any asset

any security uh any regulated fund etc can be put in one standardized um contract which is which is the fancy term is a smart contract but it's just series a series of code it's code it's it's simply code that sits on on the blockchain And what that allows you to do is both standardize, unitize, but also allow assets to talk to each other because they're talking the same language.

And what that means is that both your investment universe can expand because you can take assets that predominantly would be more complicated to access or would require certain operational setups, and you can put them into a token and allow them for easier access to people in the broader market.

and for those assets to then trade in a way which doesn't add incremental kind of counterparty risk, operational cost or simple trading and friction cost.

And so what it allows is essentially for assets and the full investable universe to talk to each other, which from a portfolio construction perspective is really, really interesting.

And then also from a personalization aspect, it gets very interesting because that investment universe is based in code, and code is very, very easy to automate and allow for personalization to bespoke members.

So if we're thinking about particularly as schemes move towards the later stage and you're trying to cater personalized investments to those individuals' lives, you can start to do that on a scalable level rather than in one where you just have massive cost.

But I think over time there will be a consistent migration to the tokenized structure.

I want to ask, why did BG decide to start with short term corporate bonds rather than equities or another asset class? And really, what was kind of the origin story behind this fund?

Yeah, definitely.

So the origin story for this fund is it started off as an Excel spreadsheet between myself and one of our portfolio managers, Joseph Thorpe, who's one of the named managers on the fund running the part of the government bond piece of the fund.

And it started off in part as a portfolio that we really wanted to invest in.

We were going, where's the market? What do we really miss? And we were like, we want a step out of cash with a good yield, not too much risk, not too much credit risk in their short duration because the long end of the rates curve can be very volatile.

And we're like, what do we really want? What would we buy? And that's kind of the origin of the investment.

the investment portfolio.

Do you ultimately see these Internet capital markets playing out? And if so, like what is the timeline for that where everything comes on chain?

Uh, so love y- you're comment on the last one, and then tell us more what you all are doing in the space instead of me reading the, the press release.

[laughs] For sure.

For sure.

I was just, I was gonna say, echo all of Eric's views, and I think one thing I would just add on the, on the, on the kind of robo-advisor thing, I think the biggest opportunity in tokenization is that we have unitization, particularly in funds.

What tokenization doing, is doing here is programmatic unitization, and that's the unlock here, which is that, that, that robo-advisor piece we...

I, I would completely agree with Eric, like maybe it is six people and their dog, but like that's the unlock here.

We've-- It's able to personalize at scale, not scaled cost.

Um, I guess my question is, from the perspective of a consumer, and specifically a crypto investor, you know, where, where do you see benefits for that coming through?

But for those in our audience who are thinking, OK, but what's in this for me? What are the tangible benefits that we can offer to clients as a consequence of tokenization?

It's a bit like having an iOS update, right? It's kind of like, what are the apps that get better for me once I upgrade the operating system? And it's a very fair point.

So obviously cost is one piece and we've kind of gone through that.

But once you essentially redefine the infrastructure that we all share, it starts to allow for a couple of other things.

So to walk them through.

So the first one is distribution and access.

There's a really interesting stat, which is that 40% of investors under 25 in the UK only hold cryptocurrencies and cash.

So what is it about this specific moment in time that we're seeing so much activity?