Will Your Financial Advisor Leave You – Just When You Need Them Most?

What to do if your advisor might exit the workforce before you do

Ric Edelman: It's Friday, February 16th. On today's show, why we need more people to become financial advisors. Plus a conversation with Richard Jackson, Oklahoma's Deputy Attorney General for crypto.  

I know you're busy working to prepare for your retirement. After you retire, will you fire your lawyer, your doctor, your accountant? Will you fire your financial advisor? You might not plan to fire any of them simply because you retire, but they might fire you, especially your financial advisor. That's because not only are you thinking of maybe retiring, your financial advisor might be thinking that as well.  

A new study says 38% of all advisors, four out of ten, are going to retire over the next ten years. And of the new advisors who are going to replace them, 72% will quit the industry within their first five years of being an advisor. In other words, we aren't going to have enough financial advisors in years to come. The time in your life when you're going to need your advisor most, they truly might not be there to help you.  

So simple question for you how old is your advisor? What are their retirement plans? Have you discussed all this with them? There's really just one question for you to give your financial advisor. What is their succession plan? The ideal situation is where your advisor works as a team with other advisors. Even if your advisor is not around, there are others who can step in right away seamlessly. They understand the advice you've been getting. They're familiar with the investments you own. They've got access to your accounts and your documents. Everything is simple and seamless. 

But too often financial advisors work solo. They've got no assistant and no colleague you can turn to when your advisor quits or simply is on vacation or in the hospital, you're on your own. Or when they do quit, they're going to sell their practice, meaning they're going to sell their book of business, meaning you and your account. The buyer of that practice wants the revenue that you generate via the fee you pay. But the new advisor, the buyer of that practice, knows nothing about you or your account. They might not even agree with the advice that you were getting from the old advisor, the current advisor you have. This means you might be able to expect completely new advice, which you might not like, or which might create hassles or work for you.  

So for all these reasons, you've got to talk to your advisor today. And if you are that advisor, you need to talk to your clients today. You need to give them reassurance that you've got this covered for them, just like they'd expect. And don't think this isn't an issue if your advisor says they have no plans to retire. Remember, advisors can get sick, they can get injured, they could simply be away on vacation. The average financial advisor in this country is near 60 years of age, and by age 65, 1 in 10 people will have Alzheimer's.  

Is it possible your advisor could become too ill to serve you? This is why you need to have a conversation about your advisor’s succession plan. The SEC demands that financial advisors have a succession plan. You want to ask your advisor to show you theirs. 

I want you to know that Wealth Management Convergence, which I've created, is coming to West Palm Beach March 10 to 12. It's exclusively for financial advisors. You'll get the investment strategies you need today with no breakout sessions, no PowerPoints, and only financial advisors and RIA firms allowed to register. You'll learn from some of the most successful people in this business with conversations on generative AI, exponential technologies, longevity, estate planning, crypto a whole lot more. Free one-on-one meetings and “dine arounds” with plenty of CE credits. West Palm Beach, March 10 to 12. I've got a promo code for you too, exclusively for advisors listening to this podcast. Use the link in the show notes to register. Discount code WMC2024. You'll save $100 and I'll see you there. 

Coming up next, Richard Jackson, the deputy attorney general of Oklahoma for cyber security, technology and digital assets. Stay with us. 

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Ric Edelman: You're listening to the truth about your future. I'm Ric Edelman. You know, we talk a lot about crypto on this program. It's probably about 20% of our content because it's just such a dynamic. And I think exciting thing to talk about. One of the myths, I'm not even sure if it's a myth, maybe there's some accuracy to this, is that the federal government has not yet released any substantial legislation or regulation in the field of crypto. Gary Gensler, the SEC chair, has been adamant in saying we don't need any new regulations. There are plenty of existing regulations. Congress has been offering a lot of bills in the world of crypto, but none have been passed as yet. But does that mean nothing is going on in the world of crypto from a regulatory legislative perspective? Is there total silence? Well, there really isn't, because what's happening is since the federal government hasn't really been doing a lot, the states are starting to pick up the slack. And one of the states that has been very forward in this is a state that I think might surprise you. I'm very happy to bring on to the program. Richard Jackson. He is the Deputy Attorney General of Cybersecurity, Technology and Digital Assets for the great state of Oklahoma. Deputy Attorney General, thank you for joining us on the show.  

