Evolution of Crypto in Hong Kong + Asia with Robert Alcorn

In today’s episode, we have a new crypto project and we’re talking about crypto in Hong Kong and Asia. We have Rob from Clearpool as our guest for today and I’m very excited to hear about it. Let’s tune in.

√ Rob’s VIP Page
√ Clearpool Website
√ Twitter for contests, news, and more
√ Jehan Chu, investor/partner at Kenetic Capital – interview on GFA
√ Kenetic Capital website
√ Axie Infinite Crypto Game
√ Podcast on Bitcoin w/ Larry Salibra in 2014!

Thank you for so much Rob, we appreciate you taking the time out to share with us and our listeners.

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[00:00:00] Okay. Welcome everybody to Global from Asia. We have a new crypto project and we’re talking about crypto in Hong Kong and Asia. Are you ready for this Shaina? Yeah, I’m very excited to hear about this. Let’s go. Welcome to the Global from Asia podcast, where the daunting process of running an international business is broken down into straight up actionable advice.

[00:00:22] And now your host, Michael Michelini. How are you doing Shaina? How’s it going today? I’m feeling great now that the storm is gone. So I’m finally okay now. Yeah, I know it’s been typhoon season all around Asia, but especially in the Philippines. It seems like it was like a huge, I think a stream.  It’s been a hard week.  It’s like already COVID and now you got a typhoon and it’s like, I keep telling people, I think, I think when this is, we got to have like 10 X, like after all of this stress, the last couple of years, we’ve got to have a huge positive

[00:01:00] Event for everybody to make up for all of this. But what the world is changing, you know, I think it will never go, go back to the way it was and, you know, even coming into our today’s show where we have a new crypto project that’s also started here in Asia and Hong Kong is Singapore, Clearpool and you know, I think crypto is really picking up.

[00:01:19] I mean, it was always picking up, but I think, honestly, I think COVID and lockdowns have forced even more people to get into cryptocurrencies and crypto markets and the axie infinity. We talk about TRH. Yeah, I totally agree with that because nowadays, you know, everything, you wanted everything to do, online.

[00:01:36] You don’t want to go out because you’re scared of what might happen. And I think it’s very a good opportunity to have those, you know, crypto and. Yeah, for sure. And then after the interview, Shana, I will, I, I, she mentioned about Axie Infinity and I have some stories  about Axie Infinity, which is some crypto game.

[00:01:55] I’m not even totally sure, but I was talking to some people about it. We’ll share after the interview in our blah blah, blah section. And then before we get into the interview, Aubrey on our team also is on the show, just a quick segment for a couple minutes. She’s also our community manager and she and I talk about some deal flow and community stuff.

[00:02:14] Shaina we go into that section next. Okay. Let’s do it. Let’s go. All right. So this is our first GFA community and deal flow section of the podcast. And we have with us Aubrey. She’s new on the team. Thanks for being here, Aubrey. Thanks Mike. Glad to be here. It’s great. It’s really exciting to have you help out with our community at Global From Asia and our VIP members, and also the deal flow.

[00:02:42] You know, like as a lot of people know, we have the fairly new broker program for Amazon and e-commerce sellers. The globalfromasia.com/broker. And you’ve been studying that and talking to me and some other people approaching. So what do you think so far? I think the we’re doing good so far. Yeah. And we’re establishing the new process.

[00:03:07] Yeah, I know. I’m happy to see you helping make some systems and organizing the things together. We’ve, you’ve already filled that in a couple of the form submissions people can fill out at again, globalfromasia.com/broker or with some different sellers, of course in China, but also I think somebody who’s in Australia wants to sell their business, contacted us and some people overseas.

[00:03:31] And we’re still getting you on the WeChat. It’s a joke almost. But we have a special phone in, in the Philippines for the Wechat. It’s still stuck in the mail, right? Unfortunately. Yeah. Yeah. Typhoons and COVID is not helping logistics as we talked about in the shows. But so Aubrey one, you also start working on survey.

[00:03:53] We just give some people some ideas of what, what you’re going to ask some of the members in the survey. So, yeah, so as Mike mentioned, I’m the newest4 community manager for Global From Asia. So I do have this project, a survey for our members. And my goal here is to fully understand where our members are coming from.

