The following transcript was created using artificial intelligence. There will be some grammatical errors below.

00:00:04:29 – 00:00:26:21

Richard Carthon: Hello, everyone. Welcome to another episode of Crypto Current, your host here, Richard Carthon, and today I got a special guest all the way out in Manhattan working on a cool project, Titan, but not to be confused with another Titan that kind of had a rug pull. This is a new one, getting actually ready to launch really soon and has some really, really cool things in the works. We have the co-founder, Clayton. How are you doing today? 

00:00:27:12 – 00:00:28:20

Clayon Gardner: I’m doing great my man. How are you? 

00:00:29:00 – 00:00:36:27

Richard Carthon: Man, I’m doing well. I’m excited to learn about all the awesome things that Titan has going on. But before we do, I want to learn more about you. Can you give us some background on yourself? 

00:00:38:01 – 00:01:00:03

Clayon Gardner: Absolutely, from Chicago, Illinois, born and raised, started trading stocks when I was 12 years old, fell in love with it. I was always very competitive growing up, it was the most fun game I could think of. Market opens every day, there’s buyers, there’s sellers, so I did that all the way up through college. Went to Wharton undergrad, studied computer science, finance. I thought I wanted to be like a developer of software to make money. 

00:01:00:06 – 00:01:00:21

Richard Carthon: Yeah.

00:01:00:23 – 00:01:27:17

Clayon Gardner: Actually, I thought I wanted to be like, some sort of a quant trader or something, but quickly realized I was nowhere near as good an engineer. You need to be in that field and my passion has always been around markets and behavior. Why do humans behave the way they do, booms, busts, bubbles and whatnot. And so, really dug my heels into that. After graduating in 2012, spent about six years in the industry, private equity and hedge funds. Mostly in stocks, so, just managing portfolios of stocks for large institutions and endowments. 

00:01:28:10 – 00:01:43:18

Clayon Gardner: But along the way, like one of my co-founders, Joe, who I actually met the first day of undergrad. We had reconnected around this problem that we’d seen time and time again with family and friends. They see the us in New York working in these jobs, they immediately associate New York with financial advisers. 

00:01:43:20 – 00:01:44:05

Richard Carthon: Right.

00:01:44:07 – 00:02:07:27

Clayon Gardner: It’s like anyone who works in New York must know something about the stock markets and we happen to know something. But time and time again, friends and family would just ask us, Hey, you guys are quote unquote experts at this, can you just manage our money for me? Or can you tell me how to be investing? And we realized this problem is pretty pervasive. Most people can’t afford an expert money manager. They don’t have enough money, don’t have the access, don’t even know where to go, don’t speak the language. 

00:02:07:29 – 00:02:50:20

Clayon Gardner: And so, Titan, which we started about three years ago, was set out to solve this problem of putting an expert money manager in everyone’s pocket with as little as 100 bucks, letting anyone be able to access a team of experts to actively look after money. Thus far, it’s been in stocks, but like you mentioned, we’re really excited to jump into Crypto very soon because we think Crypto in particular is a space where there’s a lot of noise, a lot of speculation, a lot of fraud, frankly, just a lot of bad actors. But the whole essence of it is decentralization, putting power back in the hands of the people. And we think if you have an active manager overseeing your capital in this nascent and very volatile space, you could potentially do much better than you could do trying to do it yourself. 

00:02:51:20 – 00:03:44:22

Richard Carthon: There are so many things that I want to unpack on that, because I agree with you that Crypto is giving a lot more access and giving a lot of opportunity to people, but unfortunately, there are a lot of fraudulent opportunities out there. There are some scam coins and some people get, you know, once they decide to make the jump into Crypto end up potentially diving in at the top and then, once things start going down, say, Oh, this is a scam and pull out. And unfortunately, you know, if they had a little bit more of an appetite and understood the market a little bit more, they might be able to see that recovering or even continue to go in the right direction. But having the ability to have someone who can help steer you in that direction and help manage that money, help you maximize your returns, is something that’s really incredible. But as you said, like, you’ve been in this since 2017 and you primarily worked in stocks, what made you want to and you and the team decide that Crypto is a direction that we wanted to go and grow? 

