00;00;01;22 - 00;00;15;22
Michael Hagan
Hello and welcome to the Providence College podcast. I'm Michael Hagen from the class of 2015, and I'm joined by producer Chris Judge from the class of 2005. Today, we're talking to Nick Aspinall, a junior finance major and philosophy and writing Double Minor.

00;00;16;02 - 00;00;30;28
Michael Hagan
Last summer, he was a launch intern at the accounting firm E.Y, where he learned about cryptocurrency. In this conversation, we'll discuss the internship intersections between finance and philosophy and maybe even learn a thing or two about crypto. Nicholas, thanks for joining us.

00;00;31;04 - 00;00;32;01
Nicholas Espinal
Hey, Michael, how are you doing?

00;00;32;16 - 00;00;42;03
Michael Hagan
I'm doing great. So you in turn to the UI? one of the big four accounting firms. It's one of the largest private enterprises in the world. What was it like stepping into that universe?

00;00;43;07 - 00;01;03;27
Nicholas Espinal
It was super interesting, mainly because, you know, my role anyway was actually not at all accounting based, right? I was a consultant, so I was basically doing consulting for financial services. You know, basically working with Citibank for, like my entire internship.

00;01;06;04 - 00;01;14;22
Nicholas Espinal
And just by consulting, I mean, it was just managing best practices within like the internal processes processes at bank.

00;01;15;20 - 00;01;24;04
Michael Hagan
I'm glad you clarified that because consulting that can that can be just about anything. So that's interesting. What was a regular day like for you in your internship?

00;01;24;12 - 00;01;40;29
Nicholas Espinal
Regular day. So, you know, I would I would usually try to get to my computer a bit early. Mind you, they send you a computer. Right? So it was only work related. So I would try to get there at like, you know, eight, 30, 45, nine.

00;01;42;07 - 00;01;59;13
Nicholas Espinal
Catch up on some emails. Send out some emails, schedule, perhaps and cause they don't want to go beyond. And most of my work really revolved around plugging holes that or problems that were that were, you know, apparent in the everyday day to day business.

00;02;00;09 - 00;02;13;17
Nicholas Espinal
So that might be if somebody might send me a spreadsheet and say, you know, we need to format this this way. By this time, I'll teach you how to do it in like the next, you know, 25 minutes and then just work on it, however long you need to.

00;02;13;17 - 00;02;31;15
Nicholas Espinal
Basically, or if I had any downtime, I would just like basically network. I like it. Absolutely. It was. It got mad at some point because I just didn't. I didn't stop just contacting people. The entire internship long.

00;02;31;26 - 00;02;37;06
Michael Hagan
So how did you learn about them? Secure the internship? And did you have help from folks at PC doing that?

00;02;37;16 - 00;02;59;10
Nicholas Espinal
Yeah, yeah. No, for sure. I basically going into my into my freshman year, I came in as a management major and I had no idea I was going to pick up by double minors. So as a management major, I was I was kind of looking at like what it is that I could do.

00;02;59;16 - 00;03;21;17
Nicholas Espinal
That's both broad enough to give me the leeway to pursue something niche and specific that I like that I didn't exactly know yet, but but also have enough stability to say like, OK, this is something that I could dedicate, you know, an immense amount of hours to because I really like dedicated myself like as much as humanly

00;03;21;17 - 00;03;35;26
Nicholas Espinal
possible. So just like any mean, you know, screening out like, OK, this works for me, this doesn't like I'm not the biggest fan of accounting. You know, I don't want to do tax. I want to do assurance. I don't want to do.

00;03;35;27 - 00;03;47;09
Nicholas Espinal
I was like, All right, when I got to the bottom of the barrel, I was like, All right, so it seems like I want to do consulting. And that kind of started, you know, towards the end of my sophomore year of.

00;03;48;21 - 00;03;51;28
Nicholas Espinal
And then just e.y just came around and I was like, right, is I'm going to do.

00;03;53;03 - 00;03;58;04
Michael Hagan
So how did you choose Providence College and when did you make the switch from management to finance?

00;03;58;23 - 00;04;20;28
Nicholas Espinal
You went right? Yes. So my PC story is kind of weird. I I never intended to go to PC, respectfully writes, basically in high school, I was I was really into track and field. So all through high school, I was a runner.

00;04;20;28 - 00;04;37;28
Nicholas Espinal
And you know this and the third and I always knew I want to go to business school. So basically. I was put in a really odd place by the end of my senior year or when I had to apply for colleges by the end of my junior year, which was that I could either.

00;04;39;19 - 00;05;03;27
Nicholas Espinal
Look to run track at a D3 school and and be pretty good. Or try to gamble at a D1 University and a lower tier, respectfully again D1 University for track. And, you know, give myself the best shot to to compete and go to the greatest business school I could, right?

00;05;03;27 - 00;05;18;22
Nicholas Espinal
So I was looking at it from 22 ways. And so kind of again, through a screen out process, I was like, OK, well, my times are good enough to get me in here, but my grades are so maybe I could make up and then have to walk on and there's a third of the card.

00;05;19;16 - 00;05;32;23
Nicholas Espinal
It just so happens to be that how everything worked out. I ended up just being like, Alright, I'm just going to gamble at Providence as a safety, honestly. And once I got in, I was like, No, I should probably give it a shot.

00;05;35;02 - 00;05;51;00
Nicholas Espinal
And it wasn't until like the end of my decision process that I was just like, Yeah, this is probably the best place for me to go. And I came in immediately as a major major, and I switched, you know, at the end of the first semester of my freshman year, I could get finance.

00;05;52;03 - 00;06;08;21
Michael Hagan
Yeah, I can kind of relate, I, you know, I I'm not from the New England area, so choosing colleges, I'm going to love myself and choosing colleges. I just I did not think that I would end up going to school in Rhode Island.

00;06;08;21 - 00;06;24;04
Michael Hagan
Did it just it? It was a very, very far away, different place. So but I am glad that I did. I, it worked out for the best. So what's life on campus like for you? What are what clubs and organizations are you a member of?

00;06;24;22 - 00;06;26;16
Nicholas Espinal
Um yeah.

00;06;26;16 - 00;06;28;05
Nicholas Espinal
So um.

00;06;28;25 - 00;06;46;05
Nicholas Espinal
I think actually another thing just to touch on your point there is that like in high school, I think there was only like one or two students in my entire school's history that that everyone's in Providence. So it was never really on my radar until like literally like the end.

00;06;46;22 - 00;06;48;13
Michael Hagan
You know, striking new ground, for sure.

