 What's up everyone? I'm Giovanni here at WebSummit 2021 with Andrew Serwer, the editor-in-chief of Yahoo Finance. How are you doing today, Andy? I'm doing great, Giovanni. How are you doing? I'm doing great. What are your first impressions of the conference so far? Well, it's great to be back in person and, you know, we've all been living in this virtual world for 18 months and so to see everyone in real time is amazing and there's a lot of energy here. This is almost back to what it was before the pandemic. Among the speakers, among the leading speakers of the opening ceremony, there was the CEO and co-founder of Sorer, NFT Unicorn. So a representative of the crypto industry was opening one of the largest tech conferences in the world and also the conference has an entire section dedicated to crypto this year. So what does that tell us about the role that crypto is playing today in the global tech industry? Well, I saw a little bit of his remarks and the entire hall was filled and people were wrapped. They were paying very close attention to everything he was saying and obviously it shows how important crypto is in terms of the thinking of the leading technologists around the world right now. It is very much front and center for all kinds of reasons. Obviously people are looking to build technology that fits into this space. They're looking to use blockchain and crypto currencies in their businesses and they're looking to partner with companies that are in this space as well. So it's almost like, you know, you can't avoid it. I mean, a few years ago we would say that every company is a technology company or every company is an internet company. Now to an extent every company is going to be a crypto company in one regard or another. Now I would like to talk about the concept of the metaverse. So everybody is talking about this metaverse especially after Facebook decided to rebrand itself as Meta. So what does this word mean to you and why should the world pay attention to this concept? Well, you know, it really is the next form of the internet. Virtual, persistent, always on so many use cases both from the enterprise and consumer standpoint. And the Facebook rebranding is really, really interesting to me. Obviously, you know, Mark Zuckerberg has talked about this for at least 18 months or two years now in terms of pushing the company further in using the Oculus platform of course. And the name itself is funny to me because it's sort of like it would be like Giovanni taking, saying at Giovanni when Twitter first came out. Like you grab that name first and so it's either that which is going to be really smart or it's kind of like naming your company IOT, you know, which is like kind of, you know, Internet of Things jargony like very four years ago that people will forget. So, you know, is it going to be a name and something, a label that has longevity? In other words, is it a sustainable name? Not just the concept, which I think is sustainable, but it's sort of the label. And Facebook is basically like planted its flag and said, you know, that's us, that's who we are. So, do you see Facebook's move more of a marketing move than a substantial step into this kind of visions of the future? Well, you know, I wouldn't say either or. I think it's both, right? I mean, you know, they've had some issues in terms of their reputation. So, you know, changing the name is something that is a time-tested strategy. You're like, oh, so we don't like that name. We're going to have this name. Well, though, let's remember the Facebook name in terms of the product still will remain, right? So Facebook Messenger, WhatsApp, and Instagram. So there's that. But I think, you know, so that's the marketing part to your point, Giovanni. And then the other point is, you know, no, this is actually a real signal to the world, to the marketplace, to our customers that this is where we're going and this is what's really important. And so what does crypto have to, what's the role that crypto has in the development of this metaverse, according to you? Well, you know, right now, you know, the sort of elementary use case, for instance, is in when you're using the metaverse for the consumer experience and gaming, right? If you're getting tokens and badges and you're playing and you're using crypto to do transactions in the metaverse. You know, it's not like going to be a situation where like, enter your credit card number. What's the expiration date and your security code? That's not going to happen in the metaverse. I mean, it probably will happen a little bit. But in other words, the default currency that is going to fuel the metaverse is going to be crypto. You know, in the same way that it's like Ether for NFTs, right? I don't know which particular form of crypto is going to be powering the metaverse, probably all manner of them. I don't think any one crypto will dominate the metaverse. If the metaverse is a reflection of the real world, then all these coins will proliferate. But it'll be so interesting. I mean, certainly I think some will become more dominant than others. And we're already in that situation right now. You know, there's the top five, the top ten, the top five. And then it becomes very much of a long tail in terms of the other currencies, right? So I think same thing for the metaverse. And now I would like to ask you your thoughts about the coverage of crypto. Because still today, when we are seeing crypto getting more and more into mainstream, we see that traditional financial media tend to be quite skeptical about it. And so what are your thoughts on that? Why are they so skeptical? And what would it take for them to change their stance towards this emerging industry? Well remember, skeptical is a very good quality for journalists to have, right? So I think that's number one. Number two, remember that the media has decades, if not a hundred years, of being aligned with legacy financial systems. So in other words, if you and your editor, and the father of your editor, all knows JP Morgan, you know, and all the way that JP Morgan works, it's very hard to get you to like change on a dime, you know, even though the CEO of, and especially because the CEO of JP Morgan, Jamie Dimon is somewhat skeptical about crypto, although of course he's changing his views. So you've seen like what's happening in the media is so interesting because there's a whole new group of crypto media organizations, right? And so instead of the legacy organizations like Dow Jones and Bloomberg and Yahoo Finance immediately pivoting to crypto, they're kind of going more slowly and at the same time there's just a whole crop of new media that's covering it just by themselves. And there's a debate like, oh, that the crypto first news organizations are better than the legacy ones. The legacy ones will never get it. And the legacy ones that know we're more skeptical and you guys are just buying to it too quickly. So it'll be interesting to see how this plays out, right? Yeah, that's very interesting. So now a little bit of a look into the future. So we saw that 2021 was an amazing year for cryptocurrency. We saw the rise of NFT technology. We saw the adoption, I mean the approval of the first Bitcoin ETF. So what are the milestones that according to you, we should look forward to see in 2022? Don't forget she, but you knew. Right, all that. And the squid coin. So there's a lot going on obviously. I think the regulatory framework is going to be very, very interesting. You know, that's a big issue in the United States obviously with the Securities and Exchange Commission which oversees the financial markets. Trying to wrap their brain around crypto. And you know, Gary Gensler, who is the head of the SEC in the United States, you know, if he has a press conference immediately, you know, there'll be a lot of questions about crypto. You know, people aren't really asking, well, how are you regulating, you know, the fang stocks and what's the disclosure and the unicorns is like crypto, crypto, crypto. So, you know, they've got to come up with a framework very quickly. And it's not just one framework. It's a lot of different things because, you know, when you talk to people, they're investing in these things, right, in these coins, buying these coins. And so, you know, if there's, you know, we've seen some scandals and people lose money before, but that was at a much smaller scale. If something really blows up here, you know, it could be, I don't know if systemic, but it could be significant. And I think the regulators need to step up. Thank you very much, Andy. That was a very interesting talk to you. Thank you very much.