Crypto Winter Comes For The Digital Nomads

work remotely and in most cases, from home. But in crypto remote working had already been the norm for some time, with many workers roaming the world all year round and logging in from dreaming locations like the sandy beaches of the Caribbean or the palm line prominence of Miami Beach. When crypto prices were high, these roving crypto workers enjoyed the benefits of being digital nomads, being from country to country in an attempt to leave behind the stress, expense,

and bustle that's often associated with large financial centers. But now that the crypto market isn't quite a sunny many of these nomads have started trickling back to the financial hubs of the world. Today. I'm joined by Bloomberg reporter taz Aktar. It's also like communities have been built all over, like for example, Miami, Estonia, Portugal and Panther Protocol CEO

Oliver Gail. Nothing will substitute for the human experience, So people need to come together to hear more about the crypto nomad lifestyle and why for the time being, he's trying to give it up. Hi, Oliver Taz, thank you for joining me. Hello, So let's start tas. You want to tell us how you know Oliver, how you guys met and how he ended up being in one of our stories. Yeah, sure, so I'm at It's Ali back in Miami in April. So we met as a crypto

dinner hosted by the car Donal founder Charles Hoskinson. Um. Back then we were actually in a bear market as well, right, well, I don't know what crypto was trading out, but we was like, well, into a bear market, like we are now. Um and yeah, so he told me about his exchange called bit, which is headquartered in Barbados, and then we kept in touch by Instagram and here we are. Yeah. It was pretty I guess it was pretty organic. But I think during that dinner we mostly talked about travel,

you know, chasing the sunsets and all. You were showing me pictures of like Barbados and his lifestyle on the road. I was talking about pizza quite a bit. So we both kind of had a similar lifestyle, right, So yeah, so tells what were your reporter? Now? What were you doing in Miami? I was covering the crypto conference, So a lot of my lifestyle involved like just chasing conferences

and just being embedded with the crypto community. Really because you are a crypto Noma too, right for our listeners, like they might not all this, but we have too crypto two former cryptom But I'm I wouldn't say I'm well into the crypti industry, like I don't hold cryptome objective, right, So I was kind of like just getting a feel

of what Miami is about. That's what happens. And actually Surrest was there as well, wasn't he the Miami um mayor mayor sorry the Miami So he was needed an opening note back into you were I mean you were sitting at the right table, you know, as a crypto journalist.

Because you know, when Charles walks, the ground shakes a little bit, all right, So all they tell us about yourself, like where you're from, like and how and very how you ended up here in London again, right, because from Miami to where you were before like, yeah, well, some people say my accident is international and or is it Irish? And definitely not from Ireland and from Barbados and uh I was born in England but grew up in Barbados

from an infant onwards. And my background in crypto really I set up the first Caribbean bitcoin exchange and mining company and then we just had huge problems with correspondent banks and regulators and so we ended up partnering with the Eastern Caribbean government and did the first central buying

digital currency and so that was early days. I was CFO and president and co founder of that company, and then I left and set up a venture studio and began incubating protocols um CEO of one called Panther Protocol now, which is working to make everyone free by restoring privacy and rights to sovereignty. And that company was formed during the pandemic and so we raised all the capital, assembled the team began building the technology all remotely and it

was a joy. But I've been traveling since twenty fourteen, moving countries for businesses. So what is it like the give us a sense that you're like, how long do you stay in one place? Do you know where you're gonna go next? Like how do you pick the places? Is it where there's a conference where the sun is Yeah, definitely. I mean those last two points are really important for me at least that where's the sun shining? Where is there a conference or or business that can be done.

I feel like at this day in time, you can do business remotely quite effectively, and so I can really operate. You know, we operate across almost all time zones as well, because it's not just one company. There's a a UK credit platform, there's a Gibraltar protocol business, there's a Delaware protocol business, there's a Cayman fund, there's the Barbadian Exchange,

and so the team is all over the world. So wherever I am, I'm always in some some pockets time zone and we work an asynchronously a lot so emails and messenger platforms. I think it's also important noting that Oliver's lifestyle is quite common within the crypto industry, so you're gonna find a lot of businesses are decentralized, and there's also like communities that have been built all over like for example Miami, Estonia, Portugal. So I tell us why have you decided to kind of settle down and

white London? And you know, have you seen more cryptonomics moved back to financial centers, Because I guess that's kind of the point of what we wrote, is like there was lots of moving around, but like slowly as the center's reopen, more people are trickling back. Yeah, and people want to see each other in person, you know, so the waiting of in person meetings has gone back up.

In the pandemic, it was perfect. I loved it. Every thirty minutes you have a different meeting with somebody, you really connect with them virtually and you do whatever needs to be done because that's how you have to do it. Whereas now there's a discount on that. It's like, yeah, the virtual conference is great, but you know what's better looking someone in the eyes and shaking their hand. And since we can do it, we want to do it. And so that's my general observation when I look at

London itself. Though um London is a fintech hub. It does have very good tax incentives for things like research and development if you're building software. They have good incentives for investors. European investors are are strong. British investors are strong, not as strong as those in the US in terms of their risk appetite and check size, but uh, what you've got is a huge pool of talent. And from

a lifestyle perspective, to me, London is it. I mean the weather shore is not great, but I don't spend winter here, so it's like I'm you know, getting on a plane any minute now, it's October coming up. I won't be here for October and I never will if I can avoid it, unless I have to come for business. And you asked, like, what's it looked like in the I would say sixteen I was spending six months or so on average in a place. Now it's more like six days, maybe two weeks, and then ago wherever else.

