Kyle Lawrence [00:00:09]:
Welcome to Block and Order, the show that explores the legal issues facing the world of Web3 and beyond. I am a newly untethered Kyle Lawrence, and with me, as always, don't judge him because he sounds like Lindsay Lohan, Mr. Moish Peltz.

Moish Peltz [00:00:23]:
No, I just got back from my smoke break. No, my. My voice isn't.

Kyle Lawrence [00:00:27]:
Wow. Remember those?

Moish Peltz [00:00:28]:
I know, right? Remember, like, people used, like every hour just do chain smoking. Like that was there. That's what it feels like. But now my voice just disappear. Not even sick. It's just gone. So you just sound. Excuse me.

Moish Peltz [00:00:41]:
On this episode, even though my voice wasn't there, I think our discussion with Kelley was. Was super fascinating and love hearing. You know, it's. It's kind of interesting because she's. She's a communications professional, but it's kind of approaching it from a. A similar angle as us. It's like, well, how do you help people do things responsibly? For us, it's legal. For her, it's communications.

Moish Peltz [00:01:03]:
But there's a lot of overlap and synergy there. And so I thought it was a really interesting conversation.

Kyle Lawrence [00:01:08]:
Right. For context, we had a guest, Kelley Weaver, on with upcoming interview. And to your point, and this came up actually during the episode. I love speaking to people who are in this space but don't do what we do. Accountants, government officials, and lobbyists that we just saw at the digital chamber down in D.C. the other day. And Kelley, with her experience dealing with influencers and project people who are launching projects and reporters, I just love hearing the different perspective on. It really helps open our eyes and helps just spread the word.

Moish Peltz [00:01:45]:
Yeah, for sure. And we talked about a lot of stuff like that. Yeah. The crypto news media, to me, is like this insanely fascinating topic we could probably have talked about for the entire episode. The impact of AI, you know, influencers. There's just a lot. A lot of good stuff to talk about.

Kyle Lawrence [00:02:03]:
And she was in Jackson Hole, Wyoming, a place I've never been to, so I'm always interested in that.

Moish Peltz [00:02:08]:
That's where she do the Block and Order ski trip.

Kyle Lawrence [00:02:11]:
Okay, producer Shaun, get on that. But seriously, how many people do you know these days who smoke cigarettes? I don't think I know any.

Moish Peltz [00:02:20]:
No. And no one. Anyone I know that smoked has stopped or died? No one's really died.

Kyle Lawrence [00:02:26]:
Good. But yeah. Well, on that note, without further ado, let's kick it over to our excellent conversation with Kelley Weaver. We're very thrilled to have a very special guest today on Block and Order. Kelley Weaver, the CEO of Melrose PR, founder of Bitwire and host of the Proof of PR podcast coming in from Jackson Hole, Wyoming. Kelley, good morning. How are you today?

Kelley Weaver [00:02:52]:
Good morning. I'm doing great. I'm so happy to be here with you guys. Thanks for having me.

Kyle Lawrence [00:02:57]:
We're so happy to have you. We appreciate your time. We know you're on sort of vacation with your family, so we greatly appreciate it.

Kelley Weaver [00:03:04]:
I mean, this is like more of an extended vacation relocation situation, but yes, we love it here.

Kyle Lawrence [00:03:09]:
Life is just one vacation for us all in the crypto landscape is the way I see it.

Kelley Weaver [00:03:14]:
That's the goal. Right. Beauty of, the beauty of being able to work from anywhere.

Kyle Lawrence [00:03:19]:
Right. Why don't you tell us a little bit about yourself, what your company does and what you're seeing in the space over the past couple crazy, chaotic months.

Kelley Weaver [00:03:29]:
Sure, happy to. I also have questions for you guys about what you're seeing.

Kyle Lawrence [00:03:33]:
We're ready.

Kelley Weaver [00:03:36]:
I'm Kelley. I founded Melrose PR 13 years ago and as more of a consumer facing PR firm and got bit by the Bitcoin bug. In 2016 we got a client, I guess Rewind. Two years prior to that we had done PR for this Bitcoin ATM in L. A and it completely flew over my head. I did not understand. I had all these questions about, you know, who. So is bitcoin the company? Anyway, it just completely, I think it takes multiple intersections and it just, I didn't, I didn't get it at first.

Kelley Weaver [00:04:10]:
Cut to two years later, we started working with this awesome team out of Venice, California called GEM and they were, at the time it was a bunch of bitcoiners essentially, but they were an enterprise blockchain solutions provider. And so they were doing all these pilots with like Toyota and Capital One about supply chain and finance. And so I thought it was really fascinating, this technology, what it could do to change the world. There was only, and, and for, you know, the years leading up to that with Melrose, I've been looking for something to specialize in because PR is a relationship business. And so you really have to get to know the reporters covering, you know, the reporters that you want to work with because ultimately, and so at the time There was really 20 reporters covering this space. Laura Shin being like one of the OGs covering it for Forbes and, and, and, and a handful of others. But anyway, it was such a small little industry back then and I was like, you know, we could get to know everybody. And so and I went to a couple of conferences with these guys from GEM, produced by BTC Inc.

Kelley Weaver [00:05:14]:
Who also produced the bitcoin conference. And it was just this aha moment. Like, wow, there are all these really cool companies in this sector that are doing these world changing, potentially world changing things with this technology, but they don't know how to tell their stories and they don't know how to break through the noise. So they, that was kind of my light bulb moment. And it was the, you know, the magnetic qualities of the people on the team that we were working with where I was like, I think that there's an opportunity here. So we rebranded Melrose going into 2017 as like all crypto, blockchain, bitcoin focused and, and sort of the rest is history, I guess. It's been like a roller coaster since then, as you can imagine. You know, we've been through a lot, but we remain an earned media company, you know, at our core.

