WEBVTT

1
00:00:00.280 --> 00:00:04.519
Yeah, you're right. We actually
have our first tier one centralized exchange that

2
00:00:04.639 --> 00:00:09.320
is natively integrating Elixir. We haven't
announced it yet, but we're going to

3
00:00:09.320 --> 00:00:13.119
be announcing hopefully in the next month
or two. But yeah, a household

4
00:00:13.199 --> 00:00:19.000
name centralized exchange that you guys all
know is natively integrating Elixir to where you'll

5
00:00:19.000 --> 00:00:21.800
be able to, like when you're
trading in the interface, you'll see a

6
00:00:21.839 --> 00:00:26.039
supply button. You can actually supply
liquidity there. And there's a lot of

7
00:00:26.079 --> 00:00:29.280
other big use cases that we're going
to be announcing. For example, there's

8
00:00:29.359 --> 00:00:40.039
like this content is brought to you
by bitco, which is one of the

9
00:00:40.079 --> 00:00:45.439
top crypto custodians in the crypto industry. Bitco works with many big companies and

10
00:00:45.520 --> 00:00:51.359
brands such as Pantera Capital, Bitstamp, and bitcoin Ira. Nike also selected

11
00:00:51.399 --> 00:00:56.920
Bitco to power its wallets for its
NFTs, and Bitco has many great services

12
00:00:56.920 --> 00:01:00.640
such as hot wallets, custodial wallets, self managed hold wallets, and NFT

13
00:01:00.799 --> 00:01:07.480
wallets. Many institutions trust bitco with
its top level security and incredible services such

14
00:01:07.519 --> 00:01:11.640
as being able to deploy your capital
while it's in custody, which includes lending,

15
00:01:11.760 --> 00:01:15.200
borrowing, trading, staking, DeFi
access and more. If you'd like

16
00:01:15.239 --> 00:01:19.319
to learn more about bitco, please
visit bitgo dot com link in the description.

17
00:01:19.599 --> 00:01:25.439
Welcome to the Thinking Crypto podcast.
You're home for cryptocurrency news and interviews.

18
00:01:25.519 --> 00:01:29.239
With me today is Philip Forte,
who is the founder and CEO of

19
00:01:29.280 --> 00:01:34.640
Elixer. Philip, Welcome, Thank
you for having me Philip. I'm excited

20
00:01:34.640 --> 00:01:38.879
to learn about Alixer and of course
get your perspective on what's happening in the

21
00:01:38.920 --> 00:01:45.079
crypto markets from a investment standpoint and
much more. But before we get there,

22
00:01:45.400 --> 00:01:48.519
tell us about yourself, where you're
from, and what's your professional background.

23
00:01:49.359 --> 00:01:52.319
Yeah, so real high level in
my background. I got into crypto

24
00:01:52.359 --> 00:01:56.560
back in twenty sixteen when I started
the Carnegie Melon Blockchain Group back at Carnegie

25
00:01:56.599 --> 00:02:00.319
Mellon University. I was the president
there until I graduated and then started a

26
00:02:00.319 --> 00:02:06.079
company in the space. After doing
a two week stint doing a normal fintech

27
00:02:06.519 --> 00:02:12.400
like traditional finance job, I went
full time on block Venture, which is

28
00:02:12.400 --> 00:02:15.120
my last company. We were in
an alliance of forty one different research groups

29
00:02:15.120 --> 00:02:21.879
and forty four venture funds. We
worked as advisors to Solana, Mumbean Flow

30
00:02:21.919 --> 00:02:24.120
Network, a whole host of these
different crypto projects and help them go to

31
00:02:24.199 --> 00:02:29.919
market, published high quality research on
these guys. And I ran that for

32
00:02:30.120 --> 00:02:32.879
a little over two years up until
around three years ago when saw the opportunity

33
00:02:32.879 --> 00:02:38.280
for Elixer and actually sold that company
to go full time. So yeah,

34
00:02:38.400 --> 00:02:42.719
been heads down building a Elixer for
roughly three years now. And yeah,

35
00:02:42.759 --> 00:02:49.039
that's that's kind of the extent of
my professional background, you know, minus

36
00:02:49.080 --> 00:02:52.840
like a few internships and things of
that sort. That's amazing. I mean

37
00:02:52.879 --> 00:02:54.599
that you build that company, you
sold it, of course, and now

38
00:02:54.840 --> 00:02:59.879
building a new company. I wanted
to go back a bit because I'm very

39
00:03:00.000 --> 00:03:05.280
curious about folks their first encounter with
Big One and what was your aha moment,

40
00:03:05.360 --> 00:03:07.759
So like, how did you learn
about it and what did it click

41
00:03:07.840 --> 00:03:13.960
for you? Yeah, so I
remember I was actually a summer analyst doing

42
00:03:14.400 --> 00:03:21.400
institutional asset management at panc which was
the traditional finance job that I was originally

43
00:03:21.439 --> 00:03:24.080
doing. And as I was doing
this like summer internship, we were just

44
00:03:24.120 --> 00:03:30.560
talking about this is like right heading
into the big bull run of twenty seventeen,

45
00:03:31.199 --> 00:03:35.080
and one of my friends was telling
me about the World Computer right,

46
00:03:35.120 --> 00:03:38.159
So it's actually a theoreum that I
got pitched first, So there was definitely

47
00:03:38.159 --> 00:03:42.000
a little bit of a learning curve, but it's it's similar to like most

48
00:03:42.000 --> 00:03:44.759
people in this space, once you
kind of go down the rabbit hole and

49
00:03:44.759 --> 00:03:46.759
you see the light at the end
of the tunnel, you're like, wait,

50
00:03:46.800 --> 00:03:50.960
this is actually this is something that
can potentially revolutionize all of these different

51
00:03:51.000 --> 00:03:54.560
areas and aspects of you of your
life. You know, it really kind

52
00:03:54.560 --> 00:03:58.639
of clicks and you just kind of
get you can't get out of the rabbit

53
00:03:58.719 --> 00:04:01.120
hole once you go down it.
That was how I learned about it.

54
00:04:01.039 --> 00:04:04.360
It was one of my coworkers actually
telling me about it, and then I

55
00:04:04.400 --> 00:04:12.680
started the blockchain group immediately after that, and then twenty seventeen came. We

56
00:04:12.719 --> 00:04:15.319
had a bunch of people. We
were originally thirty people. Theyman grew to

57
00:04:15.480 --> 00:04:19.240
like three hundred just during the bull
run, everyone just pretty much asking like

58
00:04:19.240 --> 00:04:24.000
what the next bitcoin was, and
then eventually after that it calmed down a

59
00:04:24.040 --> 00:04:28.600
bit. But yeah, I mean, my personal passion and interest has been

60
00:04:28.720 --> 00:04:33.120
fully in Web three just ever since
I learned about it, and so you

61
00:04:33.160 --> 00:04:38.360
know, that's kind of how I
originally went down the rabbit hole. Now

62
00:04:38.360 --> 00:04:41.720
tell us about Elixir, Why did
you decide to start it? And what's

63
00:04:41.839 --> 00:04:46.279
the mission? Yeah, so,
really, Elixer is a modular DPOs network

64
00:04:46.519 --> 00:04:50.720
built a power order book liquidity.
And so essentially what this network does as

65
00:04:50.720 --> 00:04:56.199
it allows for anyone to supply the
liquidity to any order book exchange. And

66
00:04:56.279 --> 00:04:59.439
so I mean to date, really, if you were like to look back

67
00:04:59.480 --> 00:05:03.519
a few years ago, marketmaking is
really dominated by four or five large centralized

68
00:05:03.639 --> 00:05:08.839
names and the issue with that is
that you know, if you're an order

69
00:05:08.839 --> 00:05:12.519
book based exchange, there is no
way to attract retail capital of your books,

70
00:05:12.560 --> 00:05:14.680
right, like if you just have
to go through one of these big

71
00:05:14.759 --> 00:05:16.480
names and you have to pay one
of these guys to try to put put

72
00:05:16.519 --> 00:05:20.160
liquidity on the books, and it
makes it very difficult for order book exchanges

73
00:05:20.160 --> 00:05:27.240
to get good liquidity, add new
markets and actually get like a diverse array

74
00:05:27.279 --> 00:05:30.199
of parties who are actually supplying liquidity
as compared to an AMM, right,

75
00:05:30.240 --> 00:05:33.879
and amms have billions of dollars of
liquidity, but it's because it's super easy

76
00:05:33.879 --> 00:05:41.120
for people to supply and incentivize that
liquidity. And so Elixir actually has over

77
00:05:41.199 --> 00:05:46.800
thirty exchanges that are launching native features
of their exchange that they're offering to their

78
00:05:46.879 --> 00:05:48.879
end users, right, allowing for
people to supply liquidity to the order books.

