A Finance CEO Just Revealed What XRP Holders Are Missing

Hey, it's Kamilah Stevenson, and around here we talk wealth. What's going on? This is about to be amazing. All right, this is about to be incredible. What's up? I see you guys in the house. What's up, Patrice? I see you, uh, North, uh, Charlotte, North Carolina. What's going on? A couple of North Carolina, uh, in the house. Let's go. All right, what's up, Dwayne? I see you. Listen, we got, um We got something great to talk about. We are going to have shortly, uh, the CEO of iTrust Capital, um, with us today. And, uh, listen, he is an incredible guy, and I can't wait to interview him and to, uh, have him come and share his take on what's happening with the Clarity Act and making sure you guys protect yourselves. There is so much happening right now. And go ahead and like the video as you come in. And I want to say off the top, nothing that we share is financial advice. Everything that we share is for educational and entertainment purposes only. Um, I do want to give you a quick update. Uh, I just looked at this because I've been just busy all day. But what we have before us now, because I know a lot of you all kind of get anxious about the Clarity Act, um, some good movement to report, right? So the Clarity Act, for anyone who is new or who have not been keeping up, is a big piece of legislation that is working its way through Congress right now, uh, that will set the official rules of how digital assets like XRP are regulated in the United States. It decides things like which government agency oversees crypto and how these assets are legally classified, uh, and that matters, right? Because clear rules are where, uh, you allow for the big institutions to step in. Go ahead again and like the video. But, uh, as of June 1st, the Clarity Act was officially placed on the Senate legislation calendar. Now, this doesn't mean that we are there, okay? So let me be straight with that. But being placed on the calendar, um, is a step forward, okay? It doesn't mean it's passed. It just means that there is a vote scheduled for, um, or yeah, there— it doesn't mean that it's a vote scheduled for a particular day, but it does mean that the bill is now formally in line and is eligible to be brought to the full Senate floor for debate and vote. Okay, so just think of it like if you go into a restaurant, you got your name on the list, right? So you in the queue, but you haven't been called to your table yet. So, uh, this bill does have to be complete in, I believe, like 9 steps to become law. And so now we have completed, I think, 5 of them. So the remaining steps are full Senate debate, a Senate floor vote that needs 60 votes to pass, and then reconciling the Senate version with the version that the House already passed. And then finally, we got the president's signature on that. Okay, so it is progress that's being made, um, but there is a tight clock. And I gotta give both, both sides of this, uh, we got about 8 weeks left, um, on the Senate calendar before they break for the summer. So this bill could need maybe a full week on the floor by itself, and then there is a lot of other bills that's competing for the same window. So it has advanced, which is really, really good, but it is not a done deal. Okay, so we don't know if it's guaranteed. All right, so Now one thing that is encouraging is Galaxy Digital, I saw, which is a major institutional player. They did just place $10 million of a bet in the prediction market. So I look at that, that the Clarity Act will pass in 2026. So you got serious money betting that it does cross the finish line. And hey, maybe they know something we don't. Now go ahead and again, like the video, share it if you have not already, because we are about to get into it. I am absolutely excited, um, for tonight, and I'm gonna go ahead and actually, uh, bring him on. I see him in the building, and, uh, this is awesome. This is awesome. Can you— let's see, can you hear me? Can you hear me? Yes.

Hi, Kamilah, how are you?

I'm great, I'm great. Uh, I just want to, you know, introduce you. Um, I'm sure everybody knows you by now. This community absolutely loves ITrust Capital. And I, I want you guys to know I am genuinely excited tonight, uh, because the conversation that we're about to have is one that I've been wanting to bring to the community for a long time. So, um, so much of building wealth, real wealth I'll say, comes down to two things, and that is the assets that you choose and the structure that you hold it in. And you can be completely right about where the world is going and still lose a huge portion of what you've built if the foundation underneath your position is wrong. Um, and also if you don't have a plan that includes protecting your assets the right way, right? So tonight I am bringing on someone who lives at the center of that exact aspect every single day, and he is the chief executive officer of iTrust Capital. He's here with us and we are going to talk about, uh, security and custody and where the industry is headed. And what every family watching needs to understand to protect what they're building. So joining us is Kevin Maloney, CEO again of iTrust Capital. He has had over, uh, he can, he can correct me on this, over 25 years of executive leadership experience across financial services, technology, real estate, and blockchain. And, uh, before coming, becoming CEO, he served as Chief Strategy Officer at iTrust Capital, leading corporate development, capital markets, markets and investor relations. And earlier, I believe, in his career, he held a senior role at PIMCO and First American Financial Corporation. And under his leadership at iTrustCapital, it has become one of the leading crypto IRA platforms in America. Kevin, thank you so very much. We value your time. This guy is— I have talked to him— down to earth, relatable, humble, caring, empathetic, intelligent, visionary. Forward-thinking. I can't say enough good about him, trust me. And his team is amazing, so they are a reflection of his leadership. Thank you so much for being here. How are you? I'm excited.

That's what an incredible, uh, intro. Geez, I love the energy. Thanks for having me. Could you tell my wife just half of those things? That would be amazing. Yeah, thank you so much for having us. It's good to see you again and, and great to connect. A lot of fun things to cover.

Yes, indeed. Well, you know what? Um, again, welcome, welcome. And, um, I am going to definitely— there's a few things that I really want to, uh, know from your perspective. But before we get into everything, um, happening in the industry, I would love for my community to just get to know you. I know you spent, um, decades inside of the traditional finance at places like PIMCO and First America before stepping into the crypto world. What, what pulled you into digital assets, and what made you believe that this was where the future of finance was headed?