[00:04:13] And to really know if they are happy and satisfied with the community. So I want to get their valuable feedback and also to know if we could continuously how to, how can we continuously improve our service. Yeah. Yeah. So she’ll be reaching out to some of you and just stay tuned for some updates from our community manager and expert.

[00:04:39] Aubrey. Thanks, Aubrey. Yeah, I’m really looking forward to get to know them and resonate with them so we can create a great community. Awesome. I’m excited. All right. Thank you everybody for tuning in and watching or listening. Most of you listen to, I believe, to the Global from Asia podcasts and today’s show is a, is a great one.

[00:05:00] Shaina you ready for this? Yeah, excited. Yeah. It’s the first time we’re bringing her on to co-host the interview. So she’s just stepping up a lot in the, in our YouTube videos and our intro. So thanks. Thanks for joining me in the interviews here, Shaina. Wow. I’m very it’s, I mean, it’s my pleasure to be here.

[00:05:21] Okay. Yeah. So stepping up the team and the game here. And so we’re going to go right into the episode we have with us the co-founder is CEO of Clearpool. It’s an interesting new project then in finance and in the crypto space and in Asia – a lot of cool stuff we love about, about the show and a lot of listeners, Rob Alcorn.

[00:05:42] Thanks for being here. It’s my pleasure. Thanks for inviting me. It’s great to be here. Yeah, it’s a pleasure to have, have you on, and I’ve been following this and it’s also relevant. We had earlier, you know, we we’re Global from Asia, we talked about cross border trade, cross border business, and Hong Kong and Asia and cryptos become more and more an interesting part of what we do here over the years.

[00:06:04] Even way back in the day, we had people talking about Bitcoin in 2014. If you can believe it on the show we had over the years. We also had, I believe one of, one of your investors, Jehan Chu at Kenetic Capital on the show earlier this year. So it’s a, it’s a real pleasure to have you with us.

[00:06:21] Yeah. Cool. Yeah. Jehan Chu is one of our investors, Kenetic. I, I used to live in Hong Kong and I, I first got introduced to Jehan probably around 2016, 17. So we didn’t really know each other back then, but we were both you know, attending these various events and Jehan had his, his own events.

[00:06:41] So yeah, it was good to finally do something together and they’re a very good partner of ours now as, as an investor. Great. Do you want to give us a quick high-level intro of Clearpool. Sure Yeah. So. Clearpool is, is a, like a decentralized capital markets ecosystem. So initially, you know, we, we wanted to solve a problem.

[00:07:05] So in defi lending and borrowing, one of the major problems for borrowers at least is overcollateralization. And so that’s kind of how we, how we, we sort of started the project, you know, with, with trying to find a solution to that problem with. When I say, we, by the way, my co-founder is Alessio Quaglini. He’s the CEO of Hex Trust, which is the Asia’s leading digital asset custodian.

[00:07:28] And he’s also in Hong [00:07:30] Kong. So we used to work together at bank years ago, and we had a, sort of a mutual interest in crypto back then around 2016. He, he left the bank shortly after that to start hex and we would keep in touch and. So we would generally this year and I don’t, we kind of came up with this, this idea for Clearpool, which would solve that problem of overcollateralization and we, and, uh, at that point I kind of left my job.

[00:07:56] I was, I was a trader at a bank. That’s my background. I have been working in global financial markets for the last 12 years. And yeah, so, but I’ve had a, an interest in crypto for a long time, and this was finally my chance to sort of make the move from traditional finance into a crypto and defi. And so Clearpool yourselves is part of overcollateralization.

[00:08:20] It’s basically like a decentralized dynamic marketplace for unsecured liquidity. So institutional borrowers can access uncollateralized liquidity on Clearpool. So the borrowers have to be a white listed. So that’s a governance process and then make a proposal to, to the other Clearpool community, which is a native token holders, Seaport token holders.

[00:08:45] So they make this proposal, they can become white listed and then they can open a, a, a liquidity pool. This is basically like a smart contract running on the blockchain. And once that’s live, then anybody really can connect to, to the app and be a liquidity provider. So anybody can provide liquidity into this.

[00:09:08] So the pool is, is specific to the borrower. So there’s only one borrower per pool, but then we have this really cool feature where once there’s liquidity in the pool and the borrower can utilize it. And as they do that, we have this dynamic interest rates. So with the, with the the utilization rates when that increases.

