Democratizing Early-Stage Investments with Joe Endoso from Linqto

Ever wonder how an ordinary investor can explore the thrilling world of private companies before they go public? Join us as we sit down with Joe, the COO of Linqto, who is on a mission to democratize access to early-stage investments. His journey from founding a crypto startup to steering the operations of Linqto is filled with intriguing insights into digital assets, cryptocurrency, and blockchain technology. Gain an exclusive look into the workings of Linqto and learn how it serves as a powerful tool for regular investors.

Can an investment banker in the Middle East contribute to diversifying the region's economy beyond oil and gas? Joe's rich experience in collaborating with governments and financial institutions provides a unique perspective on this possibility. Understand how this endeavor shapes his work at Linqto, and discover the key growth goals he envisions for the company. As we delve into the lucrative opportunities and operations in private markets, Joe's insights into the potential of Linqto, the liquidity of investments, and even his hobbies outside work, make for an engaging conversation.

But there's more to this episode. We also explore various books on Bitcoin and cryptocurrency and discuss the Bitcoin market and the upcoming 2024 halving event. As we conclude, Joe explains how Linqto safeguards its customers and the revolutionary technology that fuels the platform. It's a conversation that transcends the realm of early-stage investments and delves into the future of finance, technology, and society. Don't miss out as Joe leaves us with his closing insights and tips on the intricate world of early-stage investments and cryptocurrency.

00:00 🎬 Episode Intro
01:10 🌀 Biggest Twist in Joe’s Career
03:00 🌍 Linqto International 
03:30 💼 Linqto & Digital Assets 
04:35 📈 Minimum Requirements & Scaling on Linqto
05:55 🖥️ Bosonic - Specialized Trading Platform
07:00 💰 Cryptocurrency Value Proposition 
09:05 🏦 War Stories from an Investment Banker 
13:30 🎉 Celebrating Nail-Biting Deals 
15:55 🚀 Linqto Start-Up Strategies 
20:45 🛒 Buying/Selling on Linqto
24:15 🏖️ Life Outside of Business 
25:02 📚 Books on Business and Crypto
28:30 ⏳ 2024 Halving & Next Cycle Price Predictions
35:15 🎓 Advice to Inspiring FinTech Entrepreneurs
36:49 🏢 Linqto’s Chosen Companies / Business Model 
41:48 🚀 Getting Started w/ Linqto
42:50 🍽️ Dinner w/ Historical Figures
45:20 🗽 Democratize Private Markets

🔗 Connect with Linqto:

🎥 YouTube Channel - Linqto YouTube
🐦 Twitter - Linqto Twitter
📸 Instagram - Linqto Instagram
📘 Facebook - Linqto Facebook
🌐 LinkedIn - Joseph A. Endoso LinkedIn
🎁 Sign Up Bonus - Linqto Signup (if you sign up you get $250)

🚀 Ready to dive into the Bitcoin universe? Join the crypto revolution with Bitbuy, a reputable Canadian exchange! Buy Bitcoin and get a $20.00 bonus after making your first $250 transfer. Start your journey here 🎉

🔐 Looking for top-notch security for your digital assets? Grab the ultra-secure Bitfi self-custody wallet and enjoy a $30.00 discount. Protect your crypto like a pro here 🛡️


https://halvingreport.com/

Transcript

Speaker 1: 0:00

What's up everybody. Welcome back to another episode of the having report podcast. I am your host, brad minds. The price of Bitcoin is 29.3 Thousand us dollars and there's only about 37 weeks left until the next Bitcoin having. Today, we welcome Joe and do so onto the show. Joe is the COO of link to platform, link to helps regular investors like you and I Invest early into companies that have yet to go public. It's the first and only trading platform for shares of private companies that I am aware of. This was a very candid and interesting interview with Joe, and do so so without further ado. Everybody, welcome Joe to the show. Joe, welcome to the having report podcast. Thanks for doing this tonight, oh.

Speaker 2: 0:45

It's my pleasure, you know, a privilege actually, because you put out a good show print.

Speaker 1: 0:50

I much appreciate that we learn a little bit every day and every episode that we do here, joe. So you'll be our. You'll be our 91st episode. I was hoping you could just kick things off with us by sharing a little bit about your journey, you know, from from founding of Redbridge Group to becoming the COO at link to. You know what's the most unexpected twist you've had in your career so far.

