237. Introduction to crypto for smart beginners

Cryptocurrency is becoming a bigger financial and political force in our world, especially after Donald Trump's return to the White House.

This is why smart people who want to have an impact in the world need to learn about it.

But, learning about crypto is difficult, because the loudest voices are devout crypto evangelists and hardcore libertarians.

This episode is different.

We do not want you to trade crypto, we want you to be educated about what it is and why it matters.

In this episode, you will learn from Stephanie Ramezan, CEO & Co-Founder of the Crypto Collective and former CEO of Gemini UK, the regulated cryptocurrency exchange set up by the Winklevoss twins.

Listen to learn:

- What cryptocurrency is

- Why big companies are getting involved in it

- What stablecoins and memecoins are

- Where to find good career opportunities in the crypto space (and what to avoid)

Timestamps

00:00 The Importance of Understanding Cryptocurrency

02:48 The Crypto Landscape

06:08 Cryptocurrency Basics

08:53 Crypto Transactions

11:46 Role of Stablecoins in Finance

15:01 Shitcoins and Meme Coins

18:13 Impact of Quantum Computing on Crypto

21:02 Stephanie's Journey into Crypto 

23:50 Crypto Job Market

27:01 Evaluating Crypto Companies

30:12 Conclusion and Resources

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Transcript

Sophia Matveeva (00:00.13)
I think crypto has got to a place where no intelligent person who pays attention to what's going on in the world can ignore it any longer. So does that mean that one should dive down the rabbit hole and get involved? No, not necessarily, but any intelligent person who wants to be operating in a tech space or even on the periphery, even in a financial services space and

in multiple other industries, which we may get to later, which are a lot broader than tech and finance, need to have a basic understanding and a grasp of what's going on.

Welcome to the Tech for an Antequist podcast. I'm your host, tech entrepreneur, executive coach and Chicago Booth MBA, Safiya Matil. My aim here is to help you have a great career in the digital age. In a time when even your coffee shop has an app, you simply have to speak tech. On this podcast, I share core technology concepts, help you relate them to business outcomes.

And most importantly, share practical advice on what you can do to become a digital leader today. If you want to have a great career in the digital age, this podcast is for you. Hello, smart people. How are you today? We are going to have a first on this show today. So thank you for being with me for it. This is the first time I have ever welcomed a guest to speak about cryptocurrency to us.

You know, I get lots and lots of pictures from crypto people who want to go on the show and most of these people are very devout crypto evangelists. They are determined to get people to invest and they want to convince us that traditional currency is dying. Now, I think this is a really extreme view and I also don't think it reflects reality and plus this is also not an investment podcast.

Sophia Matveeva (01:56.568)
But I decided that now is the time to bite the crypto bullet and have an episode about it. Because crypto is now politically and financially important enough for people who are not even involved in the crypto world to understand what it is, to understand what it is not and to see where the opportunities lie.

There's a lot of talk about what's going to happen to finance and to crypto, specifically with Donald Trump coming to power. And I want you to be equipped with knowledge about the sector so you can in the very least understand what's happening in the financial pages or maybe make some interesting career moves. So today I'm very proud to bring you Stephanie Ramazan. Stephanie began her career in traditional finance and then went into crypto.

and became the UK CEO of Gemini. And Gemini is the crypto exchange started by the Winklevost twins. So this is interesting. The Winklevost twins, basically they're the guys who started Facebook with Mark Zuckerberg. And you can see that whole drama in the movie, The Social Network. And today, Stephanie runs a firm called The Crypto Collective, which is a consultancy advising crypto companies. And as you'll hear, Stephanie is a smart person who can tell us what's good about the crypto industry.