[00:09:28] So does the interest rates. So as the risk increases for the lenders, they get rewarded with higher interest rates and vice versa. When the borrower puts liquidity back into the pool, lowers the utilization rates, the interest rates come down. So we have this dynamic effect where we’ll sort of always find this equilibrium, interest rates and pool size for each of the different bars.

[00:09:54] So it’s kind of like, from a borrower’s perspective, it’s kind of like a, almost like a sort of revolving credit facility. And from the lenders perspective, as I mentioned earlier, that they, they can sort of get attractive rewards as, as this liquidity has been utilized by the borrowers. And then those rewards are also enhanced with, with additional rewards from, from our.

[00:10:16] Our native token Seaport. So, so the, the APY is for lending on, on Clearpool will be pretty significant. So, so we developed a solution to, to solve that problem. But then as, um, LPs liquidity providers landed into these pools, they received CP tokens in return. When they do that, CP tokens are kind of like LP tokens.

[00:10:39] They do a few things. So they represent the amount of liquidity that has been supplied to. They accrue the interest rate for that call on, on every block. But then they also represents the risk profile of the borrower for that port. So this is really important because that then becomes almost like a tokenized credits and these things can then trade in a secondary market.

[00:11:02] So they are redeemable. So if there’s liquidity available in the. CP token holders can redeem from, directly from the pool. But if you have high utilization rates, then those tokens can be operated in a secondary environment where you’ll have this separate supply and demand dynamic, which will also drive the price of those tokens and in a secondary.

[00:11:25] So that’s quite important because it gives the LPs some risk management optionality, which is very important because what’s happening here is to solve the problem. Although the collateralization were kind of replacing collateral with counterparty risk. So if you’re going to do that, you know, it’s very important to.

[00:11:43] To provide LPs with, with some way of managing that risk of quantifying it and managing it and hedging it. So these CP tokens are like the building blocks for a system of tokenized credit and risk management, and we’ll be developing and introducing a lot more cool features as we move forward, like a decentralized credit derivatives, or will allow the LPs to, to really be able to sort of hedge and manage the, the risk exposures that they take on by, by funding.

[00:12:11] These. Great. Is there a governance? It’s also a governance token. Yep. It is. Yeah. So the see pool token is the governance token. So the borrowers will have to be staking Seaport in order to become a bar or to certainly act, test the part of the, the protocol where they can make a proposal to become white listed.

[00:12:29] So, so that is a required part from the. Anybody can, can be staking clearpool or additionally. So there’s, there’s going to be, you know, sort of, sort of staking program and rewards for that. As I mentioned, there will be the rewards for the LPs, which are paid in the governance token. And then eventually we’ll, we’ll progress to this full decentralization stateside.

[00:12:51] So it’s ours, we’ll be able to. So you have to propose a vote and implement changes to the protocol. But before we get there, it’ll be the simple loudest that will, they will white list the borrowers. So they have a really important role to play right from the beginning. And they will get rewarded for that as well.

[00:13:07] So there’s an incentive mechanism built into that. So, you know, obviously that they’re doing work and, and they will get rewarded for doing that. So, yeah, it’s very exciting. The idea for that is it’s going to be coming up very soon. So the whole team is very busy preparing for that. Great. Yeah.

[00:13:25] Lots of, lots of incentives and rewards there. I mean, it’s a lot of levels, so it’s exciting. Yeah. So Rob, how’s the crypto market in Hong Kong and Singapore these days? Yeah. Good question. Cause I just moved to Singapore about a year ago, so. It’s been, it’s been really interesting to see, you know, the, the, the community, how it’s, how it differs.

[00:13:51] So I moved to Hong Kong in 2016, and I moved there from Dubai. And at that time in Dubai, there really wasn’t much happening in terms of crypto. There were obviously people interested and talking about it, but when I arrived in Hong Kong, there was this huge scene. It was already, you know, already there already established.

[00:14:11] So it was very, very easy to sort of integrate into the community and network and meet other like-minded people. There were a lot of events and, you know, drink events and, and all sorts of stuff. Happy hours. He exactly that. So even back in 2016, I think the, there was a big community in Hong Kong.

