Speaker 1: Part of the reason I'm really excited about, you know,
Speaker 1: what we're doing in the ecosystem today is, Hey, this
Speaker 1: is absolutely necessary to bring the world's finances on chain,
Speaker 1: and we're right at the point where a confluence of
Speaker 1: factors both you know, you know, politically with regulations as
Speaker 1: well as with the technology.
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Speaker 2: learn more about uphold and all the great services they offer,
Speaker 2: visit the link in the description. Hey, everybody, welcome into
Speaker 2: the Thinking Crypto Podcast. I'm your host Tony Edward, and
Speaker 2: joining me today's John Rising, who's the co founder and
Speaker 2: CEO of stack Up. John. Great to have you on.
Speaker 1: Thank you so much, Tony, it's great to be on.
Speaker 2: John. I'm very excited to speak with you. You are a
Speaker 2: literal rocket scientist. You worked at SpaceX and Virgin Galactic,
Speaker 2: and now you're building in the crypto industry. So I
Speaker 2: definitely want to learn more about your background and your
Speaker 2: journey towards crypto and this great platform that you're building
Speaker 2: for enterprises. But let's kick it off with your background.
Speaker 2: Where are you from and how'd you end up into
Speaker 2: the space industry if you want to call it that.
Speaker 1: Yeah. Absolutely, As you said, I started my career in
Speaker 1: aerospace engineering, so I worked for companies like SpaceX, Virgin Galactic,
Speaker 1: and a company called Relativity, where I designed rocket engines
Speaker 1: and launch vehicles. I got into it because in college
Speaker 1: there was a group of students that was trying to
Speaker 1: be the first completely student run organization to design, build,
Speaker 1: and send a rocket into space, and I thought that
Speaker 1: that was absolutely crazy. It sounded awesome. So even though
Speaker 1: at the time I was a theater major, I decided, Hey,
Speaker 1: you know what, I'm going to go check this out.
Speaker 1: And long story short, I ended up spending pretty much
Speaker 1: my entire college career working towards that. So I graduated
Speaker 1: with a degree in mechanical engineering and worked at a
Speaker 1: lot of really cool companies. And part of how I
Speaker 1: got into crypto actually was through the space industry, of
Speaker 1: all things. I was fortunate enough to be the first
Speaker 1: employee at Relativity, which is a space company that I
Speaker 1: helped scale the team from just me and the founders
Speaker 1: to a big, multi billion dollar valuation, and I had
Speaker 1: significant equity in the company, but it was all I
Speaker 1: liquid and I saw the liquid twenty four to seven
Speaker 1: nature Crypto after you know, taking a quick break from
Speaker 1: that company, and it really piqued my interest. Like many
Speaker 1: technical people, I had known about bitcoin since the you know,
Speaker 1: pre silk road days and even tried binding bitcoin myself,
Speaker 1: but hadn't really realized it had grown into smart contracts
Speaker 1: and DeFi and the really innovative, awesome ecosystem that is today.
Speaker 1: And so as I went through the process of onboarding
Speaker 1: myself to crypto, like many people, I was really frustrated
Speaker 1: about how difficult it was, even as a technically minded person,
Speaker 1: you know, with time and money to spend. I lost
Speaker 1: a bunch of money just doing basic things. But once
Speaker 1: I got through it, an entire new world appeared. And
Speaker 1: I was working at SpaceX, arguably the coolest company in
Speaker 1: the world, but it was slow and boring in comparison
Speaker 1: to what was happening at Crypto. So I became kind
Speaker 1: of obsessed with the crypto industry, not so much the
Speaker 1: typical kind of like you know, Djen, you know Ico NFT,
Speaker 1: although I did end uppecting a lot of NFTs. I
Speaker 1: really became obsessed with this problem of why is the
Speaker 1: user experience in crypto so bad? And I found a
Speaker 1: stack up to solve it. So we became the leading
Speaker 1: developer platform for smart contract wallets when we first started,
Speaker 1: so we served as critical infrastructure for customers like coinbas
Speaker 1: wallet and trust Wallet, and through working with so many companies,
Speaker 1: we found something absolutely shocking, which is the very companies
Speaker 1: building the future of finance were struggling to do their
Speaker 1: own actual day to day financial operations, just like I
Speaker 1: was when I was logboarding. And uh we saw the
Speaker 1: opportunity to get money moving and our technology as like
Speaker 1: the perfect solution. Uh So it was a like huge
Speaker 1: opportunity as well, you know, since like nearly all money
Speaker 1: that moves is between businesses anyway. Uh, and so we
Speaker 1: decided to pivot into what we are now. And so
Speaker 1: stack up is a wallet and play payments platform for businesses.