Yeah, great question. Uh, thank you again for, you know, just for having me, and just great to connect with your audience. And thank you for everything you're doing for iTrustCapital. And, and it was good for our team to connect with you, uh, in person in Vegas too. That, that's, uh, that's awesome. Uh, it was just, it was a myriad of things. It's just things came together. I've been, uh, I had a really good foundation to build from at PIMCO and First American on the trust side and the capital management side. And I focused on mostly compliance as the compliance officer at PIMCO. So I was one of the few people that actually appreciates the rules and regs. You know, you don't always love them, but you got to have them. It's kind of like my kids' joke when we're at the bowling alley. They got to put up the guardrails for dad sometimes. And the guardrails are important. It keeps us out of the gutter. So, the foundation was really important for me to build from. Went to grad school, thought I knew everything, realized I didn't, got humbled many times with multiple startups. I've been involved with more than 15 startups as an early executive, an advisor, a board member, a founder, or a check writer, a small investor. And I learned a lot of what not to do along the way. Most don't work out. Had a few wins, a couple losses, you know, and been humbled along the way. And I was approached by a group in 2017-18, uh, for a small investment, and I was really compelled by, uh, ironically it was around a security product And I got involved and I ended up becoming the CEO of that small, you know, R&D company developing some software and hardware technology for security to keep, you know, assets protected. Unfortunately, I didn't put in a ton of money in Bitcoin at the time. 2018 was a good entry point, might be a good entry point again now, I don't know. You know, with the market down, like you said, we're not making recommendations, but I always feel like I always miss out on a good time to get in. And maybe this is— maybe it's going to happen again for us. But I was really compelled by the security portion of it. I opened up a test account on a large, well-known, uh, exchange, and I think I put in like $100. I thought it was just, uh, you know, I thought everything was kind of, uh, a bit of an enigma out there around crypto. And I'm pretty sure that $100 or $500, whatever I funded it with, was gone in like 2 weeks. I I didn't even buy anything yet. I went to go click a button and it was just gone. Like, like my USDC was gone or whatever I had it sitting in. And I thought, well, that's odd. I didn't buy or sell anything. My money's already gone. This is not a good way to, to get into crypto. But that's what attracted me, the necessary sort of the need for transparency and security. That's what brought me in. I ran into iTrustCapital. At a conference I was hosting in Southern California. I met them a month before they launched. Uh, the CFO, ironically, at the time, I sat next to him at PIMCO 25 years ago. And so it was just incredible. Uh, well, gosh, it might have been even more now, um, you know, 26, 27 years ago. And, uh, we walked in the room and he said, what are you doing here? I said, this is my conference, welcome. And, and, uh, it ended up being just really good, uh, synergies, and we kind of worked together and built from there. That's kind of the genesis of what attracted me to crypto and iTrustCapital and, and my short background, uh, and knowledge and appreciation for the security component.

I love that. I love that you've been inside some of, some of the most respected institutions in the world. When, when you— I'm always curious, like, you know, there's a lot of people who get a lot of backlash for getting into digital assets. Like, when you jumped into understanding digital assets, especially coming from the traditional side, which I love. I'm just curious, did your peers in traditional finance think anything about that? Did they have any doubt about whether it was the right move for you?

It was a bit of the wild, wild west back in the day, and I was at PIMCO early in my career, so, and it was an incredible place to be from some of the smartest people I've ever worked with. And again, having the exposure and communication every day with the regulators at FINRA and the SEC, really gave me an appreciation, uh, for good people and just following the rules and regs. It's not difficult, just do the right thing. But I didn't transition immediately from PIMCO to digital assets. Digital assets came much later. After that, I was at First American Capital Management, First American Trust, part of the First American Financial Corporation. Huge 120-year-old business started by the Kennedy family, Kennedy of the West Coast family. And, uh, really gave me appreciation for another, you know, Fortune 1000 business and, and how it was operated and run and the good people behind it. So had a good foundation, um, after multiple startups. Uh, yeah, people would say, you know, it's a little bit of the wild, wild west out there, what, you know, what, what do you focus on? I said, I think there's something here. I don't completely understand it all, but I think that I can see how things are going digital. When I was a young, um, boy. I, I was the youngest of four. My mom was a single mom and she worked two jobs and went to school at night. And I would go to the grocery store with her and she would write a check. She would write a check and show her ID, and we would, you know, they would cash the check right there or take the check for groceries. And, and I remember sometimes somebody saying, we're going to be able to go to the grocery store and scan a debit card and it comes right out of your bank. Oh, this is crazy. There's no way my mom's not gonna write checks anymore with an ID and sign the back and all this stuff. And, um, we saw this happen over 25, 30 years, the digital stuff coming. And it just— it made sense to me that it was going to come, that was going to be more efficient, better settlements, things like that. Yeah, there was a lot of noise on the side, a lot of people issuing tokens and, and launching things that weren't always on the up and up, but I, I thought the blockchain economy and the blockchain technology was sound, and I thought if we could get good people behind this and demonstrate real utility and benefit for society, I thought for sure, uh, this could do incredible things.

Yeah, well, it looks like you definitely got good people behind you. Um, I know you guys have grown to more than— I want to say 53, or from, uh, I I think 53,000 active accounts to over $10 billion in transactions in relatively a short amount of time. I could have those numbers off, but I know you guys have grown tremendously. Like, if you're looking back, like, what do you think was the key decision or the factor that accelerated that growth at iTrustCapital?