Richard Jackson: Thank you for having me. Glad to join.  

Ric Edelman: Deputy Attorney General of Cybersecurity, Technology and Digital Assets. I mean, not only is it a mouthful, it doesn't strike me as something intuitive that Oklahoma or any state would come up with a position like this. So you've got an economics degree and a law degree. You hold a lot of cybersecurity designations, among others. You are a Certified Information Systems Security Professional. You're also hold a Series 65. So you're very familiar with the securities laws. And my favorite, and I just want to give you a quick shout out, you're in the US Marine Corps Reserves as a liaison officer in the Office of Research and Engineering in the Department of Defense. Thank you for your service in that regard.  

Richard Jackson: Thank you for your support.  

Ric Edelman: Why is it that Oklahoma has created this position, establishing you as the state's subject matter expert on cybersecurity, policy, regulation, compliance, innovation, entrepreneurship, and particularly the digital assets industry?  

Richard Jackson: Well, so I will have to say that I really love the thesis of the show that technology will be transformative in every aspect of our lives. And I share that perspective with you, and I'm sure your listeners as well, where the position actually comes out of, and why Oklahoma is one of those kind of fortunes of circumstance, and that I am in Oklahoma, and through a series of observations and personal experiences, have been able to, in my mind, create a common thesis between cybersecurity technology and digital assets. So I will actually take your thesis and add a little bit of a qualifier to it and say that if we want to maximize the opportunity that novel technologies present, like all good investments, there's a time function associated with it. And so we are up against the clock in some respects to achieving the maximum benefit that could accrue from novel technologies. And so it's through that series of observations and personal experiences that I articulated to our Attorney General Gentner Drummond as the reason why Oklahoma wants to take a thought leadership position in each of those industries or verticals. He agreed, and now has allowed me to be the vanguard for Oklahoma's opportunity to really lead in novel technology.  

Ric Edelman: And so this is a new position didn't exist before you really championed this concept. Tell me about your journey down that rabbit hole. How did you make the connection between cybersecurity, which I think everybody knows why that is so vital, and the link to digital assets? 

Richard Jackson: Sure. So it starts all the way back, I think in 2014, 2015, I was originally an oil and gas attorney and then moved into cybersecurity for the opportunities that I think were dramatically beginning to emerge in that time. We were really catching a hockey stick in the industry in terms of public awareness, public perception, and in the need, particularly in government, for having true cybersecurity capabilities. So in studying the industry and then learning and gaining experience in cyber as a practitioner, as a legal participant, I saw kind of the opportunity set that we had seen or were needing to see in terms of a critical vulnerabilities. And we were focusing mostly on vulnerabilities as it relates to critical infrastructure, things like personal data security, the financial security of the United States, many of the things that we hear about in the news, unfortunately, every time that there's a breach. So I recognize that there was an opportunity in the negative sense that if we don't do something that we're remaining at risk. Couple that with some experience that I've had in the military space, where I was effectively a fly on the wall for very high-level discussions around what the Department of Defense and specifically the Marine Corps needed to do in the context of great power competition, to adjust the way that we were thinking about the threats to national security and the transition from focusing on non-state terrorism to what is now, I think again in the news quite frequently, the reemergence of great power competition, namely, potential threats between the United States and Russia and China. And so seeing kind of what had happened there from the military perspective, what I'd seen in cybersecurity. 

And then my first foray into digital assets was in 2016. I read the [bitcoin] white paper, had seen a lot of publications, a lot of blogs, a lot of podcasts, including yours on the opportunity set that existed. And I saw a confluence between them in a novel concept of the competitive advantage that the United States could gain in shifting towards a digitally oriented future. And so a lot of the things that you speak to about the opportunity that we as individuals can gain in understanding and embracing digital assets, I saw as part of a confluence of ideas around strategic computational advantage for the United States to really reemerge in the 21st century in the same way that we did in the 1940s and 1950s, leveraging what was then novel technologies. Again, here in the current state of affairs in the US.  

Ric Edelman: A distinct computational advantage.  

