Hurdles For U.S. Investors

Ziliac Law. And she is a an attorney and she's a professor. She works in antitrust, financial services, money laundering, things like that, and we have a really interesting conversation. We get into what's going on with the regulations with finance shutting down to US customers, bit tricks and Poloniac shutting off certain assets to US customers, What that means

for the US, what that means for the world. We also get into further discuss stions on regulations, talking about the US and China trade wars, what's going on with that, how that could be proxy for other wars, and again what that means for US and Chinese investors moving forward. This is a very important conversation helps us to understand what is happening now, but also what's happened in the future, and as an investor, you need to be paying attention.

So let's jump right into this. All right, Welcome everybody to the Market Disruptors Podcast. Today we are joined by Alta Andoni with Ziliak Law. She is a an attorney that focuses on financial services, money laundering, antitrust, and blockchain technology stuff. She's also a professor at the Chicago Kent College of Law, and so she's got this really unique perspective on a bunch of different topics. There's so much stuff we could talk about today. We'll try and keep

it short for you guys. But anyway, Alta, welcome to the show. Thank you so much Mark for having me here today. Yeah, awesome, I'm super excited about this. So um so, so just kind of set this up. I I kind of announced who you were, but why don't you tell us a little bit about your background and how you got involved into the crypto space and what you're doing. Of course, of course I'd love to do that.

And uh so you mentioned that I'm an attorney. I'm an attorney by training, as I always say, and I'm also a professor and a junct professor of Chicago can and professor for School of American Law at Chicago Ken where a lecture on anti dress law, International business trans sections,

comparative Law. I do travel around the world because we have all our branches around the world, and I love to do this and UH UH meeting all the international students and then they come back to Chicago, Kent and UH finalize their studies in the LM in that specific

UH law area that they're going to graduate. I also right now I am the head of blockchain practice at Zelia Law, where I helped my client and kind of brows this very into interesting industry and help them with different areas on UH compliance with our securities law and UH ky C and mL etcetera. I loved to work in this space because I find it very interesting and the way how I got involved we all have that

rabbit hole, as we UH call it. UH myself was mostly on academic side because I love to research, and

obviously I heard about bitcoin very early. But then when I when I read the Bitcoin paper, I was a little bit skeptical about how much I mean, this virtual currency can UH can achieve, you know, But then in two thousand and seventeen, I lectured in China, and it was quite interesting that when I was going out with my students for lunches or dinners, like, I could hear like everybody talk about bitcoin, and especially these old couples, and I was like, since everyone is so excited about becoing,

definitely I have to explore this further because it looks like something big is coming up for the more. In Chicago, cant we have like different conferences on fintech and we have like some great speakers coming each year. So that was another area that kind of pushed me to explore this industry a little bit further and to kind of combine my previous experience in intellectual property and financial market compliance together. And uh, that's why right now I'm talking

UM mostly concentrated and focusing more on crypto and blockchain technology. Great, that's that's that's awesome. I'm curious you said when you first UM read the white paper you were skeptical. Now, were you skeptical of the technology or were you skeptical of again mass adoption or were you skeptical of if if regulated regulators whatever allow it to grow? What were your skeptical. I was more and that is a great question. Actually I was more scraped skeptical about the mass adoption.

And it's not that I want to state that I was right, but even right now we don't have like a mass adoption when it comes to crypto. So I was like, and I tried to explain this, uh to several people, like even in my own family, like my husband.

He's a technology guy, and he was in the moment that I explained to him, he was not a big believer, and and and and not only him, but you know, crypto is quite an interesting concept for people, but you really have to understand the technology behind it, and you really have to understand how functions and what are like some uh, some characteristics that really make this kind of

stand out. Well yes and no though, right, So, like I think with any new technology, g first of all, we have to realize it takes time and you have to be patient in the beginning. The true believers they want to know that. But um, you know, if you look at the Internet, it it took you know, from the darker days, you know, thirty years before it rich

reached adoption. And um, you're not anyone that was going to use the um, the Internet was like, hey, you can send an email, but you don't have to explain how the computer digitizes that packet and plugs into an Internet and sends the packets over a thing, and then

the computer opens those packets and puts it back. It like, you don't explain that, And so I think that's where people get hung up with the blockchain is like, oh, let me explain how blockchain works and the different like nobody cares, I mean, not not the not the mass adoption, right, they just want to notice it works. I agree, But how many people do we have right now that they