Well, a couple of things. I mean, timing is everything. I've always had— I always say I'm the least lucky entrepreneur in the room, right? And I, you know, so I always say that I'm the least lucky entrepreneur in the room. Let me tell you about my timing. So Timing in life is really important. Obviously, we can't control that, but showing up prepared is also the most important thing we can control. And so yes, we found amazing people. We surrounded ourselves with good people. We always tried to do the right thing. We try to iterate based on feedback from our clients. What do they like? What do they don't like? If you don't know your strengths and weaknesses or your idiosyncrasies, uh, your significant others will probably help you with that list, and, uh, and your clients will also if you ask for it. And even if you don't, if you're serving the retail masses like we are, the crypto moms and dads like me, soccer moms and dads on the weekends, um, you are opening yourself up for feedback. And garnering that feedback and iterating based on that feedback is really critical. So we've always, uh, you know, tried to do a good job there. But yes, we've had, um, timing was incredible. Um, 2021 was a good time to get into crypto, even though I missed the earlier windows of '13 and '17. Excuse me, coming in in that time was amazing. Um, at that time we had, you know, I, I wasn't the CEO, founder of the company. The, the early founders did a great job of, of recognizing an opportunity, demonstrating value, and building something with duct tape and Band-Aids that was good enough to get going. I always tell people, it doesn't have to be the best and it doesn't have to be perfect. It has to be good enough to get going to see if you can attract some customers. Right? And that's the key, is that you can see if you can attract customers and then get their feedback. And if you serve them with excellence and you don't lose their money for them and you don't overcharge them and you, uh, pick up the phone and, and, and really address their concerns, you can do really well. And in the retirement community, um, it's really sticky, loyal capital if you don't overcharge them and you serve them well and you keep them and help them feel secure. So timing was important. The people are everything. Our clients are our most important, you know, uh, um, you know, thing that we focus on every day. But our most important thing here is the, is the, is the employees. They're the biggest asset of the firm. And we don't— if we don't do a good job in the things we set out to do, we don't have clients to serve. The purpose of a business is to create a customer. And if you can create a customer and serve them and and make just enough to keep profitable, to keep the doors open, and you can scale that— let me tell you what I did for someone just like you— then you can have, you know, some really good upside. So we were benefits— beneficiaries of riding an incredible wave, and we navigated a lot of things and challenges beyond our control. There's always trials and tribulations in any startup, and we kept it sort of the straight down the middle of the fairway, use a golf analogy, the boring crypto company that was just lean, focused, and profitable. We didn't have to be sexy and wild and build and develop and invent new things. We needed to keep it, you know, steady and stable and profitable because we were dealing with billions and billions of dollars of people's retirement capital. Today I'm very proud we're serving almost 96,000 client-funded accounts. 200,000 people additional have signed up, not yet funded, and we've done over $17 billion in transactions. We work with, you know, Coinbase Institutional, Wells Fargo, you know, Fidelity Digital Assets, Fireblocks, all the big names. And we're really honored that we have become, you know, in my opinion, a pretty well-respected institutional, you know, business focusing on retail individuals that want to participate in a blockchain economy. And our clients are, you know, 35 to 65. They're not betting the farm. They've been through multiple cycles. They're crypto curious. They're not maxing out credit cards to get into meme tokens. And, and they are— and like, you know, none of us have enough to retire on, right? So we're all curious about, hey, maybe I can get a little extra in this category or these tokens I'm focused on and help augment my retirement, you know, um, or compound my retirement, you know, sort of account over the next several years. And that's kind of, uh, the clients we serve. They want, you know, a secure platform, and they want, you know, a service, you know, with people live and in the US.

I love that, um, you guys have like really taken time to understand your customers and One of the things that surprised me, and you guys may not know this, but when I— the first time I met with him, he start— I was trying to ask questions from him. I need to know what, you know, you know, trying to ask questions from, you know, for a successful person who's running, um, this amazing, you know, uh, business with iTrust Capital. And he's asking me questions, and he's writing down, and he's trying to get to understand my community and You know, he's like, I searched some of the comments and, you know, we pay attention to it. And I was so surprised by that. I, I just really believe that trust is the rarest currency in this entire industry. And I know people have been burned so many times, um, that the platforms who actually, um, earn trust, you know, become to me irresistible, irreplaceable, you know. So I think that is definitely one of the stories behind your growth, um, along with the timing and being prepared And, um, and I also love how you guys, you know, I don't know who came up with this, how they stamped the identity and the mandate of I Trust, you know, like they stamped trust on, on the brand. And so I, I, I love that motto and, and it's powerful. I do want to talk about something that we are all just at times very fearful about. I just recently found out that, uh, there was some kind of SIM swap attack And for, uh, for all of you guys who don't know, it— that is, a SIM swap is a type of attack, uh, where a criminal tricks your phone carrier like Verizon or AT&T or T-Mobile into transferring your phone number off of your real SIM card, uh, and then onto a new SIM card that the criminal, whoever the person is, controls. And they do this by calling the phone, or one of the ways they do this is by calling the phone company sometimes pretending to be you, using personal information that they've gathered about you from data breaches or social media, and then convincing the customer service rep to activate a new SIM card. And the moment that your number transfers to their device, your phone goes dead, and now they receive all of your calls and text messages. And that's important because, because remember, people use text messages for their two-factor authentication, which I don't. I use Google Authenticator now. Um, so then when the criminal has your phone number, they can request password resets, and then they can receive verification codes to your email, your bank, your crypto, or all of that. So they essentially become you in the eyes of every system that verifies your identification, uh, through your phone, right? And so, uh, Kevin, a lot of us, including myself, are worried about constantly getting hacked and scammed, but we don't fully understand how these attacks actually happen? Can you walk us through what happened to you? Like, what, what happened? What did you do? And how do you protect yourself after this?

