WEBVTT

1
00:00:00.240 --> 00:00:06.120
This opens up a lot of use
cases, and so I'm always where do

2
00:00:06.200 --> 00:00:11.400
I start. So I think one
obvious one is bitcoin defive. So the

3
00:00:11.439 --> 00:00:15.519
interesting thing is you'll pay gas fees
in bitcoin, and so suddenly for the

4
00:00:15.560 --> 00:00:20.320
stakers we'll have actually native bitcoin yields. All those gas fees will approve back

5
00:00:20.359 --> 00:00:25.600
to other people. Then you of
course have stable coins. I think that

6
00:00:25.760 --> 00:00:29.480
there has been one thing to launch
a stable coin on bitcoin for ten years.

7
00:00:37.240 --> 00:00:40.039
This content is brought to you by
Uphold, which is one of the

8
00:00:40.079 --> 00:00:44.399
top crypto platforms out there, which
allows you to easily buy, cell trade

9
00:00:44.479 --> 00:00:48.600
Bitcoin and the top all coins in
the market. Uphold lists two hundred and

10
00:00:48.759 --> 00:00:53.560
sixty plus cryptocurrencies. They also allow
you to trade precious metals such as gold,

11
00:00:53.560 --> 00:00:56.759
silver, palladium, and platinum.
I've been a user of uphol since

12
00:00:56.759 --> 00:01:00.439
twenty eighteen, so I can voucher
this platform. They have full transfer aperency

13
00:01:00.520 --> 00:01:03.359
reports and they don't commingle or lend
out your funds. They also have a

14
00:01:03.400 --> 00:01:08.599
great product called Vault, which is
an assisted self custody product. A vault

15
00:01:08.719 --> 00:01:14.879
allows you to maintain custody of your
funds and the keys are split, so

16
00:01:15.280 --> 00:01:19.719
Uphold holds one and you hold two
and if there's any issues, if you

17
00:01:19.799 --> 00:01:23.599
lose one of your keys, Uphold
will help restore these keys and you can

18
00:01:23.719 --> 00:01:29.359
maintain access to your funds. It's
twenty four to seven instant trading, it's

19
00:01:29.400 --> 00:01:33.879
trustless, so this is a great
feature that can give you peace of mind

20
00:01:34.079 --> 00:01:38.239
where you don't have to worry about
if you lose your private keys and much

21
00:01:38.280 --> 00:01:41.879
more so. If you'd like to
learn more about Uphold, please visit the

22
00:01:41.920 --> 00:01:45.959
link in the description. Welcome to
the Thinking Crypto podcast. I'm your host,

23
00:01:45.959 --> 00:01:49.239
Tony Edward, and with me today's
Wilhelm Schrow, who is the founder

24
00:01:49.280 --> 00:01:52.879
and CEO of bot Nick's Labs.
Willem. Great to have you on.

25
00:01:53.359 --> 00:01:56.319
Great to meet you, Tony,
great to be here, Nice to meet

26
00:01:56.359 --> 00:01:59.799
you all. Yeah. Absolutely,
Well, you guys are building some very

27
00:01:59.840 --> 00:02:05.040
cool bitcoin scaling solutions, Layer twos
and much more so. I have a

28
00:02:05.040 --> 00:02:08.439
lot of questions for you as a
bitcoin holder. I'm excited about the new

29
00:02:08.560 --> 00:02:14.159
use cases and applications that can be
built around bitcoin. But before we get

30
00:02:14.159 --> 00:02:15.520
there, you know, tell us
about yourself, where are you from and

31
00:02:15.520 --> 00:02:20.240
what's your professional background. Absolutely absolutely, I got a lot of use cases

32
00:02:20.479 --> 00:02:23.520
for you. Later in the podcast. So I'm WILLELM. I grew up

33
00:02:23.560 --> 00:02:29.479
in Belgium, have a bit of
a mathematics background, became thirteen national mathematics

34
00:02:29.520 --> 00:02:35.840
competition there, ended up doing electrical
engineering, researched in cryptography, so researched

35
00:02:35.919 --> 00:02:40.240
in authenticated encryption. Actually part of
the design how we're building a bit conlear

36
00:02:40.360 --> 00:02:44.560
to, which is called the Spada
chain, comes from my cryptography background.

37
00:02:45.680 --> 00:02:50.280
Then lived the year and a half
in Sauda Arabia, so hyperinflation happening in

38
00:02:50.840 --> 00:02:54.080
Lebanon, so people get their bank
accountsies fully fell down a rabbit hole.

39
00:02:54.919 --> 00:03:00.479
Then went to Boston to Harvard and
then moved to New York and around like

40
00:03:00.520 --> 00:03:05.039
two years ago, I think we
came up with the idea for botanics.

41
00:03:05.520 --> 00:03:10.400
Basically realizing that you have Bitcoin,
a trillion dollar market and almost new applications

42
00:03:10.400 --> 00:03:16.479
on top of it, and then
on etherium, so many different applications and

43
00:03:16.680 --> 00:03:21.439
most of them are built on the
EVM, and so realized that EVM is

44
00:03:21.479 --> 00:03:23.879
a software layer. You can bring
that to bitcoin as a second layer EVM

45
00:03:24.520 --> 00:03:30.039
and that's when we started building.
Went deep into the cryptography for the first

46
00:03:30.080 --> 00:03:35.960
six months basically pure design, and
then started building, went on Testina in

47
00:03:36.039 --> 00:03:40.599
November and now getting close to getting
close to Maynad. That's awesome. I'm

48
00:03:40.639 --> 00:03:45.439
curious what was your first encounter with
bitcoin? Did a friend tell you about

49
00:03:45.479 --> 00:03:47.560
it? Did you read about it
on a forum? And was it around

50
00:03:47.599 --> 00:03:52.960
the time you were studying cryptography?
No, exactly exactly. So actually,

51
00:03:53.800 --> 00:03:58.360
one of my good friends that is
still working in the space, I was

52
00:03:58.400 --> 00:04:02.039
like twenty twelve or something to me
about it. Unfortunately I didn't buy them