00:03:46:19 – 00:04:29:21

Clayon Gardner: I mean, it’s a great question. I think I was nowhere near as early as many people, like, who I know read the Bitcoin like the Satoshi White Paper back in I think it was 2009. But earlier this decade or early in the 2010s, I started to see some of the same kind of remnants post financial crisis, the occupy Wall Street movement and big banks and incumbents really not paying much for the sins of years past and, you know, Crypto seemed to me like if there’s going to be any solution, this could be it to putting power back in the hands of the people. Having been and worked on old Wall Street, so to speak, like they have these institutions, I know how they operate, I know why they operate the way they do and I’m a big believer that there can be a much better way. So, I’ve always been a believer in the technology. 

00:04:29:29 – 00:05:00:21

Clayon Gardner: I think from an investment perspective, it was very much a science project or an early experiment in the early 2010s. Like, nowhere near comfortable for me as an investment manager to say with a straight face to clients, You should have a significant portion of your wealth here, just too volatile, really hard to audit the code bases of a lot of these projects, really hard to even access and get to know founders. And without doing that due diligence, it’s just really hard for me to personally put money involved. But kudos to the people that were very early, they obviously to the extent, they hoddled, made out very well. 

00:05:01:02 – 00:05:01:17

Richard Carthon: Yeah.

00:05:01:19 – 00:05:51:15

Clayon Gardner: I think what you’ve seen over the last few years and why we’re now taking the plunge is you start to climb this S-curve of adoption where it went from, like, fanciful project, wishful thinking to like, yes, there were a lot of ICOs, and a lot of scam coins that fell by the wayside, but Bitcoin still remains one of the most secure, you know, store value protocols out there to this day. And there’s a few other large cap Crypto assets that have retained their original, you know, desired properties in spite of all these booms and busts. And you start to see institutions, the old money, old Wall Street that I talked about, actually start to take the plunge as well. So, you’re seeing this S-curve of institutions that were scoffing and calling these things scam coins. And like, I’m not going to name names, but they’re big CEOs of these banks that literally called this a Ponzi scheme five years ago and now they’re running Bitcoin trading desks. 

00:05:51:27 – 00:05:52:12

Richard Carthon: Yeah.

00:05:52:14 – 00:06:21:13

Clayon Gardner: So, you’re starting to see this curve, this total shift of adoption where it used to be retail speculation and now it’s like legitimate, massive pension funds, endowment funds, sovereign wealth funds that are investing. And typically, when you see this kind of seismic shift happen, you start to see massive amounts of capital flows into this space and that can really start to drive these Crypto assets up meaningfully in price. So, it’s not that the technology itself has changed. I think the beauty of Crypto is that the longer it hasn’t changed, the more the promise of Crypto holds true.

00:06:21:15 – 00:06:22:00

Richard Carthon: Right.

00:06:22:02 – 00:06:39:24

Clayon Gardner: It’s just that you’re finally starting to see the quote unquote, smart money and we can debate whether they’re actually smart or not. But you’re starting to see the people that have had the money start to allocate to Crypto. And while we know, don’t recommend it’s going to be a massive portion of people’s assets on our platform, we’re certainly going to recommend many folks have some skin in that game. 

00:06:40:26 – 00:07:09:06

Richard Carthon: For sure, and as you start to diversify your portfolio, so, I think that Cryptos should be a part of everyone’s portfolio and I’m going to ask you some questions around that in a minute. But I want to go back to Titan just for a second. So, someone that’s listening, you said that if they have something as little as $100, they now have access to someone that can help manage their money. So, kind of walk through if someone’s listen to this right now and they say like, “Wow, I mean, it’d be great if I could have someone help manage my money,” like, what does the onboarding process and being able to work with you look like? 

00:07:10:15 – 00:07:37:07

Clayon Gardner: It’s super simple. I’ve tried to make it as simple as humanly possible. It’s like, go to Titan.com, download the mobile app or on the iPhone, the IOS App Store or Google Play Store, takes a couple of minutes to sign up, link a bank, deposit as little as 100 bucks, and you can get invested with us in a Crypto portfolio. And what’s exciting is this is not just buy and hold Bitcoin. Like, frankly, the world has plenty of those exchanges and platforms. You can go do that somewhere else. You don’t come to Titan for that. 

00:07:37:15 – 00:07:38:00

Richard Carthon: Right.