Yeah, and it's happened, by the way. This SIM card swap hack is not a unique thing. Actually, the first big one that ever happened that I'm aware of that was widely advertised is, uh, happened to a guy named, uh, Michael Turpin. T-U-R-P-I-N is, I believe, the spelling of his last name. He lost $24 million-ish in, uh, Bitcoin, uh, wow, uh, 5 to 7 years ago. Michael Turpin. Yeah, in fact, I see him at conferences all the time. I just saw him recently, uh, he was at the, uh, he was at the Vegas Blockchain Conference as well, the Bitcoin conference. But, um, yeah, Michael was the first, and I thought, wow, that's unlucky. Um, and then, uh, it was 2019-20-ish, I was listed as the CEO of another crypto-related company, and they probably had I had a bunch of assets. And sure enough, this is Friday evening, it's about 10:45. I'm getting calls and texts from my business partner saying, hey, you know, what are you doing in your email account? You're, you're, you keep resetting things. And I said, oh no, someone's phishing, or you're trying to, you know, trying to get you to click on something, just ignore it. And he said, no, no, somebody's already in your email and resetting everything. And I looked at my phone and, uh Sorry, this is by email on another private email. And I looked at my phone and my phone was powered on, but I was not getting a signal. And this is 10:45. I later learned the fraud department's closed kind of late at night and Friday evenings are great nights to get hacked. And again, this has happened to the top 5 people at our company now. So it's not uncommon. When I called AT&T, they were sort of like, "What? What happened? We've never heard of this." The guy at the corner store had not heard of this. So that's a different story in a moment. But it is exactly what you described. A bad actor within the company can take a bribe or inadvertently give up information and swap your SIM card to another phone. Now, I had an iPhone 12 at the time, you know, 11 or 12 at the time, and unbeknownst to me, my SIM card credentials were transferred to an iPhone 5 in a different state in an area that was nowhere close to me, obviously. And I have like extra security on my account at AT&T. I have extra, you gotta show up in person with an ID, you have to have a secret code, all this stuff. But it doesn't matter if there's a bad actor taking a bribe to share information. And the biggest bummer is that I have these beautiful long passwords, incredible creative passwords, And, uh, but I was lazy and I was using my SMS text messages as the reset option. If I forget my passwords, they would send them to my SMS messages to my phone. And so everybody that was able to get into my bank and my email, bank accounts and emails, and, and, um, and my phone, they didn't need my beautiful long passwords that I was so proud of. They— all they had to do was say forgot password and everything was sent to my phone they now controlled my phone, so my SMS would receive the, oh, click here to reset your password. Because I was, I was kind of lazy, and I, again, I thought SMS was good enough, and I hadn't really been a victim or read too much about it, and I didn't have $24 million worth of Bitcoin to steal, so I wasn't Michael Terpin. I wasn't, I wasn't too worried about it. But everybody's a target. You don't have to be a CEO of a company to be a target. Everyone's a target. And the frustrating part is this: It took 5 minutes for the person to get my phone. It took me 2 days with multiple credentials, you know, and to show up in person to get my phone credentials back. And I still had the please don't ever switch my account. Don't do it if it's not in person with ID and checking this and checking all the passwords. So it doesn't matter how good the security is if there's bad actors. That's, that's one of the key points I learned. The other thing is that don't use SMS. Use multi-factor authentication tools. And like you mentioned, uh, you know, Google and, and other, you know, password authenticators. I, I don't use, uh, I, I like to use a, you know, an Apple ID account also because you have to have an Apple device to, to verify some things. And I also, um, I, I, while I was trying to get my number back, I switched my number to significant others and and a family member. So if my wife or, you know, or my parents ever disown me, like, you know, I won't be able to get in my stuff because sometimes I forget I still have stuff in someone else's name. Hey, you're gonna get a code, what is it? Um, so I had to update everything— banks, emails, Dropbox, Exchange accounts, you name it. It was very easy for people to get into. So my lessons are, you know, um, turn off SMS authentication, If you have a trusted individual and you think you've been compromised, put the accounts, you know, the recovery phone or email in someone else's name of someone you trust. Hopefully my wife doesn't leave me anytime soon. I still have a lot under her name, probably. But that's the lesson learned. And again, it happened to multiple people in our company. And that's a SIM card swap hack. Michael Terpin, to the tune of $20+ million in Bitcoin. A well-covered case. You can read about it. He actually did recover some of that, which is another incredible story that he's, he's always happy to share with people. But the security is key. It was, it was one of the things, and this was while we were building a security device at this other company. And when it started happening to other executives at our company, we started taking it more seriously about personal security, office security,, you know, digital asset and, and, you know, um, and just, uh, mobile phone, you know, security, things like that. So yeah, it's a big problem. Um, people— we have, you know, we have a closed-loop system we're really proud of, and in that closed-loop system, I always say you can leave your laptop open at Starbucks, you can go get your, you know, chai tea latte, and someone could sit down and see my account. They could see my little crypto IRA and my little silver position, but they can't send my cash, silver, or Bitcoin or Ethereum to someone else. There's no connection to external wallets. It's, it's by design. It's not a, it's not a glitch. It's a, it's a feature. And we do allow people to in-kind transfer out, but we work with them to make sure that they have access to those wallets, that they can verify the microtest, that there's no one else in the room holding them hostage. You know, to, to this account. And, um, and it's still, you know, not always bulletproof, you know, when you're still working with someone. Some people have been compromised behind the scenes and they don't even know it, right? So we have to take all of these steps— security questions, add a PIN, you know, photos, uh, you know, before and after— all of these things. It is really difficult to stay ahead of the curve, and so we always ask our clients for patience as we work to verify I mean, I did a $5,000 wire last week from Chase Bank. They called me from another country. I basically felt like a criminal. They asked me 7 questions. I was sending money to, I think, my mom to help out with something, and they almost said no. And, and I said, you know, they almost said no, this doesn't feel right. And I was just going to help a family member, you know, uh, and that was on 5, you know, $5,000 and a wire to a U.S. bank. This was not abroad. So everybody's taking it up a notch, and it was frustrating. I said, this is my capital, I want to help my family member, please release my funds. And, and, uh, so it's happening across the board, and we all need to do and can do and are trying to do a better job of, of helping everyone keep their assets to themselves.

Nice, nice. I, um, the reason why I wanted you to share that is because, um, people think that hacks only happen to like careless people, right? So it's obvious, um, that it's not about necessarily being smart or careful enough, you know. And I'm taking notes here, I'm like, I need to do an audit. Um, but it is also what you guys have implemented even at iTrust is it's about also having the right structure, you know, because human vigilance is not enough against these attacks. I love your Premium Custody account for that reason Um, can you, can you kind of break down again? Because I get a lot of questions where people don't quite— I know you mentioned it a little bit with the Premium Custody Account and the closed-loop system. Can you kind of like make it clear to people again? First of all, the difference between the Roth IRA and the Premium Custody Account, because they, they serve different purposes, and sometimes people choose one or the other, and I think they need both, you know, for different reasons. Um, but can you help my audience become clear on why they— why it's important for them to invest in having both of these accounts because they serve two different purposes.

