Speaker 1: Yeah, and it's twenty Like I've built across bitcoin, XRP
Speaker 1: and ethereum. And you know, obviously, when I was like
Speaker 1: at Ripple, I was doing like far more work, Like
Speaker 1: I don't know if you know David Schwartz, but I
Speaker 1: like co authored another protcol with him. When I was there,
Speaker 1: I was like deep in the Ripple ecosystem. Honestly, I
Speaker 1: like still am. I know a lot of the like
Speaker 1: people who are more like leadership positions there and touch
Speaker 1: base pretty regularly.
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Speaker 2: Hey everybody, welcome into the Thinking Crypto podcast. I'm your host,
Speaker 2: Tony Edward and my guest today is Austin King, who's
Speaker 2: the co founder of Omni Network and the CEO of
Speaker 2: Omni Labs. Austin. Great to have you on.
Speaker 1: Yeah, I appreciate you having me on. Looking forward to this, Austin.
Speaker 2: Excited to chat with you because you and the folks
Speaker 2: at Omni are trying to solve the fragmentation issue that
Speaker 2: is caused by roll ups on the Ethereum blockchain. So
Speaker 2: lots of questions about what you guys are doing, but
Speaker 2: let's start with your background. Tell us about yourself, where
Speaker 2: you're from, and what's your professional background.
Speaker 1: Yeah, So I grew up in Indiana originally, and I've
Speaker 1: hopped around a decent amount since then. So I grew
Speaker 1: up in Indiana, I got into Harvard, So I was
Speaker 1: living in Boston for like four years. Then I moved
Speaker 1: to San Francisco. Then I was nomadic for a couple
Speaker 1: of years, and now I live in New York for
Speaker 1: the past three years. But New York saw them. Now
Speaker 1: at this point, I love living in New York. Our
Speaker 1: office is here where I'm at right now. Yeah, I
Speaker 1: really love New York. My professional background, I've always been
Speaker 1: in crypto. So when I was studying hmmuier science in
Speaker 1: the university, I really fell down the rabbit hole. And
Speaker 1: I always planned to build a company after I graduated.
Speaker 1: So during my junior summer, I was like, I'm building
Speaker 1: a crypto startup. I don't know what it's going to do,
Speaker 1: but I am going to build a crypto startup. And
Speaker 1: so most of my senior year I was exploring what
Speaker 1: I was going to build. And so this led to
Speaker 1: my first company that I ran from twenty seventeen to
Speaker 1: twenty twenty. I sold that to Ripple, worked at Ripple
Speaker 1: for a year so I could vest, and then yeah,
Speaker 1: I started Omni after that, and so Omnie's been in
Speaker 1: progress through about like three and a half years now.
Speaker 1: So it's like a pretty rapid fire of a view
Speaker 1: of like where am I from, what's my professional background?
Speaker 2: What was the company you built and sold to Ripple?
Speaker 1: So it was called Strata Labs, but it built a
Speaker 1: network called the inter Ledgery Network, which in many ways
Speaker 1: honestly was like a technical predecessor to me. So I
Speaker 1: kind of took like a first lap at this already
Speaker 1: in the like twenty eighteen to twenty twenty era. But
Speaker 1: it's cool to see like how much the technology has
Speaker 1: advanced since then and like we can do so much
Speaker 1: more with it now. So yeah, it's interesting like in
Speaker 1: many ways, like I've actually utilized a lot of learnings
Speaker 1: from my first company to help us scale up on me.
Speaker 2: And were there any major learnings from a company like Ripple.
Speaker 2: Obviously it's pretty high profile in the crypto industry to
Speaker 2: have an asset now XRP. I think it's like in
Speaker 2: the top four. They've had their SEC lawsuit, a lot
Speaker 2: of high profile things.
Speaker 1: Yeah, honestly, a lot of learning lessons for sure. I mean,
Speaker 1: Ripple's hundreds of people. When I was there, I think
Speaker 1: it was four hundred people. Now I think it's around
Speaker 1: one thousand people. But for me, because I built a
Speaker 1: company right after school, I didn't like join Facebook like
Speaker 1: a lot of my friends or something, so I didn't
Speaker 1: have the experience of being at like a bigger corporation.
Speaker 1: But yeah, getting deeper into the XRP GO system and
Speaker 1: kind of like understanding how the community thinks about XRP
Speaker 1: and like Ripple as an entity and the opportunity that
Speaker 1: Ripple has has a larger organization, especially with like a
Speaker 1: ton of capital firepower. It was cool to kind of
Speaker 1: like jump straight from just being a few people at
Speaker 1: a small startup to a much bigger corporation with like
Speaker 1: a massive asset and like huge firepower to make things
Speaker 1: happen from the like talent perspective and the capital perspective,
Speaker 1: and then switching back into it and like building another
Speaker 1: company a ton of like really interesting experiences there.
Speaker 2: You may have hinted on this or touch a bit
Speaker 2: on it, but what was your first encounter with bitcoin
Speaker 2: or blockchain or either or whatever it may be, and
Speaker 2: what was your ahamam? And when did it click for you?
Speaker 1: Yeah, honestly, it clicked pretty soon after I got into it.
Speaker 1: So it was twenty seventeen. This was before the Ico
Speaker 1: era where I just like I had a job at Microsoft,
Speaker 1: but for whatever reason, my boss just it was an internship.
Speaker 1: He just told me that the main part already was
Speaker 1: that I had a good summer and not that I
Speaker 1: like did anything, and so he told me that, like, yeah,
Speaker 1: just make sure you like enjoy the summer. So like, okay,
Speaker 1: And I sent the entire summer learning about crypto, and so, yeah,
Speaker 1: I didn't really do anything for myselft. I don't know
Speaker 1: why they paid me, but yeah, I dove deep into
Speaker 1: the ethereum ecosystem, and I started like mining ethereum, buying it,
Speaker 1: and I started programming or like teaching myself how to
Speaker 1: program in solidity, and honestly, it clicked pretty quickly. So
Speaker 1: it's kind of strange. My first exposure wasn't Bitcoin, it
Speaker 1: was actually ethereum. But the thing that really clicked for
Speaker 1: me was I built what we would probably call it
Speaker 1: dow today. It was a system where a bunch of
Speaker 1: different people could like vote on what this like smart
Speaker 1: contract does, and to me, it just kind of clicked.