53
00:04:02.319 --> 00:04:06.800
because I had to send cash in
an envelope, and besides that, I

54
00:04:06.800 --> 00:04:14.159
didn't have that much money as a
poor college student. And then of course

55
00:04:14.159 --> 00:04:16.319
I start in my cryptography classes,
so I saw a bitcoin in my cryptography

56
00:04:16.399 --> 00:04:26.040
classes. Oh wow. So I'm
curious in your classes around cryptography, how

57
00:04:26.240 --> 00:04:32.079
was bigcoin presented and it is?
Is it very different from other forms of

58
00:04:32.160 --> 00:04:36.160
cryptography. Yeah, that's a very
good question. I think in general ninety

59
00:04:36.199 --> 00:04:42.160
five percent of the classes of cryptography
was not about cryptocurrency at all. Maybe

60
00:04:42.199 --> 00:04:46.000
today it's a little bit a little
bit more, but it's about all areas

61
00:04:46.079 --> 00:04:53.759
of cryptography, symmetric, asymmetric acryption, et cetera. And then, yeah,

62
00:04:53.800 --> 00:04:57.639
of course this was very novel then, so this was twenty thirteen.

63
00:04:58.439 --> 00:05:04.720
In my cryptography classes. Professor was
a extremely skeptical person and so we called

64
00:05:04.720 --> 00:05:10.360
it, yeah, some weird Internet
experiment, but we looked at it from

65
00:05:10.399 --> 00:05:15.279
a cryptographic perspective and it was like
very legit, so very interesting to actually

66
00:05:15.319 --> 00:05:24.000
see a lot of like primitives like
shah and and other algorithms basically used in

67
00:05:24.360 --> 00:05:28.759
real life. So that was actually
cool to see. Oh wow, very

68
00:05:28.800 --> 00:05:33.079
cool. And to your point,
there's probably more classes and more dialogue around

69
00:05:33.199 --> 00:05:38.839
bitcoin and crypto now that it's you
know, has risen as a technology in

70
00:05:38.879 --> 00:05:43.639
an asset class. So I don't
know, have you ever messaged your professor

71
00:05:44.040 --> 00:05:47.600
like, hey, I'm working on
big point now. Yeah, actually I

72
00:05:48.160 --> 00:05:53.279
haven't. I should probably do it
at some point. The funny thing is,

73
00:05:53.839 --> 00:05:58.120
I'm not sure you know, as
the advanced encryption standard, probably the

74
00:05:58.120 --> 00:06:02.000
most used encryption standard in the world, I was actually invented by my professor.

75
00:06:02.959 --> 00:06:05.639
So that's that's quite cool. Not
a lot of people know it,

76
00:06:05.680 --> 00:06:10.920
but Belgium is somehow extremely big in
the world of cryptography. Not that much

77
00:06:10.920 --> 00:06:14.199
in the world of cryptocurrencies, but
very big in the world of cryptography.

78
00:06:14.680 --> 00:06:19.439
That's fascinating. So let's talk about
both in x Labs. Why did you

79
00:06:19.519 --> 00:06:26.639
decide to start this company and what's
your core mission? Yeah, that's a

80
00:06:26.720 --> 00:06:30.759
very good question. So two years
ago I was in this world, and

81
00:06:30.800 --> 00:06:33.800
then I entered the world through the
bitcoin side, and of course I saw

82
00:06:33.920 --> 00:06:39.079
hyperinflation, I saw people get their
bank accountsy so I quickly saw the micro

83
00:06:39.160 --> 00:06:42.800
picture, and I think bitcoin is
a is a technology of sound money,

84
00:06:42.800 --> 00:06:46.279
that is that can be absolutely massive
for billions of people around the world.

85
00:06:47.000 --> 00:06:53.680
And then you saw also another few
things happening, like bitcoin has very slow

86
00:06:53.759 --> 00:06:57.120
blocks, ten minute blocks, and
it's very hard to build on, and

87
00:06:57.160 --> 00:07:02.240
so most of the applications were built
on other other change. And so I

88
00:07:02.439 --> 00:07:08.240
really like bitcoin in the sense that
it's a very clean code, it's a

89
00:07:08.360 --> 00:07:12.319
very easy to understand code, it's
very clean, it's very pure, it's

90
00:07:12.360 --> 00:07:16.639
absolutely decentralized. And so I like
bitcoin because it's the most pure, decentralized,

91
00:07:16.839 --> 00:07:21.120
secure, best money ever made.
And so I would like to see

92
00:07:21.120 --> 00:07:26.040
more in the world and more applications
actually being built on bitcoin. And then

93
00:07:26.120 --> 00:07:29.800
once you think you start seeing you
saw DeFi somewhere, of course, and

94
00:07:29.839 --> 00:07:33.240
then you see these primitives of a
financial system and so when you think about

95
00:07:33.360 --> 00:07:39.240
decentralized ex changes, in my mind, they're a tenx better version of stock

96
00:07:39.279 --> 00:07:44.240
exchanges. You can permissionly trade anywhere
in the world twenty four to seven.

97
00:07:44.639 --> 00:07:47.920
Today, someone I don't know in
Egypt, for example, cannot buy all

98
00:07:47.920 --> 00:07:51.279
the stocks on New York Stock Exchange. Why is that? And so you

99
00:07:51.319 --> 00:07:57.000
can see that decentralized exchanges is a
tenx better version. Outside of that,

100
00:07:57.199 --> 00:08:01.879
I consider a lot of the tokens
actually a better version of box. And

101
00:08:01.920 --> 00:08:05.879
then of course you can take loans, and so you see these primitives of

102
00:08:05.959 --> 00:08:09.079
a better financial system. And I
wanted to build these primitives on top of

103
00:08:09.199 --> 00:08:15.600
bitcoin. And what we're doing right
now actually very funnily. In the company,

104
00:08:15.600 --> 00:08:20.079
every two weeks we look at our
mission when you think about one hundred

