In this episode of ‘Diving into Crypto’, AdLunam Inc chats with Anton Golub, Advisor, Founding Member and Chairman of SwissAssetDAO and Venture Partner at Full Stack VC. Anton shares interesting insights on how Decentralized Autonomous Organizations (DAOs) are one of the biggest innovations that the crypto industry brings to the world - where every individual has a voice. Tune in to hear his take on the future of DAOs and the power of community in the Web3 world.

DIVIC goes live every Thursday on the AdLunam Twitter page.

DAOs Revolutionizing Asset Ownership

SPEAKERS

JP (CBO of AdLunam Inc.)

Anton Golub ( Advisor, Founder and President of SwissAssetDAO)

JP 6:40

Alright, Anton, I think I can see that you accepted as a speaker, could you unmute and say hi. So that I know that all systems go?

Anton 6:54

Yes, they are. Awesome.

JP 6:58

Okay, I can hear you. I think there's a bit of a lag, but I will roll with the punches. It should be fine.

Anton 7:06

Absolutely. And thank you very much for having me. And it's a pleasure to be here and a blast and looking forward to an awesome discussion. Yeah.

JP 7:15

Oh, and I'm looking forward to it. And I can't tell you how much because I've been following you on LinkedIn. I've engaged in some of the discussions that you've been having. And, and that was one of the key reasons why we really wanted to invite you to the show today. So ladies and gentlemen, without further ado, welcome. Welcome to this episode of Diving into Crypto. This is JP from AdLunam Inc. bringing you everything about web3. On the show Today we're gonna talk about how DAOs are revolutionizing asset ownership. And we're also going to put a deep dive into one of our speakers favorite topics and about RWAs, he's been vocal about it across multiple forums. And as much as it sounds controversial, people are actually beginning to understand more in depth what he means because he's putting a spotlight on how exactly RWAs are changing the face of the financial world as they really should be. So that being said, this show is brought to you by AdLunam who is a trailblazer in the web3 investment sphere, functioning as the world's leading Gamefied NFT integrated web3 investment platform. The company's platform provides super access hands on advisory services and NFT integrations enabling users to transform community growth using our unique Engage to Earn mechanism and a Proof of Attention model, allowing retail investors to have access and use their engagement as their power to make investments. A few announcements before we begin in case we get caught off, please jump into AdLunam inc. and you'll find a new link allowing you to jump back into the room and listen to this discussion. views expressed on this program belong to that of the speaker and are meant for educational purposes only it is not to be considered as financial advice. Towards the end of the program. We will open the room up for question and answers which are coming in from the audience. And if we have time to be able to answer them, if not, we will answer them immediately after the show. You can also reach out to the speaker to be able to do the same. But okay, that being said, ladies and gentlemen, thank you so much for jumping in today. I know that we have had a bit of a technical glitch getting started but hey, you know better late than never. I'm looking forward to an exciting episode with Anton Golub, who is the founding member and chairman of SwissAssetDAO and an advisor and venture partner at Full Stack VC. Anton has got a body of experience which I would like for him to tell us more about. So Anton, thank you so much for accepting our invitation. really stoked that you are here on the show today. You Welcome, Anton.

Awesome, thank you very much for having me. It's really a blast. And we look at Super discuss real world assets, the bay dolls, and just having a blast, and please go ahead. Yeah.

that's lovely. And I know that this is a topic that you're very passionate about as well. Though before we dive right into the beef of it, I know that a number of our listeners who are listening in now, and those that will listen after the show, will want to know, who is Anton Golub, you know, where did he find his journey into this entire space. And you know, a little more about you, if you could.

Awesome. Of course, with pleasure. So to a brief introduction about myself, originally, I came from traditional finance. So I worked at a big hedge fund in Switzerland, as a high frequency trader, was really a great experience, you know, my background is actually a mathematician. So you know, being a high frequency quantitative trader, there was this intersection of finance, markets, technology, mathematics, you know, modeling, there was really a blast, I really had an amazing time doing that. But then I'd like to say that I was at the right place at the right time. And I co-founded the second ever crypto company, Switzerland. So that was back in 2013, called Lika. With a vision to build a digital asset exchange, a crypto exchange, where people could trade various, you know, tokens, digital assets, cryptocurrencies, and in coins. And kind of like, as I was seeing and getting to know, Blockchain, you know, in the early days, it kind of really resonated very well with me, I kind of got attracted to it by the technology very quickly, because I kind of understood how, how the banking infrastructure, how the stock exchange is how the markets work, and they're highly inefficient for anybody who kind of doesn't know how it works. And I'll give you one example. So for instance, at the hedge fund, you know, I was a high frequency trader. So that means we will trade in milliseconds, extremely fast, you know, extremely, extremely fast. But then I would talk to my colleagues and I would say, okay, but when do the transaction settle? You know, because you really do a lot of trades, but where do we actually swap the assets? You know, and then people will tell me, Oh, it takes two days, sometimes even more three days for some asset classes two weeks, and I would then ask, How is this possible, like, I'm trading in milliseconds, extremely fast, the latency is very short. But then somehow, it takes us many days to settle a transaction. And that's because of how the traditional financial markets work. They're inefficient, they're slow, they're costly, they operate in a very weird way, which is called batch based settlement, you know, that runs in daily cycles, you know, and then I saw the blockchain. And there you could literally have assets on a global distributed platform on a global distributed decentralized ledger, you could swap the tokens immediately, you know, if you and I do transaction, something in the bank, that's called an atomic swap happens immediately. And I kind of saw like all the deficiencies that I saw in traditional finance, I saw them being solved in the crypto world. So this is really what attracted me and kind of why was a big believer from the first day. And you know, like, my first company that I co-founded was a massive success story back then. So I was co leading it for almost five years. So it was one of the oldest and biggest crypto exchanges in Europe, you know, 200 people, many different verticals within the company, we really an amazing experience, you know, and I did an exit early 2018. And then I launched the market making company. Usually people ask me, why did you launch a market maker after a crypto exchange. And that's because something magical happens the first day anybody will launch a crypto exchange or you will launch a token, you will learn immediately, that without liquidity, crypto exchanges and tokens cannot scale. So you can tokenize whatever you want, you can create any token put on any exchange, if it doesn't have liquidity, then it will never work. And a company that solves the problem of liquidity is for the market maker.

