Stephen: This is your host, Stephen Sargeant, the Around The Coin podcast. We have Andrew McCormick, he's the head of eToro Us. We talk about crypto investing the early days when he was at E-Trade. We talk about what the differences are between the generations and what they're putting their money into and what are some of the parameters and risks.

With everything we talk about sentiment investing and copy trading. This episode is hilarious. Andrew has lots of great energy. He has some business ideas too if you wanna steal from us. And he is also a legal representative. Andrews are raising. This is gonna be such a fun podcast for those that are looking to figure out what's going on in the US when it comes to crypto, the early days of regulation and everything in between, and we even finish off the episode with a little bit of AI and some business acumen.

I hope you enjoy this one. One of my favorite episodes to record.

Stephen: This is your host, Stephen Sargeant, Around The Coin Podcast.

We have the head of eToro, USA, Andrew McCormick. Andrew, you're super active on LinkedIn. Give us a little bit of background and then we're gonna jump deep into like when you started your career in the investment in financial services space.

Andrew: Yeah. Thanks Stephen. Such a joy to be here with you today and just chat about life, finance and everything in between. So yeah. My name is Adrian McCormick, hang out in the Washington DC area. Proud husband for almost 20 years. Hard to believe proud dad of four kids and have the joy and honor of leading the eToro US team where we're all about just making finance more accessible and engaging for retail investors, not just in the US but all around the world.

Stephen: And you started out pretty early in your career in like the legal sector and like regulatory work at E-Trade. I think, you know, as soon as I heard E-Trade and saw it on your profile, I'm like, oh, I remember those talking baby commercials. And you were working in like the regulatory investigation side of it, you know, this was quite a while ago, back in 20 16, 20 20.

Do you remember what were some of the like high level financial crime concerns or investigation co concerns across the industry?

Andrew: Yeah, so I had the joy starting my career during a financial crisis you know, and trying to navigate that as a, as a new lawyer and landed at a law firm for my first six years and did all the spicy litigation and regulatory matters. Ironically, I was supposed to start my career as a renewable energy transactional lawyer.

And then surprisingly with the financial crisis, a lot of companies are not wanting to spend billions of dollars building wind farms, solar farms. But a lot of financial firms are getting sued. And that's how I started my career. 'cause of that I needed a job. Companies needed help. Coming those first couple years were largely focused on like financial crisis type issues, failures, things like that.

Had six wonderful years at the law firm, but I've got a creative spirit and wanted to go in-house and work. You know, I've seen the, seen the same commercials and love the idea of going to work at the original OG FinTech E-Trade. And so jumped over. And I love the idea of not just working with lawyers all the time at a law firm.

It's great, but everybody's a lawyer, right? But at a. A place like E-Trade. You have brilliant people, not just in legal, but in marketing and compliance product, and had an amazing time there. Lots of different matters. Focus on the regulatory space. Exams, inquiries, enforcement actions most around trading, retail, trading issues that pop up along the way.

And I think during that time, a lot of interesting retail trading issues popped up across the whole industry, right? Like we were around in January, 2020 when suddenly like GameStop goes to like a million dollars out of nowhere in the whole world. And Facebook, Instagram is talking about GameStop at places like E-Trade, Robinhood, different places like that.

Everyone in inside was talking about the same kind of issues and regulators were talking about the same kind of issues, and Congress was talking about the same kind of issues. So it was cool to be at a place like that that just was so innovative, so much great history, and just wonderful people. So even though the matters were spicy at times, it was my honor and joy to defend the company and defend all my coworkers.

Stephen: I love it. I love it. And you know there's still room, sustainable energy is making a comeback. I

Andrew: Yeah,

Stephen: is extremely popular in the

Andrew: for sure. Yeah.

Stephen: guys walking around selling solar, you know, whipping out their phones and showing their bank accounts 'cause they're making some Coin.

I'd love to know, 'cause you were at E-Trade until about 2020, I believe.

And you know, even when they were, you know, acquired by Morgan Stanley, they got into digital assets. Is that shocking to you? Was there, you know, were they always like looking forward of what's the next innovation? How do we start more conversations around it? Especially if you're in the legal department, usually that's the first stop for, you know, those are innovating.

At least you'd hope that's the first stop, but not the last stop.

Andrew: Yeah. Honestly, it was like, it was the opposite. Like I was, I was passionate about the space. I rose my hand there and said I wanna do as much as possible and crypto, and we were definitely working on some cool stuff even back then. I know some of it has continued and I think realistically, a lot of big traditional players.

Whether it's E-Trade or Morgan Stanley or lots of banks during the last couple years of regulatory uncertainty and litigation, everyone said, let's, let's hang on the sidelines for a little bit before we, you know, fully dive in and see how it all plays out. But there's definitely like some cool stuff going on at those places, I'm sure.

And I think in the next couple years you're gonna see all these stereotypical, like traditional finance companies, like jumping into the space so much that in five years it's not trad fi, DeFi, crypto, it's just finance, right? And it's just different rails and new rails and more efficient rails. And so it's, it's really cool to see like traditional finance companies, these old school banks getting into the space.

And I know some of the. Old school crypto folks don't love it. Like, but I think, you know, let's make this tent as big as possible. Make this party as big as possible. And we all have a role to play. Like, let's, let's welcome in the the big banks Wall Street and, and help innovate in this space and they're smart folks there and let's build something great.

Stephen: It is such an interesting dichotomy because you know, I've been in crypto for almost 10 years now, and you hear like, we need institutional investment and once the institutions are in, we're gonna be golden. Well, they're gonna come in with the financial products that they know. They're just not gonna invest the crypto stuff. They're gonna bring in their own expertise and their own financial products. So it's a weird dichotomy that we have to balance is, yes, we need the capital, but the capital's also gonna look like what they're familiar with, which as I think some of the crypto industry has a tough time with.

Andrew: Yeah, for sure. I think like we'd always say this in litigation, like, if you have a settlement, that's great. It means both sides are like a little unhappy, right? You can live with this, it's good, but I'm kind of upset about that. And maybe that's like in life in general, you're never perfectly happy.

Like you might wanna go to Chipotle, your kids want to go to McDonald's and you know, you maybe balance it out here and there. And I think in, in crypto, like the OGs are pure, like libertarian, Bitcoin, hands off, like they might never love like Wall Street coming in and innovating new products. And Wall Street might have similar visions and fears about the other side, but.

Man, just make the party as big as possible and we can all contribute in certain ways. You might not love everything, but that, that's life. You know, like I fan, I'm my favorite sports team. Sometimes they trade my favorite player, Luca, but I still am a big fan of the Dallas Mavericks, even though they traded my my favorite player away.

So,

Stephen: Well, it'll just be you and the three other people that are in the stands now.

Andrew: yeah. But tickets, tickets will be, tickets will be cheaper then, I guess so,

Stephen: And, and it's interesting 'cause I come from the compliance lens and you know, crypto, a lot of the OGs are like, Hey, we don't wanna do KYC and crypto. It's supposed to be peer to peer. And, you know, trans, it's transparent enough as it is.

We don't need identification information. And it's like, just like probably when we're growing up, at least when I'm growing up you can choose your own path. Do you wanna stay libertarian or do you want to build a big business? You just can't choose both unfortunately. So it's, it's one of those interesting things you mentioned earlier before we started recording about how you found out about Bitcoin.

And I would love to know that story of like how you, how you got bit by the Bitcoin bug. I'm assuming Bitcoin first, maybe other cryptocurrencies. Give us that, you know, insider origin story.

Andrew: Yeah, well it came from my dad, which is like kind of, kind of crazy 'cause he's not what I would say is like tech forward kind of person. And ironically he came to me in like 2012, 2013 was like, Andrew, have you heard about this new website YouTube? I was like, yeah, like YouTube's been around like seven years.

