Andy Field: [00:00:00] Hello and welcome to the latest episode of Crowdfunding Chronicles, the GECA podcast, brought to you by the Global Equity Crowdfunding Alliance. I’m your host, Andy Field. I lead the GECA Steering Committee and this podcast is your go to source for insights into the world of crowdfunding, from policy changes to global trends and everything in between.

So following on from the discussion we had recently with EuroCrowd’s Oliver Gajda around the design and impact of ESCPR in the EU, today it’s the turn of the United States to be in the spotlight. And today’s episode is interesting as we explore the current state of equity crowdfunding in the United States, including what impact the recent administration changes could have for the industry, from regulatory shifts to emerging trends like blockchain and tokenized securities.

And I’m delighted that joining me today is our special guest, Ruth Hedges. Ruth is also known as the Queen of Crowdfunding and has kindly agreed to share her expert insights on what’s next for crowdfunding in the States, how it can [00:01:00] evolve to reach its full potential as a mainstream funding solution. So Ruth, welcome to the podcast.

It’s an absolute pleasure to have you here.

Ruth Hedges: So much. Thank you for inviting me. I’m excited to have this conversation today.

Andy Field: No, I’m really looking forward to it. I think we can probably jump straight in Ruth, if that’s okay. I’m going to start off just by asking you a little bit about about your background.

You’ve been a trailblazer in the crowdfunding industry in the States for years now. And would you mind starting just by sharing what initially drew you to equity crowdfunding and how you became such A driving force in the space and then actually touch upon how you became known as the queen of crowdfunding.

Ruth Hedges: Sure. I actually didn’t come into the equity crowdfunding space. I actually am one of the original pioneers of the bill called title 34A6 in the jobs act signed into law by President Obama in 2012. which legalized regulation crowdfunding in the United States. I was one of the original [00:02:00] people who drafted a document called the Startup Exemption and the Startup Exemption was 22 pages long and we used this to shop around and start to open up this conversation to congressmen and senators and Anybody who could listen, anybody who would listen to us at the time this was about 15 years ago during the recession in 2008, 2009.

There was no money in those days. There was no PPP loans or anything to help rescue when the mortgage industry crashed the banking industry in the United States, which ultimately crashed the around the world, the economy and put us all into a recession. So the VCs dried up, the angels dried up, all the money dried up and there was

still plenty of money in the hands of the general public. And so we started having these conversations about this idea of you had to [00:03:00] be an accredited investor to become an investor. Which stifles the economy because there’s trillions of dollars in the hands of the rest of us. We said if we could go to Congress, we’re gonna have to go to Congress in the United States to get a bill passed to change this because it’s not legal.

And so that’s how it all started. And we spent over two years walking the halls of Congress in the Actually, Whoopi Goldberg was one of our original sponsors.

Andy Field: Oh, okay.

Ruth Hedges:She helped buy plane tickets and fly people over to D. C. to meet with different congressmen and have this conversation. And then Steve Case, the founder of AOL, joined us.

The U. S. Chamber of Commerce eventually joined us. And we just started gathering a group of powerful people who helped to push Help work with us to push this through and get it signed into law. And then in 2012, I decided now we have this new law. Nobody’s heard of. So how are we going to get the word out?

And I live in Las Vegas. Which is [00:04:00] the convention capital of the world. And so we, I thought let me have this little bootcamp. And I got up, it was because it was a recession. Hotel space was very cheap and I was able to go to the Ritz Carlton and make Las Vegas and get like the spectacular room for like pennies on the dollar.

I put the word out that I was going to, I invited some of the people who had helped write the bill and who were knowledgeable now, because we’ve just spent two years. Discussing this with congressmen and senators. So we knew this better than anybody else. And it was like, okay we don’t really know how this is going to work, but at least we know what it is and we can share it.

And so about 125 people showed up from across the country, lawyers and accountants and financial advisors and people who thought, oh, this might actually turn into an industry and I want to play a role in it. So I better come and start showing, getting to know what this is all about. Meeting the right people and all of that.

And because it was so successful, I did it for the [00:05:00] next six years. And I turned this boot camp into the global crowdfunding convention which eventually attracted thousands of people and people from 25 countries, which introduced it to the rest of the world. So that’s how a lot of people took this information from my convention, went back to the countries they came from, people from Italy, Australia, Singapore, it just, all over the world, and then they did what we did.

