Speaker 1: We want to make this as open and permissionless and
Speaker 1: democratic as possible. Also, the lock up is effectively as
Speaker 1: long as you want, and you could say I'm going
Speaker 1: to lock this set of XRP for some indefinite amount
Speaker 1: of time. You can claim the x orp back at
Speaker 1: any time.
Speaker 2: This content is brought to you by bitco, which is
Speaker 2: one of the top crypto custodians in the crypto industry.
Speaker 2: Bitco works with many big companies and brands such as
Speaker 2: Pantera Capital, Bitstamp, and bitcoin Ira. Nike also selected Bitgo
Speaker 2: to power its wallets for its NFTs, and bitco has
Speaker 2: many great services such as hot wallets, custodial wallets, self
Speaker 2: managed cold wallets, and NFT wallets. Many institutions trust bitgo
Speaker 2: with its top level security and incredible services such as
Speaker 2: being able to deploy your capital while it's in custody,
Speaker 2: which includes lending, borrowing, trading, steaking, DeFi access and more.
Speaker 2: If you'd like to learn more about bitco, please visit
Speaker 2: bitgo dot com link in a description. Welcome into the
Speaker 2: Thinking Crypto podcast. I'm your host, Tony Edward, and my
Speaker 2: guest today is Warren Anderson, who is the co founder
Speaker 2: of Execor Warren.
Speaker 1: Great to have you on, always going to be on.
Speaker 1: Tony Warren.
Speaker 2: We spoke I think maybe three months ago, and you know,
Speaker 2: we did a deep dive into Execor and all the
Speaker 2: great things you guys are doing. Yesterday it was announced
Speaker 2: that you're enabling xrpiece steaking, which is really big and
Speaker 2: a lot of people want to learn about this. And
Speaker 2: of course you worked at Ripple back in the day,
Speaker 2: which is pretty cool. But for those who may not know,
Speaker 2: give give us a quick overview of excor.
Speaker 1: Yeah sure, and yeah, I remember when you're asking, you know,
Speaker 1: if there's any important announcements will be coming out that
Speaker 1: maybe tailored to your audience to to ping you. So
Speaker 1: I did. So we're excited to obviously thrilled to support
Speaker 1: XRP as a it's the actual the first time that
Speaker 1: XRP will have staking yield, which is really cool. Exocre
Speaker 1: was architected as a layer one blockchain and it effectively sits,
Speaker 1: you could say, like on top of or next to
Speaker 1: other layer ones and Exocre right into the layer ones
Speaker 1: to lock, unlock, and slash, and Exocre kind of serves
Speaker 1: as like the accounting system for calculating the all the rewards,
Speaker 1: the distribution, the slashing conditions, and that has all implemented
Speaker 1: in the extra core Layer one, so it's effectively protocolized.
Speaker 1: So you can think of it almost like like an
Speaker 1: external staking or restaking service. Now, we kind of got
Speaker 1: started early twenty twenty three, spent a lot of time
Speaker 1: on the architecture we wanted. You know, obviously I worked
Speaker 1: on XORP ledgers Layer one. My co founder, r J. Lawn,
Speaker 1: was the former CTO and co founder of Harmony, and
Speaker 1: then my third co founder is a luc out of
Speaker 1: popas professor UC Berkeley in cryptography and security. So we
Speaker 1: really wanted to architect this thing to be good stewards
Speaker 1: of other layer one networks because we built them ourselves.
Speaker 1: So the XRP or any asset it stays on the
Speaker 1: XRP ledger. Users can stake it as if it's like
Speaker 1: a native feature of the XRP ledger, and we make
Speaker 1: sure there's no there's no bridging onto XOCRE, there's no minting,
Speaker 1: there's no rapping, so it's not wrapped XRP. This is
Speaker 1: native XRP, which is really cool, and we don't have
Speaker 1: to actually make any changes on the extcore protocol itself.
Speaker 1: So we're you know, we've announced we're supporting BTC, we're
Speaker 1: all supporting ETH, we're supporting SOUL. So naturally XRP was
Speaker 1: like the next like, great, you know token to to
Speaker 1: support if you kind of go down the list. So
Speaker 1: but yeah, I'll pause there.
Speaker 2: So I'm gonna ask newbie questions, right, XRP, Bitcoin and
Speaker 2: so forth are not proof of steak block chains obviously,
Speaker 2: how is how does the steaking component work? Where where
Speaker 2: does the yield come from?
Speaker 1: Sure, so, so if you're familiar with so like this.
Speaker 1: A lot of this started with with Eigenlayer, who is
Speaker 1: the kind of the pioneer of restaking starting to be
Speaker 1: able to restake eth, which obviously Eth is a proof
Speaker 1: of steak network. The ability to restake it is effectively
Speaker 1: being able to like stake it again to secure what
Speaker 1: we call off chain start vices or services that are
Speaker 1: running not directly you know, with the l one validation logic.