Kelley Weaver [00:06:01]:
So we, you know, help, help businesses in this space break through the noise, build brand trust through earned media. And we have really, really strong relationships with reporters. And, and still even to this day, I would say it's a really small subset of reporters, much larger than it was back then, of course, but you know, like there's the crypto trade publications and there's way more now than there was then, of course, but CoinDesk, Blockworks, the block, decrypt, Defiant, we're working with those guys every day. And then there's also, you know, the industry's matured a lot so there's full time web, three staff reporters at all the major sort of business finance tech pubs like Bloomberg, Wall Street Journal, cnbc, you know, Fortune, Forbes, et cetera. So we're working with those, those folks a lot too. So I guess not a lot has changed, but a ton has changed and everything is unrecognizable.

Kyle Lawrence [00:06:55]:
That's kind of how we see it. On the legal side, everything is totally different, except it's exactly the same. It's, it's really strange.

Kelley Weaver [00:07:03]:
You have to learn how to pivot. I think in this industry you do.

Kyle Lawrence [00:07:06]:
Have to be nimble and flexible. Which actually leads me to a follow up question about the work you do. How do you, how do you adjust on the fly to the changing winds? I mean you, you work with companies building a brand strategy, building a marketing plan. You, you have a message that can change like that. How do you account for that?

Kelley Weaver [00:07:27]:
Well, I think that's what makes this, you know, it's, it makes it really fun, it makes it really interesting. It's, it also makes for constant like a plethora of opportunities for news jacking. So, you know, part of what we do is, is work with teams on their announcements. So when they get funding rounds and a lot of times that's when they start work with us. A lot of our business comes from the funds in the space, the they invest in companies, they, you know, have worked with us, they make a warm recommendation and then we end up working with them. So announcements, partnership announcements, et cetera. But then outside of that, we're really working with the spokespeople on the teams that, that we work with for different types of thought leadership. So you know, being quoted in articles, broadcast opportunities, we do, you know, get them ready for media and we're basically helping them to get into the news cycle.

Kelley Weaver [00:08:18]:
And that when the news cycle is constantly shifting to your point, there's like always opportunities for that. And one of our favorite types of clients, by the way, are, are lawyers. Because like, here's the thing about crypto, okay, there's markets and regulation are the two hot topics that are never going away, never ever. And the markets are always going to move. And so if you can speak to markets and like unpack what on earth is happening and if you could speak to regulation and what, what's going on and you know, predict with that and especially, you know, I was going to say in the past year or four years, but then it's really like the whole time politics drives this too, you know. So anyway, we, we work with a lot of the general counsel on the teams that we work with and if they're media trained and you know, we like get them ready and confident we can just constantly have topics to speak about. And, and so in a way like the constant shifts provide opportunities for us to be really proactive and then we'll like pin on our calendar when there's things coming up like rulings and you know, big news events that you can kind of plan for. We pre kind of canvas our spokespeople about for commentary opportunity.

Kelley Weaver [00:09:35]:
We get real time feedback and then we pitch it immediately. And that's a lot of what we're doing. We're like matchmaking the reporters and our clients.

Moish Peltz [00:09:44]:
That's super interesting. I mean we see that too, that crypto is this almost exceptional industry and that the regulatory aspect of it is so present, not just in the news and headlines, but within the work that we do. And so I'm curious how from your perspective that might differ. I mean you work it sounds like a lot before 2016 and other industries and how the kind of communications around regulatory and legal is distinct in this. In this industry. And kind of how that changes what you would do or how you think about communications?

Kelley Weaver [00:10:19]:
Well, the sentiment changes. Like the client sentiment, the appetite to speak about it changes. Like, you go through these phases of, like, extreme fear and then extreme euphoria. So I think it depends on what's happening in the. In the news cycle, what the. What the climate's like. I'm sure you have felt a shift this year versus the previous four years about appetite to speak about these things, what you can say and not say. So it's definitely something that has been delicate to navigate.

Kelley Weaver [00:10:49]:
Also, our first I mentioned, we pivoted into Crypto exclusively in 2017. And so that was the heyday of ICOs. And here we were on the world stage suddenly as one of, like, three PR firms that had ever had any exposure to this technology at all. And so you can imagine what was crossing our desk at the time. Everybody had a white paper and was just, you know, throwing out these ridiculous ideas. And we were associated with. With so many projects that did so well overnight. And I think that was more about the relationships and where we sat, but.

Kelley Weaver [00:11:28]:
And then that came, like, crashing down. Right? I mean, in 18, 19, everyone's like, no, you can't do that. You know, and so the client pool dried up almost immediately, overnight of that type of client. And so, I don't know, it's just. It's changed a lot. We've had to be really nimble. I think that that's. That's what makes it fun, though.

Kelley Weaver [00:11:46]:
And I think my team is. We're kind of. We collectively have an appetite for moving quickly and making things happen. Because this isn't a business where you can sit back, relax, and, like, you know, plan for announcements. You have to be nimble.

Kyle Lawrence [00:12:03]:
No, that's absolutely true. And you alluded to it before. We see the same thing on the legal side. In fact, a couple weeks ago, Moish and I were drafting a memorandum for a client about the legality of memecoins. It's very hot right now. People are trying to launch them. And literally, while we were drafting it, the SEC just, out of nowhere dropped guidance on how they're going to treat these things. And we had to shift our entire perspective after two weeks of work.