79
00:05:49.199 --> 00:05:53.439
But it's all powered by our network
on the back end, and so

80
00:05:53.800 --> 00:05:57.399
you know, when supply liquidity,
the procol will algorithmically build and deploy that

81
00:05:57.519 --> 00:06:01.600
onto the order books in a delta
neutral fashion, essentially placing a bunch of

82
00:06:01.639 --> 00:06:04.199
by orders and a bunch of cell
orders on the books and updating it once

83
00:06:04.199 --> 00:06:09.800
a second. And the LPs have
a very similar risk return profile to UNISWAP

84
00:06:09.839 --> 00:06:13.800
B two LP, so it's we
bring a very familiar risk return profile.

85
00:06:13.800 --> 00:06:16.680
It's almost you can almost think of
it as like units bringing UNISWAP curves to

86
00:06:16.839 --> 00:06:21.759
the order book. And so we
have native integrations already live with Vertex,

87
00:06:23.720 --> 00:06:27.759
rabbit X, and Bluefin. Each
of these we power more than half of

88
00:06:27.800 --> 00:06:30.240
the order book liquidity on the exchange. And so if you go to any

89
00:06:30.240 --> 00:06:33.920
of those exchanges and you make an
order, chances are you're trading against Elixir

90
00:06:34.000 --> 00:06:40.120
on the back end, and you'll
be doing that through the actual exchange that

91
00:06:40.160 --> 00:06:43.959
you're that you're trading on. And
we have native integrations lined up with d

92
00:06:44.160 --> 00:06:47.319
y D e X hyper Liquid a
whole host of different exchanges, right,

93
00:06:47.360 --> 00:06:53.600
We have like Ava Orderly, which
are going live the next couple of weeks,

94
00:06:53.759 --> 00:06:57.240
and and a whole host of others. So yeah, the main takeaway

95
00:06:58.079 --> 00:07:00.839
is that, you know, we
allow for these ex changes to attract a

96
00:07:00.879 --> 00:07:09.240
whole host of liquidity from their communities
themselves to their order books without having to

97
00:07:09.519 --> 00:07:13.959
you know, and just essentially paying
out a share of their existing rewards that

98
00:07:13.959 --> 00:07:15.720
they're already paying, right, Like, they're already paying out a certain percentage

99
00:07:15.759 --> 00:07:20.160
as a part of the long term
liquidity provider incentive program. But now their

100
00:07:20.360 --> 00:07:25.959
communities can actually earn this by d
supply liquidity to their order books. So

101
00:07:26.800 --> 00:07:29.120
correct me if I'm wrong here,
because I want to make sure the audience

102
00:07:29.639 --> 00:07:32.480
grasps this to those who don't understand
order books and how this all works,

103
00:07:32.519 --> 00:07:41.879
like market makers and so forth.
You're democratizing order books essentially, or decentralizing

104
00:07:42.279 --> 00:07:46.920
if I'm categorizing that right where almost
anyone can participate. Yep, exactly right.

105
00:07:47.000 --> 00:07:51.279
Yeah, So if you think about
most exchanges that you know, people

106
00:07:51.279 --> 00:07:56.519
who are listening to this trade on, are you it's probably an order book

107
00:07:56.560 --> 00:08:01.720
exchange? Right? Most exchanges are
order book based sections are the amm ones,

108
00:08:01.800 --> 00:08:05.079
and those are actually moving towards order
books. There's actually a few tier

109
00:08:05.160 --> 00:08:09.720
one amms that you guys definitely know
that are moving to order books powered by

110
00:08:09.720 --> 00:08:15.079
a elixer, and because a lixer
is able to make it to where users

111
00:08:15.079 --> 00:08:18.399
can just supply liquidity normally on the
AMM but it's actually an order book on

112
00:08:18.399 --> 00:08:22.600
the back end. But yeah,
exactly right, right, like if like

113
00:08:22.000 --> 00:08:28.680
there is no trustless infrastructure that exists
that allows these order books, like either

114
00:08:28.720 --> 00:08:35.080
the exchanges themselves or protocols on them
to incentivize and bootstrap liquidity in a trustless

115
00:08:35.120 --> 00:08:37.519
manner, and so that is alixer, right, And that's the problem we're

116
00:08:37.519 --> 00:08:43.519
looking to solve. So let's do
a mock scenario. Let's say I'm the

117
00:08:43.639 --> 00:08:50.039
average Joe listening, I've got some
crypto holdings. Does this cover spot and

118
00:08:50.320 --> 00:08:54.919
futures? And how can I,
as someone listening participating as what would be

119
00:08:56.000 --> 00:09:00.240
like the next steps? Yeah,
that's a good question. So the we

120
00:09:00.279 --> 00:09:07.120
support both spot and futures, right, so any perpetuals the yeah, the

121
00:09:07.279 --> 00:09:11.639
uh, the way that you can
kind of get involved with this is that

122
00:09:11.679 --> 00:09:15.159
you can actually go to the exchange
generally, and a lot of times you

123
00:09:15.159 --> 00:09:16.840
won't even know that you're using the
links on the back end, but you'll

124
00:09:16.840 --> 00:09:20.279
see a buy button, a sell
button, and a supply button, and

125
00:09:20.320 --> 00:09:24.279
you can just press supply and take
some of your idle capital and actually supply

126
00:09:24.360 --> 00:09:28.759
it to that order book and you'll
essentially it's very similar to supply and liquidity

127
00:09:28.799 --> 00:09:33.720
to a unit swap pair right where
you have like two assets, right,

128
00:09:33.399 --> 00:09:37.080
so you just you press supply and
then you'll be able to earn a share

129
00:09:37.120 --> 00:09:41.000
of their incentives that the exchange is
already paying out. And so generally for

130
00:09:41.120 --> 00:09:46.039
like Vertex, that's usually around like
fifteen to twenty percent. For Bluefin,

131
00:09:46.480 --> 00:09:52.559
currently that's roughly around like forty to
forty five percent APR on USDC. But

132
00:09:52.679 --> 00:09:56.759
yeah, these are all like native
integrations. Our protocol is powering it on

133
00:09:56.799 --> 00:10:01.960
the back end. And then the
big kind of other update is that we

134
00:10:03.120 --> 00:10:07.600
have our Apothecary Live, which is
essentially so Elixer everything is like Potions and

135
00:10:09.840 --> 00:10:13.879
you know, Alchemy themed for us. But we have our Apothecary Live which

136
00:10:13.879 --> 00:10:18.039
is essentially our version of a points
program, and it's going to be running

137
00:10:18.120 --> 00:10:20.759
up until August when we when we're
going to be launching our MAInet of our

138
00:10:20.799 --> 00:10:26.559
network, and so you can actually
go and supply liquidity to this, Like

139
00:10:26.120 --> 00:10:31.919
we have a elx eight which is
a cross chain liquidity provider token, and

140
00:10:31.960 --> 00:10:35.919
you can just supply liquidity there and
you'll actually route liquidity across these different native

141
00:10:35.919 --> 00:10:41.320
integrations and supply it to these leading
order book exchanges and you'll be able to

142
00:10:41.360 --> 00:10:46.720
earn the incentives from all these different
exchanges. And so that's all you know,

143
00:10:46.879 --> 00:10:48.720
available to do on elixir dot x
y Z, which is our website.

