How the Winklevoss twins are building a crypto empire

00:00you know you may think i have bitcoin but i only have bitcoin as much as i have time on this earth um and any possession every anything you have or own or done like it really means you just have time yeah so we're all investors and time is more precious than bitcoin you know finite we don't know how much we have um there's not that much of it so we have to use it wisely and some people invest it incredibly wisely. They understand the game they're playing. And you know, they're,

00:30uh, you have folks like Elon Musk, Jeff Bezos. He doesn't have more time than me. It's more time than you, but you know, he's using it and he's finding leverage and he's getting this output and it doesn't always have to be like, Oh, successful company or whatever. You can create tremendous output with learning and growth and reading. Um, just got to build those leverages. You're listening to the Growth Manifesto podcast, a Zoom video series focusing on what it takes to drive growth in today's competitive business environment.

01:02Brought to you by Web Profits, a digital growth consultancy that helps global and national businesses attract, acquire, and retain customers through digital marketing. This episode is a discussion with Tyler Winklevoss, co-founder and CEO at Gemini, principal and investor at Winklevoss Capital, Olympic grower, and one of the early investors in Bitcoin. We talk about why Bitcoin is having such a good run right now, where it's going in the future, how they launched and grew their cryptocurrency exchange, and their investment philosophy at Winklevoss Capital. So let's get into it.

01:40Today we're talking with Tyler Winklevoss, co-founder and CEO at Gemini, principal and investor at Winklevoss Capital. He's an Olympic grower and he is one of the early investors in Bitcoin. Today, we'll be talking about Bitcoin, where it started and where it's going, the growth of the Gemini cryptocurrency exchange and the investment strategy and approach of Winklevoss Capital. And just before we get started, make sure to go ahead and hit that subscribe button so you get the latest episodes as soon as they're released. Now, let's get into it. Welcome, Tyler. Well, thanks for having me, Alex.

02:11Pleasure, mate. Pleasure. Let's get straight into it. First part is on the early days of Bitcoin. So I read that back in 2013, you and your brother own 1% of all the Bitcoin in circulation. Is that true? You know, what you read, it might be true. Yeah. Well, if that was true, that means that you bought them at under $10 a Bitcoin. And it's gone quite a lot higher since that time. I remember this was actually like in the early 2000s, it was like 70 cents. And I heard about it and it had crashed and it had come back up again.

02:47But it started pretty early on. But what did you see in Bitcoin that others had not until, you know, just recently? That is a great question. So what we saw or what we learned when we saw it, we started digging deeper, was that Bitcoin was the first money that was ever purpose built for the internet. And so a lot of our money, like credit cards, ACH, even PayPal has this illusion

03:18that your money's working on the internet. But really, it's almost like, I'd call it internet enabled banking. It's still running on the old banking rails that were set up and built by bankers in as far back as the 70s, before the internet even existed. So people have tried to cobble payments and money onto the internet through PayPal and other applications. But no one had really built a internet native money. And so that's what Bitcoin is. Ultimately,

03:53it's the world's first internet native money. It works like your email and it has characteristics that are very similar to gold. So that's why we call it, you know, internet gold or gold 2.0. So the idea of like this gold that's built for the internet, we thought was a pretty big idea. So because there's a lot of conversations around cryptocurrency, especially like around the Bitcoin cryptocurrency. Is it a currency or is it a commodity?

04:25Ah, that is a great question. And that is one of the questions. So in the United States, its legal designation is a commodity. So there was a CFTC enforcement order called the Coin Flip Order in 2015 that designated it a commodity under the Commodity and Exchange Act. And I believe a district judge, a federal judge in New York confirmed that ruling.

04:55So in the U.S., it's a commodity like gold or other commodity assets. But that doesn't mean it can't be used as a currency. Like gold was used as a currency. They're technically, I guess the term is commodity money until the advent of fiat currency. So you can use these things as a currency, as a medium of exchange. There's generally three properties of money. There's medium of exchange, unit of count, store of value.

05:28And you don't have to function as all three of those to be money. Gold has historically functioned as all of those. But today, it really sits in vaults. Much of it in vaults under the Thames River. And it plays the store of value role. And we see Bitcoin as an emergent store of value. it's gold 2.0 so it could disrupt gold so it could appreciate a lot more from here Bitcoin's market cap is somewhere in the 300 billions gold is 9 trillion if Bitcoin disrupts

06:04gold its market cap has to be worth 9 trillion that puts a price of 500,000 of Bitcoin today so even if Bitcoin only plays a store of value role for money and does a better job than gold it's still like a huge um it's a huge deal so i'm sure but back in the day and i don't know how long ago when people first picked up a piece of stone and said this is worth x amount of dollars people thought it's just a rock right it feels like that's similar to bitcoin people don't understand

06:36how there can be value linked to this kind of internet money yeah so how would you explain it people that like well it's not gold you know like it doesn't have value or it's not a diamond or it's not cash but even though that they are just ideas but how would you explain like why bitcoin i guess like is such a good store of value yeah i'd probably throw the question back right um i hope that's not a cop-out but like um uh everybody agrees that gold is valuable i mean it's in our

07:12movies. It's in Game of Thrones. I don't think you could talk to anyone on the street and they'd be like, I don't understand what's gold all about. I wouldn't want gold. And so if we all agree on that, then the question is, why do we all agree on that? And you have to look at, so you go to the properties. And I had the same question too, when I kind of came to Bitcoin and gold and trying to value Bitcoin, what are the properties that make gold gold? It's scarce. There's not a lot

07:43of it. It's somewhat portable. You can carry it around. It's somewhat divisible. You can smelt it. It's durable. It can sit on a shelf or in a vault forever. It's not going to degrade like a vegetable. You can cut it. You can divide it. So it makes good money, right? And so a good thought exercise is to put Bitcoin up against gold and each of those characteristics that make that we all think make gold gold. So in terms of its supply, Bitcoin is actually fixed.

08:18There will only be 21 million. The supply of gold is actually unknown. It's scarce, but it's increasing when people find more gold. And that can be technological breakthroughs. That can be an increased demand for gold. So gold is found in mind. And actually, the above ground supply of gold has increased 60% since the 50s. There's still not a lot of it, but it's slowly getting bigger. Bitcoin's actually fixed.