00;06;48;26 - 00;06;58;06
Nicholas Espinal
I was just like, I didn't know I was going to go honestly until the end. But yes, so. So what's what's campus life for me?

00;06;58;06 - 00;06;58;23
Nicholas Espinal
Um.

00;06;59;26 - 00;07;02;08
Nicholas Espinal
So I'm on the board of Alpha.

00;07;02;20 - 00;07;03;00
Nicholas Espinal
Of.

00;07;04;01 - 00;07;06;20
Nicholas Espinal
The Association for Latino Professionals of America.

00;07;07;16 - 00;07;08;00
Nicholas Espinal
Um.

00;07;08;23 - 00;07;11;28
Nicholas Espinal
I'm on the board for about a poetry club.

00;07;13;23 - 00;07;17;03
Michael Hagan
And its believers in words for those unfamiliar with the acronym, right?

00;07;17;11 - 00;07;18;14
Nicholas Espinal
Yeah. Yeah, yeah.

00;07;19;20 - 00;07;20;07
Nicholas Espinal
Um.

00;07;21;03 - 00;07;23;16
Nicholas Espinal
Actually, Michael, was that was that established your youth?

00;07;24;09 - 00;07;40;16
Michael Hagan
I I want to say it was around the time that I graduated, so I never really left. I I kept working for Providence after I graduated. So, so things that happened kind of around between by 2014 and 2016, it's hard to remember kind of what happened before I graduated, what happened after?

00;07;40;24 - 00;07;47;26
Michael Hagan
But yeah, I remember around the time I graduated was when believers of words got started. It was an exciting club to see. Get started.

00;07;48;22 - 00;07;49;25
Nicholas Espinal
Yeah, yeah. Fiona Wright.

00;07;50;12 - 00;07;59;24
Michael Hagan
Yes. Yes, Fiona. Yeah, yeah, you Fibonacci. I believe she was a freshman when I was a when I was a senior. She might have been a sophomore when I was a senior, but we knew each other through student Congress.

00;08;00;12 - 00;08;03;05
Nicholas Espinal
OK, yeah. And then she ended up being a guy. So and it's like.

00;08;03;20 - 00;08;19;09
Michael Hagan
So I'm always intrigued by major and minor pairings that bridge business disciplines with the humanities or other areas of study. So I'm really interested in your philosophy minor and your writing minor. Let's start with philosophy. What led you to pick up the philosophy minor?

00;08;19;25 - 00;08;37;26
Nicholas Espinal
Yeah. So I picked up the philosophy minor first, which is definitely important because at least to me, because I, I guess I had always had like a natural inclination towards, you know, like trying to break down texts right?

00;08;38;07 - 00;08;59;04
Nicholas Espinal
And trying to to to decompose like or really decode like seemingly difficult things, right? So I almost saw a lot of rhetoric, like a puzzle, right? And so when I got thrown into stuff my freshman year, I was like, OK, you know, it's cool.

00;08;59;15 - 00;09;19;19
Nicholas Espinal
Like, I enjoy it, but I didn't know exactly how to best leverage it. Right? I felt like I was doing a lot of work that I wasn't fully integrating towards, like me as a person and like the rest of my academic journey because something that I notice with a lot of upperclassmen was that.

00;09;20;24 - 00;09;34;17
Nicholas Espinal
And I think honestly, somewhat of a critique about self is that I don't think enough people reflect on it enough. Right? Like it. It's it's a two year class that nationally, you know, you speak to just about anybody.

00;09;34;17 - 00;09;59;15
Nicholas Espinal
And they they're completely astonished at the idea that you're taking a two year long class that covers everything that it does, right? So for me, you know, like whenever studying the philosophy, especially, I was like, OK, like I think considering that I can't get out of this, I think I should look to to to best leverage it

00;09;59;15 - 00;10;17;21
Nicholas Espinal
and like, give it a real shake as to how I could best implement this in my life. So, you know, I want to give him more weight in my academic career, really. And so, yeah, I mean, I think that kind of really segues into the to the writing minor.

00;10;17;21 - 00;10;42;02
Nicholas Espinal
Right, because like something that I realized through like, you know, delving more into philosophy is that like not only is it everywhere, right, the amount of times in business that I'm like, this is honestly abstractly conceptualized. This is a philosophical decision, but something about the writing is that like, you know, you can have the greatest thinking in

00;10;42;02 - 00;11;03;14
Nicholas Espinal
the world. But if you can't communicate it, then like, kind of, what is it all for, right? So not only is it leveraging the thinking, but then it's also leveraging the communication upon that thinking, right? So, you know, I started really getting into writing a year and a half ago.

00;11;04;21 - 00;11;26;28
Nicholas Espinal
I basically just started like writing poems and short stories. A lot of it just being like how to kind of like explore some of the ideas that that come across through, just like reading a bunch. And, you know, it just basically started writing and now I can call myself a writer, I guess.

00;11;27;21 - 00;11;47;19
Michael Hagan
Yeah, yeah. Well, I think I mean, especially with a pairing like philosophy and writing, I mean, writing kind of gives a space to philosophize. I mean, writing it creates a kind of world in which we that we can inhabit and explore around in and consider questions that might not necessarily come up in everyday life, but but are

00;11;47;19 - 00;12;01;19
Michael Hagan
relevant to it. So I think that's really interesting. And you kind of anticipated my next question, which is, you know, intersections between philosophy and business? Or are they something that's obvious or is that something that you have to kind of dig and sift to uncover?

00;12;01;27 - 00;12;10;27
Michael Hagan
And maybe, I guess maybe what I want to ask is, is there a specific instance? You know, what's what's a specific instance of an intersection between philosophy and business?

00;12;12;15 - 00;12;34;15
Nicholas Espinal
Yeah, yeah, yeah. Yeah. Yeah, there is so, um, you know, for me, I would say that it it comes across all the time. Me personally. Right. So a lot of people might be more interested in certain aspects of whatever business decisions or whatever is going on.

00;12;36;21 - 00;12;50;25
Nicholas Espinal
But I think there's there's always certain things to keep in mind. Right. So like, I'll give you a story. During this semester, I had to interview.

00;12;51;14 - 00;12;52;04
Nicholas Espinal
For.

00;12;53;28 - 00;12;54;14
Nicholas Espinal
A firm.

00;12;55;15 - 00;12;55;20
Michael Hagan
I'm.

00;12;55;20 - 00;12;57;22
Nicholas Espinal
Never going to get too much into it, but it was a firm, right?

00;12;59;26 - 00;13;00;18
Nicholas Espinal
And.