144
00:10:50.480 --> 00:10:54.120
But to actually supply, we haven't. We have a community run endorsed

145
00:10:54.200 --> 00:10:58.919
aggregator page that lists all the different
pools. But you know there's a you

146
00:10:58.960 --> 00:11:01.399
could generally go to the actual exchanges
like Vertex, rabbit X, Bluefin,

147
00:11:01.679 --> 00:11:07.519
you can supply there. We're launching
next week with Apex and then the following

148
00:11:07.600 --> 00:11:11.960
week with Orderly Network, so you'll
be able to just go there and you'll

149
00:11:11.080 --> 00:11:16.440
you just you press on their Generally
you'll have a pool's page or they'll have

150
00:11:16.600 --> 00:11:20.000
a like their own kind of branded
page. Right, so for Orderly,

151
00:11:20.120 --> 00:11:24.000
it'll be Orderly Quantum, right.
Rabbit x has rabbit x, FAMM,

152
00:11:24.320 --> 00:11:28.600
Vertex has Vertex fusion. Right,
all of these are powered by Elixir on

153
00:11:28.600 --> 00:11:31.960
the back end, but they're like
native features within their exchange, if that

154
00:11:31.000 --> 00:11:33.879
makes sense. Yeah, for sure. You know, as you're saying that,

155
00:11:33.960 --> 00:11:39.039
I'm thinking about the future of decentralized
finance and you know the solution you're

156
00:11:39.080 --> 00:11:43.039
bringing because it's correct me if I'm
wrong, this can work with a decentralized

157
00:11:43.039 --> 00:11:48.279
exchange and a centralized exchange. Yeah, you're right. We actually have our

158
00:11:48.320 --> 00:11:52.639
first tier one centralized exchange that is
natively integrating Elixir. We haven't announced it

159
00:11:52.720 --> 00:11:56.360
yet, but we're going to be
announcing it hopefully in the next month or

160
00:11:56.360 --> 00:12:01.000
two. But yeah, a household
name centralized exchange that you guys all know

161
00:12:03.320 --> 00:12:05.399
is natively integrating a Elixir to where
you'll be able to, like when you're

162
00:12:05.679 --> 00:12:09.480
trading in the interface, you'll see
a supply button. You can actually supply

163
00:12:09.559 --> 00:12:13.159
liquidity there. And there's a lot
of other big use cases that we're going

164
00:12:13.200 --> 00:12:16.240
to be announcing. For example,
there's like stable coins. I don't know

165
00:12:16.240 --> 00:12:20.720
if like you guys have heard of
it, like Athena, right, but

166
00:12:20.799 --> 00:12:24.840
there's use cases like that that are
going to be announced in the coming weeks

167
00:12:24.840 --> 00:12:28.879
that are are our network will power
because we have fourteen thousand validators that are

168
00:12:28.879 --> 00:12:31.200
securing this this modular blockchain that's built
for this purpose. Right, it's like

169
00:12:31.200 --> 00:12:37.840
these HFT use cases. So yeah, this could support centralized exchanges and then

170
00:12:37.039 --> 00:12:43.559
in the future it'll support stable coins
like algorithmic stable coins and so yeah,

171
00:12:43.679 --> 00:12:46.039
definitely i'd follow the Twitter and we're
going to be announcing some big stuff in

172
00:12:46.039 --> 00:12:50.080
the coming weeks. That's exciting.
Yeah, I'm very curious as to who

173
00:12:50.120 --> 00:12:58.080
that. You know, Tier one
centralized exchange is no comment. I know

174
00:12:58.120 --> 00:13:03.559
you can't imagine, but you know, that's exciting. And do you see

175
00:13:03.600 --> 00:13:09.039
this, you know being sometimes it
takes one mover to you know, you

176
00:13:09.039 --> 00:13:11.559
know, get their foot in the
door or open the door, I should

177
00:13:11.559 --> 00:13:13.960
say, and then you have game
theory. You know, other exchanges they

178
00:13:13.879 --> 00:13:16.279
are going to try to capitalize on
this, and it kind of goes back

179
00:13:16.279 --> 00:13:22.200
to what I was mentioning earlier to
future decentralized finance and as well as allowing

180
00:13:22.279 --> 00:13:28.840
people regular retail investors to have more
accessibility, more ways to earn and so

181
00:13:28.919 --> 00:13:33.600
forth. Do you see it opening
up like more opportunities like that. Yeah,

182
00:13:33.679 --> 00:13:37.159
I mean, I think we're at
a spot where most of the leading

183
00:13:37.559 --> 00:13:43.240
exchanges have either committed to integrate or
have already integrated Elixir. So I mean

184
00:13:43.279 --> 00:13:48.000
we're just I mean, it's just
an engineering question at this point, like

185
00:13:48.039 --> 00:13:50.759
we're just trying to build through these
native integrations. We're going to be going

186
00:13:50.799 --> 00:13:54.120
live with do id X, hyper
Liquid, AVO, all the all the

187
00:13:54.159 --> 00:13:58.200
other leading order book based exchanges.
So it's almost like at this point,

188
00:13:58.279 --> 00:14:01.320
yeah, new enough coming ones,
especially when we have I mean, we

189
00:14:01.399 --> 00:14:07.559
have roughly two hundred million in deposits
into this elex eth cross chained product,

190
00:14:07.600 --> 00:14:11.320
right, so once that goes live, we're working very closely with DELFI Digital.

191
00:14:13.120 --> 00:14:18.200
Right now, we assume roughly across
all of DeFi, there's probably about

192
00:14:18.879 --> 00:14:24.000
two two hundred and fifty to three
hundred million in total open orders for all

193
00:14:24.120 --> 00:14:28.799
order books in DeFi, and of
that we currently power forty or fifty million

194
00:14:28.879 --> 00:14:33.200
of it. And then we have
an additional two hundred million that has come

195
00:14:33.200 --> 00:14:35.840
into this lex e product, right, So when we go live at main

196
00:14:35.919 --> 00:14:41.120
that we will be powering roughly half
of all order book liquidity and DeFi,

197
00:14:41.679 --> 00:14:46.039
right, And so that's that's like
I mean for us, we it's a

198
00:14:46.039 --> 00:14:48.720
big incentive for future exchanges that like, oh, we'd love to tap into

199
00:14:48.720 --> 00:14:52.600
this, right, So that's kind
of definitely a mote that we have.