Oh, that's fantastic. And thank you for sharing that, Anton this entire journey. And you know, you spell it out. So well, there's a clear progression. And maybe it's because you're a mathematician, maybe it's because you studied his one. That's how, you know, the logic, you can see flows quite nicely. I'm also curious to understand, was it easier to consider being a market maker? Because you were mathematician?

Yeah, so I would definitely say that for you know, market making is all about understanding the logic and the details of financial markets, and how liquidity and how trading works, and building highly efficient, highly scalable, highly dynamic and adaptive trading models that can provide a service to the market, because market makers in the end, we provide a service, you know, for us, the service that we provide is that you have liquidity. And you know, I really enjoyed it, because it was I'm sure, maybe can people can relate to but a market making is a lot about quantitative trading models, and there's a lot of mathematics behind it. So it was really a no a pleasure to, you know, lead the market making company, even though as a CEO, you do less of the coding, we have a big team that was, but still, you know, it was amazing to see the algorithms in action, you know,

oh, that's super. And it's clear in your voice, as well, that, you know, it's something that you're really, really passionate about.

Yes, absolutely. And I think, you know, in the end, all of these tokens that we are creating in the crypto world, they will never succeed without liquidity. So also kind of always felt that we are adding a lot of value to the crypto ecosystem to the industry. And you know, just a pleasure to do that.

Indeed, and super, so thank you for that answer. Anton, thank you for sharing that journey, I'm certain that a lot of our listeners are going to be able to find that relatable, especially those that may have a similar background to you. I'm curious also to figure out, I can totally understand when you say that, you know, you had all these you saw how the blockchain worked, when it came to, especially when it came to settling these transactions that you carried out, right. And at the same time, I'm curious, was there a moment for you when you decided that, hey, web3 is the space to be for me?

So I was a big believer from the first day when I was a product. So can you hear me? Okay? So yeah, I was a really big believer, you know, I felt like I was fully in from the first day and I really, you know, was deeply passionate about it. And you know, but I have to say that throughout my career, which was now more than 10 years, there were moments when you start doubting that will this work or not, you know, and I'll give you an example. So we launched the company in 2013. And I don't know how many of the listeners can remember it. But we launched the company summer of 2013. A few months later, Mount Gox exploded. So, you know, Mount Gox was the biggest crypto exchange back then on the planet. And just to give you the for the audience, to give you an impression, Mount Gox had 90% of the global volume. So it's not like today where Biden's has, I don't know how much 40% Coinbase has 20 crack can beat Mexico and you have a couple of players. Or if you say oh FTX bankrupted by Betty X was not an exchange that had 90% of the imagine the biggest most important player in the crypto industry early 2014 bankrupted because it was a complete scam, complete scam seemed like the similar to FTX. And then the whole thing explodes. And imagine we are pitching a company, we're pitching a new technology but pitching how we're going to change the financial world, how this is going to be a benefit for the whole society. And on the other side, the first question people have is what is Mount Gox? I read that their biggest crypto exchange bankrupt because it was a scam. So what's up with that? Even worse, you know, back then there was something called Silk Road.

Indeed, indeed, and for, you know, Mount Gox was the repercussions of Mount Gox. Right is still one of the reasons today that people called crypto scam. It's not just because of the scammers, but it's because of something this huge, right? The scale was momentous. And like you're saying, 90%? I didn't know that until you mentioned it's brilliant.

Yes, yes, exactly. But imagine still, today, we're clearing up the mess from Mount Gox. Just recently, there was distributions for people who got their funds stuck there. But it's like, 10 years later, we're still cleaning up the mess. So, but it's part of the industry. Let's do it. And let's focus on the good things, build on the good things, but warned about the not so good things.

Super. Exactly. And you know, taking a step in that same direction, right? you mentioned that you're working with SwissAssetDAO, now that you found it SwissAssetDAO sorry. And that became a way for people to have to be more empowered, when it came to being able to deal with things in crypto, especially from a decentralized perspective, right? So tell us a little about, you know, Dallas as, as an entity or Dallas as a unit in itself, because it's a living entity, isn't it?

Yes, I have to say like Dallas or something, that it's really one of the biggest innovations of our industry. Really, just to say one of the biggest innovations that our industry brings to the whole world is DAO, a decentralized autonomous organization. And it's because of the underlying principle of decentralization. So, to give you a little bit of like, explanation, also my own experience, like I have found that several companies, and I know how fun companies actually operate, you know, you have the shareholders, but do really shareholders have a lot of, say, and power and vote? Well, usually, they don't, you know, because you have the biggest shareholders, and then you have the board of directors, then you have the management. And then you have the founders, and all these things happen, you know, and if you're a small shareholder, what can you really do? Do you have a really a voice? Do you have really a platform? The reality is, if you don't, and I have seen it firsthand, you know, so we took a principle of decentralization, and then applied it to a formation of companies, formation of entities, you know, and DAOs are a beautiful concept in our beautiful form and a creature in the crypto world because for the first time ever, it allows every individual who is a part of a DAO to have a voice in the decision making process, right? Where it really matters, you know, and for me, you know, when we were also discussing how do we, you know, okay, but back then it was not called SwissAssetDAO but we said, okay, let's have this initiative, we want to start a company, like, we want to enable tokenization of real world assets. And then we said, how do we do it? Do we do another company, you know, in Switzerland, and then together with my co-founder, we said, let's create a DAO, let's bring the community together. Now let's create a DAO where everybody has a voice and to tell you, one beautiful thing about DAO is that you have a community because this community can help you so much, community can get engaged, community can get involved. And it's a lot of work to manage a community. I mean, we have a community on the show, you know, but to engage with an audience, to engage with the community, it's a lot of work, but the benefits that you have from having a strong community, overweigh the effort and a lot of work that you need to build a community.