Speaker 1: It was like, oh, we can run governments on this scene.
Speaker 1: Like we're seeing like a very infantile, like toy version
Speaker 1: of what this will become. But it is a way
Speaker 1: for people to socially coordinate across the world. It doesn't
Speaker 1: matter like where you are. And so I don't know,
Speaker 1: for whatever reason, like my values, like my background is
Speaker 1: like really clicked with me, Like wow, this is like
Speaker 1: a super empowering tool just for anybody across the world.
Speaker 1: So I was pretty sold once it like clicked, once
Speaker 1: I first started diving into like programming smart contracts, like wow,
Speaker 1: these are going to be super impactful systems for just
Speaker 1: people everywhere.
Speaker 2: Wow, that's pretty amazing. You were really ahead of the
Speaker 2: curve there. As you mentioned, it's kind of like doos
Speaker 2: and dows. We see growing an adoption and some local
Speaker 2: governments I believe are building dows. I think Wyoming if
Speaker 2: I'm not mistaken, And it's fascinating you know that thought
Speaker 2: that the future of government and people participating and maybe
Speaker 2: keeping their government accountable could be through these DOW models, right.
Speaker 1: Yeah, yeah, I mean at this point in time when
Speaker 1: I would like tell people that I went back to
Speaker 1: Harvard after this and I would tell people like, Hey,
Speaker 1: this is incredible, like we're going to run governments on this.
Speaker 1: They're like, you're insane like that, like, what are you
Speaker 1: talking about? That's a ridiculous thing to say. But obviously
Speaker 1: we're still like Wyoming has published a framework for legally
Speaker 1: recognizing doallnas at this point, so we have made tremendous progress.
Speaker 1: But still I think we're very early in the journey
Speaker 1: of crypto at large. There's a ton of like huge
Speaker 1: opportunities for growth that I still see. So yeah, I
Speaker 1: still think it has a lot to like prove, But
Speaker 1: I am very grateful that we've made a ton of
Speaker 1: progress since twenty seventeen.
Speaker 2: Absolutely, all right, let's talk OMNE. Give us an overview
Speaker 2: of OMNIE. What you guys are trying to do? What's
Speaker 2: your mission?
Speaker 1: Yep? Cool. So the original reason we built OMNIE was
Speaker 1: actually because we built a DeFi protocol on Ethereum in
Speaker 1: the first place. So we built this DeFi protocol. It
Speaker 1: went really well. We hit fifty minutal TVL in like
Speaker 1: two days after launching. And this was earlier in the
Speaker 1: Ethereum ecosystem was like twenty twenty one, so there weren't
Speaker 1: really any large scale roll ups out there. It was
Speaker 1: like Arbitrum and Optimism had just recently deployed, and you
Speaker 1: kind of had to be more deep into the research
Speaker 1: to understand that like this, this roll up stuff is
Speaker 1: the future of Etheroereum. If there is no roll ups
Speaker 1: for the future, there is no Ethereum. Like this thing's
Speaker 1: just not going to work compared to like these alternative networks.
Speaker 1: And so effectively, what we were trying to do actually
Speaker 1: was scale it so that we could bring our own
Speaker 1: defive protocol across these different role ups. We still wanted
Speaker 1: to access all the users in liquidity from the entire
Speaker 1: Theoryum ecosystem, So we were trying to solve this problem
Speaker 1: for ourselves. In the process of this, though, we were
Speaker 1: talking with other teams and basically any other team that
Speaker 1: saw success on Ethereum L one was trying to think
Speaker 1: about how they don't get sidelined in the process as
Speaker 1: L two has become more prevalent. So it became like
Speaker 1: pretty clearly was like, oh, Okay, any team that has
Speaker 1: seen success on L one is thinking about this, and
Speaker 1: this is not a problem that just we are facing.
Speaker 1: It's the problem everybody is facing. So this is gonna
Speaker 1: be a core problem for the future of the ethereum ecosystem.
Speaker 1: So that's really where it came from. The north Star
Speaker 1: was like, make it super easy for people to build
Speaker 1: for all the users in the ethereum ecosystem. I think
Speaker 1: where we're going at large, though, is kind of like
Speaker 1: a few steps past that. That's you know, we've grown
Speaker 1: a lot since then, and where I think the entire
Speaker 1: crypto industry at large is going is we're kind of
Speaker 1: like stepping to a point where it's gonna we're gonna
Speaker 1: be able to onboard far more users because we're lowering
Speaker 1: the technical complexity to accessing blockchains today it's a mess.
Speaker 1: You have to think about wrapped assets, gas tokens, bridging
Speaker 1: different chains and stuff. It's like people, those of us
Speaker 1: in the space, you know, we can all were like, oh,
Speaker 1: we we we know that you shouldn't use like this
Speaker 1: version of wrapped USDC because it's actually this like that's
Speaker 1: because we're deep and we're like djens and stuff when
Speaker 1: we get it. But onboarding more users, like it's crazy
Speaker 1: to actually expect people to like think about all those
Speaker 1: different things. And so where we're going at large, this
Speaker 1: really started with like abstracting way the reality of like
Speaker 1: different roll ups. But directionally, where it's going to go
Speaker 1: is like accessing crypto is going to look just like
Speaker 1: using web too. It's going to look like just using
Speaker 1: a website. You're not going to have to think about
Speaker 1: sea phrases, gas or chains or any of that. You're
Speaker 1: just going to like kind of accumulate assets as you
Speaker 1: navigate the web. So directly, that's where we're going as
Speaker 1: a company, and that's where I'm super excited about.
Speaker 2: I want to make sure we break this down for
Speaker 2: the folks who are new to the technology and asset class.
Speaker 2: So when we talk about rollups. We're talking about layer
Speaker 2: twos on Etherrem right, like you're arbitrum and all these others, right, yeah, correct,
Speaker 2: And you guys are helping to bridge all of those
Speaker 2: together to make it easy for folks to build on
Speaker 2: on on etherorem or any of those respective rollups.