Richard Jackson: If you can visualize in your mind, almost like a Venn diagram, where in one circle we have what you and I would call information or data. It's an abstract concept, but we put it there so that we can understand it. And then, if you will, in the other circle of the Venn diagram, think of the physical domains. And I'll use the word domain in the sense that the military thinks of it, meaning just a distinct area of operation. So land, sea, air, space, those are the physical domains where the information domain and the physical domains are tangent to each other, where information flows back and forth, where data flows back and forth from observations in the physical world. And then what we do to understand or compute or exchange value is that there is a logical domain that I will refer to as the cyber domain. It's a logical connection between information and the physical world that we just have to mentally construct to be able to move back and forth. And so when we talk about things like national security or the opportunity set for the state or for US citizens, it really is kind of at that estuary where what is happening around us, we are we're taking data, we're gathering data, and whether that’s something that we perceive or we read.  

We hear a lot about misinformation, whether that's things like the sensors that we coexist with all the time now. So think self-driving cars or artificial intelligence or machine learning or even things like the military space where you talk about weapon systems and things like that, is how do we preserve the sanctity, for lack of a better word, of the information and data that's flowing back and forth between what we consume, what we understand, and what we process? And so if you look at it in those terms of constructs, strategic computational advantage is preserving an advantage in those spaces. So are we making sure that our data is safe? Are we making sure that when we execute a computation, two plus two, that the result is four? Obviously that's a very simple example. But when you start talking about things like health information or financial information or critical infrastructure like the operation of a nuclear power facility, it's very important that two plus two actually do equal four. And so as we move back and forth and again and even into the disinformation concept, how do we make sure that the information that we're consuming and processing is the truth? Or is realistic or is it an accurate representation of the observations that we're making?  

Ric Edelman: This is pretty profound content that you're describing. But why Oklahoma? That doesn't seem to be germane to Oklahoma. What you're describing is really national policy issues, global policy issues for that matter. You know, I can appreciate why you're interested in this and focused on it. And you go to the attorney general of Oklahoma and say, hey, we need to create a focus on this. You need to create a deputy attorney general to focus on this. And that person needs to be me. Why would the Attorney General of Oklahoma say, you're absolutely right, let's do it, as opposed to saying that's for the Justice Department in Washington, or there are 49 other AGs out there. Leave it to them. Why Oklahoma?  

Richard Jackson: Sure. So I think I will use digital assets as a microcosm for all of what we've described in that as the federal government has, for lack of a better term, displayed either their antipathy or antagonism towards the digital asset industry. And, quite frankly, an unwillingness to provide meaningful guidance. At the state level, not just in Oklahoma, but nationally, we recognize that there is an opportunity for those who are willing to act in the absence of certainty to wade into questions of law and policy, technology. And if you can gather subject matter experts to approach or to seek correct answers or right answers, then the states can step in and assert their sovereign privileges and say that in the absence of federal action, we are willing to act when you are not. And so digital assets is perhaps the easiest example to show why this is not the case. And in technology and cybersecurity, it really is that the problem set is so large that our federal partners are willing to work with whomever is willing to engage in the problem set. And it just happens to be that as a resident of Oklahoma, I was working in Oklahoma in cybersecurity. Now prior to this role, it's just one of those things that we have a very action-oriented attorney general here in Oklahoma. And when I brought him the opportunity and said this, I think there's a very realistic value-add for why you, the attorney general and why Oklahoma, as a state wants to lead in these spaces, that there is an opportunity to do so. It's not to say that there isn't the same kind of action happening around the country. It's just that I'm leveraging, we'll call it a competitive edge or a competitive disposition in that I want to move faster, better. We want to accomplish more. And while I'm more than happy to have other states participate, I intend and will succeed in making Oklahoma the premier jurisdiction for each of these things.  

Ric Edelman: In other words, if not us, who? Not now? When? So God bless. I'm really glad you're taking that initiative. So what are the policy goals that you have? What is it that you say you are going to succeed at? What is it you're trying to accomplish?  

Richard Jackson: Sure. So I'll approach each of my three divisions in line. So in cybersecurity, the first thing that we're seeking to accomplish is to modernize the cybersecurity, legal and regulatory environment in the state. So looking at current state of our law and policy as it relates to cybersecurity, looking at the best practices that our federal partners or subject matter experts say that this is really where we need to go, updating our laws and our statutes to reflect those best practices and really lean into being, again, a thought leader in the cybersecurity space, knowing that cybersecurity is a fundamental foundational element of the transition into a digital future and advanced technology future. And so even if we didn't seek to be a preeminent jurisdiction, we would need to catch up in this space anyway, because like many things, the government tends to be about 20 years behind private industry. And so we have a lot of catching up to do. And what we've seen around the nation. I mean, I wake up every day to a new headline about someone being hacked, someone being held hostage or having data stolen or you name it. I recognize that from a consumer protection perspective, from a thought leadership perspective, that the state really needs to step in and modernize and quite frankly, lead from the front on this effort.  