don't know how to use the Internet about? Well, I mean we'll never get to a percent Like when you look at technology cycles, I mean to get like se adoption is pretty good, Um we have that? Do we have that for the Internet right now? I mean, I'm not trying to argue, but I do know that even for I mean, this is always the counter argument that it's kind of brought up for blockchain technology, and I don't think that. I mean, obviously we have a much

more mass adoption for the Internet. But it's just interesting Internet to see that so many people still don't know what to use the internet out there, so obviously our time when it comes to the crypto and the blockchain, I say, it takes a couple of generations, you know, like I still have, Like you know, obviously there's still

some grandmothers out there that don't use the Internet. But then the kids, the grand kids today will never know anything other than that, and so it kind of takes a couple of generations sometimes to see a full adoption shift. But anyway, that's a that's a great story that you have and interesting how you were skeptical of that at first. Um, now I know you have like this, uh, you know this this kind of specialty and financial services and and

uh and and and whatnot. We were originally talking about the big news that had happened a week ago. Now it's kind of being with finance, and now it's kind of being overshadowed a little bit by the news that broke yesterday about Facebook. But I'm sticking to finance. Um, they made a really big news now they're than like the largest exchange in the world by volume, and they've basically decided to get rid of US customers. What do

you think about that? Obviously, that was big news, even though I I think like this week Facebook Face, Facebook news was kind of bigger than finance. I love to talk a little bit more about finance, and personally, I was not surprised about this move from Vinance, And obviously Finance was not the very first exchange kind of moving with this restrictions on market availability because I think, uh, and I hope the listeners recall that actually was bit

fin x uh. If I recall correctly, it was bitwin x that began kind of distancing itself from the New York users in two thousand seventeen, and they also bear the New York customers and then US individual customers. I think this was back into August of two thousand seventeen, and then they kind of blocked or escalated this to banning all US entities in August of two thousand eighteen. So we have seen some signs out there, and I'm

not surprised by the Finance moves. Something that surprises me is that, Okay, I think it was on John on June one when they announced that their users, uh, they're going to start this geo blocking policy to twenty nine countries. Uh. And then they're starting I think July one, if I'm not mistaken, But then on September twelve, they're claiming that

they're not going to accept any US users anymore. But if you read like that kinda uh uh mmmm announcement very carefully, they state that they're going to have apparently Finance America is going to be launched at the same time. So in my opinion, this was quite a very well talked uh strategy or movement on their side. And and

then previously will So had bit recks. I think bit Recks was like last Friday, if I'm not mistaken, and it was like very late Friday, which is interesting, like how can you advertise this market availability or changes in your market market availability like on a very late Friday night, because they I don't know if you saw that week that they stated that they are following the same move that I mean by Polly Necks, and Polly Necks decided

to block like trading for US customers on nine cryptoccurrencies or so, so we have seen like so many of this. It's something interesting was even I was not aware of tax Exchange, are you like? That was interesting? Like tax Exchange they terminated their operation completely on July six. I mean obviously because of this regulatory uh kind of which exchange tax? No, yeah, no, I just to catch everybody up if you're if you haven't been paying attention to

the news. UM. Like I said, Finance, the largest exchange in the world, has decided to get US users off. But the previous largest exchanges, which at least in the U S were bit Trax and Poloniacs, which used to be major players in the space before Finance came up and their US based And what they decided at the same time as as alto same, is that they decided to what they call geo fence or basically make certain assets on their exchange UM not tradeable by US residents.

So the so the assets are still there and they're still tradeable by people outside the US, but people inside the US aren't able to trade those certain assets UM. And then Binance, which is not a US company, just decided to kick all US users off, similar to what bit fin X has done. Now it's kind of different. Do you have any thoughts onto why Binance wouldn't have just um restricted access to certain assets by US A residents similar to Bittricks or poloni X versus just kicking

everybody off and trying to start a completely different UM exchange. Uh. I think that that's a great question mark I but I think that uh Binance is kind of concentrated, mostly especially lately, and kind of setting this industry standard. And why am I saying that? I I mean, obviously I follow CZ and I think that despite whatever other things him, I think of finance, I think that he's a hard worker, he's a smart guy, he's a visionary in this space.