00;13;01;26 - 00;13;06;00
Nicholas Espinal
I had read in my studies for the research, for the interview.

00;13;06;13 - 00;13;06;27
Nicholas Espinal
That.

00;13;08;11 - 00;13;14;09
Nicholas Espinal
They had very strict guidelines for what they could invest in.

00;13;14;27 - 00;13;15;01
Nicholas Espinal
Right.

00;13;16;19 - 00;13;21;24
Nicholas Espinal
Many of them being just like the regular ESG like environmental sustainability governance programs.

00;13;22;07 - 00;13;22;08
Nicholas Espinal
Are.

00;13;23;05 - 00;13;49;28
Nicholas Espinal
Basically just saying that they're not going to invest in anything that is actively detrimental towards the environment or sustainability or governance being like anything that's too politically motivated, too politically active, free. So, you know, I noted that when when I was doing my research for the for the firm and during the interview, I started realizing that like

00;13;50;07 - 00;14;04;22
Nicholas Espinal
the people that are interviewing me are very virtuous people. Right? Which isn't something that you would exactly perhaps anticipate as just a finance major or just seeing that these people are doing finance at the level that they're doing it.

00;14;06;08 - 00;14;15;12
Nicholas Espinal
To some degree, a lot of people would anticipate perhaps Hollywood glamorizing it, them being more like money hungry, like grubby people. Right? Just l mean.

00;14;15;13 - 00;14;17;01
Michael Hagan
It's not all like Wolf of Wall Street.

00;14;17;09 - 00;14;32;29
Nicholas Espinal
Yeah, it's not all like Wolf was me, right? Like that. So. That's what going in, I was like, OK, I don't even know what to expect, but I found that they were like they had somewhat of a moral compass for sure, right?

00;14;33;00 - 00;14;56;22
Nicholas Espinal
And they were just like nice people. And so a question that I remember asking at the end was like, you know, considering that you guys have to adhere to these, to these strict guidelines for investing. How does that conflict or perhaps enhance or detract from the goal of, you know, making your clients the most money?

00;14;56;23 - 00;15;11;15
Nicholas Espinal
Right? Because to call a spade a spade, it's like that's what your job is like. Your job is to expose your investors to what is the most profitable within the guidelines of what you're able to invest in and specifically what you do invest right?

00;15;13;04 - 00;15;26;10
Nicholas Espinal
So it's like what ethical dilemmas arise behind the scenes where it's like, technically this is a great opportunity, but like we can't do it, or perhaps we need to find another way to get exposure to it because we want to, but we can't.

00;15;28;23 - 00;15;49;13
Nicholas Espinal
And it was funny because the answer was so. It was it aligned with such such footy philosophy because it was basically like, look. It was kind of like it was kind of constant. They were like, look like if it's wrong, it's wrong, like there's kind of no getting around that.

00;15;49;13 - 00;16;16;04
Nicholas Espinal
Like if if we deem that, you know, investing in this wartime company, right, like a couple might come to mind that are great. Opportunities, but they are predicated on the concept that they want to perpetuate war. And we don't believe that we're not going to invest in it no matter what, and we just have to make sure

00;16;16;04 - 00;16;37;20
Nicholas Espinal
that we're transparent with with our clients and whatnot. But but also another thing to that was that like when I say that these people are virtuous, it's like a subsequent question that I asked after that, which mind you, it's always a good question to ask is something along the lines of like, you know, would you guys still

00;16;37;20 - 00;16;59;28
Nicholas Espinal
be doing this if you know, financial issues were to be resolved or other worded? Is the compensation that you guys get for doing your job greater than just financial and is said compensation? Does it satisfy other, you know, goals, really?

00;17;02;19 - 00;17;13;00
Nicholas Espinal
To which they both said, like, there is a question that they have around the office. You know, if they were to hit the lottery at that time, it was like $600 million or something like that.

00;17;13;23 - 00;17;15;12
Michael Hagan
Would you show up for work the next morning?

00;17;15;12 - 00;17;22;07
Nicholas Espinal
Yeah, yeah. Would you show up for work the next morning? And they were like, you know, however, deceitfully people might answer the question.

00;17;22;07 - 00;17;22;09
Michael Hagan
If.

00;17;23;25 - 00;17;33;06
Nicholas Espinal
They all come up with the same answer of like, yes. Just because a like, you know, they believe that they're actually meant to do what it is that they do.

00;17;33;22 - 00;17;34;02
Nicholas Espinal
Right?

00;17;35;05 - 00;17;53;05
Nicholas Espinal
And B, it's like they actually enjoy what is that they're doing, which just so happens to, you know, come about by then, you know, being really good at it, basically. So I mean, to just two quick examples below, I could also name so many times anyway, where I'm just like, wow, like.

00;17;54;12 - 00;18;15;22
Nicholas Espinal
Think thank the Lord, I really I really took the time to study this in soup or something like that just because like you can kind of. You can kind of like, I guess, anticipate where somebody's line of thinking is going to go if you kind of already know like the precursors to where those ideas are seated, right

00;18;15;23 - 00;18;28;28
Nicholas Espinal
? So it's like, Oh, OK, cool, like this is the direction we want to go. But perhaps would you think that this accelerated route might cause X, Y and Z issues because we're overlooking a B and C, and it's like interesting.

00;18;29;14 - 00;18;30;23
Michael Hagan
That could be.

00;18;31;06 - 00;18;36;20
Nicholas Espinal
You know, like they might they might question like why it is that you haven't thought about it like that and say, Yeah, but I don't know. I just mean, really?

00;18;36;20 - 00;18;47;04
Michael Hagan
Yeah, yeah, these are all really interesting questions and it makes me think of. I mean, it's interesting that you point to like the personal virtue of of some of the people that you were meeting in the financial industry.

00;18;49;00 - 00;19;09;16
Michael Hagan
Excuse me. It's interesting that you point to the personal virtue because you know, it raises and this is something that I think Civ is increasingly suited to sort of help students think about. You know, sometimes the people are good, but the structures and systems that they're participating in, you know, are morally neutral at best.

00;19;10;08 - 00;19;28;15
Michael Hagan
So it's it's an interesting, interesting tension there between, you know, the individual virtue of people and the moral neutrality of the systems that they participate in. And I think that it's just it's interesting that you're running into those kinds of questions.

00;19;28;15 - 00;19;40;17
Michael Hagan
So I can't put it off any longer. I have to ask you some cryptocurrency questions and let me say I'm nervous because my background is in the humanities and financial speak does not come naturally to me at all.

