Brian J. Esposito, CEO of Diamond Lake Minerals, Inc., was recently a guest on Benzinga's All-Access.
Diamond Lake Minerals specializes in the development and support of digital assets and SEC-registered security tokens. The company's goal is to responsibly innovate and develop valuable traditional businesses and successfully combine them with the future of money and digital assets.
Mr. Esposito spoke about the recent developments in crypto and how it is bringing more people to the tokenization space.
Diamond Lake Minerals specializes in the development and support of digital assets and SEC-registered security tokens. The company's goal is to responsibly innovate and develop valuable traditional businesses and successfully combine them with the future of money and digital assets.
Mr. Esposito spoke about the recent developments in crypto and how it is bringing more people to the tokenization space.
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NewsTranscript
00:00 (upbeat music)
00:02 - Brian, how's it going?
00:06 - I'm doing well, Zenaid.
00:07 How are you today?
00:07 - I'm doing great.
00:08 Thank you so much for coming back on.
00:10 I know we had a great conversation last time
00:13 with a special guest of yours.
00:14 And for the folks that may not be familiar with the company,
00:16 give us some quick insights on what is it that you do.
00:19 - Absolutely, sir.
00:20 So Diamond Lake Minerals, ticker as you mentioned, DLMI.
00:23 We are a multi-strategy operating company.
00:26 So I like to reference us,
00:27 if you remember the old school GE structure.
00:30 When I took over the company as CEO in August of 2023,
00:33 the new strategy and focus was parent umbrella company,
00:36 multiple industry agnostic companies
00:39 that we identify as we wanna be in,
00:42 and then build those companies
00:43 as you would traditionally build companies, finance them,
00:46 get them as profitable as possible,
00:48 create returns and rewards for our shareholders.
00:50 But the unique thing about our model and our expertise
00:53 is our know-how in the security token aspect of the world
00:57 and applying security tokens into these business units
00:59 that would allow investors from all over the world
01:02 to be able to buy into our companies.
01:04 - Now let's talk about the crypto markets, right?
01:06 Because there's a lot of things happening there.
01:08 You already have the halving that happened quite a bit ago,
01:11 but what have you kind of noticed any impacts from that?
01:14 - The best thing that we keep noticing
01:16 are more and more financial institutions getting involved.
01:19 That is, that'll help everybody be more accessible.
01:23 My biggest fear in this space for a long time
01:26 has been how do you operate in this space
01:28 and be allowed to bank, for example?
01:30 I mean, that was a big issue in the cannabis industry
01:32 when that started rolling out across many different states.
01:34 It was all these great businesses,
01:36 but there was no bank
01:37 that would allow them to do business.
01:38 There was no credit card process
01:39 that allowed them to do business.
01:41 Very similar issues in the digital assets space now.
01:44 We are not a crypto company.
01:46 We are not focused at all on crypto or NFTs
01:48 or anything that is in that gray area.
01:50 We are focused solely on building these companies
01:52 and applying a security token aspect to the business,
01:55 which is a regulated form of a digital security.
01:59 So for us, the more of the interest coming into the market,
02:03 the having caused a lot of great excitement
02:04 with a lot of the financial institutions
02:06 that got into it, such as BlackRock and Fidelity
02:09 and all these other big players,
02:11 which is great to allow people to be able to buy in.
02:14 The biggest issue in the past
02:16 has been so much wealth of the world
02:17 don't know what a digital wallet is.
02:19 They don't have any idea of how to go through the process
02:21 of going through a KYC.
02:22 Some of them that did go through that process
02:24 very easily got scammed and had their digital assets stolen
02:27 'cause they clicked on a link
02:28 that they thought was legitimate.
02:29 So it's a mess.
02:31 It's quite a mess and it still is quite a mess.
02:33 So it's nice to see new financial vehicles
02:36 coming to market that allow people to play in this space
02:38 and invest in this space.
02:39 And we're proud to be, I believe, a leader
02:42 in what we're doing as far as public companies
02:43 are concerned.
02:44 Yeah, I mean, there's so many individuals
02:46 that unfortunately click on the wrong thing
02:48 and then folks get access to your account.