Speaker 1: M yeah, yeah, that's correct. So we have we created
Speaker 1: like scaling solutions where it's kind of like you have
Speaker 1: build computers on top of the computer like instead just
Speaker 1: a theory amount one, you have like optimism arbitrum based,
Speaker 1: and you have these other like individual scaling networks. The
Speaker 1: difficulty though, is that now people have to think about
Speaker 1: all those different computers, arbitron, optimism base, they have different
Speaker 1: versions of assets, they have like different gas tokens and stuff.
Speaker 1: So what we're really focused on in the short term
Speaker 1: here is making it so that people don't have to
Speaker 1: think about that. But where that really positions us to
Speaker 1: like excel in the long term here is taking that
Speaker 1: one step further and making it so that people don't
Speaker 1: have to think about chains at all or any of
Speaker 1: the complexities associated with this.
Speaker 2: So let's walk through a mock example. Let's say I
Speaker 2: want to build some NFTs, right and I want to
Speaker 2: do it on ETH, but I'm going to go through
Speaker 2: OMNI what's that process like and is the NFT going
Speaker 2: to sit on all the respective roll ups?
Speaker 1: Yeah, so you as a developer, the really cool thing
Speaker 1: is you can decide if you want it on all
Speaker 1: these different rules. You can do that. You don't need
Speaker 1: to though, but with OMNIME there's like decoupling where you
Speaker 1: can still source. Like let's say people have to pay
Speaker 1: one ETH to get one of your NFTs. They can
Speaker 1: do that on base Optimism arbitrump, even if you're even
Speaker 1: if your NFT project is only deployed on ethel one.
Speaker 1: So it kind of like you can do whatever you
Speaker 1: want as a developer. You can build your application the
Speaker 1: way that you want to, but that doesn't force the
Speaker 1: complexity onto the users. The users like you can go
Speaker 1: get the users who have the ethon Optimism, same thing
Speaker 1: with arbitrump, and they don't need to think about the
Speaker 1: fact that the application is technically not in that same
Speaker 1: goal in many ways, like honestly, the best way to
Speaker 1: think about this is when you go to Google dot com,
Speaker 1: do you think about the fact that you might have
Speaker 1: just hit a server that is running in California and
Speaker 1: I might hit a server that's running in Asia. No,
Speaker 1: we like don't think about that. Google dot com is
Speaker 1: powered by thousands of computers behind the scenes, but we're
Speaker 1: not forced to think about that like in the weeds
Speaker 1: technical reality because it's abstracted way. That's where crypto is
Speaker 1: going in the same way.
Speaker 2: I've been thinking a lot about this and you mentioned
Speaker 2: it earlier, the Web two interface, but Web three technology
Speaker 2: behind it, and we need that so badly to bring
Speaker 2: in like the next billion people or hit a billion
Speaker 2: users because there's a lot of friction and a lot
Speaker 2: of people scared of the seed phrase items. So I
Speaker 2: love I love the idea, and I love the mission
Speaker 2: you guys are want to solve that. So definitely definitely
Speaker 2: makes sense. Now, once again, I want to make sure
Speaker 2: I break this down for people who it's a new
Speaker 2: concept to them. So, are you guys a layer one
Speaker 2: blockchain or a layer three blockchain?
Speaker 1: That makes sense?
Speaker 2: How do you guys feel.
Speaker 1: That's the question? Yeah? Which layer is it? Yeah? So
Speaker 1: it is a chain. It is the way that the
Speaker 1: omni network runs. Is it is a chain? Is it
Speaker 1: a chain like the staying network? Though? Are we trying
Speaker 1: to build up our own DeFi ecosystem on the OMNI
Speaker 1: chain itself. No, that's not what we're trying to do. Omnie,
Speaker 1: in many ways, aggregates these other smart contract platforms where
Speaker 1: these applications are deployed. So in many ways you can
Speaker 1: think about it as like an orchestration, aggregation layer, whatever
Speaker 1: you want to call it. Like, at a literal technical level, yes,
Speaker 1: it is a chain, but it is not like an
Speaker 1: all l one It was specifically designed so that people
Speaker 1: didn't have to think about all l ones. They just
Speaker 1: like wanted to use an application, they can use the
Speaker 1: application and they don't have to think about where that
Speaker 1: application is running. But yes, it is a technically it's
Speaker 1: an l one chain.
Speaker 2: Yes, okay, And then I noticed you guys have a
Speaker 2: token call Omni. Tell us a bit about the tokenomics
Speaker 2: around that.
Speaker 1: Yeah. Yeah. So it's a pretty unique model because downstream
Speaker 1: of this fact that we're not trying to build like
Speaker 1: an all l one ecosystem on our chain, the business
Speaker 1: model of the network itself. You know, every network has
Speaker 1: like a you know, a model for like pulling in fees, right,
Speaker 1: A lot of these are mostly just like what happens
Speaker 1: on the chain itself. Omni is unique in the sense that, like, yes,
Speaker 1: you can transact on Omni's chain itself, and a lot
Speaker 1: of these like intermediaries that like coordinate activity across these
Speaker 1: different chains do that. But the additional way that it
Speaker 1: can accru fees is by passing messages across all these
Speaker 1: different networks. So it kind of has like an additional
Speaker 1: line and like opportunity to accreu fees compared to like
Speaker 1: other chains that are out there on the market.
Speaker 2: And then how are you facilitating growth like getting developers
Speaker 2: to come participate in people to build on on me.
Speaker 1: Yeah, honestly, the answer to this one's pretty simple. I've
Speaker 1: been in space for like seven years at this point,
Speaker 1: I know a lot of the biggest projects, and so
Speaker 1: we're kind of just like we kind of have a
Speaker 1: pretty deep network to any team that we want to
Speaker 1: work with, like we have an open conversation with them.
Speaker 1: We don't really have to market to like pull in developers,
Speaker 1: because all the teams that are like building the highest
Speaker 1: leverage projects, like we just know them at this point,
Speaker 1: and if we don't know them, we're like pretty good
Speaker 1: at like being nimble and getting in touch with them
Speaker 1: pretty quickly.