200
00:14:52.679 --> 00:14:56.720
But you know, we're starting to
think about other use cases of this,

201
00:14:56.840 --> 00:15:00.480
right, centralized exchanges, stable coins, right things. So that's sort of

202
00:15:00.679 --> 00:15:05.120
like I think would really kind of
open up people's minds to just how powerful

203
00:15:05.159 --> 00:15:09.679
this network is that we've built.
So yeah, we we definitely I mean,

204
00:15:09.799 --> 00:15:13.759
our bread and butter is order book
based exchanges, and so we'll definitely

205
00:15:13.840 --> 00:15:16.679
keep pushing on that side too for
sure. Now, a question I'm sure

206
00:15:16.679 --> 00:15:20.320
many folks are going to have is
security. Right, you mentioned you have

207
00:15:20.000 --> 00:15:24.519
a number of validators and so forth. What else are you doing from a

208
00:15:24.559 --> 00:15:28.919
security standpoint to make sure this is
uh, you know, the teaser crossed,

209
00:15:28.960 --> 00:15:31.399
the eyes are dotted and so forth. Yeah, So we have we

210
00:15:31.519 --> 00:15:37.200
got an audit from Trail of Bits
roughly, I mean that was that was

211
00:15:37.360 --> 00:15:41.519
a few months back and so they
completed their audit. We have an ongoing

212
00:15:41.559 --> 00:15:48.080
bug boundy program with respect to upcoming
audits. We have another Trail of Its

213
00:15:48.120 --> 00:15:50.759
audit that we're going to be doing. We have a quant stamp audit that

214
00:15:50.799 --> 00:15:52.639
we're in the process of kicking off. So yeah, security is definitely a

215
00:15:52.679 --> 00:16:00.639
large priority for us. The actual
mechanism that our protocol uses is we have

216
00:16:00.679 --> 00:16:03.519
a DPOs network that has fraud proofs
posted to a theory of made net.

217
00:16:04.360 --> 00:16:07.600
And so the way that it works, right, just at the super highest

218
00:16:07.639 --> 00:16:12.039
level, say we have fourteen thousand
validators. Of those a top subset actually

219
00:16:12.039 --> 00:16:17.919
participating consensus, right, So the
final number we're finalizing right now, actually,

220
00:16:18.519 --> 00:16:22.840
but say it's one hundred. If
one of those one hundred says something

221
00:16:22.919 --> 00:16:26.720
different from the others, it gets
jailed, it falls out of the validator

222
00:16:26.799 --> 00:16:30.159
set. Another of the fourteen thousand
gets subbed in, right, and then

223
00:16:30.759 --> 00:16:34.279
there's an on chain fraud proof that
is posted that slashes that malicious validator.

224
00:16:34.799 --> 00:16:38.120
And so that's like the high level. And then that whole process happens,

225
00:16:38.679 --> 00:16:44.639
pulling the exchange order book data,
coming to consensus on an order proposal,

226
00:16:44.759 --> 00:16:49.159
cryptographically signing that, sending that to
the relay infrastructure signing within the SGX plus

227
00:16:49.240 --> 00:16:55.840
Schmer's secreaturing relay essentially, and it's
sending that off to the exchanges. That

228
00:16:55.879 --> 00:16:59.559
whole thing happens once a second,
and so there's a huge amount of data

229
00:16:59.559 --> 00:17:02.840
that's coming in. But it's really
important obviously to make sure that the validators

230
00:17:03.080 --> 00:17:07.200
are able to come to consensus,
and then having everything fully transparent for people

231
00:17:07.920 --> 00:17:12.200
so that they can have the confidence
and actually see, Okay, if I

232
00:17:12.200 --> 00:17:17.839
supply liquidity on some external exchange,
I know it's not just like the elix

233
00:17:17.880 --> 00:17:21.359
or team running around with API keys
or whatever, right Like, so it's

234
00:17:21.480 --> 00:17:26.039
super important to have that fully transparent
and auditible. Does it matter as far

235
00:17:26.079 --> 00:17:30.359
as assets are asset types or blockchain
types or do you support pretty much,

236
00:17:32.279 --> 00:17:33.640
well, you know, it doesn't
matter whatever is on the exchange. You

237
00:17:33.640 --> 00:17:37.880
can support as far as crypto assets, anything that is on the exchange.

238
00:17:37.960 --> 00:17:42.480
Right. So the actual supplying the
asset that you'll be supplying to the order

239
00:17:42.480 --> 00:17:47.799
books, it really depends on the
exchange itself, right. So a lot

240
00:17:47.799 --> 00:17:52.160
of these different order book based perpetuals
exchanges take USDC, Right, you supply

241
00:17:52.319 --> 00:17:56.599
USDC. You can open long and
short contracts on ethereum or bitcoin or whatever

242
00:17:57.519 --> 00:18:03.640
for those pairs you're supplying just straight
USDC. If the exchange takes USDT is

243
00:18:03.640 --> 00:18:08.119
collateral, you'll be supplying USDT.
For spot markets, you'll actually be supplying

244
00:18:08.160 --> 00:18:14.599
fifty to fifty of the underlying So
yeah, we're able to support any order

245
00:18:14.599 --> 00:18:22.640
book market. The Elixir network itself
actually is you can't actually bridge funds onto

246
00:18:22.720 --> 00:18:26.079
the Elixir network. It's almost like
a decentralized consensus engine. And so when

247
00:18:26.119 --> 00:18:30.720
you supply on Vertex, for example, you press that on, your funds

248
00:18:30.759 --> 00:18:34.359
go to a smart contract that lives
on Arbitrum. In Vertex's case, because

249
00:18:34.440 --> 00:18:38.920
arbitrump Vertex that wills to Arbitrum,
and then we issue signatures based on the

250
00:18:38.960 --> 00:18:42.319
funds held in that smart contract.
When you press withdraw, the funds go

251
00:18:42.400 --> 00:18:48.240
back. So the actual elx token
when it does go live will be on

252
00:18:48.319 --> 00:18:52.480
Ethereum and that will be an ERC
twenty. But when interacting with the system,

253
00:18:52.680 --> 00:18:57.400
you'll be just supplying the assets to
the exchange based on what is accepted

254
00:18:57.440 --> 00:19:02.119
as collateral for that market. Ah, got it? Okay, that makes

255
00:19:02.160 --> 00:19:04.559
sense. Now you guys got some
funding rounds. Can you tell us about

256
00:19:04.559 --> 00:19:08.640
that? Yeah, So we just
closed our Series B roughly two to three

257
00:19:08.640 --> 00:19:12.839
months ago. So we made that
announcement. We raised eight million at an

258
00:19:12.880 --> 00:19:18.079
eight hundred million network valuation, so
we pulled in some strong partners. Were

259
00:19:18.079 --> 00:19:25.680
really excited about we had you know, Mailstrom as well as Miston Labs who

260
00:19:25.759 --> 00:19:29.039
co led that round, and then
a bunch of different marketmakers with had Arthur

261
00:19:29.079 --> 00:19:36.480
Hayes who participated Mailstrom the mist In
Labs and Mailstrom co lad and then everyone

262
00:19:36.480 --> 00:19:41.039
else kind of just piled in validators, marketing makers, strategic kind of other

263
00:19:41.200 --> 00:19:45.920
angels who came in with slightly bigger
size for the Series B, and so

264
00:19:47.000 --> 00:19:49.039
yeah, we're really excited to have
these guys on board. Before that,

265
00:19:49.119 --> 00:19:56.079
we we closed our Series A about
a year or so ago that was around

266
00:19:56.359 --> 00:20:02.720
at one hundred million network valuation from
hack VC and so they led that round

267
00:20:02.759 --> 00:20:06.480
and we raised seven point five million
in that round. And then we had

268
00:20:06.480 --> 00:20:08.000
a seed round that we closed like
two and a half years ago that was

269
00:20:08.000 --> 00:20:15.039
allowed led by Commonwealth and falcon X, where we raised roughly two and a

270
00:20:15.039 --> 00:20:17.160
half million and I was, yeah, like two and a half years ago

271
00:20:17.200 --> 00:20:21.519
or so, so yeah, that's
like kind of the high level history of

272
00:20:21.519 --> 00:20:26.960
our fundraising rounds. But yeah,
we've we've onwarded some strong partners who will

273
00:20:26.960 --> 00:20:30.039
be great in helping us come to
market. Now as far as uh,

274
00:20:30.359 --> 00:20:34.200
you know, I know you mentioned
like you got some centralized exchange top here

275
00:20:34.240 --> 00:20:41.119
and so forth coming. You can't
announce yet. Are there any large VC

276
00:20:41.400 --> 00:20:48.359
firms that are working that you're working
with outside of just investments or institutions,

277
00:20:48.400 --> 00:20:55.359
which are can institutions use this solution? I want? I don't mean exchanges

278
00:20:55.400 --> 00:20:59.319
but an apologies if I'm framing this
wrong, but more of like if they're

279
00:20:59.319 --> 00:21:03.519
a hedge fund or a venture capital
firm. Yeah. So there's a few

280
00:21:03.559 --> 00:21:07.359
different parties that we're working with.
For example, Delphi Digital is one.

