Taking Women from Crypto Curious to On-Chain w/ Maggie Love

Hello, and welcome to this episode of Block Party.

My name's Nicholas Carey, the co-founder and vice-chairman of Blockchain.

Today, I am joined by Maggie Love, the founder of She-Fi.

Maggie, thank you so much for joining us.

Let's dig right in.

Before She-Fi, though, and I want to hear all about that,

can you tell us a little bit about your entry point into crypto and digital assets?

How did you get into this industry?

Yeah, well, thanks so much for having me on the podcast.

My crypto journey starts back in 2016.

I was working at IBM and working on

Watson for Financial Services.

So, like, early AI, AI in air quotes.

And I had been in IBM for four years,

and I was in this big meeting about,

well, what are all the products IBM should be focusing on in financial services?

And we were in this in-person meeting in Asterplace, in New York.

And there's a guy on the phone, and he was like,

Blockchain Blockchain Blockchain.

And someone in the room was like,

can you mute that guy?

He's so annoying.

And I was like, wait, someone's excited about something at IBM?

Like, I need to know what this blockchain thing is.

So, I actually went to Barnes & Noble,

the physical bookstore after work that day.

Looked up the word Blockchain.

There was one book there called the Blockchain Revolution.

I read it in like two days, and then I was like,

okay, I don't know exactly what this is,

but I have to be a part of it.

And that book was really focused on the use cases.

You know, supply gains.

With a Tapscots book.

Yeah, it is Tapscots book.

So, I set him up with his first ever Bitcoin wallet in 2013 here in London.

So, it was really cool to watch him have that,

holy crap, this is super interesting moment.

So, that's a funny connection.

That is a funny connection.

Well, yeah, and then I just spent all my spare time at work

like hiding in cubicles and just figuring out

like what was going on in blockchain.

And you know, there wasn't a lot of companies.

There wasn't a lot of information.

There was stuff I'm read it.

And I started reaching out to recruiters on LinkedIn

and found a friend of a friend on LinkedIn.

And he met me for coffee.

He worked at Consensus in Bushwick.

And I went in my nice little IBM outfit,

went into the office.

Everyone in there is in flip-flops.

Yeah, flip-flops and, you know, exactly like zero dress code.

But the thing I remember the most is that everybody was really

energized.

Like, you could feel the energy in the room.

And everyone was excited to meet me.

Remember sitting on the iconic sofa?

And everyone was like, so nice to meet you.

Like, hope you interview here.

And once again, I was like, okay, I don't know exactly what this is.

But like, I know I need to be a part of this energy.

Like, I was so ready to throw out all of my corporate,

corporate garb.

So I ended up joining Consensus in 2017.

Very cool.

IBM for so long was just like this revered, you know,

technological Valhalla.

And in some ways, it sort of branded these big ideas like Watson

and other things.

But I think it was, you know, it really took people like you

to sort of break out and go, you know what?

We actually need to like breathe, you know,

fuel and fire into this interesting problem set.

So crypto, I think for so many people,

feels really intimidating.

I mean, maybe the first interaction they have with it

is just hearing the word cryptography and going,

God, I don't, you know, I struggled in school doing basic algebra.

Like, this stuff sounds really confusing.

You know, what are some of the things, you know,

you sort of used to demystify some of the vocabulary words

in our space and maybe, you know, speaking a little bit

from your own journey?

Like, you picked up the book that was sort of an entry point.

What resources do you think are available today

that help people sort of get, I guess,

more comfortable just even practicing learning about this?

Yeah, well, when I joined consensus in 2017,

I actually put together a presentation for the CEO of AMD

and I was like, in reddit looking for information.

Like, what is Vitalik say about, you know,

at back of the day, proof of work mining?

So there's so much more information out there today

and so many great places to start.

But to go back to your first question,

I think a lot of crypto is just technical jargon, right?

Like you said, you hear the word cryptography.

It's advanced math.

And if you're a new person, you can know

that it's advanced math that keeps things secure.

And I think we are so used to operating in the digital world.

But we don't actually think about, oh,

this is a digital interaction that we're having,

like, even us on this Zoom call.

So, you know, one we're at, what I'm saying,

we're trusting math and code.