Speaker 1: So with stack up, you know, you can create to
Speaker 1: share crypto wallets for your team that you can access
Speaker 1: using familiar tools like you know, face Idea, your password managers,
Speaker 1: and uh it eliminates the need to manage private keys. Additionally,
Speaker 1: you can do things like you know, connect your company's
Speaker 1: bank account to your wallet, enabling you know, seamless transfer
Speaker 1: funds in between your you know, off chain Fiat treasury
Speaker 1: and your on chain treasury.
Speaker 2: Wow, you mentioned you helped coinbase and the trustwall to
Speaker 2: establish their infrastructure for that. That's amazing. I mean Coinbase
Speaker 2: obviously huge company, has gone public and much more used
Speaker 2: by millions of users. You know what phase did they
Speaker 2: bring you in? Were they kind of scratching their heads like,
Speaker 2: how can we make this better? Let's talk? Did you
Speaker 2: guys have stack up already established and then they brought
Speaker 2: you in?
Speaker 1: Yeah, So what we had done was stack Up had
Speaker 1: helped develop the ERC fourth through three seven the ecosystem.
Speaker 1: So ERC fourth through three seven for those in your
Speaker 1: audience who don't know, is the account abstraction Stanford is
Speaker 1: standard that went live in twenty twenty three that garnered
Speaker 1: a lot more interest and excitement about about moving people
Speaker 1: through smart accounts, and we were the first mover in
Speaker 1: the space. We had established a close connection to coinbas
Speaker 1: relatively early because you know, uh, they were very interested
Speaker 1: in improving the user experience of their wallets and moving
Speaker 1: them to a more smart contract wallet focused on chain experience.
Speaker 1: So so we were very lucky to you know, get
Speaker 1: in there early, have you know, build the support within
Speaker 1: coinbase that hey, this is absolutely the future of wallets
Speaker 1: and how user experience can work. And we helped them
Speaker 1: transition to their smart wallet and smart account wow approach today.
Speaker 2: Very nice and with regards to your technology and your platform,
Speaker 2: and you're offering is it to for I guess you
Speaker 2: may have answered this already, but I want to make
Speaker 2: sure I wrap my mind around it. For the wallet
Speaker 2: support and and all the things that can set up.
Speaker 2: Is it both on the back end as well as
Speaker 2: the front end, So there's that they can use this
Speaker 2: technology platform for customer facing solutions but also for internals
Speaker 2: back end management solutions.
Speaker 1: Yeah, so we're primarily for people's kind of you know,
Speaker 1: back end or back office operations. So for example, you
Speaker 1: may have you know, like most of our customers are
Speaker 1: crypto native organizations that have hid an inflection point. They've
Speaker 1: grown beyond just the founders making you know, occasional payments
Speaker 1: with uh, you know, with their personal ledgers to really
Speaker 1: being scary serious about scaling up their projects and uh
Speaker 1: they often very quickly recognize the need for applotf for
Speaker 1: them to organize you know, all the money that they're moving.
Speaker 1: So let me give you a concrete example. We work
Speaker 1: with several security audit firms that pay out bug bounties
Speaker 1: in crypto, and before stack Up, they relied, you know,
Speaker 1: again just on a single hardware wallet that you know,
Speaker 1: one of the founders had and they manually process each
Speaker 1: transaction one by one. But now they can have someone
Speaker 1: on their team or their own internal software que hundreds
Speaker 1: of transactions, quickly review them and send them all at once.
Speaker 2: And can this be used by pretty much any industry
Speaker 2: or company. It doesn't have to be a crypto native business.