They took it. They got a group of people, they went, drafted some kind of a draft of a bill, went to the, people who make decisions in their country, and now we have regulation crowdfunding around the world.

Andy Field: Wow.

Ruth Hedges: So that’s how I am one of the pioneers of the industry. When I was putting on one of the years, I think it was either 2013 or 14 Forbes magazine was one of the sponsors.

And so they wanted to write an article about me and in it they wrote that I was the queen of crowdfunding. So [00:06:00] I said, okay I’ll keep that. Yeah, absolutely. And that’s how I became the queen of crowdfunding. It was not by me saying I’m the queen of crowdfunding. It was actually. Forbes magazine that coined me the queen of crowdfunding and it stuck.

Andy Field: It’s stuck.

Ruth Hedges: Yes. Yes. And I actually have a website queen of crowdfunding. com where I I actually have a course. That I sell along with my consulting services, and it’s at Queen of Proud funny dot com. So it’s been part of my brand for many years.

Andy Field: And you’re also a supporter of GECA, which is fantastic.

So we really appreciate that. So so yeah, just so that was back in 2012 that became law. It was signed into law by Barack Obama. You were involved in obviously the all of the work and lobbying around creating that. How, given your experience and you’ve been involved in the industry since before then as you’ve already said but how would you has crowdfunding evolved the way you expected it to since the Jobs Act was enacted in, in, in 2012, [00:07:00] do you think, given your experience, how would you describe the current state of crowdfunding and has it evolved like you thought it would do back then?

Ruth Hedges: So that’s a very loaded question because I’m very passionate about this particular industry. Obviously, having been one of the people to give birth to it and seeing it, thinking of all the potential that it could have, it is a miserably failed. my expectations. There was no crypto when we started this.

There was no Bitcoin. There was nothing in the crypto industry. There wasn’t the blockchain when we started this. When you think about how that industry launched after we launched this and the trillions of dollars that go in and out of crypto currency. every single minute of every day, all over the world.

And then you look at how small the industry in the United States, we are the parents of this industry. And we can’t [00:08:00] even do a few billion dollars. That’s pathetic. It’s just embarrassing, frankly, because we in the United States have an enormous amount of wealth.

Andy Field: Yeah,

Ruth Hedges: an enormous amount of wealthy people.

And this isn’t even a wealthy person’s. investment activity. It’s actually meant to be an average person, meaning you can put 100 in, right? So what excuse do we have? And in the regulation that we, that were passed into law in the United States, you can, if you are selling, if you are an issuer on a funding portal, you can solicit money from anyone, anywhere in the world.

So there’s more trillions of dollars in the rest of the world. Of all the people you might know in France or Italy, or you just might want to market to people in those countries. So the idea that we are sitting here since 2012, and it’s now 2025. And the United States has only done a few [00:09:00] billion dollars of regulation crowdfunding all the funding portals for title three.

I’m not talking about Reg A or any, I’m just talking about title three is, or what’s referred to as Reg CF is inexcusable to me. And I know you have more questions to ask. I will get into why I think this is the problem but it is.

Andy Field: Yeah, no, yeah, that’s clear. And I can absolutely understand why you’re saying that because I suppose the vision back in 2012 was to unleash this potential.

And it’s not really happened to the extent that it should have done. And, there’s all sorts of things that are there that can enable it, the technologies there, for example. So there are other things that are clearly preventing things. So you’re right Let’s get to another question.

If we move on to the current landscape in the U. S. And probably, this probably echoes around, around the globe actually, but I’d love to hear your views on what you feel are the biggest challenges that the platforms themselves and the issuers are facing in the U. S. [00:10:00] today. So I suppose they will be contributing to that sort of underperformance of the industry as a whole.

What would be the biggest challenges you think?

Ruth Hedges: So when we drafted the first Iteration of this 22 pages and shopped it around. When it became a law in the United States, it took the government three years to re to write the laws on how this would work. And guess how many pages those laws are today?

There are over 650 pages of rules and regulations. For issuers, investors, funding portal owners, this one, that one, it is so complicated and onerous that we were like doomed from the start. It’s just indescribable. It’s impossible for me to describe how complicated they made something that should have been so simple.

Because first of all you can go into a casino because I live in Las Vegas [00:11:00] and you can put as much money on a craps table or you know what, right? You can, we just had the Super Bowl, right? And people bet as much money as they wanted on the Super Bowl and nobody stopped them. Yeah. You can buy lottery tickets all over the United States, in every city and town in America, in every 7 Eleven, you could go into a and buy as many, and nobody cares how much money you’re losing, you’re winning, nobody cares.