A lot of the time it's just synchronicity. You meet someone or see someone and you do business and they're like, hey, what are you doing next week? You should come so and so and speak or how or have a meeting or hang out and so you do it. So how

how do you do that? I mean, I guess everybody's situation is different, but it seems quite expensive to move from one place to another because someone just invites you to a meeting or a conference and like, so, so, how has that, like the crypto winter affected movement, you think, for you and for the community at larger you seeing more people saying I have to like tone it down.

In the bowl market, these conferences start to resemble a festival, and everybody's quote unquote got it, and they're you know, sailing high. Then the bear market comes around, and just like birds of migrating in winter, all of the transient people disappear again. And in the peak of a bear market, which we might not be in right now, uh like it could go, could go a lot longer than this. Then you start to look around the room and you

see the familiar faces. Ah yeah, yeah, real ogs, that's what that's what they call them in crypto, And so yeah, I mean it is expensive though, however, I've been in crypto a long time, so like there's multiple ways to look at it. One is I'm enjoying my life. The other is the impact that I have where I go exceeds the cost of what I'm doing, how much, you know,

staying in a hotel or wherever. After the break More from Panther Protocol Ceo Oliver Gale about living the crypto nomad lifestyle and the lessons he's learned along the way. All my life, I've always been about my growth. In case you didn't no. Oliver is also a singer songwriter. The music underneath Us right now is Oliver's own song called Sail the Coast. So when you think about your time around the world, what were some of the lessons you learned or things that you think will stay with

you as you remain in one place. Can you still be a nomad at heart, but like sleep in the same bed. Yeah, I think that's a that's a great place to look at it from, really and truly, there's a level of letting go of the plan when you're living a nomadic lifestyle because it's very difficult to plan, and if you do, changing flights and accommodation all the

time will be the inevitable outcome. So I think one of the big things for me is it's pulled me into a sense of sometimes not knowing where I'm going to be tomorrow, Like tomorrow is tomorrow's problem, So let's figure out what Whether it's what meetings I have, where I have to go on my flying you know, I'll figure be told I'm flying tomorrow, but really, like, I don't even make plans anymore. And so there's a beauty to that because it gives you a huge sense of freedom.

I think the other side to that too is I occur in people's lives like an ephemeral figure. Oh wow, Oh my gosh, you're in l a Yeah, oh cool, you live here. No, I'm going to London. Then I'm in London. Oh you're in London. Do you live here? And no? Not right now, I'm going to Barbados. Oh wow, you're backing Barbados. No, good to see you again. So you stay. No, I'm off to Colombia. That's literally the

last that's the two weeks in my life. That's the week that just passed, and it's the next two weeks in front of me. So it's great to form meaningful connections with people, whether they're personal or professional. But that's the challenge and I'm I'm really looking forward to actually grounding myself and building some more permanent community as well.

And for me, big city like London, right next to Europe, different weather to the Caribbeans, so I can basically arbitrage the seasons but as companies scale and the sector matures, you think more people will need to have basis and you'll need to colless around communities are not read it like is there a benefit like, as you said, you know, meeting people and shaking their hand. Do you need that

with your colleagues at one point? Right, because people listening to this will have experience working from home and never seeing their colleagues for two years and maybe they're seeing them now and they're like, WHOA, Yeah, it's actually cool to like chat before work, Like you need that to to scale a company or not? Really, I'm going to say it would definitely depend on the industry. In tech,

I don't think so. I think cultural precedent was redefined during the pandemic, and it's pretty clear that if you have the right communication tools, project management tools, and accountable team you really need. You need a team of people that do what they say they will do when they say they'll do it. Otherwise distributed teams, remote teams don't work.

So my experience of building teams of this nature is one bad apple can spoil the whole bunch because it's like a bad communication note in your network of people. They've got to go. You've got to find the right people. A tech facilitates that because it's non physical. That being said, nothing will substitute for the human experience. So people need to come together. I think working spaces are important. Workshops and team bonding sessions are important and also very difficult

to coordinate. I've been trying to do it with Panther for like four months now, just to get people together, have some fun together. You know, it brings you together around the mission division of your company, so I would I'm not discounting it. And then as well, it depends on your position, So if you're the deal maker or responsible for bringing in capital one way or the other, nothing's gonna be sitting down with someone and spending particularly

if you do everything but talk about business. That's really helpful. Thank you, Oliver, Thank you tas. You can find more of tas aktars reporting on the Bloomberg Terminal, on Bloomberg

dot com and on Twitter at tansil Underscore Actar. That's at t A n Z E L Underscore A K H T A R. I'm Alera in today for Stacy Mary Ishmael on the next episode of Bloomberg Crypto Adam Newman, known for founding we Work and popularizing the idea of coworking spaces, as well as for extravagance in ex centric behavior, is back, and this time there's a crypto angle. This is Bloomberg Crypto, a daily podcast from Bloomberg and I

Heeart Radio. For more shows from I Heart Radio, visit the iHeart Radio app, Apple plug Casts, or wherever you get your podcasts. Send us your comments, questions, or suggestions for the show to Crypto at Bloomberg dot net or find us on Twitter. We're at Crypto. The supervising producer of Bloomberg Crypto is Vicky Verglina. Our senior producer is Janet Babin. Our producer is Mohammed Farruk. Associate producer is Moses on m Desta wonder At is our engineer. Original

music by Leo Sidrin. I'm Stacy Marie Schmaal. We'll be back tomorrow.