00;19;41;11 - 00;19;43;13
Nicholas Espinal
But if an asteroid said, OK.

00;19;44;13 - 00;19;56;18
Michael Hagan
So we'll approach the topic with some very basic questions. So I'm sorry, daddy, crypto enthusiasts out there for whom this might be old hat, but let's start at the very, very ground floor. What is cryptocurrency?

00;19;57;29 - 00;20;14;16
Nicholas Espinal
Yeah. OK, so. So it's basically there's a couple of things you have to just think about, right? Like, I could spit you a definition with some terms that are somewhat foreign, especially within the context. But there's really just a couple of things you have to just keep in mind.

00;20;16;01 - 00;20;38;18
Nicholas Espinal
A cryptocurrency has to be decentralized and by decentralized. I mean, it's not tethered to a central authority by central authority. I mean, there is no bank that governs. There's no specific individual that governs it. It's it's governed by, I mean, to a large degree, you know, the people that that use it.

00;20;40;06 - 00;21;03;04
Nicholas Espinal
And it basically allows for peer to peer transactions, which by that, I mean like. You know, you're sending money from where you're sending anything really data from one computer to another or one person to another. So you're not going through even PayPal or Cash App or whatever the case.

00;21;05;04 - 00;21;18;09
Nicholas Espinal
And I think the third thing that's important is that it's on the blockchain. We could have an entire series of podcasts about blockchain, but all you really need to know about blockchain is.

00;21;18;09 - 00;21;18;17
Nicholas Espinal
That.

00;21;20;00 - 00;21;35;04
Nicholas Espinal
It is basically like the underlying framework, the underlying technology for what allows these transactions to happen. And it's kind of like some people have equated it to something like.

00;21;35;15 - 00;21;36;00
Nicholas Espinal
Um.

00;21;36;27 - 00;21;38;19
Nicholas Espinal
Like a huge excel file, right.

00;21;39;24 - 00;21;40;04
Nicholas Espinal
Where.

00;21;40;04 - 00;22;03;13
Nicholas Espinal
You can just like, put in at certain shows like, OK, this happened here, that happened there. And something about it being a huge so far is that you can always reference or look back to so a 33 or something like that and be like, OK, this happened then at this date, like, there's just no if then about

00;22;03;13 - 00;22;12;00
Nicholas Espinal
it, it's just it happened, right? Um, so so something about blockchain that's important is that like, it's crazy secure.

00;22;13;12 - 00;22;13;23
Nicholas Espinal
Um.

00;22;14;16 - 00;22;28;13
Nicholas Espinal
And once something is done, it's set in stone, right? Like there's consensus and there is trust and understanding that like, this is the truth capital t, which also then comes into the philosophy of, yeah.

00;22;28;15 - 00;22;29;19
Michael Hagan
I like.

00;22;29;19 - 00;22;33;16
Nicholas Espinal
Objectively speaking, like this. We deem this to be the truth because there's.

00;22;33;16 - 00;22;34;02
Michael Hagan
Some where.

00;22;34;14 - 00;22;34;21
Michael Hagan
You.

00;22;35;16 - 00;22;40;00
Michael Hagan
You said truth capital T and somewhere a Dominican friar just perked up. Just yeah, yeah.

00;22;40;24 - 00;22;41;02
Michael Hagan
Yeah.

00;22;42;06 - 00;22;43;27
Nicholas Espinal
But it just it is listening intently.

00;22;45;22 - 00;22;52;07
Michael Hagan
So with cryptocurrency, how how does a cryptocurrency get started and the big ones? How did they gained steam?

00;22;53;06 - 00;23;07;23
Nicholas Espinal
Yeah, yeah. So so basically this person, we presume, at least, um, basically published this whitepaper. This person, his name is Satoshi Nakamoto.

00;23;08;24 - 00;23;08;27
Nicholas Espinal
Um.

00;23;09;18 - 00;23;16;24
Nicholas Espinal
He I forgot the year. It was the year, maybe 2011. In 2013, somebody cringing in the audience right now.

00;23;17;10 - 00;23;17;18
Michael Hagan
Um.

00;23;18;04 - 00;23;22;25
Michael Hagan
Yeah, we're talking recent history here. I mean, it's yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah.

00;23;22;26 - 00;23;44;00
Nicholas Espinal
Yeah, for sure. And definitely within the last 15 years, it's actually created. I mean, blockchain has the concept for blockchain has existed before then, but the white paper for for bitcoin was produced then, and he basically published. I haven't read the entire thing, but I've read bits and pieces.

00;23;45;00 - 00;23;52;20
Nicholas Espinal
He basically published. Perhaps not at the time, people can understand it seemed to this day, I still can't fully understand.

00;23;53;02 - 00;23;53;18
Nicholas Espinal
What a.

00;23;54;19 - 00;24;22;13
Nicholas Espinal
Super intricate but he basically published will say at very minimum, a multitrillion dollar idea, easily Nobel winning economics type concept, basically saying that like, look, we can have a currency. Obviously, logistics covered, but we can have a currency that is predicated on people having peer to peer transactions.

00;24;22;15 - 00;24;37;04
Nicholas Espinal
Right. So you don't have to go to a bank, you don't have to go to Cash App, you don't have to go to Venmo. Just as simple as it is, how I can take $5 out of my my physical wallet, right, and give Michael $5.

00;24;38;28 - 00;24;44;04
Nicholas Espinal
That's kind of what you're looking to establish a crypto, right? You're looking to make it.

00;24;44;05 - 00;24;45;26
Michael Hagan
Give me $5. Yes.

00;24;46;15 - 00;24;47;07
Nicholas Espinal
If I got.

00;24;48;09 - 00;24;48;13
Michael Hagan
It.

00;24;49;00 - 00;25;01;21
Nicholas Espinal
Look, you can make it so that you know, you don't have to click on on whatever app it is to to be that middleman. And he he basically he or she, I guess, because we don't even know who it really is.

00;25;04;21 - 00;25;25;08
Nicholas Espinal
They they put out this paper that is just like what? It's just a complete a complete wrench in the system because even though it was taken as a joke for like the first over many years, you know, El Salvador in the last year has adopted bitcoin as as legal tender, right?

00;25;25;09 - 00;25;43;01
Nicholas Espinal
Same with same with Panama and, you know, a couple of other countries as well. And not to mention, like there's also other cryptos that are being used behind the scenes in order to to fully like realize some of the visions that are being done.

