Ep. 84: Feelings Check-in. 1) Chase UK bans crypto transactions, and a nod to regulatory capture 2) Personal feelings about leaning into controversy

[00:00] Don't leave. Stay. [00:02] I know. [00:04] Welcome to the Feelings Check-In, a feelings first look at the news of the week. Takes no one asked for on topics everyone's talking about. I'm Natasha Hoskins. I'm Dina Burke. And this is Boys Club. Wait, is it just Boys Club? It's just Boys Club. The Boys Club podcast? No, no. [00:21] Just boys club. Hi. Hi. [00:23] We are in person. We are in person in Los Angeles. [00:27] Venice, California. The City of Angels. [00:30] It's so nice. So fucking nice. It's like, [00:34] Perfect weather. Doors are open. We've just been walking around Venice. It's like. [00:39] The nicest. [00:40] I think I could live in Venice. [00:42] Yeah, so I think I could too. [00:44] Yeah. Very expensive. Very expensive. We're having... [00:48] A house party tomorrow night. Very excited about it. It's going to be so fun. And we went to the venue today to check things out, make sure everything was... [00:55] GTG. [00:57] And I was like, love this house. [00:59] Would love to live in this house. [01:00] It's right off Abba Kenny. $7 million house. No wonder. I was like, this looks pretty cool. [01:06] We're also staying right off Abikini in a cute little Airbnb and we've got the doors open. And I just imagine lots of people walking by and they're like, wow, that asshole who's recording a podcast. Oh, I didn't think of that. Yeah. It's OK. We're going to make some eyes at people. And it is what it is. It is what it is. OK, so this is the feelings check in podcast that we do every week.

[01:31] We have feelings to share every week. [01:34] Somehow. Sometimes it feels hard to find them. Yeah, it did feel... [01:37] like a little bit of a reach day, but we got there. [01:40] So the Feelings Check-In podcast, we do two things. We unpack a news story from the week and share our feelings on it. And then we share some personal feelings about our work or our lives or whatever is going on. Give it a listen. Hey, Natasha, if someone wants to get into crypto or is looking for a better way to trade, where should they go? Oh, Dina, I'm so glad you asked. The place to be is Kraken. It's more than a crypto platform. Kraken is your bridge to the [02:10] Finance, a simple, gorgeous place to trade with a redesigned trading interface that's so easy to use. From degen to day trader, first timer to full timer, make your trades in just a few clicks. Go to kraken.com backslash boys club, sign up in just a few minutes, and you can even get started with as little as $10. We love you, Kraken. [02:28] So you're going to tell me a news story from the week? A crypto? I'm going to tell you a news story. [02:32] I'm going to tell you a new story from the week. [02:35] is a crypto news story. [02:36] We were on a shoot yesterday explaining what crypto is to people. [02:39] And damn, I had to dig deep. [02:41] I had to dig really deep. What? [02:44] is crypto. They're like, yeah, we just want you to like explain to people what crypto is. And I was like, totally. And then I was like, could you tell me? It's, it's, it's been a long time since I had those conversations, which was a real, like, you know, when you're about to faint in a hospital and they put smelling salts under you so that you have to wake up. That's what it felt like. I was like, whoa. Okay. And it's so interesting because it's so much about money for people.

[03:04] And that's just like so not... It's so much about money for people. Well, these are now feelings. We're getting into feelings. Yeah, sorry. Sorry. They were there, though. Anyway, what's your new story? So this past week, there... [03:17] was this thing that started kicking off on Twitter. Okay. [03:20] where people were sharing a screenshot of an email that they got from Chase saying, [03:24] We're shutting down crypto, basically. In Canada. [03:29] In the UK. Okay. [03:31] So at first when everyone started sharing it, everyone was like, oh my gosh, oh my gosh, oh my gosh. Everyone starts freaking out. Yeah. And then... [03:37] as you do on Twitter. And then people started to dig into it a little bit more and they were like, oh, it's kind of just [03:42] So it ended up being... [03:44] kind of a contained story. Okay. But I do think that there are some broader implications here that are interesting to unpack. [03:50] What actually happened was Chase Bank in the UK... [03:54] sent out an email saying basically next month they're going to be banning [03:58] crypto transactions. [04:00] using credit cards or bank transfers. So you can't interact with any exchange or do any crypto related activity using any of your Chase services. [04:09] bank products. Oh my God. Are you serious? Yeah. And it's a ban. It's a full ban. So there are other... Wait, just to make sure I understand. I live in London. [04:18] I want to purchase some Ethereum. I go to Kraken.com. [04:23] backslash boys club and i go to buy some ethereum and i connect my [04:28] Chase account and they say not today. Yeah. Whoa. Yeah. It's a big deal because it's a full ban. So there's other banks in the UK, NatWest, Santander, like there's some of the other banks that kind of throttle crypto transactions like