Speaker 1: Yeah, correct, So, I mean one of our big philosophies
Speaker 1: is that, you know, we're really trying to modernize financial
Speaker 1: operations for crypto companies, just like brex and ramped it
Speaker 1: for traditional businesses us like the status quo in crypto is,
Speaker 1: you know, the fragmented systems manually verifying it retransaction. And
Speaker 1: in crypto, so many losses come from a user doing
Speaker 1: something they don't intend to do because their mental model
Speaker 1: of how something works just doesn't match which what is
Speaker 1: actually happening. And to handle this, traditionally crypto wallets have
Speaker 1: been forced to communicate too much technical information to accurately
Speaker 1: describe what's happening, right, and uh, with smart contract wallets
Speaker 1: and ERC four thifty seven and these other technologies, really
Speaker 1: we can provide an experience that matches you know, users
Speaker 1: mental models of how financial accounts work period. Uh, you know,
Speaker 1: whether you are crypto native or whether you are you know,
Speaker 1: Web two native or from the finance world. And uh,
Speaker 1: part of the reason I'm really excited about, you know,
Speaker 1: what we're doing in the ecosystem today is, hey, this
Speaker 1: is absolutely necessary to bring the world's finances on chain.
Speaker 1: And we're right at the point where a confluence of
Speaker 1: factors both you know, you know, politically with regulations as
Speaker 1: well as with the technology, especially in the Etherium ecosystem,
Speaker 1: it's finally at a point where uh uh we can
Speaker 1: you know, create that experience that we know is existential
Speaker 1: to bringing the world on chain.
Speaker 2: Yeah, such a great point. And I was actually going
Speaker 2: to say that that same point that it feels like
Speaker 2: the perfect timing for a platform like yours because we're
Speaker 2: at the cusp of massive institutional adoption. Crypto legislation is
Speaker 2: about to be passed this year, whether be for stable
Speaker 2: points of market structure. We're already seeing big players tokenizing
Speaker 2: and looking to integrate stable quints. Well, they're going to
Speaker 2: need the management, They're going to need the infrastructure, and
Speaker 2: that has been a problem, a challenge for a long time.
Speaker 2: How can you get Web two or whether you're in
Speaker 2: the I don't know steel business or I don't know
Speaker 2: what a retail business, how can you get some sort
Speaker 2: of setup to accept crypto and operate with crypto?
Speaker 1: Yeah, I mean the macro environment is about to explode,
Speaker 1: and I think we're about to see a Cambrian explosion
Speaker 1: of companies like stackup as well as you know, other
Speaker 1: solutions really helping bring organizations, you know, institutions looking to invest,
Speaker 1: as well as businesses that just want better ways to
Speaker 1: move money. I mean, the stable coin market currently has
Speaker 1: a market cap of about two hundred and thirty four
Speaker 1: billion dollars already, but the US Treasury just a few
Speaker 1: weeks o put a report projecting into reach around two
Speaker 1: trillion by twenty twenty eight, and that's absolutely insane. That's
Speaker 1: over eight x growth in less than a few years.
Speaker 1: And how is that going to happen. It's not going
Speaker 1: to be through the current status quo, which is you know,
Speaker 1: individuals with hardware wallets. And I'm actually really encouraged by
Speaker 1: like the regulatory environment. You know, we just saw a
Speaker 1: couple of days ago the Genius Act clear through the Senate,
Speaker 1: and that kind of clear regulation is absolutely critical for
Speaker 1: basic things like defining what is a stable cooin, what
Speaker 1: isn't it And it's great that it's becoming less part
Speaker 1: of it and within the US, it to me makes
Speaker 1: complete sense because good stable cooin regulation is vital to
Speaker 1: the United States's economic prosperity by helping it maintain the
Speaker 1: dull position as the world's reserve asset, especially at a
Speaker 1: time where there are some change ups in the way
Speaker 1: that the United States has perceived around the world.
Speaker 2: Oh yeah, and I know there's like this geopolitical level
Speaker 2: of urgency to your point of the US dollar being
Speaker 2: the world reserve currency and we're seeing like bricks down
Speaker 2: trying to bypass US dollar. It feels like it's another
Speaker 2: Breton Woods moment, you know, kind of what happened after
Speaker 2: World War Two with the dollar in gold. It feels
Speaker 2: like that's happening and the technologies here, and you know,
Speaker 2: I saw Senator Haggerty, who's the one who you know,
Speaker 2: pushing the Genius Act. He was on CNBC saying by
Speaker 2: twenty thirty, City Bank estimates that stable coin issues will
Speaker 2: be the largest holders of US treasuries, which is mind
Speaker 2: blowing to think about versus you know, other countries which
Speaker 2: have been buying our treasuries for years.