Speaker 2: M Yeah. And to your point, the Ethereum ecosystem and network,
Speaker 2: there's a ton of building happening. I mean you just
Speaker 2: see enterprise folks like even black Rock right issuing their
Speaker 2: first token I spun on etherorem There's so much happening,
Speaker 2: you know, do you do you envision that Etherum will
Speaker 2: be able to maintain this status as king of the
Speaker 2: hill when it comes to smart contract blockchains?
Speaker 1: Yeah, I mean, honestly, it's a great question. I and
Speaker 1: I don't know the answer. I think Solana is doing
Speaker 1: incredible work. But at large, honestly, I think where things
Speaker 1: are going is people will care less about specific chains.
Speaker 1: I think they're actually going to become far more attached
Speaker 1: to like applications large and those applications downstream are just
Speaker 1: going to use whatever smart contract development platform best fits
Speaker 1: their needs. So I think over the long term here
Speaker 1: economic network effects like liquidity, network effects and stuff will
Speaker 1: fade away because everything will move so seamlessly across these
Speaker 1: chains that like those barriers will effectively be broken down.
Speaker 1: If I had to bet on one horse right now, yeah,
Speaker 1: it would be Ethereum. But it's honestly very healthy, and
Speaker 1: I am excited to see that the Salama ecosystem, for example,
Speaker 1: has pulled in like so much attention. And then you know,
Speaker 1: there are also kind of more like dark horses at
Speaker 1: this point, like XRP. You know, they have captured a
Speaker 1: ton of the kind of more traditional mind shared there.
Speaker 1: So there are like these more younger, more creative, like
Speaker 1: playful applications being built on Slana and ethereum. But if
Speaker 1: you go if you're thinking more about these like black
Speaker 1: rock types, there are these institutions like Ripple that have
Speaker 1: been around for a very long time and have like
Speaker 1: deep relationships with all these entities, and I think that
Speaker 1: is like a huge point of leverage that they have.
Speaker 2: You know, it's funny. There's an interesting backstory which I'm
Speaker 2: sure you know about with Vitallic and Ripple. And Ripple
Speaker 2: I think back in the day they were working on
Speaker 2: Codius with the XRP ledger, which I would have enabled
Speaker 2: smart contracts, but Eating to go that direction, and Eat,
Speaker 2: you know, obviously boomed with the smart contract technology and
Speaker 2: the ability to do a lot of great things. So
Speaker 2: it's fascinating if they had one the folks that Ripple
Speaker 2: had went in a different direction. What the world might
Speaker 2: have looked like in a crypto space.
Speaker 1: Yeah, you know, some deep lore man. So, uh, Codius actually,
Speaker 1: like my first company built the inter Ledger network. Codius
Speaker 1: was an original idea for like smart contracts, and so
Speaker 1: Stefan Thomas was one of the like ripples old CTO
Speaker 1: who was like a mentor of mine in my first company.
Speaker 1: And yeah, I worked super close with him in my
Speaker 1: first company.
Speaker 2: I interviewed him a couple of times, so it's pretty cool.
Speaker 1: Yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah, So they had the idea for
Speaker 1: Codius and like, okay, if we don't want to bind
Speaker 1: this tightly to XRP Ledger, we should create some like
Speaker 1: currency neutral way to pay for smart contracts. And that
Speaker 1: was Interledger. So that actually was like the network that
Speaker 1: I built that was like originally designed so that it
Speaker 1: could power this smart contract platform Codius. But when I
Speaker 1: built Interledger, we actually ended up tying together like bitcoin
Speaker 1: ethereum and the XRP Ledger. So yeah, you know, some
Speaker 1: deep wre man that's a while back.
Speaker 2: Yeah, it's fascinating and you just in hindsight you look
Speaker 2: at and you're like, wow, I wonder if they went
Speaker 2: the other way, Well, how things would have changed. But yeah, yeah,
Speaker 2: it's pretty pretty incredible. And you know, going back to
Speaker 2: the Solana Ethereum comparison, you know, we're seeing a lot
Speaker 2: of adoption, maybe more on the retail side for Solana.
Speaker 2: It's it's quick and it you know, does what it
Speaker 2: needs to do for retail and meme coins and things
Speaker 2: like that. Yeah, but I see a ton of enterprise
Speaker 2: adoption on Etherorem, which I think the enterprise and you
Speaker 2: correct me if I'm wrong, they want the security and
Speaker 2: maybe the pedigree that Etherorem has.
Speaker 1: Yeah, and I think it's also anytime you're looking at
Speaker 1: these more larger like enterprises, takes a long time to
Speaker 1: get these people moving. And also, above all else, they
Speaker 1: seek stability. And Solana has done great work. I honestly
Speaker 1: have immense respect for the engineering work that has been
Speaker 1: done in Swana. But last cycle it was like a
Speaker 1: meme that it would break every three weeks, you know,
Speaker 1: And so if you're black rock, you can't have something
Speaker 1: that breaks every three weeks. And I actually don't remember
Speaker 1: the last time that's Galana like halted as a chain.
Speaker 1: I think maybe it happened like six months ago, but
Speaker 1: like I don't know I feel like it was like
Speaker 1: at least a year before that. But you know, Ethereum,
Speaker 1: I don't think it has ever halted. I don't think
Speaker 1: it ever has had like a breeze like that. So yeah,
Speaker 1: they seek stability above all else, and so that is
Speaker 1: definitely competitive advantage.
Speaker 2: Do you think the theorem move from proof of work
Speaker 2: to proof of steak was the right strategy and it's
Speaker 2: a better off now?
Speaker 1: That is a Honestly, I would have probably nine months
Speaker 1: ago I would have been like, obviously, it's great. But
Speaker 1: in hindsight, I think proof of steak was probably the
Speaker 1: move for Ethereum. But I do find myself finding like
Speaker 1: a beauty in bitcoin. I've always loved bitcoin and just
Speaker 1: the simplicity of like how it works compared to these
Speaker 1: more complex mechanisms. There is like niceness in the like
Speaker 1: static nature of bitcoin, and so I think it was
Speaker 1: the right move for Ethereum. But I do love bitcoin.
Speaker 1: I personally, like I buy bitcoin every week. I love bitcoin.