08:50Gold bar is kind of portable, but at Bitcoin, you can send around like an email. You can carry a Bitcoin wallet in your head. in your pocket on a piece of paper through borders. So it's very, very easy to transport. You can divide a Bitcoin into a hundred million pieces. This is a common misconception. People think, oh, well, Bitcoin's now at, you know, $18,000 of Bitcoin. I can't afford that. Well, you can come to the exchange we built called Gemini and you can buy $10 of Bitcoin, $100,

09:24dollars, $500. You can buy a full Bitcoin. You can buy millions of dollars of Bitcoin. So like when you go down the line, Bitcoin either matches gold or it's superior. And so the reason gold has value is because we all think it does. It's supply and demand. And if people do that analysis on Bitcoin and realize that it's actually better at being gold than gold, people can buy into it just like, you know, people decided at Picasso was, you know, a rare

09:57special thing. And there's not many more, there's no more going to be made. Right. So it's, it's kind of like art and gold, it's supply and demand, but it's all based on what we decide. And if people wake up tomorrow and say, you know what, I just don't think Bitcoin's, you know, does it for me, then, then it, you know, won't be worth anything. But if people wake up and say Bitcoin's better than gold, then there's a chance that it disrupts gold and gold's really not that special. Yeah. And I think for the majority of people,

10:29because they can go to the shop and they can purchase a gold necklace or something like that, they can see that value. Whereas a Bitcoin is an idea, right? Yeah. But also I think like, yeah, the gold is an idea too, but it's just something which you can purchase at a shop and you can give us a present and it's got this intrinsic value that is advertised and so on. Whereas the Bitcoin is just pure value. Yeah. I mean, so I don't know if you've read the book Sapiens, but it does a good, it's pretty popular book. It's a good quick read. It does a great job of talking about like

11:06these fictions that, that man creates and humans are basically, we're effectively storytelling monkeys and we're status-seeking storytelling monkeys. But we can spin up these stories. We can spin up these fictions like a border, like crossing the Mexico-American border. No animal knows they're crossing that border. But as a human, you're like, oh, there's the border patrol. Get your passport out. It's a big deal. We're like now in Mexico. We're now coming

11:38back in the U.S. or we're in a different state. We've all made this up. It's a collective hallucination. And money is one of these other great imagined fictions that man, woman, humans have created for commerce. So you're absolutely right that these are ideas. There's so much fiction in it. But that's what allows us, that's what makes us humans and different than other animals is that we can come together and coordinate around these, these ideas like

12:14patriotism, duty, you know, and start wars over it and in crusades and religion. And it's like, just an idea, you can't point or touch. So I'm always fascinated with how like people are like, but it's not real, I can't touch it. Like most of the things in your life, including your dollars, you can't touch and they're not that real but especially these days yeah especially these days where we can't have cash anymore because of covid right and so now like it's all just like on the

12:48internet like it's all just in the ether you know yeah and it's it's being printed so much so that's been a huge driver for bitcoin because people are like wait there's got to be scarcity of money and the money supply of dollars, it's just so, it's a simple, like, you know, fifth, it's not even like, you know, simple arithmetic, like third grade, fourth grade kind of stuff. Like the supply is getting bigger. My share of that supply is staying the same, but as a percentage overall, it's becoming much smaller. I put my whole life into this system

13:25and it's degrading, it's depreciating. So I'm gonna put my blood, sweat and tears over in a hard sound money like gold or Bitcoin because it's just not getting debased and there's no inflation over there. So 2020 has been the year of chaos, uncertainty, money printing, stimulus, helicopter money, this idea that literally governments are dropping money out of the sky, people are getting their checks. There's probably more of that on the way and it's literally the Federal Reserve waves the magic wand

13:59and everybody gets money. And I think even people who haven't thought about this are like scratching their head a little bit and saying like, how does that work? Like, is this really real? And I think that's driven a lot of people into crypto. So, and just quickly, so why is the Bitcoin limited at 21 million? That is just what the crater, that's the rules of the game that was set up. The rules can't change? They could, but you'd have to get more than half of the network to vote on it.

14:32And nobody's going to do that because then they would be debasing themselves. So like me personally, I'm a hodler. I hold a lot of Bitcoin. Why would I want to own less of a percentage of the pie? And so there's very strong economic incentives to, I think incentives are like, I don't know who said this was it Einstein or Buffett or someone, um, that they're like the eighth wonder of the world. Right. And the incentives are aligned for, for people to play

15:02nice and play good. Um, but also to keep it a fixed supply. Um, just like if you own a Warhol and Andy Warhol, you know, painting or some sort of piece, you wouldn't want to like be able to agree with people, um, to all of a sudden, like bring them back from the dead. And that would be actually very cool we'd all agree to that but like you can't make any more you can be here but like you can't make any more like um you know fuchsia mouths because i am one of however many

15:3510 and i don't want 100 because then you know my investment goes you know down the toilet and so this year has seen a pretty big appreciation for bitcoin and i think as that today it's it's almost at 20,000 again, like 19 something, but there's less hype around it at the moment as it was back in 2017, 18. But why do you think it's having such a big run right now? So I think the drivers are what I said before. I think it's all the money printing. I think it's the oncoming inflation.

16:10But the cast of characters who are really taking up large positions are very different. you have legendary investors so Paul Tudor Jones is a legendary hedge fund investor of the last quarter century you have Stan Druckenmiller you have other hedge funders who are taking huge positions and coming out and talking about it but on like you know business channels like they don't you know it's not like super mainstream and and then and they're in there they believe in the gold 2.0 story they're like hey Paul Tudor Jones said this and he sent out a

16:44really cool investment newsletter that in the 70s in the US, we had a lot of inflation. And one of his famous trades early on was gold. It would have been Bitcoin, but we hadn't invented Bitcoin. So today, he sees the same qualities in Bitcoin. So he's putting his wealth in Bitcoin. So there's a lot of legendary investors who, you know, you can't, maybe you can knock us like, hey, we're the Facebook guys from the movie. Like, what do they know? You know, they have Bitcoin, but that's not convincing me.

17:17But when you start bringing in like Paul Tudor Jones, these investors who have made tremendous value for themselves and their investors, and this is what they do, and they're saying this is a good investment, that's a little harder to kind of like turn your nose at or deny. Secondly, and just to wrap that up quickly, is there are publicly traded companies. like MicroStrategy. Michael Saylor is the CEO founder of that company and Square, Jack Dorsey Square, who have put in some of their cash on their balance sheet, some of their treasury money

17:50into Bitcoin for the same reasons that these investors are, because they're worried that their cash is turning into trash. They want to save their value. So you've got institutional investors, you've got publicly traded companies starting to buy Bitcoin. And it's almost quietly because it's not a FOMO crowd. It's not like this remount. It's not like rappers and celebrities tweeting about it like 2017. It's like the smartest people in the room who are kind of like discreet and quiet.

18:21And they're taking these bigger positions rather than the noisy people in the room with much smaller pockets. So what does that do to Bitcoin when the institutional money comes into it? How does that change the characteristics of the trends? Because it's been pretty volatile, I would say, compared to lots of other commodities and currencies and so on, and investments across the board. How does it change now with all this institutional money? In short, the more people that buy into it, the more the market cap will increase,

18:56the value will increase. And the larger it gets, the less volatile it will get. but also the less upside and appreciation will be available to you. So people sort of complain about volatility. Yeah, like Amazon was a small tech stock, like was really volatile, right? And it was kind of scary. But that was, you know, if you got in early in 2000 versus 2005, 10, 15, I mean, your gains are just that much more. So there's no reward without risk, right? So high

19:32risk, high reward. And if you get in early, you are rewarded for that. And the more early you are, if people end up coming in and piling in behind you, you will ride that up. And so if Bitcoin's worth 9 trillion, it'll be kind of mature. The price will be steady, but it will not have what I've predicted is like a 25 to 30 X from here. It just won't have that. So when I say Bitcoin is a store of value or playing that role, what I really mean is that today it's an emergent sort of value.

