 From New York, it's theCUBE, covering Blockchain Week. Now, here's John Furrier. Hello everyone, welcome back. This is the special CUBE exclusive on the water coverage of the awesome cryptocurrency event going on this week, Blockchain Week, New York City, Decentral, Anthony Diorio's having a big special event launching some great killer products. We have two CUBE alumni's that we introduced at Polycon 2018, Genevieve Decker-Rowe and Jeremy Gartner. Great to see you guys. And thanks for having us. So you guys look fabulous. You look beautiful, you're smart, we're on a boat, we're partying. It feels like- Prom? It feels like prom. Feels like we are at the top of another bubble. Couldn't feel better. Five more boat parties and then the bubble's officially at the top. But we're only at the first boat party. Well, the real existential question is what do we do next? You know, we've graduated from nightclubs and strip clubs and now to super yachts. Like, do we go on a spaceship next? Or a Boeing? Space X? Yeah, I mean the options are somewhat limited in how we scale up the crypto parties. I actually heard today one of my clients is launching in space a crypto mining operation that's fueled by solar power. So we might be going to space, Elon Musk wants to get involved. I agree, like where are we going? You guys are awesome, love the creative. So this party to me is really a testament to the community. Talk about the community, actually Polycon was great in Puerto Rico they had, Restart Week. But I heard these guys saying here at Decentral that the community's fragmented. Is the community fragmented? Seems like it's not out there or just only one pocket of the community. I think the community, so we have 10,000 people at consensus, okay? So these are 10,000 people that have gone down the rabbit hole and they're all at the Hilton in midtown Manhattan kind of going like, how'd you get involved? Why are you here? 10,000 people is a lot. But I think that, yeah, we're at the Decentral party so some of these communities are being fragmented. But I think we're having like infrastructure built to kind of connect the broader world to the things whether it's custodial services, whether it's like tonight the Jax 2.0 wallet and everything that's getting involved there. I don't know, Jeremy. Jeremy's like an international traveler so he probably is better. Jeremy, it's just an echo chamber, what's going on? Well, it's 100% an echo chamber. But more importantly, rabbit holes are like dark and confusing places. They're winding and a lot of people are here for very different reasons. And thus, when you have all these new entrants to the industry, to the technology, here for all these different reasons, of course you have some fragmentation. You know, in many regards, the ideological and philosophical roots of Bitcoin and blockchain technology have been lost on, on many of the new entrants. And so it takes time to get to the point where we're all aligned. And I think different blockchains and different applications of this technology will have different kind of approaches to how people think about it. And thus, there's always going to be fragmentation. Because this is a massively growing industry that touches upon every kind of business and governmental and non-governmental sector. I mean, fragmentation is a relative term. And Genevieve, I saw you and you guys are working with things from Cannabis Coin. I think you had Cannabis Cabin this week in New York. Yeah, we're doing that tomorrow night actually. So crypto and cannabis are two of the hottest millennial sectors, right? And so we kind of like to say at Great Capital we like to dance on the edge of chaos. I actually found out about a cannabis company in Vancouver, so just outside Vancouver, that is using a crypto mining operation and all the excess heat that is coming off that to power a grow up. So we're literally at the intersection of crypto and cannabis, not just for handling money, but handling energy in a different way, which is so fascinating. That's real mission impact investing right there. You know, using energy to grow weed, that's societal impact, isn't it? I mean, that's how you look at it, you know. Better cannabis, healthy cannabis is a mission people are caring about. Yeah, we're helping people's wallets and we're helping people's minds, right? In like ways that the government, central banks and pharmaceutical companies are fighting against. So, you know, if you can't beat them, join them. So I welcome AstraZeneca and the Bank of Canada to come on board our mission. This is officially turning into a cube after dark episode. Jeremy, I got to get your thoughts on these industries because look at cannabis, we joke about it, but that's an example of another market. There's a zillion markets that are coming online that are going to be impacted. So, fragmentation is a relative term. So, hey, look at it. I mean, as long as the tech is, infrastructure