Speaker 1: Yeah. Absolutely, And it's going to be really interesting because
Speaker 1: they have like it is going to change the structure
Speaker 1: of financial markets. You know. Uh for example, there's an
Speaker 1: open question about okay for banks, uh, you know, which
Speaker 1: hold a really important role society of you know, helping
Speaker 1: to you know, issue money. You know, they buy, you know,
Speaker 1: take your money, purchase other kinds of assets, loan it out,
Speaker 1: and the idea of stable coints becoming then the largest
Speaker 1: purchases of treasure. Reasonble also becomes really interesting because it
Speaker 1: really challenges, especially if it happens act quickly, it really
Speaker 1: challenges how most people think about, you know, the way
Speaker 1: money moves. And I also find that a lot of
Speaker 1: people have assumed that the current you know structure of
Speaker 1: you know, the US and world economy is you know,
Speaker 1: pretty mature and kind of set in place. And the
Speaker 1: reality is, like, as you pointed out, like this kind
Speaker 1: of structure has only really existed, you know, since the
Speaker 1: end of World War two, And in terms of like
Speaker 1: the history of money, we're to very very you know,
Speaker 1: it's still very nacent.
Speaker 2: Oh for sure. Now walk us through maybe a mock example,
Speaker 2: so Let's say I have my podcast. Let's say I
Speaker 2: have ten employees, right, and I want to be able
Speaker 2: to receive crypto payments, whether it be stable coins or
Speaker 2: people send me bitcoin or eat whatever. And likewise, I
Speaker 2: want to be able to pay in the same way.
Speaker 2: And I have my employees and they are asking to
Speaker 2: be paid in crypto, and maybe I want to tokenize
Speaker 2: or create some NFTs and sell them and all that, right,
Speaker 2: can stack up help me to do that?
Speaker 1: Yeah? Absolutely, I mean, especially when it comes to receiving
Speaker 1: and sending stable coins. You know, that's absolute bread and
Speaker 1: butter for us. Right. So in the example of receiving crypto, uh,
Speaker 1: you know, you can with our platform, you know, create
Speaker 1: a you know, a payment link that looks just like
Speaker 1: a traditional invoice where it has information saying hey, you know,
Speaker 1: click here to pay on chain or you know with
Speaker 1: US d C or U S d T or whatever
Speaker 1: token of your choice, or even with my bank account.
Speaker 1: And then you could even say, hey, you know, I
Speaker 1: actually want to receive that as stable points, you know,
Speaker 1: things like that. And then when it comes to sending funds,
Speaker 1: it is very similar where you know, you have an
Speaker 1: address book, you can select who.
Speaker 3: It is.
Speaker 1: You can include you know, an email confirming your payment
Speaker 1: all that other kind of stuff, so very straightforward for
Speaker 1: the payroll example. You we also have this concept of automations,
Speaker 1: which is again something that you can only really do
Speaker 1: in a non custodial way with smart accounts, at least
Speaker 1: do it well. So you can say, hey, people can
Speaker 1: pay in whatever token they want, but whenever my wallet
Speaker 1: receives something that isn't USDC, converted to USDC, or hey,
Speaker 1: when I receive USDC, convert it to a yield bearing
Speaker 1: USDC or equivalent. And then so you can have your
Speaker 1: on shade account you know, always be generating yield with
Speaker 1: its funds, but whenever you send something, you know it
Speaker 1: automatically converts back to a stable point. You know, things
Speaker 1: like that to help kind of provide the same experience
Speaker 1: that you get if you had a you know, a
Speaker 1: money market fund or a high yield savings account where
Speaker 1: you know, you don't care that in the background, you know, uh,
Speaker 1: Fidelity is converting your money market fund to US dollars. Uh.
Speaker 1: You just know I'm receiving four percent yield and I
Speaker 1: can instantly send money out.