but also be honest about what's not great about it. She's not one of those crypto bro weirdos. And also what helped was that she defined some jargon for us. if you've heard terms like stablecoin, memecoin, crypto exchange and wondered what all of these things are, then listen to this episode to find out. And if you like the show, then please leave the show a rating and a review. And once again, thank you to the lovely people on Spotify for

who keep on leaving great ratings and Apple people, I would love for you to do the same. All right, now let's learn from Stephanie. Stephanie, why should a normal intelligent person like a tech fan on Techies listener, who is not a weirdo crypto bro on X, why should they care about crypto today? That's a great question. I think there are a couple of ways to look at this Sophia. I imagine that

Sophia Matveeva (04:13.867)
Every person listening to your podcast is someone who likes to be aware of what's going on in the world, whether that's tech, non-tech, mean, your title says it all really. I think crypto has got to a place where no intelligent person who pays attention to what's going on in the world can ignore it any longer. So does that mean that one should die down the rabbit hole and get involved? No, not necessarily, but.

Any intelligent person who wants to be operating in a tech space or even on the periphery, even in a financial services space and in multiple other industries, which we may get to later, which are a lot broader than tech and finance, need to have a basic understanding and a grasp of what's going on. That doesn't mean that they need to become experts in trading, but let's think about, for example, the internet and emails as an analogy when they first came out. Now,

would have been a lot of skeptics about email. I'm totally fine with writing my letter, putting my stamp on it and sending my correspondence. There was probably a lot of concern around, if I log onto a computer and I send an email, then everyone's going to read this email. Now that may or may still not be the case. But the point I'm trying to make is that at the moment, yes, there is a lot of skepticism. There are lot of concerns, some of which very legitimate concerns, but we will get to a point in society

wire, just like email, you don't necessarily need to know how you, what happens when you click send and how that email appears in my inbox a millisecond later. You do trust that that is a way to correspond with people personally and professionally, that there is a level of safety and security around it. And you have like all of us got to a point where you just could not live without it. this is why I really wanted to you on the show now because

Donald Trump is about to officially become the US president. And obviously his campaign was a lot about, well, not a lot, but it mentioned crypto. And so I think it's going to be interesting for my audience and for me to also understand what crypto is all about. And in preparation for the subset, I actually decided I'm going to invest in a cryptocurrency.

Sophia Matveeva (06:34.977)
I invested 10 pounds like, for us listeners, is like 15 bucks. is, this is literally, I just wanted to see what happens. I wanted to see how easy is it to invest. I wanted to see how volatile it is. So basically I didn't, it wasn't even an investment. It was more like a, an entryway into this world. So I found the purchase really easy and I did this a week ago when I was preparing for this interview. But I mean, my 10 pounds is now eight pounds.

So I'm kind of glad that I didn't do any more. But before we continue with the wider societal structures and is it going to go up? Is it going to go down? Everybody's predicting up, but who knows? We're definitely not giving an investment advice here. I really want people to understand what is crypto? Like what is cryptocurrency as a whole?

I'm going to take one step back. just more curiosity. I'd love to know. You said it was very easy for you to purchase, which I'm pleasantly surprised to hear actually, because for example, depending on where you are in the world and where you're registering as a customer, quite rightly regulators are putting big changes into that customer onboarding journey. for example, a customer in the UK, a retail customer who wanted to buy

10 pounds worth of Bitcoin, if they were to sign up to an exchange and they don't have an account, they would do all their onboarding, the KYC, et cetera, and then they would be having a 24 hour cooling off period before they're allowed to buy anything, which that puts a lot more friction obviously into the system. So I don't know if you had to go through that or not, but it's a big change for the industry. Well, I have accounts with Revolut.

So in the UK, I bank with a revenue for my personal banking and for business banking. they're literally within the app. You can go and buy a Bitcoin and they ask you a couple of questions. They call it a test, but it's like, you basically have to be sober and awake. Probably not even that sober. don't know. Maybe it's if you're kind of playing with such a small amount, they don't really care. But I found it easier than.