Speaker 2: Yeah, you know, it's funny, I have the same sentiment
Speaker 2: because at first I looked bitcoin and I looked at
Speaker 2: E and x RP, and I was like, well what
Speaker 2: does bitcoin do? But then over the years, it became
Speaker 2: more educated and understand the dynamics of blockchains and understand
Speaker 2: the beauty, right, yeah, the full circle because it's so decentralized,
Speaker 2: and they tried to stop it, they try to ban it,
Speaker 2: and then the miners move and there's something just amazing
Speaker 2: about that that you can't kill it. And it's that
Speaker 2: hard money, right and and that's its major use case,
Speaker 2: you know, and in line with the Bitcoin white paper
Speaker 2: and the ethos of why it was created. So I
Speaker 2: really appreciate now that as I understand how the economy
Speaker 2: works and the world works and why Bitcoin is the
Speaker 2: lead horse.
Speaker 1: Yeah. Yeah, And it's funny like I built across bitcoin,
Speaker 1: XRP and ethereum. And you know, obviously when I was
Speaker 1: like at Ripple, I was doing like far more work,
Speaker 1: Like I don't know if he even David schwartz By
Speaker 1: like co authored another procol with him. When I was there,
Speaker 1: I was like deep in the ripple of ecosystem. Honestly,
Speaker 1: I like still lot of the like people who are
Speaker 1: in more like leadership positions there on touch Base pretty regularly.
Speaker 1: Like I like the Ripples squat. I think they get
Speaker 1: a lot of hate and especially from the Ethereum community.
Speaker 1: So I'm kind of like in between worlds here because
Speaker 1: I love the ethereum community as well. But then there's
Speaker 1: like Bitcoin that I leaned away from for a while
Speaker 1: because I was like, you can't build, like I want
Speaker 1: to like build and contribute to this, and it's hard
Speaker 1: for me to do that on Bitcoin. I like integrated
Speaker 1: Bitcoin's Lightning network into the Interledger protocol, like I authored
Speaker 1: like that part of the protocol for example, So I
Speaker 1: like got pretty deep with Lightning network. This again, this
Speaker 1: was all back in like twenty seventeen to twenty twenty era.
Speaker 1: But yeah, I've been across these different communities over time,
Speaker 1: and it's funny because they all tend to like hate
Speaker 1: each other sometimes, but I respect them all all for
Speaker 1: like quite different reasons. But they all have like some
Speaker 1: really nice properties to them.
Speaker 2: Yeah, and I'm the same way, Like I appreciate the
Speaker 2: uniqueness of each of these blockchains and what they do.
Speaker 2: But you know, the human nature element comes in because
Speaker 2: of value in the tokens, So they fight each other.
Speaker 2: You think, oh, if you promote this one, it takes
Speaker 2: it's taking something away or value or something liquidity. I
Speaker 2: don't know, but it's funny to watch that and I'm
Speaker 2: self aware to know that, Hey, man, I appreciate bitcoin,
Speaker 2: I appreciate you theorem. I appreciate the XRP ledger because
Speaker 2: I see the pros and cons of each.
Speaker 1: Yeah, and it's funny. I like, for a while I
Speaker 1: posted like very heavy eth research because of the work
Speaker 1: that Omnie is doing, but like long term where omni
Speaker 1: is going, And this is kind of why I was saying,
Speaker 1: like talking more about how you're just going to go
Speaker 1: to websites and do things, You're not going to think
Speaker 1: about chains. Like the goal here really is create an
Speaker 1: abstraction lner for the entire crypto economy so that like
Speaker 1: you don't have to think about any change. It's not
Speaker 1: going to just be roll ups. It'll be like Solana,
Speaker 1: you know, XRP and stuff like. You'll be able to
Speaker 1: like use all these different platforms so you won't have
Speaker 1: to think about So that's like really the way that
Speaker 1: I'm looking at the world right now. It's just like
Speaker 1: they all have their purpose. They all have their purpose.
Speaker 1: Ripple is going to be heads down trying to like
Speaker 1: land these banks and FinTechs, and I am glad that
Speaker 1: they are there driving that Ethereum. You know, they have
Speaker 1: this like stability that they can offer there, and that's
Speaker 1: like fantastic. But the Ethereum Foundation is not like out
Speaker 1: there hunting like cross border payments companies to like build
Speaker 1: on it. So they're all bringing collectively like value into
Speaker 1: the on chain comy, which ultimately is what I care about.
Speaker 1: Just like open permissionless networks for people to engage in
Speaker 1: commerce with each other. That's really like what matters to me.
Speaker 2: Absolutely. You mentioned, you know, the expansion omni. Are you
Speaker 2: planning to do anything for Bitcoin from a scaling standpoint?
Speaker 1: I would love to do something for bitcoin. Yeah, so like, uh,
Speaker 1: this will be you know, we're exploring allbms right now.
Speaker 1: There's like some work being done on this with Bitcoin,
Speaker 1: though it's a bit more difficult because honestly the space
Speaker 1: is still learning. There a lot of these Bitcoin l
Speaker 1: twos are just multi SIGs right now. They're not actually
Speaker 1: like inheriting Bitcoin's properties in many ways, like if any.
Speaker 1: There are a couple that I have seen though that
Speaker 1: do seem more promising, And so if we can get
Speaker 1: to a point where these are actually like Bitcoin l
Speaker 1: twos and not multi SIGs branded as like writing the
Speaker 1: bitcoin wave. I would love to see that. If we
Speaker 1: can like contribute to a greater bitcoin economy, I'm all
Speaker 1: for that. That would be super cool to see.
Speaker 2: Yeah, for sure. I know a lot of people are
Speaker 2: trying different things, lightning that work and all these things,
Speaker 2: so that'd be awesome if we can get some better
Speaker 2: solutions for bitcoin to scale. We who are some of
Speaker 2: your investors? I know Pantera Capital is one. Tell us
Speaker 2: a bit about some of the other folks.
Speaker 1: Yeah, I mean there's a range here, so we're pretty
Speaker 1: intentional about getting a range of investors.
Speaker 2: So I'm one end.