105
00:08:20.160 --> 00:08:24.560
years from now, and you can
actually see majority of the world with running

106
00:08:24.600 --> 00:08:28.079
on bitcoin as money. But we're
actually building as a second they EVM can

107
00:08:28.120 --> 00:08:35.320
actually be the infrastructure that runs a
financial system on bitcoin, with the decentralizedic

108
00:08:35.440 --> 00:08:39.960
changes, with the loans, with
the different tokens, and yeah, I

109
00:08:39.960 --> 00:08:41.919
can see this world playing out.
So what we're actually building can be,

110
00:08:43.559 --> 00:08:48.960
can last, can last for one
hundred years. That's amazing, and tell

111
00:08:48.000 --> 00:08:54.440
us about the spider chains, and
you mentioned they're using the EVM technology and

112
00:08:54.919 --> 00:08:58.240
maybe if you can explain to maybe
folks who are like new to crypto,

113
00:08:58.320 --> 00:09:03.519
right, how does this on bitcoin
and how is bitcoin leverage via the spider

114
00:09:03.600 --> 00:09:07.240
chain. The spider chain is actually
a novel layer to design, which is

115
00:09:07.320 --> 00:09:13.000
quite unique compared to your different wallops
that you typically see on the Ethereum.

116
00:09:13.840 --> 00:09:16.399
So the spider chain is not a
wallup. We actually believe Bitcoin is actually

117
00:09:16.440 --> 00:09:20.919
not made to build wallups. You
have the utxo model, while in Ethereum

118
00:09:20.960 --> 00:09:28.000
you have a smart contract model and
the account model, and so ethereum suits

119
00:09:28.039 --> 00:09:33.080
itself way better to build wallups and
so on Bitcoin, we actually wanted to

120
00:09:33.120 --> 00:09:39.519
build a decentralized layer to where anyone
can permissionally participate in. So you will

121
00:09:39.519 --> 00:09:46.279
be able to participate in the Spider
chain, run a full node, and

122
00:09:46.440 --> 00:09:52.320
actually be part of the whole network. And so how it works is I'm

123
00:09:52.320 --> 00:09:56.159
going to assume that the audience knows
what multi six are. Multi six are

124
00:09:56.200 --> 00:10:01.879
basically what runs in the whole of
crypto. Even wallops are a smart contract

125
00:10:03.000 --> 00:10:07.919
that as a multi sick where U
encode fraud proving. But in essence,

126
00:10:07.960 --> 00:10:13.440
we want to decentralize the multi six. And now I'm going to take a

127
00:10:13.480 --> 00:10:18.399
small pause here and give the example
of the lightning network for the people who

128
00:10:18.440 --> 00:10:22.080
are more familiar with bitcoin. The
lightning network is this decentralized network of two

129
00:10:22.159 --> 00:10:26.360
out of two multi six. If
you and I open a lightning channel,

130
00:10:26.399 --> 00:10:28.639
that's a two out of two multi
sick. And so in essence, you

131
00:10:28.679 --> 00:10:33.279
can think about the lightning network as
this overlaying network of two out of two

132
00:10:33.360 --> 00:10:37.720
multi six, and so park the
idea of the lightning network. But then

133
00:10:37.799 --> 00:10:41.039
think again about that decentralized network of
multi six. That's what the Spata chain

134
00:10:41.200 --> 00:10:46.879
is. So you will create a
series of multi six. For example,

135
00:10:46.279 --> 00:10:52.200
you can have ten thousand different people
all participating in this decentralized network, and

136
00:10:52.279 --> 00:10:56.759
so you will create one single multi
sick. You will randomly choose one hundred

137
00:10:56.799 --> 00:11:01.480
participants and they will secure multi sick
one, and then you create a new

138
00:11:01.519 --> 00:11:05.759
one. Again, you randomly choose
one hundred participants out of the ten thousand,

139
00:11:05.879 --> 00:11:09.519
and they will secure a multi six
two. And then you carry the

140
00:11:09.600 --> 00:11:13.200
new one mult six three, and
then four and then five, and then

141
00:11:13.240 --> 00:11:18.039
six, and after a while you
have these decentralized overlay network of hundreds of

142
00:11:18.159 --> 00:11:22.120
multi six of thousands of multi six, where you have ten thousand or one

143
00:11:22.200 --> 00:11:26.759
hundred thousand full node operators where anyone
can join in. And then what you

144
00:11:26.799 --> 00:11:31.720
do is all those note operators will
have to stake bitcoin, so you come

145
00:11:31.759 --> 00:11:35.679
in together in a proof of staate
consensus, and that's how you secure the

146
00:11:35.720 --> 00:11:39.559
EVM. And so this whole thing
runs on bitcoin. So also in the

147
00:11:39.600 --> 00:11:43.840
EVM, the bitcoin is the native
token on the EVM, so you'll pay

148
00:11:43.960 --> 00:11:52.440
gas fees in bitcoin, and that's
actually how the whole techtec works. Now,

149
00:11:52.519 --> 00:11:56.879
as far as use cases and utility
that this opens up, is it

150
00:11:56.039 --> 00:12:01.559
the ability to create tokens? Is
it payment? What are some of the

151
00:12:01.639 --> 00:12:05.600
use cases? Yeah, this opens
up a lot of use cases, and

152
00:12:05.679 --> 00:12:11.000
so I'm always where do I start? So I think one obvious one is

153
00:12:11.000 --> 00:12:16.320
bitcoin, DeFi. So the interesting
thing is you'll pay gas fees in bitcoin,

154
00:12:16.399 --> 00:12:20.840
and so suddenly for the stakers will
have actually native bitcoin yields, all

155
00:12:20.879 --> 00:12:26.440
those gas fees will grew back to
other people. Then you of course have

156
00:12:26.519 --> 00:12:30.399
stable coins. I think Better has
been wanting to launch a stable coin on

157
00:12:30.399 --> 00:12:33.639
Bitcoin for ten years, there's no
real stable coin on Bitcoin yet, and