Truly, truly, and in. Yeah, and I think it's interesting the way that you mentioned it is that this became, you know, a clear contrast, having a doubt became a clear contrast to being a typical type of shareholder you know, drop correlation into the financial world because the powers are much more even though from the surface they look similar as the as, you know, the setup as it is, right. Yes. And, yeah, in that way, how do you see that was reshaping? From a brief historical point, how do you see Dallas shaping as the next evolution from just being a regular shareholder?

Yeah, so just First, make a very, very strong stay adamant that I firmly believe that in the next couple of years, every crypto project will be adult. So just to say 100% Sure, in, you know, maybe not tomorrow, but in three, four or five years, every single project will be adult, because the crypto projects will more and more understand the power of the community. So it's all about bringing the community together. And people will realize that you can have enormous benefit and help from the community. But if you want help from people, you need to give them something in return. And that's for them to have a voice in the decision making process. And the beautiful thing about DAOs is that we can enable everybody in the community to have part of the decision making process to be a part of it to contribute, and to make important decisions. Now, what's unfortunate that that day, most of the doubters are, pardon my language complete bullshit, because you people create a DAO, but you don't really, you know, the insiders, you know, the big players, they decide everything, they just pretend to be a DAO, because they have a discord channel. So having a discord channel is not being having a bigger DAO means, you know, to have the community to give them a voice and power to engage with them, to enable them to have the light legal framework, not to avoid regulation and law, and to really leverage the principles of decentralization. But this is something you know, even though I said in a couple of years, everything will be a DAO. But now I say, okay, but where are we now? I say, Yeah, we're at the beginning, because we're still learning the hard way, how you know how dollar should operate. But I do have to say that in almost now, one year of SwissAssetDAO and tracking the community, DAO community very closely, we have made enormous progress. So we have made enormous progress as our industry in the DAO has now run better and better. But still, in many cases, just the money grab, where few insiders control everything.

Yes. And that is evident, I think in you know, not just in the way that it is projected across multiple dials, right, or what people could call those. But I know also the SwissAssetDAO came up with a report very recently, you handed out on LinkedIn, talking about DAOs. And you've done a complete thesis around it. Right? Are there some insights you'd like to share about that on the show?

Yeah, so I mean, in terms of dollars, you know, what, for instance, a lot of people even I say, We're early on dollars in the early days, in many years, you know, we will have many, every project will be $1. But just for people to understand, today, you have more than $13,000. So it's not like $10 $20, it's $13,000, you know, and for people who want to track that there is a platform called snapshot. And on snapshot, you can go and see all the dollars and how they operate and the members and so on. And just to tell you, he's Dallas Corp collectively have more than millions and millions of members. So it's not it's not the whole world, but it's very, very big community, you know. And even more important, is DAO has had very big treasuries, so does have a lot of capital in their treasury. And this capital can be deployed, you know, and they can be making investments. And this is also why DAO is so important in the crypto community. Because DAO does have so much capital, they still have such a big communities. And they're going to be an in very important part of the crypto industry. Also, when it comes to making investments. This is just something in the early days. And this is something that we are SwissAssets DAO have contributed a lot because we did a lot of education. Right to Dallas. So we were educating Dallas, how can they invest some capital into for example, tokenize real world assets. So this is also the big connection between dollars in real world assets. Because today, for people who don't know it today, the biggest investor into real world assets on the planet is actually a DAO called Maker DAO. So Maker DAO is down. Can you imagine it's one of the it's the biggest in real audacity on the planet. They have invested more than 2 billion into real world assets. Yeah, so really an amazing collection and amazing like, like contact hours are so important, actually for real world assets.

Yeah. Okay. It's interesting that you mentioned that because I've been looking at their growth, just from a price point, you know, where they're listed. And they have done they've grown remarkably, I think they Forex ever since the last eight months if I'm not mistaken. And it's growing. Yeah. So okay. I didn't know that didn't know make it that was actually one of the largest that's, that's phenomenal.

Yes, absolutely. Okay. And also so

yeah, go ahead. No, no Good. Yeah. Okay, you had something more to add about you missing? And also please, please go ahead.

Yeah, what I wanted to mention is actually, that in that context, you know, I think this is a lot of times when people have perceptions about who can be an investor into real world assets, you know, and many times, you know, when I speak, people talk about real world assets, they say, we're enabling the retail to invest. And then I say, I know this is not, because retail to invest, it's very difficult. And they say, all but, you know, we can enable institutional professional investors to invest into real products. And I said, Wow, Have you ever talked to them? What they feel about that, because I have talked to them, many faculty how you say it. And then, you know, when you do a little bit of research, actually, that it's really the most unlikely players in the crypto industry, which are doubts, are actually the biggest investors in the real world. So really fascinating how industry evolves, and how unexpectedly it evolves, because I think a lot of people didn't imagine it happening like that.

