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Joe David is the Founder and Managing Director of two UK-based firms: Nephos and a leading crypto accounting firm, Myna. In this episode, Stuart and Joe discuss crypto accounting and regulations, what the future of this space might look like, and how it can change our lives. Tune in for a great chat to learn about crypto and the future of podcasts in the metaverse.
Join Stuart McLeod as he interviews the world's top accounting leaders to understand their story, how they operate, their goals, mission, and top advice to help you run your accounting firm.
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Stuart McLeod 00:00:05.178 Hi. I'm Stuart McLeod, CEO and co-founder of Karbon. Welcome to the Accounting Leaders Podcast, the show where I go behind the scenes with the world's top accounting leaders. Today, I'm joined by Joe David, the founder and managing director of two UK based firms: Nephos and leading crypto accounting firm, Myna. Joe helps entrepreneurs to better understand their finances, make informed decisions, and grow their business. He aims to support highly driven entrepreneurs to live a life that they enjoy whilst gaining financial success and business growth, especially when it comes to crypto. It's my pleasure to welcome to the Accounting Leaders Podcast Joe David. Joe David, welcome to the Accounting Leaders Podcast.
Joe David 00:00:54.178 Thanks for having me. Good to be here.
Stuart McLeod 00:00:56.615 You guys are pretty busy. Two companies.
Joe David 00:01:00.213 It's a pretty manic time. You can't complain when things are going well, in the same way we complain when things aren't going well. Things are definitely going in the right direction, but not my investments. Ukraine and Russia have ruined my crypto investments over the last 24 hours. Yeah. I mean, the market's down ridiculous, 25% [inaudible].
Stuart McLeod 00:01:23.218 I guess that's just panic selling, is it? What would affect that otherwise? I mean, traditional assets are up: oil, gold. And all the new ones are down. Is that the way it works?
Joe David 00:01:34.859 Yeah. They go to the safe assets rather than the risky assets, which crypto are, so.
Stuart McLeod 00:01:40.236 Well, let's start at the start a bit, Joe. How did you come to be involved with crypto and then the accounting aspect of crypto, which we'll explore in some detail, I hope? And I'd love to understand sort of the differences in perhaps how the UK treats crypto transactions versus US. Yeah. How did you end up here?
Joe David 00:02:05.090 For me, it's always been about doing something different and kind of not bowing down to the establishment and all of those sorts of things and the way you're supposed to do it and what not. And I'm really, really ambitious. And being ambitious in accounting is quite difficult because we all do the same thing. And whilst we might say we're different, ultimately we're all the same. And I think there's also a lot of people that say they're different when maybe they're not because it's easy to say you are, because there's no barometer really as to wherever you are or not. So it was 2020. We're all thinking, what can we do with our lives now that we can't leave our houses for the rest of our lives? And kind of got into researching crypto and YouTube videos and articles and all those bits and pieces. And I just was like, this is me all over. Everything about it felt like me.
Stuart McLeod 00:02:58.548 Did you have a firm at that stage when you were sort of getting into crypto? Where were you in life at that stage?
Joe David 00:03:06.117 We didn't have a crypto firm. So Nephos has been going for about eight and a half years. So the kind of traditional accounting firm has been going for a while. So then it was like, how do we scale? What can we do that will kind of make us scale, if you like? So that's where crypto came into it. And lo and behold, we scaled.
Stuart McLeod 00:03:26.260 That's lucky. It's good when a plan comes together, isn't it?
Joe David 00:03:30.088 Yeah. Yeah, that's the story.
Stuart McLeod 00:03:33.264 And so Nephos is the accounting firm, and you spun up another firm that focuses entirely on crypto. Yeah. And that's called Myna. And so for Nephos, have you sort of just continued that as a traditional firm? How have you sort of planned all that out?
Joe David 00:03:54.884 Yeah. So ultimately, what we've had to do is hire someone in to effectively run the day to day of Nephos because my time is totally taken up now with crypto and Myna. It's my business. So naturally, I'm overseeing the key kind of strategic decisions, things like that. But that was the big change that we already had a practice manager, but her background wasn't accounting, more kind of on the office management and administration side. So we've just kind of brought in a qualified three years [inaudible] accountant from a decent firm to kind of head up, but also have the same ethos that we had to kind of head that up with our practice manager and drive things forward. So the big change there is that, yeah, like I say, Nephos is carrying on and still doing great things, but without me in the driving seat, if that makes sense.