00:07:38:02 – 00:08:17:10

Clayon Gardner: We’re excited to buy as we have a team of Crypto analysts internally that are actively managing a portfolio of Crypto assets around certain catalysts, around certain events. So, for example, at launch when we launch in a couple of weeks, you know, our percentage weight in Ethereum versus Bitcoin versus Stellar or other coins, it will vary over time. It will change. We may be massively overweight in Ethereum and then underweight, depending on relative Bitcoin, Ethereum dominance, altcoin winders and whatnot, and how certain, you know, fundamental, you know, whether it’s protocol upgrades, various things happens in the space. So, there’s certain tactical and dynamic things we think we can do as a manager on our platform that a lot of folks don’t have the time or knowledge to do themselves. 

00:08:23:05 – 00:08:44:00

Clayon Gardner: Like, it would be a lot of work to try to do that in like a Coinbase account or another do it yourself brokerage. So, the experience is designed to be go to Titan.com, sign up in just a couple of minutes, invest 100 bucks and you’re set. You can follow along, we’ll give you the play by play if you like to call it courtside seats. It’s like, if you want to see Katie on the court, like, you’re going to have the coach, you know, walking you through play by play of what’s happening and why. But you don’t have to make decisions, which is to be the platform.

00:08:44:23 – 00:09:05:29

Richard Carthon: So, I guess another quick question with that is then when they go on and they go onto the platform, is it that they are just putting, like USD or what have you into like a pot and then basically it’s being managed, then basically they can just see it grow over time? Or is it that they’re able to come in and buy specific Cryptos? Like how does that element of it work? 

00:09:07:24 – 00:09:23:25

Clayon Gardner: So, we’d like to distinguish between kind of Do-It-Yourself platforms and do it for me platforms. So, we’re definitely in the latter camp. So, when you come into Titan, you deposit Fiat. So, you actually open a brokerage account with us and then you deposit USD. So, not even stable coins, just straight Fiat. 

00:09:24:14 – 00:09:24:29

Richard Carthon: Right.

00:09:25:01 – 00:09:58:04

Clayon Gardner: And we convert that and go purchase Crypto for you. So, and those coins are custodied in hosted wallets at some various, you know, liquidity providers and custodians that we have. And then in terms of the experience thereafter, like I said, very much do it for me. It’s like we have the reins, we’ll manage it for you. You can move money out any time you want. There’s no lockups or liquidity constraints, but we’re really designed for folks that know Crypto is here to stay, they want exposure to this thing called Crypto, they just have no idea which coins to buy, when to buy them, when to sell, how to manage. 

00:09:58:10 – 00:09:58:25

Richard Carthon: Right. 

00:09:58:29 – 00:10:00:08

Clayon Gardner: And that’s Titan. 

00:10:00:10 – 00:10:24:16

Richard Carthon: No, and that’s extremely unique. You know, to get into managed funds like that, typically there’s an initial buy in hurdle and other things like that. And the fact that there’s also no lock up and other things as well sounds pretty appetizing. So, for someone who has been listening and like, doesn’t necessarily want to, like, start and hold it yourself, or just want some diversification and, you know, can kind of buy and forget, this sounds like a pretty solid way to be able to get that done. 

00:10:26:00 – 00:10:59:22

Clayon Gardner: Totally. And the reason in particular, you know, I mean, you can dive into the concept of like, why actively managed versus just passively holding these things is that Crypto is so nascent as a market. And we’re still at the very early stages of that escrow I talked about where there’s still a lot of dispersion and in our view, a lot of money to be made by being active. Now, that doesn’t mean we’re day trading, Richard, like, we’re not, you know, we’re not like, sitting here at 10 pm ahead of Elon on SNL and like, making a bunch of changes. You know, if there’s a significant, you know, catalytic shift in, you know, the adoption or utility in these protocols, then we will. 

00:11:00:00 – 00:11:18:03

Clayon Gardner: But, you know, our view is like there’s been so much dispersion even just in the last couple of years. Our view is that if you were a little bit more tactical and shrewd around managing a portfolio around these events versus someone who just closed their eyes and went on vacation for three years on a beach, came back, our view is like by being the former, we can do a little bit better than the latter.