Speaker 1: You know, Pantera was our lead, and they're like, obviously
Speaker 1: they were the first to make like an American like
Speaker 1: bitcoin fund, which they had a hilarious email about they
Speaker 1: sent it out recently. They're like, cool, the bitcoin fund
Speaker 1: is officially up a thousand decks, Like we uh men,
Speaker 1: that's not But they're like the native ogs like have
Speaker 1: a ton of capital, can like really swing. So there
Speaker 1: are leads on the other side of that, though. The
Speaker 1: second biggest like venture capital holder of the OMNI network
Speaker 1: is two Sigma Ventures, So two Sigma is like much
Speaker 1: closer to this like black Rock type where it's like
Speaker 1: this is like a big institution in the US, Like
Speaker 1: this is like a massive trading firm that has like
Speaker 1: a very big traditional footprint, and so we really wanted
Speaker 1: to like balance that out, like cool, let's get the cryptonatives,
Speaker 1: but let's also make sure that we have a put
Speaker 1: in the door into the like existing traditional financial system.
Speaker 1: And then totally on the other side of that, like
Speaker 1: Chris LARTs and the founder of Ripple is on Omnie's
Speaker 1: cap table as well, because it's like cool, there is
Speaker 1: like surface area to like work collaboratively here. So yeah,
Speaker 1: I was pretty intentional in designing like a diversified cap
Speaker 1: table for Omni so that we have easy ways to
Speaker 1: kind of like break into these different growth verticals.
Speaker 2: And what's on your roadmap as we head into twenty
Speaker 2: twenty five.
Speaker 1: Yeah, twenty twenty five is going to be a fun year.
Speaker 1: We'll see what happens with the market. I at minimum,
Speaker 1: it'll be crazy. I can guarantee that. I can't guarantee
Speaker 1: whether whether it'll be crazy going up or down for
Speaker 1: like bitcoin the industry at large, but it'll be crazy
Speaker 1: where we're at from a product perspective, though, so you know,
Speaker 1: the main net December seventeenth. I don't know when we're
Speaker 1: going to drop this but before or after that, but
Speaker 1: it'll be released on December seventeen, so super excited for
Speaker 1: that date. Like the core foundation of Vomiting Network will
Speaker 1: be out there, and like you'll be able to communicate
Speaker 1: data across these appearium roll ups. Where we're going though
Speaker 1: throughout twenty twenty five Q one Q two, we're going
Speaker 1: to be stepping deeper into this like distraction for just
Speaker 1: like using apps in the IR your in ecosystem, kind
Speaker 1: of the first step in this is like you'll be
Speaker 1: able to use an application that's on ether one even
Speaker 1: if your funds are on optimism, or like you'll be
Speaker 1: able to use an app on Arbitrum even if your
Speaker 1: funds are on base and you won't have to think
Speaker 1: about this. So that's kind of like the first step
Speaker 1: in this like abstraction idea that I'm talking about, and
Speaker 1: the latter half of point twenty five though, what we're
Speaker 1: going to be really focused on is obviously leaning further
Speaker 1: into this abstraction idea, but also expanding surface area. So
Speaker 1: this is more kind of like the XRP the Bitcoin,
Speaker 1: the Salona type of like expanding like access to the
Speaker 1: entire un chain economy so that you can have the
Speaker 1: similar experience where like it doesn't matter where your money
Speaker 1: is held. You can just use apps that are everywhere
Speaker 1: and it just kind of happens without you needing to
Speaker 1: think about it at all.
Speaker 2: It's exciting. I love it. We're gonna have to have
Speaker 2: you back on to talk about all those things in
Speaker 2: person interview.
Speaker 1: Yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah, maybe we can do it here
Speaker 1: in the office.
Speaker 2: Yeah, that'd be awesome. Great. I want to get your
Speaker 2: perspective on the markets overall, you know, not necessarily the
Speaker 2: price predictions, but the growth and the adoption we've seen.
Speaker 2: We kind of touch a bit on it before, but
Speaker 2: you've got ETFs being issued by Wall Street firms, tokenization
Speaker 2: happening by some of these big firms like black Rock.
Speaker 2: Crypto has become mainstream with politics, and we've got a
Speaker 2: prop pro crypto president and Congress. It's amazing. What are
Speaker 2: your thoughts on all these things?
Speaker 1: I honestly to answer this, maybe I'll answer it as
Speaker 1: like my experience as a builder in America, and so
Speaker 1: I don't think people understood at large how aggressive the
Speaker 1: US stance was towards crypto builders. So when Tyler and
Speaker 1: my co founder and I decided to build this company,
Speaker 1: we had a very serious conversation where it's like, look,
Speaker 1: we might need to leave America if the US decides
Speaker 1: it hates crypto to like a certain degree that we
Speaker 1: just like can't build here. And we're both like fanatically
Speaker 1: like we're we're gonna make this like happen. So we
Speaker 1: were like, cool, if we need to leave America, believe America,
Speaker 1: that just is what it is. But now, honestly, I
Speaker 1: feel it, like so deeply because I'm very American, Like
Speaker 1: I grew up here. I love living in America. I'm
Speaker 1: honestly so grateful to be an American. I definitely drank
Speaker 1: like a decent amount of the American like kool aid whatever,
Speaker 1: but like I am, like genuinely very grateful to be American.
Speaker 1: Now that Trump is going to become president, Gary Gensler
Speaker 1: is stepping down, I feel like I can just like
Speaker 1: vocalize like, hey, I build as I build in crypto
Speaker 1: and I work in New York City, like and I
Speaker 1: can say that without like concerns about like the government
Speaker 1: like having some opinion like you know, like the government
Speaker 1: is going to embrace crypto. So that the fact that
Speaker 1: the US government, the largest economy in the world, is
Speaker 1: embracing this technology, is honestly unbelievably bullish. It is. I
Speaker 1: in all the years of that I've been crypto, never
Speaker 1: have I seen anything that like exciting for the industry
Speaker 1: at large. And so this is positive both for the
Speaker 1: rate of technological development. Things are going to speed up here.