But when it comes to making an investment, all of a sudden the government has to get in, make it so complicated, make it onerous, make it this, make it that, worry about, put caps on how much you can invest how many offerings you can invest, this whole thing is so complicated. And then, obviously on the issuer side, if you are a startup think about how.

Much work you have just starting a business.

Andy Field: Yeah.

Ruth Hedges: You desperately need this money. And what does the government do? The government comes in and makes it more comp, gives you even a laundry list of more things [00:12:00] to do before you can start to raise the money,

Andy Field: yeah, so the whole process from end to end is incredibly laborious.

And it was probably quite a shock to you when you saw the, maybe it wasn’t a shock.

Ruth Hedges: Yeah, because we, remember, we were in the middle of a recession, we were trying to create jobs, called the Jobs Act, and we were trying. To help companies get funded because 60 percent of the jobs in the United States of America are created by startups.

They’re not created by Walmart and all these big corporations. They are created by startups. So if we don’t help startups get launched and funded and be successful, we lose job creation. And then the whole economy just tanks, for again, for us to be sitting here 15 years later and not to, for me to not be sitting here on this podcast with you telling you that, oh, this has been a great success.

Tens of billions of dollars have been raised. It is [00:13:00] incredibly sad, frankly.

Andy Field: Yeah, and I suppose, I suppose there may be some some light on the horizon, so to speak. But I suppose, given obviously the recent political changes. But I guess before we talk about what’s likely to happen soon, given those recent political changes, what do you think needs to happen?

Next to push equity crowdfunding into the mainstream is a real viable alternative to the traditional venture capital and private equity. And I suppose that’s both from the regulation that the platforms have to adhere to and also for the investors and also for the startup businesses themselves.

What do you think really needs to happen? It might be a very short answer this one.

Ruth Hedges: First of all, the crowdfunding industry needs to be more collaborative. What you’re doing is incredibly important.

Andy Field: Yeah.

Ruth Hedges: Because if you look at the Consumer Electronics Show, CES, every year they come to Las Vegas, it’s the biggest convention in the world. 150, 000 people show up from all over the [00:14:00] world. Sony and, Apple and all the big corporations are there. And they all play nice. They all, they’re there to make deals with each other because they know this is how you build, they build their business when everybody’s successful. For the good of the industry, absolutely right.

Andy Field: Exactly

Ruth Hedges: But not in equity crowdfunding. You never see any of these companies together in a room or in any kind of collaborative way. They want to own the space and they’re just going to put everybody out of business and they’re going to be the only funding portal left or. Law firm left or whatever, and it has been to the detriment.

Of the entire industry.

Andy Field: Yeah.

And you’re right. We are. We are trying to do something about that. That’s exactly what we’re trying to do that the way that just to explain to everybody. I’m sure most people will know this, but the whole reason for GECA is to try and promote borderless equity crowdfunding and without that.

Sort of the voice in numbers, it’s the power is in our numbers, definitely. And people coming together to, to try and echo the same sentiment is absolutely crucial to what [00:15:00] we’re doing. So I completely agree with what you’re saying, Ruth, there. And I think, for things that you’re talking about as well as the things that I’m talking about.

Yeah, would echo that.

Ruth Hedges: And then the other problem is the amount of deal flow. You have organizations all over the world, excuse me, my nose is running today

incubators, accelerators, in the United States we have SBDCs and all these small business development centers, all across the country trying to help small businesses because we are the engine of the economy, right? None of them, literally none of them, have any information about regulation crowdfunding.

Of any subsequence, maybe there’s somewhere on a website page way deep behind some of the millions of walls. Why isn’t this center, this, we had to go to Congress and get a law passed. We had to have a president sign this into law. If this was so important that it had to go through that process to become legal, why isn’t the government putting it front and center?

And when, for example, the government gave out money during COVID, they gave out all these checks. Why didn’t they tell [00:16:00] people, Hey, if you don’t need to use this to pay your bills, make an investment in a small business, go on the funding portal and throw a hundred bucks into a company and be part of their journey.

Join them in this experience. It’s a fun thing to do. Even if you never see a return on your investment. You are creating jobs, you are creating tax revenue, and you are getting to experience something in a company that you may, Never in your whole life be able to do yourself, but if you’re an investor, you get to feel like you’re doing it, even though they’re doing all the work.