tech is solid. That's what I'm concerned about. Who nails the infrastructure for network effects and what's the instrumentation for that? That's the number one question. Well, that is the existential question for the protocols, whether it's Ethereum or Bitcoin or EOS, Definity, so forth. The protocol that provides the strongest and most adaptable infrastructure and foundational technology is going to be one of the main, those will be the main winners. And so, the names I mentioned, they're up there. They're very competitive, but it's anybody's game right now. I think any blockchain could come along right now and be the winner a decade from now. And for entrepreneurs that presents a challenge is you have to figure out what blockchain to go build on top of. This is why I'm big on investing in interoperable ledgers, technologies that enable the kind of transfer of smart contracts and crypto assets between blockchains. It's a great segue. Let's just get an update, since we last talked. What are you working on? What are you investing in? What's new in your world? Share the update on... Great, so now my fund is officially launched where... How much? We launched with just over $15 million and amazingly, we launched at the perfect time. We're already up 55% and probably... Without making an investment. Which is amazing for a venture fund. We actually did six equity investments, some of which transferred over from my personal investment portfolio. But doing great have really run the game in terms of the investments we're making on the equity side of things and in crypto assets. But what we're seeing is really accomplished entrepreneurs coming to this space, actually more optimism than I had to felt at PolyCon. At PolyCon, I was like, this market needs to correct in a real way. Today, I think that correction's been prolonged. If we were gonna feel a lot of pain, it was gonna be two months ago. But instead, I think it's gonna be one to three years before the market goes through the correction that we need to see for the real shakeout to happen. Because so many of these teams that I think are garbage have so much money. Yeah, and that's just floating around. They got it worked their way out. It's just like a bad burrito. At some point, it's got to pass. Genevieve, what are you working on? I'll see you got grit capital. What's the update on your end? What's new? Yeah, amazing. Actually, literally tonight, probably about 60 minutes ago, my business partner and I signed one of the fastest growing exchanges in Canada called Einstein Exchange as a client. So these guys have only ever raised like one and a half million US and they're the biggest exchange in Canada by signups, active accounts. So they're probably doing like almost 100 million in top line transaction volumes and they're probably never going public. Somebody's probably gonna buy them but we're gonna be marketing them across the country, getting customers, I mean the tagline is it doesn't take Einstein to open an account. It shouldn't take Einstein and buy Bitcoin. You can literally get this account set up in under 60 seconds. So they're valid parts of ease of use? Absolutely. Reducing the steps it takes to do it and get it up and running fast. Absolutely, like my dad could do it and like he only has a block where he's still so. All right, so I was saying now follow you on Instagram and Facebook which is phenomenal by the way, it's got a great lifestyle. What's the coolest thing you've done since we last talked at Polycon? Wow, Polycon was kind of a hive. It was like, we really peaked and then everyone got sick, like our team got sick, polymath untraceable because everybody just. Got the flu, yeah. Yeah, we were like on adrenaline and then we kept going. What's the coolest thing that we've done since then? I think it's signing up, like cool companies like Einstein. We also signed a big cannabis company in Columbia called Chiron. They're about to go public. I don't know, Nicole, what do you think? What have we done? I don't know, my business partner. What's the coolest thing you've done? Travel, what place you've been? It's got to become friends with me. Yeah, actually, so last night Jeremy and I just met, we're together on a blockchain research institute project that Finova Financial is backing and yeah, meeting him. So you guys working together on a special project right now? Yeah, we're on an advisory board together. Okay, cool. How's that going? What's that about? So they're creating a JCO, which is a new sort of coin offering. Whose day? They're called Finova. They're a financial services firm and they're creating what can effectively be understood as a compliant coin offering that is available to more than just accredited investors. And thus, they're making ICOs something that falls within the preexisting regulatory framework and also accessible to your average show, which I think is really important if we're going to follow the initial