Like I've been watching music videos on YouTube seven years. But he had just found YouTube and you know, we all go through that, like the YouTube, like late night, like Death spiral, rabbit trail, zoom, whatever, like just keep on clicking videos. And he somehow ended up on like Bitcoin and he got it quickly and started like investing some in Bitcoin in like 2012.

He started telling me about it. I watched some of his videos, he shared, I remember like 2013, I'm in my law firm office late at night feeling the pain and the pressure and I watched one of these videos and I was like, this is like fake internet money. What are you doing? This doesn't make any sense to me.

And I so wish I had a time machine to go back to myself in 2013 of that night and be like, Hey, lemme just put like a hundred dollars into this thing and, and see what happens. But he was relentless and every time we'd see him at like holidays and birthday parties for my kids, talk about Coinbase, talk about Bitcoin, talk about Ethereum.

And finally, like four years later, I dug in deep, read some as much as I could, and it clicked. And I was like, I get it. This is better form of money that's not controlled by like a couple people in the federal government. It's controlled by the people. It can be peer to peer. This is cool. This is awesome.

And so that's when it, the light bulb went on and this is just a better way to do finance and since that day, do as much as I can like in the space and ultimately led me to come to eToro. 'cause I wanna just build more in, in the crypto space and as much as I can.

Stephen: I love it. What was, you know, was there a challenge or a blocker for you? Was it like, hey, legally they're never gonna allow this to exist? You know, the re like what was the one thing, especially coming from a legal perspective, was there one thing that you were hung up on, even though you're like, Hey, this is a great technology.

There's no way the government's gonna allow this. Was there any kind of blockers or challenges that you kind of,

Andrew: Yeah.

Stephen: was gonna be a deal breaker for the technology?

Andrew: Yeah, for sure. Right? Like, because being a lawyer, like I know there's, even in the security space, thousands of not just laws, but regulations, lawsuits, opinions, and just so much, right? And to be able to like a new technology coming out of nowhere to just blow all that open. And that's hard, right? But you read that like seven page white paper and you're like, this is like, makes so much sense.

It's so smart. So to me, the biggest block was just in my own head that this is like fake internet money and getting over that was harder as opposed to like, hey look, the regulations, the innovation that then was gonna require more legislation, that's gonna be tough. It's gonna take a long time. We're like all in on this thing.

And I know, like I haven't, you know, vetted this, but I remember like years and years ago reading, like when Ford started making automobiles, like people were like upset of like, it not messing up the roads where horses go. And it's like the same kind of idea of like right now we're living in a world built on, you know, rails from the 20th century.

Sometimes even the, one of the big banking laws in the US is from 1863 and it still applied today. So that's tough to put 21st century technology on it. But there's a lot of smart people working this space and it's gonna happen and it already certainly is.

Stephen: I love it. You said you're based in dc I would love to know kind of what, what is the temperature, especially since, you know, Trump came into administration, not so much from a political vibe, but what is the temperature? Are there more conversations now about crypto and people being more accepting it?

Because it must be tough to build in an environment that could change every four years when you're at large institutions where it takes you two to three years to build these programs to begin with, and then you have to deal with the market cycles and the downturn in value and pricing and interest.

Andrew: Yeah,

Stephen: the temperature you feel right now if you had to gauge it based on some of your conversations?

Andrew: super encouraging. It is like it is like flipping a light switch on and off. Like it's that drastic, right? So I've been talking about Bitcoin and crypto in this area for since 2017. Right? And there's definitely times where people are like, you're crazy. Had same say the same stuff I said, this is like fake internet money.

And those people like are not saying the same things today. Right. I'd love to like engage in like policy meetings, discussions. And eToro is a member of Digital Chamber of Commerce who have done a tremendous job just advocating for these issues on Capitol Hill and also with regulators. And 2, 2, 3 weeks ago they had their big DC blockchain summit.

Packed to the gills. The whole thing is like packed and crowded and tons of politicians, I think importantly from both sides of the aisle, which is like amazing to see that this should be an apolitical issue and it's now an issue that like people are talking about taking seriously, and hopefully I've been saying this since 2017, but hopefully we're gonna see some legislation around the topic very, very soon.

Stephen: And I think the pandemic gave us a lot of examples of where digital assets, especially we're in, you know, a very westernized country, like in North America. It's like. can use Venmo, PayPal, like we, you know, we're not like obscure to the fact that we don't need digital assets on a day-to-day basis, but then it's like, hey, we want to, you know, donate to the Ukraine, maybe, oh, you can't do that through GoFundMe anymore because it's for military equipment or here in Canada.

Hey, we want to support the Freedom Convoy can't do that because now the government's calling every crypto exchange trying to get your account information. So we kind of, I think the pandemic kind of escalated when we got more digitalized why it is important to have that digitalized asset,

Andrew: Yeah.

Stephen: and that digital asset.

But I'd love to hear more about eToro. Everyone I think knows about eToro, but they don't know the extent of probably the services and the financial projects that you offer. Just like you say Robinhood, it's like, oh yeah, I've heard of Robinhood seen them, but I wouldn't know exactly what they offer, et cetera.

I would love to know, break down what eToro does and what like you're famous for internally, what the customers are running to you for versus maybe some of your competitors.

Andrew: Yeah. I'd love to love, always love to share the eToro vision, history 'cause it's a, it is a wonderful one. So the company's been around 18 years. Our founders started 'cause they're passionate about capital markets and breaking down barriers to investing. All around the world, right? We, we can take it for granted, especially maybe today in 2025, that, hey, let me like download an app and invest in, you know, my favorite stock or crypto.

But that certainly is not the case for everybody. That certainly wasn't the case for people back in like 2010, 2008 and this kind of timeframe. So we are multi-asset provider, so we're passionate about crypto. That's not all that we do, right? We're an OG into space. We're the first regulated institution in Europe to offer Bitcoin trading.

Our founder was at the very first Bitcoin conference when it was probably like more like a meeting like so many years ago, and I. On his X feed, you'll see a post from 2011 where he is telling people to check out Bitcoin 11 cents. And I'm like, wow. Like if you just had put a hundred bucks to that thing, your whole life is, family's life is much different.

So we're huge advocates of the space, but we're also passionate about people just having an option to invest in other asset classes as well. So for example, like in the US we have crypto offering. We also have stocks, right? So you maybe you're just investing in Bitcoin related stocks, but maybe you love Chipotle, so you invest in Chipotle, or of course ETFs as well.

A wonderful diversified like investment class. And we also have options trading for stocks in ETFs. And the hope is in the future we'll have even more products available and overseas, same kind of thing, multi-asset class, have futures in some places, and just love the idea of people coming to eToro and maybe they're new, maybe they're around 20 years and they have a lot of different options in front of them.

But what we're most passionate about and most known for is this idea of social trading, right? And that's like kind of a novel term, especially here in the us. But look, life is better when we do it together, whether it's playing sports, hanging out with friends. So why not investing too? So you, you jump on eToro, maybe you don't know how to get started.

We actually have a social media feed baked into our platform. So you can see people talking about investing, people, sharing ideas, worries, fears, all that kind of stuff that's like so helpful along your investment journey, especially as you're just getting started. And so we love this idea of just a community coming together, investing together, sharing ideas, and we think that makes everybody better.

There's wisdom in the crowd and power in the crowd and just, just more fun too. And so that, that's like our heartbeat in the DNA, this idea of like community investing and social investing.

Stephen: And that like looks a lot different than a bank, right? You go on their app, they're just, you know, selling their mortgages and products and services, which is fine, but you never like imagine. Now how many people that eToro is probably onboarded into different financial and asset classes, right? They're going on their stocks and they're saying, Hey, like what's this BBTC?

I'm hearing people talk about investing in invest and like, Hey, like I don't feel comfortable directly in the asset. This Bitcoin ETF looks pretty cool. Let me try, that's something I know about. I can put like maybe 5%. So it's interesting that you have that social aspect. How difficult is it to. 'cause the whole sentiment, especially on like crypto Twitter, is that things change so quickly.