20:11It's sort of growing into that. And that's where you get the asymmetric return. It's not just preserving your wealth, but you can actually 25 or 30x your wealth by my math. Um, but over time, as more people come in and when you're the last person to the party, you're just not going to have like the secrets out in the, the secret is out in the open, but like everybody started to build consensus around it. Um, that opportunity just won't be there. So, but you have to be, you have to have strong hands, be willing to weather storms and volatility.

20:49It's not an asset like you want to look at every day or it's money you want to kind of be able to put away for five, 10 years. And that's going to be great. But if you wait till it's kind of like safe and boring, well, like that's like not settling the frontier, waiting for everyone to get to California and then be like, now I'm going to buy property. well it's gonna be a lot more expensive than it was when you got there before the sheriff was in town before there was like infrastructure before there was a saloon it was fun um now it's kind of

21:23boring you know so so i think there's you know but everyone's got to make their own investment decisions obviously so that's bitcoin but there's a thousand other currencies or there's a thousand other coins or whatever you want to call them so aside from bitcoin is there anything else which you find exciting, like in terms of the other cryptos out there? I'd say my number two favorite, and I also have a full disclosure material position, would be Ether, which is the coin, the crypto of the Ethereum network.

21:59Ethereum, I don't think Bitcoin and Ethereum are competing for the same things. Bitcoin is your store of value, emerging store of value gold 2.0. Ethereum is a decentralized virtual computer. Think of like Amazon cloud computing. That's what Ethereum is, decentralized. And Ether allows you to use that computer. So Ether is almost like a digital oil. Bitcoin is digital gold. These blockchains have the highest demand for people who want to invest,

22:32for engineers who want to build on them. and you can look at the demand for the space in each transaction block of the blockchain and their transaction fees are high because space is scarce and people want to be in there. So you can, there's metrics that show there's a ton of academic activity and demand happening for both of these cryptos. So I think like when people are saying, hey, how do I get into crypto?

23:03What do I do? So my feeling is like, look, it always starts with Bitcoin, but I really think it starts these days. I think it's fair to say it starts with Bitcoin and Ether. And some combination of those two, you have a lot of your bases covered because Ethereum is sort of like if you think of Manhattan, it's the land, you know, the substrate of what's going on. And there's all these projects being built on top of Ethereum because it's like an operating system. Bitcoin is very, it's simple. it's like moving gold from A to B. Ethereum, you can create all these applications. And there's

23:39this movement called decentralized finance, where you can borrow, you can lend, you can do all this stuff on Ethereum. But these are projects built on top of Ethereum. And if you own the substrate, like sort of the layer one of Ethereum, you have exposure to what's going on up there without having to pick which of the many, many projects is going to win. Some people, unless you do it for your full-time job, it's going to be a bit hard. So I sort of say, look, own a piece of the

24:11racetrack. And as long as the races are running, you don't have to pick the winning horse. You will do fine. When you get up the stack and you pick the horses, it can be higher returns, but also it can get pretty ugly because some things just won't work out. And most people, like I'm committed, you know, all I do is eat, breathe, sleep crypto. And that's what I'll do for at least the next decade or two or many more. Um, but I appreciate that that's not what everyone does. So, um, the cool thing is that you can own pieces of these network by owning the coins.

24:47You, you couldn't own a piece of the internet, really. You'd have to, um, domain squat, like get a domain like pepsi.com and then sell it to pepsi or something but you really couldn't buy a piece of the internet and you'd have to sort of invest in these companies and a lot of them blew up right but like now you can invest in the internet these the internet of money um by just buying these networks and just buying the underlying coin so it's a different paradigm yeah sure and what do you say to um um to the challenge that there's too much demand for what

25:23ethereum can actually handle oh i mean i think i don't think anyone would deny if you're talking about like um it's scaling and it's scaling yeah yeah i mean i think everyone admits that or like acknowledges that that it's got to get better right because there's so much excitement and it could fall uh victim of its own uh success right the way of its own success is getting heavy for it it just passed a really cool milestone last week where it's going to move into ether 2.0

25:58which is i i'm not super close to the details i need to freshen up there but like essentially it will move to a proof of stake and just upgrade in a way where it can scale more there can be more transactions that can handle more applications because you're absolutely right like if if if Ethereum doesn't grow at that level, some other chain will. So I do think it's very much like Ether is to lose at this point. It's got so many network effects. Everybody, if you're going to

26:33build somewhere, you start there. But we saw even with social networking, friends who had technical difficulties, it was kind of hard to log in. Then MySpace came, then Facebook had its own breakthroughs. And then probably my guess is that like Facebook, you know, you're not going to unseat Facebook the way it is. If you try and do that, they just got enough things right. But interesting, there are new, there's sort of like new blockchains and social media, like you have TikTok now and stuff, but I sort of digress. Ether has a plan to improve. It needs

27:10to improve i think all of these chains do because tech moves so quickly even bitcoin has to keep getting better um and more secure and everything so um as long as the community is like committed to that i think it's i'm an optimist on it so so it's ethereum's to lose which i've seen for the last few years anyway um who would be or which blockchain would be its biggest threat so i think a blockchain that usually there's this idea in tech that it has like a new product to unseat

27:44the incumbent has to be like 10x better. So one thing I've heard is that Solidity isn't like is user friendly to engineers who are like not don't have like as high as skills maybe. So creating spinning stuff up in Solidity, which is the language, the programming language of Ethereum right now, it's difficult, right? It's not like impossible or something. I don't think it's like B plus or C sharp or something. But it's maybe not as easy as like Java or HTML or something like

28:15that. Right. And so if another blockchain comes on with the language that either uses an existing language that everybody knows, or create something that's super easy, where like you and I can open up like a book or two, like not even a book, read like a chapter in a book and just not even just like go on the internet and build something that's going to be a huge, right? Because it's so easy now to spin up your startup on Amazon cloud. You know, it just took away this barriers to entry and that friction. And then there's, there's a movement to, or like this

28:50idea of interoperability where you can kind of balance between blockchains. And so a chain that's like super easy to build on that can kind of like interact with other blockchains where the switching costs, it's like sort of a economic term, like it's not that hard to leave, you know, Ethereum and everything can kind of migrate. So I might be getting this wrong. I got to brush up on my, but like there are efforts like cosmos polka dot um algorand um these are big names that have been

29:27around and i believe all of them and many more are also trying to you know solve the problems that ether 2.0 will probably solve for eth but um you know competition's great and nobody wants to wait around you know everybody wants their shot at greatness so yeah right and so thanks for answering that question because that's something that that i definitely want to know from someone that's been in the game for um as long as you have been um let's jump to gemini um it's a cryptocurrency exchange right um so you're fully into crypto like you've got

