a problem. Because if you're a good developer, you can attract capital. That shouldn't be a problem. And I think if you're a good developer, you should handle the tech. That's no problem at all as well, especially getting today's— all the tech stacks are getting, I would say, more or less similar. But the number of users compared to different chains indeed has gaps, right? And obviously exchanges have that huge advantage of having the most users. So you'd naturally see a lot more activity. So I don't think it's because like, hey, I want to— I just want to lick the balls of Binance so that I'm building on top, right? There's some, some people will kind of see it like that, and I think there's a very superficial way to kind of understand it. Like, you know, the way I look at this building on top is because they just can give my more— give my more user to my product. You can help me test my product market fit better. So, you know, why not, right? So, so you're definitely open-minded to to all these potentials. Right.

Okay. I'm going to do an interesting thing maybe where I want you to help me with Blockworks' strategy, like live, live on the podcast. So we are— we're a very Western-based media company and, you know, we have different— we have like 3 parts of our business, right? We've got— we've got the media business, own the largest podcast network in the industry, newsletters, own the largest newsletter network in the industry. We have a big news team, right? So that's media business. Then we have a conference business, right? We have two conference firms, Permissionless, Digital Asset Summit. Permissionless in the US, Digital Asset Summit in London and New York. And then we have a research and data platform where 90% of our customers are in, are in the US. Okay. If you were sitting in my shoes, there's this whole bucket of people and potential customers and sponsors for the media business and audience. For the media business, uh, and big conferences to be built in Asia. Is it worth doing something in Asia or not, if you're in mind?

I think it's totally worth it. Um, like, like, honestly, I think in, in terms of media and everything, like, America definitely has the advantage that the size of business is much bigger, um, and the revenue dollar is bigger. The level, I would say sophistication is higher. And, um, it's not like, you know, I'm looking— it's not that I'm saying the Asian player not great, it's just like, you know, the industry nature. And, and, but there is a lot of audience here. And honestly, as a founder, like what I saw, even for myself or for other people, like historically I would say, you know, it's very hard for Asian founders or Asia players to get access to Western media or, or international media. But it is not the case for, for let's say Web2 or in finance. In finance, like people in Hong Kong who go to work, they read Wall Street Journal, they read Financial Times. Those are the things on the desk. They don't read like local— there's no local version of Wall Street Journal, right? So, so they still go to WSJ, they still go to FT. Um, so, so it's, it's largely the same, I would say. So the way I look at that is like, you'll— if your quality of content is good, people is going to get naturally attracted to it. It's just like you probably have— need to have probably, let's say, 2 to 3 key elements. First of all, you probably need to have localization of language, right? Because, you know, a lot of this, you know, Asia is not one language as well, right? Like, yeah, Chinese probably is the largest, you know, I would say populations, uh, or a lot, you have the most speaking populations. But there is, for example, in Vietnam, there's 100 million people there, you know, they speak their local language. Um, in Thailand is different, Korea is different. So you got to pick out a few key markets, you know. You need to make sure your content got translated because otherwise most people cannot access or understand. So they're missing out on your great content and that part on your website, et cetera. And so localization is important. And you also probably want to have some of the local interviews and exclusives and et cetera and programming. And the second part is I think conference is definitely something that's very interesting as well. It's like historically when you see a lot of— probably except 2049, I would say a lot of conferences tend to be more localized. There are less where, less countries where it's truly, truly East meets West, right? It's either a lot more dominant representation from West or it's all the way around. So I think there's a unique market there. So you can potentially, let's say, bring permissionless to Singapore, to Hong Kong, to all these places. And I do think there's enough room for multiple players. And also, I think the third part is you also need local local partners too. In each of the different markets, you need different local partners. And, and I think that's also a generic rule that applies for other businesses as well, um, is if you decide to come into Asia, you better not be something that's half-assed. You better be something that you take it seriously. And if a local partner who can navigate those terrains and navigate, you know, who should work with and how to cut through the trace, so you save a lot of time, you don't hit a wall as much, uh, you come much better result immediately. Um, you talk to the right key decision makers. Um, so, so yeah, so but in general, I think, I think for in your case is easy because you got a killer product, you got a killer brand, you get killer content that everyone loves. So, so it's easy. And, and I think, I think it's very funny, it's like if you come to like, you know, I think next week when you come to Singapore, you're a lot— you realize on the street how many people were able to spot you and just say, hey Jason, I'm a big fan of yours. Um, and, and this is like a generic phenomenon. So it's very funny. So last year during the F1 weekend, uh, post— is Post Malone's first trip into Asia, and his manager Austin Rosen is a friend. So, so we help organize some after-party, we hang out, etc. And it's the first trip, and they're like, oh my God, I didn't know I have that many fans in Asia. It was his first Asian tour, and there's so much love. It's like, you know, here actually quite international. They actually look at international content. There's actually a fan base out here, but you might not just know. So, so I think it's funny. You might see those reactions.