Speaker 2: 1:10

Oh gosh, I think it probably was my, my decision to become a, a, an entrepreneur, not an investment banking, because I, you know, started to little banking firms, a little investment banking boutiques, after I left Work for one of the largest firms in the world, like that, but all that was investment banking.

Speaker 2: 1:31

But around the 2015 period, I started getting really interested in fintech and in crypto and in 2016, I left my last banking firm which is, by the way, still around in Washington DC, is called in Vera and Vera capital and Left to do a startup in crypto, and I took that company, which is still around today it's called the sonic digital through three rounds of funding and, you know, left for a variety of reasons, having Mostly to do with the fact that I thought we were a little early with our product and into the market. To go work on link to which you know, after I met the founder and we discussed the vision for the company, I felt, in contrast, was something that was absolutely perfectly timed for, for for the market, and I can tell you that, based on our experience since we launched the investing platform in February of 2020, everything has proven out according to that thesis.

Speaker 1: 2:42

Yeah, it's a very interesting thesis. You guys offer the ability to invest in Companies that have not gone public yet. It's a very great opportunity for retail investors and something that's definitely Peek my interests. Is this just available to Americans at this time?

Speaker 2: 3:04

No, I mean a little over 15% of our businesses done outside of the US and you know a good number of those foreign customers are actually from your home country, canada.

Speaker 1: 3:19

Yeah, well, I may be the next one here, joe.

Speaker 2: 3:22

Oh, that'd be great, yeah, I.

Speaker 1: 3:27

Yeah, for sure, very interesting, and particularly interesting with with what's going on in ripple with ripple. Yeah, that's one of the companies that you are to invest in for retail investors, is that right?

Speaker 2: 3:38

Yes, absolutely right. I mean we have invested in ripple and maybe another Call it 15 or so other companies in the digital asset space, and a lot of that was born of the, you know conviction that I had for my years in crypto that this is a very foundational technology that will have very long-lasting implications on many of the world's largest industries, including finance. So we've invested in ripple and these other companies on that on that basis and I'm very glad and heartened that, you know, a good number of our investment community Believe, as we do, in the promise of that of that space and in the companies in that space, and so they've also invested and supported us in in in those investments.

Speaker 1: 4:35

Great, and is there? Is there a minimum investment that is required? On link to.

Speaker 2: 4:41

So today that minimum is 5,000. When we launched the platform, brad, it was 10,000. But as we began to scale we were able to get our unit costs down and we decided that if our mission is to democratize access into the space, then the affordability of investments is one of the key things we've got to address. So we dropped from 10,000 to 5,000. And today we're allowing our newest customers, people that come in and make their first investment, to make their first investment at 2,500. So even lower, and I have no doubt that in the future, as again we continue to scale and our unit costs go down even more, we'll drop all the investments across the platform at any time for anyone to $2,500.

Speaker 1: 5:36

Wow, that's very impressive. You guys have come a long way, then, since the start of that, and again, that's a big step to democratize investments. So very interesting, very interesting. I want to jump back to your original startup in the space, and what was the product that you guys had there?

Speaker 2: 5:55

You're talking about Bosonic, the company before LinkedIn? Yes, so we were building a specialized trading platform that would address the need, particularly of regulated institutions like banks and public hedge funds and the like to be able to trade crypto on the one hand in a very high frequency manner, meaning very, very, very rapid transaction times at very, very large volumes of transactions, but without the need to go through the traditional means of basically mitigating counterparty risks.

Speaker 2: 6:42

And you can do that through blockchain and the ability to settle transactions very rapidly through atomic settlements. So that was the basic premise of it. It was a highly sophisticated institutional trading platform.

Speaker 1: 7:00

Right and for you personally, did you like cryptocurrencies, blockchain, like? The value proposition to you Like? Was that financial payments, quick payments, or do you have a larger vision for it, like a store of wealth, a global reserve asset? What are your thoughts around that?

Speaker 2: 7:18

Well, it's all of those things, and obviously not every blockchain and every native token is going to meet all of those requirements, right? I think that you know it's like in the traditional finance world when you come up with financial instruments, there are trade-offs, and those are typically risk-reward trade-offs, but there are also trade-offs in terms of capabilities. If you get a certain capability, you give up on something else that's not as important. It's no different in the blockchain world. And so, yes, I mean, if you, for example, you look at Bitcoin, it's just its resilience over several market cycles and over a long span of time have quite, I think, have made it quite obvious what its qualities are as a store of value, right.