Like you're already doing that, you know,

when you're on a website, you know,

it's slightly different.

But I think that really helps ground people in like,

oh, this is just like a next step of trusting math and code,

especially trusting code.

And I trust code every day.

I trust software every day, right?

So it's about helping them make that connection

through analogies and metaphors.

And I just love the game of, how can I make this concept

into something somebody already knows, right?

So an imperfect analogy for what I would teach,

when I was teaching Layer 2's was, you know,

the Layer 2 has to speak to Ethereum,

like a roll-up, and it's like presenting a book report, right?

You only present the summary to the teacher,

and then the teacher either has to accept it

and add it to their catalog, you know.

And then you can go into like,

the classroom could challenge you for a challenge window

if you wanted to go there.

But to me, that's what it's all about.

Legal has its own language.

Finance has its own language.

Crypto has a bit of the burden of having

the financial language, press the crypto language.

But for me, it's all about finding those analogies.

And then there's a big difference, you know,

between educating and presenting information.

So I don't just present something once, right?

I introduce it, I reaffirm it,

and then we always have Q&A in class

because it, you know, breaks it up, makes it more fun.

And so people are used to seeing these concepts

multiple times.

And then as the course, you know, grows,

we start with blockchains,

and we go into DeFi and then we're,

no, even gonna touch AI.

But you know, you keep repeating those concepts,

and each week people come back and they're like,

oh, yeah, now I know what this is.

So that's really what education is about.

People are, they're like, well, yeah,

there's newsletters and there's Twitter

and there's, you know, podcasts and there's shows

like there's all this information being shared.

But what a lot of people miss is that information

is just words and education is, you know,

making sure we're looking at the words that are new

and communicating them in such a way

that you can actually keep that concept in your head.

Yep, well, I can definitely tell that you've got

a bit of an educator's mindset through the scaffolding

and it's something I practice too

because I started my career off as a teacher

and I found it, you know, sort of reinforcing concepts

and using blocks and then building more complicated arguments

or things, you know, over time gives you a lot of confidence

and there's so much jargon in all kinds of industries

or hobbies or whatever.

So when you first start with something,

it can always be a bit intimidating

but I think part of it is finding someone

that can help you on that journey.

So one of the things I think we learn a lot about

is that financial literacy is particularly bad,

basically all over the place.

It's not just unique, you know,

to institutions being unfamiliar with financial literacy.

It's not really taught well in our schools

and I was wondering maybe like being too provocative

but do you think like traditional financial systems

have particularly failed women?

And if so, how?

Yeah, I think once again, if we think about education

and inviting people into our systems, right?

A lot of it, you know, it's not just like repeating information

but then there's like the human psychology layer of like,

well, what makes, you know, women feel welcome into something

like and how is that potentially different than men, right?

I've studied a lot of like, especially in crypto marketing

and I'll get back to traditional financial

but you know, in crypto marketing on Twitter,

there's like a lot of FOMO and not a hype

and like you're gonna be left out

and like that actually is for like the male, ego, independent,

like eat all my money into crypto.

Like that's actually good marketing

but that really alienates women

and so women actually really like collective experiences

for education where you're not gilting them

or FOMOing them or like, oh, you heard my friends say this,

like put my money in, it's about kind of, you know,

making sure that you're supporting them in a different way.

So the kind of like, I think traditional marketing,

you even see in traditional finance

because the same kind of characters exist in stocks

in traditional finance.

So with women, you want to provide a totally different experience

where it's like, hey, like we are gonna get this,

there's no shamer guilt around not knowing it.

Like we're all gonna get there

and then actually that community piece is super important

and we see people learning community all the time

and actually at Harvard did a study

where they had self-paced courses

and when they added a community layer,

their completion rate went up from like,

I don't have the exact numbers

but let's say like 15% to like 85%, right?

So I do think traditional finance tries to cater

to just like the individual, let's say,

but there is human psychology involved

in like the environment you're setting up

and the way that you're communicating to women

and I think something I was always annoyed with

at traditional finance and what I try to bring in a she-fi

is even the apps that are like set your goals,

like set your rainy day goal

where they're not really telling me,

well in the rainy day goal is like the S&P 500, right?