But I did see a very interesting tweet from him, UH that he mentioned that, UH, first of all, if you are going to consider UM, I think someone kind of asked him the question like why did you do this? Like why did you uh kind of stand up? Why didn't you not stand up to the US regulators? And what's interesting because he mentioned that you have to read the book The Starfish and the Spider, and I don't know.

And I kind of search that a little bit more and I found out that he's pretty much referring to this analogy that or he's contrasting this to the decentralized companies and how decentralized companies kind of can change this ace. UH. The spider and the starfish analogy re first pretty much

to the contrasting biological nature of this respective organism. You know, so starfish having this decentralized neural structure and kind of permitting this regeneration and so pretty much if you cut uh if you cut off a spider's head, it dies, but then if you cut off the starfish, legs grows, you know what I mean. So use kind of very interesting analogy in his perspective. So I kind of like that, and I like to see these exchanges to be a little bit more compliant in this space, and I'm very

happy to see that, especially from violence. And the other thing is that, uh, not only they're concentrating most mostly on this compliance in this space. But at the same time, I hope that we're not going to have this feedback like we got with nance. And what do I mean by that, Like always we have like two camps in this industry, and one or the first camp is, hey, has this industry industry being sufficiently self regulated or actually do we need a little bit more regulation, And of course,

like that's a very good question. But at the same time, what sort of regulation or what sort of regulatory certainty are these exchanges looking for Yeah, I'm just curious though, like what that regulate regulation is? Right, So, um, what we've seen again back to Batricks and Polonis, they've restricted assets certain assets to US residents. But the list, the

list seems to be different across exchanges. So coin base seems to have like their own list that they think um of coins that are that are good Polonia x Batricks, they seem to work off of different lists. Is that is that true? And if so, why is that? I think that's true. And I think that each and every one of these exchanges, obviously they have their own legal councils and this is not legal advice, but of course that they get like different uh legal advice from their councils.

I mean, some of them are very conservative and some of them know and I'm not saying that they know the space much better than the other ones, but this is one of those industries that you really have to

keep up to date. And UH, if we're going back and to the reasons why these exchanges are doing this, like, definitely there's some strong reasons because we have seen a lot of more actions from our regulatory agencies, from our UH regulatory bodies, like we had the statement on Framework for Investment UH contract Analysis back in April of I mean April of this year, we had UH. Furthermore and more, as I said, like actions enforcement actions from the SEC again,

US Air Force, Baragon and other companies. We right now we have the Financial Action Task Form and furthermore, I don't know if our listeners are much aware of this, but we had a recent guidance also from our US Treasury Department, and I think lately they stated that it takes I mean, they're taking this broader view when it comes to their authority to regulation or to crypto businesses, and definitely they're trying to bring a little bit more

civil uh civil actions and including anti money laundering actions because prosecutors obviously they're proceeding with their criminal cases in this space. So I think like we are kind of tightening up our compliance and our regulatory space right now.

So that's why I think that these exchanges are feeling the need to kind of be a little bit more compliant, not a little bit more compliant, but kind of to understand exactly that if they want to be compliant in the United States, they really have to make sure that they follow all the needed steps and comply with our

regulatory boddies or agency. And the problem is, as you're saying, I guess, is that because there's no clear guidance, that's why we're seeing a discrepancy in the coins or the assets of projects that are being geo fence or blocking US residents. Um so, I guess right, that's what you're saying. So there's lack of guidance or lack of clarity, and that's why some exchanges have some assets and some exchanges

have other assets. I agree on that, but we're not going to have that clear guidance and we have judicial decision or a little bit more of a formal SEC rulemaking decision, right so for now obviously or expecting what's gonna happen with SEC big kick, but right now we don't have a little bit more guidance, uh as we

call it from a precedent. However, I mean, I like the involvement of all the players in this in this industry, and I like the fact that the SEC especially is welcoming all this feedback from all the participants in this space. And I think we all should appreciate that. I mean, in every single event that one of the representative SEC representatives is there, you do see that they do have the intention to to help the people understand and how to be complied in the space, and furthermore to invite

them in this dialogue. So I think that is very important for all of us. Okay, good, UM, So let's talk about what this means for the average person and why they should even care about this news. So obviously, if you're in the US, you're affected because now you're being blocked out of certain things. I guess as an investor, there's just because you're blocked out of Finance, which is

the largest exchange in the world. Um, A lot of those assets you can still find on other exchanges to buy are exchange for I suppose I think the ones that are really affected by this the most are the traders. And although I'm a holdler and I think people should be investing for the long term, most of the market is driven by speculation at this point. That's a new technology cycles work, and so the traders are really going to suffer because there's no liquidity on these other exchanges.

