Entrepreneurial Appetite

Digital Money Demystified: Exploring Blockchain's Impact with Professor Tonya Evans

• Langston Clark • Season 5 • Episode 13

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Unlock the mysteries of digital currency with Professor Tonya Evans, a legal scholar with a passion for intellectual property and blockchain technology, who takes us on a journey from her HBCU roots to the forefront of the cryptocurrency revolution. Prepare to have your understanding of digital money transformed as we tackle "Digital Money Demystified" and explore how Professor Evans's experiences and education have influenced her groundbreaking work in this rapidly evolving space.

Join us for a thought-provoking conversation that goes beyond the buzz of Bitcoin and into the heart of how blockchain technology can reshape our daily lives and economies. We confront the myths that cloud the crypto world, celebrate the inclusion and advancement of black women in the industry, and examine the unique opportunities blockchain presents for wealth generation and the decentralization of data economies. Our discussion bridges the gap between skepticism and the potential for informed investment, particularly within the black community, emphasizing the power of knowledge and engagement in the digital age.

From discussing the implications of blockchain in education to the nuances of decentralized monetization, this episode is an essential guide for anyone looking to stay at the cutting edge of technology and finance. We extend our heartfelt thanks to our vibrant community of listeners and supporters and invite you to immerse yourself in a conversation that not only informs but inspires action and participation in the transformative world of blockchain and cryptocurrency.

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Langston Clark:

What's up everybody. Once again, this is Langston Clark, the founder and organizer of Entrepreneurial Advatite, a series of events dedicated to building community, promoting intellectualism and supporting black businesses, and today I want to invite you all to. Also, if you enjoy the show, if you like our content, you can support us on patreon as one of our founding 55 donors, and that money will be used for several reasons one, to help with the production of the show, but because we're interested in supporting black businesses. If there is a black freelancer or an intern who is an african-american student attending colleges here in the united states, we want to give them an opportunity to up their skills in terms of podcast production, and so that money will be used to hire someone to help with the production of the show. And supporting black businesses mean that we want to keep the money circulating in our community as best we can, but also, as a part of me thinking about black businesses and supporting our community, I think about that in an expansive way, and so part of tickets to come to these live discussions those who support on patreon 10 percent of whatever is given to the podcast goes to support an endowment that I started with two friends and my beloved alma mater, north Carolina agricultural and technical state university, and that endowment is called the from a and t to phd endowed scholarship in the college of education. Actually, it's in the graduate school because we're supporting graduate students, and part of that story is that my two other friends, like myself, have either completed our phd journey or are just at the end of it, and so we wanted to support a and t, enriching the lives of people who are coming behind us to also be in the next path, the next step to getting their doctorate.

Langston Clark:

Also want to share with you all really quickly that I have another podcast, the african americans in sport podcast, that I collaborated with two friends of mine from graduate school at ut austin, who all came together had we had the same mentor who trained us and taught us how to do research in the context of the african-american sport experience as it intersects with education, and so we decided during cove that we were all teaching a similar class, that we would share content and turn it into a podcast, and so you can check out the latest season of that actually going to start next week without further ado.

Langston Clark:

I want to introduce you all to professor Tonya Evans, who is a dynamic legal scholar and educator, and what's interesting is is that this is her second time on the show, and so, almost like a year to today, my cousin Simone Redwine, had the opportunity to interview Professor Evans just about her expertise in intellectual property and blockchain technology.

Langston Clark:

And so, talking about giving people their flowers and their kudos, Professor Evans is the ip expert on blockchain technology and intellectual property, and so you all may not realize this or recognize this, but it is a real treat to have her come here today and share her time, and so she's a full professor of law at the Penn State Dickinson Law School and we are here to discuss her new book, digital money demystify go from cash to crypto safely, legally and confidently, and so I'm going to have her begin just telling a little bit of her hero's journey, her autobiography, and so in our last conversation with cousin Simone, you talked about your journey into cryptocurrency and this year, because we have an intentional focus on people who are entrepreneurs coming from historically black colleges and universities in another show, you mentioned that you recently celebrated your 25th anniversary from the law school at Howard University, and I was wondering if you could start off by just telling us a little bit about your experience as someone who graduated from a historically black college and what role that plays in your work today well.

Tonya Evans :

Dr clark, first of all, thank you so much for having me back on, really, really grateful, grateful for your support and continue to lift me and my work up. And it takes a village to raise an academic and so we do not do this in isolation or alone, at least we shouldn't. So I love that we have connected and we continue to connect. First of all, my parents both went to howard undergrad, so I was a bison baby. I was technically born in dc and when my parents graduated, my father attended jefferson medical school in philadelphia, my mom temple law school in philadelphia. So I was born in the district, raised in philadelphia and was always just baked in.