Like the lowest risk asset

and then in the I wanna make money fund

there is like investing in, you know,

this type of unique infrastructure or mineral

or whatever it was.

So yes, it was getting me to put my money into a platform

but I just have the belief that women actually want to know

where the money's going into.

And so I think like even one traditional finance

tries to invite women in.

Yes, we should doing it be goal-based

in setting our risk tolerance preferences

but like never sharing in any information

like this is what is in this money market fund

and this is why you're money's here.

Like always felt a little like,

well then why am I putting my money in here

because I can do this on any platform.

So I think like we, you know, I guess we can say like

they're trying to cater to just like this busy

professional who doesn't have time.

But my thing with she-fi is like,

yeah, I teach you what's under the hood.

Like I teach you what's a liquidity pool

and like if you're putting your money into one,

like what is that?

So I just built she-fi

also around like what I was annoyed with

which is like, I actually want to know what's going on.

Enough so that I feel really confident about my decision.

Not just like, oh, put your money here

because you're getting this rate

and this is, you know, good if you have this risk tolerance

or you know, this is safe, this is not safe.

Yeah, it's not just disclosure.

So it's like, hey, you're gonna really understand

like the DNA of what's in this thing.

So I like that a lot.

So in the best founders are almost always working on a problem

when it's very personal to them

and then to a problem that they have themselves.

And so if you're to describe she-fi,

you know, sort of an elevator pitch

to someone in 30 or 60 seconds, what would that be?

Yeah, I would just keep it really simple

and say that she-fi is crypto education for women

and we do this by focusing on building community around it.

And my three pillars are education, experimentation

and as I say community.

So it's not just about learning

and sitting on the sidelines is about doing.

It's about setting up your wallet,

making a first transaction, swapping,

staking, lending, you know, back in the day, minting.

So my goal, because I think with crypto especially

and probably, you know, when with finance as well,

you can read like, okay, yeah, this is what's going on.

I get it, like I know what a blockchain is.

But we all know until you actually make a swap

and the money shows up back in your wallet,

like what did you want to swap into?

That's when you're like, aha.

And that's when you're like, okay,

my money does come back to me, right?

And so I think in order to feel really confident

about navigating this space, you need both, you know,

education and experimentation and community.

And that was a little bit longer than an elevator pitch

because I got excited about it.

It was a long elevator ride, all good.

So yeah, I have to say crypto education for women.

Okay, so crypto education for women

and talk to us a little bit about like the backgrounds

of some of the community members.

Yeah, and it's changed over time.

So my very first cohort, we had a lot of like female bankers.

That was in 2020.

And it was like friends and friends of friends.

So people that heard about finance, right?

Like to get to crypto before, let's say, non-fungible tokens,

which I think really opened up the aperture

of people that join, you were in tech

or you were in finance, just like me.

I was in tech.

And so a lot of that first cohort was tech in finance,

people from Google, people from DoorDash,

people from JP Morgan, Goldman Sachs.

And so, you know, they had all kind of heard about this

and they were like, okay, I want to learn more.

And then like, if we look at the Shefai cohort today,

you're seeing all kinds of profiles.

We have a lot of artists.

We have a lot of creatives.

We have women from finance.

We have women from the big consulting groups, MBA programs

that you've heard of like Northwesterns MBA program

or Columbia.

And then you know, you have stay at home moms

who are trying to re-enter the workforce.

You have people whose partners founded

multi-billion dollar crypto protocols.

I won't name names.

We were like, I just had never got it from him.

And then they come back and they say, thank you so much.

Like, you know, we have a shared language now.

I love that.

And so we, most people find out through Shefai

from LinkedIn.

So it is a lot of that professional women joining.

But then, you know, in the United States,

I would say like maybe that demographic is less technical,

more professional.

And then when we're looking at regions like India,

it's like all technical women, but they're like a bit younger.

So one thing you're going to notice in Shefai

is like intergenerational women,

all learning the same thing,

which I think chips away this idea

that you either stop learning

or you are supposed to be learning

with like a specific type of person or cohort, age cohort.

Super interesting.

