Stephen's Intro

Transcript

0:01 Do you reach? Do you reach? So, for those of you who have never been here before, welcome to the office.

0:12 Excited to have you all here, and we might just do this every year. And improve it, bigger and better. But, I mean, for those of you who work in this space, who work in crypto, and actually most people are aware, there are some things that happened last, well, 2022, that had us on the map for very negative reasons.

0:38 Won't call any names, Espia. I got it. But I mean, you know, that happened and unfortunately it had a lot of negative effects for us in Mohamed's optically, which in many ways was extremely unfair. But that's how things happen. And we realized, I mean, afterwards, after things calmed down, after people started forgetting, it was the local The whole crypto ecosystem that was the main groups and individuals that work in space. Who kind of had to pick up the pieces and had to, you know, try to set things right, try to turn things around. So we're doing it. We're picking up the pieces. We're doing what we have to do.

1:25 Because if no one's going to do it, we're going to do it. So that's what this is about. That's what we're all here for. to continue to move forward and to show, you know, the world that, one, the Bahamas is still the best place for this ecosystem, and two, showing everyone that this technology is still extremely important and we will continue to build and continue to push things forward, because that's the entire point. I think one of the questions, one of the things I think about a lot is how do you build an ecosystem? How do you build a flourishing and long-lasting and impactful ecosystem?

2:15 And it comes in two ways. Mainly it's bottom-up in the sense that you need grassroots action. You need people forming communities and coming together and bridging the gaps between different communities and to create an entire ecosystem, to create an entire ecology. That's what this is. That's what you guys are doing right now. All of you that are here. This is grassroots action to form an ecosystem. But it also comes from top-down in the sense that we have a government and we have regulators that are very crypto-friendly, who are very much, they want this to be a thing in the Bahamas. So what we have there is an opportunity to come from both the bottom-up and the top-down,

3:08 which is extremely rare. Actually, the Securities Commission had a digital assets event at a conference actually a few months ago. Just to kind of solidify and confirm that they are also, you know, they are also going to push for the space. And, you know, having regulators that at the very least won't stand in the way is huge. and that will continue. Gary Gensler can never. So, yeah, I think the realization and understanding that many will continue to realize is that crypto in the Bahamas is in a very unique space and we're moving past the negative connotations that came from FDS and moving towards an ecosystem

3:57 that is built from the ground up, that's built from local behaviors, who realize this is important and want to see this push forward. Everything that's happening right now is just steps to push things forward, steps to break through. Most people know the financial situation in terms of financial access is still very difficult for the average behavior. This is something that will, the technology is already there. We Can Turn Things Around, We Can Just Provide Financial Access And Economic Access To A Lot Of People, And That's Not Just For Us, That's Also For The Entire Caribbean, We Are One Of The, You Know, Most Financially Restricted And Economically Restricted Regions, And Crypto, It's Already A Technology That Exists, That People Can Use, And We Are, We're Here To Show People That That's What It's For, And I Mean, And The Question Of Why Can

4:57 consumer crypto, outside of it being a cool thing right now, we realize we are finally out of place in terms of the infrastructure that the regular, like regular people, you don't have to be technically advanced to understand how to use crypto, you can actually find, you know, your grandma can use a wallet these days, your grandma can interact with certain and the technologies these days, and all this is continually being developed. I've personally worked in crypto education for the last many years. And I mean, education is important, not always be working in some capacity in that area, but education, I kind of look at it as showing someone how to unlock a door. So once you give them the tools that they can

5:51 They can do whatever they want afterwards. They can do some kind of action. They can give themselves access to something they didn't have before. But education is very, you know, it's one person at a time kind of interaction. And the difference is, what a lot of people are focusing right now, what I want to focus more on is building. Building, and by that I just mean actually working on the tech and building up the tech and whatnot While education is showing someone how to unlock a door, building is breaking the lock and throwing the door open So that way you don't have to worry about, okay, can this person understand, can this person do this themselves

6:36 You just make sure that everyone has access So, again, that's why consumer crypto because that's where, you know, so much is being pushed in terms of making that access so much easier. I won't go into like account ostrac and everything, but I mean, it's great to see so much movement happening right now in terms of just making crypto as easy as possible for people to understand and to use. And that's where so much of the impact is going to come from. So just want to thank you all again for being here. The main is, you hear, you hear, but it also means you know why this is important, you know why things like this that are coming from everyday local bands to push this forward, this is what it is, for the international folks, thank y'all for making the flight, thank y'all for coming down, I know the Bahamas in January isn't a hard sell, but again, you see the importance, you understand why we're here

7:45 and we're building bridges and we're filling gaps and we're going to do this all together and we're going to free people together. So thank you all. Huge shout out to CryptoIsle, of course, for allowing us to have the space for three days. That's crazy. And it's going to be, I mean, y'all see the venue. Elijah can't see the venue, but it's gorgeous. You gotta view the water. It sells itself. And also a huge shout out to KPMG. Really, really, really appreciate you. And guys, it's gonna be a great three days. And we're gonna, I mean, there's gonna be a lot of learning, there's gonna be a lot of discussion, but we're also gonna have fun. So, let's do it.

8:47 So obviously we did start a bit late. We also had to, you know, flights and airlines are not anyone's friend at the moment, so we're not going to rearrange a few things, but we'll set some time just for networking. I know some of y'all don't know each other, so we're going to do that for now, and we'll start the next session. We'll have the next session at 12. So until then, thank you. I set up for the whole time Get them twins, brother What?