Tonya Evans :

The experience at an hbcu is unmatched and cannot be replaced, and so I went to a pwy undergrad. I went to north western undergrad when I had the opportunity to go to howard university school of law and serve as the editor-in-chief of the law journal. That experiences transformative. I'm still connected, not only to my classmates. Mentioned our 25th year reunion that I just celebrated last fall in the district. It's like time stood still in some sense, and the nurturing that I received, having my professors now be my colleagues and my friends and continue to be my mentors and they continue to ask me to call them by their first name, and I refuse because, they're professor worthy and professor now, dean crooms, and the fact that I can call them by name.

Tonya Evans :

I honestly can't remember the name of one single professor at north west. I had a great education at a great time but I can remember virtually every professor because I continue to have just an unmatched connection to howard law school and they required us to exceed in every way. Acquired excellence is probably the toughest, tougher than some of my coaches when I was playing on the tennis tour and playing on scholarship at north western. They're tough and that's because it was the love that ensured that I was going to be successful so I can't say enough good things about hbc.

Tonya Evans :

Use of definitely hbc, you may interesting.

Langston Clark:

When I was getting my doctorate, I hit up my mentor because well, you had a black college and call your mentor years after you graduated it's nothing right. So I hit up dr web. I was like that, the web, when I get my phd, can I call you by your first name? And so he was like mr clark, because ever since I was a freshman I hadn't got my degree, it was always mr and mrs. Every student in class. Mr. Clark, even after you get your doctorate, you may still call me dr web.

Tonya Evans :

So mine, you may still.

Langston Clark:

I'm gonna say it that way I love that he said it exactly that way, but what was interesting was it was the same display of respect that you got, even though your professors want you to call them by their first name, because he called me mr clark, and now in someone's talking to phone is dr clark. He don't call me langston, right? So we're a way that he is elevating. The way that they want you to call them by their first name we're peers now is elevating you to their status, but he just does it in the opposite way. Absolutely experience that happens at black colleges. I think that people don't always get that in other places, and you've mentioned north western and being on the tennis team, and so are there any ways that you see your time as an athlete influencing the work that you do now as the preeminent crypto legal scholar?

Tonya Evans :

Well, that's a fascinating way to phrase it and thinking about it the competitive edge of having an advantage. In fact, my company is named Advantage Evans it is a nod, certainly, to tennis, but the idea of having an advantage and seeing things. Other people see them Doing the work that puts you in a position so that you have options, making informed choices, the practice and the repetition that is required for excellence. Certainly, that plays itself out in the academic realm, I should say, and when I speak from my experience entering into uncharted territory where we are writing the laws, it's kind of like building the plane while we're flying it. So the idea of wanting to stay at the head of the curve, the idea of the discipline that's required to put in those 10,000 plus hours to become a quote unquote expert, and particularly in an area that changes so rapidly.

Tonya Evans :

So I teach blockchain, cryptocurrency and law at my law school. You mentioned Penn State Dickinson Law, but I also, at my previous law school, when I was an associate dean, created an online certificate program to give people a competitive edge, a competitive advantage in their respective profession. And so many times people talk about crypto from the perspective of investment and I am an investor. I don't invest for other people, and we can get into that later, but the idea of leading into excellence to give yourself options and choices is something that I learned as an elite athlete. That's certainly carried over into my academic acumen and certainly in just the bravery that's required to be out on the front lines of something that most people don't understand and are kind of stuck in their misperception based on misinformation or just not having the exposure.

Tonya Evans :

So, that requires a certain level of not only commitment but also the flexibility to meet people where they are. All of those things kind of pivot on a dime and all of that plays itself into kind of building an expertise in uncharted territory.

Langston Clark:

I don't want to cause any LinkedIn beef or anything like that. Okay, so I had another guest on my show, dr Kelly Richmond Pope, and she wrote this book called Fool Me Once About Fraud, and Dr Pope and I had this little debate on the episode about cryptocurrency. She's crypto skeptic, right, and so when you talk about people not having a full understanding, I'm like this conversation we're having today is important for a number of reasons, because there are crypto scams out there, right, that's what it's meant, but those are the things that oftentimes are at the peak of the narrative of what's happening with cryptocurrency.

Langston Clark:

I remember I saw that movie Dope, and that's the first time I heard of Bitcoin, so my mind thought of Bitcoin as being connected to drug trade, right, and so I'm doing this episode for Dr Pope, okay, because I'm trying to open up her eyes to some opportunities and so some more added context is that this conversation is important because Bitcoin is having its having event and a lot of people don't know what that is.

Langston Clark:

They've never heard of it and they don't know how Bitcoin is a store of value and why those things are important. And then we have FedNow happening, right, and people don't know what that is and what that means and what implications that has for our money as American citizens. And then I also think about global exchange currency or the global reserve the global reserve currency, thank you. And so you have China, russia, south Africa, and I think it was like Brazil and some other countries are like developing a new reserve currency that they're going to be using, and all of these things matter in terms of what's happening with what I think is the entire concept or way we think about money in some ways is changing, and so that's why this conversation is important.