30:02investments in you've actually created an exchange but how did you get the idea for gemini so yeah we like to joke that we don't have our skin in the game we have our whole bodies in the game. So the way we got the idea for Gemini is basically kind of how we've gotten any idea, which is we were dissatisfied with the state of play. Some of our earliest Bitcoin we bought on Mt. Gox. And whenever there was like a bit of a bull run back then, it could take a minute

30:37to get your order place to buy or to sell. Um, it was like unclear who was running the show. It was two Frenchmen in Tokyo with their cats. And just, it was like kind of a black box and super scary and not user-friendly just to get over there. You had to apostille documents. It's something I learned, I guess, technically, um, instead of a notary right in the U S um, you you go to like the state department and the the federal government like says you know um

31:10authenticates your documents you mail them over to japan then you wire your money over to japan and so you're in their legal system if anything happens well i don't speak japanese uh although um many japanese lawyers speak impeccable english even better than than than u.s citizens um so So, you know, but it's just foreign, you know, and you want to keep your dollars or not FDINC insured. And it was just sketchy. And so we as investors, we looked at investing in other companies, other exchanges, but we really couldn't find anyone who we thought was doing it right.

31:49Everyone kind of was like, oh, I can build a better exchange and I'm going to do it offshore because I don't want to deal with regulation and all that stuff. And we just weren't quite satisfied with that sort of race to the bottom race offshore. We're like, I think there should be a US exchange for for cryptocurrency. You know, we have the New York Stock Exchange. New York's been the home of finance for a long time. um why can't it also be a home a home um not the only home but a home um for this new revolution

32:21of finance you know like uh wall street 2.0 and so um we couldn't find something to invest and we at some point we said screw it we'll just do this ourselves we picked the phone to the regulator in new york um actually we got subpoenaed by them um they they were like what is this bitcoin thing like a lot of people, and it's a fair point, like, you know, is this for criminals and for bad stuff? And we had already talked about this in the press. So they subpoenaed us and a lot of other people were like, tell us about this. Is this like some Ponzi scheme or whatever? It was a little bit

32:55antagonistic to say the least, but we went in, we educated them. We're like, it's not a Ponzi scheme. There's a fixed amount. There's real merit here. I know you read about Silk Road, but it's about a lot more than this. And so to their credit, they completely turned around on that. They held a Bitcoin hearing in January of 2014. I think 150 countries, people from different countries piped into this hearing, which is very crazy for a New York state regulator hearing.

33:27I think it was like 25, 30,000 people. And they got on board. They're like, shoot, this is, there's merit here to their credit. Let's usher this in. And if you want to be legitimate, like come apply. And we basically do that hearing. And like the next day we, we, we called them up. We're like, how can we get licensed? We want to bring this to New York and, and build an exchange, do it the right way, with the right security, with the right compliance, um, will help you

33:59answer your questions. Um, I think it's super important to engage with regulators because, um, regulation is a spectrum. There's, there's very thoughtful regulation that builds healthy markets and helps consumers protect, protects them. And there's one that are way too wild west, like, you know, Mount Gox was just like, you know, kind of too crazy. And there's one that to, you know, they sort of stamp out and they clamp regulation. And, you know, you could make an argument that the U.S. has been a little bit too far, you know, it's been, you know, it could

34:34be a little bit more into the thoughtful, you know, sandboxy, let's run with this thing. But that's our story. You know, we built this to solve our own problem, to help mainstream crypto and do it in a way that we thought was the right way or rather a way that was important to build confidence and trust in the asset class and ultimately attract the big money that is starting to come in. And how long did it take you from the 14th of, well, sorry, 2014,

35:06the day after the hearing in New York to get the license? How long was that process? And that took, um, totally blanking, but I think it was like a year and a half, which was really, it was significant amount of time, um, which at the time we were also building our technology, but there was a period of like, we were waiting. We're like, Hey, we need to get out the door. But our ethos was let's ask for permission,

35:37not forgiveness. Um, and almost like, um, by doing the right thing, they're like, Oh, well, you can't really, you know, do this until we're ready. Um, and a lot of exchanges sort of went outside of New York and then came in later. And, um, I don't know in the long run, I think it's okay. I think people respect the fact that we did it that way. We didn't sort of end run New York, but it was a year and a half. And it's intense. I mean, I really respect the rigor they put us

36:10through. It was really important at the time because people were like, you know, is Bitcoin illegal? How can we trust this? So having the New York Department of Financial Services on our side, Ben Lofsky is the guy, the superintendent at the time who pioneered this, having them, their sort of sign of approval was really helpful because it helped us build a trust. And then we could get a bank account with a bank. Now, if you start a company, you can incorporate and open a bank account in the same afternoon. But if you say crypto or cannabis,

36:49like all of a sudden you, you now can only talk to five banks in the entire country that will take your call. And even that's like a big process. So when you have something like a New York trust company license, that is the type of license that bank of New York started with that Brown brothers Harriman has the state street started with that really makes the conversation a lot easier. It's still a difficult conversation, but it's because of what New York did, that New York state that allowed us to actually start this adventure.

37:23So basically if you get the regulation, right, it really can, it allowed us to build a business. We now employ 330 people. Most of them are in New York. And I like to say, they're not just jobs, they're careers. You know, people come here and they go on to great things. A lot of people have been here from day one, but we're really changing like this is an economic miracle story that is all a result of healthy, thoughtful regulation. And you've gone down the hard path, which I always like to take,

37:55like it's to take the steps that other people are not prepared to take. And so we're going through the regulators. You went through massive pain to come out the other side. And I'm assuming because you saw the long-term kind of because of the long-term vision yeah that like as soon as we start this thing we don't want to be stopped by the regulators or be scapegoats in the media or all that type of stuff and so you've taken the hard path with that I'm assuming well it sounds like the very hard path and so you're obviously very committed to this kind of industry from that

38:30point of launching like how did you get traction because because now you've got the license you started the business and now it's a business and now you have to grow the business and so so what were some of the things that you did like in the early days to get that traction yeah so um one of our values is the long game um and it's super important because you're absolutely right. Like it's much more profitable right now in crypto to be short game. The most, the biggest

39:02businesses right now are unregulated offshore. So there's times when it looks like, wow, like I wish we could be doing that a little bit more. But you have to have conviction because those kinds of businesses are limited time only. I think you're already seeing some regulatory enforcement. So I didn't want to start on this adventure for only five years and, you know, make as much money as we can try to not get in trouble and then ride off into the sunset. You know, for better or worse, we were already public figures. So that might work for someone

39:38else who's anonymous. And then they quickly do their thing before regulators wake up, they're gone. That really wasn't a game we could play or were willing to play. So we want to be in this for the long term. And I think our athletic background kind of taught us that you in sport or anything, whether it's an instrument or trying to be a, be excellent at anything, like changes take a long time. And, you know, you improve over years and you think about things in like Olympic cycles of

