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In this episode Michael Turpin discuss the gamification of the wellness industry through a partnership between Stepin and Steve Aoki, the resolution of the SEC case against Ripple, and the impact of recently approved Bitcoin and Ethereum ETFs on the market. They also delve into Michael's new book, "Bitcoin Supercycle," which aims to educate readers about the potential of Bitcoin and the crypto market.
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Key Topics Covered:
- Steve Aoki Collaboration: The partnership aims to gamify the $1.5 trillion wellness industry through a co-branded digital sneaker collection priced at $3,500, leveraging the Move to Earn Web3 app.
- SEC Case Against Ripple: The long-standing SEC lawsuit against Ripple Labs concluded with a $125 million settlement, allowing Ripple to avoid classifying XRP as a security, which many view as a win for the digital asset space.
- Impact of Bitcoin and Ethereum ETFs: The approval of spot Bitcoin and Ethereum ETFs has generated renewed interest in these cryptocurrencies, although recent market volatility suggests that various external factors, rather than the ETFs themselves, influenced significant sell-offs.
What was your favorite quote or lesson from this episode? Please let us know in the comments on YouTube. https://www.youtube.com/@edgeofnft/
Episode Highlights:
- "Well, this is a good day for digital assets, although I still think that $125 million is about $115 million too much." - Michael Turpin (00:04:43)
- "I see this as bullish news. I think the market sees it as bullish news, too, at the time of this recording ripples up like 24 percent in the last 24 hours." - Richard Carthon (00:06:15)
- "I started a bit angels, the first angel network, in early 2013... I’ve tried to demystify it as much as possible over the years." - Michael Turpin (00:12:14)
For the full transcript, see further below.
People and Resources Mentioned:
- Michael Terpin LinkedIn
- Transform Ventures LinkedIn
- Transform Ventures Website
- Steve Aoki @steveaoki
- Stepn Website
- Ripple Website
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About Our Guest:
- Bio: Michael Turpin is the founder and CEO of Transform Ventures, an investment firm focused on the blockchain and digital asset space. He is also an author, known for his book Bitcoin Supercycle: How the Crypto Calendar Can Make You Rich. Michael has been a prominent figure in the cryptocurrency industry since early 2013, when he started Bit Angels, the first angel network for Bitcoin.
- Website: Transform Ventures
- Twitter: @michaelterpin
- LinkedIn: Michael Terpin
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Full Episode Transcript:
# Swell AI Transcript: Michael Terpin_1.mp3
Richard Carthon: Welcome to Hot Topics on the Edge of NFT. I'm Richard Carthon. I'm here with Josh Krieger. We're diving into the latest and most exciting developments in the world of Web3, blockchain and digital assets.
Josh Kriger: And today we're excited to be joined by co-host Michael Turpin, who's founder and CEO of Transform Ventures, an investor and author of Bitcoin Supercycle, How the Crypto Calendar Can Make You Rich. Welcome, Michael, as our guest host today. Happy to be here. So as everyone knows, this is another production of Edge of Company, a quickly growing media ecosystem empowering the pioneers of Web3 tech and culture.
Richard Carthon: Today, we'll discuss how Stepan and Steve Aoki are gamifying the $1.5 trillion wellness industry, the SEC case against Ripple that has finally come to a resolution, the approval of Spot, Bitcoin, and Ethereum ETFs and their impact on the market, and finally, the details on Michael Turpin's new book that's available for pre-order.
Josh Kriger: It's time to dive in.
Richard Carthon: All right, so let's dive into the first news article, where we're going to talk about how Stepin and Steve Aoki are gamifying the 1.5 trillion wellness industry. So in an innovative collaboration, Stepin and the Move to Earn Web3 app have partnered with Grammy-nominated DJ, Steve Aoki, to launch a co-branded digital sneaker collection. This limited edition collection will be available for purchase on the Solana blockchain, with each sneaker priced at $3,500. The partnership aims to merge the gaming and wellness sectors, tapping into the wellness industry, valued at $1.5 trillion, and to grow 10% annually by 2027. So obviously, this is big news. Josh, we have a lot of ties to Steve from our event that we did back in 2022. What do you think about this news?
Josh Kriger: Yeah, and I met the founder of Stepin not too long ago as well. I think this is really cool. This is the type of Web3 integration that I get excited about, where you take two different sorts of very defined brands, you add a physical component to a project, and it does support wellness, health, longevity, which are topics that we care about on the show. I know, Michael, that's important to you as well. What are your thoughts on this?
Michael Terpin: Well, anytime you're able to go and take a mainstream brand and link it with a Web3 brand, there are far more people in the world who have heard of Steve Aoki, who've listened to his music, than who have worked out on Steppen. So it's a good thing.