00;25;45;10 - 00;26;11;23
Nicholas Espinal
Something that I would want to say, though, is that like, it's incredibly disruptive, absolutely incredibly disruptive. And that's that like if you ask me, I think that one of the biggest things that that kind of, I guess, detract a lot of people or perhaps governments from crypto is that like to some degree you have to relinquish a

00;26;11;23 - 00;26;13;05
Nicholas Espinal
level of power? Right?

00;26;14;11 - 00;26;14;11
Nicholas Espinal
Um.

00;26;15;06 - 00;26;35;25
Nicholas Espinal
So like not to get to finance about it or economic about it, but like the one of the biggest reasons why the US is still on top internationally, which obviously is arguable. But I would probably maintain the position is just because the US dollar, the USD.

00;26;36;12 - 00;26;36;25
Nicholas Espinal
Is.

00;26;37;18 - 00;26;54;28
Nicholas Espinal
The world's reserve currency, right? So we are the currency that provides liquidity. We are the currency that every just just about every other currency has to rely on, even if it's directly or indirectly. Right. So with that comes like a lot of power.

00;26;56;28 - 00;27;13;19
Nicholas Espinal
And so a lot of people could argue, Hey, look like this crypto thing is like directly attacking. That idea like this is directly affecting how the USD, the value of the USD for the next. However, many hundred years, 20 years, right?

00;27;14;25 - 00;27;15;05
Nicholas Espinal
Um.

00;27;16;07 - 00;27;31;08
Nicholas Espinal
To which it's like, I don't think it's a mutually, mutually exclusive thing. I don't think it's either one or the other. There's probably going to be some sort of integration of both, you know, like how El Salvador has at these conceptual allies.

00;27;31;10 - 00;27;47;18
Nicholas Espinal
It's like the legal tender, but which is to say that they have to be accepted. Right? You have to to some degree, most businesses have to accept it, but that's not going to be that they're necessarily primary currency overnight.

00;27;47;20 - 00;28;08;29
Nicholas Espinal
Right? You're not just going to say, Hey, look, guys. Every peso that you guys had or whatever the case is now bitcoin like that, that is a really difficult claim to justify. But it's a slow integration process. But to the degree that it's happening, it's faster than the rate of change is faster than it's ever been seen

00;28;09;02 - 00;28;34;29
Nicholas Espinal
. Right. So like even though over the summer I was studying crypto like every day for multiple hours a day, like a nerd. I still couldn't not only wrap my head around the idea, but like I'm still behind, I'm behind every day, like I'll watch videos and I'm just like, I realize just how little I know.

00;28;36;01 - 00;28;36;12
Michael Hagan
Listen.

00;28;36;23 - 00;28;49;02
Nicholas Espinal
You know, like I'll be looking at a video and I'm like, what does that term even mean? And I'm like, I'm so deep and I'm like, What is this to me? To me? And I have to just stop everything and be like, All right, well, I got to make another.

00;28;49;23 - 00;29;02;05
Nicholas Espinal
I have to make another, you know, word shock of basically just like terms ideas like, I saw this in this video that cross-checked with this somehow, OK, now how am I going to? It's just a.

00;29;02;05 - 00;29;02;16
Michael Hagan
Lot.

00;29;03;10 - 00;29;17;16
Michael Hagan
Yeah, I always say that a part of the point of college is, you know, it's the teacher stuff, but it's also to teach us just how much we don't know. And we have to stand humbly in the face of everything that we don't know.

00;29;18;07 - 00;29;37;05
Michael Hagan
And there's just so much, so much to know. So I've heard I've heard advocates of cryptocurrency trading compare cryptocurrencies to traditional assets, saying that things like gold and even the U.S. dollar that you were talking about are really only as valuable as we collectively trust that they are.

00;29;37;24 - 00;29;51;26
Michael Hagan
Now there's all kinds of nuances here about the dollar being a fiat currency versus a gold. That currency and all that at play, but at a basic level is all currency. Crypto or legal tender? Is all currency just a matter of trust?

00;29;53;12 - 00;29;56;10
Nicholas Espinal
A matter of trust. Interesting way. Where did.

00;29;56;10 - 00;29;56;18
Michael Hagan
That.

00;29;57;25 - 00;30;12;11
Nicholas Espinal
Right? Because if you were to say a matter of public perception, you know, it's debatable. For the most part, yes, kind of answer, like a true economist, right?

00;30;12;29 - 00;30;13;11
Nicholas Espinal
But.

00;30;14;14 - 00;30;37;09
Nicholas Espinal
But no, is it a matter of trust to some degree? Yes, for sure. Which is that, you know, there's only going to be ever in creation a 21 million bitcoin. Right? The supply is never going to cross that just because of how the code is written and the very nature of of of bitcoin itself.

00;30;37;09 - 00;31;01;03
Nicholas Espinal
Like, you cannot have more than that. So. So I think when it comes to trust for a currency, that's one of the major reasons why you even have a currency, right? Like we, we transitioned away from bordering mainly so that you could have like, I mean, probably a finance professor.

00;31;01;25 - 00;31;15;17
Nicholas Espinal
Perhaps Professor Caprio is cringing right now that I might have I might have forgotten off the top of my head the top four reasons, but it's like, you know, you need to have a yardstick, right? So it's like, how do you standardize things right?

00;31;15;29 - 00;31;37;15
Nicholas Espinal
Like when you're bartering, it's like, how do you know that you know, one person's good is equal to another person's good? You know, when you travel however many miles, it's like, you have no idea. So at least there's a there's a commonality between like one person's good, the dollar or whatever currency and the next person's good.

00;31;39;09 - 00;31;52;06
Nicholas Espinal
You know, you need it to be like a transferable thing. So it needs to be somewhat liquid, right? You need to be able to get it. It can't just be impossible like some sort of an idea that doesn't actually exist.

00;31;52;27 - 00;31;53;10
Nicholas Espinal
Um.

00;31;54;01 - 00;32;12;19
Nicholas Espinal
And it's something that's important there is it you need to be able to trust it. Right? So at least in my opinion, like a big issue with inflation, philosophically speaking, at least, is that it fundamentally uproots the concept of what a lot of people view money as.

00;32;13;08 - 00;32;24;29
Nicholas Espinal
Right. So, you know, I think I forgot the country. I think it might have been Zimbabwe or something like that at some point that their inflation, some African nation, their inflation went up.

00;32;25;13 - 00;32;25;29
Nicholas Espinal
Um.

00;32;26;29 - 00;32;32;15
Nicholas Espinal
Like literally hundreds of percent, like fast, super fast.

00;32;33;15 - 00;32;33;28
Nicholas Espinal
And.