[00:14:32] Obviously, you know, 2017, you know, you, you kind of have, did the whole ICI thing and then there’s subsequent crash, but

[00:14:44] I use the community in Hong Kong. It was amazing to see how. Yeah, there’s some very intelligent people working on some projects and the Hong Kong scene, just, just continue to grow.Now I think it feels like pretty much everyone in Hong Kong is kind of, you know, into crypto and in some ways, uh, you know, you can speak to that.

[00:15:03] So the taxi drivers or anchors to even, you know, helpers, you know, playing Axie Infinity and, you know, in their spare time.

[00:15:14] So I think everybody is saying those kind of encrypted data sets. It’s amazing. But moving to Singapore is it’s been interesting because I’ve been here a year, but of course there’s been some, some restrictions due to COVID. I know that there’s a very big community in Singaporeand there’s a, there’s a lot of projects here and there’s a lot of projects coming here from places like from like from Hong Kong, for example. But it’s, it’s difficult because it doesn’t really feel like there’s such a big community right now because we don’t have the opportunity to have those types of meetups, those drinks events.

[00:15:45] So I’m sure we’ll get out of that eventually. And, and people will be starting to meet up again. But I think that, you know, that there is a big community in Singapore. And I think that, that, that seems like it’s, you know, it’s, it’s, it’s going to grow because, you know, it does, it does seem like there’s a lot of projects and even sort of bigger, bigger projects or bigger, bigger institutions like exchanges, you know, basing their operations here in Singapore.

[00:16:10] So, so I would say, yeah, both of them have, you know, a very, a very sort of big community and ecosystem. But certainly it feels like Hong Kong is still the more vibrant of the two right now. Ah, interesting. Yeah, kind of add a follow-up but yours somewhat answered it, but some people feel like Singapore is capturing a lot of the crypto as well as just.

[00:16:33] In general, you know, especially for investing is like VCs and others and the financial sector and the articles I read, you know, but it’s hard to see, like you see it cause it’s COVID and lockdowns and, but we’ll see, we’ll see what happens over time, right? Yeah, exactly. I think we know we just need to get out of this.

[00:16:50] So these restrictions that we have at the moment, and we can see, you know, we can see exactly how the land lies. And I think, I think, uh, As I mentioned, you know, Hong Kong is, is still very vibrant. I still think it has a big part to play. I mean, I clearly that does seem like there’s, you know, some, some projects moving. But you know, there’s, there’s still a lot of very, very intelligent people over there working on some, some very cool stuff.

[00:17:14] So, and I think because you know, we’re now in this sort of like state where crypto has reached sort of this mass adoption there’s there’s, I don’t think you have to have like one. One center in Asia where we’re sort of crypto is big. I think, you know, can make it can make and be, and pretty much every, every major city and hub, you can have, you know, a large crypto community and it’s grown at such a fast pace.

[00:17:39] You know, I think you’ll be, you’ll always have it in, in, in Hong Kong and you’ll always have it in Singapore and I’m sure many other places. That’s right. That’s right, because you’re in the Philippines. It’s it’s going slowly by slowly. Yeah. So Rob, how’s the evolution gone from your perspective in Asia for, you know, crypto trading

[00:18:01] Yeah. So, I mean, kind of, as I, as I said, really, I mean, when I, when I arrived in Hong Kong, um, there was already a lot of people, you know, working on stuff. And, uh, for me at that stage, I was, I was working at bank, but I, I got into crypto and, and actually in 2015, so I was working on, I had a side project. It was like killed to make the digital wealth management platform.

[00:18:26] And I was trying to, trying to find a solution that basically. That, that sort of, those sort of platforms robo-advisors, they’re kind of like a digital front of everything underneath that is, is like the decades old, you know, financial infrastructure that’s very slow and clunky and expensive. So, so I started to look at blockchain as, as a potential way to sort of introduce a better, faster and cheaper sort of settlement and custodial layer for that type of industry.

[00:18:56] And it was really through that then that I got into crypto. So when I arrived in Hong Kong, That was why I kind of immersed myself into the community there. And as I said, it was already, you know, it was already buzzing and there was a lot of stuff going on. And I think, you know, that is just, just, just grown exponentially over the time, you know?