Yeah, I mean, iTrustCapital is a fintech software platform. We set out to enable, you know, participation for the retail masses, guys like me, women like you that want to participate in the blockchain economy. And, and, uh, and we started off focusing on, you know, crypto IRAs, you know, the ability to buy alternative assets like precious metals and digital assets through an IRA, an individual retirement account, which is has some great tax advantages to it. So that was the genesis of the company, and we brought in, you know, you know, tens of thousands of people that come, came on board and said, I want to participate in this blockchain economy, I want to do it through my IRA. And they would roll over or transfer all or part of their 401k or IRA from another company if they left it, or another entity. And so that was kind of the background, and it was really hard to do, it was really expensive. And we always felt it wasn't super secure or seamless. It was very difficult, highly fragmented, and it's a highly— excuse me— orchestrated dance of about 20 things we do every day at iTrustCapital to make it look and feel secure and seamless. Then over the last couple years, many of us had been compromised, hacked, phished. We clicked on the link, our phones were taken over, bank accounts, you know, you know, crypto accounts, email, you name it. It has happened to several people at our, at our company. And we thought— and we went out and we'd try to do surveys once or twice a year to our clients. What do you like? What do you not like? What should we launch? What do you want next? You want staking? You want lending? You want a Bitcoin wrapped life insurance? You know, we don't care. What do you like, right? We don't have to invent it. We can partner with those and offer it, you know, through our distribution channel. And one of the key feedbacks was, we love that you guys have this, um, this, that there's, there's no direct connection to external wallets. So I can get lazy, leave my laptop open, and can't lose all my funds, right? They can't be compromised and drained to zero because I got lazy or didn't, or didn't know what to turn off or on at iTrustCapital. They like the fact that we pick up the phone in, in, in, in the US, right? In Irvine, California, we have 40 incredibly talented people that answer questions, solve problems every day for thousands of people. And they like the fact that we weren't overcharging people and we have some diversity and access 24/7. So those are the kind of the differentiators. And one of the things was, when can you take retirement capital, non-retirement capital? I would love to be able to toggle between my Roth, you know, after-tax, you know, account, my, my, you know, pre-tax account, my, my traditional. And I would love to have just after-tax dollars in an account at iTrustCapital. So we called it the Premium Custody Account. There is a trust wrapper around it, a trust company wrapper around that account. It helps keep it more bankruptcy remote from the company. So even if iTrust Capital went under, God forbid, and even if, uh, the trust company went under, the state would step in with our subledgers' accounts and say, Kamilah, here's your 32 Bitcoin, right? Uh, you know, Kevin, here's your 2.5 Bitcoin, right? And so, um, the state would step in. And that's what having a trust wrapper does around it. It gives extra, you know, protection and security for the holder of the asset, number one. Number two, at iTrustCapital, everything is held one-to-one off of our balance sheet. If there's one Bitcoin in your name, there's one Bitcoin in your name held at Fidelity, Coinbase, or Fireblocks. We have three different large institutional blue-chip battle-tested platforms that do all our cold storage, um, and we don't put all our eggs in one basket. So they're all behind the scenes that we, we manage that. There's, you know, 7 different people that have to approve any movement of dollars in different areas, so it's very secure. Uh, and the premium custody account, we launched it and hundreds of millions started flowing in, uh, because people wanted a crypto account for guys like me, dummies like me, that didn't want to worry about someone getting into my Coinbase account. I use Coinbase all the time to, you know, quickly get in and get out of a position or send money to someone with fast settlement. They're incredible. And I have, you know, lots of, you know, fun coins I'm— I dabble with, and I use from Coinbase and transfer over here and there. But, but I don't keep lots there because someone could guess my password and get in, and it's gone one way out to Timbuktu. You can never get it back. We wanted to build something for us, an average user at iTrustCapital, where I could buy, set it and forget it. I could buy, hold it and trade it, and I would never have to worry every morning when I wake up and I go check my balance if it's still there. I was doing that at other exchanges. I had accounts at other exchanges. I hope it's still there. I hope it's there on Tuesday. Is it still there on Wednesday? At iTrustCapital, I don't have to— I transferred everything here. I don't have to worry about anything. I know it's going to be there. We have great tools and resources. Charts and graphs, AI tools to help do research, hundreds of articles. And now it's become my go-to destination platform where I check pricing and do research and analytics every day. So we're super proud of that. That's the genesis of the Premium Custody account. We've had multiple people thank us for taking non-retirement after-tax dollars in this secure closed-loop system, which really just means, you know, you could get into the bank vault You could see my account on my laptop at Starbucks if I leave it open. You can run around the vault with my cash in your hand, but you can't leave the vault. You can't leave the bank. And so that's what we wanted to do, and that's what we developed, and that's what we brought to the market. And people, um, every once I get a person saying, wow, you know, that was, um, a lot of steps. And, and then they say, thank you for, for making it slightly more challenging for the bad guys to leave with my capital.

Yep, yep, yep. I love that, I love that. And this is, this is, um, something that I really wanted my community to understand, you know, uh, the difference between keeping your crypto somewhere convenient and keeping it somewhere structurally, uh, secure. That can be, to me, the difference between building generational wealth and then watching it disappear, um, like you said as it's happened before. And so, um, yeah, convenience and security are not the same thing, right?

And by the way, we're huge fans of people having some of their assets on, on, you know, private hard wallets somewhere safe, multiple locations with people you trust, at a bank, and you're safe, and somewhere off-site in case there's an earthquake or a fire if you're in California. Um, so we're, we're not, we're not adverse to that at all. We just always say don't put all your eggs in one basket. And if you're gonna be crypto curious, a soccer mom and dad, or dad participant like me that wants 24-hour access, and you want to know it's going to be there, then you should consider allocating to a really good platform, uh, that is going to pick up the phone, give you service, give you security, give you peace of mind, give you access to other types of assets outside of just crypto, like precious metals. And stocks and ETFs are launching soon this summer. And, and that's, that's the key, is don't put all your eggs in one basket.