Stuart McLeod 00:04:43.701 How many staff you got at Nephos then, and are they distributed? And has that firm continued to grow nicely?
Joe David 00:04:51.200 Yeah. So overall, across both companies, we've probably got about 15, 16 now, something like that. And we got a couple of offshore outsourced members of the team as well. And that's split. We probably got about four at the moment in Myna, and then the rest are kind of in Nephos. But there's obviously shared resources, practice manager shared, administration shared, things like that. So that works quite nicely because it's in that kind of economies of scale thing, because we've taken on a significant amount more clients, but we don't need another practice manager or another administration team, or. We already had that. So it was just a case of bringing in some more accountants to do the accounting work.
Stuart McLeod 00:05:30.272 Yeah. Well, that makes sense. There you go. You've got a couple of little economies there that you don't have to spend twice, right?
Joe David 00:05:38.421 Yeah, exactly. It makes the whole kind of group, if you like, much more profitable.
Stuart McLeod 00:05:42.761 And so how did you go about-- you were learning about crypto when Boris told everybody to stay at home forever while he was partying on. And what was your sort of initial feelings around starting the firm and any sort of trepidations, or? What was your thesis going into it?
Joe David 00:06:06.550 Like I say, I'm ambitious. And I probably shouldn't admit this, but I'm a gambler as well. Right? I enjoy the thrill of gambling. And so for me, launching a new firm, in my eyes, from an already established base didn't feel like too much of a gamble. And even if it did, I didn't really care because I could see the bigger picture, if that makes sense. So for me, there was minimal risk, minimal startup cost. It started off with just me going out there and selling our services as a crypto firm and learning about crypto and then we grew the team as the clients grew. So the risk, if you like, was quite small. And like I say, the gambling part, I mean, wanted to-- you don't win big unless you risk something. Do you know what I mean? And that was my philosophy.
Stuart McLeod 00:06:55.352 Yeah. Yeah. So you're risking your time or opportunity cost, right? And your downside was never going to be huge.
Joe David 00:07:03.251 It wasn't huge, no. The risk was you take a bit of focus off Nephos. Nephos doesn't grow as quick as it should, and then you kind of got to backtrack a little bit and try and get back on pace with that one. But that's the only risk, really. And we'd already built a base. We'd already built a good business that could sustain a short period of trying to win clients. And we'd have known quite quickly if we weren't going to win any.
Stuart McLeod 00:07:24.611 And then so what are the types of clients that typically Myna takes on? Is it sort of individuals that are heavily into crypto businesses? What's the typical client that the firm has now?
Joe David 00:07:37.539 Yeah. So again, the crypto firm naturally has every type of crypto client you can imagine. I was literally on the phone just before this to an NFT project, and their proposition is they want to give half of their earnings to charity. So the big thing we've been talking to them about is how we can structure their crypto side in order to give back to charity and all those sorts of things. We've got crypto gaming projects. We've got metaverse projects. So pretty much everything you can think of in the crypto space we work with or we have worked with during this time and then naturally, loads and loads and loads of individual, speculative or kind of educated traders as well. We've probably done, God knows, between 120 and 130 tax returns over the last four or five months. So it's been pretty hectic from that side of it. But that's really exciting. And what has really made us realize as well is that we should be looking at what area of expertise Nephos can focus on as well, because it's been very clear to us focusing on this kind of trajectory of crypto that actually when you specialize in something and you really focus your marketing on it, you focus your energy on it, all of those things, the work is-- there's so much work out there for you to go and win. So it's then made us rethink what is our speciality? What's our ideal client? What do we want in Nephos that we can then bring that same passion, if you like, to the brand that we have with Myna? So it's been a really interesting journey in that sense as well.
Stuart McLeod 00:09:13.611 And where are your thoughts up to in that sense? Where do you think that's going to end up?
Joe David 00:09:18.467 I mean, it's interesting because again, I was recording some videos a couple days ago, so it's kind of fresh in my mind. But for us, we can work with anyone. And we've always said that, right? And in one sense, I like that. But then on the flip side, you kind of think, where do you enjoy, and where do you make money? And it sounds obvious, but we want a business that's going to value what we do, value who we are, value the financial side of the business. And it sounds obvious, but not everyone does. But also, we want businesses that wants to embrace tech because we're 100% tech focused. So we want businesses that are going to embrace the technology that we're working with and not fight against it. So we've kind of narrowed that down to kind of the digital agencies, recruitment businesses. We've got quite a few of those, and we can really help guide them. And then we've got quite a big kind of tech influence with Myna and things. So we're then looking down the kind of cyber space as well and businesses like that. So try and keep that whole tech feel across the brands, really.