You know what I’m saying? Yeah. So there’s so many people that have spent their whole life saying, Oh man, I always wanted to launch a restaurant. I always wanted to have my own bar or I wanted to make my own wine or whatever it is. Now you could be part of somebody else’s company that’s doing that.

You know what I mean? And just go along for the journey.

Andy Field: Yeah, so people need to be educated about the industry and the industry needs promotion, right? And that’s I’ve heard that in many jurisdictions [00:17:00] actually not just in the States I think it I think that is the same all across the globe Certainly for the people I’ve been speaking to it’s that education piece and that promotional piece and just The awareness just isn’t there.

It’s hidden. You’re right. It’s absolutely hidden. So yeah, I, so that’s very clear that’s something that you think needs to happen. And I have

Ruth Hedges: always been, I have always said we need billboards across America. We need buses wrapped with this messaging on it. We need commercials on television.

We need entertainer celebrities talking about this. This is such a powerful mechanism if it were to be really scale and if people knew again, there’s trillions. People throw their money at some of the most ridiculous things. If you go on tick tock or you go into Amazon, are you going to any of these platforms and see?

The millions of gadgets that somehow we all need to survive. We didn’t have, we were growing up. Our parents surely didn’t [00:18:00] have all these gadgets. We had a knife and a cutting board and a spoon and a fork, and we somehow prepared food and did all these things without a thousand different cats. But if you look at every industry now, there’s like a million gadgets and being sold to the public and the public is wasting their money.

So much stuff instead, they could be putting some money investing in and one of these little investments could turn out to be, the next big thing and all of a sudden, some little investment they made 10 or 15 years ago, they completely forgot about. Yeah,

Andy Field: and I guess for that to happen, there’s going to be a whole lot of thinking done around some of the rules and regulations around just simply the marketing and, in the advertising, because there’s, I don’t know so much about the states, but certainly in the UK, for example, there are very strict rules about marketing.

And yeah, that has to be looked at as well. Okay. Yeah, that all makes perfect sense. So lots happening over in the States in turn, politically, we’ve all been watching with great interest from everybody from all [00:19:00] over the world has, of course, and with all those recent changes in the US administration, have you noticed anything happening?

Any shifts in policy or regulatory focus that’s affecting equity crowdfunding? Does anything in particular stand out that you’re seeing the shoots of? Maybe now, or is that not happening yet?

Ruth Hedges: No, I don’t think this administration is going to help equity crowdfunding because they’re trying to dismantle all of these.

Institutions that keep us safe and keep us keep the country operating. They’re trying to take away social security from 73 million Americans. They’re trying, they’ve already harming farmers. The economy, if there’s no money, if people aren’t making a living, whether that’s a social security check or it’s a.

Or it’s running their farm because they got USAID, right? And that helped them keep their farm. And, why do you think milk has been so cheap for 50 years? Because it was subsidized. If you [00:20:00] stop all those things, and you make everything more expensive, the population will not have any indiscretionary money to gamble, to invest, or do anything.

They won’t even be able to live. And frankly, I really don’t understand how this is going to help these billionaires at the top when all of the institutions below and all the corporations below collapse, because there’s nobody left with any money to do anything. Am I looking at this wrong? No, not at all.

It’s, it’s, I haven’t heard any views on it, to be honest. It’s really interesting to hear that view. So the SEC obviously plays a crucial role in regulating crowdfunding. There’s been no proposals or rollbacks or under the administration that you think is going to

Ruth Hedges: Look, they’ve only been in office for, what, three weeks, a month?

Andy Field: Yeah. A month,

Ruth Hedges: not even a month. They were, yeah, a little more than a month, maybe. Obviously they haven’t gotten to everything. But

Everything they have done to this point, literally [00:21:00] everything they’ve done to this point, has been counter to what would be productive for small businesses. 100%. Look, if you take people’s Medicare, their ability to stay healthy, or you take away all the things that, that keep us healthy and the institutions that we can go to stay healthy.

How is that going to help people being able to go to work and keep the economy and the engine of this country moving if we’re half of us are sick because we couldn’t get a flu shot because they decided that flu shots are stupid. You know what I mean, like this, they’re going to wake up in two years when we have the next election that they’re all going to get voted out of office because this is An absolute disaster.

It’s already showing to be a disaster and it’s just going to get worse. Unfortunately, a lot of people are going to suffer unnecessarily for the next two years. It may be even longer because it’s going to take us a long time to clean up this mess, [00:22:00] it’s already catastrophic.