40:10the next four years, you get your chance again. So like, it's very long-term thinking it's day in, day out grind. Um, so there is no shortcuts in the sport of rowing and most sports, anything that looks like an overnight success has really been like a decade, probably in the making. Um, even Bitcoin, you know, people are waking up and my friend, uh, Max Raskin, he wrote an article about this and he said like, yeah, Bitcoin's overnight success. It's have been a decade in the making. You know, it's, it's, it's super fun right now, but like,

40:45you know, I've been in this and you're, it sounds like you're in crypto, right? Like, you know, we, the winter is cold, you know, it's harsh, right? The crypto winter. And, you know, we had to have the conviction and the fortitude to get through that. So that's just in our DNA, myself and Cameron, we're very sort of committed to, we just believe that the real results take a long time. So how did we get people to join? Well, we blogged about it. We got some press and media. The cool thing about the crypto community,

41:19especially back then, it was like very loyal. People were excited. It was a very underdog mentality. So it wasn't hard to get the industry and community's attention. And it's like I said, like it's not like day one you open your doors and like boom there's a tidal wave um because people got to sign up kyc put their documents link their bank accounts i mean we there were some um there were some blogs who like a day or two in kind of like was like knocked our volume we're

41:53like you can't even like i mean it's it's just hard to sign up that quickly and for people to start putting trade their algorithms up now you can sign up to gemini in under 90 seconds we have mobile app but back then on day one you know you're talking about mvp product and you're asking people to put like millions of dollars i mean you can't even like get millions of dollars in your e-trade account like that you know so um it takes time but like all of a sudden you look back and like look how far we've come and you can say the same thing with the bitcoin industry the quality of

42:26entrepreneurs okay my first bitcoin investment was also bitcoin but also in a company called bit instant and the CEO and founder went to jail he's Bitcoin's first felon um and that was uh that was one of the the the better companies in crypto that and you had Mt. Gox so you can imagine kind of how like if I was horrified by that and I was like in my early 30s and kind of a you know risk taker uh still am what do you think the institutional money thinks of that you know of course you're

42:58going to think this is a joke. They meet these people. They see people going to jail. They see Silk Road. They see that getting busted for jail. So we had to totally change that narrative. And I think Bitcoin has, but like, it's just time, you know, there was no, like, there's no Hollywood fix. Even you see these like diet programs. It's like, we're going to lose weight so quick. Like you got to change your, your lifestyle, your mentality. It comes quick, but it does take time, you know, like anything. And so you launched in 2015 and then, and then there was the massive

43:32run and the whole world was on it. And then all of the social networks and search networks and everywhere, just they banned any talk of it, like any advertising of it and so on. But how did you handle that massive growth between whatever it was, 2016, 17, because the whole world came onto it, right? It was pretty insane. Um, we, we handled it as best we could. I think like many, many companies that were already operational, it was just like, keep your head above water, keep the lights on, try not to drown. Um, there was days when you'd get like

44:06tens of thousands of new users and, you know, things weren't as automated back then. So it was like humans going through licenses and KYC people. That's why like crypto winter, when the price came down and things calmed down, we're like, wow, we get a breather. We can build now. And like, thank goodness. So you have to play your strengths to both sides. Like I have a friend who went through the Navy SEALs and they do all these exercises, right?

44:36In the water, in the sand. And he's like, when I was cold in the water, I was thinking about like how great it would be to run on the beach. And then when I was running on the beach with the boat on my head and putting the logs up, I was thinking how great the water would be. So you kind of have to like play them back and forth and just kind of like, um, be grateful for what you are in, but take advantage. Like there's no time to get better customers than the bull run. People should be coming in during the winter. Um, but they always do the opposite. You know, they see the price action and they come in. Um, so, so it was, it was hard. Like it was just scaling and kind of

45:11keeping systems up versus, um, kind of building new. So the crypto winner, like it sucks a bit because your revenue comes down, you're not making as much money. Um, but you can build a lot of stuff. And there was a point in 2017 where, um, we went from like 50 to 150 in like a month or two, we just threw on a hundred people and very high quality people. We did not lose that or compromise that. But all of a sudden, you know,

45:44we were, we were, myself and Cameron were leading a company of like 15 people became 20, 25, wow, 30 is a lot. And then literally overnight, like 150. We tried to interview everyone to, to, we couldn't, We were in Asia for two weeks promoting a product and we were just blocked. It was going to block, you know, the hiring, you know, pipeline. So we, we just, you know, delegated that.

46:15So we no longer were in every, every hiring, but we literally everyone from the most juniors, the most senior for the first 75, which is great because you sort of set the culture, but now I feel like the culture is so strong and everybody in it knows what it is. They're all stewards and custodians of it. that they, they understand it as well as I do. Um, so it was, um, it was growing pains, you know, it's like being a teenager, you like have this growth spurt and you're like super gawky and you like aren't coordinated and that, so we, we started in a 5,000 square foot office

46:50and then we, um, open up a, we were got some space and we work. And then the, we work became four times bigger than the office. We start like the headquarters. Um, and in the meantime, we looked for a new office that's 50,000 square feet. And we've been in that for a couple of years now. And we have a smaller office in Portland, Oregon, about 30 people. We have an office in Chicago, an office in London, in Singapore, many places where you have to get licensed,

47:22they require you to have some boots on the ground. And people like they're like a head of office in London, head of compliance there, in addition to, you know, the head of compliance in New York. So yeah, we built a global footprint. I it's really cool. Like it's kind of, I mean, it's definitely intimidating to, you know you start a company, right. Leading people like these people really want to follow me. And you kind of get over that, like, I don't know, quickly, hopefully um and then all of a sudden 20 you know 30 the same as 20 and 100 is the same as like

47:59if the company goes becomes a thousand it won't feel different to me at this point um it was really kind of like the first 15 people it was kind of like the founding team yeah um that was new but at some point it's it's kind of like i don't know if you've done public speaking or something when you're in a stage that's so big it's like a spacewalk you can't even see people It's almost like you're, you're talking to yourself versus like, uh, giving a talk in a coffee shop is like really intimate. You can see everyone's eyes and everyone's face.

48:31So, um, you know, the company changes, but it's, it's, it's been wild, but I mean, it's a dream come true. I think that, um, when we got in this journey in 2012, I said, I was going to be sitting here talking to you in 2020. and this is going to be the facts and this is where Gemini is and whatever, I'd be tickled pink. So, you know, very grateful. Yeah, great. Great. And so you're an investor like in crypto itself.

49:02You've created the platform where people can purchase and exchange and trade and all that type of stuff. And so you also got that part of it. But then you also have an investment company called Winklevoss Capital. Is that right? That's right. And what kind of companies are you investing in? So, WinCross Capital predates crypto. And basically, we are most excited with the earliest stage companies, like the entrepreneurs, that are just starting out.