Stuart McLeod 00:10:20.976 So not necessarily sticking to a strict vertical, but clients that have got some similar attributes like tech progressive, typically, perhaps a younger clientele. Perhaps they're fast growing or at least have growth mindset, right?
Joe David 00:10:44.164 Absolutely. Like I say, the ones that value that advice because they want to use it to grow themselves or their business. And like you said, if they're younger-- we probably shouldn't generalize. But if they're younger, they're more likely to embrace technology, embrace new ways of thinking.
Stuart McLeod 00:10:57.691 We're stereotyping. I'm stereotyping. Sorry.
Joe David 00:11:00.808 But it's true. It is true.
Stuart McLeod 00:11:03.182 Yeah. Yeah. All right. So in the US, each-- my ignorance, love to ask this question. In the US, each crypto transaction is like a capital gain or loss. Is that the same in the UK?
Joe David 00:11:19.363 Yeah. So in the UK, the basic rules are any crypto to crypto trade is a capital gain activity. And any disposal of any kind, be that using crypto to pay for services, gifting it to a friend, or just selling it will incur capital gains liability. So yeah, they're pretty much all over you in terms of tax on pretty much anything you can do in crypto, unfortunately.
Stuart McLeod 00:11:47.059 Yeah. So the spreadsheets must get ridiculous.
Joe David 00:11:49.418 Yeah. Well, you say that, but actually, we're-- again, we're talking tech firm here, so a lot of what we do is software based. And again, I had this conversation with a client earlier who was complaining that one of the softwares-- complain is the wrong word, actually. Kind of raising the question that one of these softwares may not be kind of transacting everything properly. And I said, look, you've got about 5,000 transactions. If 50 of those we got to manually go through and fix but the other four and a half thousand, whatever it is, are right, then that saved us a hell of a lot of time and a hell of a lot of work. So I think we forget sometimes that these systems can do a lot of the grunt work and do a lot of that stuff. So we don't actually use spreadsheets very often for the crypto side of it because there's just too much. It's not like a share trader who's quite-- you might find that they buy some Apple. They sell it. They buy some Google. They sell it. It's quite straightforward. But with crypto being so kind of - what's the word? - interoperable, where it can all kind of interlink together, it's really difficult. And again, if you're a basic kind of retail share trader, you're going to use a couple of platforms at most maybe. With crypto, you've got to use about 15 if you want to cover every kind of base that people want to cover. So again, trying to manage all that with spreadsheets is a nightmare. Yeah. So software is, again, the focus of everything we do. So again, leads on to that whole piece around using that to do a better job for the clients, right?
Stuart McLeod 00:13:19.066 Yeah. So what does the tech stack look like? What software is available to manage this process now?
Joe David 00:13:25.853 It depends on the individual's business. And as annoying as it sounds, it also depends on the crypto exchange you're working with. And the best way I describe it is if you imagine Xero and QuickBooks, and you imagine that Xero would only work with UK banks such as HSBC, Barclays and QuickBooks would only work with Lloyds and someone else, for example. If you're a Lloyds Bank customer, you can't use Xero. You have to use QuickBooks because they just haven't interacted with Xero. So it's very, very similar with that in the crypto space in that if you use Fantom, for example, which is one of the chains that's only supported on a couple of softwares, not some others. So then you've got to kind of make sure you choose the right software that fits what you do. So ultimately, it involves a software such as-- so the one we use is called Accointing, quite aptly named. And then we've got one called Crypto Tax calculator, quite clear what they do, and then another one called Koinly. So they're the three kind of main tools we use from the personal perspective. And then on the business side, there's a really, really clever piece of kit called Cryptio. And what that does is that takes all your kind of business transactions, so again, crypto but business related from your exchange or what have you. And then you can categorize everything and then post those journals directly into Xero. So that really speeds up that kind of crypto bookkeeping perspective, if you know what I mean. But obviously, all of that is managed by Karbon in the middle there, of course, but.
Stuart McLeod 00:14:56.341 There's not a consolidated stack yet. I mean, it's obviously still a lot of development to go in this area in terms of being able to manage it easily and effectively and in multiple jurisdictions.
Joe David 00:15:10.428 Absolutely. It's a bit of a-- you've got a piece of few bits of the puzzle together in order to finish off that job one way, shape, or form. But ultimately, if you wanted to call it it's Xero, which is from a business perspective, we're 100% Xero. Nephos, we're 100% Xero, in Myna. And it's then just finding the tools that can plug in, as it is with any industry. And it just happens, obviously, like you say, that crypto hasn't quite evolved that whole tech stack yet. So we're still finding those bits and pieces that plug in.