Sophia Matveeva (08:53.275)
what has happened before because I remember ages ago, a friend of mine, I bought a friend of mine a crate of wine and he paid me in Dogecoin. This was a really long time ago. And I remember thinking like, what am I going to do with this? There's this random key and also I gave you wine, like you can use this to be happy right now. Because what am going to do with Dogecoin? Anyway, turned out that Dogecoin went way up, but

the key is now lost and blah, blah, blah. It was actually phenomenally easy. Is this a surprise that it's a UK bank? Well, you're already a customer of the bank, so you've already been onboarded. So that's why, so if you were not a customer and you went to say to the bank or to a cryptocurrency exchange, you would have had more friction and a longer onboarding period, et cetera. And that cooling off period, if it was via...

a UK crypto exchange. but just interesting, just my own curiosity, but let me answer your question. So cryptocurrency in some ways is no different to traditional currency apart from it's just a different technology. There is technology wrapped around it. So a digital or a virtual currency and it's secured by something called cryptography, which is where the name cryptocurrency comes from. And it's operating

on the blockchain, the blockchain being the underlying network. So Bitcoin is the cryptocurrency, Ethereum is a different cryptocurrency. There are stable coins, there are these mean coins, et cetera. So there are various different types of currency. The reason why there's been so much negativity around cryptocurrency, well, there are multiple reasons, but one of the reasons is that the venues responsible for buying, selling, trading,

offering these cryptocurrencies to customers have not necessarily been using best practices and operating in a secure and regulated way that is appropriate for consumers, whether that's retail or institutional. So that's why there's been a lot of change in regulatory frameworks over the last year or two, especially since the FTX collapse, which I'm sure even if you're not in the cryptocurrency industry, you had you switched on the news or picked up a newspaper.

Sophia Matveeva (11:16.521)
Couple of years ago, you would have heard about the FTX collapse. whilst that was a horrific event for the industry, it in a way was a good thing because it jolted regulators into putting more frameworks in and forcing companies who are not operating correctly, say without audits, without proper compliance departments to step up. So in terms of what's the difference, obviously, I'm sure all your listeners know fiat currency is effectively a government issued currency.

such as US dollar, pound sterling, euro, and has intrinsic value, the government declares it as legal tender. So where we are with cryptocurrency is there are vendors, there are institutions who are even accepting cryptocurrency now as payment. There's just a lot of friction and a lot of the misconception around cryptocurrency. They've missed a step that a big part of the ecosystem is a problem of getting actually the fiat currencies

safely and securely in and out of the ecosystem. So we refer to things like fiat rails. These are the rails on which your pounds, euros, dollars go in and out of an ecosystem. And then where do they go and how do they get exchanged into cryptocurrency? just to clarify, basically one of the issues is that it's difficult to currently, it's difficult to transfer, know, to exchange your, I'm not going to call it real money, okay, your traditional money.

for crypto. Is that one of the issues? is definitely an issue. So in the UK, for example, most banks will have red flags around any transfer that goes from, for example, your HSBC current account to a crypto exchange. Even if that exchange is an FCA licensed exchange, it will put a red flag on the transaction. It may get blocked. Your account may get frozen. that because they think you're a drug dealer or an asset?

Well, I hope not in my case. mean, I was very, that would be interesting. Couldn't possibly comment. Because I mean, I, there are some people I don't like, so we should talk. Anyway, whole other podcasts look forward to that one. So for example, I was working for a UK FCA license crypto exchange.

Sophia Matveeva (13:33.909)
And I was receiving my salary in pounds sterling in the traditional way through PAYE. And there was a moment where I wanted to transfer some of my own savings from my HSBC account back into the exchange, was called Gemini, which I worked for. Immediately the payment was blocked and I got a fraud alert and I had to speak to HSBC and we went round in circles for about an hour and a half. And I just found it mind boggling because I was saying, you can see.

that this is my employer. You can see that I'm being paid every month by the same person for the last couple of years. You can see that this is an FCA regulated firm, but they were just going through the motions of the preset questions of, is someone forcing me to do this? Have I been scammed? Is there a gun to my head? Is there anyone in the room with you? Do you feel like you are threatened in any way? So there's a real lack of intelligence at the moment around the screening.

around the questions and absolutely the FCA should be protecting consumers, but they shouldn't necessarily be tarnishing all venues and exchanges with the same brush, especially if they've gone to the pains of months or sometimes years of admins become a licensed or a regulated firm. And also update their measures around the individuals that are actually also trying to transact in this space.