Oh, without a doubt, without a doubt and this is I know an area of that you really have come out strongly about. And for those of us on the show who you know, who are listening to anthem for the first time, please follow him on LinkedIn. And I'm saying this wholeheartedly, because I do that I see the stuff that he has put out there, even on his Twitter space, but I know that he's a lot more active on LinkedIn, he's come out very strongly in terms of how this entire system operates. So, Anton, I want to pivot right now into your overall understanding of where the industry is going with RWAs. Right, what people think. And then you know what it actually is because you're somebody that has a lot of insight where this is concerned. So if you could share a little bit with us about RWAs, what do people think it is? What do you know? What do you do? You're big for your KPMG, Deloitte, you know, everybody, Ernst, and young, want to jump in and figure out that, hey, you know, what, this is something that we could provide for our clients, what do they think that is? That it is at this point?

Yeah, so first, I have to say is that tokenized real world assets have a beautiful story and a beautiful message. Because what the way we imagine it is kind of like that you have these assets sitting in the world, and people who want to access them, and they have a, you know, very interesting investment profile, you know, these assets could be very valuable, and they can give you a good return. And then somehow people imagine when you tell them tokenize real world assets, somehow they think like, somebody creates a token on the blockchain. And this token that represents a real world assets, maybe it's a real estate, or maybe it's private equity, or maybe it's something you know, exotic that you can invest in. And this is how people imagine real world assets operate. And usually when, you know, I hear people talking about real world assets, and kind of imagined that, like I told them, This is not true. This is not how it works. It works completely different, you know, and usually, I then have to educate people. And I tell them, the way that tokenized real world assets work today is extremely complex, difficult, and inefficient. And then I say how it actually works. So the way tokenization of real world assets works today is that first, you have to set up something called a special purpose vehicle. Now even I immediately said this word, and everybody's grabbing their head thinking what the heck is a special purpose vehicle? And why are we talking about it when we talk about token, as well as it's so special, this vehicle is just that you can imagine it's just like a fund. And then that special purpose vehicle, this fund, this thing has to buy, hold and manage the real world assets. So as an example, you set your ad set, you set up a special purpose vehicle in an offshore jurisdiction, let's say in Bermuda, whatever. And then that fund would buy a real estate in India, for example. And then the way you would do tokenization, is that you would tokenize the share units of the special purpose vehicle. And then that token represents the share units in a fund, which in the end, then holds the real estate in India. And now when I have explained this, everybody in the audience probably think is why the hell would you do it like that? It sounds so complicated. Why would you do that? It sounds like a disaster, you know? And my answer is, yes, it is a disaster. It's highly inefficient, complex, costly, and just legally uncertain process. But the reason why people do it today like that is because of the law. Because when people imagine creating tokenized real world assets in the blockchain, they think that the token that directly represents the asset, but it turns out that in most of the jurisdictions around the planet, that is not allowed. So when you have a real estate in India, what you would like to do is actually tokenize the deed. So the deed is like the document that says Who owns the real estate and you would like to have that deed directly on the blockchain in the form of a token. It turns out this novel out by law. So the so when you ask me, What's the future of real world assets? And how can we make it better? And why is it the day not so good or in the early days? So the answer is, today, we tokenize actually special purpose vehicles. This is highly complex, inefficient, and just costly. We do that because of the law and the future. And the vision is that one day directly issue, reward assets on the blockchain, that token represents the asset. And that gives you legal certainty, regulatory rights, and everything that you have with that token represents the US.

Understood, okay, wow, that's an entire system explained. You know, and when you talk about it that way, it kind of makes a lot more sense, because you can now, especially if you're tracking RWAs, right, because it's a huge narrative. At this point of time, it is a huge narrative. And I think that the lid got blown off this thing, the moment that the ETS were announced, yes, right. Yes. Because in some way it became real, that you could own something that was digitized, something that was tokenized. You know, and there's now a precedence that allows people to be able to invest in a tokenized asset.

Yes, right. Absolutely. Okay. And, yeah. And also, think about it how many years it took us to get a spot Bitcoin ETF. So for those who don't remember it, the first application was done by Vinkle. Vesty twins. So he says the founders of Gemini, Gemini was back gave us back in 2014. Imagine that's when they did the first application, it took us 10 years to finally get and I usually compare this to tokenize. Real Well, that's because they say, it will take us many, many years to get the right approval or stock to the right people have the right technology, the right framework for us to really, you know, for the tokenize real world assets to really grow and scale, because at the moment, we're not there. And you know, there's many challenges, but once we address it is going to be beautiful.

Indeed, indeed. And I think that this is also something a lot of us can get behind because, you know, having access. So one of the key, I think, from a traditional finance world, right, you realize that one of the key things is that if you wanted to invest in an asset that was overseas, you generally don't have a medium to be able to do that. And blockchain allows you to do that at this point of time. Right? The only thing is, as you pointed out, regulations come in the way in various places. Right? Do you see that? As Do you see that as something that can evolve something that can change? And you know, what would really be required for that to happen?

Yeah, so want to give you like a very concrete example, where tokenization of real world assets works. And it's actually two countries where it's Switzerland and linkage time, where the government's had a communication with the crypto industry very early on, and then the crypto industry told the politicians, you need to change laws, if you want to take advantage of this opportunity. Right? Politicians were very smart to understand that this technology tokenization has such a potential, but to really take advantage of the potential to change laws. And then in Switzerland, literally, it went through Parliament for many years for almost two years, until the politicians, you know, agree. And I think everybody on this call can understand how slower politicians, right, but it took them, you know, took them almost two years, but then they changed the law. And then the law then allowed you to really go issue a token on the blockchain, and then that token represents the real world assets. That's it. You have it there, you know, and, okay, that's what I mean is like, one of the and this is I think, like one of the parts of the crypto industry where you really have to go and talk to the politicians because usually crypto industry, when you want to innovate very fast, you want to be unregulated. So not illegal, you don't want to do illegal things, but you want to be unregulated, right? Because then you can try out things right. But this time, you cannot do that this time, because it's financial securities token as well as definition securities, you literally should go to the politicians go to the regulators and tell them guys, ladies and gentlemen, we need to change the laws. Let's take this big opportunity. This can really transform the economy, unlock a lot of value, get a lot of jobs to people and more capital, but we need to change the laws and let's work together and change the damn laws. You know?