Moish Peltz [00:12:29]:
Although I think she had the framework there.

Kyle Lawrence [00:12:32]:
Yeah, right.

Kyle Lawrence [00:12:33]:
But it.

Kyle Lawrence [00:12:34]:
But it does make it fun, and it's definitely more interesting than what I've been doing for 20 years up until this point.

Kelley Weaver [00:12:39]:
I mean, the Velocity of this has gotten so quick that I can barely keep up. You know, like, people were asking me socially at the dinner table about memecoins when Trump was getting elected, and I was like, you know, I don't think I have the capacity to keep up with this.

Kyle Lawrence [00:12:52]:
Stuff. Yeah.

Moish Peltz [00:12:56]:
Well, I'm curious, you know, your experience speaking with lawyers. You know, lawyers like us, we always think we know everything, but they're coming to you and they're. And they're asking advice about communications. And so what do lawyers, like, what do you see them often? Like, where do they get in trouble? Where do they think they know the answer? But in reality, it's a more nuanced issue of how you communicate, which is different than what the legal answer might be.

Kelley Weaver [00:13:25]:
It's such a mixed bag because to your point, I mean, I think lawyers are some of the smartest people that we work with and also have that general awareness about what you can and can't say. But we've worked with some that are very, very, like, sensitive. Like, I don't want to say, you know, I don't even want to get in front of a reporter and really being cautionary to the team members that they work with all the way to, you know, they understand how, you know, so we, we explain the process of how it works. And by the way, it's not rocket science PR, right? It's like we have relationships with reporters. We know how they work. We know what they need and how to get it to them in the, in the manner and form that they want it and to do it quickly. Because when the news cycle is moving quickly, you can imagine these ops have like 1, 2, 3 hour turnaround time sometimes because they're writing a story. And so it's not uncommon for you just to read a story about a trending topic and be like several of our clients quoted in a row.

Kelley Weaver [00:14:20]:
Because we, we know how to, like, canvas our clients to get sound bites to then get to the reporter that they can just copy, paste, copy, paste and plug into their stories. So that's. It's a relationship business. I mean, I think we do a lot of sourcing conversations with, with any type of spokesperson that we're working with, lawyers or not, and then, you know, media training, too. So we'll run mock interviews and get folks prepared and explain, you know, on the record, off the record, you know, on background, like, how it works and what you can expect and what's fair game. Because we also protect our relationship with the reporters. And there's. There have been Instances where, let's say somebody from one of the teams has said something that they maybe shouldn't have on the call with the reporter.

Kelley Weaver [00:15:06]:
And, you know, it's really, that puts us in a tough spot because it's, it is fair game and you want to, you know.

Kyle Lawrence [00:15:13]:
Right.

Kelley Weaver [00:15:13]:
And we've asked for, I think that's why it's, it is such a relationship business. Like we do ask for, for favors from our reporters because we're also a resource for them. And so you can, you know, when things come up that are very sensitive, but it's ultimately up to the reporter. And, and sometimes when they, when a story comes out that maybe the tone is unfavorable to the client, that's something where we, we draw a boundary with our clients. Like, listen, if there's something factually incorrect or, you know, then of course we will reach out and make, make that correction. But if it's like a, you know, a tone thing, that's, you know, that's up to the, the reporter. You know, it's earned media, what it's their take.

Kyle Lawrence [00:15:52]:
Yeah, that can definitely -

Moish Peltz [00:15:57]:
Talk us through a little bit. You know, what you do. Sorry, Kyle, to interrupt here.

Kyle Lawrence [00:15:57]:
You're good.

Moish Peltz [00:15:58]:
When, you know, you kind of alluded to it, right. When something goes wrong, when something goes unexpected, this is probably more into like the crisis management side of what you do. But, you know, whether they've said the wrong thing, an employee has done something stupid, they've, they're in the news for bad reason. Like what, what should a company do in a situation like that besides, you know, speak to someone like you?

Kelley Weaver [00:16:22]:
Well, it's good to have a playbook going into that about, like, what the goals and outcomes are. A lot of times, you know, if you go ahead and say too much in those situations right away, that can be damaging too. So it's, it's good to take a beat, make a plan internally, and then act on that plan. I mean, we're not, you know, specifically a crisis comms agency, but having worked in crypto for almost nine years, like, we've been through our fair share of major crisis. And so we've, we've, you know, seen what can happen. I mean, a lot of times, especially if it's something to do with, you know, a hack or trolls or something like that, the more attention you give it, the worse it can be. So it's good to have a playbook and it good to have internal syncs before anything external gets out. So we like to, you know, make sure that everybody has all the facts.

Kelley Weaver [00:17:14]:
That we have a plan before we're doing anything external, whether that's talking to reporters, utilizing social channels, etc. Because news travels quickly. And I think everyone panics and like, wants to put out fires. Sometimes that makes things worse.

Kyle Lawrence [00:17:28]:
It definitely can make things worse. What we've seen in recent years, though, which is different than when I was younger, is that bad news gets forgotten a little more quickly than it used to. It used to be you did something wrong and that was it. Your career is over. Nowadays you can do all kinds of terrible things and by the end of the week you're good to go. I hate to say it, but it's true.

Kelley Weaver [00:17:48]:
By the end of the week?

Kyle Lawrence [00:17:51]:
And we've seen that happen. I mean, I hope not. I'd like to see consequences for bad acts.