vision for both blockchain technology and coin offerings. All right, final question. I know you guys want to get back to your dancing and schmoozing, networking, doing biz dev, doing deals, having fun. What is blockchain New York Week all about? We could blockchain week here in New York. What the hell's happening? There's been a lot of events. What's your guys' assessment? Have you observed and saw anything? Can you share for the people who didn't make it to New York or not online, reading all the action? What's happened? So as someone that did not attend consensus, spoke at three other events, or I'm speaking at three other events, I can say with certainty that the New York Blockchain Week has been about bringing together virtually everyone in the industry to connect and kind of catch up with one another. Which is really important. We don't have that many events. Miami was too short. The industry's gotten too big. But having a full week of activities in New York City has enabled me to kind of foster relationships. Good ROI. Come in, get a lot of work done. Incredible, I've gotten so much work done. I haven't had to actually be at any conferences to reconnect with just about everyone that I want to see in the industry. That's really special. Genevieve, what is your observation? What have you observed? Share some anecdotes, some insight on what happened this week. I know Fluity started, I saw Bill Tyve just chatting with him about it. It was started over the weekend, it's gone up and we're now into Thursday tomorrow, coming up. Well, I don't think it's a coincidence that Goldman Sachs came out today and said that they were launching some sort of digital currency. Marketing. Yeah, exactly. Using the power of the 10,000 people at consensus. But yeah, no, I agree with what Jeremy says. It's not really about being at consensus. It's about what happens behind closed doors. All these decentralized parties that are opening. Closed doors, or open doors. Yeah, or open doors. But it's, you know, we hosted at Great Capital last time, we had 100 people in a suite at the Dream Hotel. And it was just like, you put the biggest CEOs of the mining companies in the world together and put those with investors in a room. It's like 100 people and that's where the deals happen. It's not like in the big, huge auditorium where nobody looks at each other and everyone's on their phone. Well, I got to tell you, we know the entrepreneurship side is booming. So I totally love the entrepreneurial side. Check, check, check, access to capital, new kinds of business models, token economics. So we reported on all that. To me, the big story is, Wall Street in New York City has been kind of stuck. The products kind of like are old, it's antiquated, like the financial products. I mean, that's why Goldman's coming out. They got nothing. What if they don't have anything? What have they got? So you see in a stagnant, they got traditional products. And a press release. Something really like new, fresh. So you got Income Crypto. Just a little crypto watcher. So I think I see the New York crowd going, this is something that is exciting and we could productize potentially. So I don't think they know yet what that is, but I think some of the things that are going on, you guys know. They're figuring it out. I like, so my dad's always the kind of barometer to this whole thing. And he's like, when are they going to come out with like a Salesforce.com for the blockchain, right? Like some sort of application that it doesn't matter if you're like illegal, if you're like in investment banking, like some sort of pervasive application that just goes wild. We don't have that yet. When is that happening? Jeremy, you're gonna predict the future. Jeremy, take a date. Well, so it's the Netscape moment, if you will. The moment that blockchain technology becomes tangible. And in retrospect, a few years out, we may decide that at that moment. Netscape for all the young browsers, the original browser for the internet. That was like during my time. That moment may have already happened. We don't really know. It may be been something like Ethereum or Augur, something where there's a use case when people haven't wrapped their heads around it yet. But if that hasn't happened yet, it's coming. It's we're on the cusp of it because people know what Bitcoin is. They've heard of the blockchain. It is part of the zeitgeist now and that cultural relevance is so important for having that Netscape moment. Jeremy, Jeremy, thanks so much for spending the time here on the ground, on the water for our special cube coverage of Blockchain Week, New York City, Consensus. You had all kinds of different events. You had the crypto house where we were at, tons of fluidity conference, all this stuff going on. Good to see you guys. You look great. Thanks for sharing the update here and the cube, special coverage. I'm John Furrier. Thanks for watching. Thanks for having us.