Indeed, goodness me indeed. And you know, that would be something beautiful because if I you know, it's been a personal dream to have a home in the Bahamas, but I know that's not going to happen anytime soon. But I can still dream if a by talking up a home in the Bahamas.

Yes. Exactly. Exactly. Yeah, I think you described it well, the same way. You don't have to buy a whole Bitcoin, to have a Bitcoin you can buy a small fraction. Same goes for, you know, tokenized assets.

Yeah, indeed, I mean, and it opens up so many possibilities to at least have cash flow there, right? I do, because moving money is really what makes the world go round.

Exactly. So and unlocking value and unlocking capital and unlocking assets, this is really key.

Yeah, I mean, there's some spaces that you think that, you know, would really hugely benefit from, being able to, harness the power of an RWAs, in spaces where they may not have easy access to capital, and I'm talking about maybe developing economies, which have you know, the underutilized resources. Because the scope is vast, right? Do you think that some of these things are going to evolve maybe rapidly over the next couple of months, maybe the next couple of years.

So I think like a big part of the asset classes in the world, especially in the emerging economy, we can unlock a lot of value is actually real estate. But from your perspective, first place, I think there's an amazing opportunity to put a real estate registry on the blockchain. So to have on the blockchain, or record who owns which part of the land, because in many countries, I can tell you this is not clear. This is you know, you have these old offices, you come in there, there's a lot of papers, there is this old man with big glasses going to these papers, you know, and writing a bunch of papers inside. And no, and also you don't I mean, people can change the papers, you know, but don't nobody knows.

Yeah, happening behind closed doors, you know. So to put a land registry on the blockchain, and I'll give you one example, in United Arab Emirates, the local land registry is actually on the blockchain. Well, so it is happening. So it is happening. And that's why for people who live in Dubai, they kind of know that the real estate transactions in Dubai happen extremely fast. And it's all very digital and extremely fast and efficient. And part of it is because the land registry is actually on the blockchain. It's not on a public blockchain yet, but it's on a private blockchain. But it's highly efficient, you can change it, you can, you cannot manipulate it, and it's on the blockchain. And the second thing is related to real estate is because when you have a real estate, you can get a loan, if they provide the real estate as a collateral. So this is a way then to unlock a lot of value, and to actually then stimulate the economy and the growth of businesses and a lot of value is if you can enable people to get a loan with using the real estate, or their land as a collateral. So I think like real estate, as a biggest asset class on the planet can have two huge benefits from the blockchain first one is land registry on the blockchain. Second one, let's get you a loan with your real estate as a collateral.

You know, that was actually a formula for a lot of people to be able to develop wealth. You see a lot of this on TikTok, on Instagram, YouTube shorts, that this is one way that you can churn properties, do you think that's going to accelerate as well? If the people try to use it through tokenized fashion? Or is it just gonna follow the same what? What do you think?

Yeah, I think it has the potential to really move rapidly. But I guess I say this with a little bit of a disclaimer, because, you know, this, as I mentioned, the real estate or the land is actually determined by the deed. So this is the right document. And I just have to say is that usually the laws around the deeds are very complex and very challenging when they're very old. And boy, one thing I have learned from politicians, politicians don't like to cringe or gloss, because it's so old, that it works. So well, which is not the case. Right? So, you know, let's see this. I'm optimistic, but cautiously, you know, and I don't believe too much that politicians are so fast, to be honest, you know?

Yeah, I mean, they like to take their time with stuff because you know, what is known is, something that they can continue to do. And that's one of the other reasons why regulation doesn't change as easily to keep up with the with markets. But more importantly, it doesn't change fast enough, or at least allow enough scope enough when it comes to innovation. And that's always been a tragedy across the world.

So in general, my experience is that the regulation and laws are always behind the innovation. And I'll explain why, you know, to the audience, so if you have a law or a regulation for something, that means it's an established product or an established service. So that means there is no innovation because established products and established services means that they have the innovation has already happened long time ago. So for example, Banking is a very established service and established products. So that's why banking has very strict clauses set very strict regulation. And then when you want to become a bank, you cannot innovate. So whenever I hear from people, sometimes crypto people come to me and they say, I want to get a banking license, because then I can do tokenize real world assets. And I usually tell them, why the hell would you want to do that, if you're a bank, you're not allowed to do anything, you cannot innovate as a bank, you can innovate if you're not highly regulated. So if you're not highly regulated, then you can innovate, you can try out things. And then when you find what works, then usually that grows and after it grows, then the regulator's take a closer look, and they say, Look, this grows a lot. Let's make laws and regulation for that. Because we want to make sure we don't have big problems around it, you know, and this is, you know, I can tell you 10 years ago, when I started my journey in crypto, there was no law, no regulation for anything. People didn't even know how to define a cryptocurrency. But today, right, you have exchange licenses, you have payment licenses, you have even crypto native banks, you know, you have broker dealers that focus on crypto assets. So, today, you have so much of this frameworks, regulation and laws is because the crypto industry is so big now. But to really say, you have to be careful about regulation, law, and especially licenses, then usually when people come to me and say, I will get a license, complicated license, and then I will innovate, then I know people don't know what they're talking about, because you're highly regulated.

That is so true. And it's also not as easy as most people think, to be able to get a banking license, there's a huge machine, you have to move. I'm not going to say Greece, because it's understated, but there's a huge machine, you have to move to be able to get one of those. And it's tremendous, right? Yeah, so okay. So this being said, I really want to do to take a slight pivot into looking at SwissAssetDAO, you know, scope and focus in this entire space. Because we've painted a picture about where we s SwissAssetDAO, we've looked at RWAs, and I know that this was asset that was in the cusp of both of these things being able to make this more accessible to everybody else across the planet. So what are some of the wonderful things you guys are doing extra sass?