Speaker 2: 8:12

On the other hand, if you look at the hash rates on that blockchain, it's probably not the best infrastructure on which to build. You know low latency, you know high frequency trading. That's something you need different kinds of blockchains for that. So that doesn't mean that one is good and one is bad. It just means that you've got to understand what your use case is and then build appropriately on the right chain using the right, you know token. And so in the traditional finance world, it's no different, right? There are very many different kinds of companies addressing a whole slew of different kinds of problems in our world and, depending on what the problem is, you find the right company and the right product and service that addresses it.

Speaker 1: 9:00

And you've worked, like we were saying earlier, you've worked in a diverse, a lot of diverse locations, you know. Is there any experiences you had throughout your career that were more memorable? Maybe cultural experiences, or something I'm using in any of the cities that you worked in?

Speaker 2: 9:16

I got more than my fair share of war stories, because the thing is, you know, as an investment banker which is what I've done for most of my professional life, brad you get to go to so many places and encounter so many different kinds of people so I probably couldn't write a whole book on that. I will tell you that one of the more interesting things that it wasn't a single incident, as much as a period and a series of decisions, right that undergirded that whole thing was going to the Middle East. You know, when you're working in banking and in capital markets, those are businesses that are very, very driven by the largest capital markets in the world, which are principally here in the States and then secondarily in the developed parts of Europe and Asia. Right, but the Middle East isn't part of that mix.

Speaker 2: 10:15

But when I started my first boutique banking firm in the 2000s, one of the founding premises was that there were emerging markets out there, outside of that triumvirate that I just described of, you know, north America and Western Europe and the developed parts of Asia.

Speaker 2: 10:38

That there were markets outside of that that, for a variety of reasons, would become strategically very important in global markets and that we had an opportunity as a fledgling firm to go into those markets really early, establish relationships and networks and begin doing transactions. You know that nobody else was willing to do, and that thought process and its execution took me to the Middle East and specifically to the Arabian Gulf. I made my first trip to Dubai in 2000. It was a long, long time ago. I remember, you know, getting on the plane for that first trip and I'd say 90% of my friends were worried that I was not coming back because they thought terrorists would break my hotel room down and hold me up for ransom. I mean, I'm not kidding yet People actually said that right. So that was what was going to happen to me.

Speaker 1: 11:44

And that was before 9-11, right.

Speaker 2: 11:46

Oh, yeah, yeah. And then 9-11 happened. After that it was like game over. You shouldn't be. You know, you got to be nuts. But you fast forward to where we are today, right, and you know, nobody asked me anymore where Dubai is or what Dubai is. They don't ask me how to spell the word. And when I go there in November to attend Ripple's swell conference, everybody and their brother that is playing an important role in the world's financial and crypto markets, will be there. Right, that's the nature, the positive nature, of change, and that was a city state that undertook that kind of transformation. And we have, with the various technologies that we are, you know, investing in at link to with our members, the ability also to participate in that kind of exciting and transformative change and, in many cases, be able to see the impact, the results of those changes within our lifetimes.

Speaker 1: 12:56

Yeah, dubai is one of those places making you know very quick change and kind of put itself on the map very quickly and, like you said, there's not a lot of questioning around it. And that's kind of a positive thing to me because you know you see a lot of bad news out there but the way you just described how people are different now and have a different attitude and culture, you know I guess that's part of the world being more globalized and as time goes on I guess the world's getting a little bit smaller and smaller. But it's good. It's good to have a global culture. It's good to see that sort of development happen, happen really quick. Did you have any you know real nail biter deals that throw out your career? And how would you celebrate after?

Speaker 2: 13:39

One of those deals with a deal that we close literally on Easter Sunday, you know, which is a work day in the Middle East, by the way, right, so they have a work week where the weekend at the time was Friday and Saturday, and then Sunday was the first day of the work week, so it was a work week we're on a beach in in Dubai and agreed terms and then went back into the hotel and signed documents for a transaction. So I was at that time a semiconductor investment banker, covering an industry that now has gotten increasingly important because of the advent of generative AI and the requirement within that sector for massive amounts of computing power right which, you know, a new generation of chips that have been engineered to meet that very specific need are now coming to the forefront and we're we're invested in that, in that space and in those chips as well. But long story short, you know, one of the really exciting things about that foray into that part of the world was being involved with governments and some of the large financial institutions in the region in in this project to help them diversify their economies outside of oil and gas, which had been you know still are the main sources of their wealth. But because you had a generation of leadership coming to the fore in those countries.