Stuart McLeod 00:15:38.472 Yeah. The vertical software for the crypto industry is much newer and somewhat complex, same as managing your veterinarian business or - I don't know - your hairdresser or whatever. And then it ends up in the general ledger in one way or another.
Joe David 00:15:58.124 Exactly. And hairdressers, as an example, they've just have longer as an industry to develop a bit of software that can link to Xero, and crypto will get there. We're just not quite there yet.
Stuart McLeod 00:16:11.623 And are you sort of close to some of these vendors? Have you had some interaction with them to try and influence the road map, etc.?
Joe David 00:16:21.205 Yeah. Again, absolutely. Feeding back what clients are saying to us. There aren't many of us around. By us, I mean crypto accountants that are really dedicated to crypto and that's our main focus. Right? So when we pop up and we talk to them, they want to listen, because naturally, you guys are Karbon. You want to improve. You want to make things better. And the only way to do that is to listen to your customers. So yeah, they're very open to those conversations and very supportive. And also, they're all fighting, and I know everybody is. But they're fighting for a new market rather than an existing market. So if they want to be number one, what might have been number one six months ago might not be number one today because of the way the market evolves. So they've all got to really do their bit to be number one.
Stuart McLeod 00:17:07.703 And, I mean, the money coming into-- the investment coming into the crypto space is pretty extraordinary. Not unexpected, I guess, as the industry grows, as the capital invested grows. And have you seen a lot of that in the UK as well? In particular, I'm thinking about the Andreessen Horowitz spin off fund.
Joe David 00:17:29.267 It's one of those things with crypto [inaudible]. Because it's still such a new thing, when the money flows in, everyone kind of jumps up and down and gets excited about it because it's a big amount of money in a small market in comparison to the rest of global market. But it's still so, so small. And it's amazing how many conversations we have every single day with new entrants into the market that have no idea what to do from accounting perspective, have no idea what to do in terms of a business perspective. And I think the one thing that the UK as an industry is lacking is if they want to be a crypto hub, if they want to be a fintech hub, whatever you want to call it, they've got to provide more education, I think, around what the benefits of having a crypto business in the UK and what are the accounting rules and regulations. They've got to be much more clear, I think, from that perspective. And so at the moment, we see a lot of businesses set up in other jurisdictions, sometimes European, Singapore, Dubai, because their governments are much more kind of open and expressive towards crypto. And therefore, that's where the organizations maybe look to set up. And naturally, they still need our support from accounting perspective. But the money isn't flowing into tax revenue into the UK if the UK don't kind of put together a framework that can allow it. My thing at the moment is we really want the UK to kind of practice what they preach in terms of saying they want to be a fintech crypto hub. Actually, let's get on and do it. And by doing it, it means put in regulatory frameworks and proper kind of guidance and stuff.
Stuart McLeod 00:19:05.059 Are you confident that Boris will be able to get his shit together? [laughter]
Joe David 00:19:14.075 I wouldn't say I'm confident. Do you want to know who the biggest advocate of crypto is that I've seen? Matt Hancock, and he's not exactly flavor of the month in this country. He was the former health secretary during the COVID and got sacked for breaking rules. So he's not exactly flavor of the month, but he's quite a big crypto advocate.
Stuart McLeod 00:19:33.145 Maybe he should have stuck to that instead of--
Joe David 00:19:36.999 Exactly, breaking COVID rules. But yeah. There's an organization in the UK called CryptoUK, and we're very close to them. They're kind of the trade body, if you like, for crypto and lobbying government and things like that. And there is a parliamentary group about crypto and headed up by an MP. It is getting there. But at the moment, it does seem a huge disconnect between what the authorities and the government think and what the actual kind of people on the ground think and the people that are actually creating the innovation.
Stuart McLeod 00:20:07.460 The US hasn't covered themselves in glory in terms of being clear on the regulatory environment for crypto. I guess it's probably only the last, what, decade where the UK has even learned how to turn on a computer in the government. Right? So for them to at least have a stance and a working group and all that, well, that's probably a good sign. I don't know the Australian sort of regulatory environment. I don't know if they've sort of been crypto forward, if you like.