Yeah, so I have to say the biggest thing we have. So as I mentioned, we kind of serve two groups of entities or individuals in the crypto industry. On the one side, we have people who want to tokenize real world assets. And we help them to do this in the right way. But the only other side, maybe even more important, we have the buyers of this token as well as so we work a lot with dollars on education, you know, and tell them what are these assets? How to invest in them? What are the right structures, what could be the right fit for them. And there I am extremely excited and very happy what we have done. So really, I think the huge achievement is that today, you have actually a big, big amount of capital, a big group of crypto industry that invest into real world assets. And the moment that those are those, you know, crypto native companies will be treasury, so somebody who has a lot of capital, and they're investing it slowly, but surely they invest in something, you know, on the other side, you know, we have people who want to tokenize real world assets, you know, and they have really helped them a lot navigating this complicated setups, you know, this thing that I talked about with the special purpose vehicles, how to set it up, how to make it very efficient, how to make it accessible to the right people. And there we have done a lot of education now, one thing that I two things that I want SwissAssetDAO and that we're focusing now is first on the buyer side and the liquidity side. It's a bit ironic that the most popular assets in RWAs are actually tokenized US government bonds. So the most boring, most liquid the most. I mean, I don't know how to call it like literally come on guys, nothing from all. You want us government bonds, you know, so for us, one side, we are doing a lot of education. To explain that there. There are tokens in real world assets outside of the US government bonds that could be highly attractive, highly accessible, and, and just very interesting for companies to purchase and get a very good deal. And then we have to explain to them you have real estate, you have private equity, you have fine art, you know you have luxury cars, just give me an example. And we tell them, these are all other tokenized real world assets where you can still get you can very good yield very high yield. Yeah. And it can be very good for your portfolio. So it's on education side this is on the buyers on the liquidity side. Now on the on the side of tokenizing real world assets. Whenever people come to me and say I want to tokenize and then they say something crazy. My first question is, who the hell is going to buy your token? Did you talk to people? And then they always tell me, No, I didn't talk to anybody. And they say, why are you tokenizing assets that you have no clue if people want to buy? Yeah, so it's really a lot about four. And I say this to the everybody in the audience, when you think about tokenization, it's not about what you want to tokenize it's what people want to buy. Right. And there, it's so much always, it's a big market research problem and a discovery processes because people want to tokenize real world assets, but they don't have no clue if people if somebody is going to buy. And they're my you know, my big goal for this year is that we need to raise awareness, that liquidity, it's the liquidity that rules everything, it doesn't matter what you want to tokenize it matters what people want to buy.

You know, that's a very interesting statement that you made, because that's one of the key parts when it comes to RWAs it's really centered around demand. And for it to have to continue to have not just value, but you have to see the growth and value. And I think that that's one problem that a lot of us are not able to put our finger on in terms of adults, but at the same time, also find some amount of difficulty in finding the end user, whether it's institutional, whether it is retail, to be able to buy this and, you know, it does make a lot of sense. But at the same time and on there are very easy, everybody who wants to buy.

Yeah, so at the moment, you know, I just explained like two things. So at the moment, it's the crypto native companies that want to buy real world assets, we're working a lot to bring more institutional investors, even the dream would be to bring retail investors right to buy properties as we build assets. But we are now at a very important time period for the crypto industry, and how it's because we're in a bull market. So today, if you invest, I don't know $1,000 In some coin, and it has 100x Within a couple of weeks, how can a token as we will ask that gives you 8% yield, compete with a meme coin that gives you 100x In a couple of weeks, right cannot compete, right? This is completely two different worlds, you know, and I really want to say is that we are in a very important crossroad. Because in a bull market, people forget about sustainable safe and stable investments. Because everybody wants 100x memecoin 100x You know, coin launched on by Nance and off it goes and you know, everybody makes millions of dollars. So I think it's so important to for people to understand is that if you if you're that the real world assets give you a stable yield with low risk. While you know all these coins, they do 100x They also have high likelihood, high probability that we'll end up as zero. And there is this now balance that you have to do somehow to educate people in the right way and bring real badass closer to them. Because this is one of the biggest opportunity out there. But with the risk, you know, that will be forgotten, if we don't make it attractive for people. Right?

Right. That's a lot too, that's a lot to process. Because at this, you know, you always see the family offices, you see the H Annise or, you know, the high ultra high end eyes, trying to trying to find avenues in which to put money so that they can see some growth right. And for some reason, for some reason, they still elude this elusive when it comes to web3 investments or tokenized investments, whether it is crypto in itself, or whether it is you know, our also RWAS and I think you've put a spotlight quite clearly on how they can go about that which is which is really educational. So thank you for sharing that and more insights you have about how somebody new into the space should be able to grow you know, there are wa bencher

Yes. So first I want to thank everyone for you know, being part of the audience and I see we have a couple of questions I can maybe you know, answer them at the end and also want to thank everybody in the audience you know, and please do follow first one today they follow you and likewise you know, follow me as well because I think we can definitely add a lot of value into the real world as a psycho system. First I think you know, today there's quite a lot of very interesting world as projects you know, obviously Suissa Tao where you can join our community and become a part of it, but you know, just to mention some other projects that are doing great works, which is maker DAO on the finance, open finance Goldfinch Clear, clear little maple. So there is this nice big community of real badass tokenized rolled asset projects that are doing very nice work. And I write a lot about this project so many times in my content, you can see this ecosystem map. So go, please go ahead and take a look at my profile on LinkedIn or on Twitter, you can find these ecosystem apps, if you're interested to kind of see everybody, you know, who is a part of it. But, look, I think, first of all, something that's very exciting is that actually, the utility tokens issued by real world asset projects are having spectacular returns. So the biggest returns, people so far got from mean coins. The second best category is actually reward ASSET project office. So I think this is also going to attract a lot of people closer to the to the world asset ecosystem. But I think, look, the big part is that we need to do education, both on the industry side, but the hard part will be to talk to the politicians, you know, and if you have a way, if you want to become part of associations, or DAOs, or initiatives that work with us, I highly invite you to join, because we need more people, you know, smart people to join and contribute them and really add value.