Speaker 1: So these are naturally like services like oracles bridges. There's
Speaker 1: a there's a new case of a lot of like
Speaker 1: AI use cases or or cryptographic networks, and so effectively
Speaker 1: what happens is and I like to use analogies. So
Speaker 1: like if you look back in the Internet of history,
Speaker 1: history of the Internet, you know, early days you had
Speaker 1: to kind of spin up your own TCP IP network,
Speaker 1: like they had Aloha network, they had Darper network, they
Speaker 1: had lots of different networks. You almost had to like
Speaker 1: bootstrap your own network in order to connect with other networks.
Speaker 1: And then you know, all of a sudden, data everyone
Speaker 1: kind of consolidated on the CCP IP kind of what
Speaker 1: we use today, and then you would connect by having
Speaker 1: effectively servers in a data center. So this is like
Speaker 1: the Facebook era where Facebook you to have to run
Speaker 1: to you know, Sunny Vale to their data center there
Speaker 1: and literally install servers. And I had a friend on
Speaker 1: the team who made a ton of money doing this
Speaker 1: and literally his job all day was just installing servers,
Speaker 1: listening to like heavy metal and and that was like
Speaker 1: how they scaled their network. Then you know, the virtual
Speaker 1: kind of cloud era came where you could just spin
Speaker 1: up a virtual cloud server on AWS or or Azure
Speaker 1: or any of these or GCP and literally just click
Speaker 1: a box where you want to deploy your service set
Speaker 1: and then it just goes. So we feel like blockchain
Speaker 1: is in that first era kind of migrating to the
Speaker 1: second era, or isn't kind of starting in the second
Speaker 1: era where we have to like bootstrap these blockchain networks
Speaker 1: and do a lot of infrastructure build just to make
Speaker 1: them connect, and then you know, it's it's still a
Speaker 1: pretty burdensome experience for most developers. Or if you want
Speaker 1: to like build on ethereum, it's just like connect to
Speaker 1: Ethereum maybe has a little ecosystem around or goes around it,
Speaker 1: but you can't really connect with like easily with like
Speaker 1: x orp ledger. So what we are sharing in is
Speaker 1: this third kind of wave where we're we want to
Speaker 1: support the virtual cloud of decentralized security so that someone
Speaker 1: can literally just like with an experience like AWS sign in,
Speaker 1: say I want to inherit my decentialized security from you know, BTC,
Speaker 1: ETH and XRP, and here's my wallet address or even
Speaker 1: here's my you know, uh, stable coin or even credit card,
Speaker 1: and I'm going to pay a fee for that service. Uh.
Speaker 1: And what the service they're actually getting is the actual
Speaker 1: validation logic from those chains, and so they can run
Speaker 1: more decentralized services really from scratch at D zero. So
Speaker 1: they're paying fees. Those fees are going in to contribute
Speaker 1: to the yield, and so that's where the yield's actually
Speaker 1: coming from. Got it.
Speaker 2: So you mentioned you can do this from your wallet.
Speaker 2: You don't have to move anything or bridge anything. So
Speaker 2: which wallets are supported, that's a good question.
Speaker 1: We are going to be announcing, you know, different wallets
Speaker 1: that are supporting the x ORP ledger. I think with
Speaker 1: market activity like this, it's always great because more and
Speaker 1: more wallets ad assets where there's high demand. There's clearly
Speaker 1: high demand for XORP right now. So we are working
Speaker 1: with a lot of the major wallets, especially those that
Speaker 1: offer staking as a service. We want the experience to
Speaker 1: be as native to their user experience as possible and
Speaker 1: they can just plug in, you know, to pixocor to
Speaker 1: handle all the logic. So we want to basically abstract
Speaker 1: away as much of the hoops as possible and make
Speaker 1: the experience feel as native as possible because everyone knows,
Speaker 1: you know, having my first time, you know, sending a
Speaker 1: transaction for pre ledger and twenty sixteen, twenty fifteen was like,
Speaker 1: oh my gosh, this is as fast as email. It's
Speaker 1: pretty awesome. So we will want to make sure that
Speaker 1: experience is you know, is duplicated through the staking service.
Speaker 2: So let's do a mock scenario. So let's say I
Speaker 2: have five thousand x herpee right in a wallet, and
Speaker 2: it's one of the wallets which you're going to announce
Speaker 2: that supports it. How do I go about enabling this
Speaker 2: like walk us through that process? And maybe it's too
Speaker 2: early because you know, you still have to do the
Speaker 2: whole wallet announcement and so forth.
Speaker 1: But what would that look like?
Speaker 2: And is there a lock up or can I pull
Speaker 2: in and out at any point?