So that's cybersecurity and digital assets. I think that one kind of speaks for itself in that to your point, there's been a lot said in Washington, D.C., but not a lot done. I won't call it virtue signaling. I'll call it intent signaling. And this is frank speculation. It is our federal lawmakers, our federal agencies demonstrating to the public what they would like to do and testing the waters and seeing kind of what they can get away with. I think we're seeing a lot of jurisdictional infighting between the SEC and the CFTC over whether or not certain assets are within their purview. And we've seen that even just in the definition of Bitcoin or Ethereum as commodity or security, you ask one agency, they will tell you one thing, you ask another, they will tell you a different thing. It's kind of like the joke... If you ask ten economists for predictions of the future, you'll get 11 answers. And so we're seeing the same thing out of the federal government. And while many of the proposed pieces of legislation I think are valuable in terms of the opportunity to review what is being discussed in the halls of government.  

I think it's very realistic to say that we won't see meaningful legislation passed probably before the next election. And so there's a window of regulatory arbitrage, for lack of better terms, for the states to act in that space. And so I recognize that we have an opportunity with the industry to signal that we are at least not enemies, and we want to work together and promote the industry in the United States. And if it's going to be in the US, why not Oklahoma? And so in technology in the third space is recognizing, again, kind of what we've seen in whether it's the CHIPS Act or the Inflation Reduction Act, the work in the cyberspace, a lot of innovation is being promoted by the Department of Defense, Department of Energy, recognizing that, as we have spent the last two decades focused on non-state terrorism, that the reemergence or emergence of great power competition has demonstrated critical vulnerabilities in the technology space as it relates to national security. And so Oklahoma is a very pro US pro-military state. And so why not leverage our capabilities to help promote the increase of competitive advantage through a defense innovation industrial base. And so we look to promote that here in the state.  

Ric Edelman: Let's build on that theme for a moment. Most of what you've just said has been related to protection, consumer protection, industrial business, corporate protection, a cybersecurity and technology, etc., but you just made a reference to competitiveness, which is not a protection element. That is a growth element. That's a business-focused element, an economic development element. I mean, there are probably half a dozen states that come to mind that are overtly saying they want digital assets in their state; Florida, Texas, Colorado, Wyoming in particular, have been very, very overt in their efforts to welcome the crypto community in and the attitude that it produces a lot of high paying green jobs that is wonderful for economic development. Is Oklahoma joining that crowd? Does Oklahoma feel that you want to be a hub for the digital asset community?  

Richard Jackson: Yes. That's accurate. And I'd say not only do we want to be a hub; we want to be the single greatest hub. We want to be the premier jurisdiction for digital assets in the United States. And so recognizing, as you say, that there's a lot of effort around the United States, Texas, Florida, Colorado, Wyoming. I'll even add Ohio. We're actually in talks with many of those states as well, learning the lessons of their scars to try to be better. I think in some instances there's actually there's a better opportunity as a third mover advantage. So if you want to think about kind of the first strike or the first bite at the apple happened probably in California, a natural nexus to Silicon Valley. A lot of the companies in digital assets in the United States are based in the San Francisco area. So California, by virtue of proximity, had to learn this thing first. New York, also with their BitLicense, in their willingness to engage in regulatory intervention, we'll call it was probably I'll call that in the first tranche. And then you see kind of a second mover advantage as we became more familiar with the industry, Texas, Florida, Wyoming, South Dakota, Colorado, Ohio also moved into that space. And so now Oklahoma, effectively joining the race on the third lap, is learning the lessons of those first two tranches in and saying, how do we do things better? How do we do things right? How do we learn from the lessons of the past to accomplish outsized returns for our state? And yes, we want to move the digital asset industry to Oklahoma.  

We want to preserve it in the United States. We want to make sure that what is in effect, in my opinion, something akin to either the semiconductor or the internet of my age, just in the same way that those two technologies were incredibly transformative in the 30s, 40s and 50s. We may be looking at the same type of technological revolution, but we have a federal government who's less than enthusiastic in whole. There are certainly individual lawmakers who are very receptive to digital assets, but I think we are getting lost in the details of very particulars and not seeing a 25, 50, 100-year vision of where digital assets could take us. And so, again, finding common theme between all the things that I've worked on is that I see that digital assets plays a role into the future, and we want to make sure that future takes place here in Oklahoma.  