281
00:21:07.759 --> 00:21:12.160
They're working with us very closely to
do a lot of like risk modeling within

282
00:21:12.200 --> 00:21:17.440
the system. Obviously, we work
like auditing firms with respect to these bigger

283
00:21:17.480 --> 00:21:19.920
institutions, guys like Samsung and Sony. We've talked to a lot of these

284
00:21:19.920 --> 00:21:25.119
bigger parties as well around like potentially
running a validator and security a network.

285
00:21:25.759 --> 00:21:30.359
Some of these bigger names are are
really excited about about crypto and looking to

286
00:21:30.480 --> 00:21:34.880
move more into it. AWS is
one great example. They we have a

287
00:21:34.880 --> 00:21:40.119
partnership that we're going to be like
you know that we've already solidified with them.

288
00:21:40.160 --> 00:21:42.759
We have, We've mentioned it in
the past, but essentially allowing for

289
00:21:42.799 --> 00:21:47.799
one click deployment of Elixer validators,
So you'll be able to just go to

290
00:21:48.079 --> 00:21:52.359
Amazon Marketplace and just one click deployed
an Elixer validator for our test amp three

291
00:21:52.680 --> 00:21:56.279
And so that'll be something that we're
going to be bringing a lot more kind

292
00:21:56.279 --> 00:22:00.680
of eyeballs to. But yeah,
just I mean as you think about kind

293
00:22:00.720 --> 00:22:06.279
of the prime target for Alixer,
there's obviously the exchanges which want to integrate

294
00:22:06.279 --> 00:22:10.279
this. We have the protocols themselves
that want to boost the liquidity on their

295
00:22:10.279 --> 00:22:12.880
markets. You have individual LPs that
want to come in and supply liquidity,

296
00:22:14.000 --> 00:22:17.200
right because we're unlocking this new source
of deal that like to date has never

297
00:22:17.480 --> 00:22:19.039
been accessible, right, Like,
it's only going to a few big market

298
00:22:19.039 --> 00:22:22.200
makers, so now anyone can supply
and earn a share of these rewards.

299
00:22:23.079 --> 00:22:26.839
So there's a few different parties obviously. We have, so yeah, really

300
00:22:26.880 --> 00:22:32.400
big announcements dropping in the next few
weeks that I think will be Yeah,

301
00:22:32.519 --> 00:22:37.319
it'll make it very easy for anyone
to participate, and yeah, so definitely

302
00:22:37.799 --> 00:22:38.880
statuted on that side. But yeah, there's a lot of different ways for

303
00:22:38.920 --> 00:22:45.799
people to get involved. But yeah, the like individual hedge funds probably not

304
00:22:45.880 --> 00:22:49.720
as much unless they're looking to supply
liquidity and they're looking for a passive delta

305
00:22:49.799 --> 00:22:52.920
neutral way to earn yields, and
then in that regard, this is a

306
00:22:52.920 --> 00:22:57.200
perfect a perfect place for them to
part capital and boost the liquidity in de

307
00:22:57.359 --> 00:23:02.599
five. Now, obviously you've got
a lot coming up right with the launch

308
00:23:02.599 --> 00:23:07.000
and everything and the announcements, But
is there anything else on your twenty twenty

309
00:23:07.000 --> 00:23:11.359
four roadmap that you want to highlight? No, I mean it's mostly Elixir

310
00:23:11.480 --> 00:23:15.160
for me. I think Elixir is
is definitely at like a really kind of

311
00:23:15.519 --> 00:23:21.079
big inflection point. So I think
that's definitely like the main priority of everyone

312
00:23:21.079 --> 00:23:23.000
on the team right now. We've
been traveling a fair amount. I went

313
00:23:23.839 --> 00:23:29.480
on like a pretty long road show
from We went like from New I'm based

314
00:23:29.519 --> 00:23:33.920
in New York, so New York
to la to Hong Kong to Singapore to

315
00:23:33.920 --> 00:23:37.960
Tokyo to Dubai. There's like all
these different crypto conferences where I was speaking

316
00:23:38.279 --> 00:23:42.680
at these different events and hosting side
events and meeting up with people in our

317
00:23:42.720 --> 00:23:45.960
community. You know, our community
has been really taking off. So making

318
00:23:47.000 --> 00:23:49.920
sure that we're able to meet with
a lot of these parties and get a

319
00:23:49.960 --> 00:23:53.599
lot of these ambassadors some skin in
the game right to where they are really

320
00:23:53.640 --> 00:23:57.559
excited to to you know, they
know a lot of the developments of Elixir

321
00:23:57.599 --> 00:24:03.799
and they're able to kind of put
things and help explain inspread the message.

322
00:24:03.000 --> 00:24:07.880
So that's really the main focus,
at least for me for sure. So

323
00:24:07.960 --> 00:24:12.119
let's talk about the crypto market at
large. Obviously, we had an incredible

324
00:24:12.160 --> 00:24:15.839
start to year, even twenty twenty
three was incredible. You have the bitcoins,

325
00:24:15.880 --> 00:24:21.519
boty tf's got to prove incredible inflows. Market's kind of cool down now.

326
00:24:22.000 --> 00:24:26.880
I'd love to get your thoughts on
how things your perspective and how the

327
00:24:26.920 --> 00:24:30.759
ETFs have affected the market, and
what's your outlook for the later the end

328
00:24:30.799 --> 00:24:36.279
the year. Yeah, I think
we're still at a pretty healthy spot right

329
00:24:36.319 --> 00:24:41.799
where in the market where obviously the
inflows for the bigcoin ETF have brought in.

330
00:24:41.920 --> 00:24:45.319
I think this level of institutional capital
that wasn't previously in crypto, right,

331
00:24:45.359 --> 00:24:48.200
So I don't think that was people
were talking about like all the institutions

332
00:24:48.240 --> 00:24:52.480
are coming. Institutions are coming,
right Like, I think they're actually here.

333
00:24:52.680 --> 00:24:56.559
But I think it's very different from
previous bowl markets and that there's not

334
00:24:56.640 --> 00:25:02.440
this huge retail presence we saw that
it kind of a lot of the retail

335
00:25:02.480 --> 00:25:07.240
folks flocked to like meme coins,
right, So meme coins specifically on Solana,

336
00:25:07.279 --> 00:25:10.960
we're all the rage for what like
two three months, where people are

337
00:25:11.039 --> 00:25:14.640
just going in and just like kind
of doing it almost like a lottery ticket,

338
00:25:14.799 --> 00:25:18.119
right, And so I think that's
kind of been a big theme where

339
00:25:18.119 --> 00:25:23.000
it's it's like meme coins have been
really hot over the last few months.