Kelley Weaver [00:17:59]:
I do think that. I mean, what I've learned too, from being in this industry for a long time, there's a lot of people who are tourists here that come in and then they bounce. And what I see now that's encouraging is that there's people who've been in it for a long game and have, you know, are in it for all the right reasons. And I think PR, any kind of relationship business, you have to play the long game. Right? You know, it's these relationships really matter. The reporters in this space move around a lot. And it is, like I mentioned, there's, you know, not that many of them, to be honest. And so you need to maintain your reputation and your relationships.

Kelley Weaver [00:18:35]:
You know, so doing something that I don't know is shortsighted. I just think in business in general, it's just not a good idea.

Moish Peltz [00:18:42]:
So we've talked a lot about the reporters in the space. What about the reporters outside the space that perhaps don't understand the space that well or are necessarily inclined to give the most favorable coverage? Something we've experienced on both those things. How do you approach telling the story to a non crypto native audience? Non crypto native reporter. And how does that change, you know, the way you communicate? I mean, this is just an example. Kyle and I were in conference earlier in the week and I ran into a reporter with one of the major national papers and was discussing an issue about one of the headline memecoins. And he asked a very pointed question about what I thought. And I said, well, there's questions about whether it was legal or not. And I took the position based on the SEC guidance, it seems like it probably is legal.

Moish Peltz [00:19:38]:
And that wasn't what he wanted to hear. And he seemed to Just like, well that's not so I'm curious like if you've seen that of maybe a reluctance to accept the internal crypto storyline from a more kind of mainstream audience and how you navigate those more difficult conversations.

Kelley Weaver [00:19:57]:
Of course. Has the story come out?

Moish Peltz [00:20:00]:
I don't, I don't think so.

Kyle Lawrence [00:20:02]:
I don't think it has.

Moish Peltz [00:20:03]:
I mean, I didn't, I don't think he was speaking to me specifically for, I mean, who knows? But as far as I know, not yet.

Kelley Weaver [00:20:10]:
I mean, listen, of course, you know, it's half the battle is education with some of the reports and there's such a mixed bag of knowledge and experience, you know, for any one of us probably, you know, but reporters too. And so you have to. Going into like part of what our job is, is to educate our clients to make it easy for them to understand who they're going to be talking to. So we provide one pagers with, okay, here's some recent articles, here's sentiment analysis, you know, here's maybe some background on who they are, like where they went to college, you know, anything that's going to help inform the conversation and give background into what type of conversation you're going into so our clients are not caught off guard with, you know, how to approach the conversation. And we'll educate, you know, help that process as much as we can so that it's, it's easier. Because I do think that a lot of, I mean this industry is at its core kind of shaking up, you know, legacy industries, that there is this, I mean we've seen it with so many banks over the years and you know, who have just been like, no, Bitcoin is, you know, for criminals to, you know, embracing it fully, you know, so it's, it's, we've got, we, we have to, you know, empower, educate and meet people where they're at, you know, and so if the clients have the tools going into these conversations that they know and there's reporters who listen. Like some of our clients are just like, I just don't want to speak to that reporter because they have a history of writing really negative slanted articles. And that's fair too, you know, I mean, so it's, it's, it's a matter of, I think, awareness of who you're going to be talking to and what they might be trying to get at.

Kelley Weaver [00:21:53]:
But I always think it's good to go into conversations open minded and you know, try to empower and educate these folks, especially those that are at legacy places because if you think about incentives. Right. Like a lot of crypto is kind of shaking things up for everybody a lot of the time and so they're scared of it.

Moish Peltz [00:22:17]:
But I mean, I agree with all that. But I guess to, to take a step back, do you, do you see there being a difference in the tenor of like what a crypto native outlet would cover and how they would cover it versus a more general interest publication or national media and like it. To me, to me it seems that way. I'm curious if you see it that way.

Kelley Weaver [00:22:41]:
Yeah, for sure. And it depends on, I mean, obviously they're catering to their audiences and when we first work with clients, we also help them understand, you know, what's going to move the needle the most. Right. Because it's like a. And so if, if their client, if there are users, let's, let's say are need to be crypto native, like it's a defi project. So then it's going to be more impactful for them to have coverage in the publications where there those audiences are as opposed to, you know, for vanity. It might be nice to get a quote in like the Wall Street Journal or Bloomberg. But is that really going to support their goals of maybe adding users, you know, those users, those readers are probably not there yet.

Kelley Weaver [00:23:23]:
So, you know, it depends on what the goals of the companies are. Sometimes a lot of the time companies really do. I mean, if they're fundraising, then maybe the mainstream audiences matter more if they're looking to, you know, and a lot of our clients, clients are institutions. So it does that, you know, that more mainstream is helpful, you know, because that's where those audiences are. But I think you just have to think about, yeah, what. What is going to be most impactful for what you're trying to do. And then, you know, how can you meet these reporters where they're at? And even, even the crypto reporters, there's a range, there's a range of.

Kyle Lawrence [00:23:59]:
Oh, for sure. Yeah.

Kelley Weaver [00:24:00]:
Of knowledge of, you know, level of technical, you know, some, some reporters really want to get into the weeds and speak to the CTOs and understand that the mechanics of the technology, whereas others, you know, don't touch that at all. So yeah, it's good to understand who you're talking to. Yes, I've experienced -

Moish Peltz [00:24:15]:
Its an interesting problem because if crypto is going to break into the mainstream, which is kind of, I think the goal of a lot of, I'm sure our clients, then there needs to be a way to communicate that, you know, more broadly and seems like that's. That's a lot of the challenge now is communicating really cool, breakthrough, emerging ideas to beyond a small circle of crypto Twitter enthusiasts.

Kelley Weaver [00:24:42]:
How do you guys keep up with the shifting tides?

