The Wall Street Veteran Who Bet on Blockchain Before Wall Street Believed | Ep. 436 with Vince Molinari Founder and CEO of FINTECH.TV

0:00My personal greatest learnings came from the failures, the time I fell down, the time I didn't get it right, the time that you had to pivot so many times in a business that you felt like a spinning top. Nearly 30 years on Wall Street, he's testified before Congress and the Senate, spoken at the U.S. State Department and the United Nations, helped develop blockchain patents. And now he broadcasts from the floor of the New York Stock Exchange, fresh off a$50 million acquisition. This is Vince Molinari, founder and CEO of FinTechTV. At what point did Wall Street stop dismissing your ideas? It takes five times longer and maybe 10 times more expense than you ever think.

0:46So you have to be able to digest the pain. if you want to monetize your own data instead of having it scraped by some nameless big organization to have been making billions and billions, you have to...

1:04So Vince, I want to know if this phrase resonates with you. When you do something different, people might think you're crazy, but when you make it with success, they think you're a genius. Well, I think there's a very fine line between crazy and genius. And maybe it's all one and the same, just depending on the day of the week, right? And whether that craziness results in the success, or you can easily be crazy when it doesn't work, right? So part of the, I think, the DNA and the journey of entrepreneurs. You walked onto Wall Street in 1988. What did people think about you when you told them what your vision was?

1:46Well, I guess I had less of a vision in 88 than being a kid from Queens coming out of Hofstra University playing football, jumping into Lehman Brothers. So it was a little bit of an atypical pathway in those days. And, you know, I was more trying to conform and learn in those days. I think it became shortly thereafter where the vision came about thinking about Wall Street asset allocation, access to those assets a bit differently. And, you know, that wasn't necessarily well received, particularly in those days. What were you seeing that others weren't? You know, I really thought there was an evolution to look at things other than the traditional liquid investments.

2:41We were really looking at, in those days, it was a wonderful time where restricted stock had a two-year hold period, if you can imagine that. So a restricted security before registration, a two-year hold period. Reg S for offshore investors had a 42-day hold period. So there was kind of this real gap in what was application of rules and regulations. So you really benefited a foreigner to be able to invest in a public security under Reg S and had a 42-day hold period where a U.S. investor had two years. So that was kind of part of the advocacy of saying, I'm going to compress that time frame and really give continuity.

3:25And over time, things came to be. And how do you make those instruments actually tradable? And again, funny story when you read the regulations back then. It said a two-year hold period until it was tradable on a registered exchange or a national market exchange. But what it didn't say is you couldn't sell it, right? So we found ways to create liquidity for a two-year instrument or even if it had 18 months left, add a bit of a discount and pass on the holding period to the next investor. and they got a discount for doing so. So all of a sudden you said, wow, these instruments that were previously thought only sellable on a national market exchange may have another liquidity event off exchange.

4:08When you're an entrepreneur and you're working in a highly regulated industry, how do you have to look at things differently or what do you have to do differently than if you're doing something that isn't regulated by any government bodies? You know, that is an awesome question, Dan. And, you know, we've come to think about things from a technology standpoint to run fast, break glass, and, you know, maybe to some degree ask for forgiveness later if need be. You know, that doesn't work in a regulated world where you have a fiduciary responsibility. There's movement of money. You have the 33, the 34 Act and a whole series of other regulation that you have to comply with.

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6:23You were talking about how sometimes industries, they're kind of stuck in the past. I imagine finance many times, it can also be that way. There's a lot of regulations and things that may cause that, but technology and media seem to be advancing. When did you connect the two that media and finance are a need? Well, I really say, you know, as it relates to FinTech TV, FinTech Media Group, that was really a result of Troy McGuire, my co-founder, and really his vision that looking at education awareness, demystifying subjects. Right. And because of the advancements of technology and frankly, the price points of deployment of technology and purchasing allowed us to broadcast in ways just a few years ago that you couldn't dream of 10 years ago.

7:16So that ability to create a following by storytelling, by bringing something to bear that wasn't frankly, especially when it came to crypto digital assets six years ago, weren't spoken about in mainstream media. And a lot of it goes back to, I'd say, protections, right, where you didn't have visibility around new subjects. So was that out of intentionality or they just didn't have the domain expertise or both, right? And it's kind of the same with financial market infrastructure. You have a lot of legacy protectionism because these are vast swaths of capital that continue to make people a lot of money.

7:54So they don't want to loosen the grip. So technology, I think, becomes the great level setter across things like financial services that are being more and more embraced with DeFi. But certainly media was an easier pathway to create and break some barriers. It seems like knowledge is the democratization. If you don't know about something, then I can never participate. So essentially, FinTech TV and media, you're almost democratizing it by giving the knowledge and access to people that never would have. What do you think in terms of the future of democratization when it comes to finance and FinTech allowing more people that never would have been able to participate to maybe even change the next generations?