Of course, of course. So ladies and gentlemen, there you have it, that's one of the key things you should do. Hit up Anton on Twitter or LinkedIn, get some understanding about what's with SwissAssetDAO. Because if you want to start on to an RWA journey or an RWA project during this time, in a narrative that has seen billions of dollars of investments, I think at last count, I know that there was a $5 billion infusion that just went into RWAs, or there's more that will be coming, you know, for a fact as Anton has shed, that, you know, your big four consulting companies are looking to have these assets tokenized as quickly as possible for people who realize that there's a lot of potential here. So it's going to be a strong narrative that's going to continue to grow 24, fast 25 And maybe, you know, take the world by storm long after Anton. That being said, I know that we're coming towards the end of the show, but we'll take a few minutes more so that one, you can answer the questions that are there from the audience, as well as a few of the questions that I still have for you. We spoken about how this is, you know, a fantastic avenue to be part of a great I have a narrative to, to be to bank on, you know, pardon my pun, but a great avenue to bank on during this particular Bull Run, or during this particular cycle. At the same time, where every great narrative comes in, there are certain features that you have to watch out for certain caveats you have to watch, you have to be aware of that. So that you can circumvent risk. Right? And what would some of the potential risks be for RWA is at this point of time that people should be aware of right at the very beginning?

Yeah, so I mean, look, in terms of the risks, I think that the big question is, especially when I talk to professional institutional investors, is always around, what do these tokens actually represent? And I mean, from kind of from our perspective, or how you do it, it's clear, but what institutional professional investors mean by that is that there was there is no legal precedents at the moment for tokenized assets. So what I mean by that is very few are actually, many guys, never, it came to courts because of a dispute or a disagreement, that our judge had to take a look at tokenize real world assets and say, What the heck is this and how they make our work. And this is something that, you know, professional institutional investors are very scared of because they actually don't know what will happen in courts, if anything ever goes wrong. So you have this big legal uncertainty, where people just don't know how it will work in practice, you know, so this is on one side. On the other side, one big macro risk is happening in the next six months, one year or so, is that real world assets will look a lot less attractive if the interest rates go down to zero.

So if you remember when, when the interest rates were zero in the United States, but also everywhere else in the world, that means that the return on most of the real world assets was close to zero. So why would you invest into something that gives you a close to zero return? You would not right? So the macro risk for the whole space of tokenized real world assets is that the central banks around the world decide they want to print money again, at large scale, and they drop the rates to zero and interest rates go to zero. This real world asset investments become very unattractive because the central banks will Want you to go and speculate and gamble in the stock markets? So this is a big macro risk, but it's completely out of our hands. Because if the central banks decide to print money again, maybe it will be good for Bitcoin and cryptocurrencies, because that will be stimulative for the price of Bitcoin, but it won't be good for tokenizing real world assets because the return will be close to zero. So this is another monitors that I'm kind of quite concerned about.

Certainly. OK. And thank you for sharing that, Anton. I think these are really prime and key factors that a lot of people should be paying attention to because you always see the bright side of it, but you never carry an umbrella to watch out for the rain. So this is your umbrella, ladies and gentlemen, something that you have to look forward to. All right.

OK. Anton, two more questions before we take these questions from the audience.

So we will address those before we end the show. So the first one's this, right? How do you see the future of the Web3 industry from your perspective five years from now?

Anton 1:1:11

So extremely optimistic, extremely positive about the industry. And I think this is one of the biggest opportunities in the world. Blockchain and cryptocurrencies and digital assets will completely transform how the world (functions. So I'm extremely, extremely, extremely bullish and very, you know, very excited. One particular field of blockchain industry that I'm very excited about, that hopefully will kind of start growing very soon, is decentralized social networks. So we today know how social networks are so powerful. And imagine we're having now a call, we are talking, we're exchanging ideas, a lot of people are listening. I see even over a hundred people, almost a hundred people are listening.

Anton 1:1:53

So really exciting. But we understand how much power these social networks have. But we as users, as generators of content, we have nothing to say there. Because if the social media platform decides to change the algorithm, if they decide to kick you off from the platform, you cannot do anything. They make billions and billions of dollars and we as content creators and the audience and participants, we make none, zero. So wouldn't it be beautiful to decentralize this power to a decentralized social network platform? So I think like, that's what I mean, how blockchain can really reshape the world is anytime, you know, where there's power, where there's imbalance, you know, there's really an opportunity for blockchain to come in with the right technology and make the world a better place. So super bullish and super excited.

Super. Thank you for sharing that, Anton. One last question before we go to the audience questions. You've given us, you shared with us very freely your entrepreneurial journey, your foray from finance to, you know, to FinTech, to being a mathematician, to being able to take something and make something in the Web3 space and really be able to have a good grasp of this particular narrative when it comes to DAOs, as well as RWAs, both of which are changing the, shaping the narrative for Web3 blockchain, as well as cryptocurrencies. But we want to put a spotlight to the person behind it.

So what's your personal philosophy, what, you know, what keeps you going every day?