Kyle Lawrence [00:24:49]:
It's a really good question. We just kind of dive in headfirst and hope we come out smelling like a rose on the other side. No, one of the things I kind of mentioned earlier is that, you know, I've been in private practice 20 years historically. Traditional finance guy, mergers, acquisitions, corporate. I've done a thousand, a thousand, ten thousand operating agreements, a thousand PPMs, all that kind of stuff. It becomes, I don't want to say boring, because clients are watching this, and your stuff is not boring, but it's mindless. So doing this, we're at the forefront. We're in a nascent industry.

Kyle Lawrence [00:25:27]:
We're trying to build it from the ground up, and it's very difficult to keep up, especially with the administration that we have. That moves very quickly, sometimes a little too quickly. But comparing where we are now to where we were a couple years ago, and just in terms of infrastructure around the space, legal infrastructure, accounting infrastructure, people like yourself who are involved and are helping to educate, I mean, that's the goal. I think one shared goal that we have is demystifying these things. Not just explaining, like, what is bitcoin, but how can bitcoin impact our lives and lives of people around the world? So I think that shared goal is something that is really important and one we should all harness. That doesn't really answer your question, but at least we have that commonality.

Moish Peltz [00:26:14]:
No, but I think also, I mean, just from a practical thing, just being interested in the technology ourselves, using the technology, being on crypto, Twitter. Honestly, this podcast is a huge, you know, for us, like, just having a goal of every two weeks putting on a show, and part of that show is we need to prepare and read and discuss everything that's happening in the news and in the legal industry, you know, and then our clients are constantly asking us questions about what's happening. So when you put all that together, it still feels like we can't keep up, but it's. It's at least, you know, every day, we're learning something new, so.

Kelley Weaver [00:26:52]:
We share that goal, too. It's like, let's move this industry forward responsibly, and let's be part of the fabric that. That brings this to the mainstream, you know, because there's. Yeah. I mean, there's so much to do here. But that's what hooked me in too. I was like, there's such an. There's such a lack of.

Kelley Weaver [00:27:14]:
I mean, I just think there's this network effect with bitcoin specifically, of, like, the more people who understand the potential here, the more it grows. Right. And so we need to be part of the storytelling that brings that to life. So, yeah, part of the mission. Interested in it. Having a podcast is so smart, by the way. I mean, in terms of you get to have these great conversations. I.

Kelley Weaver [00:27:36]:
That's one of the reasons I launched it in the first place. Mine was like, I was having all these great conversations, and I was like, I just want to record these. But then also you end up learning so much. So I love that you guys do this and keep up because it is really fun and interesting and there's so many amazing people in this industry now, and it's just really exciting to try to keep up with it all.

Kyle Lawrence [00:28:01]:
Moish mentioned the conference we were just at, and that's. I mean, your point is illustrated no better than there, because it used to be, like I was saying before a couple years ago, it would just be tech bros and us, and that's kind of all the people there. But you're at this conference in D.C. and you have lawyers, lobbyists, government officials. You have people from more diverse walks of life. And I think that's, you know, a rising tide floats all boats kind of thing. I think you're right.

Moish Peltz [00:28:27]:
It's the most politicians and lawyers I've seen in one room.

Kyle Lawrence [00:28:30]:
There were a lot. You see a lot of lobbyists.

Kelley Weaver [00:28:34]:
But it's amazing, like, flashback, you know, six, seven years ago, which is not that long. The industry looked nothing like that. Nothing. So it's fine.

Moish Peltz [00:28:45]:
If you had told me there would have been like 20 congressional members in like a room talking about crypto, I wouldn't have believed you.

Kelley Weaver [00:28:52]:
Like, what's the general sentiment?

Moish Peltz [00:28:55]:
I mean, everyone's trying to make stuff happen, right? It's, It's. It's fantastic, I think. Right. But there's, you know, there's really difficult regulatory questions that there are not a lot of great answers for. And so people are working through those things and trying to figure out, you know, how do they make, you know, their role as a, you know, lawmaker? How do they fulfill that role in a responsible way? How do they hear industry and react to the things that they're asking to make the industry work? How do they respond to the administration, which has their own agenda, and how do they operational do that in a way that they have the same Problem. Like I don't understand what you're talking about. This is moving too quickly. So you also see within Congress different levels of understanding and just different interests and representing different interests.

Moish Peltz [00:29:54]:
So it's really fascinating. It's completely different vibe than NFT NYC. It's like just pick a random conference. But it was really interesting and really everyone, I think that conference shared the goal of moving the industry forward in one way or another. Just, I think there's different ways to approach that.

Kelley Weaver [00:30:15]:
I mean I just think it's hard to believe it is unrecognizable. But each conference has a different vibe. Yes, for sure. You know, a different cast of characters.

Moish Peltz [00:30:25]:
That's definitely speaking of casts of characters and I'm curious how you think of or approach the question of influencers or key opinion leaders or whatever you want to call them.

Kyle Lawrence [00:30:40]:
Beat me to it.

Moish Peltz [00:30:42]:
What do you make of them? What role do you think they have in the ecosystem or should they have in the ecosystem? Because you know, I think a lot of people have gotten into trouble historically with them or they've caused negative backlash on projects or they've probably cause projects to break through in a way that no one else could have. Whether that's you know, FTX and all the people that were sponsoring them or you know, like a more positive story. I'm just, I'm just curious what you think about that whole ecosystem.