[00:19:17] So it’s, it’s been incredible to see, and I think. You know, now we’ve really reached this stage of the mass adoption. So I think, you know, back, back then there was still the worry that there was a lot of, you know, sort of scams and, and, you know, a lot of people were still kind of like talking about, you know, is, is this a bubble?

[00:19:37] And of course there’s a lot of people that had already gone way past that, that phase. And already knew that, you know, this was, this was going to be something big, but that, that was still very much. At what people were talking about back then, but, but now it seems like that’s kind of disappeared and you know, most people realize, you know, that’s, you know, crypto is, is here to stay.

[00:19:57] Yeah, there’s still a lot of, a lot of, I guess, sort of scams and, and, and, you know, bad actors, but you have that everywhere. You know, you have that in pretty much every, every part of life. And, you know, we can use that example of when the internet first became a thing in a back in the mid, late nineties.

[00:20:19] There were all sorts of scams, you know, and there still is on the internet. Right. It’s, it’s full of them. And I don’t think you can really, you know, use that as an argument against crypto and I hear it less and less now anyway. So I think, you know, I think we’ve reached that stage of mass adoption and you know, here in Singapore, as I mentioned, there’s a lot of, lot of projects.

[00:20:39] Now there’s a lot of exchanges which are kind of like local exchanges. There are people, you know, he listened to conversations on the street and the people talking about, about buying, buying Bitcoin and other coins. And, you know, as Shaina said, you know, the Axie Infinity thing is it’s very big. We get some offerings and we’ll play Axie Infinity, see people just walking around the street, you know, playing, playing Axie.

[00:21:08] It sits amazing. So that’s crazy not to mention that the, you know, the explosion of NFTs, you know, this is, this is something again that, you know, it’s really been really big and mean, you know, it’s kind of like, you know, it’s that, that next level. And right now it’s kind of more, more surrounding the sort of the creator economy, which is.

[00:21:27] Great because, you know, it’s really lends itself to that. But,but I think the NFC technology has, you know, has some, some huge potential to, to, to change and disrupt a lot of things. And I know there’s some, some really intelligent, really cool people working on stuff in that space, and we’re even looking at it, you know, for people as well.

[00:21:46] So, so that, you know, that’s just, just another level and I’m with Defi and, and now becoming you know, having such sort of like a explosive growth, you know, I just see it continuing to go from strength to strength and, and in Asia, you know, I really feel like, you know, we, you know, we were at the center of it.

[00:22:05] I think, you know, it’s easy to say that because you know, we’re based in Asia, but recently we did our fundraising at Clearpool and. I was speaking to VCs all over the world and, and, you know, everybody knows, you know, the, the part that Asia has played in this growth and this getting to this stage of, of mass adoption.

[00:22:24] And everybody knows now what’s going on in, in Hong Kong all the time and in Singapore. And, and of course, you know, we have, you know, some of the largest institutions in the space that came out of, out of, out of Asia. So everybody, I think also, even from outside of Asia, you know, realizes how, how sort of central it is to the, to the wider sort of global crypto industry.

[00:22:47] Agreed. Agreed. Yeah. I mean, we also had a great, like we mentioned Jehan earlier, but he said global from asia.com/nft, easy one to remember. Yeah. If those listening want to learn a little bit more about NFTs and, and some of that, uh, that’d be a great show to tune into. So let’s, and then also the Bitcoin ETF, I think is, seems like, it seems like it’s going to actually happen, which is, I think great for all of crypto.

[00:23:09] I know there’s a whole Bitcoin max thoughts, but I think it’s good for all of crypto that, that it gets more adoption and more tradability for the mother coin. We’ve talked about for a very long time. So it’d be a good to finally finally see that come to fruition. This is for sure. Okay. So let’s bring it back to Clearpool what’s, you know, I, where are we now?

[00:23:33] Where are you now? And, and what’s what’s happening. Yeah. So we’ve closed that funding rounds in September. So we had a seed round back in June. And we just, then we were just building and then we had a lot of interest, so we decided to open up the private round. So we closed that in September. It was, it was a huge success. We were significantly oversubscribed, which is, you know, it’s a good problem to have.