Tonya Evans :

It's critically important because and I think particularly for people of color in general, black people in particular there are these inflection points where there are opportunities to begin to address the widening wealth gap because and I'm a Gen Xer when I think of and my parents got blessed and did the best they could, they're extraordinary and I'm extraordinary, so we can't take anything away from that experience.

Tonya Evans :

But I've learned more in the last seven or eight years as I've been studying and educating folks in the space about money, about value, about investment, about the differences and distinctions between a high income earner versus a wealthy individual, the nature of capital assets, the nature of investing my time and my talent and my treasure in assets that are not going to return to my house boy, they're going to be out in the world working harder than I am. And when I think of traditional assets, of buildings and land, stocks and bonds, mutual funds, businesses and not even just a solo business, but when you're hiring people who exchange their time for money so I don't have to. When I think about intellectual property and also crypto assets, which are taxed as capital assets, one, the fact that they're taxed means they are recognized as a legitimate asset in the United States, so we can just stop with the illegal drug money, blah, blah, blah. And in fact that's the biggest myth that it's only criminal related, scam related, myths about only a fad or only a scam.

Tonya Evans :

And when people say crypto is a scam, they're literally talking about an entire economy of over 40,000, 50,000 different types of coins and tokens without any appreciation or ability to distinguish between Bitcoin or ETH or Doge, or a stablecoin or a central bank digital currency or a digital dollar and you mentioned FedNow. The United States is on track to have its own version of a digital dollar. It's expensive and dirty to continue to create coins and paper in order to represent value based on the full faith and credit of the government. Because people ask me what's Bitcoin or crypto backed by?

Tonya Evans :

And it's like that you have willing buyers and willing sellers you have people who are buying into this idea of trust and community in the same way that we think about the dollar. The dollar has not been on the gold standard since 1971. Our dollar is backed by the full faith and credit of our government and we've witnessed two credit downgrades within a very short period of time. The last one was last year. We've seen regional bank failures and we continue to hear nothing to see. Here. We're going to print more money. Everything's going to be fine.

Tonya Evans :

Just keep going, keep consuming, keep being distracted and don't worry your pretty little head about what it means to move with power and freedom when you have an alternative. I'm not throwing any dollars away. It is currently the global reserve but, as you mentioned, there are countries around the world who no longer trust us because of the fact that we keep coming up against the debt crisis. We just kicked the can down the road to March recently. We're going to keep doing this in an election cycle where countries around the world are losing faith in our full faith and credit because we can't do the basics correctly. So when you think of? Also final point is just living already in what is more of a digital money veneer over kind of an age old system of this double entry recording system or double entry ledger system, where back in the day of checks I could write a check for $1,000, but only have $1,000 in the bank.

Tonya Evans :

I'll send one to you, I'll send one to Beverly, the first one to cash it wins, right, that is problematic, that is not sound for monetary policy. And, for the first time, you can have a digital asset based upon the same technology of the internet, which are already familiar peer to peer technology that used to be used to exchange media files right, it's packages of entertainment, mp3s, blah, blah, blah. Now we actually use the same technology not just to exchange messages or entertainment, but value, and a value that isn't beholden to a particular government, but that doesn't make it illegal, and so. But the headlines are salacious.

Tonya Evans :

I think reporters and mainstream media are largely lazy, and it has left both professionals and the average person, whether they're a traditional investor or not. It's been too easy to discount, right, because it's really. It can be challenging. I am working to demystify it. I'm a non-technologist, I didn't start in finance, right? If I can do it, if my 76-year-old parents can do it and my friends who also are tech adjacent can figure out, at least make the decision about whether to invest or to pivot your business based on correct information, and then, if you choose not to I'm not here to convince you, but you cannot make an informed decision based on fear either fear of getting in or fear of missing out.

Tonya Evans :

That is not a sound investment policy. So that's what you and I are talking about tonight to help people push past the myths so they can begin empowering themselves with knowledge and education.

Langston Clark:

I think it was interesting, as I was reading a book that you were talking about all of these naysayers to cryptocurrency, but these same organizations or individuals are buying into it, right, and so I think it's important for us, as black folk, to one understand that we can have a knowledge base in cryptocurrency in one way to get that knowledge basis, to get your book. But also it was interesting. I first encountered you. I don't think I might have gone up and talked to y'all, but I might have been scared. It was in South by Southwest EDU. I think it was 2018 or 2019. I can't remember.

Langston Clark:

It was three black women on a panel all talking about blockchain technology and what that means for education. Right, the room was packed. Yeah, listen, I go to South by Southwest EDU every year. They gave you all a big room and the room was packed and everybody was in there. It was Asian men, there was white men in there, white women, black men, black women everybody was in there.

Langston Clark:

So it wasn't just the thing where. It was one of the black sessions at South by Southwest EDU. This was a session that happened to have three black women who were all experts in the area, and everybody had an open ear to it, and I would argue that this was before the big year where everybody was really really talking about Bitcoin and blockchain technology, so you all were really headed a curve. But early in the book I remember you mentioned in this guy named Randolph Robinson II who presented a law review about blockchain technology, and so can you talk a little bit about the community of black folks who are building this expertise in blockchain technology and what are the different ways that you see us in the space?