158
00:12:33.679 --> 00:12:39.960
so suddenly you can have a stable
coin on Bitcoin, a Bitcoin back stable

159
00:12:39.080 --> 00:12:43.240
coin. So like a maker dow
or like a liquidity model, you can

160
00:12:43.320 --> 00:12:48.759
copy paste the same smart contract you
have on the Etherium and you can deploy

161
00:12:48.759 --> 00:12:54.399
it on Botanics and the whole thing
runs on Bitcoin, so Bitcoin yield Bitcoin

162
00:12:54.440 --> 00:13:00.840
back stable coins. You can take
loans against your bitcoin. So many people

163
00:13:00.919 --> 00:13:05.559
have been wanting to actually do something
with their money in the real life,

164
00:13:05.559 --> 00:13:09.600
but they don't want to sell their
bitcoin. So now you can take a

165
00:13:09.679 --> 00:13:13.399
loan against your bitcoin in a style
lack on av for example, So you'll

166
00:13:13.440 --> 00:13:18.519
have like Avis on Botanics and you
can loan against your bitcoin and get stable

167
00:13:18.559 --> 00:13:24.559
coins in in a return. Besides
that, of course, you can have

168
00:13:24.120 --> 00:13:33.120
different launch pats or mean corn launch
pats. Another very interesting solution is once

169
00:13:33.159 --> 00:13:37.720
you have bitcoin on EVM, you
can use an EVM EVM bridge like layered

170
00:13:37.840 --> 00:13:41.879
zero and bring the bitcoin on Botanics
to Etherium and you have a decentralized version

171
00:13:43.000 --> 00:13:46.679
of wrapped bitcoin on Ethereum. So
this can spread Bitcoin in a decentralized fashion

172
00:13:46.799 --> 00:13:52.759
throughout the whole crypto ecosystem. Besides
that, I think purb t DEXes.

173
00:13:54.519 --> 00:13:58.960
As a bitcoiner, I've been wanting
to leverage my bitcoin two x five X.

174
00:14:00.039 --> 00:14:01.120
I don't want to do it on
a central exchange. I want to

175
00:14:01.200 --> 00:14:05.519
use a purp text think like think
like your Vertex protocol that you know from

176
00:14:05.639 --> 00:14:09.720
arbitrum. Now you can natively do
that on Bitcoin, and so all your

177
00:14:09.759 --> 00:14:16.879
favorite applications that you've been using on
any EVM are now possible on botanics.

178
00:14:16.960 --> 00:14:20.759
And these are just a handful of
use cases. The actual amount of applications

179
00:14:20.759 --> 00:14:26.600
will be very, very big.
A follow up question on the stable coin

180
00:14:26.799 --> 00:14:30.559
item, are you working with any
stable coin issues? Are you pitching Tether

181
00:14:30.799 --> 00:14:35.120
to maybe come, you know,
launch on this one of your spider chains?

182
00:14:35.960 --> 00:14:39.919
Anything you can share there? Nothing
we can share there. We do

183
00:14:39.000 --> 00:14:45.240
have a few teams that have come
out of Stealth already that are building bitcoin

184
00:14:45.320 --> 00:14:52.600
back stable coins using the liquidy model, so you'll get bitcoin back stable coins

185
00:14:52.639 --> 00:14:58.279
on day one on the botanics mean
that now and I know you talked about

186
00:14:58.279 --> 00:15:03.519
the Lightning network before. Is this
compatible with the Lightning network or completely separate

187
00:15:03.559 --> 00:15:09.320
from the Lightning network? Can it
be integrated in anyway. Absolutely. Actually,

188
00:15:09.320 --> 00:15:11.840
we did a hacket on a few
months ago and the winning team build

189
00:15:11.879 --> 00:15:18.480
a lightning network integration. So I
think you go to your favorite bar or

190
00:15:18.480 --> 00:15:22.399
something that gives you a lightning invoice, and you can pay that lightning invoice

191
00:15:22.480 --> 00:15:28.000
with the bitcoin in your medo mask, on your phone or from anywhere,

192
00:15:28.039 --> 00:15:33.360
and so you can pay lightning invoices
from the botanic cdm Oh wow, very

193
00:15:33.360 --> 00:15:39.639
cool. Now there are many bitcoin
maxis out there who don't like anything around

194
00:15:39.679 --> 00:15:45.240
bitcoin are being built on bitcoin and
so forth. Do you see that changing

195
00:15:45.320 --> 00:15:48.759
though that? You know, many
bitcoin maxis are now maybe less aggressive and

196
00:15:48.759 --> 00:15:52.919
they're like, you know what,
we want all these cool things for bitcoin.

197
00:15:52.960 --> 00:15:56.679
Because the adoption of bitcoin is growing, there's people in different walks of

198
00:15:56.759 --> 00:16:02.320
life that want to use bitcoin for
different reasons aside from just digital goal or

199
00:16:02.360 --> 00:16:04.480
digital money. They want to be
able to do cool things with their bitcoin.

200
00:16:06.120 --> 00:16:08.480
What are your thoughts on the bitcoin
maxis. No, absolutely, I

201
00:16:08.480 --> 00:16:11.919
think that that's changing. You already
saw it with ordinals. The moment you

202
00:16:11.960 --> 00:16:15.679
can do something with your bitcoin,
there's so much demand. I mean,

203
00:16:15.720 --> 00:16:18.080
it's a trillion dollar market. There's
a lot of demand for it. But

204
00:16:18.080 --> 00:16:22.320
there's just no applications that you can
actually use it for, and so I

205
00:16:22.360 --> 00:16:27.840
think a lot of bitcoiners would want
to lend against their bitcoin, but they

206
00:16:27.879 --> 00:16:32.360
don't want to send it to like
a block five or anything that's very centralized.