Speaker 2: Now you're a lot of this is powered by small
Speaker 2: smart contracts. So which blockchains are powering your infrastructure? And
Speaker 2: also are their plans to add more?
Speaker 1: Yeah, so we right now support EVM blockchains, so we
Speaker 1: we support kind of right now what I would say
Speaker 1: are kind of you know, the first wave of layer
Speaker 1: two blockchains. You know, your base optimism arbitrum polygon which
Speaker 1: is in the layer two but still and that's polygon
Speaker 1: proof of stake, as well as of course the theory
Speaker 1: you MAInet where the majority of our transactions actually take place. Uh,
Speaker 1: and we are are adding in just a couple of
Speaker 1: weeks a many new layer two blockchains and kind of
Speaker 1: alternative ecosystems like Avalanche and so on. So right now
Speaker 1: we just support EVM based blockchain so those are blockchains
Speaker 1: in the Ethereum ecosystem, but we do have plans within
Speaker 1: about the next year or so to support non EVM blockchains.
Speaker 1: The reason we're supporting EVM blockchains first is in addition
Speaker 1: to being kind of the ecosystem of choice for a
Speaker 1: lot of institutional and enterprise players, Ethereum also has what
Speaker 1: I would say is like the most mature security and
Speaker 1: the most mature account abstraction technology from our perspective, and
Speaker 1: of course we're experts in it, so of course we're
Speaker 1: gonna you know, build with a thing that is our
Speaker 1: own unique, you know, special advantage. Sure, but really the
Speaker 1: etherory ecosystem is where we're starting.
Speaker 2: Yeah, that absolutely makes sense. And a lot of a
Speaker 2: lot of blockchains, even that are like not smart contract driven,
Speaker 2: they use the EVM in some way or the other,
Speaker 2: like for example, the XRP Ledger. If I'm not mistaken,
Speaker 2: I heard that they were integrating the EVM for side
Speaker 2: chains and stuff like that. Yeah, yeah, that definitely makes sense.
Speaker 2: But you know, great to hear that you're going to
Speaker 2: add Avalanche and I'm assuming Solana at some point maybe.
Speaker 1: Well so, especially as the tools in Solon, I mean,
Speaker 1: the developer tools Salona are already pretty good. But particularly
Speaker 1: one great thing about Solana is that it has native
Speaker 1: account abstraction, so they have a native version of doing
Speaker 1: smart accounts. It's just different than what the Etherory ecosystem has,
Speaker 1: which is you know, primarily based on ERSC fourth degree seven.
Speaker 1: Of course, with the most recent Pectra upgrade, you know,
Speaker 1: there's other things like e P seventy seven oh two,
Speaker 1: which effectively allows you to have you know smart account
Speaker 1: powers with your you know, existing private key. But the
Speaker 1: power of ERC four degree seven and what we're building
Speaker 1: is we don't need anything to change at the blockchain level.
Speaker 1: It all happens within the e v M, so we
Speaker 1: don't have to worry. We're not dependent on a blockchain,
Speaker 1: you know, having any particular upgrade, which is really.
Speaker 2: Nice, oh for sure. Now a big question in something
Speaker 2: that people definitely want to know about is security. You know,
Speaker 2: what are your security layers? Obviously you're using the blockchain,
Speaker 2: smart contracts and so forth, but what prevents someone at
Speaker 2: stack up from doing something fishy or on the business side,
Speaker 2: if someone's using your platform, what prevents what layers are
Speaker 2: security to prevent an employee from hacking into something and
Speaker 2: stealing funds and so forth. Yeah.
Speaker 1: Absolutely. I mean one of the things that I think
Speaker 1: sets us apart on security is well, we don't just
Speaker 1: focus on security but also on safety. And the nuance
Speaker 1: is that security is about preventing bad actors from accessing
Speaker 1: your money, whereas safety is about preventing losses period, whether
Speaker 1: that is you know, by you unintentionally or from some
Speaker 1: external threat. But I mean bigger picture, you know, we
Speaker 1: totally understand managing crypto assets requires the highest level of
Speaker 1: security without sacrificing usability. Of course, I think like usability
Speaker 1: actually enhances safety overall, because, as I was saying before,
Speaker 1: once your mental model of what's happening starts diverging from
Speaker 1: what's actually happening, you know it, things can go back quickly.
