 Great welcome to the last set news like a top stories and crypto and break them down into bite-sized pieces So today just the thumbnail the title suggests Voyager and the Ancelsius are in the crosshairs of the SEC and this should come as no surprise to anybody and we'll take a look at Exactly what's going on. So first of all, we'll take a look at the SEC warns about crypto yield platform It's just how dangerous they all are as opposed to all the banks that's been ripping us off for decades And then also we'll really deep into it and talk about voyager growth and how it actually has become a target and then we'll Kick it off or leave it out with uh That it's not all bad news as far as regulation and some people actually get and understand exactly what's going on And the regulations Hopefully won't be as stringent as they may appear to be and then lastly I just want to talk about uh, there was a deep dive that I did Yesterday on a particular project and then we'll do q&a. So hold all your questions till the very end and uh, Before we get in all that Let's take a look at the market and just so you know you're watching the replay timestamps are below you can skip ahead do all that stuff and So because time is important right and then also the news is going to take only like 10 or 15 minutes And the and only five minutes will be for the for the q&a. So we try to do very fast We don't try to speed up too much But to be as concise as humanly possible. So Let's take a look at what's going on in the market today. So Yesterday was a pretty good day because we had heard about how uh, russia was Pulling some troops away from ukraine and that apparently did some wonders for the traditional market s&p Went up nasdaq went up crypto went up and over the last 24 hours. It's been kind of stagnant So I mean from one day to the next. Hey, we didn't lose too much But we didn't gain really much at all the only big winners are avalanche last 24 hours 6% If someone could tell me exactly what happened another partnership another different Advantage of the platform. I'd love to know what's going on avalanche. I own myself We even have a staking platform. So you can check that out. But that's what we have as far as The markets and we'll see how it goes today. Hopefully we have some more great news But there's some trouble on the horizon and this just came out sec warns against interest bearing crypto accounts boo who Says they're riskier than bank deposits now before we get into this. I don't want you to freak out It's going to be okay. Just because the sec comes out and says, you know, you You should be a little bit scared of this stuff It's not like it's going to tank the entire market and you really have to take a look at the story behind the story And that's why it's important to do as much research as you possibly can So here's what's going on with this aspect and we'll get into the positives in a bit So the us sec commission's office of investor education Announced monday that they had jointly issued an investor bulletin to educate investors about risks with accounts That pay interest on crypto asset deposits On the same day the sec announced it had charged block fi For failing to register its crypto winning product block fi agreed to pay check this out 100 million dollars in penalties To settle the charges with the sec and 32 state regulators now. This is an old story This has been circling for quite some time. I'm surprised that block fi got pinched for that much But here it is and the question then is if block fi gets pinched as a set of precedent for the other Interest bearing accounts out there as far as with crypto and digital assets We'll get to that in a second So the sec explained that an interest bearing account for crypto asset holdings are not as safe As bank or credit union deposits I gotta tell you and you're not gonna want to hear this But on some of these different yield bearing accounts and especially before platforms. They are right There are some crazy rug pulls out there and I think we all know them We've all heard about them and we all try to stay away from them. But in this regard sure. It's true. However Banks aren't the cleanest people out there. We can take a look at the at the wells fargo scandal Where they open up a bunch of different dummy accounts We can take a look at the spoofing accounts for jp morgan We can look at all the different money laundering that's going on throughout the entire world because that's what money Lawners do they use the u.s. Dollar and banks So I that's not the point of the video But but the point is to tell you that yes, there's risks everywhere I think we all know it and we're not that dumb We can manage ourselves, but thank you for the info sec So moving on the securities watchdog noted that banks and credit unions are regulated by both federal and state banking regulators deposits of bank or credit unions are insured by fdic up to 250,000 And national credit union administration Similar security accounts held with us registered brokers may also be insured by the the sipc. So that's true I mean, I can't I can't argue with that. That is very true. The sec warned warned this companies offering Interest bearing accounts for crypto assets do not provide investors With the same protections as do banks or credit unions and crypto assets sent to those companies are not currently insured So that's on that one part But I will remind you that banks also do this thing called fractional reserve lending If we had any of us the opportunity I don't know if you know this but if you go to your bank right now And it didn't take that many people if you go to your bank right now and said Hey, I want to withdraw on my on my cash. Even it's like You know more than 250,000 like sir, ma'am. We can't do that. We don't carry that much cash here Really? Yeah, it's gonna take a couple days if everybody did a run the bank right now to get dollars They could not get those dollars out of the bank So when they started to talk about well, it really should be backed up by the u.s. Dollar Now even the banks are backed up by the u.s. Dollar really what that is is just numbers on a spreadsheet Printed forth by the u.s. Federal Reserve, which is about as federal as