Of course, someone who's never touched cryptocurrency before should have greater protections on them. But I find it very curious that especially in the UK, you know, we're a nation of gamblers and a 90 year old granny can remortgage their house and transfer their savings to an online casino or play bingo. But there are far less restrictions around that compared to

a sophisticated professional investor with financial services background wanting to send a reasonably small amount of money into a regulated firm. Interesting. didn't expect granny's playing bingo to come up, but here we are. so, you know, I spent a lot of time with economists during my MBA at the University of Chicago.

Sophia Matveeva (15:48.245)
And so obviously we looked into what currencies were and so amongst other things, the definition of a currency is that it has to be a medium of exchange and a store of value. And these are the criticisms that are often given to crypto because as you said, you know, if I were to just take crypto to, know, your average, I don't know what was going to say McDonald's, I never go to McDonald's. You know what I mean, Whole Foods, that's much more likely. Ice cream parlour, whatever. If I was going to take it to your average place.

They wouldn't take it. And also it's so extremely volatile. And yes, there are currencies that are volatile, but not to this extent. So it's not really store value. It's not really where you should have your savings, for example. So what is your answer to that? Is this, is it just that it's still early days? What do you think? Yeah. So it is very early days. Let's address both points. Volatility.

Yes, Bitcoin and mostly other coins are extremely volatile. So this has become a very speculative investment, which I don't agree with for retail consumers by any means. And as Sophia said earlier, nothing here is investment advice. But if we look at the volatility piece, there are stable coins. Now, there have been different types of stable coins over the years, something called algorithmic stable coins, which were very dangerous because they were not

backs one to one pegged to the dollar, for example, but there are stable coins like USDC that are fully backed by the US dollar and there's a very different framework around them. And institutions are actually using these for store of value and also exchange. So I just want to ask, so why have a stable coin when you could just have the money? Why bother? So let's look at it.

on an institutional level rather than the retail consumer first. So think about something like, let's think, take a big industry. You'll like this one, luxury fashion. Excellent. Yes. So the luxury fashion market is turnover is somewhere around 250 billion off the top of my head. It's probably not exact, but close enough. We're working on it. We're working it. LVMH alone.

Sophia Matveeva (18:13.129)
Their turnover is somewhere around 80 billion. And let's think about LVMH, a global conglomerate with multiple brands trading all over the world in different currencies. On any given day, the amount of cross border payments that the likes of LVMH must be transacting in are in the tens, if not hundreds of millions. So there is so much friction when it comes to moving traditional currency.

across borders, that is FX problems, banking fees, et cetera. So let's say that you have some of that cash in stablecoin that's directly pegged one-to-one to the US dollar. First of all, that currency is going to move a lot faster across borders. You're not going to be paying the same banking fees. There will be fees if you're using exchange, but not the same level of banking fees, and then you don't have that FX volatility.

So there's actually a lot of money to be saved by big institutions who are moving huge amounts of money around the world. that, know, there are so many industries which we could name pharmaceuticals, the oil industry, aviation, etc, etc. interesting and tech fun and techies because, know, I am right now I have a UK company, but we've got clients in the Middle East and in the US. Really, those are those are the big markets because, you know,

That's where the money is at Europeans. I'm sorry, Europe's now a lovely place to go on holiday. But the money is in the US or basically in the Gulf state. And then when I see the amount of money that we're paying to banks, it makes me cry. Okay. So a stable coin is, especially I would imagine that treasury departments in large organizations are going to love them because then they can predict their, their

Internal money flows much easier and not pay that much and essentially a stable coin if I understand you correctly is pegged to a specific currency. So yes, there's volatility in a way there is volatility with the dollar or the euro or the pound but not Bitcoin type volatility. Is that correct? That's exactly right. Yes. Okay. Well now listeners shut your kids ears because I've got a rude question next. So Stephanie, what's a shit coin?