Speaker 1: So our security architecture is based on self custodial control,
Speaker 1: enterprise grade protection, and really the simplified user experience. So
Speaker 1: this approach, of course ensures that your assets always remain
Speaker 1: under your control while providing you know, advanced security features
Speaker 1: beyond that businesses really require. So we have you know,
Speaker 1: industry standard you know Soft two type two UH requirements
Speaker 1: that you know, have policies about you know, what team
Speaker 1: members can and can access.
Speaker 3: UH.
Speaker 1: It sets requirements around you know, Hey, this is how
Speaker 1: we run our software development life cycle. UH. Here's how
Speaker 1: we'll do monitoring and alerts. Here's how we'll do security
Speaker 1: checks of our employees and things like that, which, uh
Speaker 1: is a step further than most cryptonative companies go. But
Speaker 1: I think it's extremely important not just for getting you know,
Speaker 1: to win customers, because we could say, hey, look we
Speaker 1: you know, we know what the right acronyms to use are.
Speaker 1: But really it's because uh, you know, I've worked on
Speaker 1: safety critical systems my entire career, you know, uh, from
Speaker 1: you know, rockets and experimental aircraft now into financial operations,
Speaker 1: and a lot of the same like core discipline and
Speaker 1: mindset really applies to uh, you know, keeping things safe.
Speaker 2: Oh for sure. And who are some of your investors?
Speaker 2: And is your service available globally?
Speaker 1: Our service is available globally. We are self custody. Some
Speaker 1: of the features right now are available only to US customers.
Speaker 1: So for example, our you know, banking integration is only
Speaker 1: available right now to US customers, but hopefully that will
Speaker 1: be opening up soon.
Speaker 2: Uh.
Speaker 1: Our investors include you know, some of the top people
Speaker 1: in the space, uh, such as uh, you know one
Speaker 1: k X. Uh we went through White Combinator, so of
Speaker 1: course they are an investor.
Speaker 2: Uh.
Speaker 1: Good water. And then you know, like every early stage
Speaker 1: crypto company, a long tale of you know, the typical
Speaker 1: players in the space.
Speaker 2: And what do you have on your roadmap? You know,
Speaker 2: what can we expect from you this year? Yeah?
Speaker 1: So some of the things I'm personally really excited about
Speaker 1: are some upgrades to automations feature that we're making right now.
Speaker 1: Our automations is uh high powered, but relatively narrow and scope.
Speaker 1: We are expanding that to allow uh much more kind
Speaker 1: of flexible business operations and approvals and things like that.
Speaker 1: We are also expanding the types of yield bearing products
Speaker 1: that we will offer, as well as finding other ways
Speaker 1: to make it easy for people to you know, paying crypto,
Speaker 1: like with cards, and you know, uh continue to kind
Speaker 1: of blur the line between operating on chain and operating
Speaker 1: in the financial system as it exists.
Speaker 2: That sounds exciting and in in regards to let's say,
Speaker 2: I don't know if I asked you this earlier, but
Speaker 2: tokenization obviously that's been on the rise. Are you able
Speaker 2: to just support tokenize assets and things like that?
Speaker 1: Yes, absolutely, TVD. On whether we will directly support the
Speaker 1: process of tokenizing assets, we're mostly concerned about, Hey, what
Speaker 1: are your day to day operations look like when you
Speaker 1: have these assets? But our platform is don custodial and
Speaker 1: as a consequence, has access to the entire open ecosystem,
Speaker 1: which I think is really important for bringing everyone on chain.
Speaker 1: You know, it's not the if you do it right self,
Speaker 1: custody is a much better user experience than you know,
Speaker 1: a safe feeling but ultimately over restrictive custodial environment, which
Speaker 1: is a little bit kind of the kind of the
Speaker 1: norm right now for a lot of enterprises and institutions.
Speaker 1: So we will absolutely support real world assets, and in
Speaker 1: fact we already do today. I mean, I suppose stable
Speaker 1: points are definitely tokenized real world assets. Yeah, but really
Speaker 1: any e r C twenty token is something we support
Speaker 1: because again, if it's on chain, it's accessibul to you.