federal express And then you can just say well, is it safe about as safe as the banks and I will tell you this You get a lot better yield by using these types of Crypto accounts, but that's what we have as far as here and this goes into My next point which takes a look at crypto platform voyager Keying on staking nft in 2022 and there was a monstrous year for a voyager and what this is steve earlick lounging in his track suit apparently Maybe you try out for run dmc. I don't know but what he's doing is his company has had major growth and the last sentence in this In this article is going to queue you in just to how much The sec is keying in on them and I didn't know this and it was a fascinating read So I'll get to that very quickly. So voyager digital Is doubling down on staking and moving into nft as the company looks to diversify revenue streams following a record quarter How much you ask a boatload? It doubled its revenue in the fourth quarter compared to the previous three month period Let me say that again. It doubled its revenue in the fourth quarter Compared to the previous quarter executives said on tuesday revenues of 165 million last quarter were up from 3.5 million During the same period of year earlier revenues of 165 But here's the thing profits were muted at 2.5 million. Oh, it's a bummer profits at 2.5 million dragged down by a 16 million dollar loss In the company's staking and lending business and I want you to remember this next sentence Rewards paid to customers outpaced fees from those services According to compass point analyst chris Allen. Let me say that one more time rewards People like you and me who signed for voyager paid to customers Outpaced the fees from those services. I would love to see the banks talk about that About how hey, you know the rewards that we give you guys are outpacing our fees doubtful doubtful I think it's it's it's uh, it's awful that they charge people overdraft Fees when they have no money and they're trying to get their last 20 bucks out like sorry, I had to keep 20 bucks in So just remember, uh, who's fighting for you on the long one So the diversification of our revenue is leading us to believe that even in times of lower market activity and lower prices Our minimum quarterly revenue will exceed 100 million The increase in revenue diversification and product roadmap will only increase the minimum floor great This is interesting verified users Increased about 50 to 3.2 million at the end of 2021 So when we start to think about are we in the right place or the right time probably maybe I Don't have a crystal ball, but that's a pretty good growth for me Funded accounts though grew by 25 percent over the same time span So you have people who sign up like well, this is cool But they don't do anything then you have you know other people like okay I want to get into this and 25 percent of them grow grew About 25 percent Year over year looks like 1.1 million Voyagers also had our team develop its nft strategy looks at the company is focusing on nft We believe that there's so many marketplaces out there consumers want to be able to access them all and how we deliver that environment Is the future of nfts? We're also building and this is interesting Building a brokerage of the future Where users will be able to trade equities that stocks from the company's app using the stablecoin usdc so Just like how robin hood is where you can go in there and buy crypto limited and it sucks Now but you can buy a bunch of equities or stocks. Well, voyager is going to allow that at some point hopefully this year Uh, and then you're going to be able to actually do both So I think that's a big win for the voyager app and it'll bring more people into the space But here's where it gets good and I'm going to tie it all together So does block 5 settlement affect voyager? Well block 5 ceo zack prince wrote on twitter That the settlement identifies a clear path forward for folks to earn interest on their crypto And i'm wondering if because of the legal precedent or the language that they bow down to For to pay this fine, but I don't really i'm not sure that's actually correct because if you settle with the sec That doesn't set legal precedent correct me where i'm wrong Legal scholars out there are lawyers. I think you have to actually go to court first Then battle that amount and then set the present if you settle with somebody outside They can still go at you again. That's how I understand it, but maybe zack's right steve ceo voyager argued there are differences between voyager's loyalty program which offers voyager token holders rewards and the black fie interest accounts voyager is an ongoing discussion with regular so it's two things before I get this last last piece first of all Here's all the rewards you can get over a voyager. It's the same to me. It's the same thing Like poke it out. You get 12 percent. You gotta have a minimum of 20 The usdc is nine percent You gotta hold a minimum of 100 and that's I mean just a ton of them right and it goes down the list That's a ton of things that you can get as far as rewards. Also If you're looking to sign up for voyager, there's a link in the description It says exchange and wallet fees And these are all the ones that I recommend and the ones that I don't think they suck But two of them voyager celsius ftx are on my are on my Top priority. There's an affiliate link. It's 25 bucks If you don't want to use it just go right to voyager and celsius and sign up We just don't get 25 bucks in bitcoin or maybe it's even 40 now. I can't remember But it's it's a minimum 25. So just know that and then also the things that We that steve talked about we did a video with with steve and i'll link at the very actually it's in the description And all the questions About voyager and what's going to happen. This is only like a week ago. He answered all these things But the thing that really got me Is this last sentence right here, let me blow this up Because steve did not mention this but it is interesting Voyager Has received requests and subpoenas from the sec and certain states In connection with the rewards program as part of a non public fact finding increase Of course, we believe that voyager Accounts that earn