It's on bit tricks. So what do you think that means? I guess in the short term or maybe even the long term to US residents, are they just gonna be missing out on this or do you think something's gonna open up for them in the near future. I'm a big believer and I'm not going to comment much of this, but I think something is going to happen to open up for them in the future. Uh. I mean, that's my opinion that maybe I'm being awfully optimistic right now.

Mm hmm, yeah, yeah, hopefully, hopefully things find a way. Now. You had mentioned earlier with with c Z talking about the starfish and the spider, and really you're kind of referring to decentralized systems, and so then that kind of

we're talking about exchanges. So of course that leads to decentralized exchanges, which for years I've believed and stated that I believe it's the most important piece of the entire ecosystem because Bitcoin and other cryptocurrencies are designed to be peer to peer, non custodio, non uh you know, without counterparty risk, etcetera. And going to a centralized exchange basically kills the whole thing. So I believe decentralized exchanges are

a big thing. Although they haven't really taken off because of poor U I U X, poor liquid y, whatever. But what do you see being in the future. I mean, obviously, as you said, CZ talked about it, they are launching their own descent realized exchange, but that essentralized exchange is still basically a centralized exchange because they're still controlling access like US residents can't um access that. So what do you think czs comments and what do you think about

decentralized exchanges kind of moving forward? Uh, that is another great question. And I'm going to go back to the analogy that CZ used in history because, as I said, I kind of this was an audiobook, Uh, the star Fish and the Spider, And it's interesting that they mentioned there. I don't know if you're aware of the MGM when they were trying to crack down on the peer to peer music website roxter and uh, and then I think they want those lawsuits. And then other groups I think

was KASA and eMule kind of got uh. They they surfaced out of this whole movement. So my point is that I think that he's trying to rely mostly on the smaller organization that are more like starfish and if their limb is kind of uh severed, I mean it to me, it looks like he's rely mostly on decentralized decentralization.

But the problem that I have with that is that right now, even in the United States, when we go back to the test of being sufficiently decentralized, I don't think we're coming up with the right definition what is

sufficiently decentralized. When does that sufficiently decentralized happen? You know, and unless we have and this is not only a guidance from the SEC or from our regulators, but I think that it's very important for some definitions in this space to have a little bit more meaning from all for all the participants. Even when it comes to the cryptocurrency,

what is cryptocurrency? Well, I think I think we have a perfect example of what is decentralized right now today, right with with Facebook Libra start announcing that they're launching their coin, and within the same day you have governments all around the world saying, no, you're not stop that. Right, Um, nobody's gonna tell Bitcoin to stop that because there's no one to tell. Who are they going to tell? Right?

I think that's a perfect illustration of what is decentralized and so, uh, when I talk about a decentralized exchange, I mean I would think about it in the same way, which is, uh, is there somebody that can be squeezed or leaned on to stop it? Or is it decentralized enough that it can run on its own? But do we have that right now? Uh? Not in a good way. I think we need it, and that's what I'm saying. I think we need it, And it seemed like that's

maybe what CZ was referring to. I didn't hear his comment or have I read the book, but um, I know, like I said, they they're coming out with a decentralized exchange. But what's decentralized about it? If it's still centrally controlled, I'm still facing counterparty risk. Um, it can still be leaned and squeezed, etcetera. I guess maybe you know. So anyway, I think there's this future where we do have that. But I guess what's your perspective on that based off of regulators and k y C, A m L and

what regulators want to do to squeeze these things? I mean, do you see a future where we have a truly decentralized exchange. I personally don't see that. I mean I would hope that, uh, we'll have a little bit more uh not only forcement actions, but the more we see as far as definitions, I think that's going to be more helpful to us. But I don't think that's going

to happen anytime in the near future. So maybe I'm a little bit pessimistic on that, but it would be very nice for this industry to kind of have something very straightforward, especially covering this decentralization concept. Typically like to talk about facts, but I want to dig into this

a little bit of opinion here, just because I'm curious. Um. So obviously all these regulations go into you know, control and and uh tracking and uh obviously they use k y C A m l A m l ANTI money laundering, right, and and everyone's so concerned about money laundering because of terrorism. But it really has only been about the last maybe thirty years that they've been able to really track this.