Ric Edelman: Okay, so there are 50 states. Puerto Rico is also pretty heavily engaged in crypto. So call it 51. You have half a dozen states, as you've mentioned, that are already engaged to some degree. The second tranche, as you referenced them, along comes Oklahoma. You're now in competition with these other states for crypto companies to do business in your state as opposed to somebody else's state. So give me your sales pitch. What is the value proposition Oklahoma offers that I can't get elsewhere, or I don't get as good a deal elsewhere as I get it from Oklahoma.  

Richard Jackson: Sure. And I want to make sure to all my friends in Texas and Florida and around the country that I view it as cooperative competition. Right? It's we are on a team collectively trying to make each other better. I just happen to think that I'm the fastest guy on the team. And now let's go race. So the sales pitch really is it relates to the ability for Oklahoma to execute at a speed and a tempo that other states have demonstrated they're not willing to. I am not a government guy. I do not intend to remain in the public sector, not because I don't value it, but because I, like many, bristle against the institutional inertia that comes with the pace of operations inside of government. But I recognize that it's a necessary element to achieving transformational changes, working with and through government operations to accomplish that. So how do we take what is effectively an innovation or start up mindset that exists in the private sector and bring it into the public sector? And that is, I think, where we see a competitive advantage as related to our other states that we're certainly working with. But competing against is that we will move faster, we will do better, we will accomplish more in less time. We'll be more receptive. We will be proactive. We will do all the things at a pace and operation that other state governments don't think that they need to, and that we as Oklahoma, recognizing again, that we're on the starting line while others are on their third lap, that we have to do something to be faster and better and quicker. And so it's again, the question, I think, why the attorney general's office, why not anywhere else, is because we have the ability to move into executive circles. We have ability to move into legislative circles. We have ability to move into judicial circles, and we can gather coalitions of the willing effectively and say, if we can establish systems and processes in the state, we will see outsized gains as it relates to this and many other industries.  

Ric Edelman: Now, you've talked about policy issues that make Oklahoma favorable. How about physical issues, for example, bitcoin miners, these are massive operations. They buy a lot of land. They bring a lot of technology into a state. They are always looking for a home to place their mining operations in. And they're generally looking for low-cost operational environments. They want to buy land cheap. They want to be able to hire inexpensively, and they want to be able to power their equipment at low cost. Does Oklahoma have any particular advantages for bitcoin miners in your state compared to other states?  

Richard Jackson: We actually excel in all three of those things that you mentioned. First off, Oklahoma is a very large state. We have a lot of land that is for sale. The second thing, cost of living, cost of labor, cost of operations here in the state are very low. And we also as a very energy intensive state and offer the opportunity for low-cost power generation. So combining those three things is a very receptive jurisdiction for proof-of-work mining bitcoin specifically. And right now it really is a question of outreach and perception, in that I think Texas tried to lead in that space and say we want to bring this industry here for all the reasons that Oklahoma can articulate is this. Now that we are coming up to speed on how to engage with industry, how to communicate the value propositions in this state. And so whether it be low-cost power, lots of water, again, you need the power. You also need to cool it. We have a lot of water in the state of Oklahoma. We have a lot of land. And now again layering on the policy element is that you have a state government that is increasingly warming to all of the opportunity that digital assets and proof-of-work mining presents to a state, many of which I think your listeners will be familiar with, having gone through basically the entire catalog of all your episodes.  

Ric Edelman: Yeah. Thank you. When you say energy intensive, I just want to make sure everybody recognizes this. Oklahoma is one of the major oil states of our country. So you're producing the oil right there, which leads to the energy availability at low-cost and...  

Richard Jackson: Not just oil and gas. We're actually one of the largest producers of clean energies. So solar, wind and other nontraditional sources of energy. I was an oil and gas attorney in my former life and going through undergrad. One of my undergraduate degrees is energy management, and at the University of Oklahoma in the Energy Management Program they spoke to that change of perception is that if we think of ourselves as oil and gas producers and not energy producers, we're missing a large opportunity set, even though we recognize that what we're doing is generating, at the end of the day, electron force transformation of molecule to useful output. So whether it's wind, solar, natural gas, petroleum, Oklahoma is a very energy production-intensive state, and we have a lot of opportunities for those who seek to utilize it.  