Kelley Weaver [00:31:16]:
Well, it's interesting. I mean at Melrose we, we draw the line with, with earned media, nothing paid. So that's you know, in terms of anyone who wants payment for promotion, we don't handle that at Melrose it's all earned media. So we work with a lot of, you know, people that you might consider in that bucket as KOLs, but they're not receiving payment for having people on their show. You know, I mean, I don't know on a personal level I'm a little bit allergic to my friends sending me tik toks about, you know.

Kyle Lawrence [00:31:49]:
You too, huh Kelley?

Kelley Weaver [00:31:52]:
Should I be buying this? I'm like oh God.

Kyle Lawrence [00:31:54]:
Oh God.

Kelley Weaver [00:31:55]:
It just, it crushes my soul a little bit. So, you know, there's that. But I do think that anything that's going to help educate the public, you know and I think that there's some, so that's a huge bucket of people that we're talking about these, these industry, you know, influencers if you will. And there's, there's a lot that are like really their heart is in the right place and really trying to bring this forward and educate and so there's definitely a place for that. But I, it is, it is the wild west a little bit. It, you know, in terms of information. And so again like the goal is to move this forward responsibly. The only thing paid that we do, which is sort of segments into what we built with bitwire is on the day that our clients news goes live, we typically put those announcements out on, you know, through news wires and paid press release engines.

Kelley Weaver [00:32:45]:
And that's where we're like paying for the distribution of the official news announcement from the source of the client on the day the news goes live. But the goal is always the earned media.

Moish Peltz [00:32:56]:
So why don't you take a step back and explain to us what Bitwire is and what problem you're trying to solve with it.

Kelley Weaver [00:33:03]:
Sure. I mean, so we, we were customers of Newswire since, you know, Melrose was founded 13 years ago. And they're built for sort of this stone age of, it's this spray and pray model where you, you pay for distribution but you, it's unclear what you're actually getting for that. You know, they, they sprinkle it to hundreds of different news outlets, many of which you've never heard of or may not exist in a couple of weeks. And what I noticed over the years was my team was just sharing one high quality link back to our clients. And I'm thinking, okay, wait a second, we're paying for all this distribution. And you know, five plus years ago Google used to care about all these syndications. Now they really care about quality over quantity.

Kelley Weaver [00:33:50]:
And so this, you know, they're smarter. Like the algorithms have outsmarted syndications. And so you know, and then, so we were, we just became very frustrated with these. And then also our clients had appetite occasionally for distribution in, in crypto native channels. And so, and that, that exists. There are traditional newswires for crypto out there, but it's the same model like this spray and pray. It's unclear what you're getting. You're paying all this money and really you just care about those marquee publications.

Kyle Lawrence [00:34:20]:
Yeah.

Kelley Weaver [00:34:21]:
And so we were like, well why can't we just go direct to these publishers and you know, build a business based on transparency about what you're actually getting, what you're actually paying for. And you know, something that's reliable, like we wanted it to go out on time, basic stuff, you know, be able to ease of use to schedule. And I was very naive. I thought that this would be like a two month month project that you know, we'd be able to build overnight. I've never built a tech tool before from scratch. And so here we are almost a year later. We've been building it and Melrose has been using it for the past few months very successfully. We're thrilled because it solved all of our problems and we've just started now, you know, letting the cat out of the bag, so to speak about.

Kelley Weaver [00:35:06]:
We have this tool that we built and the reception has been honestly quite overwhelming in terms of there's definitely a market for this. And listen, you could always, if it's not meant to take away from earned media, you know, earned media is always the goal and always the gold. Right? You know, organic stories. But on the day that a client has an official news announcement, you know, it's nice to stake your mark in the sand and say, this is what we said. Here's our quotes like here's, here's the source of truth right? Now listen, could you put that on your own channel or social channels? Of course. And you know, and clients may choose to do that, but there is a group of people, and most of our clients, in fact all of our clients that want to, you know, publish it somewhere. And our base product is AP News. So if all you care about is one high quality global link, that's, you know, and it's a price point that's approachable, you know, $350 for one news announcement.

Kelley Weaver [00:36:03]:
Like there's nowhere else on the market where you're going to be able to get like one high quality link and it goes to their newsroom. And then let's say you care about CoinDesk or you care about Cointelegraph, the block, the Defiant, you want those crypto native channels, you can choose to purchase that. And so we built that for us. The other cool thing is that we have the first ever bitcoin newswire on the market because we have a partnership with Bitcoin magazine and Bitcoin for corporations. So it's the first time that if you're a bitcoin company and you want to put your news on those native channels, you can through Bitwire. So that's really cool. And then we just can, I mean the reception from the publishers has been enormous because I think, you know, they don't want to be bucketed with these low quality publishers either. Right.

Kelley Weaver [00:36:50]:
You know.

Moish Peltz [00:36:50]:
Right.

Kelley Weaver [00:36:52]:
So.

Moish Peltz [00:36:53]:
Sounds awesome! Congratulations on, on launching that. Sounds like it's going to be a really, you know, awesome product for a ton of people in the space so.

Kelley Weaver [00:36:58]:
Thank you. Yeah, it's fun. We're leveraging the magic of AI to make the whole scheduling process a lot smoother too. It's something that you guys probably don't deal with, but it was just like taking 30, 45 minutes of my team's time. I'm like, this is ridiculous. So now it takes all of five minutes and hopefully. Delightful.

Kyle Lawrence [00:37:19]:
We definitely use AI as a tool, not as a replacement. You know, the advice we always give people is you're not going to lose your job to AI. You're going to lose your job to a person who knows how to use AI. So that's good. I mean, listen, work smarter, not harder.