Yeah, I, I, I'm so, uh, I feel so secure adding, uh, you know, the Premium Custody account to my overall game plan. And that's the same thing I say, is don't put all your eggs in one basket, because we've seen time and time again what that can do, um, to a person. And if they had a little bit of diversification, especially with a, um, an account that is a closed-loop system like that I just think it adds more security to, to your overall plan. And, and I love that you guys, um, have that available. I see some people asking questions in the chat, but I think some of them has gotten answered by him. And then also, you know, some questions on fees, I see that they're in there doing a great job with answering those questions. I do want to get your opinion on the Clarity Act because obviously, um, we are all anxious about it, um, especially after, you know, here, you know, the back and forth and Jamie Dimon. And, you know, we got some good news today, you know, just just a little step forward. But what are your thoughts on this? Do you see us— and I know, you know, nobody can say 100%, but do you see us making it to the finish line? What are your thoughts and how do you see this legislation affecting businesses and everyday retail investors?

Yeah, I love the potential for the Clarity Act. I don't want to sound, you know, flippant. It doesn't matter if it passes immediately right now. And I'll give a caveat, it's in my opinion, because at the regulatory conference I attended in DC in March, it was incredibly refreshing to see the CFTC, the FDIC, members of FINRA, and the SEC all present in the same room working in a very congruent manner to not only implement the rules outlined very clearly in the Genius Act, but moving forward in the right direction. So under this current administration, with those regulators working in a very congruent manner, the first time I've seen this in 30 years, it's already happening. They're sort of acting like the Clarity Act passed. Now, I said it doesn't really matter. That's— I don't mean to sound flippant. I want it to pass. And as long as, you know, it doesn't hurt anybody in the crypto arena. And I think we're close to getting some, you know, there's been some compromises and it feels like a lot of, you know, sort of a lawsuit settlement. It sounds like a lawsuit settlement where my attorney always says a good lawsuit settlement feels like both sides feel just slightly screwed, you know, a little bit of, you know, a little bit like, you know, might just slightly miffed. No one's getting everything they want. The regulators are already working like the Genius Act is in play as it is. And the Clarity Act has given a lot of good guidance. They don't have to wait for that to pass as law. Gets signed into law to implement some of those things. Now, the beauty is if it does pass, and I give it a 65-70% chance now, then it becomes law and it's harder to unwind down the road, right? If the midterms go a different direction, another administration gets in, they want to go anti-crypto and come after anybody that holds anything crypto— I hope that doesn't happen, you know. All— even though all the regulators are moving in a very congruent manner, they can still make it difficult to unwind things. So for that reason, I hope it does become law sooner than later. I give it a 65-70% chance. We spent some time recently at the Milken Conference just a few weeks ago in LA with some of the senior policy people at Coinbase. Coinbase Institutional is a huge partner of ours. We do tons of liquidity and cold storage through Coinbase, the institutional division. We've become really good partners with them. We're launching some other products with them, and they're starting to do some fun stuff with us. In those conversations with Faryar, the individual who runs the policy with Coinbase, and they are deeply connected with the current administration, the White House, and all the regulators. It sounds like they're moving the ball in the right direction. The banks don't have everything they want, and they have a very strong, powerful lobby, right? Like the unions, very strong, powerful. You can't ignore them. You have to pick them up and pet them a little bit, but you can't give them everything they want. And, uh, and Coinbase, Brian Armstrong at Coinbase has been a huge voice for the crypto community. And a lot of people, so big, a lot of people have backed off saying, we don't want to fight this, but good luck to you, you know, uh, thanks for all the money you're spending. Um, they did spend a lot of time and effort. They did a phenomenal job of really trying to educate both sides on the pros and cons of what everyone was asking for. And so I think it's going to come to, um, a really good place. As you mentioned early in the call, it's going to hit the Senate floor soon for debate. They have to reconcile this against what the House had voted on, and then it'll go back to the Senate floor, hopefully before the summer recess. Does it get signed by July 4th for some incredible, you know, memorial event? I don't know, that might be, you know, a little tight, but hopefully they can get something done before the August recess. The Clarity Act, as you mentioned, is going to be incredibly powerful for not only just stablecoin legislation— what is it, how do we handle, how is yield generated, who can pay it, who can issue them— it also is going to give a lot of clarity on how we treat and give access to tools and resources and how we treat institutions and retail individuals so we can protect them further. And it also, you know, obviously solidifies the CFTC covering commodities and the SEC covering tokenized securities. So there's a lot in there. Um, I, I, we're moving forward like it's passed, um, uh, from a regulatory perspective, like most of it, uh, it's not perfect, but my opinion also is, uh, it would be great to get it done sooner than later and at least get the bus moving. Get the bus moving.

They're not—

all the passengers are going to be on the bus forever. Some will get off, and then we can get those passengers on the bus in the right seats, right? That'll take time, but let's get the bus moving. And the bus is moving slowly.

Yeah, yeah. Now I do see a Super Chat. I am going to, uh, put that up real quick because I want you to answer that. But just to that question really quickly, um, if it doesn't happen, let's say hypothetically it doesn't, do you feel like the, the— just the— it'll— things will still, still move forward, but the institutional build-out might slow down? Or do you feel like it, it will keep moving regardless of what Congress does?

It— it— this train has left the station. Big things are happening. Jump on board. It's not gonna get stopped or reversed. The institutions you've already seen, you know, and we're on the phone every week or host every month very large, well-known— excuse me— top 50 banks and regulated institutions. We've even hosted the SEC here at our office. Hester Peirce has become friendly to iShares Capital, not because we're a recommended choice, because we're just trying to educate the masses and do the right thing. And so we have a lot of respect for the regulators. They don't even regulate us, and we're happy to have them come by. From, from the software perspective. I do think it doesn't stop. The institutions like Vanguard, Schwab, Fidelity, Wells are all— have made announcements about their plan to deliver some sort of value proposition in the crypto arena, whether they just offer spot direct ownership of crypto, whether they launch a crypto-related fund to enhance, you know, yield. Generate yield, or, you know, stocks and ETFs. You know, everybody's going to be participating. That part is not going to stop. Um, I think the traditional large traditional banks and mid-sized banks are looking for the Clarity Act so they know exactly what to do and what not to do. I think they need more of the Clarity Act than the rest of us. But if Clarity Act never goes through, our business is already, you know, uh, successful. We lean, efficient, and responsible in our approach, and compliant. And that was started under different administrations. So left or right, red or blue, to me crypto is a red, white, and blue issue. And I don't care who's in office, we have to be lean, focused, responsible, compliant, transparent, and profitable under any administration. Um, I don't want to see anything get unwound and be penalized for being a player in the crypto economy. But right now we have Nearly 60% of U.S. adults have some exposure to crypto. And, and I think of the 55 million IRA accounts out there and $10 to $15 trillion in assets, more are going to want exposure if the Clarity Act passes. They're going to feel like, okay, like ETFs when they launch, something feels a little safer, a little more regulated. I know it's risky. I know it's volatile. But I feel like maybe now I can allocate my 3%, 5%, or 7%. You know, that's what I think is coming.