[04:41] They'll do extra diligence on it and maybe it takes more time, but this is like a full outright ban. Wow. [04:46] What they're saying in the communication around it is that there's really high fraud numbers with crypto transactions, something like 20 or 25 percent of all the transactions sent from their customer accounts. [04:59] to cryptocurrency like businesses are related to fraud. Whoa. So a quarter maybe. And that's what they're saying is the reasoning for why they're doing this. [05:08] And that... [05:10] is what they're saying. Who knows if that's actually the agenda or not. Okay, so as I was going through and doing research for the story on Twitter, [05:19] There was really two things that people were flagging as... [05:22] things that they're talking about. [05:24] The first one is that they were saying, okay, Chase... [05:27] is owned by [05:29] J.P. Morgan. [05:30] And hey, JP Morgan has this thing called the Onyx Digital Asset Blockchain. And they're doing blockchain stuff. So what the heck? How can they be doing blockchain stuff as JP Morgan? [05:41] And on their retail and customer end, they're banning it. So when I first thought that, I was like, oh yeah, that's super weird. And then I dug into it a little bit more and actually, shout out to Kelly Greer. I [05:53] was like send me a voice memo on what's happening and she was like [05:58] Onyx Digital Assets is an enterprise blockchain. And so it's essentially a private database. It's not credibly neutral. It's not transparent. It's not like this big... [06:08] public ledger. [06:09] It's something that they're using internally. They built basically internally to manage settlements. Okay.

[06:15] And it... [06:16] is, sure, that's a blockchain, but it's mostly a database. It's basically a spreadsheet. [06:21] It's a Google Sheets. [06:23] So that argument kind of like fell flat for me. And also Jamie Dimon, who is the JP Morgan Chase CEO, famously hates Bitcoin, like hates it, hates it, hates it. So this kind of tracks with [06:34] the track record of him certainly and chase generally. [06:39] The second thing, which I think is a little bit more interesting, is that... [06:43] Okay, so do you remember a couple months ago now, I suppose, A16Z? [06:49] came out with this big hullabaloo blog post about how they're opening a London office. Yes, oh, of course. [06:55] It was a big deal. And crypto startup school is going to be in London. Crypto startup school is going to be in London. And then everybody was like, maybe I should move to London. Yeah, myself included. I remember. And there's this photo of I went back and looked at that thread and I was like, what's going on here? And there's a photo of Rishi Sunak, who's the prime minister of the UK and Chris. Oh, I thought you were going to say what first came to mind when you said there was a photo. I imagine Chris Dixon on the London Bridge. [07:21] Like, smiling. Thumbs up. Thumbs up, yeah. [07:25] we're here it basically is a version of that it's him and the prime minister like kind of okay but part of the story around that was that the uk government is has come out and been like hey this is a cool place to do your crypto startup yeah hey entrepreneurs like come come do it part of it is down to work with you we're gonna work with you we're gonna create a regulatory sandbox we're gonna give you incentives to come and move here and i have to imagine between in closed doors

[07:55] government, like there was some sort of deal that was met there as well. So the move by Chase UK goes against what [08:02] The government has been saying has been their agenda on crypto or blockchain, whatever we want to call this industry. Whatever crypto is. Whatever this industry is called, whatever we're doing here. Whatever it's about. [08:16] They've said it's cool. [08:17] So then at the same time, [08:20] Did you see all the stuff yesterday that was happening around Stan with Crypto? [08:23] Yes, in D.C. [08:24] Yeah. So a bunch of people went to DC and our invite got lost in the mail. Yeah. An exchange that we don't say the name of the exchange that shall remain nameless. [08:35] made a huge deal there. [08:37] They did a big thing. And Kevin Iwaki was there. A bunch of cool startup founders that are doing cool refi things. They went to DC yesterday. And they're doing this big stand-by-script job campaign. [08:47] And Brian Armstrong... [08:50] sent out a tweet, I think it was yesterday or the day before, that was like, this is, talking about the Chase thing, he was like, this is totally inappropriate, and it goes against Rishi Sunak, and blah, blah, blah, blah, blah, blah. [08:59] Here we are at the end of the story. I have been given the opportunity to do my favorite thing ever. Who did you? [09:04] What? [09:05] which is [09:06] to talk about the Bill Gurley video. [09:09] regulatory capture. Okay. [09:11] Because this is a conversation that's adjacent to a conversation about regulatory capture. Yes, totally. So if you haven't seen the Bill Gurley talk at the All In Summit, I want to make a few disclaimers before... [09:22] You go and watch it. Link in show notes. It's 20 minutes. Highly recommend it. Incredible storyteller. A really compelling story about...