00;32;35;24 - 00;32;58;17
Nicholas Espinal
And just studying that, it was like, OK, interesting, not only economically, this is what happened, but also in terms of how civilization then got changed. It's like, how were you to then trust the idea of having paper money if one day you can buy with $1, let's say one day you can buy a notebook, and the next

00;32;58;17 - 00;33;15;28
Nicholas Espinal
day it literally takes 100 of those dollars to buy that notebook. Right? Like, at some point you're going to think generationally, even like, OK, we're like, you know, you think about the Great Depression and like, you know, the thirties.

00;33;15;28 - 00;33;30;03
Nicholas Espinal
And it's like, you know, like, don't put your money in the bank. Like, if there's a bank run, you're never going to be able to get it like that. And it's like the lasting impact of that is that there are still people today that are just like, honestly, I don't want to put my money in a bank

00;33;33;07 - 00;33;40;15
Nicholas Espinal
. Which, honestly, rightfully so. Right? Like, as far as I'm concerned, not financial advice, Blake, there's no better place for.

00;33;40;16 - 00;33;42;06
Michael Hagan
Me to understand where they're coming from. Yeah.

00;33;42;14 - 00;33;51;02
Nicholas Espinal
Yeah, there's there's a better place to park your money to to make more money. But but people are even concerned about the safety of it, which is like, that's that's tough.

00;33;51;20 - 00;34;10;17
Michael Hagan
Mm hmm. That's true. Yeah. And all the from a historical perspective, the the inflation you're talking about makes me think of the currency crisis in like the Weimar Republic in the post-World War one period in Germany. And you look at the horrible consequences of I mean, there were a number of factors that led to the rise of

00;34;10;17 - 00;34;30;21
Michael Hagan
Nazi ism, but you just look at that as a sort of prelude to the horrors of the Nazi regime and the second World War. I mean, this is powerful stuff, consequential stuff. So changing gears a little bit. Where do NFT is nonfungible tokens?

00;34;30;21 - 00;34;32;17
Michael Hagan
So where do they fit into all of this?

00;34;33;22 - 00;34;54;23
Nicholas Espinal
Yeah. So I mean, like it, it really depends on on the stance you want to take. Right? I was thinking somebody about NFTs literally last week, and they were like, Look, do like you had a really strong stance where like, look, this is the biggest game in history, is the most fraudulent concept that's ever been created because

00;34;55;29 - 00;35;09;15
Nicholas Espinal
, you know, this is just money laundering at the highest of level, like it's literally happening and writing for you. To which I was like, Alright, what was traditional art? You know, like, um, again, not to to to be a philosopher, be snarky about it.

00;35;09;15 - 00;35;32;04
Nicholas Espinal
But like what? We're not going to say that money laundering doesn't happen in in regular art, right? But the concept of NFTs, basically. And this is why I would give it a lot of credit is that it's proof of ownership, of proof of digital ownership.

00;35;32;12 - 00;35;35;21
Nicholas Espinal
But that's all you got to worry about. Right. So for example.

00;35;36;19 - 00;35;37;01
Nicholas Espinal
Um.

00;35;37;28 - 00;35;42;11
Nicholas Espinal
You know, I have this notebook in front of me, right? This one specifically.

00;35;43;04 - 00;35;43;20
Nicholas Espinal
Um.

00;35;44;18 - 00;36;12;22
Nicholas Espinal
How is it that I know? That. I owned this notebook. If it's a digital thing, let's say. Right. So there's a big difference between taking a picture of the Mona Lisa and owning the Mona Lisa. Right? Like having the rights and the value of owning something is the entire reason why people are willing to accrue an exorbitant

00;36;12;22 - 00;36;36;10
Nicholas Espinal
amount of wealth in the first place because it's like. You then end up being able to get access to certain things because you own other things, basically. And so. So with that being said, it's like. Seeing that the world is going to go digital and is currently going digital.

00;36;38;13 - 00;36;55;07
Nicholas Espinal
It's like, how do you prove that people have an own what they see, they have an all right, digitally speaking. It doesn't exactly make too much sense now, but like you think about the idea of digital real estate, right?

00;36;56;03 - 00;37;24;16
Nicholas Espinal
Like as odd and foreign of a concept as it sounds. There's a value to having the euro or having the domain name right of WW Adobe. That Amazon.com like that actually means of the right, because if you had that in 1992 and Amazon were looking to get that domain, you can dictate the price at which they'll pay

00;37;24;16 - 00;37;45;18
Nicholas Espinal
for it. Right? Because you own it. And and they can't just make it and have some sort of alternative copy of it, right? There's only one domain name of Amazon.com, so. So it's kind of like a digital proof of or verification of ownership, almost like a receipt.

00;37;47;02 - 00;38;01;10
Michael Hagan
So now you mentioned, you know, the difference between owning the Mona Lisa and taking a picture of the Mona Lisa, obviously a huge difference. But I mean, with a lot of these NFTs, we're not necessarily talking about the most sophisticated digital artwork.

00;38;01;11 - 00;38;13;14
Michael Hagan
I mean, some of them, I'm sure, are quite quite elaborate. But you know what? Like, you know, not to be too skeptical, but what does make an NFT different from, say, like a Pokémon card?

00;38;14;26 - 00;38;45;03
Nicholas Espinal
Yeah, that's a really apt comparison. Right? Because this is what is what's important about NFTs, um? You know, there's this concept, this economic concept called fungibility, that's the f an NFT for a non-fungible token. And fungibility, I mean, an economist might argue with me on this, but it's basically really like dumbing it down.

00;38;45;04 - 00;39;15;01
Nicholas Espinal
It's like how simple or easy is it to basically reproduce a good or to to, in other words, like how unique is something, right? So if something is a one of one right, like they'll only be one version of the actual ownership of a certain ape, like literally an image of an ape or.

00;39;16;15 - 00;39;34;01
Nicholas Espinal
If there's only going to be one version of that, basically, hopefully, you know, you could technically semantics or whatever, but for this example, there's only going to be one to exist. There's a different value to that than if there were a supply of 10,000.

00;39;35;26 - 00;39;57;25
Nicholas Espinal
So there is something to be said about that, because something about NAFTA is that I think a lot of people, at least in the public perception, don't fully understand yet is that this isn't about the art necessarily. There's groundbreaking art being done and it's like super sick, actually when you get it.

00;39;57;25 - 00;40;26;08
Nicholas Espinal
Yeah. But um, but it's not about the art and it's not about the actual NFT they're buying. What it's about is this is another application of the blockchain. Right. So this is this allows you to have access to and to leverage certain things that is going to play into a much larger idea.