Ric Edelman: Are you discovering that there is an increased level of interest in this conversation with your colleagues around the country? Are other states reaching out to you saying, we see what you're doing, we see what's going on, we see what's happening across the country in the world of crypto, and they're reaching out to you to learn more. Or are they basically saying, glad Oklahoma is doing it so we don't have to?  

Richard Jackson: In some respects the answer is yes to both. And so Oklahoma is falling in on a lot of infrastructure that the other states have expended a lot of time and energy to create. So things like the US Blockchain Council and all of their subsidiaries. Oklahoma is starting one here as well. And so communities around the US who recognize the opportunities in this space and have done a lot of the legwork in the trenches. Again, a third mover advantage. Sometimes you fall in on things that it's really nice not to have to build the car, you just get to drive it. And so in some respects we are we are falling in on, on all the work of our predecessors standing on the shoulders of giants and a very realistic sense. And in some respects, yes, there's a little bit of deferment in that sometimes, whether it's internal politics into a state, say that this particular issue is a little too hot for us, or we don't want to attract the ire of federal regulators in this particular space or for various different reasons. That's not one of our priorities, but there's an opportunity for Oklahoma to lean in on things that others have either deprioritized or are avoiding to make nationally preeminent inroads in thought leadership.  

Ric Edelman: And earlier, you made reference to the fact that this is a limited time opportunity. Why? What's limited about it? Why is it limited, and what specifically opportunities are you referring to?  

Richard Jackson: I will certainly encourage your listeners to go back through the catalog of episodes, because I think you addressed many of them. And so when we talk about what are the risks in time to many of the opportunities we discussed, and I'll speak broadly, cybersecurity, technology and digital assets and whole. The first item again that we've spoken to is great power competition. The United States is not the only one seeking outsized returns or an outsized competitive advantage in this space. Russia is exploring this. China is exploring this. You're seeing coalitions in South America and African nations are all looking to novel and emerging technologies as a way to gain competitive advantage in geopolitical questions. So in the first sense, the US does not have a monopoly on this opportunity set. Another thing that I think has been on your show a few times is US internal demographic shifts. Well, we're not it's not exclusive to the US, but we do have an aging population. I think there's something along the lines of the last report that I read is something like 14,000 of the boomer generation turn 65 every day. So we have a rapidly retiring population, a workforce population. So how can we leverage novel technologies while there's still opportunity to maintain competitive or economic advantage when much of our workforce is leaving? So there's that element.  

We have economic transformations. I think everyone is familiar and has battle scars for what Covid has done to what we'll call the status quo or business as usual. And so whether it's the work from home revolution, whether it's the opportunity in digitization, I think we're seeing all these opportunities to integrate artificial intelligence or automation into normal operations that we're struggling with. And while the US, I think, does have a competitive advantage or a singular opportunity to retain the economic opportunity we're seeing from jurisdictions around the world that they are incentivizing, just like we are to come do business in their locations. So Europe, I think you see a lot of work out of the Middle East and their attempts to transition from oil and gas dependency, the UAE being one particular one, the Southeast Asian nations, China itself. So there's again, we are looking at an opportunity set that we don't have exclusive privilege to execute. And so many of those things are questions of time and effort and energy and willingness to engage with those things.  

Ric Edelman: Given all of that, what are you paying most attention to?  

Richard Jackson: Well, so I think that, again, technology has the opportunity to transform everything. What I'm paying attention to most, or looking out for most is solutions to the really hard problems. And I'll use one example of again, how digital assets I think can be so transformational. I worked for close to a decade as a cybersecurity professional, and a lot of the solutions to the problems that we saw always seem to be, in effect, escalatory brinksmanship. Right? I have a solution. A hacker or an attacker finds a novel or new way of attacking my system. I have to create a new solution to that problem. And we keep going back and forth, back and forth and back and forth. Unfortunately, the economics of that engagement favor the attacker. I have to be right every single time. They only have to be right once their costs escalate in a linear fashion. Mine grow geometrically again. One of the reasons why I was as enthusiastic about taking the role that I have today over remaining in the cybersecurity industry exclusively, is that we always seem to be chasing our own tail and solving the problems. Enter digital assets. Bitcoin has the opportunity all the way down into the protocol level, transforming again everything that we do as it relates to our digital lives. So you think about phishing attacks or email compromises or systems recently released. There's a white paper or a research paper demonstrating how bitcoin can be leveraged to secure IPv6, which is an internet protocol.  