49:36That's super exciting. Find bright people, hear their ideas, and try and be the first money in. um most of them like with a technology focus um doesn't have to be we've actually put some money into consumer packaged good companies and um but like you know pure tech plays pure software plays um and it's it's sort of like um anything that is solving a problem for someone else and i know

50:07that sounds vague but like we started building gemini because we wanted to solve our problem you know, a local problem. We started rowing in high school, but there was actually no team. My next door neighbor was a, was a rower. He went to boarding school. I wanted to try the sport. There was no team, but there was water. So we started it. So that was like our first startup. We said, you know, okay, I'm not going to accept this answer. I'm frustrated by that. I'm going to do something about it. So that's how we got into rowing. We started the team then became Olympians.

50:38that was the early that was kind of how we started with with social networking we wanted a better way to connect with students so we started social network and with Gemini so I think when I see that in other entrepreneurs they've been living with the problem they're frustrated they have a good way to build it you know you could say it's it's about reducing friction it's building a better world, you know, it's, it's all the same thing. It's sort of like, you know, people who have the courage to not accept the world they've inherited and realize that like, Hey, I can actually shape

51:15this, change this and, and the way, the way I want. So that's kind of like the ethos. We've invested a lot of those companies. So this swing bus capital started in 2012. We incorporated in early 2012. We went on vacation to Ibiza. We found Bitcoin. And so we started investing Bitcoin. But many of the companies, it was only Bitcoin. There was no crypto. There was no Ethereum,

51:46no Ether. And so a lot of Winklevoss Capital Investments were into startups that were non-crypto. And over time, we've invested in a lot of startups that are crypto. It's sort of like crypto is becoming like it all it's kind of coming together whereas like venture capital um really wasn't necessarily internet companies and at some point um it became that but before that it was like semiconductors was personal computing um a lot of hardware sort of technology

52:20stuff. And there was no funds dedicated to big tech companies. That was a novel, exotic idea for a fund to focus on that in the nineties. And similar to crypto, there just wasn't that many great entrepreneurs or great stuff being built. So now single boss capital is like, it was like doing non-crypto stuff. We would do, we'd own Bitcoin and we were doing other stuff. And now it has a huge focus on crypto companies as well.

52:51So like Protocol Labs were first money in Protocol Labs, which created Filecoin, which is similar to Ethereum, but it's decentralized storage. So if Ethereum is decentralized computing, think of like Amazon Elastic Computing. Filecoin is like Amazon S3 Buckets, where you just store data. So that is a Winklevoss Capital company. Another company called Flexport, which is helping freight forwarding, basically making it electronifying the idea of moving freight from, let's say, China to the US.

53:29You know, there's there's like fax machines. It's opaque. There's like manuals of like different code. It's like dark age. Right. And so they're making it transparent, tech enabled, and they've been doing great. You know, we were the first money in there. They now are well over a billion dollar valuation type company. I think they recently took around from SoftBank. So and then Founders Fund before that. So it's really fun to to follow that transgression or the progression of of those companies.

54:06but um the interesting thing is like crypto is so liquid um you know you don't have to wait 10 years for the company to ipo you can buy the token and it's liquid today you can trade in and out of it on on gemini so the model of like how a startup raises money um does it raise from a venture capitalist does it do a token sale um it's going to be interesting to see how that plays out Yeah, right. So outside of blockchain, what are some of the biggest trends that you're seeing for the future,

54:40which you're excited about and which you're investing in or looking to invest in? That is a great question. Because I know the whole conversation has been around blockchain so far, but I know you're doing other stuff too, for sure. Yeah, I mean, we are. And this is always when you like sort of blank in the interview. But like there's a lot of interesting infrastructure companies in that are now servicing blockchain. So we use a company called Plaid to help people link their bank accounts, which is I wouldn't consider it a crypto company.

55:12It's not an investment of ours, but like it's infrastructure that we use. I imagine that many other exchanges use as well. There is a company called Taxbit that we invested in that's helping make crypto taxes easier. so gemini is going to probably is going to use them right at some point um we're already integrating with them um companies like coin basic all the other exchanges are going to need to provide this service for their customers and it's probably a service that they themselves just don't want to be get you know they're on the business of that um so there's amazing like

55:47plumbing startups that maybe don't touch crypto but allow the crypto industry to grow And at this point, like the industry is getting so big and my feeling is that it will be so big that we may not have to, we may do most of our investments in it. So in terms of trends, I got to say that like, I really have been thinking only crypto trends. Yeah, I got that from your answer. It's like, well, if it's not blockchain, it's the infrastructure supporting blockchain.

56:20That's not technically blockchain. Can you tell I'm kind of hooked on this? I can tell. So, okay. VR is obviously something that's going to be the future, right? The hard thing to know, though, is like, how do you get on that train? What do I invest in? And is that the kind of game that's going to be won by like the big tech companies like Apple, Facebook? You know, is there an opportunity? Um, AI is a huge trend, you know, there's nothing new there. I'm not

56:52spilling any beans again. How do you get into that? Um, so, you know, and cannabis you mentioned too before, I mean, like, is that something which you are looking at? Okay. That's a great, I'm glad you brought that up. We invested in ease, which is, um, kind of like an Uber, Uber for, for cannabis, right? So you, as an app comes to house. Um, super easy. Um, you kind of know what you're buying. Um, and so ease is cannabis,

57:22but like everybody has a cannabis idea, right? So you can find your way into cannabis, but what's the quality? Is it, is it dispensary? Is it the tech enabled, you know, platform like ease? Um, you know, we went for the software cause that's what we know. Um, but there's, um, you know, Everybody has a cannabis idea. Obviously, cannabis is here to stay. Huge trend. You know, I think psychedelics, right? Psilocybin was a big win in the ballots in 2020. So I think you're going to see the same cannabis trends happening with psychedelics.

58:03I think it's a new sort of a new frontier in a good way. So that's going to be cool to say, see, but like, you know, to be frank, most of our energy has really been got going into building in the last couple of years, especially with Gemini. We recently acquired this platform called Nifty Gateway that allows people to trade, buy, sell, and store digital art and collectibles. so you can program art that's scarce on the blockchain now and so niftygateway.com

58:40we've got a lot of artists to create art for it and we have users we have a great audience that that buys this stuff and we do drops similar to how sneaker culture does a collaboration with an artist like a nike sneaker or something in air jordan with some artists they do a drop people buy them. They wait hours in line to get the special edition shoes. They might wear them. They might put them on their shelf, show their friends. They might just flip it and sell it. So we brought some of that culture to the blockchain. So between building Gemini and

59:15Nifty Gateway and all this stuff, you know, we've definitely been putting our mind there. But investing is really cool because, you know, we meet young people and see new ideas. And that's kind of how we got into Bitcoin. So we kind of always want to keep that muscle going a little bit. So a couple more questions and we're done. What would you do differently if you started over back in 2012? So what were some of the lessons or what would you change or what would you do differently? I would say the most obvious thing is probably get a mobile app out earlier.

59:51Um, you know, one thing I didn't quite appreciate is that a lot of, a lot of Gen Zers, um, or young folks, like that is their laptop. They don't, they don't even have, um, a computer, uh, that is their computer in their hand. Um, so with our experience with that Gox, we, we message that like institutional exchange, it's very important to be the institutional guys. But crypto has really been a retail phenomenon for forever. And so we have definitely moved into, we have a retail story now. We've had an app for a couple of years. It's great.