I mean, we were in a cash world. You know, we've seen time and time again, whether that be you know, under under the Obama um, under the Obama campaign, you know, sending hundreds of millions of dollars to Iran and cash on an airplane or whatever. I mean that that's terrorism. And we've seen the banks being fined for billions of

billions dollars transactions. UM. Do you do you think this is a fight that uh is necessary or is it more just like is it is it really a active in fighting terrorism and doing what they wanted to do or is it really just about control? I think it's very I mean, definitely it's very important to fight terrorism, but I just kind of reliable before on both like

even to kind of establish that control. UH. And this is more of a political approach, I would say, more than ah, you know, compliance or regulatory approach and U. But it's it's it's interesting to see how this is going to move on forward. Yeah, I mean it really then. You know the thing with the thing with bitcoin that's

so interesting is it's just it's multidisciplinary. And you, being a professor, I'm sure you get it more than most, but you, I mean, you have to understand technology, you have to understand money, you have to understand banking, you have unerstand economics, you have to understand philosophy, right, you have to understand human incentives. You have to understand all these things to really get it, which is why I'm super fascinated by it. Um, And so yeah, always, and

I'm sorry for interrupting it. Like doesn't every like when I talk about especially the bitgoing white paper and then the books, and I mean, I'm sure you're very much aware of Silk Road and stil Crowd did so. The majority of the people, in my opinion, who get involved in this space or who just starts, who just start getting involved in this space. I think that's especially for myself, Like that's the very first question that I get from these people that hey, but Silk Road, what was the purpose?

Like what were they doing? And why are you in this industry so to speak? And it's interesting to do, I mean, to get that sort of feedback. Well, then you start, I mean, yeah, then you start getting into philosophy, and then you start getting into politics of course, right, so we can get into those who I don't want

to dive too deep into those rabbit holes. But overall, um, you know, I I just kind of with big when you lean towards Austrian economics, free markets, and then that leads more like free free politics, and then more like libertarian views, and like if I'm not hurting you, then

what's what and then what's the difference. And you know, obviously a lot of people, including myself, have a problem with anybody, especially the state, telling me what I can put in my body or what I can't put in my body, forcing me to put stuff in my body, or making illegal for me not to put like that's

that's my body, Like who are you like? So? And and we can look at every war the government has led, whether that be the war on poverty, the war hunt terrorism, the war on drugs, They've all failed, and they've all made problems worse. And that's a whole another topic or discussion. Uh. And so maybe I shouldn't even open I shouldn't even open that door, maybe because that's not what we're really talking about. But it leads to that, just because we're

talking about regulations. And and I've seen, you know, I've seen comments from like Christine le Guard or you know, people from the I m F and the B I S and and I quoted her on a Twitter post and it was her quote and I don't know it exactly, but basically she said, we must stop innovation because it threatens our stability. And I'm just like, wait, what, like, did she just say that? And yes she did. And that's what these regulators want to do is stop innovation.

That was her quote. Um, and I just I just I don't like that. I don't like seeing regular regulations being used, uh, you know, to entrenched positions by you know, legacy legacy systems or whatever. Right, we need to innovate, we need to create more freedom, create more prosperity, create more equality. And uh So anyway, that's where I started. All of a sudden, it goes to that philosophy political debate about regulations. Um are they Are they doing more

harm than good? Uh? You know, so to speak, And I agree with you. But at the same time, I feel like Europe has completely different approach to our innovation. And I'm not saying that they're supporting innovation less or more, but I think here in the United States, even though we have more conservative regulatory kind of framework and compliance, I think that our regulators at least they're not stating that like they're trying to understand you have haster beers.