Speaker 1: Yeah, So you basically say you allocate a certain amount
Speaker 1: of XRP in your wallet. The experience effectively is you
Speaker 1: look like there's a there'll be a a button where
Speaker 1: you can literally or kind of drop down select you know,
Speaker 1: xrp uh and where you want to effectively kind of
Speaker 1: delegate that XRP too. That feels almost like a deposit,
Speaker 1: But the actual tokens aren't really leaving your wallet, right,
Speaker 1: They're just you're basically just saying I'm going to I'm
Speaker 1: making this this this commitment to for this amount of XRP.
Speaker 1: It's going to be subject to earning additional rewards or
Speaker 1: or just rewards for the first time, and then it's
Speaker 1: also going to be subject to slashing. What that effectively does,
Speaker 1: it's going to call to lock that specific set of XRP.
Speaker 1: So you know, I was at Ripple when we were
Speaker 1: working on the x ORP ledger to implement things like
Speaker 1: cryptographic escrow and these other cryptographic conditions. So the only
Speaker 1: actual requirements for the XRP ledger is to lock, unlock,
Speaker 1: and slash, and slashing is effectively being able to send
Speaker 1: to send the x ORP to a black hole address,
Speaker 1: which every blockchain has, and then slashing itself has like
Speaker 1: another set of conditions on it where that x ORP
Speaker 1: will be sent to a black hole address based on
Speaker 1: certain conditions that happen, you know, within the protocol. So
Speaker 1: so effectively, it just feels like a very intuitive experience
Speaker 1: where you know this is all happening within your own wallet.
Speaker 1: We're really excited about this because again I'm an og
Speaker 1: kind of crypto guy, and I, for instance, like have
Speaker 1: bitcoin wallets that are you know, over a decade old,
Speaker 1: and I have touched them in a long time, and
Speaker 1: I don't want to necessarily, but if I'm going to,
Speaker 1: I don't want the bitcoin to leave my wallet ideally, Yeah,
Speaker 1: I also don't want to require like a lot of
Speaker 1: trust or counterparty risk, you know, with whatever I'm interacting with.
Speaker 1: So we wanted to make sure that experience is is
Speaker 1: carried through to every single l one that we support.
Speaker 2: And then when I'm thinking, is it kind of like
Speaker 2: ef like, you know, where do I need a minimum
Speaker 2: mount or it could put any amount? And is there
Speaker 2: like a lock up like it has to stay there
Speaker 2: for a certain cycle in order to get the rewards.
Speaker 1: Uh So, the we're not sure yet on the minimum
Speaker 1: I mean, they're obviously there's reserve requirements for for instance,
Speaker 1: like you know, opening an account bearing that those reserve
Speaker 1: requirements are met. We don't think that there will be
Speaker 1: a minimum. We haven't at least heard a case for
Speaker 1: the why there should be. We want to make this
Speaker 1: as as open and permissionless and democratic as possible. Uh.
Speaker 1: The Also, the lock up is effectively as long as
Speaker 1: you want, and you could say I'm going to lock
Speaker 1: you know, this set of XRP for some indefinite amount
Speaker 1: of time. You can claim the x ORP back at
Speaker 1: any time. However, there's what you call an unbonding period.
Speaker 1: Now this is this terminology for people who are only
Speaker 1: you know, working with the XORP ledger is going to
Speaker 1: be fairly new. This is a very familiar terminology for
Speaker 1: like eth and other POS assets. So there may be
Speaker 1: some education that needs to happen, but you could effectively
Speaker 1: claim or unlock your XRP, which would include the rewards
Speaker 1: that you have earned, and there's going to be some
Speaker 1: unbonding period. We haven't set exactly for the XRAP ledger yet. Typically,
Speaker 1: you know there's a window between like roughly average around
Speaker 1: twenty one days. The reason for that is there's an
Speaker 1: attack vector where you could effectively try to spam the
Speaker 1: network and do something bad and then try to pull
Speaker 1: your funds out quickly. Right, it's like a hit and run.
Speaker 1: You want to prevent the hit and run from happening,
Speaker 1: and the one way to do that is to have
Speaker 1: a longer un bonding period. And so there's details on
Speaker 1: that which you're still trying to figure out. But it's
Speaker 1: a pretty fair system. Uh. It's also you know, like
Speaker 1: we said, it's it's we try to make it as
Speaker 1: trustless as possible, minimize what they call trust assumptions, make
Speaker 1: it obviously open permission permissionless and uh and and decentralized
Speaker 1: and and self custody of course, mm hmm.
Speaker 2: And this may be a tough question to answer, but
Speaker 2: you know, what, are you guys thinking the potential yield
Speaker 2: or returns might be as far as percentage wise and
Speaker 2: on going?
Speaker 1: May be too early to answer this, it's a bit
Speaker 1: too early, but I'll say anything, uh non zero is
Speaker 1: an additive to what XOP holders are earning currently, which
Speaker 1: is zero. I again, you know, I I've been an
Speaker 1: XOP holder, big holder for a long time. I'm sort
Speaker 1: of building this for my self because I have XRP
Speaker 1: and I want that x and I and I hold.