So what you're saying is I'm a lot like Post Malone, basically. In crypto. Okay. Tell me about how the event scene is different. Like, it feels like— okay, so you were telling me— so I think— can I share the numbers of your event next week? Like, you've got this, you've got this event. So Alan and EVG are hosting an event with BearChain and there's this like, I mean, it just came up as like an Illumina event and there are 7,000 people registered to attend. There's going to be over 10,000 people at this thing. And it's, I mean, it's this, it's like the massive kickoff party for the week, obviously. But like getting 10,000 people to a party in the US, I mean, that's, I mean, it just doesn't happen actually. Like it just, it literally doesn't exist. So why does that dynamic exist? Like it feels like, I mean, maybe it's just there's just a sheer number of people. But it does feel like there's a difference in almost economics of events there too. Like people don't really buy as many tickets it looks like, but it's all extremely sponsorship based. So maybe just tell us about and educate me on like how conferences and events are different in Asia versus in the US.

Yeah, I think here is like, for example, next week, let me give you another figure that's astonishing, which is there is already over 700 Sai events. Side events next week. It was absolutely insane. So there's 7 days, if you deduct the last 2 days for F1, whatever, it's literally over 100 side events a day. On some of the days, I actually got 7 overlapping dinners. Yeah, it's actually something— my big brothers, right? So I have to literally show up for 10 minutes, shake hands, and move on to the next one. Yeah, it's like next week is complete— is going to be a little bit chaotic, but I also think it's a lot of love. I mean, shows just how many people care about this industry. And many people pre-booked their flight, pre-booked their hotel and everything 6 months, 7 months ago. We have to secure the venue marquee 7 months ago. And it was just like— and next week is not just us hosting great things, right? Arthur is hosting great things. Many other— Justin is hosting great thing on Wednesday. I think Arthur is hosting something on Thursday and Friday, right? I think it's going to be amazing, amazing week. And yeah, and I think, but you can definitely tell there is a lot of players and many people hosting multiple events as well, and they're all supporting each other. They're putting logos on each other. And I think it's like, honestly, the market last couple of months wasn't the best, I would say. And this is just great.

So tell me about the economics of these things. Is it fair to say that people don't really not just the side events, but let's say Blockworks, let's say Blockworks and EVG were hosting a conference and we're like, all right, we're going to Hong Kong or Singapore or something. Right now we make, you know, maybe half our money comes from tickets, half comes from sponsorships.

Yeah.

Tell me how you would recommend we set up an event.

I think you have a lot more like dominant percentage from sponsorship, from other type of things. Yeah. I think ticket will be slightly less like, you try not to actually charge people that much for a ticket. Obviously you will have tickets, like even KBW or Asian Boxing Summit, they all have tickets. But also when a friend reach out, you have to give them tickets. You don't turn your friends away and say, yo man, uh, go buy yourself, right? So, so ultimately you're gonna give out tickets. But, um, but, but I think if you attract the crowd, there's many other business models you can possibly slap on it. Um, and then, and I think, I think there is enough also sponsorship opportunity as well. A lot of people will be looking for exposures. And also, I think the good thing is the government is also really keen. For example, Hong Kong government, I can't say for Singapore government, but Hong Kong government has multiple funds from tourism boards, from other bureaus where they incentivize people to hold great international events in Hong Kong. And Web3, because it's an industry that the government encourage, so they also give out averaging maybe like $2 million to support great events. Events, right? So, so they will also cover some of the costs. Um, and then the good thing is that you can also negotiate with venues and others to kind of like, you know, make your P&L better. So, so I think there's great opportunity. And, and the most important thing is you, you get an impact. You get— even for the first year, you don't make that much money, you make the impact. Yeah.

Um, cool. Alan, what else are we missing? What else is interesting maybe that people don't understand yet? But I For people listening who aren't watching on YouTube, it's also midnight for Alan right now. So I do appreciate you joining late.