Speaker 2: 15:15

It was we're thinking really long, long term, right, they were saying, unless we reinvest this oil and gas wealth into other industries that are going to remain even after the oil and gas run out, we're we're going to basically seal the demise of our nations.

Speaker 2: 15:34

So we ought to figure out what some of those other industries are, and we were able to convince a bunch of those folks that semiconductors was one of those industries. And so if you track the progress of the sovereign wealth funds, particularly of the UAE, you know so Dubai, abu Dhabi, which are the two largest and wealthiest emirates in the UAE, you will see that in that period they started investing heavily in in in the technology sector and in semiconductors, and that that is a trend that continues to this day. And if you look at AMD, for example, all of their chip fabs today are owned by an entity that is the technology investment arm of the sovereign wealth fund of Abu Dhabi. So I got to see that whole train of progress right start at the station in in those days, and I, you know, I mean I, I I hoped that I was, you know able to play at least a small part in in the train out of that station on that track very interesting.

Speaker 2: 16:55

Moving to your role at link, to what are your primary responsibilities and how are you bringing your past experiences into play, you know what's what's the most exciting thing you're working on right now wow, there's every day there's about 20 exciting things happening because, like every startup, right, you're trying to forge new directions in in every which way, some of which work, some of which don't, but then you, you pivot very quickly from from based on the learnings of this stuff that didn't work, and then you you also try to consolidate the gains on the stuff that is working and trying to move the company forward. So, you know, my job is to basically work with our founder, who's the the ceo as well of the company today, in terms of just shaping the direction. We're also making sure that our day-to-day operations are running smoothly and we're continuing to make progress in terms of some of our key goals. Those key goals are largely all revolved around growth. Growth is important because this is a play that's fundamentally about addressing a market where there has been very, very little participation by regular individuals like you and me, meaning that, even though investing in private tech companies has been around for decades and it's, frankly, been the kind of investment that has generated the best returns in that same period of time of any asset class, the sad reality is that all of that investing and therefore all of the gains, all the wealth that got created through that investing was largely the monopoly of institutions Venture capital funds, private equity funds, sovereign wealth funds, pension funds but not regular people like you and me.

Speaker 2: 18:54

This is what gets me up in the morning. What excites me is this notion that we are now bringing in people and people's capital into a market that for the longest time hasn't had those parties in their capital participate in. The opening up of that is and the opportunity is massive because there are tens of millions, and one estimate places that number close to 100 million. There are close to 100 million accredited investors in the world today who control collectively over 73 trillion in wealth. So link to is about trying to get a small portion of those very big numbers of people and capital into this private market. And this private market, by the way, is also large. The investable universe is very large. There are today probably over 5,000 VC funded tech companies around the world that are worth a darn and over 1,300 of those already today have valuations of $1 billion or more. That's the investable universe. Those unicorns roughly 1,300 have a collective market value in the private market grab. That's about one and a half, or actually it's about 2 trillion today.

Speaker 1: 20:42

Yeah, I mean the potential is. It's a no brainer to me, joe. I guess my question is how does it work in terms in comparison to buying and selling a stock? If I go on on Linkto's website, I sign up, I buy $2,500 or $5,000 worth, what do I get and can I go ahead and sell those back, or am I in it until it goes public? How does that work?

Speaker 2: 21:04

Yeah, that's a really good question. So what's happening when you invest? Say, our newest customer, brad, you come, so you get to make your first investment for $2,500. Is all right, your $2,500 buys you a share of an investment vehicle that we manage and that holds stock in that company that you invest in. So let's say you invest in the company you'd mentioned earlier, ripple. There's an investment vehicle that owns Ripple stock and you become a pro rata owner of that vehicle to the tune of your $2,500, right.

Speaker 2: 21:45

And when Ripple eventually goes public, we come and say, brad, do you want to just have us pay you cash after we sell that Ripple stock in the public market and realize your gain that way? Or do you actually just want to hold the Ripple stock and decide yourself what you want to do with it? Right, and if you choose the latter, we'll send the stock to your brokerage account. If you choose the former, we'll sell you a Ripple stock and send the cash to your bank account. So that's how it works.