Speaker 1: I'm a long term holder and sometimes hard, but you know,
Speaker 1: I held. So I want my XRP to work for
Speaker 1: me effectively, right and I want to just kind of
Speaker 1: set it and forget it and open my wallet one
Speaker 1: day and be like, oh wow, I earned you know
Speaker 1: x amount you know, and rewards. That's like a simple
Speaker 1: request as a user. So we're in a position where
Speaker 1: we can enable that for other x ORP holders, and
Speaker 1: I think that's pretty awesome.
Speaker 2: Talk to us about security. You know, you mentioned like
Speaker 2: the funds that the tokens are not leaving your wallet.
Speaker 2: But are there any risks here because I'm sure people
Speaker 2: are going to ask about that.
Speaker 1: Yep. So for every reward right upside, there's also downside risk.
Speaker 1: So what the equation here is is your effectively opting
Speaker 1: into receiving rewards based on the amount of XRP that
Speaker 1: you stake.
Speaker 2: Uh.
Speaker 1: And the downside is that those that x RP could
Speaker 1: be subject to what they call slashing. So slashing happens
Speaker 1: if there's some violation of the of the underlying protocol.
Speaker 1: In this case, the violation would be if a service
Speaker 1: that's consuming that decentralized security or the economic security that
Speaker 1: you're providing somehow makes a there's an issue, there's a
Speaker 1: bug in their code. Uh. There they they miss you know,
Speaker 1: a block on their on their validation, or something happens
Speaker 1: they double sign. There's a whole set of conditions. If
Speaker 1: any of those are violated, then that x RP that
Speaker 1: you've staked to those operators. And again, by the way,
Speaker 1: you have total control of where you want your your
Speaker 1: stake x RP to to secure, so you can choose
Speaker 1: from a list of services. Uh. There is some risk
Speaker 1: modeling that some of the some third parties are doing
Speaker 1: and how to actually assess the risk of these services.
Speaker 1: There's lots of different variables, but we do anticipate, you
Speaker 1: know that there there's going to obviously be you know
Speaker 1: risk in the system. That's why there's there's reward. There's
Speaker 1: a few things that that we do as a protocol.
Speaker 1: One we use something called secure signers. So these are
Speaker 1: effectively systems that are running in trusted execution environments or tees.
Speaker 1: It's effectively like effect like a box that that allows
Speaker 1: for more trustless cryptographic kind of security around minimizing the
Speaker 1: amount of errors that that can happen. So like obviously
Speaker 1: code is like inputs and outputs, it effectively validates the
Speaker 1: inputs so that the outputs are also you know, fair
Speaker 1: and valid, and that minimizes a lot of the risk
Speaker 1: of slashing. This has become a standard in a lot
Speaker 1: of staking services, especially restaking, and so we're opting or
Speaker 1: adopting that standard. But these are things that we always
Speaker 1: think about. You know, the industry around restaking and staking
Speaker 1: of new assets is actually pretty new, so we're kind
Speaker 1: of pushing forward and being very security first, you know
Speaker 1: about the thinking.
Speaker 2: Yeah, absolutely, and I love that you mentioned that there's
Speaker 2: going be a rating system for some of these protocols,
Speaker 2: So I'm assuming you guys will help provide that information
Speaker 2: as well and where people can be Okay, this is
Speaker 2: less risky, this is high risk, and things like that.
Speaker 1: Yeah, we don't, we won't provide the information. Information will
Speaker 1: be provided like by third parties. You know, there's there's
Speaker 1: a couple of third parties that are working on some
Speaker 1: dashboarding already, which kind of helps to for for users
Speaker 1: to kind of think about how you know where their
Speaker 1: stated assets should be secured. Again, you're not sending the
Speaker 1: state assets to these people. You're not like, they're not
Speaker 1: going to run away with your funds. The great thing
Speaker 1: about the security model here is worst case scenario. If
Speaker 1: you know there's a slashing where you know some some
Speaker 1: percentage of your funds would be lost due to that
Speaker 1: slashing or even worst case scenario. You have to kind
Speaker 1: of think about worst case scenarios. The exo core network,
Speaker 1: which is a decentralized network running it with tenorment consensus,
Speaker 1: you know, dozens of nodes. I think it's compromise in
Speaker 1: any form. The worst thing that can happen is the
Speaker 1: funds are either your funds or like users funds are
Speaker 1: either burnt or they're sent back to the user. So
Speaker 1: unless they're like the Joker with like the meme of
Speaker 1: like just to send a message with the money burning
Speaker 1: in the background, it's not a offitable attack vector, uh
Speaker 1: for for for hackers because they can only either burn
Speaker 1: the money or send it back to the user. They
Speaker 1: can't actually send it back to themselves. And the reason
Speaker 1: for that is there's actually preconditions that are set into
Speaker 1: the wall where they can only the funds can only
Speaker 1: go either to a black hole address which is predefined,
Speaker 1: or back to the user.