Joe David 00:20:39.284 Yeah. I don't know much about [inaudible] myself. But I think it's one of these challenges, isn't it, for kind of the more developed governments, let's say, where it is a high risk industry at the moment, and it does have this element of rogue nature about it, whatever we say. I'm all one that says there's rogue people in every industry. You can't stop it. It's going to happen in one sense. And I think that's probably what holds back these more kind of developed Western or whatever governments is that they think, well, we need a little bit more maturity before we can really kind of grab it by horns, if you like, and sort it out. Whereas Singapore or Dubai or somewhere like that are a little bit more kind of free, if you like, to take a punt, given their kind of status in the global economy and stuff. So I think it's great for them. It gives them opportunities to bring in business and become a hub for these things. But yeah, it just means the other governments are a bit slower to react, maybe.
Stuart McLeod 00:21:45.519 Yeah. And I don't think any sort of First World countries-- kind of got other things on their mind like some issues in the Russian area and COVID. A few balls in the air, right? So I see El Salvador tourism is up 30% since making the cryptocurrency Bitcoin legal tender in September. So maybe we'll just all have to move to El Salvador, do you think?
Joe David 00:22:14.259 Yeah, exactly. I was reading somewhere that they're going to create a Bitcoin city or something. I don't know if that was in El Salvador or somewhere else, but that would be quite interesting, a city built on Bitcoin.
Stuart McLeod 00:22:25.176 Well, I think Puerto Rico has welcomed Bitcoin as well and cryptocurrency. A lot of sort liberal and freedom advocates from America have moved down there to sort of be a little bit more-- perhaps less government oriented, put it that way.
Joe David 00:22:44.504 Yeah. And I think if you look at some of these places so you've got, like I say, El Salvador. Panama has been touted as one, Puerto Rico, like you said, all these sorts of places. They're also very heavily reliant on the US dollar. So if they can move away from that and become less reliant on that, then for their own independence it's naturally a huge step for them, isn't it? But yeah, we're still quite a way off, them replacing their whole monetary system from US dollar to Bitcoin and things like that and that being a global kind of situation, if you like. But it definitely makes sense for-- again, it comes back to that risk factor, doesn't it? They've got much less of a risk in trying it because what's the worst is going to happen type thing.
Stuart McLeod 00:23:27.615 If their economy collapses, which it was going to anyway.
Joe David 00:23:30.456 Yeah. Kind of thing. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. And again, if they do it slowly, they should be able to have enough kind of US dollar back stuff to be able to kind of push on. Do you know what I mean? So yeah, we'll see. It'll be interesting. We'll all watch, and they'll be laughing at the end, probably.
Stuart McLeod 00:23:46.288 That's right. Yeah. You missed out on your El Salvador mansion because it's gone up 300 times in the last five years. Yeah.
Joe David 00:23:57.185 Exactly. I mean, Bitcoin is at about $35,000 today. El Salvador sit on it. It goes to a million dollars a token. Then they're laughing, and they're the wealthiest nation in the world.
Stuart McLeod 00:24:08.744 They're the world's superpower. That's right.
Joe David 00:24:11.404 Exactly.
Stuart McLeod 00:24:12.281 They'll take back the Ukraine.
Joe David 00:24:13.416 Yeah, exactly. Yeah.
Stuart McLeod 00:24:16.008 It shouldn't. That was horrific. But one of the issues in making Bitcoin more mainstream in terms of tender, though, is the volatility.
Joe David 00:24:27.141 Yeah, absolutely. And like you say, it is clear. But I think it's that chicken and egg, isn't it? It's volatile because not enough people use it. If more people use it, it becomes less volatile, but people won't use it. And at some point you've got to say we need to now accept this is something that the world wants, for example. And at that point then, does that take away some of the volatility, potentially? So yeah. As we said at the start, naturally, it's a risky asset. So in times like this, people run away from risky assets and buy solid assets or stick their money in cash, certainly. So you've just got to move that trajectory, I guess, to a more risk averse, if you like, asset.
Stuart McLeod 00:25:09.973 Again, chicken and egg, but the taxation treatment of crypto makes it difficult to sort of see how in-- first of all, Western countries at least, makes it difficult to see how it can be legitimately used as tender easily. I mean--
Joe David 00:25:26.172 Yeah. They'd have to change the tax rules, wouldn't they? But that's the thing at the moment in most kind of Western countries, if you like. As a government, we're not seeing it as a currency. We're seeing it as an asset class, so that's why it's taxed in the way it is. So naturally, like you say, if it was to be a currency recognized, it would have to change.