00:11:18:05 – 00:11:57:00

Richard Carthon: Right. And I think that’s a really great way of describing it and then thank you for doing that. I kind of want to spend some time on something that you brought up earlier, and it’s that you’re starting to see a lot of these people five years ago who were condemning Cryptocurrency and are now basically diversifying and putting their, quote, unquote, smart money into it. And you’re starting to see Crypto become even more and more legitimized and continue to grow. Where do you see as more and more of these kinds of institutional players and people who have been in a regular market start to get more diversified into Crypto? Like, where do you see Crypto headed in the next one to three years? 

00:11:58:26 – 00:12:37:00

Clayon Gardner: Well, so, beneath the surface, what’s awesome, is like, the development community hasn’t really slowed down at all. So, through these like booms and busts, you know, the actual people building the technology, their enthusiasm and excitement has not waned at all. And that’s like the most important thing, so, that’s been really exciting to see. In terms of how the old money old Wall Street allocates funds across those platforms on the top, I think what you’re seeing first and foremost is like, Bitcoin is like, the gateway drug, so to speak, right? It’s like, Bitcoin is like, is it’s the most liquid, it’s the largest market cap, it’s considered the, you know, quote unquote, less risky, least risky from a store value perspective.

00:12:37:02 – 00:12:37:17

Richard Carthon: Right.

00:12:37:20 – 00:13:02:23

Clayon Gardner: Even though it’s not as programmatic, so to speak, as like, Ethereum or other kind of DeFi protocols. But it is, you know, it is definitely considered the quote unquote gold standard. And so, you see a lot of institutions starting there. What’s interesting is I think a lot of them are starting to just like, how do we make money from this thing called Crypto, first and foremost. So, a lot of them are like launching trading desks, just getting involved in the market making of it before they actually formally use. So, that’s like step one. 

00:13:02:25 – 00:13:18:27

Clayon Gardner: And step two is, you know, buy some Bitcoin for their own, you know, or spin up a Bitcoin ETF or a Bitcoin mutual fund. And then I think step three is you’re going to start to see them actually retooling their entire businesses on Blockchain. That’s going to be further out because there’s so much infrastructure built up over decades. 

00:13:19:10 – 00:13:19:25

Richard Carthon: Right.

00:13:19:27 – 00:13:58:13

Clayon Gardner: But when I say that, what I mean is like, rather than at Bank of America offering mortgages, what if there’s a smart contract and they have a mortgage. I think you’re going to see a ton of these financial products beyond just investing start to become Crypto enabled in many ways. So, it’s not like, an overnight change, you know, that early part of the S-curve, I think the step over the line was them finally stop condemning Bitcoin and finally be open to it. That was like, you know, that was the most important thing. And I think from here, it’s just going to be a cascade of getting more involved in. And for them, I think it’s going to be about figuring out how do we participate in this thing called Crypto without cannibalizing our core businesses. 

00:13:58:15 – 00:13:59:00

Richard Carthon: Right.

00:13:59:02 – 00:14:10:12

Clayon Gardner: That’s like the biggest fear of these banks is because a lot of them are public companies, they have earnings to report. If it is going, like, try to retool the whole system, their earnings uniform precipitously. 

00:14:10:25 – 00:14:11:10

Richard Carthon: Yeah.

00:14:11:12 – 00:14:17:04

Clayon Gardner: So, it’s a really slippery slope. It’s one that I’m fortunate to not have to manage as a private startup CEO. 

00:14:17:18 – 00:15:11:10

Richard Carthon: Right. And I mean, you’re bringing up a lot of great points and it’s like, when you start to get into all of this, it’s all about risk, it’s all about how do you start to get a fair amount of it to where the upside is higher, but you still can protect your downside, but still be a part of, I think, the biggest wealth generation that our generations probably ever going to see across, like not just the US, everywhere, the entire world. Like, this is one of the greatest opportunities to create financial wealth for generations to come. And as we look at that, just like you said, even with Titan, someone being able to come in with $100, and how that in itself is giving access to people who typically would not have that. When you go back one decade, you couldn’t go to institutions or anywhere to get that kind of opportunity to do that. 

00:15:11:12 – 00:15:38:20

Richard Carthon: So, you’re seeing a lot of financial players and financial systems opening up their arms to any and everyone saying like, Hey, here’s a way that you can participate. You can be a part of this and be on the beginning front of where the world is headed and I think that’s, you know, extremely cool. And I think that’s ultimately what we’re going to adapt to as we kind of get more decentralized and more people being empowered with tools to access this stuff. 