Andy Field: So certainly short term, you’re not seeing any any, anything positive for the industry in terms of what the new regime is going to be bringing?

Ruth Hedges: None.

Andy Field: Okay let’s see what let’s well, let’s hope that’s not going to be the case, but I completely take on board your opinions on it. And I suppose so. So just moving to the we touched on it earlier, the technological side of things, obviously, geckos got a primary focus of helping to make equity crowdfunding truly borderless.

We’ve already mentioned that technology can obviously pay play a huge part in that with the rise of blockchain tokenized securities and that kind of thing. And so how do you see these technology is playing a bigger role in the future of crowdfunding in the States. If if they can.

And also perhaps beyond as well.

Ruth Hedges: So so there’s another it, I’m a big proponent of cryptocurrency. I have. Been I have owned cryptocurrency for since [00:23:00] 2017. I bought some Bitcoin. I wish I bought it earlier as I’m , but I still got in when it was fairly too. You were an

Andy Field: early adopter.

Yeah. Yeah, absolutely. Yeah.

Ruth Hedges: I got a couple of Ethereum coins at $200 a coin, so that was a, I wish I had, again, I bought, I wish I had bought more, but at least I was, I dipped my toe in the water early on. So I do believe in it, but. The problem is, once again, that if you have amassed some amount of cryptocurrency and now you want to use it to invest through regulation crowdfunding, at least in the United States, and I imagine in England as well, because there’s caps on how much you can invest in a year, the average American that makes less than 100, 000 can only invest a few thousand dollars.

So how is that helping if you just made all this money on Ethereum or Bitcoin this year and you say, now I have some extra money, [00:24:00] let me go and use, maybe there’s a funny portal that lets me. invest using Bitcoin. I have the Bitcoin. I want to make a nice investment. I could actually really help this company and so do 10 of my friends because we all just made all this money on Bitcoin when it went to 100, 000.

But guess who’s coming in to stop us? The government. They’re saying no. You’ve already, you already capped your, you’ve already invested the cap this year because you invested in somebody. Three months ago, and so you have to wait until January of 2026 before you can make another investment.

Does that make any sense?

Andy Field: Yeah, I take the point. I take the point. I guess the technology, the underlying technology itself that, the blockchain tokenized securities Yeah that already exists to help the platforms actually carry out their activities day to day, the transparency of the transactions, that kind of thing, can all be can all be of benefit and hopefully That’s how I think it will be used in the future.

And obviously [00:25:00] that the utilization of crypto, for example, it could be really useful, particularly when you’re looking at cross border transactions. Obviously not having the very expensive fees associated with currency conversions and that kind of thing could be a risk.

Ruth Hedges: But you also have issuer the funding portal first, and then the issuer. To accept cryptocurrency. Yeah, absolutely. If they don’t want it because they don’t believe that it’s, or they’re worried that they raised a million dollars today and they wake up tomorrow and all of a sudden Bitcoin has gone down 10%, they’re going to freak out and they’ve just lost 10 percent of their investment.

They’re not going to understand the long term. You know what I’m saying?

Andy Field: Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. There are several. Yeah,

Ruth Hedges: there’s all of that. There’s all of that has to get work through as well for it to actually be a viable option. Yeah, definitely

Andy Field: Some hurdles that need to be overcome.

Okay, so this will be an interesting one. What advice would you give to the policymakers, the regulators and any industry stakeholders really who [00:26:00] want to see equity crowdfunding thrive on a global scale, including that notion of the genuine borderless investment. If you could give them any advice, and realistic advice, something that they might actually take on board, what is it you’d say to them?

Ruth Hedges: Get out of the way, first of all. Just, we don’t need all this regulation. It is not helping. I know that is probably not going to go, it’s on deaf ears. It’s not going to make any difference that I’m saying this. Because millions of things in our lives are over regulated and then other things that are very important are under regulated.

You know what I’m saying? We have, like, all of a sudden this last month, a million recalls of. Tuna fish was recalled, and this was recalled, and that was recalled. You know what I mean? And you think, why wasn’t it checked before it got in the can?

Andy Field: Yeah.

Ruth Hedges: Why do we have to wait and then on the shelf in the supermarket?

You know what I mean? For botulism, I’m talking botulism recalls. Some of this stuff is really scary. Wow. Yeah,

Andy Field: yeah.