Josh Kriger: Yeah, I'm excited. On the technology side, it'll be interesting to see how Stepping continues to advance their fitness tracking using blockchain technology and what type of use case applies with the sneaker and how that sort of proof of ownership works. I just got my 9DCC shirt, which I was able to sort of scan and sort of certify in the blockchain that I am an owner. I think, Richard, you've got one coming to you soon, too. I love these types of use cases and I'm looking forward to seeing how this collaboration manifests.
Richard Carthon: I am as well. And I also see this as a resurgence for Stepin. It was a huge wave that came initially, where I even had old college friends asking me about, hey, have you heard about this app? And you can do all this stuff. And then it's gone on a lull. And it looks like they're making another resurgence to push it again. So I'm excited to see how Stepin is able to grow with this partnership. But also, I'm excited to talk more about the second article, which is talking about after legal battles, the SEC case with Ripple has finally come to resolution. The SEC filed a lawsuit against Ripple Labs in December of 2020, accusing the company of raising $1.3 billion through a sale of its digital token XRP as an unregistered security. The case has been ongoing for nearly four years, and Ripple challenged the SEC's classification of XRP as a security. Ripple was fined $125 million as part of the settlement.
Josh Kriger: Uh, this amount is significantly lower than a billion dollars sought by the sec Yeah You know, I I think there's has to be a little bit of a saving face thing going on here with this resolution the the fact is, you know ripple didn't you know, have to acknowledge that they are a security, right? That is the win here. It seems like the settlement, you know, is just sort of, I don't know, it's fluff. It's really fluff that it comes down to. Michael, what are your thoughts?
Michael Terpin: Well, this is a good day for digital assets, although I still think that $125 million is about $115 million too much. You know, I mean, what you're looking at, it was basically Was this an investment contract? And yeah, it was an investment contract of some sort, but we hadn't identified in 2011-2012 when they were initially selling to, again, institutional investors. Ripple and Reg D, all they wanted to do was file a one page letter, and a lot of it has been used to then keep you off of exchanges. I think it's a gray area back in 2011, 2012. I think you're correct, it was about saving face. And ideally, there will be laws of the future in the next administration, whoever that might be, that'll clarify so that we're not looking and saying, how much like an orange grow is this?
Josh Kriger: Yeah, well said. I think there's definitely a broader sort of sentiment, you know, that we're talking about here with you know, the type of policies that were discussed at Bitcoin Nashville recently. And in this resolution, I think things are looking more bullish for the U.S., you know, which is really nice to see as someone that's still based here. I haven't moved to Lisbon or Dubai or any other sort of new crypto centers. It would be great to get some more positive energy in the U.S. Richard, any final thoughts?
Richard Carthon: Yeah, so like my take on this is I see this as bullish news. I think the market sees it as bullish news, too, at the time of this recording ripples up like 24 percent in the last 24 hours. Obviously, not financial advice, any of that. But the market is seeing this as positive news. And it's very interesting to see how the SEC continues to rule on these various cases. And I think it's going to keep being a talking point going into this election cycle and going into the next administration again, whoever that may be. But now we're going to talk about our next article, which is the approval of the spot Bitcoin and Ethereum ETFs and their impact on the future of those cryptocurrencies so far. So The renewed interest in both of these cryptos have been very apparent. And just looking at the year and how bullish the market has turned since the Bitcoin ETF got approved months ago, and the Ethereum ETF was allowed to start being invested in a couple weeks ago. And Although you saw money entering the market, there's also been a really significant selloff over the last week. It's the worst selloff we've actually seen since the 2020 collapse of FTX, where you saw Bitcoin go down as low as $49,000 and Ethereum going down almost all the way down to 25,000. There's been a recovery since the timing of this recording. But it's curious around like, do you think the ETFs had something to do with it? Or do you still see the both Bitcoin and Ethereum ETFs as a net positive?
Josh Kriger: Yeah, so I guess what I would say is that there's been a history of pretty meaningful market changes when you have a new futures trading platform or an ETF, but this felt like a convergence of a lot of different things happening at one time. The U.S. job market weakened, interest rates were high, you know, Japan had some surprising news around their raising of rates. And there were a lot of leverage trades that accelerated during the downturn. not to mention that Bitcoin ETFs saw some outflows. So my feeling is, this was a sort of a convergence of factors that led to such a big decline. And we haven't seen that type of situation before. But, you know, at this point, it looks like things are stabilizing again, and that We'll hear more from Michael as he talks about his book and his predictions, but it seems like things are on track again. Michael, your thoughts?