01:00:33um you know but having that a couple years earlier might have caught the market where it was as opposed to where it was going so in some i'd say like this we almost built a little bit too much to where the puck was headed like the wayne gretzky you know quote where he says like i i i don't skate to where the puck is i skate to where it's going but you want to make sure to you know kind of grab the puck too and bring it with you um so i think that um we might have just

01:01:06started like pure retail more retail first which doesn't mean you have to get rid of the institutional grade technology it's just you have to make it you know user friendly for them so we have an incredible retail story today but i would have um front-loaded that a little bit more yeah sure okay good a couple of quick fire questions and then we'll wrap up with um basically how people can get involved in the Gemini exchange so there's five quick fire questions um number one

01:01:38what book has had the biggest impact on your success oof um that is tough because I think I think of books that each book sort of trains your mental model and it's hard to know which one had the biggest effect. Um, but one that I did love that I think is super, it resonated with me a lot, um, is zero to one by Peter Thiel. Uh, if you really want to understand the art of startups and how and why they work in a lot of it's really counterintuitive. Like I'd be the person who'd be

01:02:13like, Oh, you want to launch like a perfect product. Wait till it gets all right. That's exactly what you don't want to do. You want to launch a product that's almost embarrassing. and or at least you look back on it it's embarrassing and you want to get out there quick and iterate and find the the traction um so this book is like a bible for anyone who wants to understand how um how startups work and peter teal of course is legendary uh you know paypal founder legendary investor um one of a great polymath one of the greatest deepest thinkers

01:02:46from, you know, Silicon Valley. So that's a great starting point. And I would say, you know, I would start with that for sure. Cool. Number two, what's your number one piece of advice for hiring awesome people, which you've obviously had to do with Gemini, a lot of them. Yeah. My dad always said, like, he tries to hire people that are smarter than him. And I've tried to follow that. So always hire people smarter than you that are just brilliant and incredible.

01:03:21I recently read the Netflix book by Reed Hastings and I think Erica Meyer, No Rules Rules. They have this concept of every employee should be stunning, a stunning colleague. Only hire people that are absolutely stunning. um you know i think that never compromise that i'd also say that um higher in terms of three things um i would hire uh your values are the most important part like integrity character right

01:03:53um those are things that are really baked in and hard to change and then um abilities which are sort of raw horsepower, which are also hard to change. And then you have skills. So when you're assessing someone, you have to get the values right. Like, do you know, are they high integrity, high character, trustworthy people, right? That's the most important thing. The second is the abilities, like the raw horsepower. The skills is the least important, the easiest to change.

01:04:27If I get someone with great values, high abilities, I can teach them skills. Gemini will teach them skills. And like experience is like kind of not that helpful or important in crypto because everything's so new. And a lot of times experience is another word of saying like bad habits or bad assumptions. And you're bringing all this baggage and bullshit to Gemini. Like I prefer a clean slate. Give me a person who the clean slate, high integrity, incredible values, and incredible abilities.

01:04:58We'll take care of the rest. So those two mental frameworks, you know, a stunning bar and sort of like values, abilities, skills, I think are really a good way to think about hiring. And then also, you know, yeah, you're going to be like spending more time with these people than, you know, you're sitting up with others. So you better like them, you know. Yeah, I hear you on that one. I hear you on that one. Number three, what's your best time management or productivity tip? That's good. I've been thinking about this recently. I think people make mistake of not chunking things enough. So I recently read this blog that said if you read 30 minutes a day, even if you're a slow reader, they did the math, you will read 50 books a year.

01:05:48That's a lot of books. And if you're a fast reader, you read an hour, I guess that means you read 100 books a year. 10 years, it's 1,000 books. You'd be one of the most well-read people you know and maybe in the world, right? And books are like the ultimate skill because you can learn anything. You can learn how to program, learn how to entrepreneurship, crypto, whatever. so um i think people make the mistake of thinking well i need an hour of free time to read and you

01:06:21have a minute five minutes here 10 minutes here you take the subway you take the cab you're sitting in the doctor's office waiting for your appointment if you have a kindle like you can find 30 minutes a day and all of a sudden you're reading um 50 books a year and most people sort of say oh i gotta wait till I'm on vacation. Then I'll read these books of immunity get to and they procrastinate because they take it too big. And then work calls you when you're on the beach and there's an emergency and then you don't read it. So I think chunking things in really small bits, like you

01:06:55could literally learn a language, learn a new instrument. You could read 50 or a hundred books in a year. If you thought in like five or 10 minute chunks and just found those moments each day, which we all know we have a ton of them as opposed to waiting for like, Oh, I've got the, like this big, an hour. Now I'm going to learn piano in an hour, or now I'm going to learn French or Spanish and just 10 minutes a day or chunks of 10 minutes a day, you get super efficient. So I think that's a really important time management thing that I'm trying to work on,

01:07:31like you know not waiting for too much space and being too perfect but really diving in and constantly like it's all startups like constantly iterating and learning it's on that book side of things i think i read some similar article where it said um instead of opening up your social apps just get the kindle app on your phone and hide your social apps and have that be the first thing that you open and i tried that and in a month i read three books and you know it's hard to maintain it so like i have to go back to it but that's like that's it that's that exact point and i was like

01:08:03oh just open that app not the other one yeah three times 12 right you know 36 books that's like you i mean we all would grow a lot from that yeah and of course pick like um you know pick books that you really like right you know um so i think i think there's there's there's a choice like you you, the only thing we have is time. I love this idea. Like I may, you know, you may think I have Bitcoin, but I only have Bitcoin as much as I have time on this earth. Um, and any possession,

01:08:38every, anything you have or own or done, like it really means you just have time. So we're all investors in time is more precious than Bitcoin. You know, finite, we don't know how much we have. Um, there's not that much of it. So we have to use it wisely. And some people invest it incredibly wisely. They understand the game they're playing and you know, they're, uh, you have folks like Elon Musk, Jeff Bezos. He doesn't have more time than me. It's more time than you,

01:09:09but you know, he's using it and he's finding leverage and he's getting this output and it It doesn't always have to be like, oh, successful company or whatever. You can create tremendous output with learning and growth and reading. Just got to build those leverages. Yeah. Yeah. Cool. Number four, what's the best piece of business advice that you've ever received? Oh, I feel like there's so much. I think, I don't know if I received it or just kind of learned it.