Sophia Matveeva (20:35.253)
I mean, this is what people talk about and they're like, it's a shitcoin. I'm like, what's the difference? So a shitcoin, also known as a meme coin. Okay, that's more polite. We can use that for the kids. But a shitcoin effectively refers to a cryptocurrency with little or no value or potential or use case. And it's used as effectively a pump and dump scheme.

or a joke to bring attention to something within the world at that point in time. So there are thousands and thousands of these tokens that have crossed into our stratosphere over the last few years. There are some that some may argue. So you mentioned Doge, that you were paid in Dogecoin for a case of wine. Technically Dogecoin

is a shit coin, but there is a community, a big community that would argue that it's not because of the amount of adoption that it's had, that it's trading volumes, et cetera, that there is inherent value. I mean, you can pay for goods with Tesla, with Dogecoin. So it is an exchange of value in some places. Okay. So didn't think this was going to come up, but I remember a while ago, I had an admirer who ran a crypto firm.

And I remember that as his token of his appreciation for my person, he said that he was going to make me a coin, like to make a coin named after me. anyway, our liaison did not last very long. So the coin was never made. Should I have regret and FOMO about this? Or was this never going to make me a billionaire? I don't think so. And how hard would it have been to do?

So to launch a token is becoming again more and more difficult because of regulatory framework. So it also depends where the company is domiciled, in which market they want to launch, who they want to be selling this token to and how it gets to market. And that's really transformed over the last year or so. So the reality is it's becoming harder and harder to launch any token. There has to be

Sophia Matveeva (22:50.813)
a lot of thought, a lot of mathematics, which they call the tokenomics. So this is quite flattering. was actually going to do quite a, maybe I should talk to him. It have been work. It's something that anyone can really do over nice anymore. didn't appreciate that. Okay. Well. Certainly. Take a compliment. Thanks. I might write him something else. Okay, cool. But essentially if you just, you know, create a coin, even if it's really difficult, if other people don't want to buy it, doesn't really matter.

Absolutely. If it's like any business or product, we can all create a product. We don't know if it's going to have consumers. And so does this mean that in order to be successful, a coin also needs to have a marketing budget? Definitely needs to have a marketing budget and more importantly needs to have utility, i.e. a use case. So why would anyone create a coin? I don't believe in crypto or blockchain for the sake of the technology. Over the last few years, people have been wanting to apply blockchain to a lot of things.

some which make sense, some that don't. So I think with all technologies, people can get a little overzealous and be wanting to use the technology for the sake of it without really thinking it through of what's the positive impact from this. Well, I mean, we're seeing this with AI right now, where essentially everybody or not everybody, lots of people saying, yes, you know, we've got AI in our court. And actually the SEC fined two traditional financial firms for saying that they are AI companies.

because basically they just weren't, know, they probably used chat GPT to send emails. So yes, there was this, there was the blockchain moment. I think we're now in the AI moment. Okay. Well, so I do want to cover with you how founders should, you know, think about crypto for the businesses that they're working on or thinking of working on and also how this is going to apply to corporate innovators.

But before we get there, I've got one more technical question, then I really want to get into your journey and how you got into this. So my last technical question for you is about quantum computing. So recently, I think it was in December, 2024, when Google had a huge quantum breakthrough. And listeners, we're not going to go into what quantum computing is here because otherwise, you know, we'll be here forever.

Sophia Matveeva (25:13.654)
But essentially it is a way quantum computing can break cryptography. And so there were also stories that came out saying, this is going to threaten cryptocurrency. Now, what do you think about this as somebody who's obviously a huge expert in the crypto space? just a caveat, definitely not an expert in quantum computing, but yes have had to become familiar.