So if someone were to come to you

and like maybe they're at this juncture

and their careers and they're maybe curious to learn

about like opportunities in crypto

to go see employment or to build business,

what directions would you steer them in

and how do you sort of help people take their maybe

existing career experiences and translate that

into a crypto context?

Well, it's a great time for them

because as we're seeing crypto is growing up, right?

I joined because the tent is getting a lot bigger too.

The tent is getting bigger.

I joined in total permissionlessness,

total decentralization and now it's like, oh, wait,

we're all going to money 2020 this year,

which you know is one of the bigger FinTech conferences.

So we're becoming more FinTech.

So if you have experience at a big corporation,

we actually need you to market now

to your cohort of people you've been marketing to

unless I would say we're crypto's bid,

which is kind of like marketing to each other in a way.

So I'd say like now's a really good opportunity

because you're going to see many more institutions

and incorporate entities hiring

so you can have that background.

You don't necessarily need to translate it

to like a crypto startup.

So that's great.

But where I would point people is like the,

you know, obviously the great thing about Shifa

is you get to bring all that marketing experience

or in the language and then now you have

what you need to go get a job.

And something I always tell people

and it doesn't matter if you're looking for a job

in crypto or finance or whatever,

but like we all need to be building our brands.

And it took me a little while to do that.

But oh my gosh, I'm posting every day on every channel

because your brand and what you can communicate

about your skills and what you do with the proof

of actually doing the things is going to get you very far.

So in Shifa I say like start posting about what you're learning.

Like if you don't know where to begin

and treat a social media platform,

maybe you don't have to do all of them

as like a brand designer treats their portfolio, right?

Like the all the portfolios know no matter like

what career you have.

So if you're a marketer like, you know, writing a lot,

you know, if you're technical, you know,

obviously you have GitHub.

So starting to think about like how do I make sure

that the proof of work exists

and the proof of my journey exists

and the proof of what I can do exists as well.

Like, you know, if you're a great marketer

you should have great marketing literature somewhere.

And so I tell people a lot of that

because I do really do think in crypto as well.

People are looking for proof of work, right?

Like evidence that you care

and that you're following the space and learning.

And I think that's like, it's almost,

it's a great point because you get these,

you have places now to sort of evidence

that you're learning journey and what you care about.

It's almost like your online reputation

to a certain extent.

And I do think employers, you know, look positively

on those things.

That's super smart.

From your point of view,

do you think Web 3 is more meritocratic

than maybe traditional finance or is that a myth?

That's a great question.

I do think it's more meritocratic.

You can work from anywhere.

You can be from anywhere.

I've had people help me with Shifi

that have been in Africa, that are in the UK.

You know, they're in Asia

and I pay them in a stable coin.

So, you know, in that way I think it's very meritocratic

and you'll go to conferences

and you'll meet people from all over the world

co-working on a project together.

That might be changing as crypto is growing up.

Let's all go back to being in the same office.

But I think in that way,

like you said, you have that proof of work.

If you have those proof points,

you can more easily get a job

no matter where you are.

Not only can work from anywhere and join a team,

but you can get funding from anywhere

through these grant mechanisms

and through, you know, traditional venture as well.

Finance, you have to be in specific cities.

You have to start it.

Go to the right school, you know,

have gotten into the program,

get credentialed, all that stuff.

Yeah, it's a really different, you know,

I think operating environment in some ways.

Totally.

And I was a little frustrated with that

because I didn't move to New York until I was 26.

I graduated, you know, college few years before that.

And I just didn't, no one had really told me

that like in order to really get in,

you needed to have been interning in the banking system

when you were like a junior in college

and know this person and get this reference

and your mom or dad was this person.

And I felt so frustrated at that

because it just wasn't a part of my upbringing

in my background.

So I was definitely like, oh, I could have done, you know,

I think I'm a very agent capable person.

Like if somebody had taught me spreadsheets,

I could have done spreadsheets, right?

But you know, everything works out as it's supposed to,

but there's definitely a very different way

of getting a start in traditional finance.

It's probably one of the things that motivated me

the most really early on when I first learned about Bitcoin

and then, you know, crypto evolved from there.

But the idea was that it was just an open platform

that anyone could participate in

and that it sort of treated everybody the same, you know,

is you need to have access to it.