[09:30] the relationship between big corporate interests and innovation in America. But a couple of caveats for the listener. One, I'm not, I don't identify as a libertarian. Uh huh. And I think it's important because you, you watch that video and you, you, [09:43] start to grok like regulatory capture and what it means and a lot of it is anti-regulation anti-government anti-government anti-regulation and i want to say that i i think regulation is great and protects a lot of people and should happen but there's like some really really compelling stories that bill girl is talking about especially related to covid and the pharma industry and it just it really makes you angry yeah it upsets you so one i'm not a libertarian i don't identify as libertarian i don't [10:13] Whatever. I don't want to be perceived. I don't want to get into politics, but... [10:17] I'm not, I'm certainly not a libertarian. And then the second thing is I don't, I'm not endorsing all in summit or all in. I don't know those guys. I don't listen to the podcast and... [10:26] It might be great. It might not be great. I don't know. And so... But this YouTube video has become your entire personality. It has become my entire personality. So one of the big points that Bill Gurley makes in... [10:36] This. [10:37] talk that he gives is he delivers this line really powerfully that regulation is a friend of the incumbent. I think that it's an easy line to not fully grasp. So regulation is [10:49] is the friend of the incumbent. [10:51] So essentially saying that regulation is the friend of the winner. [10:55] Like of the Walmart. [10:57] of the Costco. Regulation is not the friend of the little guy.

[11:02] Of the innovator. Of the innovator. If you are a big established business in a big established industry, you're going to leverage... [11:11] your government relationships and by extension then regulation to protect your business interests. Yes. [11:18] And so there's this complicated and convoluted relationship that [11:22] happens between big corporate entities and also big tech. Technology is not excluded in this conversation at all. But when you have a lot of power, you're going to do everything you can to keep that power. [11:33] And I think there's some ethical questions that come up when you leverage relationships to pass legislation that is in favor of your interests. [11:44] business or your corporation when it goes against the interests of the people. [11:49] So that's a big part of how regulatory capture is defined is, [11:53] Basically, a special interest, a special corporate interest or a special business interest is prioritized over the general interests of a public. Yeah. Basically, you're willing to protect the interests of your corporation over and above what is good and better for society. Exactly. [12:09] I had never known what regulatory capture was before. I had never heard it as a term. But once you learn it, you start to see it everywhere. And by the way, this isn't regulation. This is just what Chase is doing. But you can see it quickly start to slide into some sort of bigger regulatory conversation in the UK. Now, that's not true if... [12:27] What's happening to Chase customers in the UK is that [12:31] they're all getting defrauded by crypto businesses. If that's happening, then there should be regulation in place. But is that what they're saying? Or are they saying that Chase Bank is being, that there's fraud that's harming Chase Bank? I think they're saying that that's fraud that's harming customers. Okay.

[12:45] And if that's the case, and a lot of people are being harmed, then regulation is needed. I would argue that [12:50] one bank banning crypto transactions [12:54] is not going to do what they think it's going to do. And that's not the solution. Also, what I thought was really great about the Bill Gurley talk was how it was also big tech. And he pulls up all of these different headlines, essentially. [13:07] of [13:08] Coinbase and OpenAI and Facebook and all of these huge companies begging for regulation. And he was like, of course, they're begging for regulation. It's their moat, essentially. So that's that. [13:19] I love it. [13:20] Great story. Thanks for the briefing. Totally. Anytime. Kraken is a crypto OG. They have more than 10 million clients around the world that trust them with their crypto needs. They're one of the largest crypto platforms out there with some of the highest security standards in the industry. So you can rest easy that your funds and your privacy are safe for the keeping. And if you need help along the way, as we all do sometimes, Kraken's award-winning client support team is available 24-7 every day of the year. This is a true story. I've actually [13:50] with very dumb questions about our account. And they were so nice and so patient. It just takes a few minutes to get started today at kraken.com backslash boys club. [13:58] Okay, time for some personal feelings. I'm feeling nervous. [14:02] About talking about this? I feel nervous about talking about anything on this podcast these days. I know. [14:07] Here's what's happening. There are a few people in our community who came up with this great idea, cool idea, to do the Bachelor on Chain.