I'm very aware of the research that's been going around about how quantum computers could theoretically break cryptography and the algorithms that secure cryptocurrencies. So this is obviously a big issue within the industry, safety and security. So the reality is, again, from what I understand, is that the time that it's going to take for quantum computers to get to the point to truly in a practical way be able to break cryptography

is likely many years, if not decades away. And in response, there are mitigation strategies. So there's something out there called post-quantum cryptography. So developing algorithms that are effectively resistant to quantum attacks. And then the networks, the blockchain networks that we mentioned earlier, they're always performing upgrades. And part of the upgrades now are going to be safeguarding against

quantum computers that are looking to break those algorithms and so incorporate quantum safe cryptography and algorithms that can make them even safer. Okay. And so I really want to delve into your journey and how you've ended up in this phase because obviously we've known each other for a while now. And I've seen this transformation of Stephanie into the queen of crypto now.

running your own crypto advisory firm. And to be honest, I've been really interested in seeing the success and super inspired by it. But I also have always wondered like, how did you know? Because frankly, in the early days, I saw a lot of people making a lot of money in crypto, but also a lot of those people were frankly already rich. And because they were already rich, it didn't really matter for them. You know, if

Sophia Matveeva (27:28.705)
If you invested, I don't know, $10,000 in the early days of crypto, your grandchildren don't have to work. But essentially, the people who are making those investments had $10,000 to throw away. But when you went into this, you were, you know, a professional, you know, who is doing well in your career, but you weren't yet running, like you weren't running your own fund. So what happened? Tell us about this journey.

What happened? Well, I wish I could say that I was a visionary, which some people in the industry are and like you said, they bought in when Bitcoin was worth just a few dollars and made more than enough money for multiple generations. Unfortunately, that wasn't me. So had to take slightly longer routes. My first foray into crypto was in 2018. And I was a founding member of a company that was looking to build a UK based banking startup.

to service businesses in the crypto sector. This was nothing to do with trading the coins. This was to do with building infrastructure. So as we mentioned earlier, traditional banks still really struggle with crypto transactions. And this has been really difficult for companies that operate directly or indirectly in the space. So what we wanted to do was build a bank that would give these companies

basic banking services, bank accounts, debt facilities, everything that your traditional bank would offer. But if you're a crypto company back in 2018, trying to open a bank account at HSBC, you would have a big problem. Well, actually you still have a big problem today, in fact. So there were banks in the US that were operating in the space that were doing very well, and there was clearly an industry need for it. So at that point in my career, it wasn't necessarily about

I believe that Bitcoin is the future and cash is dead and the banks are all going to change. It was more about taking that entrepreneurial journey of building something from the ground up and doing something different and with a lot of innovation, but being able to use the skills and knowledge that I built in traditional financial services. being that effectively. Interesting.

Sophia Matveeva (29:44.381)
It was more of a desire to innovate and to do something else and also to not be in the traditional big company structures that began that journey. that right? Yes. It was the desire to be part of the startup. I have always had an entrepreneurial, what would you call it? An entrepreneurial vein that I could.

It wasn't my first startup and probably won't be my last. So this was just one of those pieces of the puzzle that took me into the crypto blockchain space. And as soon as I got there, I actually was in my element because I found everything so fascinating and I can safely say that I've learned more in the last five, 10 years than I have collectively in my life. And that's come a lot just from being part of that industry.

What's kept me in the industry and going into them different companies, different jobs, some startups like my own company now, or going into a big corporate, a US crypto exchange and custodian was very much motivated by also the people that I met in the space. Some of the smartest, most intelligent, some visionary, some a little crazy, but ultimately very interesting, kind, decent, fun human beings. There's a bit of a tribe, and I don't mean the libertarian maniacs.

that wants to go off grid and are anonymous. There's a big contingent of people like you and I who have had successful corporate careers and are just going in a slightly different direction to go with the innovation and want to learn about the technology. Interesting. I think this is really worth reflecting on for people who are, you know, maybe you're working in a big job.