8:42Wow. Yeah. And that's why one of the many reasons why I love you, Dan, you know, such a phenomenal question. And it really is part of a flywheel or an ecosystem. So we tend to think about it as actionable knowledge. So the more information and knowledge that you can put into a system, the more likely someone's going to take an action. Whether that's buying something, selling something, or just becoming more educated about those subjects. So when you can embed that knowledge into the ecosystem, right, what does that mean? it is democratization of access to information and knowledge, right? Where we didn't have such readily accessible ability, whether that's through our smartphones, through the web, to access this information in a much more robust and more importantly, I think, in a timely real-time fashion and the ability to disseminate information on a globalized basis.

9:39So to me, that somewhat goes to the core of what we talk about with Web3, where it's the value of the community. It's the engagement of the participants. And I think we're realizing more and more those participants, whether they're part of viewership of FinTech TV, whether they're part of a transaction component. Every founder I talk to on this show thinks in decades, not days. And lately, more of them are treating Bitcoin the same way, less like a trade, more like a recurring savings habit. There's a big difference between buying Bitcoin once and building exposure over time. And if you're buying regularly, the details matter.

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11:00Or the value system, and then really creating the capital or the valuation in expansion in so many organizations. So I think that education, what we feel now is storytelling, right, to create that engagement is really paramount to where things are going in the future. One of my favorite quotes, knowledge is power. I don't know who said it. For some reason, I feel like it was a cartoon. But at what point did Wall Street stop dismissing your ideas and started realizing what you're bringing to the table is needed? Well, you know, I have to say, right here at the New York Stock Exchange, if you can imagine the most iconic, biggest exchange in the world, allowing us to begin to talk about digital assets, about what was really blockchain technology six years ago.

11:53So I think foundationally, when we were privileged enough to get, at the time, one of five studios in the world as a full-time studio on the floor, the Stock Exchange, that was kind of the seminal moment where these little company, FinTech TV, broadcasting for the New York Stock Exchange, talking about the future, but talking about it in a present tense of education and awareness around the power of blockchain, what that may mean to capital markets, what it may mean to supply chain, what it may mean to identity, and beginning to say this is part of, again, like we like to say, the evolution, not necessarily a revolution, as many people would have thought early days, but how do we adapt these technologies across government community and make it better?

12:42So big shout out to the New York Stock Exchange to be that believer, to embrace change as they always have done. And that became, I think, the defining point for us as FinTechTV. Listening to you, I'm gathering that partnerships has been critical. Would you say that the secret sauce to your success, not even maybe with FinTech TV or FinTech Media Group, but other things, has been partnerships? You know, spot on. Look, and I'll go back to the New York Stock Exchange, right? Because that defines such an important partnership. As you said, the energy, this is a place of dreamers. This is the U.S.

13:21economy, right? The job creation, the economic growth, those engines that have birth out of companies that become public here and that pathway to becoming public. When that opening bell rings every day, it just resonates in the energy. I get goosebumps every day of the feeling and the honor and the privilege that we have here. And that really is kind of back to the DNA, right? How do you strive and grow for us? You have to leapfribe by collaborating, right? And we have amazing partnerships, and I can go through Reach TV, StockTwits, Truth Plus, and the list goes on and on where we couldn't be where we are without global distribution and visibility.

14:04The Abu Dhabi Stock Exchange, CityWalk with Canadian University of Dubai, ADFW and ADGM, and it goes on and on. So that ability to embrace, and it goes back to, I think, the authenticity of who we are. And when you can then begin to think about it, at least as we do, each of these partnerships are part of a super cluster of innovation. And every partner is a node within that. So the more they're firing and we fire together, the heat and the combustion of that kind of sphere just grows and gets hotter and broader and more powerful. So, yes, spot on partnerships, collaboration, central to everything that we do.

14:47I heard you just had a major acquisition in TAP. from what I read, it was roughly$50 million, which that means you're no longer a media company or a media group. Between back-to-back interviews and travel, my routine took a hit these past couple months, and I gained some weight, and I can see it on camera, and believe me, I am not happy about it. That's why I picked up Factor this week, and honestly, I'm loving it. Chef-crafted, dietician-designed meals, ready in two minutes, no prep, no cleanup, Even on days, my schedule is completely out of control. Eating well is still achievable. And with over 175 banned ingredients, every meal is built around what supports a healthier lifestyle and nothing that doesn't.

15:34I use Factor and you should too. Let's eat real. Head to factormeals.com slash founders50off and use code founders50off to get 50 % off and one free breakfast item per box for one year while supplies last until 10-30-2026. That's code founders50off at factormeals.com. founders50off at factormeals.com. See website for more details. You've now become something bigger. Why was that something that you needed, that you thought was critical in the moment? I think it is critical and essential as we look in the future state and try to pull that to a present day, right? Media and content are the engines that generate that awareness, right?