00:15:39:20 – 00:15:54:21

Clayon Gardner: No, I couldn’t agree more. And to your point on the $100, just, you know, the reason we have such low minimums and we’re comfortable doing that is because, you know, if you think about where Crypto is, just like, the aggregate global Crypto market cap, what is it, somewhere one, two trillion ish? Somewhere in that range. 

00:15:55:24 – 00:15:56:09

Richard Carthon: Yeah.

00:15:56:11 – 00:16:25:07

Clayon Gardner: We’re talking about less than 10 percent, far less than 10 percent of the US equity market cap, right? And so, what’s awesome is even if it’s $100, like, I talk to people in equities all the time and it’s just really hard to fathom. Like, is it even worth investing? Like, let’s say I put $100 in the market and I make 10 percent a year, that’s like, less than $1 a month, right? Is it really going to change my life? And obviously we’ve heard stories about the people that went all in, they mortgaged their house in Bitcoin and, you know, they crushed it. You know, over the last 10 years, there’s a lot of stories of that going the other way. 

00:16:25:23 – 00:17:02:24

Clayon Gardner: But I think if you have $100 and that’s a small portion of your investable assets, we’re so early that it could be truly life changing, right? If you’re reinvesting, if you’re staying the course, you’re consistently investing part of your income over time in a sort of, you know, a reasonable asset allocation, that includes Crypto. So, I’m just excited that, like, it’s so small and early that putting aside whether big banks can afford to let in smaller clients or not, like, I hear from some clients like that, I missed the boat on Crypto? Like Bitcoin, 40,000, like, did I miss it? And we’re at the top of the first inning in my mind. 

00:17:02:26 – 00:17:03:11

Richard Carthon: Yeah.

00:17:03:13 – 00:17:03:28

Clayon Gardner: Which is really exciting. 

00:17:04:00 – 00:17:36:07

Richard Carthon: It’s so early. And I have a Crypto for beginners document that I made earlier this year. And if you got into Bitcoin when it first came out, I believe around 2009 when it was roughly $3 to when it hit around $30,000, you just put in $20 in a decade, it’d be worth $9,000,000. It’s insane. It’s so early and like, not to say that there can’t be another Bitcoin esque type of opportunity like that, same thing with Ethereum. If you got in Ethereum when it first came out, put $20 when it got up to I believe right around $1,200, that same investment would have been worth six figures. It’s nuts. 

00:17:36:13 – 00:18:24:05

Richard Carthon: And the time horizon, like, you don’t really see those kinds of returns like, ever. If you go back in history on certain things like, it’s rare that you find this happened, but it consistently happens within Crypto and that’s the kind of opportunity that we’re talking about here. One more question I want to go into before my fun questions is earlier you talked about how you look at trends, like, you like to look at bubbles and booms and everything else. I for one, and not to bring this off the rails too much, think that what we’re seeing in the stock market is starting to make less and less sense to me and I’m starting to yield some red flags. And I think that regardless of what ends up happening there, that Crypto could essentially be a good way to hedge against whatever ultimately happens over there. What is your opinion on, you know, what we’re currently seeing in current, you know, equity markets? 

00:18:25:25 – 00:18:58:12

Clayon Gardner: It’s a good question because I, too, you know, have seen some pockets of euphoria and froth where it’s really hard to justify, even on the most optimistic assumptions, a company or a stock being worth what it’s worth. I would say I’ll take a little bit of like, the sneaky way out, Richard, to say, like, fortunately at Titan, we are not like, macro forecasters. Like, we don’t have to wake up and tell our clients, like we’re bullish or bearish on the stock market every day. And what’s cool is we take that same approach to Crypto. And what I mean by that is we’re looking bottoms up at like, what projects would we feel comfortable owning for 10 years? 

00:18:58:21 – 00:19:48:07

Clayon Gardner: And, like, not seeing a stock chart or a Crypto price chart and like, in other words, bottoms up fundamentally embedded, whether it’s like, led by the right management team, the right founders, the right developer community has strong and growing utility in adoption. And you can look at various multiples of on-chain metrics and transaction volume and look at the real fundamentals, you know, as long as there’s a smart team and community around that and it’s growing irrespective of these booms and busts in Crypto and the same goes for the stock market, we should end up okay if we build a diversified portfolio. And look, we’re not going to get all those calls right or wrong, but as long as we stay on top of the news and events and we can make tactical changes along the way, if necessary, we’ll do okay. So, you know, I definitely see pockets in like, the SPAC community and in certain like, cloud software, like a lot of runaway trains.