Ruth Hedges: So go use your [00:27:00] regulatory body and go do those kind of things. In this instance, This entire industry in every country that I’m aware of is overregulated. Again, they don’t care how much money you spend gambling.

They don’t care how much money you spend. Shopping even look at all the people that have shopping addictions. They just can’t stop themselves You know what i’m saying? So I feel like that is the first thing they need to look at how their regulatory zealous regulatory personality Is harming the ability for this industry to scale?

Because look at again look at cryptocurrency right when it launched in all these What they call shit coins launched, right? There’s no regulation on these now granted. A lot of them originate in other countries, but still they allow them to be purchased in it by Americans here in other countries have regulations as well.

And. They’re not, nobody cares every [00:28:00] time Bitcoin goes up and down, and billions of dollars are being lost by, in our country, by Americans. You don’t hear a peep out of these regulators, or the Congress, or the President, or anybody. That’s just the nature of being an investor, right? So why do they care so much about Equity crowdfunding.

I just, I don’t understand this. It doesn’t. Yeah.

Andy Field: So maybe it’s as opposed to some of that advice, it would almost be to step back a little, to see the wood for the trees and actually understand that the regulation is probably not doing what it should do, which is to protect, protect the consumer, protect the business, protect the investor and perhaps prohibiting or inhibiting, um, the growth and the, and, and the fact that this industry needs to thrive, it’s being completely inhibited by the regulation at the moment.

So perhaps something needs to be done along those lines. Yeah,

Ruth Hedges: And then, the due diligence, I think there needs to be more focus on due diligence. Of the companies that are actually raising the money. I think the valuations are ridiculous. These companies, they, there [00:29:00] has to be some other way of determining the value of a company besides just letting people pull a number out of a bag in many instances.

I think that the marketing, oh my God, the marketing, the, in the United States, funding portals are not allowed to market the offerings on their funding portal. All they can do is make an announcement one time and just tell the public, hey this campaign went live today. That’s it.

Andy Field: Yeah. They

Ruth Hedges: They can’t do any other marketing because the government says that’s acting as if you’re favoritism.

Like you favor this one or that one.

Andy Field: Advising almost. Yeah. Yeah.

Ruth Hedges: We’re doing something to that effect. What kind of an industry, what kind of a business doesn’t, isn’t allowed to market its customers or its clients or whatever, if they’re representing them, which is what a funding portal does. It’s a showcase platform. That’s all it really is. So there’s that. Yeah. And then. That in, in addition to the other restrictions [00:30:00] on the issuer for marketing, makes the ability for an issuer to build a crowd. ’cause it’s called crowdfunding . It is so difficult. Yeah. Again, every time, if you look at these 600 plus pages of regulations, the amount of restrictions that hamper and paralyze and stifle, this econ, this entire industry.

It’s just mind blowing. And that’s why we are where we are. We are impotent in being able to really grow this thing,

Andy Field: yeah, so there’s a lot to be working on here. Ruth, we’ve got about two minutes left. It’s been a, it’s been a real pleasure talking to you today. But I always ask this question and it wouldn’t be the Crowdfunding Chronicles if I didn’t ask you this question.

If you could change one thing about the equity crowdfunding industry today, what would it be and why? Just one thing.

Ruth Hedges: Fun thing.

Andy Field: Yeah.

Ruth Hedges: I already talked about the regulations. I’m not going to talk about that. I [00:31:00] really feel like the industry, all the players, all the people need to get into the same sandbox and play nice together.

I really feel like that would change the entire industry.

Andy Field: Collaboration. Yeah.

Ruth Hedges: Yes, because we all have A passion for this. We all have a desire to see this industry grow and become what we imagine it could be, right? But if we are in our individual silos doing our own little thing over here and there it’s, we’re going to be here 15 years later having the same conversation, you know?

Andy Field: Couldn’t agree more. Couldn’t agree more. And that’s exactly what we’re here to try and help people do. Ruth. Thank you again for sharing all your valuable insights with us today. It’s clear that equity crowdfunding in the U. S. is traveling through some very interesting and tricky times. And we’re going to be watching closely just to see how that may have a ripple effect across the world in terms of how other jurisdictions follow suit and how they’ll be affected by what’s happening over there.

[00:32:00] So thanks once again, Ruth, really appreciate it. And hopefully we can talk again soon. Thank you, as always, to our listeners for tuning in to the Gecko podcast. Please stay tuned for future episodes, where we’ll continue exploring the evolving world of crowdfunding and the innovations that are shaping its future.

Thanks very much.