Speaker 2: 22:21

But here's the beauty of it that pro rata share of the investment vehicle that you own for your $2,500 is liquid. What does it mean? What that means is that if you decide, for whatever reason, you no longer want to wait for that Ripple IPO, because you need the money, or you want to invest your $2,500 in something else on our platform, you can sell that investment to other members or to us and we'll give you the value. And, by the way, that value changes because on our platform there is a market. So people are buying and selling Ripple right, because that price is going up. It's going down. We've had many people take their gains on Ripple because they were able to buy Ripple sometime back at a lower price and they've been able to take gains on it. Sometimes people come in and they take gains based purely on arbitrage, meaning I buy Ripple this week and I sell it two weeks later because the price has gone up.

Speaker 2: 23:30

So, all of those things are things that you can do and can't be done on any other platform for that type of investment.

Speaker 1: 23:40

So there's no competition in this space for you guys right now.

Speaker 2: 23:44

Not in the manner that you're able to transact or hold your investment, and certainly not for the small increments that we're talking about.

Speaker 1: 23:52

Yes, Wow, well, yeah, like I said, it sounds like quite the opportunity. Joe, when I came across your profile and your company, I was genuinely interested and I'm glad to hear that it's open for all Canadians, and all my listeners up here in Canada can have that opportunity that was never there in the past for them, so very, very interesting. Just a quick break from crypto and business, joe. What do you like to do on your spare time?

Speaker 2: 24:23

I used to be into running a lot and used to play in a pick up soccer kind of a league. I've given a lot of that up as we've just become more intensely involved in building up link too. So today I mean I'll do that occasionally, but actually what's easier to do is probably I don't know pick up a guitar and strum a couple of tunes or pick up a good book and read it. So quieter pursuits that are easier to do from off of my cheer here and from the computer, yeah awesome, and are you reading anything good right now?

Speaker 1: 25:02

Or do you read any or many Bitcoin or crypto books?

Speaker 2: 25:05

I haven't. I read a primer on blockchain technology years ago. I can't say I've read anything on that anytime recently. Is there something you'd recommend to me, Brad? It's good.

Speaker 1: 25:18

Oh, absolutely, I have a little bit of a collection behind me here. I'm not sure you can see a little bit down here I have I can't make any titles.

Speaker 1: 25:27

Yeah, bitcoin billionaires is a good one. That's about the Winklevoss twins and their entry and journey into the space. I'm lucky enough to have a signed copy of that behind me. I also have. I do have the Bitcoin widow, which is the wife of Jerry Cotton. If you've heard of Quadrica X, that was the the big exchange that went down in Canada. Hundreds of millions kind of lost there for for Canadian investors, unfortunately that's really that.

Speaker 2: 25:57

That is so cool. Do you have any books there about? So one of the most interesting guys and, I think, still one of the guys I look up to in the space is Novo Mike Novogratz, and Novo's company is actually listed up there in Canada on the Toronto Stock Exchange, as you probably know, but he was one of those guys.

Speaker 2: 26:19

I was very, very early into Bitcoin and crypto. He came out of investment banking and asset management and I think what he's doing in terms of setting up an investment bank and an asset management firm that's pure play, you know, focused on the digital asset spaces is is genius, and so I think if nobody's yet written a book about him, somebody ought to ought to, because I think, in the long span of history, he's going to be one of those early pioneers that we're going to look at. And I find it particularly interesting right because, unlike very many of the people that have helped the that space mature and grow, novo's primarily not a technologist right. Most of the people are their engineers and people that have that kind of a technological background, but Novo's a banker and an investor, so somebody that has, you know, background. It's more, more like me, and so I find that I find it particularly inspirational in that respect.

Speaker 1: 27:30

Yeah, it's definitely, you know, inspiring to see people like yourself in this space. Not everybody comes from the same background and I like to say that cryptocurrency, at Bitcoin, is very multi-disciplinary and People come from and get motivated by it from all different walks of life. I guess the other two I would I would say that we're kind of low-key really really good for me to learn about Was the block size wars. That that book was was quite interesting because I came into the space in 2017 and so I kind of was just at the tail end of those of the block size wars. And then the seventh property by Eric Yakes, is about this new property that Bitcoin possesses of immutability and I guess Really intriguing book.

Speaker 2: 28:20

What is it called that? I'm gonna take that down, yeah.

Speaker 1: 28:24

Yeah, the seventh property by Eric Yakes and yeah, very, very interested and underrated Book in the space for sure. Yeah, definitely, definitely check them out, man. And there's there's lots of good stuff in this space. I'm sort of addicted to the Bitcoin and crypto material.