00:19:48:09 – 00:19:48:24

Richard Carthon: Yeah.

00:19:48:26 – 00:20:11:16

Clayon Gardner: I think it’ll end up pretty poorly for a lot of people as they just look at a stock chart and buy without understanding what they own. But what’s awesome is, you know, I think like, to your earlier point on, you know, buying, you know, $20, turning into $9,000,000, the important thing is understanding there are going to be a periods of time as a stock investor and as a Crypto investor, where you look really stupid to all your friends. 

00:20:11:28 – 00:20:12:13

Richard Carthon: Right.

00:20:12:15 – 00:20:33:19

Clayon Gardner: Like, it is inevitable. No one who has made it, quote unquote in Crypto or equities has ever looked like a genius to everyone all the time. It’s the people that stay invested in the right things for the right reasons, in spite of that volatility that get paid for. And those drawdowns and that pain is like the cost. That’s the cost of ending up, you know, at the right destination. 

00:20:33:21 – 00:21:06:17

Clayon Gardner: So, our goal with Titan, kind of wrapping up is like, hopefully, you know, we can manage that pain for you around that pain, right? Like, hopefully, like, you defer to us and outsource that role to us rather than having to do it yourself because I’ve been there and I’ve I’ve bought and sold my fair share of stocks in Crypto and lost money and then, kicked myself for having sold too early. But I totally agree. You know, buying indiscriminately anything is usually not a great idea, but if you go bottoms up, even in the stock market and certainly in Crypto, I see a lot of really attractive stuff today. 

00:21:07:11 – 00:21:46:29

Richard Carthon: Definitely. Play the long game, find projects that you believe will be here and are going to continue to grow. A lot of them that just survive the test of time, right? I mean, with the stock market, with Crypto, their startups, 90 percent of them are going to fail, but the 10 percent that don’t could be extremely, extremely powerful. And again, doesn’t mean that even if they survive a decade, that they ultimately won’t fail and that there’s not money to be made within this year, the next three to five years, seven years, whatever the time horizon is, it just means that when you have a longer game in play and you’re playing with like, sound fundamentals, you have a lot more chances to be right. 

00:21:47:01 – 00:22:12:12

Richard Carthon: Not to say that you won’t be wrong for a second or look, like you said, might not look like the smartest being, but if you really just play it out and let things play out, you have a really great and solid chance of coming out on top. But, you know, two final questions I kind of want to do as we wrap this up, one is if you could take two to three core lessons that you like, with all the knowledge that you have right now and can impart that wisdom to yourself when you first got started, what would that be? 

00:22:16:15 – 00:22:43:07

Clayon Gardner: I’m going to approach this as an investor, because, you know, even as a business owner at Titan today, I think about where to allocate capital when I think about these two lessons. The first is always have a game plan and what I call premortem. And what a premortem is if you’re not familiar is basically a fancy word for game plan. It’s fast forward to the future you and paint different scenarios. Upside, middle of the road, downside scenario, what would you do in each of those scenarios and literally write it down. 

00:22:43:22 – 00:23:26:25

Clayon Gardner: What I found time and time again is having what I call thesis creep. You convince yourself or overstay your welcome on a loser, on a position or a decision that went poorly, convincing yourself you hope to make it back to break even. What I’ve learned time and time again is that almost never happens and it’s a downward spiral. And conversely, a lot of the best investments I’ve made and decisions I made are ones that appreciated in value and then, I doubled down. I bought even more or I doubled down as a business owner at a higher price. And so, I think having a game plan is so important because it’s so easy to convince yourself and move whichever way the wind’s blowing, especially when you have media headlines, friends laughing at you for having lost money on this thing called Crypto. Like, it’s just so, the most important thing is having a game plan. 