How challenging is it for like ETO to make sure you have innovative financial products but not go too far, where it's like, it's just like a hype, like the Metaverse and the NFTs or meme tokens where your customers want it, but you maybe not want to expose them to that level of risk. Like how do you guys balance that internally?

Andrew: Yeah, great question. You know, compliance is the heart of everything we do and we're very thoughtful and careful about every step we take and look. By this time, you know, we're not quite into og you know, we've been around 18 years in this space, right. And there's a lot of companies probably who started after us and they've flamed out and they're not here anymore 'cause they probably took too many steps too soon, too much risk.

So they sometimes maybe we're on the slower end, but I think it's. Trying to play the long game. And we wanna be here and serve our customers for not just months or years, but like decades. We're constantly innovating internally, but a lot of times we build something and we just test it with employees for a while.

Or maybe we'll test it in some countries and, but not the others. 'cause we wanna, we wanna innovate and do cool stuff that's new, but always the North Star is like customer protection and what's best for our customer. And, you know, if you gotta wait three months, six months, nine months to make sure it happened, that is absolutely always the right choice in our mind.

So done a lot of innovating over the past couple years. Got a lot more cool things in the hopper and hopefully in the next year or so gonna see it hit the public news.

Stephen: I love it.

Can you tell me a little bit about regulation, your thoughts on the current regulatory, especially in the US stablecoin regulation, multiple stablecoin acts are being considered going through that like regulatory process. But also like, I feel like eToro is very similar to how regulators have to be, right?

They're not gonna rush out and make regulation on something and by tomorrow that's no longer an issue or the technology change. They also have to kind of take a very, in

Andrew: Yeah.

Stephen: process, right? They can't go too quick, but they get, you know, blame for going too slow. What are your thoughts about regulation, especially now where the conversation is pointing a little bit more towards the US being, you know, the crypto capital or the innovated you know, global powerhouse around the world.

Andrew: Yeah, I think that's like a really interesting and nuanced approach, Stephen. People in our space, like a lot of times they're like the bash the regulators, right? And just say all the bad stuff and the gossip and. I don't think that's always fair because like you said, like you know, if you're a regulator sitting at one of these agencies and all of a sudden this new technology comes and what you have at your disposal are securities laws from the 1930s, banking laws from the 1860s.

Like that's, that's hard to figure out right now. It's hard leading the firm and even being a lawyer at a firm advising like it's hard for the company, but it's hard for the regulator too. So I think there's probably been too much regulatory bashing in the last like five or six years, but we desperately need legislation, right?

Because the regulators can only go so far. You gotta have the law in place for then the regulators to regulate at firm and customer activity around that law. When I started to get into this space in 2017, I had people ask like, well, what about this? What about that? And I'm like, soon we're gonna have some legislation on this piece.

And that's been eight years, but I think this is, this is gonna be the year, right? Stable Coin legislation. First, and that's gonna give one certainty to the industry. Two, like certainty and encouragement to the firms that support the industry, whether it's like banks, clearing firms, 'cause they, they need that certainty as well.

And, and third, it gives the regulators a clear understanding of what the law is. 'cause to me it makes no sense trying to stuff digital assets and peer-to-peer wallet transactions into laws from the 1930s and a Supreme Court case case about orange trees from 1946. Like, it just doesn't make sense.

We need new laws on the books. Congress likes to fight a little bit, not a lot of like legislation comes out, but I think we're finally like so close and it's gonna be such a massive win for not just the industry, but also consumers and the United States as well.

Stephen: I love it and it makes a lot of sense why regulators have to approach the industry and the industry. We have to be somewhat self-responsible as well. We

Andrew: No.

Stephen: certain words that we know aren't covered under the regulatory gee, even though we know we're not doing exactly that, right? Like, oh no, we're not security, we're an ICO. we're not. You know, we're not security. We're an NFT. We like to use very, you know, cliche words to try and avoid regulatory scrutiny and regulatory requirements as well. And, but you know, eToro has always kind of add this compliance. You know, regulatory focus first. Do you feel like, since you've always been playing by the rules for like the last decade, working with regulators at a state and federal level, that, you know, what are your thoughts now that finally you get regulation that is, you know, a little bit more innovative and friendly to the community?

Do you feel like this is gonna give you a competitive advantage? Or do you think it's like, Hey, maybe we went too hard. Like there's always that dichotomy of like, Hey, we don't wanna be the first one to put in all these things, but we definitely don't want to be the last one either. Do you feel like you have an advantage now?

'cause you've already done the hard work now that the regulation's turning more into the private sector's favor?

Andrew: Yeah, so I think, you know, the, the big win is that we're still here today. There's a lot of crypto firms are making a ton of money, 20, 21, 22, and they're not here today anymore. So I think we've, like, just surviving in the crypto space is a huge win 'cause it's, there's been a lot of booms and busts and they'll certainly be more to come.

So we're here and we're proud that we're here and sure there's probably times we could have been more aggressive and made a lot more money, but who knows what happens. So the north star of doing right by the customers will always be there. We're always gonna chase that. I think having those muscles in place, the compliance, the regulatory muscles.

Will always be helpful, right? Whether you're like innovating quickly or slowly or somewhere in between, like you gotta go through that process. And being slower to launch may be tough and painful in some ways, but you're probably gonna have less litigation, less regulatory stuff down the road. And so it's all maybe about like you having to pain and delay here or later, but you know, the compliance first at all times.

'cause I think that truly benefits the customers, but the more clarity is gonna be just so helpful to everybody. 'cause it's, it's hard to lead a business and make decisions when you don't know what's gonna happen, like six months, 12 months. And it can't be subject to like an election every four years.

It's gonna be like a rapid change that is. The worst possible thing. And so I think that's why we gotta have like legislation that's gonna be there. And then in 90 years people are gonna be complaining about the 2025 crypto legislation is too old school. But I'll happily take it today.

Stephen: I, I love that. I love that aspect of Yeah, you're right. We want this to be longstanding. Not like, Hey, new administration, you know, different side. Oh no, we're reverting back to 20, you know, to

Andrew: Yeah.

Stephen: 22, 20 23, versus what's happening now in 2025. Then that's why I asked you like, how do you go through all these different market changes, regulatory changes?

It looks like we're in a good direction and it appears I'm not in the us, but it feels like it's a little bit more of like a bipartisan, you know, approval of a lot of these things versus just like one side pushing it down the other side's throat.

Andrew: Yeah.

Stephen: you have over 40 million users, first of all, that's a lot. What are some of the financial crime concerns, or what are some of the legal concerns that you're like the top of mind, the priority as you go into work every day is like, Hey, we have to make sure that we're mitigating this risk.

Andrew: Yeah, look, I think like for any financial firm, the, the like, two things that are gonna knock you out quicker than anything are like a MO issues and cybersecurity, right? You, you cannot run a financial business in a successful, thoughtful, healthy way. And if those are not priorities, and those are certainly priorities for ro, right?

And then just making sure like our business, our staff, our customers are protected as much as possible and we don't have shady folks using our platforms to do unfortunate things around the world. It's certainly a complicated and challenge at times because especially we're in 75 countries.

Right now E US isn't serving all 75 countries, but we've got regulated institutions all around the world serving customers in those areas. And so we see a lot, but also we learn a lot too. One of the best things about being in such a large company around the world is like we learn stuff in the US and we share it with our partners and France in Europe or Asia and vice versa.

It's just, it's amazing like, almost like scientific experiment of seeing what works in some places and share it and what doesn't work and share that news too. But we definitely definitely see a lot of issues, but we're always have compliance first. And a ML and cyber. Those are always gonna be like if a at the very top of the list.

'cause those are things that can knock you out quicker than just about anything.