207
00:16:32.360 --> 00:16:37.440
They want to see on chain permission
ly, everything visible, everything open,

208
00:16:37.919 --> 00:16:41.159
and so I can see a lot
of that changing. And it's actually

209
00:16:41.200 --> 00:16:45.039
also a paradox. If you are
a big bitcoiner, you would want to

210
00:16:45.639 --> 00:16:51.000
have the whole world run on bitcoin. Everything that you have today where you

211
00:16:51.120 --> 00:16:53.519
use money for US dollars for and
that those are like the good things and

212
00:16:53.559 --> 00:16:57.679
the bad things. You're buying stocks, you're buying real estate. Ideally,

213
00:16:57.679 --> 00:17:03.839
you want everything in the world to
use bitcoin for it. Yeah, I

214
00:17:03.839 --> 00:17:07.359
absolutely agree with you. Now tell
us about security, because that's going to

215
00:17:07.400 --> 00:17:11.319
be a big question for folks.
Is this secure? Can you know,

216
00:17:11.680 --> 00:17:15.240
going on the spider chain doing some
DeFi things with bitcoin? Is it secure?

217
00:17:15.599 --> 00:17:19.000
Very good question. I think security
is probably our main priority. So

218
00:17:19.039 --> 00:17:25.640
we want an extremely secure, extremely
stable protocol. We actually just hired one

219
00:17:25.680 --> 00:17:29.759
of the best security engineers in the
world, so we're going through a lot

220
00:17:29.799 --> 00:17:33.599
of different audits. Our team is
very bitcoin, bitcoin focused and very comes

221
00:17:33.599 --> 00:17:37.799
from actually the engineering team comes from
the business well from the bitcoin world,

222
00:17:38.319 --> 00:17:44.480
and so they are very security minded. We use in the beginning day one,

223
00:17:44.960 --> 00:17:51.839
we'll actually already have decentralized block builders, so no one will be in

224
00:17:51.880 --> 00:17:56.640
full control over the funds, and
so this will be audited by a bunch

225
00:17:56.720 --> 00:18:02.319
of different players stress tests that we've
been in Intestine since November. One of

226
00:18:02.359 --> 00:18:07.400
the reasons we spent longer on Destinet
is basically we want to launch an absolutely

227
00:18:07.440 --> 00:18:11.279
secure product. Now, are you
working with bitcoin miners in any way,

228
00:18:11.440 --> 00:18:15.960
given that you know they are on
the forefront of mining bitcoin, and you

229
00:18:17.039 --> 00:18:22.200
know there are some huge miners some
of the United States down in Texas and

230
00:18:22.000 --> 00:18:26.759
we were seeing possibly some bigger names
coming in from Wall Street looking to mind

231
00:18:26.759 --> 00:18:30.039
bitcoin. Are you working with any
of those folks in a limited vereshion.

232
00:18:30.079 --> 00:18:33.880
I think we've got contact with most
of the miners. The interesting thing for

233
00:18:34.000 --> 00:18:40.839
miners, of course, is botanics
applications become very successful. They will generate

234
00:18:40.880 --> 00:18:42.119
a lot of fees on the layer
one, of course, which is very

235
00:18:42.119 --> 00:18:47.359
good for the miners. Outside of
that, a lot of miners have a

236
00:18:47.400 --> 00:18:52.039
big bitcoin stack and we will be
generating bitcoin yields because all the gas fees

237
00:18:52.119 --> 00:18:59.359
on the Botanic CVM will basically create
bitcoin yields. So that's also interesting not

238
00:18:59.440 --> 00:19:04.240
only for the bitcoin miners, but
for any any big bitcoin holders. Yeah,

239
00:19:04.279 --> 00:19:08.759
that absolutely makes sense. And do
you think I mean eventually right,

240
00:19:08.799 --> 00:19:14.640
as you guys continue to grow,
you can approach certain companies who are putting

241
00:19:14.680 --> 00:19:18.599
bitcoin in a balance sheet, or
other enterprises who are interacting with bitcoin in

242
00:19:18.599 --> 00:19:22.559
different ways, maybe even bitcoin etf
issuers, right, I don't know that

243
00:19:22.680 --> 00:19:26.480
this could be another layer. Hey, we have bitcoin in the ETF,

244
00:19:26.480 --> 00:19:29.839
but if you want to, you
can earn yield off of it as well.

245
00:19:30.480 --> 00:19:33.720
No, exactly, I think on
the ETF side that will be hard

246
00:19:33.079 --> 00:19:38.720
because the legal rules there are very
difficult. I think they legally cannot do

247
00:19:38.759 --> 00:19:42.559
anything with the bitcoin in the ETFs, which is good, that's what you

248
00:19:42.599 --> 00:19:47.240
would want. But of course,
yeah, if you have bitcoin in your

249
00:19:47.319 --> 00:19:51.720
balance sheet as a company, why
not get bitcoin yield on it? And

250
00:19:51.720 --> 00:19:55.119
it's of course a trade out.
There's let me let me clarify as well,

251
00:19:55.160 --> 00:19:59.920
there's nothing more secure than bitcoin in
a cold wallet on bitcoin the base

252
00:20:00.079 --> 00:20:04.880
layer, but of course everything is
is a trade off, and so you

253
00:20:04.960 --> 00:20:11.279
can actually get bitcoin yield on the
second layer. That's of course with yeah,

254
00:20:11.400 --> 00:20:12.960
that's never going to be as secure
as a cold wallet on the base

255
00:20:14.039 --> 00:20:18.359
layer, but as a counter argument
on the flip side, you then get

256
00:20:18.440 --> 00:20:22.200
bitcoin yields. M yeah, I
mean, And here's what why I was

257
00:20:22.200 --> 00:20:27.279
thinking that because there's currently the ETHERMS
body TF applications in play, and the

258
00:20:27.359 --> 00:20:30.960
SEC said we don't want any staking
in it now. Eventually I think there

259
00:20:32.000 --> 00:20:37.160
will be staking. But you may
imagine a bitcoin ETF that's issued with the

260
00:20:37.200 --> 00:20:41.880
ability to earn yield maybe and boat
in x and the spider chains are an

261
00:20:41.920 --> 00:20:45.920
option, right that they can do
that, but it's it's a specific ETF

262
00:20:45.960 --> 00:20:48.920
that's dedicated to that. It's not
you know, people who just want to

263
00:20:48.960 --> 00:20:52.799
hold bitcoin in the ETF. It's
a separate thing that could be possible later

264
00:20:52.799 --> 00:20:56.519
down the line. No, absolutely, I definitely think that's possible. I

265
00:20:56.519 --> 00:21:02.200
can see that coming. I think
regulatory yeah, environment needs to catch up,

266
00:21:02.920 --> 00:21:07.279
but I think that that could have
a lot of demand. Absolutely.