Tonya Evans :

I was so grateful for Professor Randolph Robinson's or Randy Robinson's work because he was working on that article in 2016 and 2017. I became aware of it in 2017 and he was presenting a work in progress at the time, and it was around the same time that I had a friend who was in a working group it's like a new media working group that was exploring the intersection of blockchain technology and new media and actually oftentimes for academics, that is the entry point to begin to learn about the ecosystem how decentralized block chains, how decentralized applications, how they are interacting, potentially disrupting and creating opportunities at the intersection of filling the blank of your area of expertise and blockchain. So that was my entry point. My entry point was intellectual property. I wasn't sure about magic internet money. I literally thought every single myth that's in this book. I have cycled through it myself.

Tonya Evans :

This book is kind of a love letter to folks to say this is where I began. I am a licensed attorney for over 25 years. At this point, I am licensed to practice law in four states New York, new Jersey, pennsylvania and DC. I have no intention of ruining my license or my reputation for some foolery, and so I didn't clearly understand virtual currencies at the time.

Tonya Evans :

I came to my awareness later, but the underlying technology that organizes data, secures data, the transparency and the access of data on the blockchain side was quite fascinating to me, because all of this is software, and software is capable of both copyright and patent protection.

Tonya Evans :

And then if you have a company or some type of word phrase or other device used to sell goods or services, that implicates trademarks, and so I wanted to figure out what the next wave of lawyers needed to know and professors in order to be conversant with the folks who are innovating in the future version of the internet. We weren't even talking about it as Web 3.0 at the time, but I felt a responsibility as an educator to educate myself so that my students would be better off when they went out into the world to represent the folks who were innovating and building in the space. And so the idea of going on your favorite search engine and putting in blockchain and whatever your area of expertise, it will start to open up this plethora of opportunities and interesting use cases. You can see the promise, you can see the pitfalls, things that started and failed, not because it was a scam, but because most businesses fail in first three years.

Tonya Evans :

Just fail, not a scam, just fail. And then you have the scammers who will come and follow any potential opportunity. But what people don't understand, or this misperception that this is some anonymous dark Web money where this is the most traceable transaction that ever transacted, because you have a public facing digital record that cannot be changed that connects every transaction to the next Public facing. I can't. I can't go from a public facing window into my Schwab account, into my USA account, you name it, and there's so much.

Tonya Evans :

The capital markets tend to be opaque, which is the reason that we have the securities and exchange commission and the commodity futures trading commission in order to require registration when someone is engaging in capital markets, so that they don't have an unfair advantage of information. Like the asymmetry of information is very, very hardwired into our legacy financial system. Blockchain and crypto is the complete opposite, so it's a terrible place for criminals. But oftentimes final point, when we see those headlines like Sam Bankman-Fried and FTX and all of those things, they were using old legacy models centralized exchanges to encourage people to keep their money on a platform and then, unbeknownst to those folks, taking the money out, putting it in a sister company that was Alameda Research and making these crazy bets, a lot like Lehman Brothers, a lot like Bernie Madoff, and the fact that the dollar is the number one preferred currency of criminal activity.

Tonya Evans :

I ate a land slide. So we have to right size the conversation so that we can really push past this idea that it's only criminality. I could use my car to involve myself in a criminal act. I didn't make the car criminal, but I used it in a way that was illicit. That activity is already illegal and we see the ramifications of that.

Langston Clark:

So another interesting part in the book was that you've done your research right, and so you talk about putting the 10,000 hours in to learn more about cryptocurrency and investments and things like that, and I want to take a moment. I want to talk about how Now I don't think I put 10,000 hours in, but I was reflecting on this in crypto, where the underlying technology blockchain technology is fairly well integrated into my life, and so I have here the box from the HiveMapper dash cam, okay, and so I don't know if you're familiar with Helium, but Helium is decentralized, wireless, and so HiveMapper is on their network. I'm mining Helium from my rooftop, from my front window. I have three different types of Helium miners in my house the mobile miner, the internet of things miner, and then my cell phone is mining the Helium token mobile, because it's operating as a wireless modem or whatever right, amazing. And so I got this dash cam in my car and, as I'm driving, they have a decentralized mapping business, and so they're trying to compete with Google, right? And so the more I map, the more I drive, or me just going to work or whatever. There's all this construction.

Langston Clark:

So the more and more the landscape changes, I get their token, and so I bring this up to say that there's oh, one last thing. I have the crypto debit card, so when I make purchases I get cash back in their token crow. I think a lot of people think that I'm going to go on some crypto exchange, I'm going to take my dollar and I'm going to invest and I'm going to buy something like I'm buying a stock, and that's how I'm going to get my crypto piggy bank full. I bring it up to say that that's not the only way that you can get some crypto right. My cell phone bill is $5 because I switched to the Helium service and my phone conceivably could pay for itself because I earn more in the token than it costs me to pay my phone bill. I bring this up to say you've done your 10,000 hours right. You become a legal expert and this is part of your life's work professionally. But what are the other ways that you may have integrated the technology into your life?