Stephen: And we're seeing cybersecurity, especially with a lot of the DPRK hackers coming out. They're attacking infrastructure like oil in the US They're definitely attacking exchanges with what we saw recently with buy bid hack. Sony Productions got a taste of the Lazarus group, you know, to the point where they had to like go down the street to use a c coffee

Andrew: Yeah.

Stephen: machine.

'cause everything was pretty much shut down. So we see that. Yeah. Like yeah, that's the things that are gonna put you out of business. I'm curious though, because you guys were the first like social. You know, investing platform where like me as a user could copy the strategies of other traders. I, I feel like that was revolutionary at the time.

Maybe even from a legal aspect. I'd love to know your thoughts. Was there like significant risks involved in like deploying such a game changing feature as part of your platform?

Andrew: Yeah. So something like that does not always fit cleanly in the, the regulatory structure wherever you're at. You know, in the US we don't have the full capability launched yet, but hopefully at some point we will for, for this reasons we don't wanna. We don't wanna surprise anybody, right? And so we wanna like talk about these kind of things with regulators in advance.

But certainly my peers overseas, this is something they've thought about a ton. And you go to lawyers, compliance experts, but also proactive regulatory discussion is something we are like, that's a huge tenet of what we do here. 'cause we don't, we don't wanna surprise anybody, don't wanna surprise the regulators.

That's not good for them. Not good for customers, not good for us. Always being proactive and thoughtful as much as possible. Copy trading, it's, it's, it's a brilliant idea, right? Like for new investors, the hardest thing to figure out is how do I start? Right? And there's a million articles and videos out there and we have a proud library of a lot of those resources that are trying to help as much as possible.

But something that's a cool idea of like, Hey, I look at this lady, this guy, and they're like. Super successful. And I can actually look at eToro and see their performance, their wrist, their holdings, and I like their vibe. Let me just like put a hundred dollars and do exactly what they do. And I'm cool with that.

Like what a great idea. Is it for everybody? No, but certainly for some people and it helps people get started and it doesn't cost anything, right? So like it, same kind of world exists in hedge funds and investment managers, but you might have to show up with like a $5 million check. You might have to pay them one, 2% a year of your assets under management.

But here it's like nothing. And I think that's like really powerful and I think that idea is gonna catch on more and more, especially, especially here in the us. 'cause it is a, it is a, it is a powerful tool for retail investors that we're excited to just continue to push.

Stephen: And is there any benefit or incentive for those being copied? Are like they trying to build a brand on your platform and then maybe selling a auxiliary services like consulting or you know, is there any benefit for them other than being like admired by, you know, the other 40 million users?

Andrew: Yeah, so in, you know, not in the US but globally how the, the approach is that these people who are copied are what we call popular investors. And they go through like certifications and there's different assessments and checks, and they can actually earn money. And eToro pays them out of our pocket, right?

The users are paying, we'll pay them like a small percentage of the total assets. And that might be a side hustle for people. That might be the full-time job. But these are like smart people who do well and you know, if they don't do well, then people don't follow them anymore, don't copy anymore. And that's, I think the real power there is like that wisdom of the crowd where it's like, I can look at your portfolio.

See your performance, see your risk, see what you're investing in, but also see the kind of stuff you're talking about. And I can decide with my dollars. I wanna follow you or someone else, or just do my own thing.

Stephen: And I love that because you know, we see a lot of these Instagram rich traders. They're

Andrew: Yeah.

Stephen: flashing the eToro platform. And this is probably why, 'cause they're faking, you know, how much they've made and they can't fat, they can't, you know, put out the e tour or showing their exact bank account who's following them, what they're doing. You know, you offer so many different things. You talk about stocks, crypto commodities.

Indexes or indices what's been popular over the last three years? Has it just been digital assets? Has there been other things that people aren't talking about? Because it doesn't make the same headlines that like Bitcoin spot ETFs do.

Andrew: So, you know, eToro, us specifically, we launched in 2019 as crypto only, right? So that, that's like our, our, our bedrock. And we saw a hundred percent of our customer activity was only in that space. 2022, we launched a broker dealer where now our existing customers, new customers could buy stocks in ETFs.

And later that year we launched options trading, right? So we have this nice diversified portfolio. I think given our history, it's a lot that a lot is crypto, right? Like, but now stocks, ETFs are catching up. I'd say it's maybe not quite 50 50, but it's a nice robust balance, which I think is like super helpful.

And I think it's the best thing probably an investor could do, right? Like have a diversified portfolio. Like I love Bitcoin. I think one day it's gonna be a million dollars, maybe 10 million when I'm like really, really old, but I'm not gonna put all my money in Bitcoin. 'cause you want to, you don't wanna have a diversified portfolio of ETFs and stocks as well.

So. Crypto, definitely a big percentage of what we see, but the typical, like techy stocks, super popular as well. The Teslas of the world, NVIDIAs apples, that's a lot of activity there, but also a lot of ETFs, right? There's, it's wonderful to see like people just buy into like plain vanilla s and p 500 ETFs.

I think that's like critical. And Ty, you know, Warren Buffet, that's his whole thing. Like, put your money in there in 20 years, you're gonna beat everything else. So it's cool to see a lot of our customers, you know, doing the, like, more edgy, exciting stuff like Bitcoin and then maybe like a mining stock, Bitcoin mining stock, but also they're like just buying the, you know, playing old ETF as well.

And that's I think that's cool to see that people just spreading their money and doing, doing, doing as best they can.

Stephen: It is funny because like even though investing in Bitcoin seems like, you know, traditional to compare to like the meme tokens and

Andrew: Yeah.

Stephen: the version, the tokens being offered by exchanges and NFT projects, like

Andrew: Sure.

Stephen: kind of like the, now, the SMP

Andrew: Yeah.

Stephen: that's what you're doing Bitcoin,

Andrew: Yeah. You're making me feel old man.

Stephen: it in there,

Andrew: Yeah,

Stephen: reached the same exact consensus as probably Warren Buffet did.

Andrew: yeah, yeah. That makes me feel old now thinking about that. And I like Bitcoin is kind of, kind of the old grandpa in some ways.

Stephen: It's the bo we're boomers now

Andrew: Yeah.

Stephen: we're the boomers of investing.

Andrew: I'm, I'm, I'm barely, but I'm technically a millennial, like just barely, so I'm like always, like, I always, I'm always makes my heart happy when a lot of our, we'd all always like surveys and about retail investors and just technically a younger investor just by like a year. But as long as I can, I'm, I'm gonna hold onto that.

So.

Stephen: I'm on that other edge, like, you know, my birthday was a couple months later, I'd be like, I ahead of the conversation. So I feel like when I was watching tv, you know, it was, the converter was still attached to the TV by a cable

Andrew: Yeah,

Stephen: 13 buttons. So

Andrew: for sure.

Stephen: kind of strange now seeing everything being digitalized.

Andrew: Yeah.

Stephen: I'm curious is, is there anything outside of your comfort zone, risk appetite, like I know, you know, whether it's cannabis or you know, ethical, you know, investing. Is there anything that's not within your scope when it comes to risk or that you just don't do for maybe lack of internal expertise when it comes to compliance, et cetera?

Andrew: Yeah. Not, not 'cause of like compliance. We got incredible compliance regulatory team, right? It's the heart of everything that we do. But you know, like again, we, we are not, I wouldn't say we're slow, but we're thoughtful, right? So there's some stuff that we don't do today, but I think in the future we will.

And I think it's all just about timing and being thoughtful as possible. But you know, we're big believers in people having freedom. As long as you're not hurting other people in some kind of dangerous way, but you know, whether you wanna invest in some risky stock, right? Like that's, that's for you to decide what's best in your family or risky crypto like that that's on you as a user.

And we wanna provide a safe and especially like transparent platform where people can do that, but also learn from each other. Right. Something you said a couple comments ago about the Instagram thin influencer, like types like, yeah, I spent so many late nights scrolling. You see these people and they're like, Ferrari and Lamborghinis and these like very vague references to investing and take my course and this, and you go these rabbit holes like this, none of this feels legit.