Stuart McLeod 00:25:46.251 You don't want to get your salary in Bitcoin every week and having to pay capital gains on it the minute you buy a burger down the road. Right?
Joe David 00:25:56.131 I think it's the Colorado guy, and he's accepted his-- well, he's going to accept his salary in Bitcoin.
Stuart McLeod 00:26:05.989 We're not doing very well in our rapid googling today, are we? I did find the fund that I was talking about before, and her name is Katie Haun, who was a legend that just done super well at Andreessen and went out, I think, with the blessing of the founders, and just started a small little $1 billion fund for her first round. Good on her. But it is indicative of some of the money that's starting to flow in. And usually, where the smart people go, the money goes. And each time that somebody does that and invest in companies that are making it a more legitimate infrastructure, the more likelihood that it sort of becomes a more normal way of life.
Joe David 00:27:02.557 100%. And I have found the stories. He's not accepting his salary in crypto. They are saying that they will accept tax payments in Colorado in crypto.
Stuart McLeod 00:27:14.253 Okay. You can pay your property tax in Colorado somewhere.
Joe David 00:27:19.196 My mum actually lived in Denver for a while, so I actually inherited the Denver Broncos as my NFL team. So obviously, when Pat Bowlen died, I think it was like 2017 or something like that-- and it's been held in a family trust or something like that since. And during the Discord channel the other day, there's a kind of crypto Dow, sort of decentralized, autonomous organization that are basically pitching together to buy the Broncos. So that will be quite interesting.
Stuart McLeod 00:27:44.872 Well, they're not going to pay very much. Broncos are pretty shit at the moment. [laughter]
Joe David 00:27:50.201 Right now. Yeah.
Stuart McLeod 00:27:51.991 Well, you and I can put together half a Bitcoin and we should be able to take over the Broncos. We'll have to buy a quarterback, though, somewhere. There was a similar organization, which was in one part humorous and one part really interesting, where they essentially did like a GoFundMe, a distributed GoFundMe, where they all sort of are putting in to buy a copy of the Constitution. One of the few copies of the-- that was a couple of months ago. I don't think it came off, though. Did something happen?
Joe David 00:28:28.297 No, they didn't succeed. Yeah. I don't think they raised enough money to be able to do it. That's one of the new things now in crypto is this Dow, like I said, this decentralized, autonomous organization. And it's effectively a committee of people coming together and putting all their money in a pot and using that pot to do whatever they want to do with it. And the benefits of it are it's completely transparent on the blockchain. So you can see exact-- I was listening to a podcast the other day about Dows and how they work and things like that, and they were saying effectively you can see the whole Dows balance sheet on the blockchain, because effectively, that's what it is. So we talk about transparency for companies and transparency for projects and things like that. There's no better transparency than an open public ledger that allows you to have a look and make sure everything is legitimate. So yeah, it's definitely an interesting thing to watch these kind of, like I say, groups of people coming together, putting their money together in crypto, and then kind of using that to do something with. I'm sure it will create good, but I'm also sure it will create some problems. Maybe loads of Kansas City Chiefs fans will come together and buy the Broncos and make them even worse.
Stuart McLeod 00:29:40.525 And then tip them over. They got their own worries at the moment. I think for such an amazing quarterback, the last half of their last game was a bit of a concern. Maybe it was just a bad day, but.
Joe David 00:29:55.914 I would still like to be in their shoes with a quarterback like that. Put it that way.
Stuart McLeod 00:30:00.200 Yeah. Yeah. You probably wouldn't send him back still.
Joe David 00:30:03.192 No. I think a lot of the problems are fixable when you got a guy like that running the side, haven't you? So yeah, it's interesting space.
Stuart McLeod 00:30:13.260 What's next for you guys, Joe? What do you think is the future for Myna and the future for Nephos?
Joe David 00:30:21.369 World domination. I think our future-- for Myna, especially our future is to become, if we're not already in the UK, the number one kind of crypto accounting firm. That's goal number one is to be that in the UK, and then after that, it's to grow that internationally. We don't need to be specialists in tax in Singapore in order to run the accounting function of a crypto business. We can employ people, as in consultants or businesses, in those sorts of areas where we can partner with them, if you like, in order to do the tax compliance and things like that. But in terms of the crypto side, we can help around the world. So it genuinely is that kind of international expansion and the opportunities that we didn't really have as a kind of local accounting firm that Nephos is. So yeah. So that's kind of the plan, I guess, to keep growing the team, keep growing the client base, keep doing good stuff, keep learning, keep watching this industry evolve, and see where that goes. And I think for Nephos, it's just about kind of riding that wave as well and finding its focus and it's kind of light bulb moment that drive that business forward. And as a group, I think we can do some really interesting stuff. We've got a mortgages arm to the business, so we can offer mortgages. We're looking at wealth management and bringing on a wealth management kind of provider as well to kind of have that professional services, both finances for individuals and for businesses, kind of all under one roof. So I think Nephos will look a bit more like a kind of group, if you like, of professional financial services firms, and then Myna will just fly off into the sunset and deal with crypto.