[14:15] It's really The Bachelorette on Chain, but they're really base and they wanted to call it The Bachelor, even though Kelly, who identifies as a woman. And it all started because she had this thread that we will link in the show notes where she had this joke about raising a series B. And it was all about finding a boyfriend that sort of had a viral moment. And then from there, a few people... [14:36] Her included... [14:38] We're like, we want to do a bachelor on chain using this thing called joke race. [14:43] And basically people submit themselves and then the community, the boys club community votes on her, um, [14:52] who she's going to date each week. [14:53] I don't know how long we're going to do this for. It's like, it's for lols. Like, it's just a joke. Yeah, it's kind of just fun. And it's not that serious. This is DismantLol. [15:01] It's dismantled. It's not that serious. It's totally fun. We're all having a good time. Like it's not that big of a deal, but it's not like a new strategy revenue line item for boys club. It's just fun. It's just fucking around on chain and like whatever. Yeah, exactly. Weird experimental stuff on chainfall. [15:18] And so this started to come together and then some people started to submit themselves. [15:26] One of these people being... [15:28] Martin's growling. [15:30] Whom, if you're not familiar with, [15:32] was called the Pharma Bro. So he's the next pharmaceutical executive who famously purchased this pharmaceutical drug that was life-saving to many people and increased the price of it by 4,000% and basically cornered the market on it.

[15:47] Then he defrauded his investors and went to prison for seven years. [15:51] He then came out and is a Twitter think boy and a shit poster and has made a name for himself by basically leaning into being... [15:58] A shit person. [16:00] And that's his personality online. And it seems in real life. [16:05] So... [16:06] He has become a hero to some as like committing to a bit. He also bought the Wu-Tang album, made sure nobody could listen to it. He did like a bunch of stuff that, [16:15] is like meme brought to life. Yeah, he's definitely like a provocateur. He's a provocateur of our time. Some of the Gen Zers, the young and folk, think that he's hilarious and they think he's super bass and they're into it as a premise. [16:29] And this is a free environment. There's the free country of America and there are the free liberties of the state of Boys Club. And you are permitted and have your life and choices completely unjudged by the group. And if we were all the same... [16:46] That would be really so boring. And I love it. And it's, it's grown my life and my worldview and my perspective so much. And I really, really genuinely appreciate it. And it's changed my life. I do too. I do too. [16:57] However, I really hate Martin Scarelli. [17:01] So we're doing some like fun promotional videos around this. And they're so stupid. Like they're made by me and Canva. You can tell. And like if Bachelor Nation gets a hold of it, we will get like a cease and desist and like a copyright infringement. But like we're having fun. And it came up as a thing where...

[17:23] some people wanted to more publicly promote that he [17:27] was into it and involved and he tweeted about it and just a disclaimer. [17:32] in my conversations with our Gen Zers, [17:35] They are... [17:37] in favor of having him involved as a tactic for growth. I don't, [17:42] think our Gen Z friends think that Martin Screlly is a moral person or a good person. They're just like, hey, this could be an opportunity. And I think fairly, [17:53] It is. [17:54] I think it could be an opportunity. And so I think that that's how they're thinking about it, just as a little quick disclaimer. [17:59] It's hard because... [18:01] There's a tension between my personal relationship. [18:04] Three pillars that are in conflict. The tension pillars. Talk to me about the tension pillars. Tension pillar one, my personal feelings about this person. Yeah. And my dislike for him. [18:16] And like ethically how he grates at me. Same. And I would also say the kind of persona of shit poster boy tech boy is not like my kind of dude. And getting attention for being a bad person. Like knowing he can get attention for being bad. [18:31] problematic. [18:32] and not wanting to platform that person and give air and energy to that person. [18:37] Mm-hmm. Personally, that's one. Tension pillar one. Tension pillar one. Tension pillar two. Genuinely loving, enjoying, and celebrating having a community with a diverse set of worldviews and ideas and perspectives and wanting that to be platformed and for there to be room and space together.

[18:55] within Boys Club for people to have their own perspective of the world and that be able to be brought to life in many different forms through the Boys Club universe. [19:04] And also like really loving Parker and Kelly and wanting them to be able to have their personal creative expression and fun online and do weird internet stuff with boys club. [19:14] And not wanting to like censor them in that. Yeah. Pillar tension three. [19:18] Tension Pillar 3. Talk to me. [19:21] protecting the brand of voice club and being very aware that this is on the brand account being enacted and distributed through the voice club channels and wanting to lean into a brand that is chaotic and [19:36] And funny and doesn't give a fuck and has a variety of worldviews and interests displayed publicly on their channels while also wanting to protect the brand of Boys Club. There's a brand tension that, like, I'm having a hard time articulating. I think it's, like, risk versus upside. [19:54] Exactly. Exactly. And I'm like the type of person that is going to be attracted to Boys Club through Martin Screlly tweeting and posting about us. I'm genuinely unsure. [20:07] If that's who we want in the audience of Boys Club listening to this podcast. Like, I don't know that that's the right audience. Yeah. I'd say there's a fourth. [20:16] tension pillar [20:17] which is... [20:19] related to tension pillar two for you but i just want to expand on tension pillar two and into its own place which is