What I love about eToro, like, you know, if I see like you post on eToro, like, hey, buy stock XI made Y on this. Like I can look at your portfolio and see. You actually own that stock and you've had it for a while and you're, you're, you've earned 70% on it. And that transparency is like, so valuable.

Especially I know like you're on an editorial platform where there's KYC, where there's the a ML checks, so this is a real human being, right? Where's like so many people are going to like anonymous forums and they're seeing the flashy bills being thrown around and the Ferrari, and you're like, that person could just be a complete manipulator scam artist.

You know, I've got no idea. But people get sucked into that. And huge value of eToro is that transparency and legitimacy. And I think that's, I don't know, I think that's like really important.

Stephen: Yeah, and then you see the lawsuits later on and you're like, shocked. Oh, you're shocked. The guy that, that the person that was taking the, the private jet and they were selling a

Andrew: Yeah.

Stephen: course and claiming to make $10 million a day

didn't do it legitimately.

Andrew: yeah.

Stephen: Didn't do it legitimately. When they have no business, no employees.

Andrew: Yeah.

Stephen: is them with a wad of cash next to their ear as they drive around Miami. But I'm not even knocking it. I love nice cars too, but

Andrew: Same. Yeah,

Stephen: seen so many people smoking a cigar with cash and a beautiful woman in a car and that is what they're posting. Like,

Andrew: yeah,

Stephen: and now would you do the rest of the day,

Andrew: yeah, yeah.

Stephen: more insights?

Andrew: Agree.

Stephen: your dishes know, do your laundry.

Andrew: Yeah.

Stephen: to know as a father

Andrew: Yeah, for sure.

Stephen: When did you get your nap in today?

Andrew: Yeah. I feel that.

Stephen: But you know, speaking especially, you know, talking about millennials and boomers and the generation gimme the lay of the lamb of like recreational retail investors.

Like, where are we at now? What is, you know, the recreational retail investor investing in?

Is there huge discrepancies between age? You probably, you know, with 40 million users, you probably have one of the best data sets to answer this question on the podcast.

Andrew: Super passionate about data, and this is, we're looking at that all the time, not just with our own data, but we do these quarterly surveys, a retail investor beat, where we're going to thousands of investors directly asking 'em, you know, topics of the day, right? Whether it's politics, tariffs, things of this nature.

So I think the most encouraging thing, especially in this past month or two of just up and down every day, it's tiring. You know, like I, I was hoping for a boring 2025 in markets, but it's not been boring. But what I think the most important trend is that retail investors are resilient, tough, and they're like optimistic, right?

And so we are not seeing retail investors be like, this is too crazy. I'm done. I'm out. If anything, we're seeing more buying activity during the past couple months. And I think that shows that retail investors are not the dumb money that Wall Street and others kind of like to see them as like, they're smart, they're opportunistic, right?

So if you're a retail investor today and you live through. The financial crisis. And then you saw markets rally, you lived through COVID, you then it crashed and you saw markets rally, you know, like, wow, stuff is going down a lot these couple months. My favorite stocks, like, I can get them for on sale, I can get 'em at a discount.

'cause I'm, I'm a believer in these companies. I'm gonna hold them for a while. And I think that's the most important trend. People are not running away. They're seen as a good buying opportunity. As in one of our surveys, we found, I think 73% of retail investors during the last couple months of all this political drama, tariff drama are either buying or holding.

They're not selling. And I think that's really cool to see and it shows people are. Growing up and they're thinking long term. And I think that's, that's really valuable. In terms of the names you see, it's like mentioned before, you know, a lot of the tech, the magnificent seven, that people are really focused on and they've seen the most growth in the past, like 10 years in the last couple months they've hit the biggest drops.

And so if you're a big believer in meta, Nvidia, Amazon, apple, and you use these products every day, and now prices are down 20, 30%, but you're all in on it. Like this is a, you know, for a lot of people, like that's a good opportunity to buy. And definitely seeing that in the, in the data as well.

Stephen: Are they people still taking like these LA approach? I know when I was early on in financial services, the dollar cost averaging, are people still taking these tried and true approaches or do you think it's a little bit more speculative, a little bit more erratic, or you know, very sentiment based, right?

Versus like, Hey, I'm always gonna put in a certain amount every month, regardless of what's happening in the industry.

Andrew: Yeah, I think that dollar cast averaging is absolutely still there, which I think is brilliant. I think that's the best way to do it. That's what I did my whole life and my, my grandfather got me into investing as a little kid and like just putting $50 a month here and there. And over time, that helped me, like pay for law school, pay for an engagement ring, pay for a house.

And so like I am huge believer of that eToro. We've got like recurring deposit program to help people do just this. But at the same time, I think there is an increase of the like market news response, market sentiment response. And I say that as like an investor myself when I see. Some stocks, like when the deep seat news came out, like beginning of the year and it was just like, something doesn't seem right about this, where this amazing AI program was built in like six weeks with like $5 million and all the AI stocks are getting hit a ton.

I'm like, that seems like a buying opportunity to me. 'cause that news doesn't quite feel right. And the same time, like in the last couple months, like, you know, a lot of tariff noise and drama and market volatility. You know, like eventually this is gonna get worked out. It's tough, it's painful, but you know, if you're a big fan of Chipotle or whatever the stock is and you're like, it's down 20%, I think there's definitely an increase of these people who are like passionate about these products.

Like, just buying more when it's cheaper. Right. Just like you would if you, you know, we go to like Costco or Sam's Club, right. And it's cheaper so you can buy these, buy a thing in bulk. This is the,

Stephen: more and hold onto it

Andrew: yeah. Exactly that's, that's like this kind of moment for people and a lot of them are taking that approach, which I think is like cool to see.

The worst thing you could do is get scared. Sell you're out. Now if you need that money for whatever reason, yes, do that. But if you're a long-term investor, like it's not a good time to sell is when things are down.

Stephen: I think that Costco analogy, and this is not financial advice, but I think that Costco analogy is like, is definitely a great one. And that resonates with a lot of people. It's like when the protein powder's on sale, you

Andrew: Yeah.

Stephen: it even if you don't need it.

Andrew: Ab absolutely. Yeah. Right on.

Stephen: other things, I'm curious. We were producing a podcast for chain analysis last year talking to Chen y Ong, who is former regulator in Asia now, which analysis is their policy person.

And she talked about there being a test, like, almost like an assessment test based on, you know, a person's understanding of an investment in Asia before they could invest in things. And I know, you know, many people are against certain rules and regulations in the US around like private investors and being a, an accredited investor. What are your thoughts? Should we be doing a little bit more, making sure that our customers, our users are educated? Or it's like, are your thoughts on that? Or does this apply maybe for more traditional products versus some of these other products that don't have a whole bunch of disclosures anyway and you know, people are just investing on the whim.

Andrew: Yeah, love this question. All right. So I, my reaction is fan of disclosures, not a fan of gatekeepers, right? And so I kind of dig into those. Like, I, I'm passionate about disclosures. One of my dreams in my life is to be the first financial company to have like, fun and cool disclosures. I used to be a rapper in a band, so I love music.

And so like, I want musical disclosure somewhere that's an option. People can choose that. Like, I can read this horrible disclosure, or I can have somebody rap it to me and AI is gonna be the way to do it. So I'm all about clear, fun, engaging disclosures that people actually read, right? And that's, that's something that often doesn't happen.

So I think that is so important. I worry about this idea of like, gatekeeping folks, right? Because I think one of the, one of the harshest things in US finance is that the best way that people can like, make stratospheric money, big opportunities like investing in like. Pre IPO companies, right? So you might be a huge fan of some company, but unless you know the right people have all these requirements, satisfied, you have no shot.