Tonya Evans :

It's interesting when I think about my own integration, above and beyond some of the things that you've said, because I love the idea of committing your devices to mine certain tokens in order for the benefit. It is literally impacting your life in a tangible way and you are contributing to the community, the decentralized community, in that space to improve the products, to improve the information, to go from a hyper-centralized data server system where we have the centralization of power in Facebook, amazon, google, yahoo, netflix, et cetera right the fangs of the world and now it's the reorganization. That is not centralized power, so that it was no one person, no one company, no one country that we have to plead for data or their mining data from us If we're not paying for something. Every time we sign up for something and it's free, we are the product and our data is like the new oil. So the ability to change that. I've seen really interesting use cases in the environmental context.

Tonya Evans :

Some of the projects that I like a lot. Filecoin is not legal or financial advice. When I buy anything other than Bitcoin and Ethereum. It has to really matter. You've identified a project that is literally changing lives. This is not some hypothetical normative. Would could should thing. This is actually happening. You're using a card that gives you quote unquote cashback that we would call Satsback if it's Bitcoin or some other form right and we're going to see that happening more and more.

Tonya Evans :

There are companies like Lolli, for example, where, if you're already online, there are hundreds of mainstream companies, everything from Macy's to Outback Steakhouse Anything that you're already doing, you can earn back. You don't have to buy a single Satoshi and still get the rewards, because Visa has partnered, I should say, with various companies to use their infrastructure in order to have access, and Visa's been in the game for a minute. They have some really interesting projects. Mastercard certainly. We saw PayPal reluctantly come into view.

Tonya Evans :

It used to be that you could buy Bitcoin and maybe others. I want to say they were focused just on Bitcoin, but you couldn't take it off the platform and people complained. Until now you can actually buy something, and it's not just an IOU in a centralized environment, but you can actually self-custody and pull it off. You could buy Bitcoin. If you have Cash App, venmo, you literally can buy it right now. How can it be illegal? And every major legitimate financial player is giving you exposure Because they understand that this is a customer service issue, that the more that we learn that we have options and we could self-custody and don't have to rely on a company, the more we're more inclined to not especially as black people. Ariel Schwab of Ariel Investments, owned by Melody Hopson, partners every year or every so often, because I don't know if they put this out every year but partners with Schwab to do a black investor report and for the first time in 2022, they did the black crypto investor report and it was this incredibly insightful analysis and some of the data points.

Tonya Evans :

I talk on my podcast. I have a whole podcast specifically about this where we pull out the data points, but I definitely commend to you and your followers, your viewers, to pull the Ariel Schwab black investor report from 2022. It shows that, on average per capita, blacks are far more likely than whites to invest in crypto. We might do it quietly, we might do it without all the information, which was some of the a lot of the concern of the investor report, and in probably a full transparency. They want you to invest in stocks. I want you to do all of the traditional things, but realize that all of that is not enough in an increasingly digital age where the economy is shifting in ways. In a short period of time, like in the next two to 10 years, the world will change more than the last 100, literally, and it starts on the rails of a decentralized web that requires currency that is not beholden to a particular country. Like, what are we going to do when we're really in outer space? We haven't divvied up space quite yet as well.

Langston Clark:

I'm sure they're working on it.

Tonya Evans :

But you're not going to want dollars. You're going to want a global currency that is recognized everywhere and not beholden to a particular country or border, and that is what is being built right now, and so the idea that black Americans are turning here, blacks throughout the diaspora this is a foregone conclusion in countries on the continent. It's a foregone conclusion emerging economies where the political structure and the financial structure is the shambles. Bitcoin is actually recognized as legal tender in El Salvador, south America, malaysia, switzerland, canada. We're kind of tardy to this party, but this thing moves on.

Tonya Evans :

And, as black Americans focusing on digital currencies, potential in addition to everything, you have to reduce your debt. You have to own real estate One of my favorite things get your portfolio in order, get your retirement account. But this is the type of asset that doesn't require permission. It doesn't fall victim to redlining. It doesn't fall victim to oh you're black, you like? Get back right. You can participate meaningfully in the same way that you've described without permission. But the thing that is the impediment right now is fear, because we fear what we don't understand.

Langston Clark:

So let's talk about the book, because I think the book is designed to really alleviate some of those fears, and we talked about your story into crypto in the first time we had you on the podcast. We talked about your history as an HBCU grad and as an athlete In this episode. Tell us the origin story of the book.

Tonya Evans :

I do these presentations so often and then, of course, teaching my course at the law school and, after I found it, my company Advantage Evans Academy to really empower folks with education, because I wanted to reach beyond the law school environment to make sure that my people were good.

