Crypto conquers quietly: A night with the blockchain believers struggling to be heard

At a fintech meetup in Los Angeles, founders swap ideas about stablecoins, tokenized real estate and digital payments.

Peter Flax

Contributor

On a recent weeknight in Los Angeles, a handful of fintech founders gather in a corner of the Bike Shed Moto Co., a trendy spot tucked among warehouses on the edge of downtown. Jeff Martinez, a serial startup founder and the organizer of the meetup, has belatedly realized the timing isn’t ideal: Mexico is facing off against South Korea. With every shot from Mexico’s national team, the crowd at the bar, and from out in the streets, erupts in a frenzy drowning him and his friends, out. It’s a fitting metaphor. With the world fixated on AI, the people working to make digital currencies and blockchains useful are sometimes now struggling to be heard.

Martinez, however, remains bullish on the power of digital assets to transform everyday transactions and he thinks L.A. is the place to do it. “There’s real estate, mortgage, payments, banks, and we haven’t fully tapped into the movie and music side yet,” he says over the din. “But that’s coming. I think music and micro-micropayments are the next big things.”

The days when the price of bitcoin dominated financial headlines and fueled rampant speculation may have subsided but, with less fanfare and hype, digital currencies have become, well, more useful and more widely adopted. Stablecoins — digital money pegged to hard assets like the U.S. dollar — are gaining steam as a more convenient way to send payments across borders or settle business transactions when banks might be closed for a holiday. Blockchain technology, the distributed ledger system underpinning cryptocurrencies, can embed contract terms into ownership, automatically triggering transactions when certain conditions are met.

Cryptocurrencies have also received a boost from regulation such as the GENIUS Act in the U.S. and MiCA in the E.U. The result is that more large financial institutions are looking to issue and accept these always-on currencies. Over the last year, the total supply of stablecoins jumped 20% to $292 billion, according to The Block.

Dan Riceberg, the organizer of the crypto meetup in Los Angeles, talks blockchain ship with fellow enthusiasts. (Photo credit: Peter Flax)

As halftime calms the crowd and enables more conversation, Martinez’s group offers one another ideas and encouragement. Daniel Riceberg’s firm, BTCglobal, allows anyone to buy a share of an 18,000-square-foot building in the city’s Koreatown neighborhood for as little as $10 by turning the real estate into non-fungible tokens (NFTs).

“The concept is to reduce friction in the real estate business, because obviously the barrier to entry is too high for many people,” says Riceberg, a real estate and mortgage broker. He plans to offer tenants on his platform their own digital tokens for paying rent on time.

“The technology is ready for prime time and the assets — meaning lots of unsold properties — are here,” Riceberg says, taking a swig of beer. “The scariest things are, meeting compliance standards is really costly and knowing there are some bad actors in the space.”

Unlike the serial startup founders at the gathering, Persephone Godwin works for London & Partners, an agency that focuses on bringing international business to the British capital and which has worked with a number of U.S.-based fintech companies to expand operations in Europe.

One of those is MoonPay, a New York-based firm that allows users to buy, sell and manage cryptocurrencies using conventional payment methods and which has partnered with Mastercard to create branded cards linked to users’ stablecoin balances.

“This is a great way to connect with innovators and founders,” Godwin says. “But more than that, it’s an effective way to gauge how the industry is evolving, where the excitement is shifting.”

As the game and the meetup begin to wind down, Martinez opens up about the challenges to adoption that cryptocurrencies face and what excites him in this moment.

“I’m not scared about anything,” he says when asked what keeps him up at night. “There’s going to be a lag before there is more mainstream usage but not using this technology would be the scary part. Already I’m seeing tons of regular consumers doing fintech transactions without even realizing it.”

AI may be grabbing all of the headlines, but it’s also allowing people like Martinez to innovate faster. Using AI, he recently built a digital Medicare wallet and rewards app called Alphavisor in about a week.

“I’ve stopped needing to find developers who have fintech experience for little things like integration apps,” he adds. “It’s very hard for programmers to have literacy in different vertical spaces. The regulations are different in different spaces, and most programmers are not used to all the fintech lingo and best practices. Now, you just tell AI what you need as you refine the project.”

The fintech meetup he organized ends almost in perfect synchrony with the match. The blockchain believers exchange business cards and join a sea of green-clad Mexico fans spilling onto the streets, each group satisfied they got what they came for.

Entrepreneurs share how stablecoins and other digital assets and blockchain tech are evolving from speculative investments into practical financial tools.