Like every time she's been so much supportive of this, so she's amazing and I love every time, Like, uh, it's not only her arguments, but if you hear to UH, if you listen to her speeches, especially recently, like you understand that our regulators at least they're trying to understand not only the technology, which I'm sure like by now they have a better understanding, but at the same time they're trying to help us all navigate this industry. And

I really appreciate that. And I think that Europe has a completely different approach. And I do see that since I lecture a lot in Europe and I left her into a dress law so and re dress law in US is competition law in Europe. So definitely I can see exactly those different approaches or their or those point

of views from where these regulators are coming from. And you can see that even the way how they approach our biggest companies, like you know, the actions And I don't want to go into it, Peters, because then I'm going to talk one more hour here, but I'm sure you're very much aware of the actions against Google and

why they did that. And at the same time, I'm a big believer that, I mean, even though these companies are growing and growing, but that I mean, they're providing some very great benefits for our customers, for for I mean for for you and myself, and I think that is very important. So uh, it's I think that the perspective if that or the way how they analyze the strategies and this industry is, especially when it comes to innovation,

is quite different. I agree, that's some good stuff. I want to talk about where this then keeps leading us if we keep wanting to keep diving into the rabbit hole. And so, um, I know you've talked a lot about, uh, about some of these trade wars that are going on and where we are with uh, you know, the US

versus China, et cetera. And it gets out of it gets out of crypto a little bit, but it doesn't because you know, crypto is about the financial system and so the trade wars are obviously a big piece of that. And so I know you've written extensively about that. Maybe just give us a high level, uh kind of overview of what what you see going on, what you've been talking about there, of course, and I would love to cover this since the G twenty is coming the G

twenty meetings is coming up. Next week. So obviously for our listeners, I'm sure they're very much or that President Trump decided to meet with the China president. But I think it's going to be uh somewhat beneficial for our listeners if I just mentioned a little bit or I talk a little bit about the timeline in the US China trade word, because there are some very important dates that I think kind of emphasize what's going on or what's happening right now. Uh? Is that okay? If I

just walk our listeners through this timeline? Yeah? Please? So? Uh, I mean, I think it started back in two thousand and seventeen, if I'm not mistaken, when our United States Trade representative they are did this uh investigation into the unfair Chinese trade practices. Of course they were pursuing to our Section three zero one of the Trade Act of

nineties seven four. Then on March of two thousand and eighteen, we had this big report from the United States Trade Representatives stating all this umpaire practices, and that was the reason why on July two thousand and eighteen, we had United States imposing the tariffs on thirty billion of Chinese imports. So that was kind of sort of the first movement, and after the United States imposed those stairs on this

thirty billion of Chinese imports. Then I think that it was back on August two thousand and eighteen that Chinese kind of retaliated with darifs on the sixteen billion of so of US imports. So this was like a back and forth and back and forth retaliation strategy. And then of September of two thousand and eighteen, again United States imposed these arifs on I think two hundred and bill enough Chinese imports. So obviously you can see the impact that this are going to have, I mean, in between

both countries. But I think recently, especially this week, I hope that our listeners, I mean um are very much aware of the China US radewar because there's been so much happening, and especially the companies, the big companies in the United States, they started filing this uh I think yesterday was the HP, Intel and Microsoft and they joined

this movement to oppose the tramp tariffs. And this was for laptop computers, this was for tablets because these are going to be among those three hundred and billion tariffs in Chinese goods. And then we had another filing from

the book publishers. I think I saw this yesterday. I think their claiming that they're imploring the President Trumps to not impose the Bible tax, they call that the Bible tax, because this proposed tariff is going to impact also the China, I mean Chinese goods, and is going to include the printed materials in this Chinese good My point is that I am very much optimistic at least about the fact that uh, this administration is considering the hearing there his

hearing ceremony for our listeners if they want to know a little bit more about that, and I think it started, it's going through June twenty five, So for people that want to comment on that, I think there must be link and the impact that this is going to have in our uh us UH economy, I think that, I mean, definitely we see a little bit of impact, but I think in that probably China and I was going to

see a bit more impact. And from my inside sources there, uh they mentioned that there is sort of this uncertainty in the space, and obviously you have many of major manufacturers kind of moving out of China because of this China tradewark policy. But I hope that during this G twenty meet, hopefully are a president and the Chinese president are going to be able to work this out. Why do you think the average person or I should say not the average person, but why does the investor care? Why? Why?

Why would why has an investor do I need to be paying attention to this? And what am I looking the investor war in the United States or in China? Well, I guess either. I mean I invest in both, and I'm in the United States, but I invest in the China as well. But why do I care about this?