267
00:21:07.720 --> 00:21:11.039
Now, you guys have recently raised
eleven point five million in funding. Tell

268
00:21:11.119 --> 00:21:17.039
us about that and who participated?
Yeah, absolutely, So this was actually

269
00:21:17.799 --> 00:21:22.200
two separate rounds, So I think
now. A year and a few months

270
00:21:22.240 --> 00:21:26.279
ago we raised three million in like
a first rolling round, and then over

271
00:21:26.319 --> 00:21:30.720
the last few months we raised again. This one had a huge amount of

272
00:21:30.759 --> 00:21:37.799
demand. I think we were like
four x oversubscribed participants. There were poly

273
00:21:37.960 --> 00:21:45.599
Chain of course, very well well
known name Placeholder and Valor and EBCD awesome.

274
00:21:45.839 --> 00:21:48.799
And what do you guys have on
the remainder of your road map for

275
00:21:48.839 --> 00:21:52.559
twenty twenty four? Yeah, I
think the next few months will be incredible

276
00:21:52.640 --> 00:22:00.000
if I'm correct, I think we
will see bitcoin DeFi for the first time

277
00:22:00.160 --> 00:22:06.160
ever in a big fashion, like
actual bitcoin DeFi, like how you're familiar

278
00:22:06.200 --> 00:22:07.960
with it, like on Etherium DeFi. I think a lot of people have

279
00:22:08.000 --> 00:22:11.359
tried to do it, but all
the building blocks are there to actually have

280
00:22:11.440 --> 00:22:15.200
this in a few months time.
So I think we'll launch me in at

281
00:22:15.559 --> 00:22:21.680
in a month and a half from
now, and then yeah, this can

282
00:22:21.680 --> 00:22:26.200
be go very big. I think
we have like thirty to fifty depths that

283
00:22:26.240 --> 00:22:30.160
are going to launch on top of
us, out of which like around ten

284
00:22:30.200 --> 00:22:36.599
to fifteen native depths that will launch
their tokens on top of us. So

285
00:22:36.640 --> 00:22:38.119
there're gonna be a lot of activity, a lot of things to do a

286
00:22:38.160 --> 00:22:45.480
lot of things to gain for everyone. So yeah, I think definitely stay

287
00:22:45.640 --> 00:22:51.119
very close over the next few months. That's exciting and I'm looking forward to

288
00:22:51.160 --> 00:22:53.960
that really cool stuff that you guys
are doing. Let's talk about the crypto

289
00:22:55.000 --> 00:22:57.319
market at large. I would love
to get your thoughts on the big cooins,

290
00:22:57.359 --> 00:23:02.599
body taps. How you know,
given that you've seen bitcoin since back

291
00:23:02.640 --> 00:23:07.119
in twenty twelve, and how it's
grown, it's become this mainstream asset now

292
00:23:07.559 --> 00:23:11.960
and the ETFs had incredible inflows.
I mean, I think I don't think

293
00:23:11.960 --> 00:23:15.799
anyone was expecting this. What are
your thoughts on how things performed? Yeah,

294
00:23:17.599 --> 00:23:22.480
I think the first the general environment, I think I have been blown

295
00:23:22.480 --> 00:23:26.920
away by the amount of demand from
bitcoin ETFs, Like it's way higher than

296
00:23:26.960 --> 00:23:30.599
I expected. There's a huge amount
of demand for it. From an ideological

297
00:23:30.640 --> 00:23:33.799
perspective, I'm not sure if I
fully like that, because I rather have

298
00:23:33.839 --> 00:23:41.279
all the bitcoin in people's own hands, not in the ETFs. However,

299
00:23:41.440 --> 00:23:45.359
it also means we were able,
as just normal people to front run the

300
00:23:45.440 --> 00:23:48.599
institutions. So that's quite cool that
we actually were able to do that.

301
00:23:48.680 --> 00:23:52.480
It was like a meme for years
and years and years and now actually they

302
00:23:52.519 --> 00:23:57.400
are here now. Of course we
had these first few months of course,

303
00:23:57.519 --> 00:24:04.240
massive massive up. I think we
are fully consolidating now. Always expected a

304
00:24:04.279 --> 00:24:07.960
few months of consolidation, and that's
I think where we are. I do

305
00:24:08.079 --> 00:24:15.960
think those institutions and those ETF holders
are very stable backs like those pension funds.

306
00:24:15.960 --> 00:24:19.920
They don't quickly buy and then sell
the next day. If they buy,

307
00:24:21.119 --> 00:24:25.799
it's often for a very very longer
term horizon, and so this can

308
00:24:25.839 --> 00:24:32.680
be very very sticky capital. So
the institutions sometimes have diamond hands, so

309
00:24:32.759 --> 00:24:36.000
to speak. Yeah, and on
that note, I would love to get

310
00:24:36.039 --> 00:24:40.480
your thoughts on bigcoin becoming this reserve
asset. We talked about the corporations putting

311
00:24:40.480 --> 00:24:45.119
big one on your balance sheet.
We're seeing that grow a lot of different

312
00:24:45.119 --> 00:24:48.839
companies are doing it now around the
globe, and you have the ETFs being

313
00:24:48.920 --> 00:24:53.359
launched around the globe spot ETFs of
course, and certain countries like El Salvador

314
00:24:53.400 --> 00:25:00.160
are embracing it making it a legal
tender. Do you see this trend continuing

315
00:25:00.279 --> 00:25:04.440
and do you see eventually maybe central
banks holding bitcoin as a reserve accident one

316
00:25:04.480 --> 00:25:10.400
hundred percent? I think in secret
that's probably already happening. I think there's

317
00:25:10.480 --> 00:25:15.279
quite a few big papers. Actually
at a Harvard paper I think three years

318
00:25:15.319 --> 00:25:18.839
ago or three years ago that said
exactly this, if you are a central

319
00:25:18.920 --> 00:25:23.119
bank in the rest of the world, and you see the US dollar being

320
00:25:23.160 --> 00:25:29.799
weaponized, you see the US dollar
having very high inflations, basically the fat

321
00:25:29.920 --> 00:25:33.279
losing a little bit of control,
and gold is always hard to get.