[20:25] I... [20:26] want to encourage the community to come up with weird stuff. Totally. I don't want to [20:34] stop that energy because it's so... [20:37] Powerful. Powerful. And but like also just like fun and incredible and people seeing Boys Club as a platform to do their weird thing and like on-chain bachelor. And I don't I don't want to dissuade that by coming in and saying it's not right. And I also want Boys Club as a brand to. [20:58] be more than us and that's really important and I know we both feel that way and so this is a great opportunity where it's like Kelly it's her thing Kelly and Parker and Joe Grace and David Phelps and like it's this thing that's like totally outside of us and it's happening and it's funny and it's weird and it's like [21:15] I don't want to. Internet native. I just like come on, let that live because I think that creativity and that willingness to like do the work and put stuff out into the world is like. [21:23] really cool yeah and it's special and it's special yeah i want to also say it's like totally fine [21:30] Like no one is in conflict with each other. Nobody's mad. Nobody's had like weird. There's nothing weird. It's more just like genuinely trying to figure out how you navigate. [21:41] this as a brand, my own personal feelings for Kelly and Parker. [21:46] I think also like I do feel a sense of like responsibility, um, [21:50] to... [21:51] all of these parties to like do right by them. And so it's been an interesting thing to navigate. They being Kelly and Parker, they being Kelly and Parker. And I feel sensitive to,

[22:02] Genuinely, [22:03] who we platform and even more so who we platform as men. [22:07] Like if you're a man that's platformed by voice club, you're pretty fucking cool. And yeah, [22:11] I feel like I want to hang out with you. And like, you're someone that I would set up on a date with my friend, maybe. And Lawrence Carelli is definitely not going to get my vote. The other thing that's very cool about this and what's great about blockchain is he can be a part of the group. And if you vote for him, [22:30] That is on chain forever and ever. You have to live with that until the end of time. Until the end of time. That will be public. [22:37] and immutable and transparent. I think we're going to continue to be faced by this as Boys Club continues to grow and there's more and more [22:46] attention to the brand and hopefully more and more people doing their cool weird thing through the platform of voice club where we are going to have to decide do we draw boundaries on this stuff do we not do we let it fly and like let it get weird and whatever happens happens. [23:01] And I think that's more the question of like, oh, this is the seedling of something that will continue to be a question that comes up. And it's like, do we have parameters around it or not? Yeah, I think also and especially as a community driven media brand, like it will... [23:15] continue to come up and I don't have an answer for how to do not an answer at all not answer at all I just want to say [23:22] If you're listening... [23:24] And you have feelings that Martin Screlly shouldn't go on a date with Kelly. Or you have feelings that you want to go on a date with Kelly. That you want him to go on a date with Kelly. That you want to go on a date with Kelly. Oh, that you want to go on a date with Kelly. Yeah. Jump into the thread. Get in touch with Kelly. Oh, can we read his tweet too? It's a really unfortunate...

[23:42] It's exactly the problem. Kelly J. Greer on Twitter wrote this funny tweet. Series B update. The diligence process is exhausting, so I'm outsourcing. Boys Club World will run on-chain bachelor contest via joke race. We'll use the takeaways to improve the dating process through a new project. He quote tweets that and says, Very interesting opportunity. Going to be putting a bid, and hopefully more. [24:05] Comma. In. Disgust. [24:07] disgusting unsubscribe please anyway she retweeted it so she she's cool with it and like that's the thing didn't she [24:15] She did. If she's cool with it, [24:17] She's cool with it. And that's. If she likes it, I love it. [24:21] But like, that's. [24:23] I gotta say, like, there's something... It does feel like a generational divide. It does. It does feel like... I feel old in it a little bit. I know I'm old in it, and I'm comfortable with that. You know what? We all have problematic men that we're into. Everybody does. Or problematic women. Or problematic people. People. [24:39] Yeah. And [24:40] That's your... [24:42] Cross the bear. [24:45] Okay, on that note, let's end it. [24:49] Friends, this is where we make an ask. We're in our call to action era. It's CTA times. Rate and review this podcast. Subscribe to our newsletter. And if you're feeling extra generous, send it to one friend. Thank you for listening. We love you. Bye.