Matty Rogers Interview Transcript

Hi, everybody, it's Justina coming here to you from Miami. And I'm here with Maddie. Hey, Maddie, how are you doing today?

Unknown Speaker  0:07  
Great conference here in Miami.

Unknown Speaker  0:09  
I agree. And we just wanted to have a conversation with you to find out what your thoughts are about how blockchain can help financial literacy.

Unknown Speaker  0:19  
That's the subject of the day.

Unknown Speaker  0:20  
That's right. That's the subject of the day.

Unknown Speaker  0:23  
In fact, if you're in web three land, you probably already know how important education is becoming all of us. But I'd like to start maybe by saying that we're in Miami, where are the largest arena was called FTX. And that might build a lot of trust with a lot of young people, celebrities, we're out talking about FTX, and how you don't want to miss this opportunity. And unfortunately, we're here in Miami, where people lost a tremendous amount of money on FTX. Now, could you have seen that coming? Could you have been one of the smarter ones? You know, look past the Superbowl ads and sandbank from men fried and all the hype, maybe. But, you know, any one of us probably could have like, made the wrong decisions with that. So how, how critically, can we think about our industry? How can we, as an industry address even the most important thing, the most basic things like security that we all claim, to have an edge on? And financial literacy, probably from the ground up is the key. That's what they said,

Unknown Speaker  1:24  
I agree with you. I think that in this space to onboard the users, I think there's still a difficulty, right? It's not as simple as just downloading an app you have a seat frame is it's not integrated into your wallets. I think a lot of companies are currently working on that integration. So I think maybe once the user interfaces, how do we have become more seamless? And like you're saying, how do we build that bridge between having the user interface, but keeping the security? I think that we'll be in a better place. So what do you think will happen when the onboarding of the users gets easier? And we have more regulations?

Unknown Speaker  2:00  
Well, it seems like, that's bullish, right. So depending on where you where you are in your trading career, you know, bullish means optimistic, right? Or it might refer to things like price appreciation. So

Unknown Speaker  2:15  
I think I am referring to more on the like, okay, so if the user now can easily be on boarded, and they're at the phase of, okay, if we've gone past this here, how can they use the gamification process to enhance their learning?

Unknown Speaker  2:31  
Okay, so there's a lot of things you could learn about too, which is interesting. So the first thing is that, you know, we can get people on board more easily. And that might be quote, unquote, onboarding them into the financial layer, right. So some friends of ours are working with stellar and MoneyGram, right, credible, they will hate pipes to make to make that onboarding easier. I think the important thing about the financial literacy and the onboarding, though, isn't just that it stops at the finance layer. When you really get on boarded into web three, you get into the community aspect, you get to the decentralized aspect of the technology. And I think that's where a lot of the literacy that's gonna come from, that's where a lot of education is also needed, not just for the finance, and how much Bitcoin might you have in your wallet, but how are you connecting with other humans using their technology? Okay, so

Unknown Speaker  3:19  
seems like for you that community aspect is also related to the financial literacy?

Unknown Speaker  3:25  
Very much. So we will be we will be we will be misleading people if we told them that a lot of this industry wasn't about money. And this industry, web three and ft is in general, all the ICO is everything related to Bitcoin, it's definitely about scratching people's itch for for one, but it definitely doesn't just stop there.

Unknown Speaker  3:46  
So why is it so important? Education? Yes.

Unknown Speaker  3:52  
The, the year 2023, this world is going crazy. Okay. Right. So what do we have? And where does education come in, you know, you're gonna have to be able to use these tools for them to be effective, right? If we want, like trust and transparency, it's not gonna affect the world, unless we have a lot of people on boarded, right. So there's definitely genuine utility in this stuff. And that's where the literacy comes in. Right? We're not going to be using the tools correctly. We don't know how to use them if people don't know how to use them. But the fun part is the tools do exist today. We've got tools now that are leveling the playing field for people all over the world. They're just not so getting us.

Unknown Speaker  4:29  
I agree. So the house is important. So we have to work on the house. So like kind of going back to what I was saying earlier. If it's integrated, it's as easy as downloading something and using it. That's one thing, but you're right, we need the whole education piece around it. Because if a user just download something, and they don't know how to use it, or what it's really for them, like what's the purpose, right. So I think that the education piece, I guess ties it all back together, because you need the different layers, right?