00:23:27:24 – 00:24:05:11

Clayon Gardner: And then, I think secondly would be, I think overall, just understanding exactly what you just mentioned around slug percentage, probably the single most important concept I’ve learned in investing, which is like, you’re not going to know at the outset, and this goes with life in general, you’re not going to know at the outset which decisions are going to impact you in the world the most or like, the next 50 years. You won’t know. It’s like, really hard to know apriori. Importantly, you should just know that it’s likely that a few drive most of the value. That’s the key. The key is like, just like in slugging percentage basically means even if you only hit the ball a couple of times when you’re at the plate, if you hit home runs, who cares if the rest of strikeouts, right? 

00:24:05:13 – 00:24:05:28

Richard Carthon: Right. 

00:24:06:10 – 00:24:19:06

Clayon Gardner: And it goes the same in venture capital and definitely in Crypto. If you build a portfolio of 10 Crypto assets, if eight go to zero, but two go 1,000X, well, guess what? You far outperformed pretty much every other asset class’s passive index. 

00:24:19:16 – 00:24:20:01

Richard Carthon: Absolutely.

00:24:20:03 – 00:24:22:21

Clayon Gardner: You’re not going to know which are going to 1,000X beforehand. 

00:24:22:23 – 00:24:23:08

Richard Carthon: Right.

00:24:23:10 – 00:24:25:15

Clayon Gardner: Otherwise you just go all in on the 2,000X one, right?

00:24:25:17 – 00:24:26:02

Richard Carthon: Right. 

00:24:26:04 – 00:24:46:13

Clayon Gardner: But all of my portfolios over time, all my decisions tend to have that pareto law where most do, some are okay, some fail, but a few are really, really, really right. You have to know going back to the game plan, you’re not going to know which those are, but just mentally getting in the headspace of understanding that can help, you know, help you manage that volatility along the way. 

00:24:46:25 – 00:24:54:13

Richard Carthon: Absolutely. And just to keep the baseball references going, you want as many at bats as you can get. So, diversification is good and having a solid gameplan. 

00:24:54:15 – 00:24:56:00

Clayon Gardner: Always live to fight another day, definitely. 

00:24:56:02 – 00:25:11:09

Richard Carthon: Yes, live to fight another day. Don’t just go up there hit a home run with one pitch, try to give yourself some more pitches. But as we kind of wrap up, man, I always like to ask a final question of what is a final thought that you want to leave with all of our listeners here today? 

00:25:14:17 – 00:25:45:11

Clayon Gardner: My final thought would be, I think as it relates to Crypto and maybe like life more broadly, I would say it’s always ask why, especially in spaces or industries or topics that seem a little bit crazy at the outset. So, I would say like, this especially relates to Crypto, but, you know, it seems so fanciful and almost like, you know, like a criminal enterprise or something at the beginning, right? It’s like, people are using this for the dark web and whatnot. There’s always a why. 

00:25:45:13 – 00:25:45:28

Richard Carthon: Yeah.

00:25:46:00 – 00:26:10:18

Clayon Gardner: If there’s smart people working on something, always ask why. And I think this went for Crypto, this went for the Internet, this went always back to like semiconductors in the middle of last century. I wish I would have asked why way earlier in Crypto, instead of brushing it off like many people did. You know, better late than never, obviously, but parting thought is that I’m asking myself every day is whenever I see something I don’t quite understand, instead of shooing it away, just ask why and dig in deeper.

00:26:10:20 – 00:26:34:16

Richard Carthon: I like that. And I mean, asking why, following your curiosity, we believe in that. Once you follow your curiosity, it’s something that you want to learn more about, you typically have more passion about it and you feel more compelled to to see it through. So, I think that’s a fantastic final thought. And I definitely appreciate all the time you spent with us today, but what are some ways that people can connect with you, learn more about Titan and do some next steps? 

00:26:35:29 – 00:26:59:07

Clayon Gardner: Best way to find us is Titan.com. You can find me on Twitter, handle’s Virtual Clay. And you can obviously, you know, shoot me a note as well, Clay@Titan.com. Those are the best ways to find us. You can find us Titan in the app stores right here in the US as well. Like Richard mentioned, we’ll be launching Crypto very soon, so depending on when this episode goes live, it may already be out there in the world. We’d love to have you aboard. 

00:27:00:08 – 00:27:05:00

Richard Carthon: Excellent. Well, thank you again for joining us. And of course, for everyone listening, stay Crypto Current.