Right? But the VCs and other big investors, they're the ones that can put millions and turn it into tens of billions. And normal people don't have that access. So I never want to create like more barriers to that, right? Of like, Hey, this is a riskier investment, so you gotta satisfy all these like, different checks because I think that will have a downstream effect that is bad for the wealth gap that is already too big today.

But love the idea of like more disclosures. And actually not just more, but like fun disclosures, unique disclosures, you know, in the, in the world today, like, you can sign up for stocks and ETFs and crypto trading, but if you wanna do options there is a higher standard, right? And I think that's okay in some ways, but not, like, not, not too high.

We don't want, you know, want people to start investing. If you have hurdles there, mix it. Too challenging, but let's, let's go in on fund disclosures and rapper disclosures. That, that's my dream.

Stephen: I'm, I'm down. You know? And do you do, does it make sense that the regulators are putting so much onus on disclosures when nobody's reading? Like, what are your thoughts on that? Should we be using ai? Is there an AI tool that we can pop these 40 page disclosures in and say, Hey, what are the key things I need to worry about?

And they like visualize that. Like, Hey, if you do this, this will happen. Hey, like this type of financial product. These are some of the, you know, downfalls we've seen in other parts of the industry. Like, where can we get this? Like, where can we synthesize these disclosures so people actually get the gist of it versus not reading it at all and being more at risk.

Andrew: Stephen. Man, it sounds like a business plan we should work on. I,

Stephen: AI wrap, we'll just put an AI wrapper with your wrapping around the AI wrapper and we're, we're good to go.

Andrew: Yeah, because I think that's a great idea of, hey, here's this 40 page agreement. Give me the, like, the 10 top things here, right? I mean, of course today people could copy paste it, drop it in a chat, GPT, and get that kind of output. But I love that idea of like, let's, let's surface something within the product where people have that option.

Ironically, regulators would probably say like, oh, then you're just trying to like, not show them everything. So it's this interesting tension where you wanna give people all the information that's there, but if it's too much, it's of no value. Like, I know in I'm as a, as a former lawyer and as someone who like loves disclosures, anytime I bought a house, I don't read anything.

I just sign, sign, sign, sign. And so a little hypocritical on this, but. I love the idea, at least the old school version. I was like, let's have like the normal agreement and there's a button where if you want it like sung to you or something instead, or pictures, maybe it's like an AI like summary, right?

You still gotta accept the main agreement, the main terms, but as an add-ons, some kind of little AI shortcut music or not, I think that's a,

Stephen: like animation with a little, maybe with you wrapping in the background and just like a little stick man that walks you through like, Hey, if you don't, this is disclosure, this is the clause. We're really just looking for clauses. At the end of the day,

Andrew: yeah.

Stephen: everything. We just wanna know like, is there an issue with IP or patents or, you know, any among many other things.

We talked a little bit about baby boomers. You know, there's this concept going around, especially in North America about the great wealth transfer that, you know, refers to the movement of wealth assets from the baby boomers to the younger generation. Unfortunately, like I, I'm of the age that my grandparents like, didn't have anything to really leave our family, and maybe my parents have built up enough, you know, inheritance and wealth that they can do.

So, and we're seeing even the younger generation, definitely their parents have, you know, a lot more wealth. What your thoughts about, you know, this wealth transfer, what should people be looking out for? What are things that, hey, if you do get this transfer that you're thinking like, hey, these are areas that you should think about whether it's investing or preserving that wealth.

Andrew: Yeah, so I think this is gonna be in our lifetimes, like the third biggest like monumental moment we've seen in finance. I think first is online trading. Online banking, you know, whether it's E-Trade, starting online trading, or the fact direct deposit happening. I remember as a kid, like. My mom and dad would get a paycheck from my dad was a UPS driver, and he'd get his paycheck and have to go to the bank to deposit.

Everything. Going online is number one. Number two, the big moment I think is the blockchain development, and we're still living it. It's still kind of in that weird in between. That's number two. Number three is this monumental transfer of wealth from very, very different generations and lifestyles. One of my greatest blessings in my life is that I lived in that era before the internet and I lived in that era.

While it was like a new thing, like in high school, AI's coming out and, and I, I so much cherished that opportunity to live before mobile internet technology saturated every single, single thing we do, but the folks who are older than us like

Stephen: home and you know, see who's online and then

Andrew: the best

Stephen: to message as many people and then telling us to pay us nine one one if

Andrew: take. Yeah. Take me back to that era. I'm good. Take me back.

Stephen: you know, with the Napster playing in the background and

Andrew: Exactly.

Stephen: the little wavy

Andrew: Yeah, it was the best. But you have now, you know, so we're like kind of in the middle, right? People above us. So they live most of their lives without the internet. People like below us younger, they don't know this pre like block, pre-internet blockbuster kind of world, right?

So what we're gonna see is like 2050 estimates are like 80 plus trillion dollars are gonna move from the older generation down. Maybe it's to us, maybe it's to our kids. And what that is, is like that 80 plus trillion of dollars today, or you know, some, a lot of it's in housing and things like this, but investing, it's largely in people walking into a branch office, meeting with their financial advisor quarterly, once a year, who are recommending bonds and mutual funds.

$80 trillion are coming down to people who they don't know that world. The world is like picking up their phone, clicking a few apps and investing, putting, whether it's a bank account, crypto stocks, ETFs, NFTs, sports cards on eBay. That is a massive moment. And if I was at a firm that lived and thrived on that traditional office model, come meet with their financial advisor, I'd be freaking out and be like, we have to be ready for this because I know like my own life, I have zero desire to go meet in person with a financial advisor.

No chance on Earth. My kids are ever gonna do that. And so FE'S gotta be ready. Mobile technology or whatever that new technology is in like 2049, which is like a little scary to think about. Be ready for that transfer. 'cause it is going to completely change what people are investing in. The complete the.

The entire model's gonna change stuff that's not even invented yet. Could be the big thing in like 2041 that then trillions of dollars is being poured into. So it'll be interesting to like, see, hopefully I'm still around to see it, but definitely definitely intrigued to see how that all plays out.

But the like kind of legacy firms,

Stephen: always very excruciating, right? Like, and there was not a lot, I wouldn't say fraud, but like. They're putting you on front load fees, you know nothing

Andrew: oh.

Stephen: that. You know, you got a little change from your, your employer. They send you to their main, their main provider. They're putting you in stuff that you know, only they offer and they get the biggest fees for.

It wasn't very consumer focused. I could, I think I'm allowed to say that across the industry and even to this point. I remember, you know, a few years ago I wanted to take my retirement and put in, in Bitcoin back, you know, investments I was allowed to do in my retirement. And even that process was like, oh, that's not a good idea.

You'd have to go in there. Like, it wasn't a like, oh yeah, I can just click a button. It was like, whatever is whatever we offer, you're gonna stay within that. We're only gonna advise you on what's in that offering versus like, Hey, like, you know, if I'm on your platform, I can see there's a plethora of things I could touch and easily move around.

And I think that's what, you know, you're gonna have to do with these newer generations. They don't have time to go in and

Andrew: No.

Stephen: about, you know, the thing that you're making the highest percentage

Andrew: Yeah, absolutely. And those barriers to entry are just like collapsed and it's beautiful. And there's, I, I know plenty of people who work at those firms and are brilliant and they love their customers, and I just think that model is not gonna be the model that survives. Right. Like paying that person 1% of a whether it goes up or down, right?

Versus even in advisory space, they have robo-advisors now, like 0.25%. So you save like a lot of money on that. Or I could just research and do stuff on my own and. Even like five. It's crazy. Like five years ago, if you wanted to buy stock, you needed to buy the full share. You had to pay like $8 to buy it, $8 to sell it.