Michael Terpin: Yeah, I mean, one of the pieces of advice I have in the book is to not buy on the dip in a bear market, but to definitely buy in the dip in a bull market. And because we're after the halving, You know, we are in a historical bull market that has happened every single time that there has been a halving. That's why I call it the four seasons of Bitcoin and explaining it, how it works in a four year cycle, just like stock market works in a 10 year cycle and real estate has their own cycles, 10 to 18 years and different markets. But no, I think this had nothing to do with the ETS. I think this was all about how sophisticated Wall Street investors were going and barring against, barring yen in Japan and then buying T-bills with it. And it was sort of an interesting play that they could make money on. And when all of a sudden You know, interest rates went up a little bit at the end, got stronger. People got wiped out. And it's just this rolling, you know, wave of liquidations where people had to sell their assets, including crypto. And, you know, this happens when you're not, you know, sort of properly balanced. If you're going, you know, into leverage on different assets. But if you look at the ETFs, it was the institution selling. It wasn't Ma and Pa, you know, retailers from their panic selling from their IRAs. The IRA portion of the ETFs, as has been widely reported, has not started yet. This is still mainly institutions buying these ETFs. And so now that Morgan Stanley is going to be unleashing their sales force and other big banks, investment banks are going to follow, that's when you're going to see the real impact of the ETFs. But right now, this is just what I mean, I tweeted on Monday morning. I was like, did you buy the dip? And you're up 20 percent if you did.
Richard Carthon: Yeah. And just to add on to that, when you look over the weekend, you have to look at not just the crypto markets, but all of the markets, like the traditional markets. And you had over almost or over a trillion dollars wiped away. And what happens when that happens, when that happens because of Japan and people being over leveraged, like you said, they have to get liquidity from somewhere. So if you think about where a lot of these people who are potentially over leveraged, where is their liquidity or their most recent trades, if they got into Bitcoin ETFs, that's probably the first place they were going to help cover themselves. And so it makes sense that there was an outflow from that. Michael, so definitely appreciate that take on it. And actually, this is a pretty good transition into our final news of the day, which is talking about your book. So you, Michael Turpin, the founder of CEO and Transform Ventures and author of Bitcoin Supercycle, how the crypto calendar can make you rich. you've just come out with your book. We would love to spend some time and learn a little bit more about it and, and what's to come.
Michael Terpin: Sure. So, I started a bit of angels, uh, the first, uh, angel network, in 20, early 2013, uh, at the same time that I first moved into Bitcoin, I went to the first Bitcoin foundation conference. And I realized that there were a lot of people who got in. early that were libertarians and geeks and this and that. But when I would talk to friends of mine who were traditional angel investors, traditional financial investors, they had no idea what Bitcoin was and they were afraid of it. And so I've tried to demystify it as much as possible over the years. I mentioned in the book when I went to speak at the New York Angels in July of 2013, when Bitcoin was $66 and I told him about this thing that was going to change the world economy and it was a huge opportunity, no one bought. After my presentation, I only got one question and that was from a retired professor at Princeton in economics and he said, son, you look like a nice young man. I suggest you run away from this as fast as possible because the only thing that Bitcoin is good for is drugs and prostitution. At the end of the decade, the New York Angels did a survey about what they missed out on that they could have bought. And one of the top answers, it was number two behind, they had an opportunity to buy Pinterest when it was a million and a half dollar market cap and they passed on that too, buying Bitcoin at $66.
Josh Kriger: Yeah, I'm excited about the book, Michael, because I believe that this type of education in the market is needed. And there's a gap here. There's still a huge swath of the world that doesn't understand Bitcoin and doesn't understand that the nature of the volatility, the context of the volatility, and in how they can actually use it to their advantage, as opposed to be afraid of this asset class, which is, is creating generational wealth, right. So I'm excited to see how the world reacts to your book. And I guess if someone's interested, they can actually pre order it now on Amazon.
Michael Terpin: Correct. It's being distributed by Cybert and Schuster. It'll be at bookstores as well, but you can buy it on Amazon. Just go on Amazon and a few other places and look up Bitcoin Supercycle by Michael Turpin, T-E-R-P-I-N. And it's a presale right now in both hard copy and Kindle.
Josh Kriger: That's amazing. So we'll share the link with our audience and it's really great to have you as a guest co-host on the show. If you want, you're welcome back anytime. Thank you, Josh. That's a wrap on today's hot topics. We've covered the exciting developments in the wellness industry, the end of the SEC ripple battle, the impact of ETF approvals, and Michael Turpin's new book you'll want to pick up on pre-order on Amazon.com.
Richard Carthon: Yeah, today's conversation was action packed and each story highlighted the dynamic nature of the crypto space and exciting developments that are shaping its future. But we want to hear from you. What do you think would be the most impactful takeaways from today's discussion? What do you think about where things are going for the crypto market and its price? What do you think about Michael Turpin's book? We want to hear more from you in the comments.
Josh Kriger: So share your insights in the comments or on social media. Your voice shapes the space. Stay curious, stay secure, keep pushing the Web3 boundaries. This is Josh and Richard and our guest co-host Michael signing off from Edge of NFT. Catch you on the flip side of the blockchain.
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