Stuart McLeod 00:32:07.027 There you go. That sounds like pretty good plan for world domination. And what about crypto in the UK? Obviously, the weight of investment, the weight of interest in crypto globally, probably say the UK, would go more or less to trend, I guess. But is there anything in particular? Is there anything really interesting that you're seeing in terms of financial services or in crypto in the UK that has caught your interest?
Joe David 00:32:37.130 Yeah. I mean, it's an interesting one, because again, it goes back to what we talked about earlier. Every time we see a little bit of real kind of push forward in industry and in innovation, we seem to have a roadblock. And recently that roadblock was we released some new tax guidance in the UK around DeFi, so decentralized finance, and it's been quite prohibitive. And that's kind of then put a bit of a block on quite a few clients, actually. We're talking about the innovation projects that we're looking at doing. They're kind of going, "Well, do we want to do it in the UK now? We're going to be in a bit of a situation where we don't want to be." So yeah, I think the UK just needs to kind of understand what it wants and where it wants to be within that space. And I think after that, it's got the opportunity to be-- we've got some great businesses. We've got some great people in this country, some really skilled people, some great innovators. And London is a financial hub. It is a fintech hub as well. So I'm hoping that we'll be looking back on this in a year or so time thinking that we went in the right direction and we really took the opportunity. So that's my message to the government, if you get a government on your podcast, is to really kind of focus on it.
Stuart McLeod 00:33:46.517 I'll get our producers to put a call into Boris if he's not hungover. What about other countries? Is there some other things that you're seeing globally that you found, "Okay, I wouldn't mind being a part of that or research that some more"?
Joe David 00:34:05.181 Yeah. So Dubai, for example, have kind of created a crypto hub in their kind of, what they call, World Trade Center, which is their kind of business district there. They've brought on some crypto. So Binance, one of the biggest exchange in the world, have partnered with them to kind of build out this crypto hub, which I think is really exciting. So I'm really look forward to kind of exploring that a bit more. I'm really interested in VR and in the metaverse and what that might look like. I'm not a gamer. I'm not someone that would sit on games, Minecraft, like kids playing Minecraft and all these sorts of things. So I'm not that type of person, but I think from a business perspective, there's some real opportunities. Zoom's great, and Teams is great, and Meet's great and all these things, right? They do what they need to do, but none of them do what the metaverse and what VR can do. And I recently got an Oculus headset, and a colleague of mine, who's quite tech focused as well, bought one. And he's remote to the office, so he's not here. So we did a meeting in the metaverse, and it was just really cool. It was really good fun because you actually get to-- you kind of see people moving and interacting, and it just felt like a really interesting space. And I'm not sitting here and saying that it's the be all and end all. I totally understand concerns about it. I totally understand people thinking, well, what's the point? And like I say, I'm not that type of person as such, but I do really think that that for me is one of the really exciting spaces I think for kind of blockchain and crypto is to really kind of hone in on that. And can we change the way that we operate as a nation and as a world and how we interact with people and things like that?
Stuart McLeod 00:35:55.052 I think people could be more excited about it if it was being propositioned by a more ethical organization.
Joe David 00:36:02.177 Yeah, I understand.
Stuart McLeod 00:36:04.010 Nobody benefited more, arguably, out of COVID than Zoom did and a lot of the ex Webex guys or and. I get it. I've thought about it too. It would be good to be able to sort of-- there's got to be something more to life than-- I mean, look at my calendar today. I'm just sitting here in Mexico, of all places, on Zoom, and it would be nice to be able to sort of have that interaction, have that better, more social interaction, have that more 3D interaction. And maybe there's rooms. Maybe there's hologram. I don't know. There's a lot of much smarter people than you or I, Joe, that are working on this. So hopefully at some point we can not meet in 2D and do it in a more 3D environment without having to give British Airways money.