Speaker 1: It's also positive for the rate of like institutional capital
Speaker 1: flowing into it and the real outlier here. This is
Speaker 1: like I think this is I don't want to say
Speaker 1: it's like underpriced, but I think it's something that people
Speaker 1: don't really understand the implications of that If the US
Speaker 1: starts to accumulate a national strategic reserve of bitcoin, it
Speaker 1: is going to set off an arms race for the
Speaker 1: accumulation of BTC across the entire world. Like if you
Speaker 1: see the issuer of the reserve currency start to dump
Speaker 1: their own currency to accumulate some Internet coin, you are
Speaker 1: obviously going to pick up that internet coin as well,
Speaker 1: because they're the issuer of the reserve currency, and if
Speaker 1: they believe they should sell for this coin, you are
Speaker 1: going to do the same thing. And so obviously that's
Speaker 1: like a crazy outcome. And I could have never imagined
Speaker 1: that when I first got involved in crypto, But here
Speaker 1: we are, you know, like seven eight years later, it's
Speaker 1: like wow, like he's talking about it. Some might just
Speaker 1: like dump some USD for bitcoin, like he might do it.
Speaker 1: And if that happens, I think structurally the game will change,
Speaker 1: like in order of magnitude here, like we won't really
Speaker 1: never go back to where we're at right now. If
Speaker 1: governments start accumulating bitcoin in a way that's like kicked
Speaker 1: off by the US. It is already happening with like
Speaker 1: El Salvador, Utan. China has a giant bitcoin reserve as well,
Speaker 1: but if the US starts actively buying bitcoin honestly like
Speaker 1: not financial advice, but like that's gonna be insane.
Speaker 2: Yeah, it's amazing that this dialogue, there's even a bill
Speaker 2: on the table that this is happening. Yeah, same thing.
Speaker 2: I wouldn't have believed if you told me even a
Speaker 2: year ago that this would have definitely a year.
Speaker 1: Ago, I'd be like, what do you mean the government
Speaker 1: hates crypto?
Speaker 2: There's no way yea yeah, And then you know, I
Speaker 2: look at what's happening with the ETFs and Blackrock And
Speaker 2: you know their accumulation is going to pass to Toshi
Speaker 2: and and you know Blackrock is putting a lot of
Speaker 2: their client's money into this thing, and they're accumulating at
Speaker 2: such a rapid pace it almost seems I don't want
Speaker 2: to sound conspiratorial, but you know, Blackrock has worked with
Speaker 2: the government in many ways as the world's wealthy as
Speaker 2: asset manager, even after two thousand and eight, they push
Speaker 2: certain narratives. So if they're all in on bitcoin and
Speaker 2: you have this bill, it's kind of like the writings
Speaker 2: on the wall. Maybe it doesn't happen this cycle, but
Speaker 2: maybe the next cycle, but it's coming, I think.
Speaker 1: Yeah, yeah, No. I actually was speaking on something earlier
Speaker 1: today and they were asking me, like, hey, what was
Speaker 1: it like building in like twenty seventeen, twenty eighteen, Like
Speaker 1: you know a lot of people join in like twenty
Speaker 1: twenty one era, but like we don't chat as much
Speaker 1: with people who are around and like actively building at
Speaker 1: that time. And the thing is at that time, you know,
Speaker 1: it was like maybe this does like like it's not
Speaker 1: locked in that crypto is like going to really succeed
Speaker 1: but I feel like at this point, it's like like
Speaker 1: we're locked in like this. The future is going to
Speaker 1: be crazy. We're going to have these like open financial networks,
Speaker 1: and you know, there are different paths here. Some are
Speaker 1: like a path of like greater celeration and adoption than others.
Speaker 1: But at this point, I feel like it's just like
Speaker 1: very clear, like this is not going away. Human society
Speaker 1: is accepting digital assets and the future is like open
Speaker 1: permissionless global economy, or like an open permissionless platform for
Speaker 1: the global economy, which to me is just like beautiful.
Speaker 1: Like that's why I got involved. Like people deserve to
Speaker 1: be able to like engage in commerce with whoever they want,
Speaker 1: Like we deserve that as just like people. We don't
Speaker 1: need governments or banks to like tell us who we
Speaker 1: can work with. So I don't know, I'm loving where
Speaker 1: we're at right now. I'm super excited where we're going.
Speaker 2: Yeah, you know, I've been talking to a lot of
Speaker 2: people about what the future looks like, and we're only
Speaker 2: going to get more digital and the generation that's coming
Speaker 2: up now, in future generations, they're not going to come
Speaker 2: up in a analog world. It's going to be digital
Speaker 2: and They're going to transact and dig digital their profiles,
Speaker 2: their life and so forth. And look there's a maybe
Speaker 2: a bit of a dystopian aspect to that, but this
Speaker 2: is the evolution, I guess, of civilization and blockchains. And
Speaker 2: I've been telling people who are living in the fourth
Speaker 2: industrial revolutions blockchain, crypto, AI, robotics and all these different things.
Speaker 2: It's fascinating.
Speaker 1: It's it's wild. And I think one thing that I
Speaker 1: really did not factor into like growth projections was AI.
Speaker 1: We now have rich ais. That's what's hit. When I
Speaker 1: explain my like to my hometown friends, what's one of
Speaker 1: the cool things happening in crypto right now, I'm like,
Speaker 1: so people made AI's and they have crypto wallets in
Speaker 1: their rich now and they tweeted people and and like
Speaker 1: explaining it that way instead of talking about like agents
Speaker 1: and stuff, like they just get like what do you damn? Like,
Speaker 1: like ais are rich, yes, dude, and they talk to
Speaker 1: people on Twitter. It's crazy. But I think like AI
Speaker 1: is going to get to a point where I, you know,
Speaker 1: you were talking about having a kid, Like I'm excited
Speaker 1: for like the opportunity to have a kid when like
Speaker 1: it can have an AI tutor that like will help
Speaker 1: it like grow and like learn at a faster rate
Speaker 1: than like we have the opportunity too. So I don't know.
Speaker 1: I'm obviously like very much a techno optimist and the
Speaker 1: super excited for like how technology can like better human lives.
Speaker 1: But I mean, this stuff is objectively insane. The Internet
Speaker 1: was an unbelievable thing that we created as a society.
Speaker 1: But having like native digital assets and AI like things
Speaker 1: are gonna they just gonna get way weirder, way quicker
Speaker 1: than they did previously.