340
00:25:23.279 --> 00:25:26.319
I do think like venture activity has
not slowed down at all. There's like

341
00:25:26.359 --> 00:25:30.839
a lot of really cool developments that
are happening behind the scenes for people who

342
00:25:30.880 --> 00:25:36.680
are who are developing. But I
honestly think it's actually pretty pretty healthy where

343
00:25:36.720 --> 00:25:38.240
we're at when the market and I
don't I think that like obviously with the

344
00:25:38.279 --> 00:25:44.000
happening and all these institutional flows,
you know, we're in a much better

345
00:25:44.039 --> 00:25:47.119
spot, at a much healthier spot
versus where we were a year ago,

346
00:25:47.440 --> 00:25:51.720
right obviously or two years ago,
but we're really not. Yeah, it's

347
00:25:51.720 --> 00:25:56.359
really like the market is thawed,
but it's not impossible to get funding for

348
00:25:56.400 --> 00:25:59.400
builders. And then on the other
hand, right, it's not like super

349
00:25:59.400 --> 00:26:03.119
anemic on the retail side, it's
kind of just like very cool altogether.

350
00:26:03.240 --> 00:26:07.079
So that's kind of at least what
I've what I've been seeing just straight on

351
00:26:07.079 --> 00:26:10.759
the builders side, there's a lot
of really innovative companies that are coming to

352
00:26:10.799 --> 00:26:15.240
market still a lot of heavy zero
knowledge proof protocols, right, which these

353
00:26:15.279 --> 00:26:22.039
researchers that are PhDs from Stanford that
have some crazy research right that you know,

354
00:26:22.160 --> 00:26:26.079
to date, those hadn't really worked
that well. Whereas like because you

355
00:26:26.440 --> 00:26:30.440
just a lot of cryptosis narratives and
like you know, marketing. So it's

356
00:26:30.440 --> 00:26:34.160
like if you're just a very very
technical team, you kind of struggle a

357
00:26:34.240 --> 00:26:40.279
lot as a builder. But I
think what we've seen is that a lot

358
00:26:40.279 --> 00:26:42.440
of these parties are starting to get
like really solid traction obviously on the funding

359
00:26:42.480 --> 00:26:45.319
side, but then on the adoption
side as well, like people are starting

360
00:26:45.359 --> 00:26:49.119
to really think about like some of
these new trends. So overall, I

361
00:26:49.119 --> 00:26:52.119
think the market's in a pretty good
spot. I got a couple of questions

362
00:26:52.319 --> 00:26:56.799
based on statements that you made there
versus mean coins are very controversial. You

363
00:26:56.799 --> 00:27:03.960
know, I have a love hate
relationship with it because it's not quality projects.

364
00:27:03.000 --> 00:27:07.160
You know, it's not like solving
a real world problem. It's just

365
00:27:07.279 --> 00:27:11.079
a lot of speculation. What are
your thoughts on meme coins? You know,

366
00:27:11.119 --> 00:27:14.799
I mean, are you in the
same mindset? So I don't,

367
00:27:14.920 --> 00:27:17.519
I don't buy, I don't do
anything right, I'm like, I'm I'm

368
00:27:17.519 --> 00:27:21.720
the most like boring, like standard, I'll like invest into I guess a

369
00:27:21.799 --> 00:27:25.200
small angel in the companies, right, So I angeled into like Blast,

370
00:27:26.079 --> 00:27:29.920
I angeled into uh like Monad and
bear a chain just like small checks,

371
00:27:29.960 --> 00:27:33.759
super close with those teams. But
I'm not. I'm not in the trenches

372
00:27:33.039 --> 00:27:37.720
like I have. There are people
that I know that are like, have

373
00:27:37.799 --> 00:27:41.480
done really well buying these mean coins
and you know, capitalizing on these these

374
00:27:41.480 --> 00:27:45.759
speculative frenzies. Right. But I
think just the way that I feel it

375
00:27:45.799 --> 00:27:48.359
is it's also very love hate for
me, right, Like, I think

376
00:27:48.680 --> 00:27:52.519
a lot of people come into crypto, like they hear about some mean coin,

377
00:27:52.720 --> 00:27:55.680
and that's how they hear about it. They come in, they buy

378
00:27:55.720 --> 00:27:59.079
some mean coin, and you know, they get rug pulled because it's like

379
00:27:59.160 --> 00:28:02.440
some you know, some team.
Then it's just like, you know,

380
00:28:03.119 --> 00:28:04.519
whatever they pulled, they pull out
the rug on some salot and a lot

381
00:28:04.599 --> 00:28:08.160
because they launched it like two hours
ago and they're all anonymous, and that's

382
00:28:08.200 --> 00:28:11.400
it, right, So that's like
I do think that like it does.

383
00:28:12.000 --> 00:28:15.720
You know, a lot of the
use case of crypto has been a speculative

384
00:28:15.799 --> 00:28:19.279
frenzy, right, Like anything that's
touched speculation of cryptos said really well,

385
00:28:19.559 --> 00:28:23.079
right, exchanges have made a lot
of money, while its have made a

386
00:28:23.079 --> 00:28:26.160
lot of money. Stakers have made
a lot of money. So if you

387
00:28:26.240 --> 00:28:30.920
touch any of those things, you
generally do pretty well in crypto if you

388
00:28:30.000 --> 00:28:34.279
achieve success. But like we've been
trying to find like use cases for crypto

389
00:28:34.319 --> 00:28:40.640
that are not like just speculation on
like a very obvious like meme. But

390
00:28:41.000 --> 00:28:42.279
the thing is, I guess to
round it out, I don't think it's

391
00:28:42.319 --> 00:28:45.880
going away though, right, Like
there is always going to be a subset

392
00:28:45.920 --> 00:28:51.160
of people like just similar like when
I was working at like before I moved

393
00:28:51.200 --> 00:28:53.680
all in on crypto, right,
Like I was working like a normal job

394
00:28:53.720 --> 00:28:57.200
where I was just like in traditional
finance, and I looked at crypto or

395
00:28:57.200 --> 00:29:00.839
I was like this is kind of
like you. I looked at this,

396
00:29:00.000 --> 00:29:04.319
and there's the potential to meet outsize
games, right, And there's like potentially

397
00:29:04.440 --> 00:29:08.039
like really innovative technology, And so
there's a subset of people who will just

398
00:29:08.079 --> 00:29:11.799
look at crypto and they'll go the
extreme and they'll think it's just a casino,

399
00:29:11.920 --> 00:29:12.759
right, and they'll just go in
and then just you know, it's

400
00:29:12.799 --> 00:29:15.839
okay. Well I could put it, I can put a thousand dollars on

401
00:29:15.839 --> 00:29:18.759
black at the casino, or I
could snipe you know, snipe it into

402
00:29:18.799 --> 00:29:23.160
a Salona mean coin. Right.
So that's I think it's not going away.

403
00:29:23.400 --> 00:29:26.839
It's very like kind of love love
hate for me too. I don't

404
00:29:26.920 --> 00:29:30.960
I don't trade them, but I
have a lot of friends who do.

405
00:29:30.440 --> 00:29:34.400
Yeah, same same thing. Now, let's talk about those vcs, right,

406
00:29:34.519 --> 00:29:38.079
Uh, based on your experience,
you have a plethorough experience, I

407
00:29:38.079 --> 00:29:45.519
mean obviously with block venture and so
forth. How have you seen the the

408
00:29:45.680 --> 00:29:52.319
VC investments change over the years going
back to let's say twenty seventeen. Have

409
00:29:52.400 --> 00:29:55.880
there been different patterns anything to call
out or is just the same old like

410
00:29:56.000 --> 00:30:00.240
they they find good projects they and
maybe good tokenomics and so fourth. Well,

411
00:30:00.279 --> 00:30:06.240
I think DC in crypto is also
a little bit like kind of love

412
00:30:06.279 --> 00:30:10.799
hate for me. Obviously, Alixer
could not be where it is without venture

413
00:30:10.839 --> 00:30:15.279
funding. We have a team like
of of fifteen sixteen full time people,

414
00:30:15.440 --> 00:30:18.240
right, it's obviously because we raised
funding and we're able to pay everyone like

415
00:30:18.319 --> 00:30:22.359
a wage, right, So it's
like it's needed that being said. Right,

416
00:30:22.440 --> 00:30:27.799
Like the way that that adventure that
venture operators kind of think about the

417
00:30:27.839 --> 00:30:32.799
crypto space is they everything is comparable
based, because no one knows how to

418
00:30:32.880 --> 00:30:37.160
value anything, right, So everyone
just says if you if you launch a

419
00:30:37.240 --> 00:30:40.640
layer one and you're raising your seed
around for your layer one, and you

420
00:30:40.680 --> 00:30:42.279
say, oh, well, like
Solana is, if we just get to

421
00:30:42.319 --> 00:30:45.759
one one hundredth of Solana, we're
worth a thousand x where you are.