I love that answer. The train has left the station. Jump on board. And I love it. And all of the talk and the institutions that are getting in and getting positioned, you know, all of this is happening without the Clarity Act being fulfilled yet. So I could not agree more. I do have a question about the funding. First of all, Duane, thank you so much. He's an advocate for iTrust Capital, by the way. Um, thank you for the Super Chat. How long does it take to receive, um, the funding bonus? It's been about 7 weeks. So I know that's not the same case with everybody, but he is asking that. Yep.

Hi Duane, thanks for the question. Yeah, that seems like a long time to me. If you could just, um, message me personally, uh, let me see if I can get that out in the next couple of days. I'll find out what the holdup is. If you've met all the requirements and we verified that, it shouldn't be 7 weeks. So my apologies, let me, let me get on that, uh, if you could run a message to me through LinkedIn or something, that would be very helpful. 7 weeks sounds like a long time.

And I can— on my end, I talk to Duane. I know him. I have his contact information, so I can kind of be the liaison between that or whatever. So I'll make sure that that happens.

Happy to help. Let's get that resolved. That seems like a long time.

Oh, yeah. Yeah. And so I thought I saw another question that I wanted to— but I love that. Like I said, the architecture is being built right now on multiple tracks. You know, Congress is on one track, but the regulators and the institutions are building on their own timeline. And I love it. Now, I know that there is— I had a couple of people asking what is ahead. So I know there's news that tokenized stocks are coming to the platform. Without getting ahead of anything that you cannot share yet, what can you tell us about what is ahead for iTrustCapital?

Yeah, so big picture, I mean, we're always looking ahead and we're always looking at, you know, clients for feedback on, again, what do you like and not like? And if you're going to serve the retail masses, and I'm one of the retail masses participants, I have accounts with ICHOS Capital. You know, we ask people for feedback again. What do you like and what do you not like? And if you don't know your strengths and weaknesses, like your spouse or significant other, your retail clients will tell you what they are. So we always ask for feedback and then we try to, you know, adjust and address those pretty quickly. What's ahead? I'm excited about. We're looking right now at some lending products. We are looking at, um, adding additional assets for staking at some point down the road. We are looking at some yield generation products around some of the top 5 tokens, uh, that, that, that could excite some people. We've had to measure 5 times and cut once. We get approached weekly with lots of strategies. Even though we don't sell or recommend anything at iTrust Capital, we still feel responsible for putting things up on a platform that are available. We always say, don't bet the farm. Past performance is no guarantee of future results. You know, understand your risk profile, talk to your legal and tax advisors on what to do and what not to do based on your personal situation. That being said, we have to still vet things that become, you know, that, that are, that are available on, on, uh, so, you know, there are some really fun conversations that are happening. I, I'm excited for the second half of this year because we're going to have some lending products and we're going to have some yield generation products. We're going to have some some really cool funds and potential baskets of things to choose from where they can auto-rebalance and you can just allocate, you know, $200 a month type of thing or, or take, you know, a $5,000 investment and deploy immediately. And you can kind of set and forget things. We're working on some really cool things like that with proper disclosure, with proper partners. Those are coming soon. Stocks and ETFs should be live August timeframe. We'll start with traditional assets, traditional stocks and ETFs. And then as they become available, you know, the tokenized securities will become available to the platform as well. So we're really excited about that. And then we keep working on enhancements to the security piece of it. We see it all, we hear it all. We get calls from clients every day. I've been compromised, my email's been compromised. And every time their assets are always safe at iTrustCapital. And it is heartbreaking to hear people on the phone lose other things, but always thankful that iTrustCapital is picking up the phone and their assets here are safe. That's the good news. That being said, we strongly recommend setting up your PIN, your security code, your security questions, um, working with our team on the video verification and microtest verification, and make sure you change your email passwords every few months. I know it's inconvenient. Turn off your SMS, but change your email and other passwords frequently. You don't have to do it every 90 days. You don't have to do it once a month, but do it frequently. I know it's a hassle because they sometimes don't allow you to reuse old passwords, but I can't stress enough, change your passwords. There may be people in your accounts, your email accounts from years ago that will frequently check in and be checking in on anything new, late, and great that's happening in your life in your email. Get them out of there, reset your passwords, kick them out. I can't stress that enough.

Nice, nice. I do have one question. This— someone asked this question, and this is probably my my top 3 questions that I get about iTrustCapital. I think people are still confused about this, and that is, can you transfer a cold wallet or crypto inside of a Roth IRA? I know the answer to this, I'll have— because I always tell them, but I'll let you share just so that they all know.

Can you transfer a cold— do you mean like, uh, uh, Mike, do you mean like an in-kind transfer direct?

Like how you can do with Premium, um, I think what he's trying to say, can you transfer the crypto from a cold wallet or from an exchange into a Roth IRA the same way you would do in the premium custody account? A lot of people are confused and, and think you can transfer into a Roth IRA and they're not, um, privy on how you have to move the money in first and then buy the crypto from inside the account.

Yeah, on the PCAs, thank you for, for clarifying. On the PCAs, uh, we just added the ability to in-kind transfer out, and you can in-kind transfer in. Um, and so, and there's a, there's a, you know, a promo running of, you know, we'll match up to 2% of whatever is transferred in, uh, from, you know, another crypto IRA platform for the crypto IRA stuff. On the PCAs, you can in-kind transfer on your existing position, so you don't have to lose your basis. If you own crypto, Ethereum, Solana, XRP, Bitcoin somewhere else, you can in-kind transfer it in. Follow the steps carefully on the website, and if you're not sure, call someone on the support page and you'll get a live support person to walk you through. And don't send it all. Do a microtest. Let us verify the microtest before you send anything else. It's really important. But yes, we can in-kind transfer in and out of the PCAs, not on the, on, on, on the retirement stuff.