[00:23:58] So we have some really good backers. And that, that was, that was a very, very cool process to be able to speak to you know, to some big, big names in the industry and get their feedback and, you know, one very well. So, so we closed that out and now we work towards our, our public sales. So our IPO is coming soon.

[00:24:18] So we, we recently announced that that will be on download. We haven’t released a date yet, but all of your guys listening and watching can just keep an eye on our social channels. We’ll be announcing some, some pretty big stuff in the coming days. So keep an eye on that slot for the dates.

[00:24:36] The interest has been incredible. We’ve been really overwhelmed with the amount of interest. Even really, you know, in such a short space of time, because we only really came out of stealth mode around the time when we closed our funding round, which was, you know, really just, I guess probably like a month ago, but the interest in sequel has been, it has been crazy.

[00:24:57] So we know there’s, there’s a lot of people, you know, asking the question already in a hat, how can we get some, where do we buy it? You know, when when’s the launch going to be. So the teams were working really hard to try to. Make this, this token launch as kind of accessible and as open as possible. So it’s the launchpad platform that we’re working on and a couple of other things, uh, where I immediately, at the same time, as soon as we launched there, there’ll be other options for people who aren’t successful on Dow maker, because there is a, you know, there’s a kind of like a.

[00:25:32] Lottery basis. So, you know, even if you’re under our maker, there’s no guarantee you can get some, but then you can live to one of the other venues that we’re working with to try to try to make it as, as fair and open as possible. So we’re working very hard on that. So that’s going to come soon. And really then we, you know, we work towards the domain, that launch.

[00:25:49] So we’ve, we’ve the, the developers have been incredible. So we’ve cause this is, you know, it’s quite a complex project. So, you know, it’s not something that you can kind of build overnight, you know, It’s not like a, sort of a copy and paste, you know, there’s a lot of like new innovations here. So, so that’s, that’s going really well.

[00:26:06] And it’s kind of ahead of schedule. But I guess after we’ve done the, the, the, the, the public sale, Then we start to really sort of announce the roadmap in terms of, of what’s coming next. But what I think,  immediately after the, the, uh, the idea that there’ll be a pre staking program, so that will be introduced.

[00:26:28] And then I think we’re probably looking at launch in January, and we’re starting to think about multi chain staff. So in a way we’re speaking to other blockchains were initially building on Ethereum, but our, our, our thoughts from the beginning was to make Clearpool a multi chain project. So, so we’ve been speaking to other blockchains and, and layer two solutions.

[00:26:52] Perfect. And again, the feedback has been very good. So we’re definitely going to do something. And again, we’ll add, we’ll announce that later in the year. So there’ll be a big multi chain layer, two token bridging and, and then lots of other cool stuff. So one of the first, first things were launch in terms of product development.

[00:27:10] After we’ve launched on the main, next is index pools. So I talked about the single borrower aspect of, of the, of the liquidity pools that we’ll have. We’ll also be with these index pools. So, if you wanted to sort of diversify across a number of those borrowers, you’ll be able to do that by, by putting you up your liquidity into an index pools. Index pools will be governance created and they can be, for example, Diversifying the liquidity across just a rated borrowers.

[00:27:40] What B rated borrowers or across scan? I am based on, however, these things are created will be done through a governance process, but it gives the, the community that the investors, the LPs, the opportunity to be able to easily diversify the funding across a number of borrowers rather than having to do that individually.

[00:28:00] So, so that’s something that will come straight after the main launch. So it’s all very exciting. It’s all coming very fast.

[00:28:09] Yeah. It’s very good to hear that. For the listeners today, how can, you know, people get more involved with your Clearpool? So the moment we’ve got a couple of them promotions running. So we have, we have a giveaway actually. So if you go into our twitter page is probably the best, best thing from the, you can also join the telegram and community that those, those two social channels have exploded in the last few weeks.

[00:28:34] So we have a lot of followers then how better the giveaway you can win. One Eve is the, is the top prize. And then there’s multiple seed or prizes. You want to be like that. So people can. Some, some free, see Paul and before we even launched the token. So that will always keep it air airdropped. Once it’s launched, we have a meme competition going on, but again, go into the selector.