422
00:30:45.799 --> 00:30:51.359
Now all the investors think the same
way, right, So there it's all

423
00:30:51.400 --> 00:30:55.160
about kind of following the pack,
and a lot of times they just follow

424
00:30:55.160 --> 00:31:00.200
the herd, right. True zero
to one innovative things actually don't get very

425
00:31:00.279 --> 00:31:04.240
much love from vcs, Like I
think there's there are a lot of like

426
00:31:04.319 --> 00:31:08.359
really successful launches that have happened in
the last year, where like the vcs

427
00:31:08.359 --> 00:31:12.160
have kind of been very much like
hit or miss on because it's been very

428
00:31:12.240 --> 00:31:15.599
zero to one, they can't really
compare it to anything, so they go,

429
00:31:15.680 --> 00:31:18.079
oh, like probably I don't know, it's probably just a path for

430
00:31:18.160 --> 00:31:22.839
me, right, But like a
new copy paste Layer one that's backed by

431
00:31:22.480 --> 00:31:29.000
Paradigm, right, every every especially
if it's out like anything sub five hundred

432
00:31:29.000 --> 00:31:30.440
million, it's just people are going
to pile in because they can just say,

433
00:31:30.440 --> 00:31:33.079
oh, it's back with Paradigm and
it's going to go to there,

434
00:31:33.200 --> 00:31:37.480
right, So there is Yeah,
VC investment is super important, But yeah,

435
00:31:37.480 --> 00:31:41.359
I think there has been that.
That being said, there have been

436
00:31:41.400 --> 00:31:45.559
a lot of like really great innovation
that we've seen just across the space,

437
00:31:45.680 --> 00:31:49.160
and I think venture funds have gone
I think too to some really strong builders.

438
00:31:49.200 --> 00:31:53.240
So I'm really really excited to see
that. Obviously, Elixer did our

439
00:31:53.279 --> 00:31:59.440
Series B, you know, we've
there's like Monad who did a huge mega

440
00:31:59.440 --> 00:32:04.640
around. We had like like eigen
Layer obviously did like a huge round before

441
00:32:04.680 --> 00:32:07.599
their launch. Like the launch itself. I think there's a lot of hate

442
00:32:07.640 --> 00:32:10.599
around how they did their their air
draft and stuff, but overall, it's

443
00:32:10.680 --> 00:32:15.079
it's exciting to see that funds are
getting in the hand to good builders for

444
00:32:15.119 --> 00:32:19.319
sure, So Phil, but I
want to get your perspective as a builder,

445
00:32:19.519 --> 00:32:22.880
as an entrepreneur, with and especially
being in the United States, there

446
00:32:22.920 --> 00:32:27.960
is still a lot of uncertainty.
Congress has not passed regulations, and you've

447
00:32:27.960 --> 00:32:34.000
got the SEC which is acting like
a rogue, you know, run away

448
00:32:34.039 --> 00:32:38.279
regulator essentially, And there's a lot
of things happening in the courts and battling,

449
00:32:38.319 --> 00:32:42.240
but I love that the crypto industry
is fighting back and winning somebody these

450
00:32:42.279 --> 00:32:45.640
cases. I would love to get
your thoughts, especially from a perspective of

451
00:32:45.680 --> 00:32:50.799
a builder. Yeah, I mean, I think it's it's it's you have

452
00:32:50.880 --> 00:32:54.400
to try to play that. You
have to play the play by the rules

453
00:32:54.480 --> 00:32:57.839
right at the end of the day. You have to, like, if

454
00:32:57.880 --> 00:33:04.559
you're taking on a credited retail investment
as a pre launch company in the US,

455
00:33:04.799 --> 00:33:06.680
like you're going to have a bad
time. You have to, like,

456
00:33:07.240 --> 00:33:09.440
you have to play by the rules. Generally. That being said,

457
00:33:09.440 --> 00:33:15.519
it is like there has been very
historically bad guidance right where if you are

458
00:33:15.559 --> 00:33:19.799
a founder. I mean most of
the leading crypto protocols are in New York,

459
00:33:20.000 --> 00:33:22.119
right, and they're all in New
York, but they all have like

460
00:33:22.480 --> 00:33:25.279
offshore structures and stuff, and it's
like, well then what is kind of

461
00:33:25.799 --> 00:33:31.119
like you almost like you're allowed to
so you get these weird like convoluted structures,

462
00:33:31.720 --> 00:33:35.720
and so, I mean most of
our team is actually remote. We

463
00:33:35.759 --> 00:33:40.359
have a very global team. You
know, we have a foundation with that

464
00:33:40.480 --> 00:33:45.440
is offshore where you know, and
then there's a very clear like developed devco

465
00:33:46.240 --> 00:33:51.559
offshore foundation, right and that's the
standard for everyone. And I think it's

466
00:33:51.599 --> 00:33:54.319
just really important to make sure that
you do things right kind of from day

467
00:33:54.359 --> 00:33:58.480
one as a project. Otherwise you
really can get into hot water right where

468
00:33:58.480 --> 00:34:00.880
it's like, you know, if
you do doing like public sales or things

469
00:34:00.920 --> 00:34:07.039
like that, or you're representing that
you're whatever, like token is going to

470
00:34:07.079 --> 00:34:10.360
go up or whatever you're gonna like
the I think a lot of that is

471
00:34:10.400 --> 00:34:14.920
also kind of in the some of
that there is an overlap right there.

472
00:34:14.960 --> 00:34:19.559
Some of that is actually good for
the space too, because if every project

473
00:34:19.639 --> 00:34:21.719
was just saying that our token is
gonna go up, our token's going to

474
00:34:21.760 --> 00:34:24.320
go up by our token, right, it like is not you're you're not

475
00:34:25.239 --> 00:34:31.159
like it gets very much kind of
just like a there are people who are

476
00:34:31.199 --> 00:34:36.199
like really excited about the tech in
Web three, and you know that's like

477
00:34:36.239 --> 00:34:38.360
our team we like really look for
that the people who are actually trying to

478
00:34:38.400 --> 00:34:44.639
unlock these use cases, and like
that's really the most important thing we think,

479
00:34:45.079 --> 00:34:47.239
And so it's important. I think
having some of that regulation that's there

480
00:34:47.880 --> 00:34:51.440
so you can kind of weed out
the back doctors that are like all about

481
00:34:51.480 --> 00:34:54.559
fast money and you can just you
can you can just you know, focus

482
00:34:54.599 --> 00:34:58.719
on buildings. So yeah, I
mean I think it's overall, I think

483
00:34:58.760 --> 00:35:00.400
some guidance would be great. I
think it's great that the industry is fighting

484
00:35:00.440 --> 00:35:07.440
back, and especially it's like just
perceived overstepping, right. Like the one

485
00:35:07.480 --> 00:35:10.079
thing that I am like pretty annoyed
about is like how like Gary guns and

486
00:35:10.480 --> 00:35:15.320
the SEC is not like come up
with one one way or the other on

487
00:35:15.400 --> 00:35:21.079
ethereums like designation as a security.
It's like like there is no good faith

488
00:35:21.199 --> 00:35:24.360
argument for why they couldn't just put
like they couldn't just say, hey,

489
00:35:24.400 --> 00:35:28.480
this is what concerns us about this, right, and then all the industry

490
00:35:28.480 --> 00:35:30.400
goes, oh, okay, well
then we won't do that, we'll do

491
00:35:30.480 --> 00:35:32.480
this right. So, but like
that hasn't happened, so everyone's kind of

492
00:35:32.480 --> 00:35:37.760
in this like purgatory. So anyways, it's interesting to see how it goes.