Speaker 2: 28:42

Yeah, you've become an expert so just by because of the discipline of your reading in your study. Plus, you get to speak to a lot of people that are in the know, so I'm sure you've accumulated a lot of knowledge. I mean I was actually looking at the at the title of your podcast, brad, and I was curious to get your personal views on how you think you know the Bitcoin market is going to React to the, the having event that's coming up next year.

Speaker 2: 29:12

I mean yeah, you know, so far and you know, it's history Going to be a good indicator of what will happen this time around. What's gonna be the same, what's not gonna be the same, do you think?

Speaker 1: 29:27

Yeah, that's a great question and often a question I like to ask my guests, but now you flipped it around on me here I Usually ask my.

Speaker 1: 29:41

Yeah, so so I mean for, yeah, I'm forever bullish and and I think you know Hence the name of my podcast, the having report I always put in my description, always counting down the days until the next Bitcoin having, and, and and that's just because I feel like, as a normal person, you know dollar cost averaging into Bitcoin. I think looking forward to the next having is always exciting. If you think those supply and demand economics are gonna take effect, like they do have been the past, I do believe that it'll be less impactful than than the past having. However, we're also getting a whole lot of new players into the space institutional money, nation-state money so it could be, yeah, I'm like at minimum, I see like a double, triple quad, like in that range of of price, and Not not for, sorry if not from the current, but in terms of price I would say, you know, 120 to 140 thousand dollars would be. I think you know reasonable to say and that's just kind of based on on me asking other people, my last guests he thought, would you know, a conservative number would be like from 103 to 110 thousand dollar per Bitcoin.

Speaker 1: 30:54

He's much more bullish on Ethereum With just more utility. He says like eight thousand dollars, that, and that's just my last guess. He's got a pretty pretty good, pretty big YouTube channel called dollar cost crypto and he's got his ear pretty close to the ground. He's an interesting fellow, but yeah, no, I definitely think the having will always have some sort of effect and kind of push people to act in a certain way. So I'm certainly bullish. Do you agree, or what are your thoughts initially?

Speaker 2: 31:30

You know. The truth is, I don't think I know enough, brad, to be able to make as educated a guest as you. What is interesting to me about what you said? Two things. One is that the kind of price appreciation you're talking about is more reminiscent of the very first having of 2012,. Right, we certainly didn't see that same level of pickup that you're describing in the next two avenues. So that's one that is interesting to me, and I'm curious why you would think, or the people that told you that would think that. And then the second is this bit about Ethereum is going to react in this fashion. That is also quite interesting to me that there's going to be this a significant impact. I mean, I think it's quite clear when you look at technical charts and correlations, right, how tight, at the end of the day, every other coin is tied to Bitcoin, and so if you had a significant spike in Bitcoin I assume that is what that person is basically basing the Ethereum prediction on their e-prediction.

Speaker 1: 32:44

I should clarify that we were talking next bull run, not just the having per se. I mean, like I'm talking, like you know, six to eight months post having, I think we'll start to see those supply and demand economics kind of kick in. We were kind of talking next bull run, but not just, not just the having per se, that I think the having will be sort of by the rumor, sell the news a little bit. I think we saw that a little bit last time and I don't. But I think in the long term that will. It'll definitely push the price up as we see more users come in, more people see a use case for it. Yeah, so that just to clarify that a little bit.

Speaker 2: 33:28

My general view is that as the ecosystems and the the the token holder base for all of these tokens, including Bitcoin, grow not just in number but in diversity, meaning more different kinds of holders as opposed to just retail holders and more institutional and different kinds of institutions, and even within retail there is diversification. You know there's the early adopters, but now more and more mainstream people are starting to hold coin right. All of those changes together have a far greater impact on long term price and price stability than than mere events that are unique to a particular blockchain, like having. I think having is much more impactful in the very early days of Bitcoin than it is as it batures, and the same is true of any other blockchain ecosystem Right. So I think that part is good. That part is very. It's a good sign actually, that in my view, it's a sign of market evolution and maturity that the having an event in and of itself doesn't have that much of an impact. It's more of these other things we just talked about.

Speaker 1: 34:53

Like you said, it's Becomes more stable over time. They shouldn't have these as big as swings. You know we shouldn't be dropping 75% from the bear market to, I mean, if we want something that's, you know, store value or or Method of exchange. You know people see Bitcoin as different things, so people have different goals within it, within the community, I suppose. But I would I would agree with what you just said there, joe. What would you give? What would you give an aspiring entrepreneur looking to enter fintech?

Speaker 2: 35:23

What would I give other than capital, which is what they probably want the most?