So, you know, first, I mean, what really gets me excited and really, I'm passionate about in the crypto industry is the people. Because technology comes and goes, changes, you know, we all are discovering it, making it better. But the people who are involved in the crypto industry are the best ever. And really, when I compare it to my colleagues, you know, who are in different industry, in AI industry, in IT industry, in finance, my God, in the hedge fund industry, all really not nice people. When I look at the crypto industry, you know, the people who are passionate about it are really, really amazing. And this is really what makes me so excited, it's the people.

So really people are what is the most exciting part of the industry, what gets me going. And I met so many interesting people and that I'm dear friends now for more than 10 years. So, you know, also looking forward to meet many, many more people. So also in the audience, you know, if you want to connect with me, feel free to just follow me, you know, or DM me and happy to really meet and hang out with cool people.

Well I'm going to take, thank you for that, Anton, I'm going to take you up on that offer. I know that you're a token2049 in Dubai. Is that right?

Yes, exactly. So if you're in Dubai, just ping me and happy to catch up for coffee or tea or whatever you prefer.

Super, super, super.All right. Okay. Now two questions from the audience.The first one comes in from, the first one comes in from Omega. He asks, how can DAOs really be used to stake ownership of cryptos?

Yeah. So in a sense of like how you can use, basically here, the key goal is that the DAO enables governance of assets that are held in the DAO. And I know that today there's a lot of opportunities there, but also some challenges because the big complexity is that when you have a lot of cryptos, you know, within a DAO, then everybody wants to have them, you know, because it's a money grab, right? Money gives you power, you know? And then really, you know, very few DAOs that I know of have really mastered this ability to let the community have a voice, how the cryptos are managed. And I'll give you one bad example, actually, for instance, even though I talked so highly about Maker DAO, Maker DAO actually makes decisions how they invest their capital, however they want. They don't ask the community so much because they think they know better than the community.

So that on one side is bad, you know? But on the other side is also we have to reflect is like, can the community make the right decision about cryptos through a governance process, you know? Are you really skillful enough, actually, you know? And I think there, what we really need to understand is that the way it can operate in the right way is to have actually subgroups of experts and sometimes great even like subDAOs. So where you have really qualified people to provide their input, provide their insights and then the right experts vote through a governance process, through the subDAO, how the cryptos are managed for the whole DAO. So there is, to answer to Omega's, yes, there is ways how to do it.

But you know, I think objectively what I have seen, it's still early on. And in many cases, if a DAO has a big treasury, it's a money grab because everybody wants to control money and have a power. Wow.

Okay. That's deeply insightful. Thank you for sharing that. My next question comes in from Snowy. Snowy asked two questions, but you've already answered once. I'm going to go to the next one, which says, okay, Anton, what inspired you to found SwissDAO? You know, he also says what are his primary goals and missions, but I think you've answered that. But I think the good part of the question is what inspired you to found SwissDAO?

Yeah. So SwissDAO, what really inspired was actually after this whole debacle happened with FTX, BlockFi, Celsius, you know, Voyager, all of these platforms that are offering you high yield, you know, somehow it exploded. And maybe even the one that we remember the most was the Terra Luna, right? They had a protocol, was offering you 20% return yield on your stable coins, but it was a complete scam.

And we then thought like, but hey, there's an opportunity. People want a stable, good return. That's why these platforms grew so big and became so important. But the problem is the platforms were scams. So why don't we actually then bring solid, sustainable, long term real world investment opportunities to the ecosystem who wants to invest there? Because we saw an opportunity, we saw a gap, and we really thought like, hey, we can do the right thing. Let's create a platform. Let's create an opportunity for solid real world asset investment opportunities to come to this crypto ecosystem. And then people can invest, you know, $1,000, $100, $10,000 and get like 6, 7, 8% yield that is stable, that is strong, that is solid and not take too much risk. Understood.

Okay. Anton, thank you so much for answering those questions. Ladies and gentlemen, those of you that have more questions you'd like to have answered, please feel free to write them into AdLunam inc. or write them to Anton himself and he'll certainly find the time to answer them for you.

He's been very free with sharing information. As he said, he loves to interact with people. So feel free to follow Anton on his Twitter handle as well as asking these questions that (8:56) you might have. Thank you so much for tuning into the show. But more importantly, Anton, thank you so much for being here. It's been an extremely educational, insightful session and inspirational one too. Super. All right.

Thank you for having me. It was a blast. Bye bye.

Yes. Thank you so much, Anton, once again. Ladies and gentlemen, for those of you that are going to be at Token2049 in Dubai, you can look up Anton. Happy to have a coffee or a beverage with you and talk to you more about this. If you're in Dubai, remember that AdLunam is hosting the Future of NFTs live in Dubai on the 17th of April at the FTNFT store between 3 to 5 p.m. Once again, on the 17th, it's an event featuring Alexander Raffin, the CEO of Gains Associates, Tobias Bauer from Blockchain Founders Fund. You're going to have Vugar, the COO of BitGet, and a host of other speakers, including our co-founders, Jason Fernandes, Nadja Bester, and I'm going to send you an invitation to be there as well, right?

Our co-founder, AdLunam's co-founder and CTO, Lawrence Hutson, will be speaking at Bitcoin Energy Summit in Miami on the 22nd and 24th of April. So those of you that are tuning in are in Miami, drop us a message. We'd be happy to say hi, set up a meeting with our CTO, Lawrence Hutson, over there. And as well, co-founder Nadja Bester will be attending the UnConference in Bali on the 27th and 28th of April.

I know also that our co-founder, Jason Fernandes, is going to be there. So if you're in Dubai, Miami, or Bali, please feel free to look us up. We're happy to talk to you in the audience, you know, say hi, whatever it is, maybe grab a coffee.

Cheers to that. Thank you, ladies and gentlemen, once again, for tuning in to Diving Into Crypto. We'll be back next week at the same time, the same place. This is JP from AdLunam inc. bringing you everything about Web3. Have a good one. Cheers.