That is how systems communicate with each other over the internet. Right now. It's a very open, permissionless system that was designed for redundancy and resiliency, not for security. And that has echoed through the ages as again, the internet has been leveraged for cybersecurity attacks. Adding bitcoin into that process or proof-of-work into that process. We are now, as I spoke to, we are changing the economics of cybersecurity where my costs grow geometrically. I can now impose a cost on an attacker or a hacker that make their costs grow exponential, where they have to, through the acquisition of bitcoin or the deposit of bitcoin, in a willingness to engage with me over the internet, they have to put real world costs into the activities and behaviors that they do. So think about all of the spam email that you received. Imagine if it costs someone $0.01 or two cents to send an email. For you and me, that might be cost of doing business. And over the course of a month we may have a $15 or $20 bill. But if you're operating an illicit spam campaign or a phishing campaign, that could be tens of thousands or hundreds of thousands of dollars in upfront costs. And this is, again, one of those ways that I think digital assets can transform our life is that by changing just the economics of behavior, show me the incentives and I'll show you the outcomes. Well, if I'm imposing a cost on people who are doing bad things that I have not been able to hold accountable before, and now I'm able to hold them accountable, that makes so much of what we're doing so much easier.  

And as I've spoken to here, phishing or email campaigns, but think even more broadly, think about our critical infrastructure. Think about our water distribution. Think about our power distribution. Think about hospitals. Those same types of economics run for the things that we truly do, need to keep the life that we have going on today. And so to leverage on a novel technology that changes the cybersecurity landscape, that's really what I'm paying attention to, things coming out, again, research is being done every day. How can artificial intelligence improve these operations? How can proof-of-work, mining or digital assets be improved, help to improve all facets of our life? And it's fascinating. And I love what I do. And I wake up every day excited for the future, recognizing that we have to put in the energy, we have to put in the effort to make sure that we accomplish the opportunities that are presented to us. I think we have a chance to not only make our lives better, but also to provide hope to others and that the future can get better. And these novel and emerging technologies are the pathway to do that.  

Ric Edelman: And how optimistic are you? Are you confident? Fast forward into the future. Five years, ten years, 20 years? Are you optimistic for the future of crypto?  

Richard Jackson: I am optimistic in that I recognize that I am not the only one working on this. And while we intend here in Oklahoma to be the best at it, more and more, I am having conversations with people around the nation who recognize the opportunity, who recognize what is in front of us and being presented. And so, to borrow the phrase, again, it’s coalitions of the willing who are making outreach, who are willing to educate, who are willing to engage like yourself with those who are, who do not know or may be unsure or averse. We just continue the conversations. And it's like many things that the truth will out. And so bitcoin has better money that tends to win every time we hear about inflation projections or federal budgets or you name it. When we talk about cybersecurity, when we talk about better solutions, well, if you can't attack my system, guess what? The best solution will always win. And so while I recognize that there are some headwinds and unfortunately they are coming from the federal government sometimes, is that I recognize that we do have people who are willing to engage with those lawmakers to change the perception, change the conversation, and drive innovation forward in the US.  

Ric Edelman: Well, with folks like you behind this, my optimism level goes up. So I wish you the very best for the work that you're doing. It's going to be of tangible benefit to ordinary American citizens as well as our national economy. That is Richard Jackson. He is the deputy attorney general in Oklahoma for cybersecurity, technology and digital assets. You can follow him on X @RickJacksonOK. And his email address Richard.Jackson@oag.ok.gov is in the show notes. He's happy to hear from you, so feel free to reach out. There are also other programs that we have done on this podcast. Other episodes. As the Deputy Attorney General has mentioned, we've got links to several of those shows in the show notes as well. If you'd like to listen to further content that you may have missed on the topic of cybersecurity, crypto and national defense, Deputy Attorney General Richard Jackson, thank you for joining us on the show today.  

Richard Jackson: Thanks for having me. Thanks for the time.  

Ric Edelman: We're off Monday to celebrate Presidents Day. Coming up on Tuesday's podcast, what can happen to your investments when you get Alzheimer's? It ain't pretty.  

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