If you I mean, if you're an investor in China, obviously you're going to feel this because obviously, I mean, the prices, the manufacturing prices are going to be higher, and no wonder especially I heard that a lot of Japanese,

many manufacturers, they're moving their plans outside China. So even though I mean that might be a little bit impacted from different other political reasons, because I think that Japanese they always have this sort of law for United States for President Trump, and I don't want to go into politics, but I mean definitely, I mean, right now we can see exactly what president did a President Trump did in relation to North Korea and how I mean he's handling

this whole trade war with China. My point is that definitely that is going to impact you as an investor because because it's going to go back to the pricing and it's going to be back to I mean to two years, it's gonna go back to profit. So the prices go up, companies become less profitable, they missed their earnings reports, and the stock tumbles down. We've already seen that in the United States when this really was heating up a month or two ago, we saw the stocks

take a tumble. Um. So that's that's that's something that as an investor you should be paying attention to just because it really can affect the profitability, which in effects the share price and etcetera. Thinking addition, if you're invested into China, UM and jobs and factories are moving out of China, that's definitely something that you should be aware

of as well. Um. I'm curious, and again I guess maybe getting into some more opinion, but um, have you been seeing how China, Russia and Iran have been trading oil outside of the US dollar. Yes, I've seen that. Yeah, So I'm curious, um, if you want to, if you want to jump on this grenade. But you know, the US, the US dollar obviously right there, what's that you just

warned me right there? Yeah, so that you know, the US dollar uses it's its power as a world reserve currency to to issue sanctions across countries, right, that's our big power. We saw Rep. Sherman in California actually state this is a problem with bitcoin is it takes away the power to slap sanctions um. And and because of those sanctions against countries like Iran, Russia, China have said yeah, we'll just do stuff outside the US dollar. Then, Um, the U s has a history of trying to protect

the dollars um reserve status. I'm just curious. Do you think some of these trade wars could be like maybe proxy wars for the real currency wars? I think so. I think so. I mean maybe I should say unfortunately, but yeah, I do see that's happening because I mean, the US has a history of having wars with countries um.

And many people and I'm not stating this as fact, but many people have brought up the um the point that a lot of these countries we go in and invade our countries that are not on you know, the

US dollar banking system, etcetera. UM, and China is not really a country you want to go to war with, but these are like proxy wars maybe, I mean they're off obviously financial, so that's interesting and but I don't think that's going to be beneficial to any of the countries, honestly, And as I said, that's why I hope that uh.

And I'm curious actually just to go back, I think today the governor governor of Bank Or Japan, I don't recall his name, but I think he was supposed to hold this news conference today where he was expected to

give some analysis on the US China trade war. And I was very curious to hear a little bit more about that because I mean, definitely we don't want this to have a through a strong impact, but probably if I were to kind of guests the impact of US China trade war, I see that having a stronger impact,

especially on the world economic growth for next year. I mean, maybe we don't feel that right away, but and I'm not one of those economic analysts, but I do a lot of researches, and I get academic obviously, and that's why I think probably that is one of the going to be one of the strongest impacts of this China US war, especially when it comes to the investment in China and the decline the consumer spending growth in the United States and in China as well. So that would

be interesting to see. Now let's try and uh, let's try and future cast this a little bit. UM. You know, I I think, like I said before, you watch those movies where they go back in time and they change one little thing and then they go back to the future and the whole future is different, and we can so we can understand. They call it like the butterfly effects. So we if we can look at things that are happening today and we can kind of maybe go, wow, look what this is going to do in the future.

And so UM a couple of things that I'm focusing on. And really because we're both in the United States, maybe more US centered or focused, But if we look at like what's going on in the US right now with regulations UM, not only our US companies moving out of the US because of the blockchain regulations, but then we have UM companies that are in the U s still like Bittram pull up and Pologna exer saying the US people can't be in this and then buy aance, just

shutting people off all together, like like bit f ex, etcetera. Um, what do you think that means for the future? I mean, so it looks like to me the US is not only moving companies out of the US, but also prohibiting US people from taking advantage of this. Do you see that happening? And do you think that is going to continue get better or get worse. I hope that that is going to continue to get better. And I would

like to argue a little bit with you here. Don't argue, but you can go ahead and see your que I mean, I disagree that the companies are moving out just to be compliant in other countries. First of all, I think that, uh, if you want to be compliant in the United States, you do have pretty much everything when it comes to the I mean, these companies then know exactly what they're supposed to do to be compliant in the United States.