I think one maybe final look is, final notes is like very funny. It's like recently when our product got launched and some of the Twitter community is saying certain thing about it and other people saying certain thing about it. And I think one thing that definitely come to mind is like, you know, a lot of people talking about like we want to bring a billion user to our industry. And I think in the, you know, sometimes I think this not just exists in East and West, but I think it's more obvious in the West. Some of the Western users will be like, hey, this is the way I think adoption should happen. Like the rest of the billion people should be more like me. They should be more crypto native. They should know how to do on-chain. They should be one of our crypto bros. But I think you look at Asia, the funny thing is, I think the adoption is probably that a billion people, that mass adoption will come in forms that probably is not your way. It's going to come in a different way, form and shape, right? Which is like, maybe we need to dumb it down. Maybe we need to adapt to that as well. Maybe they're going to take the tools and infrastructure that we invented into their own hands and give it their own spin, right? And I think that is like a real reality where people are going to compose in their own ways. And I think Asia has a lot of teams and a lot of people willing to experiment. And I think it could be interesting. Like, I wrote an article recently about the Asia Terra, and I think maybe next year we'll have like an AsiaFi season coming.

I like it, man. Great article. We'll link the article, by the way, in the show notes of this episode for people who want to read it. Okay, let's wrap with this. I want to get— this last one will sound weird to you. Apps to download, food to eat, and clothes to wear. So if I have a friend who comes to New York, you know, I say, who's maybe from, uh, from Hong Kong or something, I'll be like, okay, everyone— and usually they already know this, but it's like, okay, you gotta get around with Uber, right? We got DoorDash if you want to get food. We got Google Maps if you want to get around. Um, what are the apps that you use on a daily basis?

Yeah. Um, you mean Hong Kong or when they go to Singapore next week?

Uh, both actually. I'm curious about both.

Okay, for Singapore next week, download your Grab. You need that for— because it's F1 weekend, F1 week, so all the roads are going to get blocked. It's kind of messy going around, so download your Grab, just like the Uber equivalent. But also in Grab, you can also order the food just like Uber too. So when you're hungry at midnight, that's gonna help you out. Um, and then, uh, definitely go try the spicy crab, definitely go try the laksa, definitely go try those— one of the hakka centers, which is like the you know, very cheap but delicious food that is always open. Um, and then, um, so I think, yeah, there's Singapore. And then, um, what was the food?

You said spicy crab, the, the, the, the chicken, the— what was the third one, the laksa?

So, so basically they have this construct called, uh, hawker center, which is a little bit like a food court. Um, and then, um, where they have all the delicious, like, small store within it. There's usually 30, 40 of them. You try different things for really, really cheap, like for $20, you got, oh my God, amazing, amazing meals. Um, um, so it's usually, let me try this local stuff out, and then just wear a short because it's going to be hot next week.

Um, that's what I was gonna ask. So people, so for the, for the, the, the dress code, right, is it, is it nice? Is it people are wearing shorts? Are they wearing pants? Are they wearing jeans?

Yeah, I think in Singapore, definitely just, just you should imagine it's hot, right? So So yeah, whatever you wear in Palm Beach, probably that's a better idea. And it rings a lot.

So cool. Well, people are going to be on the flight saying, crap, I didn't bring any shorts. But this is— now, Alan, this is great, man. I really appreciate you coming on. And we didn't even talk about OpenSocial at all. But I had a tweet that's— Santi, I don't know if you caught the Empire episode last week, but Santi and I talked a lot about OpenSocial, which you're also building, competing with folks like— and not even competing, but kind of just learning from what Lens and Forecaster have done and doing it a little bit differently as well. And I would highly recommend people go check out OpenSocial. I'm sure we'll do an episode with you on that at some point in the future. So yeah, thanks for all the advice for us Westerners going to Asia next week.

No, no, no. Thanks for the show. And anyone in town, like, you know, like you said, if anything we can help you off, feel free to DM us and yeah, we'd love to Love to be your host.

Amazing. Amazing. Thanks for watching today's episode. Just wanted to quickly mention that the wait for crypto's killer app wave is nearly over thanks to today's sponsor, Anoma, the universal intent machine. To stay up to date with Anoma, you can follow them at x.com/anoma or sign up for the newsletter at anoma.net. Thanks again to Anoma for sponsoring today's episode.