493
00:35:37.840 --> 00:35:39.719
But yeah, I mean, at
the end of the day, a

494
00:35:39.760 --> 00:35:43.760
lot of a lot of our close
friends who are builders have moved out of

495
00:35:43.760 --> 00:35:49.440
the US so it's kind of a
bummer to see for sure, now a

496
00:35:49.480 --> 00:35:52.360
hot topic and it seems to be
mostly from the institutions like black Rock and

497
00:35:52.360 --> 00:35:55.480
so forth. Is tokenization. I
love to get your thoughts on that.

498
00:35:55.559 --> 00:35:59.280
And you know, is it,
as Larry Fink says, it is the

499
00:35:59.320 --> 00:36:04.480
future of finding hands? I think, I think on a long enough timescale

500
00:36:05.800 --> 00:36:10.960
that's correct. I think that it's
just one of those things that people have

501
00:36:12.000 --> 00:36:15.280
been saying for a long time.
But I wouldn't put my money where my

502
00:36:15.320 --> 00:36:20.000
mouth is there yet. Right,
It's almost like vr AR, right,

503
00:36:20.400 --> 00:36:23.800
people have all been saying vr AR
is the future for like twenty years now,

504
00:36:23.840 --> 00:36:27.880
fifteen years before it was when it
was just like kind of just an

505
00:36:27.920 --> 00:36:30.000
idea of people were saying, wow, this is going to be how it

506
00:36:30.079 --> 00:36:36.320
is? Right, But if you
invested in any VRAR company, pretty much

507
00:36:36.320 --> 00:36:39.840
any AR company in the last like
fifteen years, you pretty much got a

508
00:36:39.920 --> 00:36:44.119
full right off on your investment.
And just because the market isn't ready for

509
00:36:44.159 --> 00:36:50.239
it yet, and I think the
market is at a spot where a successful

510
00:36:50.679 --> 00:36:53.960
tokenization play will come out and be
really successful. I think if you've maybe

511
00:36:54.000 --> 00:37:00.639
just conceptualize real world assets and tokenization
as look, you have right now,

512
00:37:00.679 --> 00:37:06.199
which is a whatever one trillion dollar
industry or whatever it is, right,

513
00:37:06.239 --> 00:37:09.480
and then you have all of the
whole real world realm, which is however,

514
00:37:09.519 --> 00:37:15.400
many hundreds of trillions of dollars.
That's like eventually there will be crossover

515
00:37:15.519 --> 00:37:20.679
between those two and whatever that crossover
is will be very important. And I

516
00:37:20.719 --> 00:37:22.960
agree with that, right. I
think that's like one small, tiny little

517
00:37:23.039 --> 00:37:27.360
use case of that is like oracles, right, Like Oracles bring real world

518
00:37:27.440 --> 00:37:29.920
data and put it onto the blockchain
and they do really well, like chain

519
00:37:29.960 --> 00:37:34.280
link. Everyone knows chain link,
right, But yeah, thinking about the

520
00:37:34.360 --> 00:37:40.360
actual tookenization of like you know,
like private blockchains, enterprise blockchains, taking

521
00:37:40.880 --> 00:37:45.800
you know, paper like that is
essentially like and then just like storing it

522
00:37:45.840 --> 00:37:49.960
onto a private blockchain, there's no
like real big value unlocked there. And

523
00:37:50.000 --> 00:37:52.119
so that's not really where it's going
to look like. I think it'll be

524
00:37:52.159 --> 00:37:57.559
something that we're not really thinking about
that will come along and just absolutely just

525
00:37:57.639 --> 00:38:01.079
be like an amazing opportunity and also
like bring into a huge amount of value

526
00:38:01.400 --> 00:38:05.800
for the builders in Web three.
So I'm excited to see it. But

527
00:38:06.559 --> 00:38:09.400
I yah, I yeah, I've
just been I've been here in the tokenization

528
00:38:09.519 --> 00:38:14.280
real world assets narrative since like twenty
sixteen when I first joined, and it's

529
00:38:14.320 --> 00:38:16.360
still that we're still kind of at
the same spot. So we'll have to

530
00:38:16.400 --> 00:38:20.119
see for sure. Yeah, we
got ways to go, all right.

531
00:38:20.159 --> 00:38:22.719
I got some wrap up questions here
for you. First is, if you

532
00:38:22.719 --> 00:38:27.920
could create your own metaverse, what
would the theme be. It's a good

533
00:38:27.960 --> 00:38:31.320
question. I would have to do
something Liquidity themes, because it's like the

534
00:38:32.280 --> 00:38:37.280
Elixer theme. We have like a
really cool we actually are we were thinking

535
00:38:37.280 --> 00:38:42.719
about building out a metaverse for Elixer, like our own like just like funny

536
00:38:42.840 --> 00:38:46.159
like because we have our own tight
knit community and we have like we have

537
00:38:46.239 --> 00:38:51.039
like a private telegram and then we
have like a public lounge and we're doing

538
00:38:51.559 --> 00:38:53.519
One of the things we're thinking about
doing is making like a Minecraft server and

539
00:38:53.559 --> 00:38:57.440
making it all like Liquidity theme that
you could join in and we'll do like

540
00:38:57.480 --> 00:39:00.480
competitions for some potions, which are
like our point. Right, So yeah,

541
00:39:00.519 --> 00:39:04.880
i'd have to do something Liquidity themed. Oh nice? Uh? And

542
00:39:04.920 --> 00:39:08.639
some rapid fire questions here. Firstus
favorite food, favorite food, pizza?

543
00:39:08.800 --> 00:39:16.960
Easy, favorite musician or band.
Oh, that's a that's a hard one.

544
00:39:17.639 --> 00:39:24.880
I'm gonna say Aerosmith, favorite movie, The Godfather, favorite book.

545
00:39:27.559 --> 00:39:32.239
Oh, I would say, yeah, there's there's a lot of good ones.

546
00:39:36.920 --> 00:39:40.239
Man, That's that's a hard one. I'd say forty eight Laws of

547
00:39:40.280 --> 00:39:45.280
Power for the controversy too. It's
just like, very like controversial books have

548
00:39:45.320 --> 00:39:47.639
a lot of like cold hard truths
that you can kind of sift through.

549
00:39:47.880 --> 00:39:52.800
I'm a big fan of those,
so I'll do that nice. And then

550
00:39:52.880 --> 00:39:59.239
when you're not working at alix here, what are you doing for fun these

551
00:39:59.320 --> 00:40:02.679
days? Very not very much,
but I would say yeah, uh,

552
00:40:04.320 --> 00:40:08.440
hitting the gym, hanging out with
friends are probably the main two. Philip.

553
00:40:08.480 --> 00:40:13.039
A pleasure chatting with you. I'm
exciting for the launches and everything that's

554
00:40:13.079 --> 00:40:15.519
coming up in the announcements around Alixer. And since you're in New York,

555
00:40:15.599 --> 00:40:19.440
our next interview we have to do
it in person. But thank you so

556
00:40:19.519 --> 00:40:22.719
much for joining me, No,
thank you for having me. It's been

557
00:40:22.719 --> 00:40:27.039
great and yeah, I'm looking forward
to the to link it up in person.

558
00:40:27.199 --> 00:40:37.960
Thanks Tony,