Tonya Evans :

And that anybody who was intellectually curious and wanted to truly get ahead and wanted to understand the reality that because income is taxed at a much higher rate than capital gains. This is why wealthy people don't want an income. But as a Gen Xer I was raised. Get that good government job or whatever the equivalent is. Get your six figures, be an academic, get the tenure track, etc. Get some life insurance by home, get a burial plot, I assume. And like you made it, you have not made it. That means that you're a decidedly middle class and you probably just have a sufficient amount of credit to be in debt to crush you. Wealthy people don't want an income. Pay me $1. But give me $10 million in stock options.

Langston Clark:

Yeah.

Tonya Evans :

Well, I'm in the south of France, right? And in addition to that, now we have the opportunity to own and experience the capital gains or capital losses. You're going to win in good times and bad. Wealthy people win in good times and bad. They hold a stock long but they're going to short it. If that means that the stock price falls, they're still going to win because they bet that it was going to decline. They win in good times and bad.

Tonya Evans :

Wealth is found in risk. Everything's a risk. You have to understand your risk tolerance and you have to manage it and mitigate it so that you are diversified across your portfolio and within an asset class. Experts say that folks should hold one to 5% and no more in crypto, and we can't just say crypto generally without being more specific. That's what my forces are for. That's the book is for, so that you can start to vet and select, to do what makes sense for you.

Tonya Evans :

But the myths that crypto is in a legitimate form of currency inaccurate and we've already talked about the reasons why. In fact, on January 11th, for the first time in the United States, the Securities and Exchange Commission approved 11 exchange traded funds for Bitcoin 11. We have BlackRock is one of the most conservative money managers in the world who has its own spot Bitcoin exchange traded funds. You can get it at BlackRock, fidelity ARK Investments. There are 11 of them. I actually, just on my episode of Tech Intersected this Friday, I am joined by Joanne Holmes, who's another dynamic black intellectual property and metaverse lawyer, and we just unpack what exchange traded funds are the fact that you can buy an ETF for gold or silver. This Bitcoin ETF is second in its popularity, second only to gold. It's doing better than silver. Meanwhile, people are like oh, it's the fattest scam. Don't listen to what they say. Move the way they do. Even JP Morgan Chase, like Jamie Dimon, is notorious for being a Bitcoin hater, but guess who, or which company, is one of the authorized participants for these exchange traded funds? It's JP Morgan. He was just in front of Congress three weeks ago saying how bad Bitcoin is. Meanwhile, his company is an authorized participant to provide liquidity in for exchange traded funds in Bitcoin. We will miss out on another opportunity to start to close the wealth gap and be left behind. I can't even tell you how far. So these are some of the things to push past.

Tonya Evans :

Crypto is only for criminals to risky or volatile. Every nascent asset class goes through a period of volatility. There is no asset that has performed like Bitcoin in particular, and you can look back to the history from January of 2009. I think that's another thing people don't realize. Bitcoin has been around since 2009. Came out of the time of, like that first transaction that we have the memo that references the first transaction of Bitcoin. That references the economic crisis of the time. It literally quotes the headline of a UK paper to kind of let people know this happened on this date, which is really really cool and so kind of.

Tonya Evans :

Bitcoin in particular, was built for times like this, built as a hedge against inflation.

Tonya Evans :

It's operating less as a peer to peer cash, at least in the United States, and more of a store of value. And the people who started at Advantage Evans Academy in 2020 when the price was about $9,000, $10,000, $11,000. Even with the pullback, there's still three and four X, so I could go on, but hopefully that as we start to push past these myths of being a fad or a bubble, only being for a certain segment of the population. I spent a lot of time with that and shout out to the money coach Lynette Calfany, cox and also Arlan Hamilton from Backstage Capital. They wrote the forwards for the book and Lynette really pressed me to get super clear that crypto isn't just for the quote. Unquote crypto bro that we might think of as this tech and finance guy with skinny jeans and a t-shirt and a Lamborghini, right that this is for all of us. This is the 99% money that isn't beholden to some gatekeeper who decided that we shouldn't participate meaningfully in the United States and around the world.

Langston Clark:

That was one of the myths that I wanted to discuss today about the crypto bros, because I went to a crypto event was it two years ago? And it's like yo, everybody was there on stage talking about us. It was one black dude on stage talking about this new technology and he was African, but everybody else man, it was Asian dudes up there, it was Russian dudes up there, it was white American men up there, it was a white woman up there, other Asian guys up there, southeast Asian, and the whole world was there on stage talking about it as the expert, but us, and so it was really interesting to see the difference between my first introduction to experts in crypto was you and the other sisters on the panel in 2018, 2019, south by Southwest EDU, but in this other context, we weren't on stage, and so I think that, to me, is one of the most important myths to dispel that this is something that black folks do.

Tonya Evans :

Right, Absolutely. It's frustrating because we think of cryptocurrency, particularly its origins with the cypherpunk movement, a very libertarian movement, mostly white men and certainly male dominated. Just, we think of the tech culture, Silicon Valley it is what it is right the finance area and technology they come together, have a baby.