So that's completely inaccessible to someone who just says, 50 bucks. I'm like, I'm just trying to buy a $50 of Tesla or Chipotle, or whatever it is. I can't, 'cause I gotta, one, I don't have enough money for full share. Two, I gotta pay $16 just to go in and out and any profit is gone. And just overnight, that whole world went away.

Which I think is, is

Stephen: think you are at that same stage of me. The conversations are different versus back then it's like you're not gonna tell people about investment 'cause they'd have to go into the bank. They have to talk to

Andrew: mm-hmm.

Stephen: have to get, you know, KYC. Now it's like, oh, like just open up this app, download it.

Like, Hey, look at what I'm doing. Look what other people are doing. Oh yeah, let's go invest. Like my friends are coming up to me like, Hey, I put a hundred dollars in Bitcoin. Is that cool? I'm like. Like those aren't the conversations you had five, even like three to five years ago.

Andrew: Yes.

Stephen: you were having at a barbecue or a cookout or you know, hanging out with friends where they can just flip open their phone and do it right then and there while you're talking about it

Andrew: Yep.

Stephen: having to go through this process of finding a financial advisor.

So it's interesting how quickly things have changed. I'm curious, is there any data points like around what the younger generation are investing or what you're seeing like, Hey, we see an uptick with certain ages, they really love this asset. Or like, Hey, even the older generations, they're starting to venture into where some of these younger generations are investing in as well.

Andrew: Yeah. Well, across the board crypto ownership is going up, right? I think in the last four or five years, the percentage of holdings are like doubled, right? Which is encouraging and exciting, I think to see people, everyone of all ages adopting new asset class. Absolutely though Generation Z is going even harder into like crypto and also individual stocks.

We've seen, especially during this past era, I think Gen Z has increased their stock holdings by like 40% crypto holdings by around 30%, which is exciting to see. And a lot of its focus on the, like tech names some of the older folks, and I guess I'm here like millennial, gen X, there's more shift to like bonds.

I'm not there yet. Right. That sounds like something my granddad would do. But there's definitely, like, I think as the older folks, un unsurprisingly more like bonds and commodities, but overall more people are doing crypto, but also stocks. And I think that's super powerful. In the US only 58% of people have any stock exposure.

Right. And that includes through 401k. I think the percentage of people who've actually done what you said about the barbecue and like logged in and bought a stock is like 20%. And I think, I think it's important that that number goes up across the board regardless of the age. 'cause people being thoughtful with their money, trying to build a better life.

I think that's thinking long term. I think that's good no matter what, if it's Nike or Chipotle or Tesla, like just people having that mindset of investing I think is really powerful and love to see that number one day to be a hundred. And when, when people hang out with their friends, it's not just talking about movies and sports, but they're talking about capital markets as well.

Stephen: Yeah, to talk about fantasy. Now they're investing, whether it's gambling or

Andrew: Yeah,

Stephen: products, they're doing a lot more investing in speculative things. Like you can't go through a game without like, Hey, let's bet, bet on the Coin toss. And that is, you know, short form content. We'll do that, get you excited about those things.

I'm curious, you know, I went on your LinkedIn profile. You have four adorable children three outta four. Were smiling in that picture, which for any parent, if you can get, if you can get those kind of batting averages where I think you, you're in business. I'm curious, what does it look like for them?

What are your thoughts? Like, what lessons will you try to instill with them and their, you know, kids their age and you know, other children? Because I think it's not just about look at all the cool things we can invest in. It's also like, hey, like these kids are punting real estate. Like they're punting investing in a home.

They're just saying scratch that punt that I can't afford it, so why even bother? Let me save that $50,000. I'd invest in a down payment and let me just maybe rent or splurge or move, you know, become a digital nomad. Are there any other trends that you're seeing that you wanna be like, Hey kids, you should start looking at these things?

'cause this is gonna be the norm soon where everyone's moving to Columbia and paying, you know, $200 for rent and partnering 24 7.

Andrew: Yeah. All right. So I'm really passionate about this topic. It's, it's crazy to me that people in go through high school and never learned about investing. You learn about Pythagoras Serum and all this geometry and it's like, okay, this stuff's important. No offense to the math nerd, like it's important, but like no talks about like budgets investing.

And so really passionate about this idea and it syncs with my own DNA of like, I'm not the technical analysis guy and studying research reports. Like I love to invest in companies that I love myself, right? And I think that message really resonates with my own kids a lot. Like my son is like me as a like fifth grader.

He loves Jordan's, loves Nike's. Like that's his whole thing, like basketball Nike's. So I, when I tell him like, Hey, we are actually owners of Nike like this, this much. We actually own Nike, right? I think that like really resonates. Same thing with like Chipotle. It's the one place all my kids like and eat, and.

Sometimes we'll like go through the line and I have my reward, like, boom, I saved $8. Let's invest at $8 in Chipotle instead. And that like tangible, real life examples I think are really helpful. What I did last fall, I actually had like a family investing contest where everybody got $50 picked, whatever, and it was all in my eToro account.

Everyone got to pick like their favorite stocks. Kids don't know about ETFs, but that was, that was a possibility. Stocks, ETFs, crypto, after like, I think it was like a month, maybe six weeks, measured performance and the kids got like really into it and I have to, I won, which I was excited about and I was like a little nervous because I can't have my 5-year-old beat me.

Stephen: Yeah, yeah, yeah. They'll start questioning your whole identity. He like turns into the, the new head of He are all us.

Andrew: Yeah, but they got like super into it and they're excited. Like our five-year-old, like he went all in on Tesla 'cause he loves cyber trucks and so it like tickled him. We thought it was so cool. We'd be like, we own like Tesla which was like really cool to see. And they got really into it to spice it up.

We had chat GBT like pick five stocks in as well. And it actually came in fifth fifth place. So like, it was, don't turn everything over to AI quite yet. But I just love this idea. I think it's, I love the idea of anybody going from consumers to owners, whether you're a kid, you're 40, you're 80, there's something powerful of like, I actually own part of these companies that I love.

And I think that message has never really, I don't really like been out there a lot, but that's what capital markets are. You invest with your dollars and vote with your dollars to the companies you love and think they're gonna be successful. And I think there's something cool of like. Hey, like I own part of like Nike, and so then when I go buy Jordan's, I feel like, hey, I'm supporting myself.

It's a good excuse, you know?

Stephen: Yeah, it's a good excuse on a hundred percent Marco. It's like, hey, we're making that, that's money in our

Andrew: Yeah. Yep. Exactly.

Stephen: I have three things to say about that first, I think that's such a cool idea and I would love for you to like create a fun little outline that we can share with people.

Like, Hey, this is what we did. This

Andrew: Cool.

Stephen: do it. Because I think that would be fun. Like family, like we're always looking for something fun to do with the kids and you know, able to teach them about money and I think that's such an interesting

Andrew: Awesome.

Stephen: could do for fun. Maybe the IT marketing team, you could be like, Hey, let's roll this out, like family fun investment night.

And there's like a little template of what you need to do and I think that would be fun to compare against other families. Two, this is what I remember. My teacher, Mr. Ley, I remember we were in a portable and this is what we all got to do. We all got to pick a penny stock. You know, we didn't invest in it, but we all got to say like, this is what we pick for three weeks.

You get to either buy, sell, you know, and it was so fun. Every day they put the leaders on top of the board and explain percentages and you know, you don't see that anymore. You don't see the teachers, I think investing that amount of time and like to their credit, like the fact that they were able to make it through the pandemic.

Like I don't think I'd wanna try to homeschool, you know, 20 kids in different homes.

Andrew: Yeah, sure.

Stephen: we don't see that kind of investment fun way of including that. Even when we're teaching things like fractions, you don't see that anymore. And then I'm curious is like, we have seen, you know, probably your kids similar to mine, they have their favorite people on YouTube, right?