[00:28:56] That’s quite funny to see some of the stuff that’s going on

[00:29:02] some prizes available. And then really I would, I would say, you know, just, just keep, keep an eye on those channels because they’re like, like I said, there’ll be some announcements coming really soon. So this will, you know, you can, you can find out exactly how you’ll be able to participate on deal-maker and what other, what other platforms will we’ll be supported on immediately.

[00:29:23] And obviously the data that will be announced soon, we’ve got a new landing page. Which will be launched next week, which has a, you know, a lot more information on the project and a roadmap and token of makes information, stuff like that. And then, you know, once we’ve done the, the idea, as I mentioned, we’ll have the pre-staking and I think it’s really important to, to mention, you know, the Clearpool’s sort of long-term vision, you know, we’re, we’re really building this, you know, with a, with a sort of long-term vision, you know, we, we believe that.

[00:29:56] Eventually, you know, all that will be originated on chain. And I think, you know, Clearpool is going to be, you know, right at the beginning of, of that process, I think we’ll be well positioned to, to get a lot of market share from, from traditional finance. And, you know, that’s why we’re focusing very much on, on sort of like this, uh, the sophistication of like the risk management and the derivatives aspect. But also, you know, from a regulatory perspective, we’re trying to, you know, to do everything right from the beginning.

[00:30:24] And I think that’s very important if you have a long-term vision. So be at first, so for, uh, for those, those guys that buying the token early on, you know, it’s very important to, to, to stay, can hold a token because those that, that do that for longer, you know, we’ll get the. Th the much bigger opportunities, you know, as we move forward with the quieter, the protocols.

[00:30:45] So, so yeah, buy some seed pool and then get staking and that thing thinking, yeah, the future is going to be very bright. Sounds great. Yeah. I mean, these, as the name says clear pool, right? It’s a transparency on the blockchain and I like the vision of yeah. Debt originating on a, on a transparent way. Not these, you know, like you’ve mentioned throughout the interview, you know, some parts of interview, like the archaic.

[00:31:08] Closed system where you don’t know, it’s like a black box. You don’t know what’s happening. It’s the beauty of the blockchain and what I see Clearpool is doing. So, sorry. I know you’re super busy, Rob, and appreciate you taking the time out to share with us and our listeners. We’ll link all of these as much as we can on the show notes that go information on our blog, to the Clearpool at, at different projects and, and various programs.

[00:31:33] And any last, any last words, I mean, I think you Give us some great insights, but I think he’d like to add. It’s been, been great to be here and meet you guys. And I’d love to come back and maybe, you know, three, three or six months when we’ve launched and everything is up and running and we can, we can do an update and then do it all again.

[00:31:52] That’d be great. I love it. Yes. All right. Thanks. We’ll we’ll we’ll make that happen. I’m excited for the launch. Cool. Thanks. Nice to meet you. Thank you so much. Okay. Shaina. Great job. It’s your first, first hosting. Co-hosting how’d you? How do you feel about that? Kinda nervous, but I’m so happy.

[00:32:14] And I feel like one of my goals in life I’ve been accomplished, so it was fun. There you go. You’re a natural, I think you’re a natural, so, and let’s, you got me, you know? Well, definitely, like we said, in the intro, like cryptos the future. It’s exciting I’m hearing Clearpool is going into, and also one of our previous guests and supporters Jehan too a from Connecticut, super supportive, he invested in their project and it’s also supportive of our community, but yeah.

[00:32:42] So, so how is it in the, in the Philippines or in your world? A lot of people talk about crypto. Yeah. They’re talking about that. Sure. Because I haven’t. Actual game yet, but I always hear about, you know, Axie investing in Axie, but there’s a friend of mine that he really, he really resigned at this job from the bank, just to focus on crypto trading and playing Axie.

[00:33:09] Oh yeah. And then he encouraged my husband to do that well. And then later on related. It’s on crypto. Right? So we were kind of hesitant because we don’t know anything about it and we don’t understand how, how does it work? So it’s, it’s very, a good timing that we were talking with Clearpool. Yeah.

[00:33:34] Yeah, it was great. I mean, my, well, I haven’t gotten into it myself with Axie Infinity, but the craziest story as I was having dinner in a couple of weeks ago and a Philippine, somebody from the Philippines, she’s helping. Take care of one of my friend’s children and she was at dinner with us.