Langston Clark:

We have cryptocurrency.

Tonya Evans :

So it's a microcosm of a microcosm, where we are significantly underrepresented. That being said, there are hundreds Like I am exceptional, but I'm not the exception. I say it that way. There are hundreds of folks it could be thousands at this point when you go outside of the United States to throughout the diaspora, because Bitcoin, in particular, but a lot of the coins and tokens that you have the ability to mine and have all sorts of rewards, are quite popular for day to day transactions. We just don't see it here in the States.

Tonya Evans :

But I think of. I was just on the hill having some meetings within Treasury a lawyer in the Treasury Department, the council actually to Janet Yellen and I was there with three other black women who are exceptional Carmel Cadet. Actually, she owns M-Tech, which is a company that helps legacy finance bridge into the future of decentralized finance, and so she's working with the central banks of at least five countries on the continent. I think of Nigeria and Ghana that are really leaning into this idea of their own version of the central bank digital currency. Carmel is bad, yeah, right. I think of Gleb Messador, who runs the Blockchain Foundation, and also this contingent of black and brown women in particular who are experts in the space, who was also quite frustrated with the fact we exist. But it's kind of an echo chamber of the same people on either. It's an infomercial for a project, right. I stopped going to a lot of conferences because, like, I'm not going to pay to go to an infomercial and I should be on that stage.

Tonya Evans :

So let me find my other opportunities for state we're not doing the infomercials, I'm not interested. It's not advancing me or my people, I'm not interested. But I'll take the opportunities or create opportunities to make sure that we're seen and also just continue to do the work. I'm happy to quietly make sure that people have the right information with the book, with my services, with my podcast, with the work that I do at the law school. And I mean recently I was appointed to my second paid board in the crypto space, to be a member of the digital currency group board, right. So, first woman, first black person. And DCG owns I mean it just sold point desk. It owns Grayscale, and so we've witnessed the transition from Grayscale's Bitcoin trust into its own version of an ETF. Muno founder and then over 200 different portfolio companies in the space, and a lot of people don't know that, but that happened, right. So, starting to move the needle, to be in the places and spaces, to have a voice at the table of companies and projects that are making they're really creating the future. And so that's the other part, and I'm glad that you raised it.

Tonya Evans :

It isn't always about investment. I mentioned that at the top. But what can you do in your business right now? What can you do as a professional, what can you do as an educator to make sure one you're not left behind, right that you are Netflix and out blockbuster and that you start to advance the ball, connect the dots and remain relevant in the future of work and wealth and business and innovation? And heading the sand, casting things off and not paying attention or doing the work is not an option. I don't blame people, but we have to shout it from the rooftops that you have much better resources than I did when I started. I learned at YouTube, university and trial and error much better sources and resources and information. It's just an embarrassment of riches Now separating the fact from fiction and Carnival Barker's that say all crypto all the time, or the naysayers from government or from legacy finance like let's start questioning the people who are raising the issues.

Tonya Evans :

If JPMorgan is saying don't do it, but they're doing it, we have to question why, when Deutsche Bank quietly offered to their best wealth clients certain exposure but not for the rest of us, we have to ask why and start making the next best choice and decision for how you learn so that you can stay on the leading edge of this transformation. If not, it's the left behind. We haven't even begun to see it, but it's going to happen so quick, especially. Final point in this 2024, this election year. Things go wrong. What are you going to do less than a year from now when you let?

Tonya Evans :

you know worst case scenario. Do you have options today, do you?

Tonya Evans :

have a passport? Is it up to date? Do you have alternative forms of money? Are you nimble? Are you ready to turn on a dime or a Satoshi Like these are the questions. We got to get very serious very quickly, and so this is the clarion call to at least get this book start there. You paid worse, for $25, and tomorrow I will say one day there's a flash sale at Amazon. Now I usually promote independent booksellers. I love Harriet's bookstore in Philadelphia. You can go online and do that.

Tonya Evans :

But tomorrow I want everybody to order from Amazon and the Kindle version will be $1.99. $1.99.

Langston Clark:

I'm going to gift that to somebody, please. That's all I'm going to do. I'm going to think about it, but I'm going to think about who I want to gift it to and I'll do that.

Tonya Evans :

That's good and anybody who buys tomorrow well, not anybody, the first 20 people to do it and submit their receipt. You can go to AdvantageEvans. com and do that. All the information is there AdvantageEvans. com, first 20 people and by any version on Amazon. Just to mark, the Kindle version is $1.99. Regular version. I don't think they're going to have that on sale, but I don't know everything that goes on the back. You come back to AdvantageEvans. com, you go through the two-step process and I will give you access to my free short course.

Tonya Evans :

It's not free for everybody, but it's free for the first 20. It usually would be $100. You go, I will give you access to my short course and my toolkit. You can get up and just get clear. You're not going to buy a thing other than this book and then I will leave that to you to read. The tea leaves, figure it out, join the community and let's get clear.