Kelley Weaver [00:37:37]:
Totally. I use it as a sounding board, you know, and helping me flesh out content ideas. And yes, it's, it's very helpful. It's a very helpful tool.

Moish Peltz [00:37:47]:
This is a note to our producer, Shaun, that the YouTube title card for this is definitely going to be Studio Ghibli style. Um.

Kelley Weaver [00:37:54]:
Oh, yeah.

Moish Peltz [00:37:57]:
But I'm, I'm curious, Kelley, what, what you see in AI and how that might change, you know, the future of what it means to communicate and to tell a story in, in your industry.

Kelley Weaver [00:38:10]:
You know, it's a good question. I think that at the end of the day, people want to talk to humans, right. And you know, we're working with a lot of spokespeople that are super smart. I think personal from a content, definitely content is going to change. The nature of content is going to change. There's going to be more of an emphasis on quality content. Right. You know, if there, if these content machines exist, then it's going to become so easy for people to churn out content.

Kelley Weaver [00:38:34]:
But I think that there's going to be a migration towards quality, right. And like an actual point of view. And so I think that it's going to help us become more efficient. You know, both, I mean, report supporters use it as a tool too. Right. So we're all using it as a tool, you know, and I think it's not replacing human content. Right. I mean, if you just copy and paste what Claude or Chat GPT gives you, like, good luck, you know what I mean? I don't know.

Moish Peltz [00:39:01]:
It's starting to get pretty good sometimes.

Kelley Weaver [00:39:04]:
What I love is like when you can have them emulate tone so you can say, I wanted this tone. That's so cool. I mean, it's amazing that computers could do that. So I don't know.

Kyle Lawrence [00:39:15]:
It's cool. It's also scary, but. Yeah, for sure.

Kelley Weaver [00:39:18]:
But I think that, I don't know, just, I think that, I mean, the deep fake stuff scares me a bit, but now I can, I can spot it now. I don't know. Now that we've had like, I feel like a year of conditioning. You can spot AI writing very quickly. You can spot deep fake, you know, YouTube pre roll videos pretty easily. Michael Saylor telling you to buy Solana? Probably not.

Kyle Lawrence [00:39:43]:
Hey, that's a shameless plug right there. There you go.

Moish Peltz [00:39:50]:
That was the facial map over Kyle.

Kyle Lawrence [00:39:52]:
Yeah. You did it. You sang my song.

Kelley Weaver [00:39:55]:
I mean that stuff, at first when I saw it, it was scary. And then when you. I don't know, you can kind of. But I do get concerned over who, who's being, you know, spoofed by that stuff. That is, it is a little scary for sure. But I think that AI, I'm bullish on it. I think that it's going to make us way more efficient. There's going to be a focus on quality again.

Kelley Weaver [00:40:15]:
We're in a relationship business, right? So it's like human to human, you know, I don't think people people -

Kyle Lawrence [00:40:20]:
You're right in that there are still people who get fooled by AI. I mean, some of it is really impressively done and hard to spot with some of the images, especially during the political campaigns. To us it's obvious we a little more attuned to it, but to a lot of people who. Not out of Texa. I don't know what the right way is to put it. They don't. So hopefully just with the integration of it into our day to day lives, people do start to spot the difference.

Kyle Lawrence [00:40:49]:
But moist is right. Some of it's, it's pretty good. I don't know, I guess that probably.

Moish Peltz [00:40:54]:
Also speaks to the value of earned media because if you're looking for or you know, real authentic quality content, you know, what, what are you going to trust? Like just random Internet garbage or you know, something that's real.

Kelley Weaver [00:41:08]:
So I mean, one of the things about earned media in this, in this sector, and I don't know, now that we've been in it for so long, I don't know outside of it as well, but it's just so competitive, right? There's just so much flying. Like these reporters are no longer canvassing news wires for their stories, right? They don't have time for that. They're getting like hundreds and hundreds of, of pitches a day. You know, they open their inbox and it's just absurd, you know. And so that's why trust matters. That's why relationships matter. Because if you can break through that noise and have someone who's going to at least open your email or like telegram you back and say, you know, yes, no, or thank you, you know, or whatever, then you're gonna have a way better shot. And there's just so much like I feel for these.

Kelley Weaver [00:41:50]:
The newsrooms are struggling because it's like there's so few people there, you know, there. And oftentimes they're writing like just an absurd amount of stories per week mandated. And so it's like they don't have that much time, so extra time to be. So it is, you know, if you can understand what, what they're like, put yourself in their shoes and then, you know, pitch appropriately, then that's gonna net you way better results than like this, the spray and pray model. In my opinion, even in, you know, like, sending out email blasts is somewhat for reporter pitches. It's just dead like that's, it's, you know, you have to meet them where they're at. Now that being said, if you can be effective, you know, even without a PR agency, if you can, you know, slip into someone's dms or like, you know, if you understand who you're speaking to, I think this is, goes, this is in sales, any kind of job, you know, you can like, make things happen by just relating to someone on a human to human level level and, you know, having context about who they are, what they write, all of that. And so it isn't, again, it, you can do it yourself.

Kelley Weaver [00:42:59]:
It just takes a little bit of, you know, finesse and time.

Moish Peltz [00:43:02]:
You raised an interesting question there, when I agree with all that. But then like, I also sense like this struggle for like, the aspiring reporters that are overwhelmed and probably underpaid. And I think there's also been a ton of turnover in the crypto news media. Some of the outlets have been purchased by exchanges that maybe have. So, like, what, what's your view on, you know, the state of crypto media and, and the future? Like, where, where is that going, you know, is like, what's the place of crypto media? What, what does an aspiring reporter like, what, what should they be doing now to, to make sure that they're, you know, doing all the right things?