Speaker 2: Okay, that makes sense, And you mentioned like the wallet
Speaker 2: announcement is going to come soon, so when you think
Speaker 2: ETA folks may be able to you know, get get
Speaker 2: this started.
Speaker 1: Soon, TM, we definitely we want to take advantage, you know,
Speaker 1: of a lot of the market activity. There's clearly a
Speaker 1: lot of x rps in spotlight. We're working very hard
Speaker 1: to get you know, as much done as possible, and
Speaker 1: we're excited. I'm more excited, you know about supporting x
Speaker 1: r pages because it's obviously such a great community of
Speaker 1: the XRP army. And i'd say that I've even noticed
Speaker 1: in this new cycle that there's a lot of praise
Speaker 1: being given from people that don't usually give praise to
Speaker 1: to the XRP community, but you know, it's it's a strong, large,
Speaker 1: dedicated community is finally getting rewarded for its patients, and
Speaker 1: so we hope to you know, add up to you know,
Speaker 1: or or add additional amount of rewards to that to
Speaker 1: that patience.
Speaker 2: Yeah, so, I mean XRP has been ripping. It's pretty amazing.
Speaker 2: You know, you've surprised to see what's happening. Uh, And
Speaker 2: to your point, there's a lot of praise about a
Speaker 2: lot of people are kind of in shock, like wait,
Speaker 2: what XRPS ripping like crazy? It's over two dollars now,
Speaker 2: it's a two dollars and eighty cents. What are your
Speaker 2: thoughts that when you saw the price action, I.
Speaker 1: Wasn't surprised given all of the the series of activity,
Speaker 1: mostly regatory and political. You know, I'd like to say
Speaker 1: that you know, Ripple or XRP shipped some new feature
Speaker 1: and like this whole thing's like being driven by the
Speaker 1: promise and technology of the XORP ledger, which I think
Speaker 1: is great, But this is purely like driven by the
Speaker 1: removal of the regatory overhang that Ripple has been subjected to.
Speaker 1: I was in the office when we got the message,
Speaker 1: you know, about the sec AC reglatory action in twenty
Speaker 1: two December twenty twenty, so I feel that I felt
Speaker 1: the you know, that impact very viscerally. And so it's
Speaker 1: been a long time. I think, you know, XRP missed
Speaker 1: to a large part, missed the last market cycle. And
Speaker 1: this is directly related to the regulatory actions brought by
Speaker 1: the sec which Ripple was able to successfully defend in court.
Speaker 1: So it's not like that Ripple got lucky and and
Speaker 1: this happened, but it actually defended itself in a hostile
Speaker 1: environment with the hostile political administration, and I think that's commendable.
Speaker 1: And I think that's why this time it's a little different.
Speaker 1: You get you see even the most ardent ex orpiece
Speaker 1: skeptics and Ripple skeptics are kind of tipping their hat
Speaker 1: because you know, Stu and Brad and Chris, they all
Speaker 1: went to bat and Stu's got an incredible legal team.
Speaker 1: They he doesn't probably praise them enough, but I know
Speaker 1: a lot of them personally, and it's just like a
Speaker 1: crack team and and they did a lot of work
Speaker 1: and spent a lot of resources to defend themselves, and
Speaker 1: I think that now is the fruit of the labor
Speaker 1: that's happening. So yeah, I'm very excited, and I hope
Speaker 1: everyone else is.
Speaker 2: Yeah, it's exciting times. And we're seeing a lot of
Speaker 2: institutions are filing for XRP spot ETFs. I was surprised
Speaker 2: by that great scale relaunched your XRP trust and seeing
Speaker 2: a lot of the trading volume come from institutions as well.
Speaker 2: I think the folks at Falcon X just tweeted out
Speaker 2: about that, and then it sounds like r l U,
Speaker 2: s D to stable coins are right around the corner.
Speaker 2: So it's exciting times.
Speaker 1: Yeah. I think what was actually more surprising is that
Speaker 1: x orp held on as you know, a top ten
Speaker 1: it got for a while there, it started looking like
Speaker 1: it may drop out of the top ten. I don't
Speaker 1: think it ever did. But I think that's more surprising
Speaker 1: to the market and even to the skeptics that rep
Speaker 1: that Xcorp was able to hold on for so long
Speaker 1: given all the scrutiny. I don't think I don't think
Speaker 1: most assets would be able to do that, and this
Speaker 1: is a testament to this, you know, XORP community. Without
Speaker 1: that strong community, global community, I don't think, you know,
Speaker 1: XRP would be where it is today.
Speaker 2: Yeah, that's a great point. I often remind people of
Speaker 2: that this ascid got delisted on so many exchanges in
Speaker 2: the United States and yet it stayed in the top ten.