02:50 Like I, unfortunately, know friends
02:53 that have lost 50,000 bucks in crypto assets, right?
02:56 Just because of a two-factor authentication
02:58 that someone had access to
02:59 because they clicked on something wicked, I guess.
03:02 So it's not fun at all.
03:03 I wanna talk about one more crypto aspect of it
03:06 and then we can kind of move on
03:06 to some certain things that are going on.
03:08 But you have the Bitcoin SpideyTF.
03:10 It's been a while since that's taken off.
03:12 Now you just have, I don't know if it was confirmed.
03:14 So I'm gonna call it rumors or what I read.
03:16 Seems like it's gonna be the-
03:17 Yeah, right?
03:18 I just, listen, I can't have the SEC focused on me.
03:20 I don't have enough money to buy them.
03:21 Same here, same here, pal.
03:24 The rumors that are going on about Ethereum ETFs
03:26 and everything else that's coming in,
03:28 what are your thoughts on that?
03:29 And what impacts do you feel is gonna happen from that?
03:33 You're gonna see, I would anticipate a similar move
03:36 like you saw on Bitcoin.
03:38 You also can look at the psychology of Ethereum price
03:41 being, what, a 20th of a Bitcoin price.
03:44 So you can see a lot of people psychologically
03:46 wanna have more of something.
03:48 So maybe you'll see it. Exactly.
03:49 You may see a bigger push into that.
03:51 But I would assume you would see a very similar chart.
03:54 Again, I don't play in that space
03:56 or speculate in that space.
03:57 What I do love about it is that you're seeing the powers
04:00 that be get involved.
04:01 Then that'll allow companies like us
04:03 and other companies that wanna join this industry
04:05 to be able to maneuver without feeling like
04:08 they're gonna be attacked or be targeted.
04:11 Yeah, and folks especially kind of have that mindset of,
04:13 hey, if something is a smaller amount,
04:15 it's easier to have it go 100%,
04:17 which is one of the reasons that I prefer to invest
04:19 in other cryptos and not just Bitcoin itself.
04:22 Tell us about what's going on
04:24 with the company outside of crypto, right?
04:25 I know you guys have been up to a couple of things.
04:27 I know we've had a couple of recordings,
04:28 but I'll kind of leave it up to you to update us
04:30 on what's happening in the world of Diamond League Minerals.
04:33 Thank you.
04:34 Yeah, we've got some great momentum continuing.
04:36 I just finished trips across Europe,
04:37 educating on what we're doing.
04:39 And the interest in our company and model,
04:42 and I think the incredible 1927 Yankees Murderer Road team
04:47 that we've created here is,
04:49 we got a spotlight on us, which is great.
04:51 And we've got seasoned executives
04:52 across multiple different industries
04:54 that allow us to have access into those industries
04:56 and do some great business.
04:58 We've announced through Benzinga,
05:00 the announcement with Boxable, for example,
05:01 and what we plan on doing on creating Boxable Villages,
05:04 what I believe is the solution for affordable homes
05:08 and modular home building at scale,
05:11 and being able to tokenize those villages,
05:13 which gets pretty exciting about how do you finance these
05:16 in a new model of the world of financial mechanisms
05:18 through tokenization.
05:20 So that was exciting for us to announce
05:22 our stance in real estate.
05:24 And that was a residential real estate play.
05:26 We do anticipate the commercial real estate industry
05:29 to be one of the biggest ones.
05:31 It's gonna really need a solution
05:33 to help offset seven plus trillion of paper
05:35 that's maturing over the next few years.
05:37 Yeah.
05:38 So we're working very heavily on,
05:39 can we provide an opportunity for liquidity
05:41 into these buildings and these building owners
05:43 or development owners,
05:44 and to hopefully offset a correction
05:47 that we had seen in 2007, 2008.
05:50 So we're very focused on how do we play in that space?
05:53 How do we do that in a legal and regulated framework?
05:55 And how do we provide a turnkey solution
05:57 for these, what we believe are great assets
06:00 that are either undervalued,
06:01 the tendencies low in these assets or these buildings,
06:04 and how can we come in and add these properties
06:07 to our balance sheet?