Unknown Speaker  4:56  
We've got institutions now the educational institution It's almost controlled the onboarding into the professional world. They're like on border of like, you might think of an app to onboard people into crypto, you have educational institutions who are onboarding people into life. And there's a tremendous, I think there's actually an awakening, or something like that going on in these institutions where, in fact, if you're one of them, and you're listening, these are two people that can help your institution and power its teachers, for example, to teach this new subject. So there's kind of I would say, there's a groundswell. Maybe from these institutions, maybe not a groundswell. There's just, there's a certain there's a certain momentum, right, where people are looking for this kind of educational content. And we're two people in the way that provide that. Right. So I think that that's a very interesting starting point. That's, that's going to take a while to trickle through, though.

Unknown Speaker  5:51  
I agree. And then there will be a tipping point. No, I think for I think we're still like working the ground up. But I think one day, it will be as easy as going on your phone, downloading something and making it work seamlessly. That's what I think a lot of companies are requesting right now. It's, you know, cross blockchain integration, dual authentification, using different wallets, like into like cross chain work, making it seamless games across chain and lefties across chain currency across chains. I think like, what I think the companies I'm talking to now are showcasing that they are going across chain, because that's where they know the demand is. So they're not just building, when they're building a product. They're not thinking, Oh, I'm just building on this one layer, what they're thinking I'm building it on a cross chain, and making it usable and user friendly. So I think we are, I think it's very interesting, because also, I think, who's in the space, right? Who are the early adopters, and a lot of them aren't devs, they may not be business people, they may not be like your regular consumer. And so because of that, I also think like, that's how it's being developed. We have like, for example, that the fact that you can, you know, go cross chain, but yet you can go on your phone and do certain things, right. So not who thought about that? You know what I mean? That's what we need to that's why I go back to what you said, which is we need educators knowing this, because if they do know, then we will have more of the general public joining providing ideas and strategies and things like that and user experience.

Unknown Speaker  7:22  
That's right. The flattening of even the educational system, where the students and put it as part of the curriculum development is pretty interesting. That's something that we can do with token economics. It's something to do with these systems.

Unknown Speaker  7:34  
skin in the game, I love it, it's going back to that circular economy going back to like, how do you work top down or bottom up?

Unknown Speaker  7:44  
Tell me something that you're excited about in 2023?

Unknown Speaker  7:47  
I think for me, this is the year where I think that we're at the conference called Quantum. I think for me, I would like to go quantum this year. So I think it's I'm looking at how different leaders lead. And I'm looking at, like how, you know, a lot of people think connecting is by facts. We live in a data world. So everybody's like fat, fat, fat. But the thing is, if you even if you look at Austrian economics and Keynesian economics, and you have people with these hybrid models, and they couldn't have predicted sales in a crisis, you have people who have very simplistic models, how do they do it? And I think we're, it's like, we're at a point where we're producing so much data, but really, what you what I think it comes down to, and I'll just I always go back to this, the most underutilized skills in leadership is empathy. Because if you don't empathize, you can't connect. So basically, for me, I'm excited this year to work on going back to human connection. And when you can connect with your audience, that's when it clicks. for them. It's not because they've read the facts is because they say, Oh, my friend has used it. 80% of customers come from referrals. So it's kinda like, yes, we have these advanced systems. And yes, we have all this. And we have felt like clicking funnels and all these things. But I think the other basis, I think a lot of things are just demonstrated, like, in a way, so I think it's, I'm excited about learning, how can I connect with the big audience, but yet make it feel human?

Unknown Speaker  9:15  
A little bit. You mentioned the quantum stuff, because the quantum space, which is like the space that, you know, it's right here, but it's also not exactly super accessible to us right now. But it's super powerful things that kind of happen under the physical currents like psychic energy. It's transformation of people's mindset on planet Earth. And I like that you brought empathy into it, because that is a sort of definitely a quantum kind of vibe.

Unknown Speaker  9:39  
Absolutely. And I the one of the smartest people that I work with, you know, and I've interviewed, I think they're the most like, when they talk to you, they're saying, like, we're looking backwards. So when I interviewed him in Miami, he said, We need a quantum leap in human consciousness. We can't be treating each other the way we're treating each other. So always anyway, For me, I think that's my assignment for the year. It's about how do I better connect with people so that I can bring them the knowledge that I have? Because I can know something. But if I can't communicate it properly, there's no utility. And I like what you said. It's the quantum field. Yes. I think, you know, in the brain when a neuro synapse changes, like it's lame, that's the that's like, that's quantum that's like you, how do you how do I shift your paradigm? If and the easiest way actually, over the years has been storytelling. You can if you tell a story in a really good way that's empathetic and that connects with your audience. You can change you can shift your audience. So there you go. That's how I that's what I'm excited about.