rewards comply with the existing us law and we look forward to demonstrating that as necessary. So If you don't think That block if you think that block fire was the only one I think It's not that's all I can tell you and that's right there's proof Is that this is what's going on the sec and the state legislatures the state representative as the governors or Attorney generals, that's who it is for the different states in the united states. They sent out cease and assist letters multiple states unfortunately my state of texas was one of those and they reached out to voyager to go stop That's exactly what happened to block fire Block fire came in and they settled with them now if steve is correct and there's difference in the way that Voyager operates and block fire operates then they just have to prove that and hopefully it does But we'll get to all that and there's actually some good news in a bit. So it's not all bad news is hold on Well, that's not true. There is one more piece of bad news. Sorry So this is this is the tie it in with celcius Because I knew that if if block five was going to get hit voyager was going to get hit and sell with celcius So this was actually in october New york attorney attorney general's office published a redacted cease and assist letter meant for two crypto platforms while the names were blocked out within the text Uh, they failed to change the names the documents which were titled microsoft word Celsius letter 1014 and microsoft word nexo letter respectively So, uh, you better believe that both of those companies are also being looked at by the sec So that's uh, that's a bummer, huh? But don't worry Because just because the sec wants something doesn't make it so and just remember that the sec Uh lost badly badly to mark cuban. There was a great case Where they charged mark cuban with something with the securities and something else something else and he said, oh, yeah Well, I got a ton of money. I'm a billionaire. Let's go to court. He took him to court and he beat him like a drum So it's not like they went all the time. Just remember that but here's some good news Just to take this in so as far as like regulation, there's people that get it There's people that I think do get it and are ignoring it and there's some people that just are just Blissfully unaware But this is a good article democratic rep stablecoin issuers don't have to be banks With 100 reserves because why I mean even the banks don't have to do it. So this is uh, josh gotheimer nailed it Uh democrat and jersey wants to see certain stablecoins classified as qualified If they can redeem the digital currency with the u.s. Dollar, at least they don't have to be banks Senators were interested in hearing more about stablecoin reserve requirements, which is what gotheimer's proposal explorers Currently if the issuer were to go belly up if they were to go out of business And they didn't have reserves to cut the deposit the holders of stablecoins would just be out of luck This was uh, chris fenholden asked lang whoever was uh speaking there So that's correct. There are currently no requirements for assets backing stablecoins such as usd or tether For crypto to thrive here in the u.s. Instead of overseas We must provide more certainty to help boost innovation and protect consumers go and arms out in a tweet And I got to tell you I agree with him. I agree with him to a point There are some things that we should actually be doing because I mean if you're on a quick crypto twitter And if you're not why not Come over there and just see how many rug pulls and different defy crap projects that are out there That are screwing people over left and right doesn't happen every day But it does happen a lot more than you would you would imagine So in these respects, I think a little bit of regulation goes a long way I'm not going to beat that dead horse. I've been talking about forever But there's also some people that again really do get it. This was uh, sent to me from my friend marky marky's great And this is from united states senator tommy tubberville nailed it alabama And she just asked her like hey, what are you doing for for krypton angel assets? He goes thanks for com for contacting me any states and this is what I say I'm going to follow this guy says it's critical for the us to be the undisputed global leader in financial innovation I don't care about being undisputed just don't get left behind like we are right now Up at this point We have led the world in the sector under the previous administration Regulators understood the importance of encouraging innovation and took a light touch Which is exactly what happened with law 230 and uh and the internet allowed for freedom of speech Regulatory approach to the digital assets industry We have seen a dramatic shift over the course of the past year And I'm concerned about the regulation by enforcement mentality that is starting to take hold me too I like this guy If this keeps up innovators are going to leave the us And move over speed sees the places like the uk And singapore we cannot allow that to happen And we certainly can't allow china to get ahead of us in financial innovation news flash has already happened Again, thank you for taking the time to contact me So on and so forth. That's pretty good. Sorry. So look I know like we just took a look at the scc and the things that are going on And it may seem like doom and gloom and just awful thing or that but you have to understand Just because one entity wants it doesn't mean it's actually going to happen You have to go through a due process and you have to do a lot of things unless you're canada and you can do whatever you want Apparently But I think this is a step in the right direction I think there's actually people out there that realize just how big of an opportunity is and we don't want to let it Pass away and that's it for today. So look that took 17 minutes Not too bad for the news and I'll finish up and we'll get in the q&a just so you know, we did a great Well decent pretty good deep dive Into a new Metaverse play it's called Cryptoverse and I and we did these deep dives and so far it's been pretty we brought you some pretty decent ones We brought you a world mobile token