Speaker 1: 35:29

Yeah, what advice would you give them?

Speaker 2: 35:32

I Would tell them to be a happy warrior, because if you want to succeed in any entrepreneur, entrepreneurial venture, never mind just fintech, right, I think you've got to have those qualities. So the warrior part has to do with resilience and the ability to basically Fight through the battles and not give up ever. Right, just can just keep on getting up after you've been knocked down and, believe me, you will get knocked down. You'll actually get knocked down more before you succeed, because actually the success is is in many respects a function of all the things you learned by getting knocked down. And then the happy part is it has to do with having a certain level of internal Calm, I guess, because that's how you were able to weather all the ups and downs and the challenges. Right, because if, if you turn on other people and you turn on yourself, you're not going to be able to withstand all the ups and downs and and get to the success part of that.

Speaker 1: 36:38

That's really good advice. Just jump it back to link to. I wanted to ask you, like I brought up ripple, just you know, because I, but you said you know you're dealing with a few other companies in the cryptocurrency space, is there? I'm not sure if you're allowed to talk about it, but you know, is there something internally you guys are seeing? Is there one company that's kind of getting more attention than others?

Speaker 2: 36:56

I mean on our platform, we've invested in, I think, 16 or so, and I would say that if I looked at those 16, there's probably, you know, for that probably captivate our audience more than others. I don't necessarily think that that's by itself or in and of itself an indicator of the Meaningfulness of those companies In a in the broader sense, because all of them, in my view, are great companies and meaningful, else we wouldn't have invested in them, right? So, you know, popularity doesn't 100% equate to relevance or importance. I do think that for all of these companies, it's going to be an exciting Period of time. I mean, we, you can get bogged down in crypto winter, and I tell people that are new to the space, newly invested in the equity of companies as well as tokens in the space, to, to, to take the long view, because we are in very, very early days yet in the evolution of this technology and and we have, we have hardly seen the impact of this technology show itself in in a lot of Traditional industries, which is where a lot of disruption will happen, right, you know. So when that happens, you, that's, you're going to see a? A an explosive growth in the value of the equities of these companies, as well as in the native tokens that are attached to the blockchain Systems that are going to persist, and, of course, there will be losers too. It's like in any market. Not every blockchain will survive long-term, not every token Will survive long-term, not every company in this vertical will survive long-term. So we're trying to pick the winners and avoid the losers, but it's like anything right, you don't. You don't have a crystal ball. We're not perfect. I mean, we've got a bunch of companies that you know where it went there. Today You'll see that Hopefully agree with us that they're going to be winners, but we've also invested in companies that have proven to be disappointments.

Speaker 2: 39:21

I won't mention names, but we invested in one particular digital asset company that not only didn't fulfill its promise in terms of Earning us the returns we thought we would. It actually went bust Right and we lost money on it. We lost More money on it than our customers did, because when we we started seeing Things become a little funky and potentially hitting South Brad, what we did was we just stopped taking subscriptions Into that investment vehicle. So we were holding a big position on our books and when, when the you know the brown stuff finally hit the fan and the party and the music stopped. You know we were holding a much bigger bag than then our members would invest in it. Our bag was Probably, you know, five times bigger than our investors combined.

Speaker 2: 40:21

But we did the right thing. We did the right thing in the in the sense. Not, obviously, the right right thing would have been to avoid that investment. We weren't smart enough to do that, unfortunately. But having made it, we did the right thing by Preventing our members from losing more. Once we had a sense that things were going south and and and and we just took that upon ourselves to absorb the remainder loss. And I hope that that From our members, that gives them comfort, right, that they're that when they deal with link to, they're not just dealing with a company that is bent on churning their transactions, making money off of them and feeling no sense of allegiance or obligation to them. That our business model aligns us very, very intimately with them, because we always, our capital is always at risk and it actually is at risk before our customers because we're buying all the stock first and then our customers are free to Participate with us or not after we've already made the investment. Yes, definitely aligns our interest with theirs.

Speaker 2: 41:34

Yeah, definitely a better long-term play to.

Speaker 1: 41:37

You know, retain your customers that way and and protect them and Kind of own up to your to your own mistakes as well. So very, very admirable Is it. Does it take much to get signed up on on your website? It's.