[00:33:50] And then she’s saying how her son in Philippines is playing Axie infinity all the time. And he wants to drop out of college because he just wants to do Axie infinity. And she’s saying, no, he has to finish college. I’m working, you know, I’m working for him to go to college and supporting him and he better finished his college.

[00:34:06] And. They’re like fighting about it, I guess, you know, whatever, social, whatever chat they’re talking remotely. And she’s saying how everybody, and even at dinner than my friend, he’s like, yeah, they’re building up like these teams of people to do Axie infinity gameplay. I think you earn crypto by playing a game.

[00:34:25] I think that’s what it is. And you can sell stuff you earn in the game. For example, there’s this character and you have to build them up so that you can sell him wou know, when it’s being in mature, just like selling up fruit, you have to take care of the plant and then you have to, I, I’m not quite sure, but that’s what they told me.

[00:34:49] They said that it’s easy because you’re just like taking care of a baby. So I guess it’s like, what is like the future? I mean, the idea is even before crypto, there was a games that people would work, build up a character and then sell the character. But actually if before crypto that’s actually a little bit dangerous for Shaina and everyone listening because the game could cancel the character or they could say, you cannot sell this character.

[00:35:17] We forbid it like, just like your Facebook account or your face, even pages or Twitter, sometimes they can ban your accounts, you know, like you, you build up account and then they delete it. But with, I think, whether it’s Axie Infinity or any NFT or, or a crypto game and just like, look Clearpool or with your trading is they can’t take it away from you.

[00:35:38] It’s yours. Your work is yours and you can keep it or sell it. So I think what people are doing is they’re building up these characters and building up these assets, you know, like they’re building up and then they’re selling them or getting paid to do certain things in the game. It’s a, it’s crazy, but it’s, you know. It’s, what’s happening.

[00:35:57] It’s what’s happening. And this. There’s also something called the metaverse, where it’s like the universe, but in Meta, like inside the games inside. And NFTs are like in games and crypto is all kind of coming together so that, you know, in real life you have, you know, a phone or anything like any, anything, but you have this in the game and you can actually sell this in the game.

[00:36:21] And it’s actually owned on the blockchain so that it’s not like you can get deleted by the game. So it’s pretty fascinating. But now we’ll get your husband or you should play. You should get into it. Honestly, I haven’t done it yet either. I’m not a total gamer. So I told him that maybe you should quit your work also.

[00:36:42] And we’ll play Axie.  I told him one time. But then he said, I don’t know how to play. Wow. That’s you’re a great, you’re a great wife. That’s awesome. Supporting. Yeah. I mean, maybe he’ll earn more with the game who knows? Or maybe, well, you don’t bet. I mean, I tell people, listening, you know, a lot of people you don’t have to, you don’t have to.

[00:37:03] You don’t have to quit what you’re doing. You could test, right, like nights and weekends or part-time and learn and get comfortable before you take the full dive. And then if you’re gonna play games anyway, why not play a game that pays, right. If it’s just, we’re just going to spend time doing some games without earning, or just, you’re just going to be wasting your time.

[00:37:23] Why not play game where you’re earning? Exactly. All right. Well, get them to work. I’ll let you go. I’ll let you go get to that. Go, go, go get him to do that. And it’s a pleasure to have you with us Shaina and yeah, you also just did a really cool video about shopee on the GFA YouTube which is really cool. I just checked it out and yeah, we’re just trying to help educate people about, you know, of course, Asia, e-commerce crypto a little bit, not real.

[00:37:52] Maybe we’ll do more crypto, but we always, you know, we’ve always been, had a little bit of crypto in Global from Asia, even since, like I said, like one show is at Larry Celebra.

[00:38:05] Cool. There you go. See, so think it is the future. I mean like, like Rob said, we interviewed. Unfortunately there was a lot of scammers, especially with that ICO’s in 2017. I remember that a lot of people were cheating, but I think it’s here to stay and does becoming more and more real legitimate projects. So, so I think people should expect more crypto.

[00:38:25] We always appreciate feedback on Global from Asia and let us know what you think, everybody. And thanks Shaina. Okay, take care. To get more info about running an international business, please visit our website at www.globalfromasia.com. That’s www.globalfromasia.com. Also be sure to subscribe to our iTunes feed.

[00:38:48] Thanks for tuning in.