Foreign. Congratulations we're sitting here at the Future of Crypto event and I believe this is kind of like your Flagship Crypto event and there's a lot of excitement and enthusiasm in the air. No, it's very exciting. Not only thing is the crypto markets haven't been great the last three to six months.

Um, but we're trying to like. Talk About the Future of Crypto. So benzinga we talk about Innovation Cryptocurrency. What what can change in the next three to six years will be here to last and we bring the best speakers and guests so we can educate the audience on what's going on in Crypto.

I Have to ask? Obviously events like this, they take quite a bit of time to plan. what was it like internal to the company where just a month ago there was a massive negative hit to the industry because of FTX What was it like behind the scenes for you guys? I Mean it. It wasn't great. It wasn't great for three reasons: One, People losing money.

people losing money isn't great. Two, it creates uncertainty and uncertainty. People aren't going to spend as much money. Number three is people.

Our question is Crypto here to stay? Is blockchain here to stay And we, um, had to address all that. If you question hey, do you want to have an event, Do you? Do you want to do this event? What do you? How do you decide what to do And so our feeling was even. We're not going to make a bunch of money on it. Our feeling was can we bring the right people together to speak and discuss cryptocurrency And that's what we did.

I Like what you alluded to before, focusing on the future of it as the event is aptly named because so many people right now they're not necessarily focusing on the price of Bitcoin or Ethereum. It's all like what are we building now? What is the technology going to be in a year? Five years, ten years? it's very future looking. and I guess on a personal note is that how you view crypto is like more of like I want to know where the technology is going to go in like x amount of time. So when I view crypto I when I think of the technology I think of utility I think of who's gonna be able to use it to make their life better.

So when I I think of the internet back in the day I could you know go to eBay and use auction sites or I can go to Amazon I can go to read information about a topic before I used to go to the library and go to microfiche and look up books. What have you it? The cryptocurrency to me enables like the Internet did in 1996 enables transactions to not be regulated by One bank I Can send a wire to someone very easily using cryptocurrency on a weekend versus filling out 100 forms. That's one example. Another thing cryptocurrency allows you to do is bet on assets.

I mean if you think about Goods or virtual Goods baseball cards, there's value to baseball cards, right? And so as our value to owning a digital asset. Is there value? um, it is. If it's limited in nature, etc, etc, you know you're bringing up value. Obviously owning and operating Benzinga, it seems like are you bringing that business practice with you of the value I can provide? For those of you who don't know who's paying attention to this I Would summarize Benzing of saying it's Bloomberg terminal information but for retail for the average person so they can't shell out for Bloomberg So when Benzinga started I thought it was unfair that people on Wall Street got information ahead of people on Main Street and so they'll slogan make information easier to consume.

Don't be biased, give the who, the what, and the where, Like the who, what and why. So we have a product called Whims Why is it moving? Why is the stock moving? We try to give the who, what, and the why Why did this happen so that that's the whole basis And so yes. and we have a thing called Benzynga Pro and Zynga Pro is a cheaper version of that of a Bloomberg and it's a lot of the features. We have newsletters at the end of the day I Believe it's our duty to help educate investors so they don't go put all their money in Bitcoin or something.

They diversify they they look at different choices, they look at options. Another example would be this hedge funds say they own Tesla and they and they think the earnings are gonna be bad and they want to hedge themselves. They know how to do different strategies. The average retail investors will just sell shares of Tesla with us.

We try to say okay if you believe that shares went on, here are some ETFs Here's some options. Here's how you can get insurance on your position. We try to help the average Joe You know and we always can do better. We're always higher, looking for people to bring ideas to us and we try to execute.

We're a place that looks to execute and you know where money meets wealth. We try to really educate people on making better decisions. I Love that as just a final. Point Here you have a very unique vantage point if you will of what's going on in the world of retail.

What was it like at the start of 2021 where by the end of the year it went crazy and then by various accounts. Right now it's calm down. So what was it like from the start of 2021 until now? the end of 2022.? it had to be just a roller coaster ride. Yeah it is it.

It seems like it seems like two years are being done over one month. You know what I mean It just seems like so it's moving so fast and and um it's like it has been a roller coaster. You have Crypto Bitcoin going up so much, then dropping, then different companies going bankrupt and it seems like like I said two years one month. they talk about the speed like you know speed of the game.

The speed in the world has just accelerated to you know levels I haven't seen and you have to react fast and then focus on what you can control like you can't control everything. You can't control a bankruptcy. Focus on what you can control, diversify and look at what are the next three to five years are going to bring. That's kind of how we look at it at Benzinga.

Man wise words I Appreciate your time today. Thank you so much thank you I appreciate it and if you're watching feel free to follow me on. Twitter at Jason Rasnick R-a-z-n-i-c-k.