01:09:41Only do business with people that you enjoy kind of thing. Like, um, the same thing with picking co-founder, it's, it's like a marriage, you know, you're going to be wedded to this person for at least a decade. Um, so if there's any question or you're making excuses, like this person's really brilliant, but they're kind of shady or they're kind of a jerk, don't even come close to it, you know, or if it's a partner, um, you're trying to work with someone or a customer or client

01:10:13and they're just, they don't share your values or they're just too difficult. Um, it's just not worth it. You know, you find the people who understand your value that you guys see at eye that there's, you know, that you're in sync on. So, um, if it's too difficult, I find like, even in the hiring process, when you find yourself like hustling too much to pitch the company and the person doesn't get it, like it just wasn't meant to be. and you'll find like incredible people who you don't have to hustle and you know you do your

01:10:49pitch they pitch you and it's a beautiful thing it's like a great relationship both people are engaged no one's chasing they're both chasing each other um you know head over heels like i think i think like forcing it if you want it bad you get it bad kind of thing like so i've i've sort of learn to think, you know, you try and hire someone, you, you, you, you don't get them. And, you know, early on, you're kind of disappointed. Maybe you're like, damn, like, could I have sold

01:11:21it better? But like, it had nothing to do with you or like Gemini or something else. It was this person's, you know, they just weren't done into crypto or they, their wife didn't let them, you know, her husband didn't let them join. Or, you know, they had to pay a certain bill and take a, you know, a job at a hedge fund. Um, so just kind of like being okay with all, like letting it go and realizing that like, good, like I'm happy for them, happy for me. Uh, they're, they're like, it just wasn't the right fit, you know? Um, I don't know. I'm,

01:11:56I'm blabbing a little bit, but I think, um, yeah. Look, I think the point around, um, you want to like the people that you do business with i hear you i couldn't agree more and have people around you that are good and just let things go like don't hold on to them too much you know um if things don't happen they don't happen doesn't mean to not stop taking action but don't be too stuck on it you know like it will happen if you put some good stuff out there and you keep yeah i mean like forward and you're not going to click with everyone you know it's okay

01:12:28yeah um but uh you know when it just fits right and it's like the person is like um and sometimes it's a person you like can't you like a really they are a superstar and it sells so easy and some person who's much less of a superstar more junior and they like you know reject the offer and you're like how does that make sense you know the person who's like the real rock star like was so easy to talk to and they came and the person who's like super junior was asking all

01:13:03these questions and like difficult and they like you know didn't take the offer so yeah like yeah kind of like you you learn these things when you do a startup it's one of the hardest things you ever do but it teaches you so much respect for your time and it's so much about people um those Those are my little tidbits. Number five is the last question. How do you relax after a crazy day in the office or home office, wherever is the office these days? Yeah, the office is everywhere, right? So how do you relax after a crazy day?

01:13:36So two things, like working out is great. It's a great mood alterer for me. You get the endorphins flowing. So either run, get a good sweat on, lift some weights. um anything active is great um i love reading i love films i play the piano i grew up playing piano and i restarted playing at like 35 again i'm 39 so about four years ago i just was like i need something else in my life same by the way when i was 32 i was like i gotta do this again

01:14:07it is something that's not just about achievement i did something just because you know yeah i know it's, it's a sickness. We're all like indoctrinated. It's like achieve, achieve, go, go, go, go, go. Um, at some point you can't, you can't just do that. Um, and then meditation. Um, I've been, um, on and off a meditator for, um, maybe seven years. I learned from this guy, Tom Knowles, a guru. Um, he's based in Arizona, but he travels the world. He's got a website. He's great. Um,

01:14:40it's a mantra based meditation, but I've been in and out of practice, but like, if you're feeling stressed, you've got a headache, you know, you just, your mind's spinning and you've got to go to bed and you've had the longest day and you've got a long day coming up. Um, you know, 20 minutes of meditation is quite a good way to just flush your brain, your mind and wipe it. Um, which is also very good at night. Cause sometimes if you work out too late, right. It keeps you up. It feels so good, but sometimes you want to work out in the morning,

01:15:14it sets your day up, but you don't want to do that kind of activity. So an instrument or a movie, um, or meditation are incredible ways to wind down. I've always found, like I always say, my temple is like a movie theater, not anymore, I guess, because of COVID and lockdowns, but like, in Mad Men, Don Draper would go, you know, work all day, have these ideas. And then you go to the movies, right? And the idea, Eureka idea would come because neurologically, you're just using

01:15:44a different part of your brain. You're creating that space. I find if I go to a great movie and just watch it, I just, it feels like meditative for me. And so, you know, you can do that in your house and stuff. So I think these things that use different parts of your brain, not just work, work, work, business, crypto, crypto. The thing I love about crypto is it's so intellectually stimulating and it does touch so many different things that I don't feel like I'm in one track, right? You've got economic theory, computer science, so many different disciplines that

01:16:20you have to think about and learn that it's like an intellectual feast, but still it's like the context of like Gemini and work and crypto. And it's great to just throw on like a classic movie or read a book and totally switch off. I think that's so important. And it makes you better at business too. Like you get your ideas over there and you come back and forth and it reduces stress and stress. We're all like dying of chronic stress, right? Yeah, right. And now for people who want to get into crypto or that are into crypto already and they want like a better way

01:16:55to trade, to buy. How does Gemini work? So it's pretty simple. You can come to Gemini.com or you can go find our app in the app store on Apple or Android. You download, you open an account, then you connect your bank or your debit card and you can place an order to buy crypto like Bitcoin. So it's similar. If anyone's ever traded stocks, they've opened up an E-Trade account or a Schwab account or an online bank account. It's basically like opening up an online banking

01:17:30account. We asked you to verify who you are. It's pretty quick. We can do it in 90 seconds automatically. You add your credit card or your debit card, link your bank account and click buy for however much you want. So we've got 26 cryptos, Bitcoin, Ether, as we mentioned, Zcash, a bunch of others. We'll be adding more. And right now you can buy, sell, or store your crypto, but we're going to be getting the things like earning, spending,

01:18:03more sort of money verbs is what I like to say. So we're trying to just be this like one-stop shop for you to come and get into crypto. and across the world are there specific countries oh yeah so we're open in every 50 state um we're in the uk europe canada singapore hong kong australia um some parts in south america we actually have areas of uh availability on the website but but we have like pretty big coverage

01:18:36like over 100 countries. So chances are we're open where you live. Yeah, great. And I mean, you hear how excited Tyler is about the crypto space. He's been in it since 2013. He's still in it. I tried to ask him about things outside of crypto and it was all about crypto. But thank you so much for sharing your thoughts, your beliefs, and just your passion and excitement around the whole industry. There's not too many people that can speak about it at the level which you speak about it and just kind of just more at the institutional level as well and less the fly by night people like which everyone kind of hears about, you know.

01:19:16And so I really appreciate the time on the podcast today. And if you're listening and you're into crypto, sign up at Gemini.com. Is that right? Yeah, it's spelled as the astrological sign. So G-E-M-I-N-I.com. Fantastic. Tyler, thank you so much for your time today. Enjoy the piano, the movie, and the meditation. Yeah, thank you so much for having me. This was a really fun conversation. I appreciate it.

01:19:47And thanks for the kind words. Fantastic, Tyler. I'll speak to you soon, man. All right. Bye. Thanks for listening to the Growth Manifesto podcast. If you enjoyed the episode, please give us a five-star rating on iTunes. For more episodes, please visit growthmanifesto.com forward slash podcast. And if you need help driving growth for your company, please get in touch with us at webprofits.io.