So there are some barriers to entry.

I mean, I think internet access is one of them,

you know, smart from proliferation was a big deal.

But a lot of that has sort of come to pass over the last 10 years.

And so the legitimate arguments

and the early days around, you know,

access to some of this stuff.

But the idea was that, you know,

this thing wouldn't discriminate

based on the circumstances of your birth

or your gender or where you were born in the world.

And that was really interesting

because the traditional financial sector,

setting up a bank account is pretty difficult.

You need to have all these identity documents.

You may need to have source of funds and income.

They may charge you to do so.

There may be holding periods,

depending on where you're born,

you'll never have access to it.

And then by the way,

you're at the very bottom of a financial pecking order

because there are private banks

and then there's exclusive products

for commercial banking and all this other stuff.

And what's cool about crypto is it just gives everybody

this equal access to being able to transact

with anybody else they desire to instantly

and at a very low cost.

And so to me, that's like a very profound change

in the access to being able to do things

like manage your money and build and create wealth.

I remember in New York, 2014,

I met these two amazing women.

One of them was a PhD who had been a refugee from Afghanistan

and she was working on doing digital literacy,

training and education in Afghanistan,

but found it impossible to fund

her humanitarian work

because it was impossible to move money

into that jurisdiction.

And so she had this very noble use case and then also,

this was a country where if people found out

that women were hoarding or holding

or earning money of any kind,

they would just confiscate it from them.

And so by having crypto wallets,

there was a way for people to have a little bit more

agency sovereignty and financial independence.

And I just felt that story was just such a profound

kind of an early emergent use case of something

that could be widely proliferated

and hopefully in the next 5, 10, 15, 20 years,

we can really put endpoints really when I mean that

is like everybody in the world having access

to this better way of moving and creating wealth

around the world.

So that's why I got super excited about all this

in the first place, but I think your work is so key.

So how can we move beyond though,

maybe like the diversity as a talking point in like crypto

to structural change and access to the building

and having a seat at the table so to say

for women in their careers as it relates to crypto

and in tech in general.

Yeah, I love that question because she

thigh is not actually like a women in Web 3 organization

and you're gonna be like, wait, what?

Because like I've never done a panel,

I mean, I mean, maybe in my early days,

I've never done like a panel like women in Web 3

and she, to clarify actually,

she fight as not host, what's it like being a woman

in Web 3, what's it like being a woman in crypto?

My belief is that there's tons of badass women

ready to enter the space and they don't necessarily need

like a, let me tell you about being a woman in Web 3.

They do need somebody that looks like them

showing like you can do the thing.

So we host She Fy Summits, those are large one day events,

400 to 600 people per event actually coming

and sitting in chairs.

And like I said, it's about, it's founders,

it's investors, it's marketers, it's, you know, hackers

and it's about the technology,

it's about how this actually impacts people's lives,

like being able to take out your own loan

because you can't get a one from the German baking system

on Awe and paying for your mortgage, right?

Our down payment, it's about, you know,

growth hacking and it's about career.

So nothing about that is necessarily like diversity,

but you'll just, if you come to She Fy Summits,

oh, it's all women on stage.

And people will ask me, well, then does that mean

that's for me if I'm a man?

And I'm like, there's never been a conference

I have not gone to because it's all men on stage, right?

And so I think the way we get past it

is continuing just to create the environment in this space

of women sharing their expertise.

And then, you know, we don't even have to talk

about the diversity piece.

So I think that's how we get through that.

And, you know, I think that when you're building a community,

right, there's like girls' schools

and there's girls' volleyball teams

and there's girls' basketball teams, right?

And so building a community for something

that you identify with is not new.

But yeah, to get away from that kind of like,

you know, fund this because it's women,

it's like, no, fund this because hundreds

of hundreds or thousands of women's show up to a classroom.

They actually learn about your project.

They take action on that project

and because of the way I've set it up with the community,

it's proven that they're longer term stickier users.

So instead of spending like marketing dollars on KOLs,

you're actually getting what you know

is an engaged group of people showing up

to hear about your thing.

And so I think when I'm talking to protocols

now who I partner with, everyone's

looking for long-term users.

Everyone's looking to grow their community.