Yeah. So they cannot— you cannot move your assets. You cannot move XRP or Bitcoin from an exchange or from a cold wallet into a Roth account. Remember, the Roth account has to be managed with how much you can put in there. You know, so you have a max. If you're over 50, it's a little bit more. But their premium custody account, you can do that.

Yeah, generally. Yeah, generally, for clarification, the funds come from, you know, annual contributions or a rollover or transfer of an existing IRA, or you left a job and you have a certain time frame to transfer all or part of the assets from a 401. So generally that's where most of the funds come from in there. If it's coming from an exchange, uh, it's probably not going to qualify for the, uh, tax advantages of the, you know, you know, of the Roth account. So I can check on some details there, but I'm pretty sure that we don't want to run afoul of some of the IRS rules.

Yeah, it's easier just to put the money in there. And don't forget, he said that 2% match. Can you clarify that one more time for them?

Yeah, so it's on the website, uh, I think it's still live, so I have to I have to, uh, hopefully my team doesn't get upset with me. I think it's still live. It's on— it should be on the website. But there's a— we had a program, a 2% match on any transfers from other IRA platforms where you may not be happy about the service or hidden fees or exit fees, monthly fees, annual fees, um, other fees. If you're not happy about that, there is a 2% match, uh, up for transferring, you know, from another crypto IRA platform. On the— on the PCAs, the premium custody account, we just turn on the ability to in-kind transfer, uh, not just in but out. USD or USDC, you can come and go, or with the asset that you want to come over, asset of choice.

Nice, nice. Um, so he just said if it's not live, don't, don't get upset. He's just, you know, um, I just want you to share one last thought, you know, with, with our community. Um, whether it's the, the one thing that you want them to get from this entire conversation, or just your last pieces of wisdom, um, for this community? And it can be anything.

You know, I, I think I'll just reiterate what you said at the beginning of the call. And a good friend of mine, I think this— I think he uses this quote often for, uh, his own business. Very successful real estate guy. And he said, he always says, who you do business with really matters, right? So, and, and I always say, who you entrust your capital with it does really matter. So, you know, measure 5 times, cut once. Pick wisely and go with people that are accessible. Go with people that look and feel just like you, right? If I can't tell you what I've done for 1,000 people just like me, you know, you may not— it may not be for you, right? If people are promising incredible things, um, be leery, you know, get check references. And, you know, uh, I think the people really matter. The service component's really critical. The security piece is really critical. Those are the top 3 things: access, security, and service. You know, diversification and access to these assets is really critical. And so we hear people— we were so thankful that we had them before, you know, the, the, you know, just the ability to have precious metals on the platform, uh, in Q1 when everybody was shifting from some digital assets to take some chips off the table while Bitcoin was coming down from the October 10th high. People were shifting over to precious metals. Well, we already had precious metals on the platform that you could, you know, toggle between and shift over to. So we got a lot of really good feedback on thank you for having precious metals quickly and easily available with 24/7 access, liquidity, and safe storage, right? We don't touch the crypto, the gold, the silver, or the cash at iTrustCapital. We use Wells Fargo, we use Coinbase, We use Fidelity Mint, the Royal Canadian Mint. We, we don't touch any of the assets. And I also love that, right? We are a highly secure platform and we act as agent or administrator for the custodian, even though we are a trust company, state-chartered, bank-regulated trust company. We still use banks that are registered and regulated for most of that activity. And that helps us feel a little safer. Our clients like it because it's not Kevin and and Trevor's Corner Bank, you know, it's not Kevin and Blake's Trust Company. It's, it's really well-known large brand name companies, and, uh, we're really proud of that. You know, the service really matters— picking up the phone in English in the US, um, and not maligning other cultures, but it really matters for the 40 to 60-year-old demographic that we serve, you know, kind of the most, um, the, the average sort of you know, group that we serve, they really want someone here to answer their questions and walk them through the process. And I think that is why we've been winning. And then the fact that we're adding constantly new products and services for people to choose from, you know, it's not just gold, silver, it's platinum now. It's not just 25 digital assets, it's 95 now. Um, you know, lending's coming through soon, staking is happening as we speak. ETFs and stocks are happening. And there's a myriad of other things in the pipeline that I think people are going to be pretty pleased about. We don't want to be a traditional bank. We don't want to be an exchange. We're not a peer-to-peer payments platform. We're just a highly secure custodial network framework. But we want to bridge the gap between digital assets and traditional assets. So we like being the Web 2.5. Nice.

Uh, Anita, you can actually email me. I'm going to, uh, I'll get that question answered for you. You can email me. I'm going to put my email inside of the description. First of all, thank you for the Super Chat. I'll put my email inside of the description and you can reach out to me and I'll make sure your answer is taken care of. And, uh, I appreciate you. You're always here supporting. Uh, Kevin, thank you so very much, um, for taking time out to come and speak with us. Thank you for your honesty and for the hard work that you're doing at iTrust Capital. You guys know, you guys have heard directly from the leadership of the platform that I personally trust to handle the digital asset side of my retirement structure. And if you want to take that next step to protect what you're building, iTrustCapital does give you a, or do give you, I got to get my English right. They do give you a $100 funding bonus when you fund the account. And the link for that is in the description in So you can go there, you can click on it and fund the account. You will get that $100 funding bonus. And I think that is so kind of them to do, and it really shows, um, that they do value their customers because they really don't have to do that. And again, Kevin, thank you. We appreciate your time, um, for coming on this channel. We do value your time, your wisdom, your commitment, uh, to guiding us into wealth preservation, our journey with that. Family, do yourself a favor and protect what you are building. And as always, I want you to stay wise, stay wealthy, and I'll see you guys in the next video. Love you guys.

Thank you, Kamilah Stevenson.

Absolutely.