Speaker 1: So I tweeted this out earlier. I feel like XRP
Speaker 1: and Ripple are like the Trumps of crypto. They have
Speaker 1: been litigated, attacked, you know, basically like tried to be
Speaker 1: like effectively killed off right by some very powerful forces
Speaker 1: and fought like hell, stayed relevant, stayed in the game,
Speaker 1: continued to push push push, and won in court, and
Speaker 1: now the court of public Appeal is is is rewarding it.
Speaker 1: So I feel like there's a lot of parallels between
Speaker 1: between XRP and Donald Trump. Not to get political, but
Speaker 1: I mean it's also polarizing. You know, it's a very
Speaker 1: polarizing There's there's a lot of haters out there. There's
Speaker 1: also a lot of true believers. It appeals to a
Speaker 1: mainstream audience. You know that. I could go on and on,
Speaker 1: but it's like, I think the parallel should be called out,
Speaker 1: and the fact that they're both winning right now is
Speaker 1: is interesting.
Speaker 2: One do you have an XRP price prediction that you can.
Speaker 1: No, I don't. I don't even I mean don't. I
Speaker 1: don't ever do these price predictions because every time I
Speaker 1: have a number in my head, I feel like, exam
Speaker 1: in bitcoins, it's twenty eleven, Like I had a number
Speaker 1: in my head, it hit that number faster than I
Speaker 1: even thought possible. So as wild as it sounds like,
Speaker 1: I am actually probably underestimating, but I don't want to
Speaker 1: say that because and what that underestimation is. But yeah,
Speaker 1: I'm long term, very bullish on this space in general,
Speaker 1: and obviously like a big x ORP holder, so I'm
Speaker 1: a believer.
Speaker 2: Do you think this rally continues into twenty twenty five?
Speaker 2: I know it's kind of the four year cycles playing
Speaker 2: out again, and you know you think this continues deep
Speaker 2: into twenty twenty five.
Speaker 1: For the entire market? Yeah, I do. I do. I
Speaker 1: think that the four hels, the four year cycle is
Speaker 1: happening again, which is interesting. People say this time is different,
Speaker 1: you know, with like the question like where's the retail
Speaker 1: volume going to come from? I think this is that
Speaker 1: the cycle where we actually do see institutional adoption like
Speaker 1: in in the form that everyone thought and not even
Speaker 1: like thought possible. I mean we've already seen sovereign you know,
Speaker 1: wealth with countries actually buying it. With El Salvador, I
Speaker 1: definitely see that that is going to become a trend.
Speaker 1: Al Savador was very prescient and buying also at the
Speaker 1: low end of the market, and so they're going to
Speaker 1: come out looking very good with with their with some
Speaker 1: of their treasury management. And I wouldn't be surprised, honestly
Speaker 1: if the US government started seriously buying at least bitcoin
Speaker 1: to as a as a a supplemental asset to its
Speaker 1: to its reserves. It just even if it's a small percentage,
Speaker 1: it kind of makes sense. And uh and I think
Speaker 1: would be like very actually prudent by by the government
Speaker 1: to do that. And if that's the case, then like
Speaker 1: you're talking like the largest institution and one of the
Speaker 1: largest institutes on the planet. I think the largest institution
Speaker 1: on the planet by a sure number of people working
Speaker 1: for it, I think it's like three million. So yeah,
Speaker 1: this is it's gonna be insane. I think it could
Speaker 1: be like the cycle to make all cycles yeah.
Speaker 2: I mean you have the convergence of so many different
Speaker 2: industries or factions of society tradify politics. It's pretty amazing
Speaker 2: to watch this happening. Obviously, retail has been here for
Speaker 2: a while, but yeah, this time. I know this is
Speaker 2: the cliche statement that is different, but it is different.
Speaker 2: I mean you got presidential candidates that were campaigning on crypto.
Speaker 2: We got the most pro crypto congress coming into office,
Speaker 2: obviously a pro crypto president, and then bigcoin Strategic Reserve.
Speaker 2: I mean, this is unprecedented. We haven't seen anything like
Speaker 2: this before.
Speaker 1: Yeah, and I think it's a testment too, Like I
Speaker 1: think the industry. I'd, by the way, tweet it this
Speaker 1: out in like March of twenty twenty three. I said,
Speaker 1: I think we're all gonna be surprised at the number
Speaker 1: of single issue crypto voters that come out in this
Speaker 1: election and basically saying like, don't touch my crypto. And
Speaker 1: in some ways I think that happened. You know, people
Speaker 1: are saying like, oh, the the mail vote was unprecedented
Speaker 1: kind of coming up. I think a part of that
Speaker 1: was that those male voters also own crypto, and it's
Speaker 1: like it's become such a strong materially so many crypto
Speaker 1: holders that I think that and I don't know the
Speaker 1: numbers in this, but it maybe it. I think it's
Speaker 1: it's surpassed the number of like gun owners or roughly
Speaker 1: in that ballpark, which you know, the NRA is traditionally
Speaker 1: like a very powerful political organization, but the crypto industry
Speaker 1: in general, I would say is is more modern, more
Speaker 1: digitally native, you know. I think arguably like more are
Speaker 1: technically astute and also can mobilize very quickly. So those
Speaker 1: factors make it basically a political train you do not
Speaker 1: want to get in front of. And I do I
Speaker 1: do think, you know, the Democratic Party parked itself right
Speaker 1: in front of waged kind of war with like the
Speaker 1: wrong group. The numbers make, you know, make up for LA.