She buys one of the largest communities of like,

real humans is not the right word.

That doesn't sound kind to our air job farmers.

But like long-term engaged users, right?

And so that's how I start to think about

like what we actually provide.

Very cool.

If we look back with what sort of happened in the last 10 years,

I think crypto went from being like quite a niche,

nerdy experiment to something that sort of

became culturally relevant.

And now is bridging into, you know,

traditional finance into wide-scale internet adoption.

But from your point of view, like,

what do you think like mass adoption will look like?

And what can we maybe expect over the next,

I don't know, five to 10 years?

Yeah, we've truly seen it go from niche

with lots of startups and ideas,

early and totally same thing as we saw in the early internet,

like lots of companies and, you know,

kind of a bunch of booms and busts of bubbles or hype cycles.

And out of that, we're seeing like these companies

that are just going to continue to rise into success.

And I do think a lot of that is going to be

in this finance space.

I think it's going to be finance and AI.

So finance, it's going to be,

you don't know that you're using stripes,

newest blockchain.

You might know you're using a stable coin

like this new dollar backed currency,

but you're not necessarily aware of like,

you don't have to necessarily learn about it

other than that, like, you know it represents a dollar.

And so I do think in a lot of our payment infrastructure,

people are just going to taps wide-scale QR code.

Well, are you seeing all of that today?

And it's crypto under the hood.

And so I think that'll be one way.

And then I think there'll be the second way

is that the people who do know it's crypto,

like actually using crypto for everyday payments,

like the original vision and more

and that currency being accepted by the endpoint

and being changed into cash or not.

So I think we'll see it like really

in our payments infrastructure,

which is what a lot of the companies are betting on.

And then we're going to see it in the tokenization space

and the investing space, right?

You have big banks getting into real world assets,

which is just non-blockchain assets tokenized

to be put on the blockchain,

turn into that digital receipt.

And so you're going to see just because of that,

that T going from T plus three to T zero,

you know, all of that good stuff they say

in the financial space that they're looking for.

And maybe everybody from the professional banker

to the everyday person just notices things are cheaper.

Things are cheaper and faster and global,

which I think is what we all want.

And then I think we're going to definitely see this explosion

of digitally native AI agents

using a digitally native currency, right?

That makes a lot of sense to me.

Two things born totally on the internet using each other.

And you know, like back in 2017,

Joe Lubin always talked about that.

Like IOT.

We're going to be able to connect to devices,

machine to machine.

And you know, back in the day, people were like,

yeah, okay, like we'll get there.

But I really think we're going to get there.

And there's going to be these agentic AI economies,

you know, and it not being like totally operated

by humans on the back end.

Like, yeah, book thing, it was actually just humans.

But I'm really excited about that.

So I think that's where it's going.

Those would be my two big bets.

And then you know, my hope would be that

everyday commerce and some creativity is around.

Like I love the creative era and bringing in

so many different types of people,

giving them access to these tools and technologies

to go to market the way they wanted to.

I don't know what exactly it looks like

because that's, you know, in more of its bust.

But I hope something comes back in that creative space.

Yeah, that was always super excited about that one too,

which is like creators, musicians, artists, architects,

you know, composers, basically having more ownership

over the things they create.

And through the tokenization of their catalogs

or their art or their poetry or whatever.

And I do think that's going to happen.

It sparked this crazy innovation period.

But then it also sparked just like way too much.

I would say like work that didn't have the depth to it.

And so then we came very difficult to figure out

which projects were like more legitimate.

But maybe that was inevitable.

I don't know, it's kind of hard to tell.

But I think we'll see some interesting things happen

in that space.

So walk us through.

If someone just didn't join in, she'd fight

just like maybe a quick 30 second ish.

Like what's it take to sign up?

What can they expect?

And when they finish the course is, you know,

what do they get at the end and how do they continue

to engage with the community?

Yeah. So once you join the community, you're in the community,

right? So we have lots of infrastructure on that,

including telegram chats.

And so you'll see women in those chats from like 2020,

it would their local geography still engaging.

And so you're always in the community, which is great.

And so when you do is you sign up,

you join a six week cohort based program,

two classes a week, each class its own topic,

and then each week its own quest.