went pretty well Brought you meld did great and we brought you again. So Kishi that one took off like a rocket So this is the next one called the cryptoverse and not Ben's cryptoverse, but the cryptoverse metaverse play They got a really good team They got and it's it's also multi-chain binance chain polygon ethereum and avalanche, which I think is very interesting And the tokenomics are solid So I link that in the description below and it's like just getting started So you can check that out and that's it for today For all the stuff that we want to talk about So look now we go in the q&a five questions in five minutes and that's it if you have to take off No big deal. Thanks for sticking around thumbs up subscribe all that good stuff And if you're made of this the end might as well subscribe why not and that's it. So let's get into the q&a. Shall we? Bop, bop now you can submit all your questions bomb away I need five questions when you do this quickly And the reason why this is to really have to go to that today Check up for my dog Chloe Cia create a bitcoin potentially. Who knows? So no war I didn't say no war to say there's a little de-escalation could still happen I don't have a crystal ball and like someone told me Rob. You're not you're good in crypto, but you're not good in world affairs Good point. All right, let's see Taking a little bit of that today, you know, yeah, same thing on my dog There she is House or laundry mat? I've washed all my clothes in the house in my house. That's the question number one Okay, here. It's a great question question number two Do you think crypto has been manipulated up for the dumb money coming from the Super Bowl hype? And we are due a question. No, look We were over three trillion market cap going along pretty solid And if it's if it's dumb money that you're worried about I think I mean, we're only at 2.1 trillion This is a hundred trillion dollar asset class So anybody who's in right now is smart money in my opinion. That's all I got to say Just don't fool him when just to do your research all that good stuff. All right Rambling Roy, I currently have my crypto risks right across multiple exchanges. However, should I be concerned about black fight? Yes, you should but black fight also put this out and said We are not going to allow new customers To earn yield But it sounds like and this is one of the representatives came out. I forgot the lady's name She said that they're going to still allow Older customers people get grandfathered in and gain yield. So it's not like The crypto that you have on there right now is going to be Stolen by the government. I know somebody will say it's going to happen. It's not gonna happen So the thing I would just say is you may not if you've been there for a while, you're probably still gaining the yield But the question is do you have all your crypto on exchange? I never recommend that always always always This is what I do. I store it in cold storage because as good as an exchange is I can't trust any of them because we're all we're all fallible as people And uh, the screw ups here now Number question number three. When's a good time to buy eta every day? No, I don't know. You know, it's a good time to buy eta It's a good time to when everything else goes like like down crazy amounts And the thing is is if you're waiting for it to see some gains in a day or a week or a month doesn't work like that This is what I always say. It's a three to five year play Whatever you're buying today in three to five years. It should do pretty well However, you have to be make sure that you're in the game and you're checking things out and doing your own research because I always give this example Look at I call it a dash of salt Some things will never hit their all-time high again, and they are doomed to fade away Dash of salt take a look at the salt protocol and take a look at dash and tell me over the time from 2017 to the day What the heck happened and if you were waiting for that to come back it ain't coming back In my opinion and uh, so just remember that not everything not everything that goes up and crashes down We'll come back to its all-time highs again Yeah, I know i'm not uh I don't trust myself with a cold ledger wallet. You know what? Let me tell you a story real quick. Is that when I moved here to Puerto Rico I left my My ledger wallet in texas and I you know to get this house I had to sell some crypto and guess where it was my cold Ledger wallet, so thankfully I had brought her along In the hell you go this One of these books which is uh My stone book and it had my mnemonic phrase in there. I purchased another ledger Delivered over here to Puerto Rico. I put in the passphrase all my crypto back. So that's it now. This one is a new one. I uh The other one I actually keep in a bank account. I mean uh state our State deposit box another one and they're all scattered about because I don't like to keep her So that's the third one. So if you think that you don't hear yourself just make sure you write down that uh, Write down that mnemonic phrase and don't upload it to the internet Never good Uh question number four. What's your opinion on liquids finance in the defi space? Uh, if it's li q w i d Is that the one that's built on cardano looks to be a pretty good play I know they're trying to do synthetics, which is synthetics, uh as far as like equities and stocks and uh The sec is really focusing on that as well. So it makes me nervous about that project Okay, and question number five rob. I'm looking forward to your updated living in Puerto Rico But when is that coming out? That was supposed to be on sunday But I got sidetracked with this other things that uh, I should have been doing and I did I got some things done So this week I have it in my schedule. It'll be this week. I want to put this out There's a lot of things I screwed up on a lot of mistakes that I wish I could do So I want to give those guys to you. I want to give that to you guys So you don't make the same mistakes that I do and that's it for today. So look five questions five minutes Got to get out of here. Thanks so much for watching. I appreciate it thumbs up subscribe all that great stuff And I'll see you on the next one. Bye