Langston Clark:

Let's go into this, okay. So we're getting closer to the end. I'm going to ask you three final questions, okay. The first one is as a former student athlete in the era of NIL, do you see as the implications of blockchain, technology, cryptocurrency and I'm going to throw it in and I'm going to say, probably, nfts, absolutely? The other question is what are the implications for the training and continuing education of lawyers? And the final question is because we are a book club, we have origins in the book club. If you were going to write an extra chapter of the book, what would it be?

Langston Clark:

And let me know if you need me to repeat.

Tonya Evans :

I'll do the NIL first. I wish I had that back in the day.

Langston Clark:

I'm sure you.

Tonya Evans :

So that stands for name and mention likeness, and there are so many fantastic avenues for monetization where digital assets often carry with them some type of intellectual property rights Not always right, but there's so many others and you mentioned non-fungible tokens as well.

Tonya Evans :

The token itself is an asset, but it's often connected to either some type of digital or IRL experience in real life. I remember Ticketmaster dramatically cutting down on scalping because they were using NFT technology, right. So that's really interesting and it makes me think of like Spencer Denwitte he was not a collegiate athlete but a professional basketball player who he was the first to monetize his income as a token, which was really, really fascinating. He ended up the NBA long story short, kind of did some pushback, but look up Spencer Denwitte and what he did with his token, which was really, really interesting. The NIL stuff is really powerful because it means that there is a life and monetization beyond just playing, and when you can control your own life and you control your own rights, that's when you really control your destiny. When I think about what professionals need to do to get themselves together, it's actually quite a bit.

Tonya Evans :

But if I can do it, you can do it as well. It's to figure out and we talked a bit about it earlier what the intersection is between your area of expertise and what's going on with blockchain and crypto. It's easy to talk about the first use case, which is the disruption of the financial and capital markets, and I think of kind of like crypto is to blockchain as electronic mail was to the internet.

Tonya Evans :

Email was the first and commercial exploit of the internet. Now we barely open our email, but it was revolutionary at first. Right it also. In some research for the book, I went back to the time when credit cards were being used at fast food chains and people were like, oh, that's ridiculous, I will never do that. Or when the ATM came out, my grandma was like, oh, absolutely not A little. Where's the money? Where's it from? I'm going into the bank.

Tonya Evans :

We come to these inflection points with technology where we have to move and professionals really have to do that. So who are we talking about? I really think any business leader, regardless of your area of business. You need to figure out the potential disruptive impact and also the opportunities and, as a leader, to lead from the ground up to give enough space for innovation, iteration, continuing learning, because most people stopped learning after their last day in school and then, whatever else they know for the rest of their lives. They learn at some desk, except if you're a professional, like lawyers. We have continuing legal education. Financial professionals, cpas, have got to figure this out. Your clients, your assigning partners, your colleagues, will start asking questions. They're asking questions about exchange-traded funds. They're asking questions about what this means for their business, how to pivot, what this means for their retirement. You better have some answers or they're gonna go to other places and spaces. So professionals have to get on board, and I have an upcoming seminar for legal and financial professionals and business leaders as well, and it's February 1st. But go to AdvantageEvans. com and you can get that information as well.

Tonya Evans :

And then your final point if I had one more chapter and what I would write it would be but so the final chapter is the go from cash to crypto. But I would make that even a longer chapter or break that up so that people can have the specific steps. It's challenging to do that because the technology and the state of art of technology changes so frequently. So it's important like the myths are not gonna change, but the technology changes as well, and so that would be critically important when I think about what's going on now. Because you mentioned FedNow and I actually mentioned FedNow, but I didn't go into great detail because it had just happened, literally when I was turning in my final edit, so I was able to get that in.

Tonya Evans :

But I would expand about central bank digital currencies, because the idea that unbanked or underbanked folks in the United States would have access to a central bank account. There are some positives to that, to be sure. My concern around it is also and what I would explore in a future chapter would be the financial privacy aspects. Like China, for example, mainland China has a central bank digital currency, and Bitcoin and crypto is illegal there, even though there's a lot of use that we can see while it's moving in that geographical area. But the government's ability to see every transaction to confiscate funds without due process. There's no due process there, but those are big issues. I wanna have the same level of privacy with a digital representation of fiat or government issue currency that I do if I had $1,000 and I handed it to you. So I want people to really understand what's going on in the central bank realm, understand the positives, but also the pitfalls and the privacy concerns.

Langston Clark:

Professor Tonya M. Evans Esquire, thank you for joining us here today. I appreciate you taking the time to chop it up with us and I wish you much continued success.

Tonya Evans :

Thank you, dr Clark. I appreciate you, as always.

Langston Clark:

Thank you for joining this edition of Entrepreneurial Appetite. If you liked the episode, you can support the show by becoming one of our founding 55 patrons, which gives you access to our live discussions and bonus materials, or you can subscribe to the show. Give us five stars and leave a comment.