And you are thinking that you want to do something entrepreneurial and maybe you don't actually want to be a founder, but you want to be in a more innovative space. And I think we often hear the story of, well, I had this idea and I just had to follow this idea. Whereas in your example, what you're giving is I wanted to be in this innovative space. And because I wanted to be in a space where new things are being created.

Sophia Matveeva (32:03.403)
to work on innovation rather than to basically do the same job that people have been doing for decades. Because of that, you essentially discovered something that you're really good at and also that turned out to be really lucrative. And so I think this is really inspiring. If you just want to get into something innovative, just find an opportunity to do that and then take those steps forward.

don't necessarily wait that like, no, I need to be like, you know, St. Paul on the road to Damascus to just have this idea and then life will change. I think that doesn't happen with a lot of people. So my next question is, okay, we've covered the entrepreneurship side, but if somebody is quite happily working in a corporate and they've listened to this and then they're thinking, okay, well, thanks for that. What am I going to do with this information? What should they do with this information?

So it depends what they're looking to achieve in life. think a lot of people forget that their job in a corporate may well exist in a blockchain or crypto company. And there are so many different forms of what that may look like. especially in crypto exchanges, they cannot hire fast enough for demand of regulators, compliance people, legal professionals, et cetera. So perhaps you're sitting in a compliance job

at a traditional bank. You know, could be in a compliance job at a cryptocurrency exchange, which would give you exposure to that technology. But it's about bringing those traditional skill sets, but just using it in a more innovative environment in a company that is having to adapt a lot faster, scale, rather than just doing the same thing over and over again. So you don't necessarily have to be an innovator yourself, but you may just

want to look into being in a very different environment. Interesting. So I think, you know, especially in January, a lot of people like I'm, really looking for something different. actually seeing where your job could be in these new different companies, that could be, that'd be really cool. But my last question here is how can you tell which one of them is an FTX and which one of them is a Gemini? Great question.

Sophia Matveeva (34:21.269)
So I think starting with the level of licensing and regulation is a good start. So there is an FCA crypto asset register in the UK and anyone can go on and see that list. if a crypto company approaches you, you can say, is this a regulated or a licensed firm? In Europe, they're bringing in their own regulatory framework called Mika. so companies have to abide by that as well.

Even in the Middle East, Dubai have something called Vara, which is their framework for crypto companies. Abu Dhabi, the ADGM, they are very forward-facing in terms of how they are regulating crypto firms out there. in each jurisdiction, regulators are now having to pay attention and get involved. So partly around regulation, but it's very easy, of course, to just start Googling and look at a company's reputation.

and see what they've been up to. If they've done something really bad, you're probably going to know about it or be able to find out about it. And then just working through your network, asking questions like with any other job that you might be going for. Yeah, I mean, to be honest, due diligence before any job is super important because I've had some jobs which look amazing on paper. And then the moment you walk through the doors and you sign that contract, you think, my God, why am I here? Okay.

Well, Stephanie, this has been absolutely fascinating. Thank you for answering my questions today. And if people want to learn more from you, where can they do that? So I have quite a lot of content out there from different stages in my career. I've been a panelist at different crypto conferences. I have done some fireside chats. I attend various different events as a speaker. So, and people can just also reach out to me directly via LinkedIn. Yeah. mean, Stephanie's LinkedIn is really good and also

Instagram, but I'd say for professional content, heresje. LinkedIn. Well, awesome. Thank you so much, Stephanie. This has been a great conversation and listeners, thank you very much for being with us today. And if you learned something useful, which I'm assuming you did because you are still here, then please leave the show a rating or a review or just like this video if you are watching on YouTube. thank you very much and I'll be back in your delightful smarties next week. Ciao.