16:26The data that comes off of it, we call it content consumption exhaust. What are the signals that we're receiving from around the world based upon who's consuming what content where? Very robust when you think about the new data lakes, the metadata that's contained within there and what you can do with it. Well, now with the TAP terminal, we've created a destination where an investor, people looking for education, education might have to go to five, six, seven, eight different apps or websites. We centralize it. And so there's 70 customizable widgets. You can track your crypto, your equity, your commodities, your fixed income, all in one destination.

17:06Receive news feeds, content creation around it. And what becomes really exciting is the ability for investors to take action from there and route on the back end to Alpaca, who's one of our partners, to execute on things that they may find exciting. So you're creating that ecosystem within one destination that garners attention and people want to spend time there. And I'm sorry, I got to get this in there, Dan, because I'm super excited about it. From there, how do you continue to reward? And that's different. Reward the viewer, the participant, part of the Web3 structure, who are fintech media group participants with incentivizing behavior and giving them rewards.

17:46And we'll be doing that in a token format. So truly giving them rewards based upon consuming a piece of sponsored content, the amount of time that they're spending on FinTech Media Group, whether that's on tap or FinTech TV or the entire. Let me tell you about a time that Upwork saved me. I had two hours to get a submission to a major media outlet, and I thought there was no way I'd make it. I jumped on Upwork, messaged someone, and within 10 minutes, they replied. 90 minutes later, the work was done in my inbox, submitted on time. And here's the best part. Two years later, that same person still works with me today.

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19:18It would seem that attention might be the most valuable thing on this planet for almost any company, any entrepreneur or founder. They really need to pay attention to this. You're really looking at how you can increase the attention. And not only that, but how often somebody is on there, what they're doing on there, making them go back. because there's just so much media trying to garner everyone's attention. How do you see tokenizing and doing all this? How do you see this impacting FinTech TV? Well, look, you said it there in terms of attention, right? We'll call it the signal from the noise.

19:56Hey, check out our newsletter, The Signal, right? Part of FinTech Media Group, right? So how do you bring different delivery mechanisms, right? The signal in a written format, break out another portfolio company, of audio delivery that we'll be going back into market with, our visual and the media, to give people their choice of how they want to consume content. But I think the attention, once you've gone through the intention, what is attention? That's somebody's time. Time is valuable. So if I'm asking you to part with your time, you're making an investment into our community. Therefore, you should be rewarded.

20:34So we're trying to flip the model from people being consumers to being contributors. And if you're a contributor, you should be rewarded or compensated. So again, if we think about what was not too long ago, people paid for everything to get onto an app. Then came freemium models where you got something for a little bit of free. And if you wanted more, right, you paid for it. We're trying to acknowledge that the value creation of the ecosystem and our enterprise comes through our viewership and our participants. So if you're creating value for us, You should share in that value creation, hence the token reward system, which will then we envision having perhaps a sponsor giving a cash consideration in the token, a discount to their product, even free product.

21:23And then if you think about it the next level, Dan, and I know you're so in tune to this, right? If you then have a fintech media group wallet, right? Well, now we're going to invite you. Well, if you want to monetize your own data instead of having it scraped by some nameless big organizations who have been making billions and billions. Well, if you voluntarily believe that this particular corporate sponsor is a good citizen and you want to share your data with them and get it compensated for it directly. Wow. What a beautiful thing. So, yeah, toggling between craziness and some brilliance. But it's really how do you deliver something different?

22:01And let's see how the market kind of reacts and the participants. And that will determine success and failure. Well, Vince, you went from crazy to genius. Back to crazy to genius, back to crazy to genius. What's one simple quick advice that you give to someone who's like, I want to be like Vince one day. I want to disrupt an industry. Simple advice is, look, it takes five times longer and maybe 10 times more expense than you ever think. So you have to be able to digest the pain knowing that it's going to be a painful process. because people always look at the success portion. They very rarely look at the failures because we don't talk about failure, right?

22:46We talk about the success. So you have to, I believe, embrace the ability to fail. Not that we want to fail, but I will tell you that my personal greatest learnings came from the failures, the time I fell down, the time I didn't get it right, the time that you had to pivot so many times in a business that you felt like a spinning top, right? So recognizing that on the front end is, I think, the most important advice. And yeah, we could talk about the successes because that's the overnight sensation that took 10 years, but people didn't realize that it took 10 years to get there. So not to be fearful of failure to embrace and to learn from it if that comes your way, but pick yourself up and get going again.

23:29Well, Vince Molinari, FinTech TV, FinTech Media Group, so many more things. I can't wait. I'm always following the news of what's happening. And it's been great to have you on today. And I so appreciate your time. Delighted to be here, Dan. And, you know, such a fan of what you're doing with Founders Story. And honor to be on and being able to tell a little bit of the story of Troy and I being founders.