So you'll not only learn, but you'll set up your exchange,

you'll set up your treasure hardware wallet,

you'll fund that, you will trade on the base app,

you will stake riff, which is a root stock Bitcoin token

and the Bitcoin ecosystem, and you'll download the central end.

And so those are kind of like the main quests.

And then you will also learn about stable coins

and we'll do some AI stuff too,

because I just can't help but learn new things.

So by the end, you'll learn and you'll do all those things as well.

So that's what it's really all about.

You start, maybe you have an ever touched crypto,

and you leave and you've done like six to seven things

on chain over six weeks.

Very cool.

And I heard a rumor that you are considering

starting your own podcast, so any particular areas of focus

that you're excited to learn or explore.

Yeah, that's a great question.

A lot of our newsletter readers say we just want to hear more.

I've always been really interested in money.

I think that's really why I joined the crypto space,

like money and agency and ownership

and in what to do with money.

So I think it could be a bit broader about that

and kind of like just what is this value mean

to all different types of people like founders

and other people exploring different things

than we are in crypto.

So I think it might have to do something with money

that's just like a theme that shows up

and like when I bought a theory,

I was like, this is the greatest thing ever.

Like no one, my VC friends can't buy it.

Like I feel so empowered.

So probably you know something around that

but we're trying to be good stewards of our community.

And like I'm going to talk to a lot of them actually

who read our newsletter and like what are the,

what else are they interested in from Shifa?

But yeah, something, something around money.

Cool.

All right, well appreciate that very much.

Do you have any like sort of closing thoughts

or reflections about the state of crypto today

and maybe an invitation to potential Shifa community members

around where they should go to sign up?

Yeah, I definitely feel like the,

I think the loss that many of us feel

having joined a place like consensus in 2017

and to see people building all sorts of like cypher punk projects

in this totally decentralized space

and you needed that revolutionary momentum back in the day.

To like, okay, we're like partnering with Stride

been like doing stablecoins and you know,

ETS and like real world assets are going to be like

custody to buy banks, right?

But so there's definitely a bit of that like,

you know, yearning in a way for how it used to be

but what I will say is like the fundamental technology

is to empower you and give you agency over your assets

which it was not possible in any other air of the internet.

So my invitation is like, you could see all this

and it may be like, well, I'm not a traditional finance person

and this is where crypto is going.

So maybe it's not for me.

But no, there is still this underlying decentralization

own your money, access financial apps from anywhere

in the world and get the same rate,

no matter where you're living,

true equity like we were talking about earlier in that way

and you know, come take kind of ownership and agency over

this next assets which are bound to be something

we end up using in every day, every day life.

So my invitation would be like, come learn about decentralization,

come learn about how it can be a tool in your toolbox

for agency and for ownership as the world continues to change.

And then yeah, and then and learn about how things have shifted

but that core is really is still there

even if the big narratives and what's taking over the new cycle

it doesn't always feel like it's there.

Yeah, I always sort of talk with some of the older founders

and firms in the space like,

do you think crypto is still sort of punk and alternative

and the reality is it doesn't really matter.

It's like, it's grown a lot.

It still has some of those very foundational revolutionary ideas

in it, especially around what you described as like

agency and sovereignty over your currency wealth and assets.

Things that we hold dear like privacy

and the custody over secrets.

But you can also operate in the crypto space

out in a across a security and privacy spectrum

which is to say like,

may make sense to use some custodial offerings

for certain things, but it also makes sense

to really understand a self-custodial model

and hear all the reasons why

because of security hacks and breaches

and compromises and the surveillance

and the rent seeking that happens in these centralized systems

where you have all kinds of perverse incentives

to monetize them.

And so it's just a really important

like broad spectrum of things to learn about

and I think the work you're doing is really important.

It's not just about role models of all kinds

but especially ones that can really bring in

and educate the next adopters

and get those crypto curious to become more crypto fluent.

So now you really appreciate you joining us today

and for your takes on all our questions today

and for our listeners.

Please remember to subscribe to Block Party

and leave a review if you enjoy today's episode

and please don't forget to check out Shifi.

So until next time, I'm Nick Keri

on behalf of the entire blockchain team.

Thank you for tuning in.