Oh welcome to gossip about gossip. Powered by Hedera Hashgraph. And each episode will cut through the hype of blockchain promises and explore real world examples of organizations creating the next generation of decentralized applications, which will bring trust back to the internet for us all. Hello everyone, and welcome to the latest episode of gossip about gossip. The podcast where we talk about real world applications of distributed ledger technology. My name is Zenobia Gottschalk and I'm the SVP of communications here at World's labs, helping to grow the Hedera ecosystem. I am delighted to be joined by our newest council member, Aberdeen, and we have Duncan Moir from the team there. Hi, Duncan, how are you? Good, Thank you. Thank you for having me. Good, good. So I know for a lot of folks in Europe, they are familiar with the Aberdeen name, but for our global audience, can you share a little bit more about your company and what you all do? Sure so Aberdeen is one of Europe's largest investment management firms. We we have businesses across asset management, advisory and personal wealth management. My role at Aberdeen is really focusing on alternative asset classes and new innovative products and new innovation within the company. Great And can you tell us a little bit about how you came to hear about Hedera and then eventually join the council? Sure so I guess we started our introduction to Hedera came through looking at tokenizing our funds and we working on various different projects and had landed on using Hedera for that. And then things kind of went from there. We, you know, we saw the added value of joining the council, the additional governance and the things that can come from the future as we look to kind of integrate blockchain and DLT across the fund management industry. And tokenization means a lot of different things to different people. Know, I can share a little bit more when you talk about tokenization of assets, what kinds of assets are those? Yeah so I guess, I mean, there's probably going to be a journey that we go on. I think right now our bread and butter business is managing fund mutual funds, essentially. And so day one, what we're looking at is tokenizing the equity interest in those funds. So there's a ton of different use cases and applications for that. It's not just about liquidity. People talk about that a lot. Obviously, one of the benefits, there's the fractionalization as well. So bringing some of the private market assets to smaller investors. But there's a ton of efficiencies that can come from it as well. But, you know, that's day one, I think, down the line as the other parts of the market start to evolve. It's not just the fund managers that you need to change. You need lots of different service providers to change as well. We're going to see the individual assets tokenized. I'm thinking real estate is an obvious one. It's one that everybody talks about. The reality is that very little is done in tokenizing real estate today, and it's typically not the physical building that's tokenized. It's usually some trust or deed around that, some wrapper. But as you know, as the industry matures, blockchain begins to be adopted by other groups. That's going to come. And so we're going to see real estate, real asset investments, private markets. I can see VC and PE fitting really well in here in the future. Yeah and typically those asset classes have really been limited. Right and unless you had the funds to be an accredited investor or to purchase your own building, those were very illiquid investments. Yeah, totally. I mean, and to be honest with you, it's not even it's not just the liquidity that keeps people out. You know, there's so there's the size. Yes, the minimum size. There is the liquidity, the complexity. I mean, if you don't have the kind of resources to go about, you're making a very large investment. You've got to dedicate a lot of time and effort to that, especially if you're going to be locked up. A lot of people just don't have that. And I think a lot most of the focus is on these private assets. In truth, very, very simple assets such as bonds, corporate bonds are not available to the individual investor. Right they have very they in themselves have hundreds of thousands of dollars. It's not Tens of millions. But for most, most individuals, a portfolio of individual corporate bonds is completely out of the question if it's a bespoke portfolio. So again, fractionalization of those, there's huge application there. Well, and I think even know, there's been a number of stories here in the US in terms of how difficult it is to buy Treasury bonds. Right the antiquated website and the limits that they have. They're so I mean, in the US as well, there's the other kind of municipal bonds. I mean that's it's an amazing story. Like you imagine this, I don't know, there's a toll bridge or a road that you use every day and you're paying to use this thing and you know that there's a bond behind that. Why not own part of it? And, you know, you're kind of coming back around to you. That's right. Yeah so bringing all of that, all of those different asset classes, making them more available, it sounds like, and making that transparent. And then I think also to your point, you know, a lot of times when you have some of these investments, the legal paperwork that then you have to go through and then get sort of shoved in a drawer or kept in a variety of different places, having all of that be accountable. Because to your point, some of these assets are longer term. They return in a much longer time frame. Yeah I mean, it's like there's a ton of different steps that you need to go through to own any of these assets, and that's individual assets or even funds. And they're all like the records of each step is held on its own, kind of like mini ledger that, you know, that's like somebody got one on an Excel sheet, one in a PDF and another in a workshop, and none of it can communicate across each other. So it's a, it's a minefield. Just know you still I mean, most hedge fund investments today are faxed. So that's pretty old school. Yeah or UPS, right? Yeah Yeah. Some, some, some fund managers still provide their navs on a quarterly basis via post. Oh goodness. Lovely to get things in the mail, but probably not the things that you want to keep, you know, squared away and on time. So you recently joined the rest of the council members in Dubai. How was that first experience meeting them all? Oh, that was great. I mean, there was a lot of talk there. I think you get the added value, just seeing people face to face. You're going to be interacting with these people on a pretty regular basis via the VC or whatever. And I think just getting everybody face to face, kind of like an icebreaker type thing was, was, was really important. But there was so much discussion, it was pretty energizing. Good, good. And as Aberdeen, take a look at the next 6 to 12 months, what do you hope to accomplish? We won't hold you to it. But so I think the first tokenized funds from other is the obvious. The obvious one. But I think there's more that we can do in helping to bring other parts of the fund management industry into the discussion. So I think that's also I really see that as part of our role as well. It's not just about the individual investments that we want to tokenize. I think there's also know, it's the rising tide lifts all ships. So to sort of thing, we need other parts of the market to get on board as well. So we're going to take it upon ourselves to encourage that, that adoption. And Aberdeen has been quite a leader in this space. I mean it seems like you all have been watching the space, engaged in a number of DLT and crypto projects. How does this fit in with that overall strategy? Sure so this is like I mean, I guess our strategy is quite broad, but this really fits into it has touch points into applying the technology to our existing business, which is the clear one, but also being involved from a strategic standpoint in technology that's going to kind of drive the future of finance. We, you know, we think so. You know, we have kind of three, three parts to our strategy in terms of product technology and then the strategic kind of infrastructure related part. And this fits neatly into that. So we we're really excited to see where this goes and where we can help Hashgraph find use cases within financial services. Absolutely and Duncan, anything else that you would like to share with our audience, our community developers, other folks who may be thinking about joining the council? Well, I mean, first thing I would say is we would never say where know, we're not the experts at anyone, any one thing. And so there's always somebody that knows something a little bit more. We welcome any connectivity. Anybody wants to reach out and learn a bit about what we're doing and see where they might be able to work with us. We we'll definitely welcome that. So please reach out, grab me on LinkedIn or whatever. And for anyone thinking about joining the council. There's a few spots left and and there is a rotation. And from what I've seen so far, it looks really worthwhile. You meet and interact with amazing people across a range of different industries, which is usually unique for most. For most people. You usually stick to your kind of sector, but you get an entirely different perspective. And then you find out that actually a lot of your different companies interact with one another. There's actually a lot of overlap, so there's synergy synergies there as well. So it looks totally worthwhile. So far and look forward to working with new members that. Come on. Yeah, it's a small world. And I think we're making it smaller by making these connections. Well, Duncan, Thank you. Aberdeen is certainly leading the charge in this area. We are really excited to see what you build and we hope you will come back and join us again and keep us posted on your progress. Great Thank you. All right. Thanks so much.