00;40;26;25 - 00;40;46;22
Nicholas Espinal
For example, something huge about about blockchain is this idea of there being contracts. That they'll be done on it, right? Called smart contracts. They're basically like contracts that execute automatically. Right? So once like the parameters are set on both sides.

00;40;47;09 - 00;41;07;23
Nicholas Espinal
So it's like, OK, almost like imagine like the stock market, I know that, you know, history and English majors, and you're probably not at all interested in it. But but imagine it like any sort of exchange like eBay, almost like somebody puts out a bid and they're saying, Hey, look like, Oh, so this thing at $10 and

00;41;07;23 - 00;41;20;01
Nicholas Espinal
somebody then fills that bid. Somebody then says, Dude, I buy it at $10. Or they might say that might come with a counteroffer, but at $10, $0.25, and then they might have to meet somewhere in the middle. Right.

00;41;22;23 - 00;41;50;23
Nicholas Espinal
So the smart contract basically allows VR like this crazy computer algorithm. It basically allows. two people to transact things online, like digital things, basically for the most part during me without there being a middleman. So let's say, for example, I wanted to.

00;41;53;19 - 00;42;15;20
Nicholas Espinal
OK, yeah. If I had one bitcoin in my wallet and you had an NFT of something. Literally anything but that NFT is. Correlated to a deed of a house, right? Like written in the contract is the deed to the house.

00;42;17;15 - 00;42;18;28
Nicholas Espinal
I can say to you, OK, you.

00;42;18;28 - 00;42;20;02
Nicholas Espinal
You I'll give.

00;42;20;02 - 00;42;42;04
Nicholas Espinal
You this bitcoin for the for the NFT. And the contract will automatically executed as long as I have one bitcoin, which is verified like 100%. And you have the NFT, which is verified 100%. So it ends up happening is I give you a currency and you give me a deed to a house.

00;42;44;06 - 00;42;53;13
Nicholas Espinal
And that's happening with nobody in between. Right? You don't have to go to a bank. Which is like, you don't have to go to any intermediary, which is creates.

00;42;53;14 - 00;42;54;20
Michael Hagan
Pretty groundbreaking, yeah.

00;42;55;13 - 00;43;10;04
Nicholas Espinal
But it's like people are too caught up in the idea that like, Oh my god, look at this ape that's trading for free, literally like $300,000. It's like, OK, like this is the that's the equivalent of, you know, almost like a dot com bubble type thing.

00;43;10;04 - 00;43;21;19
Nicholas Espinal
It's like, OK. People just realize that URLs and domains like actually have some sort of weight. We don't know how to value it yet, so we're just going to evaluate it like whatever the market says, which could literally be billions of dollars.

00;43;23;12 - 00;43;28;02
Nicholas Espinal
But the underlying concept, there's an idea there is a seed of an idea there.

00;43;28;18 - 00;43;28;27
Nicholas Espinal
That.

00;43;29;21 - 00;43;53;09
Nicholas Espinal
We might not see actualized until, you know, three, ten, 20 years down the line. But as far as I'm concerned, it's almost it's almost inevitable that at some point in time, whether it be that, you know, the US blows up because inflation is going to go crazy because we literally printed half the U.S. circulation in the last

00;43;53;14 - 00;44;10;23
Nicholas Espinal
two years as an understatement. But whether it be that there's some sort of economic issue and we now have to depend on a different form of payment, different form of transactions, a different form of verification for first stuff, right?

00;44;13;00 - 00;44;22;17
Nicholas Espinal
There's a bunch of catalysts. But as far as I'm concerned, man, like, there's no I don't see a way in 15 years, let's say.

00;44;23;12 - 00;44;23;28
Nicholas Espinal
Where.

00;44;25;16 - 00;44;50;19
Nicholas Espinal
This isn't going to be somewhat commonplace, honestly. And we're going to go much further than, you know, pictures of apes. And it's going to be funny, you know, seeing at least retrospectively like, Oh wow, look really cared about like or somebody really cared about buying like this thing that now costs $2 for hundreds of thousands of dollars

00;44;50;19 - 00;44;55;29
Nicholas Espinal
. But but at the same time, it's like. That was the first generation of thing, you know?

00;44;57;24 - 00;45;14;22
Michael Hagan
Yeah, and I'll be excited to see, I mean, well, we'll all be watching from the college to see, you know, someone like you with a background in finance and philosophy. You know this this conversation in this tension about, you know, settling how do we determine the value of these things?

00;45;14;22 - 00;45;32;27
Michael Hagan
Where will the value level out, you know, is it a bubble? Is it not? You know, these are financial questions, but fundamentally the question of how we assign value to things. I mean, that's philosophical, you know? So I think that you're going to be really well positioned to, you know, be at the forefront of those discussions.

00;45;33;04 - 00;45;52;12
Michael Hagan
So I'm excited to see where your career takes you. So how would you describe the level of risk involved in trading cryptocurrency? I mean, some people describe it as the Wild West. I'm getting the impression from you that in your estimation, it's actually something that's that's pretty, pretty dang secure.

00;45;52;25 - 00;45;59;05
Michael Hagan
So what? What are the risks and are they the same as the risks as trading traditional assets?

00;46;00;16 - 00;46;06;20
Nicholas Espinal
Yeah, yeah, so, um, so imagine stock trading on steroids.

00;46;08;08 - 00;46;08;19
Nicholas Espinal
Right?

00;46;10;20 - 00;46;26;23
Nicholas Espinal
So there's two things to this um. The first is that if we're just talking about trading and by trading, I mean, like you're looking to buy something and sell to somebody for a price higher than what you paid for your gambling.

00;46;27;08 - 00;46;47;28
Nicholas Espinal
Right. And you're always going to be gambling because. You know, to a high degree, there is no guarantee that that anything can really pan out. So in terms of risk? Well, I personally don't believe it. You do have to acknowledge that this could literally go to zero.

00;46;48;26 - 00;47;14;24
Nicholas Espinal
Perhaps not bitcoin, perhaps not Ethereum, the top two cryptos, just because technically they kind of. But that's a whole nother thing. But if you're investing in more speculative things, it's like this literally could go to zero. And so something that I don't think is mentioned that I don't think a lot of people understand is that there's defensive

00;47;14;24 - 00;47;26;02
Nicholas Espinal
ways to go about investing in these things. Sure, you might not make 100% return overnight, right, because that's also insane.

00;47;28;22 - 00;47;29;05
Nicholas Espinal
But.