322
00:25:33.839 --> 00:25:38.119
Bitcoin is a perfect hatch. And
so the paper basically did a lot of

323
00:25:38.160 --> 00:25:41.519
different calculations, but basically said like, yeah, if you're a central bank

324
00:25:41.559 --> 00:25:45.559
in the world, you might want
to keep a few percent of your holdings

325
00:25:45.640 --> 00:25:49.599
in bitcoin. And so Al Salvador
is of course way ahead of the curve.

326
00:25:49.839 --> 00:25:55.160
But I think the more successful Al
Salvador does, all the rest of

327
00:25:55.160 --> 00:25:59.079
the countries are really keeping a close
eye, I believe. I think especially

328
00:25:59.079 --> 00:26:03.079
in South America, people are looking
what El Salvador is doing, and so

329
00:26:03.240 --> 00:26:07.319
I can I think we're not too
far away from that anymore. I think

330
00:26:07.359 --> 00:26:11.839
in reality it might already be happening
behind the closed doors, but I think

331
00:26:11.920 --> 00:26:18.240
we'll soon see see it come out
more publicly, and soon I think in

332
00:26:18.279 --> 00:26:22.839
the next two years. Yeah,
I agree, and I know Argentina's president

333
00:26:22.960 --> 00:26:29.319
Malay met with Al Salvador's president,
so I'm curious if that was an item

334
00:26:29.400 --> 00:26:33.160
they discussed. So I'm really fascinated
to see which country is going to be

335
00:26:33.200 --> 00:26:37.960
next to follow the Salvador's move.
I would love to get your thoughts on

336
00:26:37.039 --> 00:26:42.279
US cryptoregulations as someone who's building in
the United States as an entrepreneur. We're

337
00:26:42.319 --> 00:26:48.799
still waiting on full clarity, you
know. I know Big One in itself

338
00:26:48.920 --> 00:26:52.039
is classified as not a security,
so it has that clarity, but there's

339
00:26:52.079 --> 00:26:59.039
other things like DeFi and Yield where
the SEC still has some control and they

340
00:26:59.079 --> 00:27:03.200
want to bring it on their umbrella. But it We're seeing some movement in

341
00:27:03.279 --> 00:27:07.559
Congress and crypto is becoming this political
thing now. Donald Trump supports bitcoin,

342
00:27:07.640 --> 00:27:11.279
meeting with bitcoin minors. What are
your thoughts on what's been happening. Yeah,

343
00:27:11.279 --> 00:27:15.599
I think it's very much needed.
I think over the last three to

344
00:27:15.720 --> 00:27:18.519
four years, a lot of innovation
has basically been pushed outside of the US,

345
00:27:19.000 --> 00:27:26.000
and I've seen at firsthand, like
multiple people investors and other founders told

346
00:27:26.039 --> 00:27:30.799
me, you have to go outside
of the US to launch this, and

347
00:27:30.880 --> 00:27:36.039
so yeah, I was here,
and so I didn't end up doing that.

348
00:27:36.119 --> 00:27:40.319
So I guess I'm one of the
exceptions that I'm still building building in

349
00:27:40.359 --> 00:27:45.640
the US. But it's great to
actually see that that one eighty and Congress

350
00:27:45.680 --> 00:27:51.519
and political one eighty in terms of
crypto regulations or like at least showing that

351
00:27:52.160 --> 00:27:56.119
they want to change things went really
fast. I was very, very surprised

352
00:27:56.119 --> 00:28:00.839
by that. They did a very
sun and one eighty and everything turned around.

353
00:28:00.759 --> 00:28:06.920
So I'm actually hoping that very soon
that actually also results in easier and

354
00:28:07.000 --> 00:28:10.920
more open regulation, because today it's
yeah, it's very hard. I mean,

355
00:28:11.079 --> 00:28:15.599
I mean in New York here,
UNISWAP is getting soon, summer,

356
00:28:15.640 --> 00:28:18.759
I Wallet is getting soon. They're
coming. I feel like they're coming after

357
00:28:18.519 --> 00:28:23.640
after everyone. Of course, I've
limited the red man power. But yeah,

358
00:28:23.759 --> 00:28:27.079
I think it's very good that we
finally seem some change. M hmm,

359
00:28:27.359 --> 00:28:30.960
yeah, I agree. And it
came out of nowhere. I don't

360
00:28:30.960 --> 00:28:34.279
think anybody was expecting it, but
it's a good sign. Now, if

361
00:28:34.359 --> 00:28:38.039
you had to leave the United States, because you know they're not figuring things

362
00:28:38.039 --> 00:28:41.240
out in time, where would you
go, if you don't mind me asking

363
00:28:41.799 --> 00:28:47.279
that's a good question. Would probably
either either go to one of of like

364
00:28:47.759 --> 00:28:52.480
the more classical Bahamas or something.
But in reality, I'll probably go to

365
00:28:52.759 --> 00:28:56.000
Dubai because I lived in the least. Yeah, and Dubai has become very

366
00:28:56.079 --> 00:28:59.799
very open, very funnily like when
I lived in the Middle East, like

367
00:29:00.319 --> 00:29:03.920
I know, like six years ago, crypto was not a thing there and

368
00:29:04.079 --> 00:29:08.960
they moved it around like very very
quickly, and now they're very friendly environment.