Joe David 00:37:00.199 And again, it comes to that environmental concern and all those bits and pieces. But the one to look at it at the moment, and I appreciate it's still Facebook, but at the moment they are kind of leading the VR kind of space is they've got what they call Horizon Workrooms. So have a look at that. It's really interesting. There's even a YouTube - I think it's from mid last year or something - where Mark Zuckerberg's presenting it, and he's presenting it to what they call news outlets or something like that. And he's doing it in the metaverse and in one of their workrooms. And you can have a whiteboard, and you can write on the whiteboard. And you can share your screen and show your screen to the rest of the room. And people can join if they haven't got a VR headset, because they can just join on kind of video or sound. So it's a really interesting space. So like I say, it doesn't have to be some crazy world that no one wants to be in. It could actually be something fairly simple. Before we started this, I was fiddling around with my headphones. It's not a huge amount of difference. Just stick on a VR headset and jump into a meeting in that way. It seems like hassle. But actually, I opened this and I put my headphones on in the same way that I could open the Workrooms app and whack my VR headset on. So it's not as hard as people think. But have a look at it.
Stuart McLeod 00:38:14.871 Joe, you and I will do a podcast in the metaverse. How's that sound?
Joe David 00:38:19.008 Let's do it. Let's do it.
Stuart McLeod 00:38:20.424 I've been looking for an excuse to get a set-- I mean, I just wish it wasn't Facebook, because you know what's going to happen, right? We'll do a podcast and then the next day you're going to get ads for whatever we talk about on your Facebook newsfeed.
Joe David 00:38:34.721 Yeah. I don't have Facebook, so I won't get them, but some people definitely will.
Stuart McLeod 00:38:40.150 Me neither. Well, they'll sell it to somebody who buys it, which you do use.
Joe David 00:38:46.557 Exactly. But it's interesting, right? Because a friend of mine, he's got a VR as well, and he said, "I need to have a chat with you. Can fancy a game with darts?" And I was like, "Yeah, okay, why not?" So we chuck our VR headsets and we're sitting in our living rooms and playing darts, but at the same time, we're having a loose meeting but a meeting. Do you know want I mean? Talking about work and what we need to do and throwing darts and having a laugh. And you can play golf. You could do a round of golf with people without actually have to go get wet outside in the lovely--
Stuart McLeod 00:39:18.084 Bet you I'm a shit at golf in the metaverse as I am in real life.
Joe David 00:39:21.706 I tell you though. They give you those arrows, and you just got to follow the arrows. It's amazing. You can't lose the ball.
Stuart McLeod 00:39:30.175 Can you throw your clubs in a tantrum?
Joe David 00:39:32.246 Yeah, and hit people. You can throw darts at people on the darts game, but.
Stuart McLeod 00:39:36.099 Well, there you go.
Joe David 00:39:37.447 Yeah, so if they annoy you in a meeting could just throw a dart at their head.
Stuart McLeod 00:39:41.919 Violence erupts in metaverse.
Joe David 00:39:45.487 Exactly. Yeah. So there you go. That's it. We're going to do a podcast in the metaverse, and that's going to be fun.
Stuart McLeod 00:39:52.765 Joe, I've been fascinated to have this conversation with you. We've covered a huge amount of ground. And hey, congratulations on all your success with both Nephos and Myna. And being at the forefront of anything is not easy and particularly in the accounting industry, because blazing away in what is a traditionally conservative world is really brave. And you should be applauded for all the success that you've had and all the work that you're putting in. And I know that it'll pay off. And the team asked me to pass on their thanks and our thanks for being such a great client and customer. And we love working with you guys and would love to catch up in person again. And we'll find a better venue for drinks where we can actually have a decent conversation next time as opposed to--
Joe David 00:40:47.508 Being kind of tied into a small space.
Stuart McLeod 00:40:50.627 Yes. Yeah, they were charging a million dollars an hour for [inaudible], but it was very London. It's so London.
Joe David 00:40:59.130 It was good fun. It was good to meet everybody and catch up. But yeah, like you say, hopefully another time soon. Yeah, really good talk to you. And thanks for the kind words.
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Stuart McLeod 00:41:14.069 Thanks for listening to this episode. If you found this discussion interesting, fun, you'll find lots more to help you run a successful accounting firm at Karbon Magazine. There are more than 1,000 free resources there including guides, articles, templates, webinars and more. Just head to karbonhq.com/resources. I'd also love it if you could leave us a five star review wherever you listen to this podcast. Let us know you like this session. We'll be able to keep bringing you more guests for you to learn from and get inspired by. Thanks for joining, and see you on the next episode of the Accounting Leaders Podcast.