00;47;30;06 - 00;47;52;03
Nicholas Espinal
You know, there are defensive ways to say like, OK, I'm going to guaranteed make at least at very minimum 8% a year minimally with literally zero risk just about. And when you think about it, like, that's the average yearly return of investing in the stock market anyway.

00;47;52;14 - 00;48;19;28
Nicholas Espinal
The S&P 500. So it's like, you know, you could say, like, OK, trading, it is gambling and like this and the third, but it's like. At very minimum, if you want to just be abstract about it, right to be philosophical about it, it's like if what I've told you somewhat entices the idea, it somewhat motivates the concept

00;48;19;28 - 00;48;38;05
Nicholas Espinal
that look. I'm fine with X amount of dollars going to zero, but I'm going to buy if I have $100, I'm going to buy $5 of bitcoin. Proportionately, I'm just like, I don't care about losing those $5 in ten years.

00;48;38;07 - 00;48;58;24
Nicholas Espinal
It doesn't matter whether or not if I kept or, you know, invested those $5 honestly, right? You know, you you're risking $5, but you're looking to gain in however many years, you know? Hundreds of percent, if not thousands of percent, right?

00;48;59;16 - 00;49;12;26
Nicholas Espinal
So it's like, would you take that coin flip? I don't see the like. There could be a way in where there's a third alternative where like, OK, you really didn't move much, right? Like you like in ten years, you said $5.

00;49;14;05 - 00;49;32;20
Nicholas Espinal
That is possible, but I think the likelihood of that is is really unlikely. I think it's either you hit big or you, you don't at all. And it's like. If if I can gain even $10 for only risking five, I'm literally going to play that game every day because it's like.

00;49;33;28 - 00;49;36;11
Michael Hagan
You know, it's just a matter of probability. Yeah.

00;49;37;01 - 00;49;49;23
Nicholas Espinal
This is just numbers. I mean, but but it's also like the time horizon, right? Like, I'm not going to say, you know, Michael, like gamble bitcoin and look to take it out tomorrow because I don't know what the price is going to do tomorrow.

00;49;50;20 - 00;50;03;21
Nicholas Espinal
Like I could guess. Like, I can sit here and look at this stuff and be like, hypothetically speaking, if this holds on my personal opinion, I think that this could be the price that is going to be out tomorrow.

00;50;04;07 - 00;50;06;05
Michael Hagan
And day trader style? Yeah, yeah.

00;50;06;11 - 00;50;28;03
Nicholas Espinal
You know, and I could be right. We'll say with, you know, 60% chance 65, maybe 70. And and if I'm right, great and if I'm wrong, it sucks. But yeah, as far as I'm concerned, I think that this is a whole new arena.

00;50;28;14 - 00;50;30;06
Nicholas Espinal
There's a whole new thing to put money into.

00;50;30;26 - 00;50;31;12
Nicholas Espinal
Um.

00;50;32;13 - 00;50;40;05
Nicholas Espinal
And I'm more likely to do this than I am to invest in bonds because. You know, they're interesting.

00;50;41;04 - 00;50;58;09
Michael Hagan
Right, right? So what what's next for you with cryptocurrency in terms of studies or professionally? Are you working or are you studying crypto in classes or are you going to be continuing with another internship this summer? What's next?

00;50;59;12 - 00;51;22;01
Nicholas Espinal
What's next? So currently, as it goes, I I kind of go through cycles with crypto where, you know, like I'll be I'll be Super Super Super into it for however long until my brain is just like, really, you can't I can't do this anymore.

00;51;23;20 - 00;51;45;18
Nicholas Espinal
So I'm currently like, I'm on a little break. I've been on a break for a couple of weeks for crypto specifically, but as as it kind of goes, I think the idea is to, you know, get involved with crypto anyway, which is certainly very possible, very probable.

00;51;47;09 - 00;52;09;22
Nicholas Espinal
It's just more like to some degree you have to kind of. You have is going to make a name for yourself, right? Because this isn't like a commercially available thing, right? But it exists, and it's most likely, I would bet, going to exist in five, ten, 15 years.

00;52;10;25 - 00;52;33;00
Nicholas Espinal
It's going to be a matter of fact, probably huge in five, ten, 15 years of. So in terms of what's next, it's like put myself in the best position possible to kind of like connect some of these dots that at least in this podcast, have seemed kind of like abstractly like, you know, points it on a map

00;52;34;09 - 00;52;50;21
Nicholas Espinal
, which is, you know, like getting involved in crypto with any way, you know, leveraging everything that I've basically just talked about. But yeah, Michael, like, it's not it's not easy. He is truly one of those things that, like.

00;52;51;07 - 00;52;51;21
Michael Hagan
You know.

00;52;53;10 - 00;53;11;16
Nicholas Espinal
In terms of at PC, in terms of at most colleges, 90, some percent like, you know, institutions just about all of them are slow to adopt. It isn't going to happen overnight and there's going to be a lot of people that are going to come and go through the system.

00;53;12;03 - 00;53;12;14
Nicholas Espinal
That.

00;53;13;13 - 00;53;29;04
Nicholas Espinal
Will never truly get the the exposure or the service of being able to even know it. It is more than just like an ape on a screen. So.

00;53;30;06 - 00;53;40;18
Michael Hagan
So last question I've got to ask, when when will you be launching Friar Coin or an NFT with Friar Dom or Huxley on it? When's that gone?

00;53;40;19 - 00;53;50;18
Nicholas Espinal
I will say, yeah, technically, technically speaking about.

00;53;50;27 - 00;53;53;00
Michael Hagan
The licensing would probably be a problem, but.

00;53;54;05 - 00;53;58;12
Nicholas Espinal
Technically speaking, we'll say it should have been negative however many months ago.

00;53;59;08 - 00;54;00;20
Michael Hagan
Okay, right.

00;54;01;11 - 00;54;12;09
Michael Hagan
Well, thank you so much for joining us today, Nick, and best wishes to you in the new semester. We're excited to see what you accomplish in the remainder of your undergraduate career and beyond. Thank you so much.

00;54;12;24 - 00;54;17;29
Nicholas Espinal
Michael, thank you so much for having me. It's been an absolute pleasure. And yeah, keep doing what you're doing.

00;54;18;26 - 00;54;32;29
Michael Hagan
All right. Great. Thank you. All right. Subscribe to the Providence College podcast and all the usual places, including iTunes, SoundCloud, Stitcher, Google Play and Spotify, as well as your smart speaker if you like what you hear. Please review and share with others.

00;54;33;02 - 00;54;34;16
Michael Hagan
Thanks for listening and go for.