369
00:29:11.079 --> 00:29:14.960
So that's probably, yeah, where
I would go. Yeah, there's

370
00:29:15.039 --> 00:29:18.880
a lot of folks in Dubai and
it's one of the most crypto friendly jurisdictions,

371
00:29:18.920 --> 00:29:23.160
and Japan, Singapore and some of
these other places and more open as

372
00:29:23.160 --> 00:29:30.359
well. Now I would love to
get your thoughts on central bank digital currencies

373
00:29:30.400 --> 00:29:36.960
because world governments are taking the blockchain
tech right from Bitcoin and essentially building their

374
00:29:37.000 --> 00:29:41.839
own blockchain or using other public blockchains
and mintingat currencies on there. And it's

375
00:29:41.839 --> 00:29:47.160
called CBDC, similar to stable coins. There's a lot of benefits, but

376
00:29:47.160 --> 00:29:52.200
there's also a lot of potential problems
with it and where our rights can be

377
00:29:52.240 --> 00:29:55.119
trampled on. I'd love to get
your thoughts on what's happening with that.

378
00:29:56.160 --> 00:30:00.680
Yeah, cbdc's it's been a thing
for a few year we all all know

379
00:30:00.759 --> 00:30:03.880
that a lot of governments have been
working on it. Now, this is

380
00:30:04.039 --> 00:30:11.960
one lucky thing that we know that
governments are very, very slow and inefficient,

381
00:30:11.240 --> 00:30:15.759
and so I don't think anyone,
especially like in the West, has

382
00:30:15.759 --> 00:30:19.960
been able to actually ship something or
actually get alignment on something. And that's

383
00:30:19.960 --> 00:30:23.759
a good thing. I think that's
one of the benefits of democracies, like

384
00:30:23.839 --> 00:30:27.880
you need everyone to be aligned.
And I think most of the people understand

385
00:30:27.920 --> 00:30:33.519
that CBDCs or yeah, privacy nightmare. Like at this point already with technology,

386
00:30:33.559 --> 00:30:41.440
governments have extremely extremely amount of control
and once with CBDCs, it becomes

387
00:30:41.519 --> 00:30:47.480
yeah, yeah, another ten x
worse. And so I think as the

388
00:30:47.519 --> 00:30:53.119
opposite, now you actually have tetter
and stable coins that actually provide an alternative.

389
00:30:53.200 --> 00:30:59.400
And so I think you might see
a world where instead of CBDCs,

390
00:30:59.440 --> 00:31:03.240
actually government and say like, yeah, why don't we use I don't know,

391
00:31:03.720 --> 00:31:08.200
a tether or launch a stable coin
without the whole CBDC over regulation part.

392
00:31:10.119 --> 00:31:11.640
Yeah, yeah, I agree with
you, and I'm hoping they go

393
00:31:11.799 --> 00:31:15.160
that direction. At least here in
the United States, it seems like they're

394
00:31:15.200 --> 00:31:21.240
going that direction because there's been some
bills put out by different congressmen anti CBDC.

395
00:31:21.839 --> 00:31:26.200
You know, the FED can't issue
a CBDC directly to consumers and the

396
00:31:26.240 --> 00:31:33.880
people, but you know, maybe
they're able to use us D T us

397
00:31:33.000 --> 00:31:37.359
D C and some of the other
paypals p y U, s D and

398
00:31:37.400 --> 00:31:40.640
so forth. Those are the ones
they are used by the public. But

399
00:31:41.160 --> 00:31:44.440
you know, we'll have to wait
and see. Yeah, maybe it's a

400
00:31:44.519 --> 00:31:48.119
BITC coon BacT stable coin on the
botanic CVM. Yeah yeah, so,

401
00:31:48.519 --> 00:31:52.799
uh, you know, I know
you're you're probably still working on things and

402
00:31:52.839 --> 00:31:57.279
in conversations, but it would make
sense for tether to do something and an

403
00:31:57.319 --> 00:32:01.359
issue on the spider chain, all
right, I got some wrap up questions.

404
00:32:01.559 --> 00:32:06.839
Oh sorry, I said one hundred
percent. I think that makes makes

405
00:32:06.880 --> 00:32:08.680
a lot of sense. I think
just a stable coin on bitcoin that you

406
00:32:08.680 --> 00:32:15.440
can buy with your bitcoin is just
massive. Absolutely. I got some wrap

407
00:32:15.519 --> 00:32:19.680
up questions there for you. If
you could create your own mataverse, what

408
00:32:19.680 --> 00:32:27.640
would the theme be? I named
accompany botanics because I like mathematics in nature.

409
00:32:28.599 --> 00:32:31.720
And then we've got a Spia chain, so probably like something in nature,

410
00:32:32.440 --> 00:32:39.119
a lot of mathematical fractals awesome,
And some rapid fire questions versus favorite

411
00:32:39.119 --> 00:32:52.680
food, Basta, favorite musician or
band, Relligial, favorite movie The Matrix,

412
00:32:53.279 --> 00:32:55.799
Surprised it or not? I think
a lot of people like the Matrix

413
00:32:55.839 --> 00:33:05.279
in crypto for sure. Favorite book
The Bitcoin Standard mm hmm. And uh,

414
00:33:05.519 --> 00:33:07.160
finally, when you're not working at
boat and X, what are you

415
00:33:07.240 --> 00:33:14.319
doing for fun? A lot of
different sports, so I like generally sports,

416
00:33:14.359 --> 00:33:19.039
outdoor sports, team sports. So
here in in Valencidia, I played

417
00:33:19.039 --> 00:33:22.680
a lot of beach volleyball, of
course. Now I I go for a

418
00:33:22.680 --> 00:33:27.920
lot of runs in the city.
Nice. Well, I'm a pleasure chatting

419
00:33:27.920 --> 00:33:30.519
with you. I'm excited for the
main night launch and all the cool things

420
00:33:30.519 --> 00:33:32.920
you guys are doing around bitcoin.
Thank you so much for joining me.

421
00:33:34.440 --> 00:33:37.559
Absolutely, it's great to meet you. Tuning h