Speaker 1: I think there's over roughly around three hundred million that
Speaker 1: was raised by through political action committees or PACs and
Speaker 1: other kind of direct campaign donations, which dwarfed the you know,
Speaker 1: Wall Street, which dwarf pharma, which dwarf oil and gas.
Speaker 1: We're talking the largest industries on the planet, and Crypto
Speaker 1: came out swinging strong. So I think, regardless of the politics,
Speaker 1: crypto has demonstrated its its staying power through political action,
Speaker 1: and has also realize like, hey, if you fund you know,
Speaker 1: these political action committees and you're very thoughtful and strategic
Speaker 1: about it, you can actually have really good outcomes that
Speaker 1: are favorable to the industry. It's it's funny because it
Speaker 1: took over, you know, twelve, thirteen, fourteen years for the
Speaker 1: industry to figure this out. I think other industries have
Speaker 1: figured it out long before. But I think it's also
Speaker 1: just like crypto is naturally a very libertarian kind of
Speaker 1: like not anarchists, but like kind of libertarian, like we
Speaker 1: don't really want to like engage like with with government directly.
Speaker 1: But I think it got to the point where, like,
Speaker 1: you know, we needed regulatory clarity and the only way
Speaker 1: to do it is to directly get involved and get
Speaker 1: the hands dirty. Soh So that's what happened.
Speaker 2: Yeah, I mean, and there was just this outright attack
Speaker 2: on the industry right like almost trying to kill it.
Speaker 2: And I mean, obviously Elizabeth Warren is the head of
Speaker 2: a Snake and she was campaigning on this I'm building
Speaker 2: the anti crypto army, and you know, I'm personally a
Speaker 2: a oh my gosh, I'm losing my trend of thought
Speaker 2: here an independent and watching this play out, you know,
Speaker 2: with Donald Trump and the Republicans, did the chest move like, oh,
Speaker 2: you're going to go against a neutral technology and make
Speaker 2: it a political issue. You're going to use it against
Speaker 2: you and the rest is history.
Speaker 1: Yeah. I'm also like kind of right in the middle, independent,
Speaker 1: So I feel like everyone was trying to sell us,
Speaker 1: you know, it's like the independent mail voters. I guess
Speaker 1: we're the ones that were targeting. So I was kind
Speaker 1: of seeing things from both sides. You know. I live
Speaker 1: in the Bay Area. Was obviously a California, which obviously
Speaker 1: a very blue state. But I had predicted to a
Speaker 1: lot of friends based on how things were going and
Speaker 1: just the sentiment in the state of California and the
Speaker 1: Bear Bay Area and in the country at large. I
Speaker 1: felt like there's going to be a kind of a pendulum.
Speaker 1: The pendulum has shifted a little bit too much to
Speaker 1: the left right, and it was gonna start swinging back.
Speaker 1: And that's what you saw. Even the San Francisco Bay Area,
Speaker 1: you know, went more moderate with this. The mayor Jeff
Speaker 1: Lorie and being elected kind of as a as a
Speaker 1: as a kind of wild card and then also the
Speaker 1: Board of Supervisors who are more conservative and actually have
Speaker 1: like founder credibility. So and then California kind of every
Speaker 1: everything kind of swung a little bit more to the right.
Speaker 1: And I think that's just a natural process of like
Speaker 1: the democratic system, which is super healthy, and I think
Speaker 1: that should be celebrated. Uh, you know, for the people saying,
Speaker 1: you know, far left, far right, if you're either on
Speaker 1: one of those camps, everything looks far so like because
Speaker 1: as guys like us were kind of independently minded and
Speaker 1: kind of in the middle, we see all like that.
Speaker 1: It's pretty silly, I think. Frankly, I don't think my
Speaker 1: political ideas have changed much over the last like twenty years,
Speaker 1: but you know, maybe I'm crazy.
Speaker 2: No, Yeah, And I think it goes back to well,
Speaker 2: I guess the extremism on both sides goes back to
Speaker 2: economic reasons because I think I remember who was saying this.
Speaker 2: I think Ral Pale, you know, you were saying politics
Speaker 2: is downstream of economics, and people are feeling left behind.