Of course, we need a little bit more guidance. Of course, this is still a little bit of a murky area when it comes to our regulatory space, but we do support innovation, and I kind of dislike to see when everybody states that, hey, all these companies are moving out

of United States. And to be honest with you, when I saw this tweets or this UH kind of announcements about GEO blocking US customers, I kind of feel bad because and I think I tweeted about this, and I think I said that it kind of makes us like look like delinquents, you know. And it's interesting because right now we are dealing with this global industry and we have all these US customers, we all these US investors being so much interested in this industry and then being

denied access to the exchange platforms. I don't think that's fair. I mean, for the exchange platforms is important for them to understand how to be compliant and how to also include UH, I mean US customers in in in this space and hopefully that it's going to change soon. So then you think that the problem isn't really that bad. I mean, the fact that US customers have been kicked off the largest exchange and being blocked out of other

exchanges isn't isn't really that bad? But actually ask customers, but I don't think that's fair, right, right, Yeah, I don't think it's fair at all. And um, that's where I start to think about a future in ten years or fifteen years. I think back, like you know, the the internet technology, um over the last twenty years, it's really propelled the US forward, right, I mean, we the US has Google, Facebook, Amazon, et cetera, Netflix, and the

fame stocks. And if you look at the stock market and you take out the tech stocks, right, we're at all time highs in the stock market, but if you take out the tech stocks, the stock market is flat. And so if we didn't have that boom here, the last twenty years would have looked very different. And so then just imagine ten years or twenty years from now if we don't have this next boom and and or maybe it and it happens, but US people just can't can't be involved in it. So anyway, that's my fear.

I just hope that's not going to happen. I don't want to sound overly optimistic, but I just hope that that's not going to happen. And I mean also just looking at the bright side, I mean, the fact that finance is coming back in September or so back to United States with a complainant I mean complaint platform. To me,

that is quite telling. I mean, obviously the majority of their users were from the United States, despite the fact that's easy, you didn't want to admit that and saying that, hey, we do not allow us I mean US users in our platform orm and as I said, this was back last year. But my I mean, they obviously know that majority of their business was coming from United States as yeah, yeah, good point. And I don't want to be overly pestimistic either.

I mean, I believe in the space, and I believe in the technology, and I believe in human ingenuity, and uh you know, I think that will always find a way. And so we lose finance, um people have to be are forced to move back to US exchanges and liquidity comes back and the market survives. My only fear is is that these regulators continue to uh be to draconian. Hopefully it doesn't happen, and I'm optimistic that it won't. I was just curious on your views on I hope

that's not gonna happen. Yes, I mean, I'm very optimistic about the space. Obviously, I do have strong reasons to be involved in the space. I really enjoyed the space. Even that always quite uh challenging because as many of my other A Churity of friends, we have to be on top of every single us of every single recent regulatory update out there or But I still enjoyed to work with my clients and it's quite a very interesting era that we are experiencing right now. Yeah, awesome, All right, Well,

we've gone a long time. That was a lot of topics to go. There were still a couple of things that I had written down that I wanted to talk to you about, but we're just gonna have to save those for another time. Um, because I know it's just

going along. I would like to ask you, though, um, what what is the what is maybe the one thing or a couple of things that you're really excited about coming down kind of into the ecosystem over the next you know, a few months or year, Like what developments, projects, or or things are you kind of excited about that

you're that you're watching. Yeah, that's a very very good question, and I think for myself, I just hope to see a little bit more and we're moving forward with that with the investment, uh with the creditor in Smunth Rules, So I hope we have to see a little bit more changes on that, hopefully next year. Mm hm great, Yeah, that's a big one. Alright. Awesome, Well, such good stuff, alt Um. Like I said, we could just talk about some of the stuff forever, a couple of things we

want to want to get into. And I know you're doing a big piece on Facebook later, so we kind of skipped over that. Maybe we'll talk about that again later. But I just really appreciate you having having you on the show. Where where could people that really like you and want to follow you more? Where could they find you? Uh? So I am on Twitter and Jni Alta, I am on LinkedIn. I'm very vocal about my opinions, and I'm they can reach me at oh and DONI at Zilly

leak Law. So I'd love to help everyone in this space. Great, And I'll go ahead and put links to that in the show notes for everybody who's maybe driving or can't write that down right now. But again, Alta, thank you so much for coming on and we'll talk to you soon. Thank you so much, Mark for having me. Hey, if you like this episode, of the Market Disruptors Podcast. Please help us take this to the top of the podcast charts. Just please do me a favor and rate, review and subscribe.

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