Speaker 2: Yeah, it's it's like scary, but it's also exciting at
Speaker 2: the same time because I'm I, like you, I'm passionate
Speaker 2: about tech and I'm just curious to see how this
Speaker 2: changes our lives. And you know, I'm an optimist, so
Speaker 2: I look at it from the positive light. But you know, well,
Speaker 2: I guess as humans we figure it out. You know,
Speaker 2: it's ebbs and flows throughout human civilization and the history
Speaker 2: of it, and you know, sometimes things may go the
Speaker 2: wrong direction, but then we course correct. So I'm curious
Speaker 2: to like you, I'm thinking, like, what can I do
Speaker 2: with my daughter, she's he's seven now, and with AI
Speaker 2: and get her started ahead of time. Not to be
Speaker 2: too immersed, but just get out of the curve because
Speaker 2: I see the direction we're headed in.
Speaker 1: Yeah, totally, I would be thinking the same thing about
Speaker 1: the kid right now.
Speaker 2: I didn't want to ask you about Ripple's stable coin
Speaker 2: r l u s D and the growing stable point market.
Speaker 2: Stable coins are one of the killer use cases or
Speaker 2: apps a blockchain. What are your thoughts on that?
Speaker 1: Yeah, bullish. I actually let's see if she emailed me
Speaker 1: back yet. But I don't know if many people. I
Speaker 1: don't know how public Monica is these days, but Monica
Speaker 1: is the president of Ripple, and I used to work
Speaker 1: with her when I emailed her to day, like hey,
Speaker 1: let's cook on r l USD. Let's let's see if
Speaker 1: we can expand that throughout the rest of the Ontan economy.
Speaker 1: But yeah, I mean to me, this is an example
Speaker 1: of kind of what I was talking about with Ripples
Speaker 1: ties to existing like FinTechs, banks, institutions out there. Yeah,
Speaker 1: I'm really excited for them. They just have the relationships there,
Speaker 1: like they have been building this company, like I think
Speaker 1: a lot of people don't know it's been around since
Speaker 1: like twenty thirteen. It's been around like longer than the Theoereum.
Speaker 1: You know, it's been a super long time that they've
Speaker 1: been pushing on this, and they have like offices throughout
Speaker 1: the world and stuff, and they're like pretty deeply in
Speaker 1: bed with the existing financial system. So RLUSD as like
Speaker 1: a technology. I'm super excited to see them have this
Speaker 1: like asset that they can drive. For a long time.
Speaker 1: Even when I worked back at Ripple, I was like,
Speaker 1: this makes sense to have a stable coin, Like, honestly,
Speaker 1: I think we should launch a stable coin on top
Speaker 1: of this, and saying now that they're out a point
Speaker 1: where it's like cool, this thing is going to happen.
Speaker 1: I think there's a ton of synergies with their existing
Speaker 1: like partnerships and product adoption, but on top of that,
Speaker 1: and you know this is like this is more of
Speaker 1: my omni brain thinking, but like there's stuff like omnie
Speaker 1: that can use to expand our l USB throughout the
Speaker 1: rest of the yon chain comedy. So yeah, this is
Speaker 1: something I'm watching like pretty closely, and I'm like chatting
Speaker 1: with Ripple people about.
Speaker 2: Well, awesome, Like I said, we're going to have to
Speaker 2: do another interview for sure, maybe come Q one or
Speaker 2: Q two, we'll plant it because I love what you
Speaker 2: guys are doing, and I mean, your background is incredible
Speaker 2: and the fact that you worked on inter Ledger and
Speaker 2: all these things is fascinating. And Bitcoin and now you're
Speaker 2: building here with the theorem, it's pretty cool. I got
Speaker 2: some wrap up questions here for you. First is if
Speaker 2: you could create your own metaverse, what would the thing be?
Speaker 1: I think metaverse? I really like what's this called solar
Speaker 1: punk energy? Know what I'm talking about? Yeah, I like
Speaker 1: I like sci fi glass, but like water in like
Speaker 1: overflowing greenery like that that if I could build myself
Speaker 1: a home, it would be a lot of like hyper
Speaker 1: modern glass, but then like flowing water and like greenery.
Speaker 1: So if I can get a world like that, that's uh,
Speaker 1: that's a that's where I want to go in the metaverse.
Speaker 2: Nice rapid fire questions.
Speaker 1: Favorite food, Uh, it's tie food. Actually I almost said pizza,
Speaker 1: though it's definitely tie food.
Speaker 2: Favorite musician or band.
Speaker 1: Uh, honestly, Boris Brasaw. He's a he's a house artist.
Speaker 1: I might even be saying his last name wrong, but
Speaker 1: he's phenomenal. Favorite movie, favorite movie. This one's more kind
Speaker 1: of a niche one. I don't even think it's like
Speaker 1: objectively a great movie, but I love it. It's called
Speaker 1: Mister Nobody. It's it's have you heard this thing?
Speaker 2: I haven't, but I'll definitely check it out.
Speaker 1: Yeah, it's it's a very trippy movie. It's about a
Speaker 1: kid who, like you know, his parents get divorced, and
Speaker 1: you see one version of him go with his dad
Speaker 1: and one version go with his mom. But his life
Speaker 1: keeps working, so by the end you see you're seeing
Speaker 1: like sixty versions of him. I don't know, very trippy movie.
Speaker 1: I love it. Not that many people know.
Speaker 2: With that fascinating Ill to check that out. Favorite book.
Speaker 1: I love the Dune series, but actually my uh, this
Speaker 1: is we're talking crypto. So The Ascent of Money, Uh,
Speaker 1: that is a book that fundamentally changed the way that
Speaker 1: I think about what money is in human society, and
Speaker 1: it really helped me understand like the impact of the
Speaker 1: systems we're building.
Speaker 2: And when you're not working at OMNI, what are you
Speaker 2: doing for fun?
Speaker 1: Honestly, man, I I work a lot, so I don't
Speaker 1: have a time. I used to surf a lot though,
Speaker 1: before I moved to New York. Surfing was like, how
Speaker 1: I would relax, So I'll go with surfing.
Speaker 2: Hmm, Austin, I love what you guys are doing. Like
Speaker 2: I said, we have to have you back on, but
Speaker 2: thank you so much for joining me.
Speaker 1: Yeah. Likewise, man, thank you so much for having me on.