Speaker 2: They're feeling screwed in different ways. And in fact, a
Speaker 2: lot of the left and right the underlying root issue
Speaker 2: they're both frustrated with government they actually have something in common.
Speaker 2: There might be issues here and there they disagree on,
Speaker 2: but the underlying problem that has them so polarized is
Speaker 2: they feel, hey, two thousand and eight were screwed. What
Speaker 2: is happening inflation and they don't understand the underlying problem
Speaker 2: of the inflation money printing and debasement of currency, and
Speaker 2: crypto is an avenue out of that, with DeFi and
Speaker 2: the ability to be your own bank, so to speak,
Speaker 2: in many different ways, and reducing the cost of moving
Speaker 2: money and all that and opening up new monetization opportunities
Speaker 2: for people. So it's interesting what's happening, and maybe that's
Speaker 2: why a lot of people are gravitating to crypto as well.
Speaker 1: Yeah, I think so. Kind of going back like there
Speaker 1: was there was one poll political pulling I think is
Speaker 1: like kind of garbage. I think this election has kind
Speaker 1: of finally proved that out. Obviously poly market was interesting,
Speaker 1: but there's one poll called the It's a Gallop poll,
Speaker 1: and it has successfully predicted every single presidential election except
Speaker 1: for two or three since nineteen forty eight, so as
Speaker 1: an eighty five percent accuracy, which is insane for a bole,
Speaker 1: and it's very simple. They asked one question or two questions.
Speaker 1: First question is what are the single two largest issues
Speaker 1: facing the country today, and they say it's like economic
Speaker 1: issues and social issues. This year, those two issues were
Speaker 1: the economy and immigration. And then the second question is
Speaker 1: which party is more or better suited to address these issues?
Speaker 1: And the Republican Party since I think, you know, springtime
Speaker 1: or midsummer was up by five percent ironically, like that's
Speaker 1: roughly you know what the gap was, and so this
Speaker 1: Gallup poll was spot on, like again, you know, so
Speaker 1: the answer was kind of there. I think for like
Speaker 1: the especially like the Democrats to see like immigration and
Speaker 1: then the economy, but it helptimate I think the you know,
Speaker 1: the Trump campaign just did a better job of speaking
Speaker 1: to those issues. And you know, I think that that's
Speaker 1: I don't know, that's what happened.
Speaker 2: Yeah, for sure, it's fascinating. I'm really excited to see
Speaker 2: what happens in twenty twenty five. Trump gets into office,
Speaker 2: the most pro crypto Congress ever. We got some legislation
Speaker 2: up to go through the Senate, like the FIT twenty
Speaker 2: one and possibly stable coin legislation. You get the Big
Speaker 2: Coin Strategic Reserve Bill. So twenty twenty five it's going
Speaker 2: to be a really fascinating year. And then you know,
Speaker 2: I'm expecting ETF inflows to increase and then more ETFs
Speaker 2: like XRP ETF and others to be approved. So it's
Speaker 2: gonna be.
Speaker 1: Exciting, definitely. I think you said it earlier, like it's
Speaker 1: it's pretty amazing that we had a presidential race where
Speaker 1: crypto was a base issue, or at least for it
Speaker 1: wasn't I think an issue that the American public declared
Speaker 1: it was an issue. Excuse me, but I think it
Speaker 1: was a hidden issue that really kind of swung the vote.
Speaker 1: And now we get to see kind of what happens
Speaker 1: as a result. Obviously, there's like basically eighteen months of
Speaker 1: where the Republican Party, having kind of controlled the Senate
Speaker 1: of the House and the Executive branch and the Supreme
Speaker 1: Court will kind of do a blitz. I think it's
Speaker 1: gonna be very interesting to see DOGE the new government
Speaker 1: entity that the temporary new government entity kind of do
Speaker 1: some work on, you know, effectively refactoring the US government.
Speaker 1: I think that's gonna be exciting to watch too. Yeah,
Speaker 1: it's like I'm bullish, but it is amazing. Pinch me,
Speaker 1: kind of kind of feeling that we're in this position
Speaker 1: where like just compare it to last election and crypto
Speaker 1: wasn't even like anything. So we definitely had to scream
Speaker 1: at the top of the mountain to make sure it
Speaker 1: became an issue, which I think was successful.
Speaker 2: I'm just thinking about I was laughing about Doge because Elon.
Speaker 2: Of course the acronym is Doge.
Speaker 1: That's right, Yeah, it's it's it's pretty insane, Warren.
Speaker 2: Great chatting with you man, and excited for you know,
Speaker 2: the wallet news to come out about which Walts will
Speaker 2: support the x RP staking and excited to try this out.
Speaker 1: So thank you for joining me, and we'll.
Speaker 2: Probably have to have you back on once things are
Speaker 2: up and running and you guys are you know, hitting
Speaker 2: the ground running here. But thank you for joining me.
Speaker 1: Yeah, thanks a lot, Tony the task pat, don't the