They have their influencers, they see. We haven't seen great investment opportunities with influencers. Like, Hey, if I like Prime or I like Logan Paul. It's like, okay, they created NFT. Everyone got rugged. Like there hasn't been, or like, okay, I like h to a girl, she's so funny. Everyone gets rugged. You know, there's hasn't been a like, Hey, you can invest in my brand properly and you know, be a part of Mia.

Have you seen anyone doing that from like the influencer space

Andrew: No.

Stephen: CPG? Like, Hey, if you love me, you'll love my lipstick. And all of a sudden now Kylie's ability, there

Andrew: Okay. Another good business idea. Let's do it. Because yeah, my kids are obsessed with Danny Go, which I don't know if you've seen that. It's like crazy music videos. And then, dude, perfect. You're right. I've never seen like,

Stephen: have to do perfect game.

Andrew: yeah,

Stephen: honest, a, it's a really good game.

Andrew: their videos are amazing. I'm like, how do I enjoy dude, perfect myself and get into this crew?

But yeah, there's not like, there's not a lot of like, I don't know, I can't think of any, like YouTubers focus on finance who have that kind of vibe, like kid friendly, like looking at investing as like a life and not just like flashing the bills and Ferraris and or the boring technical analysis. I think there's a space for that.

I think it'd be helpful just,

Stephen: you, man, that like if I had to pick anyone like that brings some life to this and has such,

Andrew: yeah.

Stephen: tell, I think we'd said pre-call, like you just bring an energy to what you do. You message me like right away, like, Hey, excited to come on the podcast. I'm like, no guest ever messages me before we

Andrew: Oh.

Stephen: the recording.

And I'm looking at your profile. You're just excited about everything. It's funny because I think I saw your profile because I was like, zooming in on the pick that you had with your daughter. I'm like, do they still sell like vanilla and chocolate girl guy cookies? I

Andrew: No.

Stephen: these different. Variations and like, nobody

Andrew: Yeah.

Stephen: Like give

Andrew: Wait, wait. What did you say? Did you, did you say nobody likes,

Stephen: half chocolate girl

Andrew: wait, hold on.

Stephen: again. 'cause that's what I need in my life. On

Andrew: Yeah.

Stephen: need a cheat meal.

Andrew: Did you say nobody likes Stig because, oh, that's Controvert.

Stephen: one I'm like that and mint

Andrew: Oh,

Stephen: Y'all can bring that, that, that might be a, a one off. But that's where

Andrew: that's great. That's awesome. That's cool. All right. Well, yeah, that's great. You know, like fi, I love the idea of let's make finance fun. It is one of the most important topics of any human's life, whether you care or not. Even something as discreet as interest rates. You could try to ignore it, but it has such a big impact on all of our lives.

So people need to know more about it, engage with it, and the best way to do that I think is make it fun and not scary and not shady. So definitely passionate about that idea is, you know, 'cause it's, it's critical.

Stephen: get it, you know, when our mortgage interest rates go up, it's like, Hey, you went from multi-grain Cheerios to like grain

Andrew: Yeah. Right on.

Stephen: we can't buy a name brand, everything now with our mortgage doubling. Last thoughts.

What does eToro have going on?

What are you excited about going into the industry? We didn't even get, we gotta bring you back on maybe to talk about real world asset tokenization. 'cause I know that's a huge topic now. Or maybe you could gimme a two minute, like your thoughts on that space. 'cause that's one of those interesting spaces that's combining the boring stocks and bonds with like, hey, but on the blockchain,

Andrew: Yeah, think back to an early point in five, five years, there's not DeFi tri find. It is just finance and I think everything is gonna be tokenized, everything on the blockchain. So if, if suddenly you're super excited about Nike and I'm less excited, I can send you my Nike shares directly rather than through an exchange, all these intermediaries.

And I could do it on Friday night, Saturday morning, we're hanging out at the barbecue, we're making a YouTube video right then and right there. And I think that's gonna be. How stocks will work. I think that's how gonna be maybe even like real estate transactions, bonds, treasuries, there's definitely cool companies doing cool stuff in this space.

And that's the future. And it's all about just breaking down the barriers. To me it's crazy that like I can't buy. So a stock that you own from you, I just, I can't, it's not how it works. And I can only do it during certain windows of time. And it's time for those kind of barriers to to die. 'Cause we just need to break down, break down the barriers and make things more accessible and easier and hopefully engaging and fun along the way.

Stephen: And it is gotta be the 24 7 aspect, right? If we're at a cookout on a Saturday and you can't do anything, it's kinda like, ah, like it would be fun. But you can, you know, buy an NFT, you can, you know, invest in a, a, a rear token on a, you know, subpar exchange halfway around the world. Those are the things.

Anything last about eToro, what you guys are working on? Any announcements that you can share?

Andrew: Yeah, nothing, nothing I can share publicly. And especially as a like 15 year lawyer. I know, I know, I know how that goes. Of course. And I've told people the same thing, but we're definitely working on some cool stuff, right? And we're always gonna innovate. We're always gonna innovate thoughtfully and carefully and always have the customer's best interest in mind.

So definitely, hopefully hitting the news in different places in the coming weeks and months. And we are, we are here to stay and we're here to do cool stuff in the crypto space, but also traditional finance. So whether you wanna do just crypto stocks, ETFs, options, a mix of all those things we're gonna be here to help people along your investing journey, whether it's day one or day thousand.

Stephen: I love it. Any AI conversations that you're having, like whether you're using it internally, like we mentioned chat, GPT, like how much does AI play a part in your personal or professional world?

Andrew: I use it all the time. It's crazy. Like a year ago, once a week now, like 10 times a day. And not just, not just like work stuff, just family stuff. Tell me the menu at this restaurant versus that restaurant and kids parenting strategy. Like how do I like, figure out how to relate to my 11-year-old who is too cool for school sometimes.

Stephen: the attitude. How, you deal with the attitude

Andrew: Yeah,

Stephen: like we used to get whooped.

Andrew: yeah. So it is incredible how that's taking off and we use it all the time in each tour behind the scenes to just do things smarter, faster, more efficient. Especially overseas, we're rolling out different AI customer facing tools and portfolios. So I think it's, it's not time to hand over the keys completely to our AI overlords yet, but it's a tremendous tool that's gonna just do tremendous things here in the next couple days, weeks, months, years.

Stephen: It is a thinking partner, right? You can just literally bounce ideas off of it, come back with information, and it refines the way you ask questions. And you know, you

Andrew: Yeah,

Stephen: your approach, it's like, it's like before, you know, like when we're at work, it's like, Hey, have you, have you thought about this before you submitted this report?

And now it's like, Hey, have you like, it's gonna be like, have you talked to chat GPT before you sent it to me? Like what did chat GPT

Andrew: yeah,

Stephen: where's the best place for people to find you? I know you're active on LinkedIn. How do you get down on like crypto, Twitter, or other places?

Andrew: Yeah. So somehow I've gone all my life without Twitter and X, you know, I like spy on people's posts and everything, but I, I hang out, I'm old school, still hang out on Facebook and also like Instagram as as well, but do, yeah, a lot on LinkedIn. And my old days before I had so many kids, did a lot of YouTube videos in my band.

So used to hang out on YouTube a lot, but not, not as much anymore.

Stephen: I love it, man. You're super active. I think, you know, Twitter is probably why you're still glowing and laughing. I think if you spend too much time on Twitter, you, you lose that shine. Andrew, this has been one of my funnest conversations of 2025 or since you've been hosting this podcast. You just come with amazing energy and you know, you're focused on the next generation and how we can get them involved in not just like sports, but investing and, you know, just overall happiness I think is like, Hey, how can we relate to our kids and get them excited about the things that we're working on?

Whether it's investment or just the technology itself, which is super cool.

Andrew: Awesome. Well, Stephen, it's been a joy chatting with you. We got some cool business ideas we can chase in the,

Stephen: we gotta, we gotta flesh those out before the podcast airs.

Andrew: yeah. Amazing. Well thanks for the time.

Stephen: Awesome.

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