Speaker 2: 41:49

It's super easy and fast because when we've developed some of the best you know uh technology to do that, so it's highly automated. We can get you Onboard it and go through your AML cable and onboard it and go through your AML KYC in minutes. Um, and then we've got to qualify you as an accredited investor, based on your home country's requirements, or, if you're a canuck, we apply the Canadian regs, which, by the way, are pretty similar to the to the us Regs, except obviously they're Denominated in Canadian dollars. Um, and then, once we, once we do that, you're, you're ready to go, and then you literally Click to invest. You can look up the various companies We've got a fair amount of information and research on each of those companies so that you can educate yourself, get comfortable with the investment you're making. And once you make the investment selections, you just click and and you're done.

Speaker 1: 42:47

Yeah, super exciting. I'm excited to go check it out. Joe, as we wrap up the interview, you know if you could go and have dinner with any historical figure to discuss Finance, technology or anything else, who would it be and why?

Speaker 2: 43:00

oh gosh, there are. There are many. I would probably pick, you know, two people that are not not well known. You know, one guy is a guy named mankowitz. It was an academic, a finance uh professor, and he came up with a theory of efficient frontiers, which is a a mathematically sophisticated way of understanding risk versus return in investing, and I think those insights and and the manner with which one then Constructs portfolios based on that theory of balancing risk and return, um Allow portfolio management theory to really move forward, and in a positive and modern way.

Speaker 2: 43:48

So I you know he would be one guy, markowitz. And then and and the other guy's a practitioner whom I, I love for his personality and Just his track record, and that's the founder of Berkshire Athol. He's been a really successful investor and Whether you like him as a person or not, whether you agree with his non-business views or not, the point is that it's hard to match the kind of investment track record that he has and Just for the length of time that he's been able to sustain that kind of earnings return is, frankly, amazing.

Speaker 1: 44:25

Definitely, and I I've seen I've seen differing views on Warren Buffett. As he famously said rat poison squared about bitcoin number.

Speaker 2: 44:38

He's, he's, he's bad. That way, right, he's very, he's, very old school. The good thing about him is he knows what he doesn't know, which, frankly, is 90% of being a good investor. Yeah is having a level of intellectual humility and knowing what you don't know, right so he doesn't invest in stuff he doesn't know. He doesn't know. You know Crypto from a rat's backside, right so right but as a result of that, he doesn't invest in it, which is which is good right.

Speaker 1: 45:08

Yeah, a lot of people that said a lot of a lot of nasty things that have come over to the, to our side. Now it seems like, one by one, they all, they all fall, except. Well, we'll probably won't see that for more in Buffett, but those are some interesting picks there. Uh, joe, I'm gonna thank you for your time tonight. You know this is awesome to sit down and have a candid conversation with you. You've given me a lot to digest. I'm going to open it up for you if there's anything that we haven't touched upon today that you'd like to. If not, man, just let us know where we can follow you and learn more.

Speaker 2: 45:39

Yeah, come check out wwwlinktocom or, you know, just download our app it's on the Apple store, in the Android store and play around with it and Start investing in privates, because, as I said, it's the asset class that has driven the best returns in the last 30 plus years amongst conventional, you know, investments outside of crypto, and we also have, if you're a crypto enthusiast and believer, a very healthy portfolio of crypto companies. One of our top investments, by the way, is a Canadian company called Dapper Labs that that are a leader in building infrastructure as well specific content in the whole NFT space, and we're even though you know that as a market that has gone through a down draft. That down draft really belies what the, the, the, the fundamental potential is in that NFT technology right, and we're believers in that. And so, yeah, check out, check out, link to start making your investments and Join. Join our community and become part of this movement to democratize private markets.

Speaker 1: 46:52

Awesome man. I'm definitely going to check it out. I'm going to have a A link below in the show notes for for folks to check that out. Thanks, Joe, for coming on to the have a Report podcast.

Speaker 2: 47:00

You're very welcome, brad, and I hope I get a chance to meet you in person one of these days.

Speaker 1: 47:04

Well, let's make it happen, man.

Speaker 2: 47:06

All right, take care, brother. Bye.

Speaker 1: 47:07

See ya. Hey you, thanks for listening to the having report podcast. If you want to support, follow us on your favorite podcast platform and leave us a five star rating. Follow us on our socials at having report. If you're Canadian and you want to buy bitcoin or cryptocurrency for the first time, go to bit by dot ca forward slash having for a $20 bonus. If you want to bring it to the next level and take self custody of your Cryptocurrencies. If you want $30 off the ultimate digital asset security device, bit by. Go to having report. Comm forward slash bit by for more information. Until next time, I'm Brad minds.