Kelley Weaver [00:43:45]:
I mean, you bring up a really interesting point about like a lot of the times. Why, why folks might want to hire a crypto native PR firm is because there is, there are, it's, it's, it is a bit bizarre the fact that, you know, the block is now owned by a VC. You know, CoinDesk is now owned by an exchange, you know, there's still some independence. And so you have to understand that like the financial incentives of these publications when you're pitching because it's going to impact. And there was, you know, this mass exodus at CoinDesk from the reporter side late last fall that was kind of sad to see A lot of, you know, the people that we love working with, you know, just found themselves in a really tough spot where they didn't necessarily ethically agree to what was happening and felt like they needed to move on. There is, we, we co hosted this decentralized media summit at East Denver last month and there I do think that there's this general, I mean the defiant. I really respect. I Cammy's amazing.

Kelley Weaver [00:44:48]:
They are, you know, trying to, I don't know, put their money where their mouth is or I don't know if that's the right term but like they're, they're actually going to be storing their, you know, their content on, on the blockchain via filed coin and they're like moving to, you know. So I think that everyone in, in this industry is trying to find ways to use the tools to make this better. But you know, for these reporters it is tricky. It's. You need to understand like the ins and outs of like who's, you know, I guess the incentive structures even blockworks. They have investors and they do. I really respect those guys. They do a great job.

Kelley Weaver [00:45:29]:
I mean listen, we, we work with all of the major crypto and I think everyone's doing the best that they can. You know, at the end of the day everyone needs to get paid. And so it's, you know, everyone's, that's what these business models, that's why something like bitwire has been very well received by the publishers because they, you know, they're figuring out their revenue models. So. Yeah, I don't know. Does that answer your question?

Moish Peltz [00:45:54]:
For sure. I mean it's fascinating, right? The whole crypto is endlessly fascinating. Crypto legal is an endlessly fascinating subset of legal and same thing for the media. The crypto media is just this new organism that I don't think we know what it is yet. And I think the idea of decentralized storage and publication and new business models and incentive structures, we haven't really figured that out yet. So it's going to be really fascinating to see how that evolves over the years and I'm sure-

Kelley Weaver [00:46:26]:
It will a big experiment. I mean reporters in general, you know, it is an underpaid subset and we did see this migration a couple of years ago and we're like, oh, man. Where a lot of the reporters that we work with at CoinDesk or TechCrunch or, you know, Decrypt or Fortune, they all got kind of. A lot of the VC started these in house content arms and they kept coaching these reporters and we're like, no, you know, because we love working with them. And then now all of a sudden they're, you know, it's like the relationship, the nature of the relationship changes. But that's, you know, but if you understand from a human perspective, like, of course they could probably pay a lot better than these publications can, you know. And how do these publications remain independent when, you know, they have to also pay the bills? So it is. I think it's ripe for disruption.

Moish Peltz [00:47:20]:
Yeah. Or just some OG bitcoiner can just drop.

Kelley Weaver [00:47:25]:
Coinage is an interesting example. Do you guys know Zach Guzman?

Kelley Weaver [00:47:30]:
He.

Kyle Lawrence [00:47:31]:
I do not.

Kelley Weaver [00:47:33]:
Where was he before? But he launched Coinage and they're community owned. So he's, you know, and that's kind of an interesting model and it has been very well received.

Moish Peltz [00:47:45]:
Yeah. So maybe that's the answer is some reporters are just so embedded in the space, they make a ton of money and then they're not doing it for that reason anymore. They're doing it for the love and the ability to tell the story. So, you know, again, endlessly fascinating.

Kelley Weaver [00:48:02]:
I like to believe that everyone who's stuck around long enough is in it because they do love the technology. Because none of us have come out unscathed.

Kyle Lawrence [00:48:10]:
Right. That's how we always felt about bear markets, is that people who can weather those, those are the people who are serious about building things. So when Moish and I formed the Digital Assets practice group at the firm, it was during the NFT boom and there were tons of riff raff, you know, people just looking to come in, get a few million bucks and get out after that. Everybody who was left over are the people who are still kind of around building real projects with an eye towards the future and not just a cash grab. I mean, yeah, they're making money. Let's not be idealists. But there is a view, there is a vision, there is a. There's real application here.

Kyle Lawrence [00:48:44]:
So I completely agree with you. Well, Kelley, we really thank you for stopping by Block and Order, especially from beautiful Jackson Hole. Why don't you tell the people where they can find you?

Kelley Weaver [00:48:54]:
So I'm cryptokelley on Twitter. That's probably the best place. But also Melrosepr.com and bitwire.com are good places.

Kyle Lawrence [00:49:03]:
Fantastic. Well, thank you so much for your time and we look forward to continuing the conversation.

Kelley Weaver [00:49:07]:
Thank you guys so much for having me.

Kyle Lawrence [00:49:12]:
Well, that wraps up this edition of Block in order. A very special thank you to Kelley Weaver. We greatly appreciate her time. Don't forget to follow us and Kelley on all our respective socials. We'll put links down below in the show notes. Any comments, questions or concerns, anything you'd like us to talk about, please drop us a comment. We take those comments very seriously. Remember, nothing contained on the show is meant to be construed as legal and or financial advice.

Kyle Lawrence [00:49:35]:
Please consult your own representatives if you're going to jump down the rabbit hole. Very special thank you to producer Shaun. Without him, the show would not be possible. On behalf of Moish Peltz, I'm Kyle Lawrence. Take care everybody.