06:07 How do we provide an opportunity for investors
06:09 around the world to buy into those properties
06:10 through security token or tokenization?
06:13 Yeah.
06:13 That's a big value for our DLMI shareholders.
06:16 Now, when it comes to,
06:17 I mean, you're focused on a few different things, right?
06:19 We've talked about the Boxable one
06:20 that you mentioned as well.
06:22 How do you make sure that the team is kind of laser focused
06:24 on the projects that matter, right?
06:27 Sometimes in my own personal life,
06:28 there's so many things that we wanna do here at Benzinga.
06:30 We wanna innovate, we wanna do different cool things,
06:32 but we've gotta focus on what kind of,
06:34 the juice has to be worth the squeeze, I guess.
06:36 So how do you make sure that your company's focused
06:38 and locked in on that?
06:39 Top to bottom.
06:40 Yeah, one hell of a question.
06:41 So you gotta look at, for any listeners
06:44 that don't know my private career, my personal history,
06:47 it's over 23 years of building and starting
06:49 and acquiring companies.
06:50 So I've built what I think is a pretty sharp arsenal
06:53 and ecosystem of over 110 plus companies.
06:56 The fun thing about it is it creates value, right?
06:59 So I'm basically replicating that in the public environment
07:02 and what we're doing with DLMI.
07:03 So to answer your question,
07:06 one of the key pieces of the DLMI strategy and focus
07:10 is not to just say, "Hey, here, we're doing all this."
07:11 And I just drop everything in because to your point,
07:14 investors or smart money is gonna say,
07:17 there's no way that they know how to do
07:18 all these things at once.
07:19 Well, I've been doing it for 23 plus years,
07:21 plus our team and our advisors
07:23 have been doing it for decades.
07:24 So there's a lot of expertise on how do you scale?
07:27 How do you rinse and repeat a model correctly
07:30 across multiple different companies
07:32 and multiple different industries?
07:33 So for us to really execute and scale
07:36 and be able to provide real value
07:37 and tangible value and returns,
07:39 my biggest next exciting moment
07:42 is to turn on a dividend structure for our shareholders
07:44 and a security token dividend structure for our shareholders.
07:47 So for us to do that, we need to go
07:50 and we need to start bringing revenues
07:51 into this great companies.
07:52 And that's where we're at at this moment of our roadmap.
07:56 The last six or seven months has been,
07:58 here we are, here's what we're doing,
08:00 the new strategy of the company.
08:01 DLMI has been an amazing public vehicle
08:05 that didn't have the right trajectory
08:10 as to what is it going into the future.
08:11 It's been around since 1954,
08:13 it's been a Salt Lake City headquartered company.
08:16 And we've got a lot of great support in Salt Lake City.
08:18 One of our advisors is Brandon Fugel,
08:19 who's the chairman of the Colliers International
08:22 based out of that region.
08:23 So when you start to look at
08:25 what we really wanna be able to do in commercial real estate
08:27 and have tremendous expertise such as him
08:30 and great support from him to be a leader in that space
08:33 and to provide a solution in that space,
08:35 then we just wanna say,
08:36 hey, that's the model for commercial real estate.
08:38 We've got it, we've got the team,
08:39 now let's go apply it to the music industry, for example,
08:42 or the IP industry or to the consumer products industry.
08:46 So this, for us to do what I plan on doing,
08:48 it's taken all of our expertise and access,
08:50 creating the perfect program,
08:52 and then copy and pasting across all the different companies
08:54 that we wanna be involved in.
08:55 Well, hey, like that dividend,
08:57 I know down the road future, that sounds exciting.
09:00 So I'm looking forward to kind of having those conversations
09:02 whenever that does come to fruition.
09:04 But thank you so much for your,
09:04 Brian, for your time, Brian.
09:07 I appreciate it, man.
09:08 It's always good to talk to you.
09:09 And whenever you have other news coming out, let us know.
09:12 We'd love to chop it up.
09:13 Thanks a lot, pal.
09:14 Have a good day.
09:14 (upbeat music)
09:17 (upbeat music)