Speaker 2: Right, Yeah, definitely makes sense. You know, the solution you're
Speaker 2: offering to these companies these enterprises on the back end
Speaker 2: absolutely makes sense. That it's a big challenge that, like
Speaker 2: I mentioned earlier, we've been facing. But also on the
Speaker 2: retail user side, there's that challenge where the average Joe
Speaker 2: and Jane walking down the street. You showed them a
Speaker 2: seed phrase. Yeah, yeah, you showed them the wallet ad
Speaker 2: just like what right, it's like deer in the headlights?
Speaker 2: How do you think? And are you planning to approach
Speaker 2: the real retail side of the business to help them?
Speaker 2: Maybe somebody these wallet providers or businesses be able to
Speaker 2: offer better wallets and make it easy it feels like
Speaker 2: Web two, but it's Web three powered.
Speaker 1: Yeah. So right now, we're focusing on the B to
Speaker 1: B us case. I am A lot of attention has
Speaker 1: been put on the retail use case, often from the
Speaker 1: perspective of either you know, your cryptoative DJ and who
Speaker 1: you know really kind of thrives and more of a
Speaker 1: Metamaskie kind of experience where they're okay being close to
Speaker 1: the metal because they're just trying to you know, like
Speaker 1: the risk launch is super high. Or there's the day
Speaker 1: to day payments use case, which often a little bit
Speaker 1: too idealistically kind of you know, assumes everyone is you know,
Speaker 1: would be happy with a separate, kind of effectively prepaid
Speaker 1: debit card connected to you know, an existing crypto account.
Speaker 1: We are not focusing on that retail like direct consumer
Speaker 1: market because frankly, I think the highest leverage right now
Speaker 1: and it will be for a long time, is in
Speaker 1: getting B to B payments. Right it's by far the
Speaker 1: vast majority of the the volume of money that moves
Speaker 1: around the world is B to B, not not directly
Speaker 1: with consumers or individuals, and.
Speaker 2: That is.
Speaker 1: An absolute prerequisite to bringing the rest of the world
Speaker 1: on shade.
Speaker 2: Yeah, That makes sense because if the businesses are able
Speaker 2: to get their house and order and to back end
Speaker 2: and have things move efficiently, they can take some of
Speaker 2: the learnings there and then maybe build the customer facing
Speaker 2: wallets that are easy for folks to onboard, be able
Speaker 2: to use and that. Now, not every industry is going
Speaker 2: to do that. It depends on you know, the marketing
Speaker 2: industry and so forth. But yeah's your point.
Speaker 3: Yeah, there's there's also no reason why you couldn't use
Speaker 3: stack ups existing, like you know, create a payment like
Speaker 3: and have people pay that way.
Speaker 1: It's just not a you know, like individuals pay that way.
Speaker 1: It is, uh, just not a use case that we
Speaker 1: are optimizing for right now.
Speaker 2: Yeah, and look, there's definitely a lot of folks who
Speaker 2: are looking to build uh these wallets that are more
Speaker 2: user friendly, so there's a lot of competition on that
Speaker 2: up front as well. I wanted to get your perspective
Speaker 2: and this is this is really a bit out there
Speaker 2: because we're maybe I don't know, thirty forty to fifty
Speaker 2: years away from this. You are working in the aerospace sector. Yeah,
Speaker 2: the puck is going the direction that we're going to
Speaker 2: be doing space exploration right Elon wants to go to
Speaker 2: Mars and in space, we're not going to be using cash.
Speaker 2: It's going to be digital currency. It's going to be
Speaker 2: stable coins where block gains involved and you can you know,
Speaker 2: settle instantly and all that all the great benefits. How
Speaker 2: do you see that playing out that that space economy
Speaker 2: is it with crypto and blockchain integrate into the fabric
Speaker 2: of the infrastructure and things like that.
Speaker 1: That's an interesting question. So I think, well, at the
Speaker 1: very beginning of you know, starting to have people you know,
Speaker 1: live full time off of the Earth, we are going
Speaker 1: to those kind of affort are going to naturally be
Speaker 1: very centralized with very kind of well trained, you know,
Speaker 1: people who really kind of know what they're getting into,
Speaker 1: and they've already kind of put their entire personal safety
Speaker 1: and security into the hands of an organization that you know,
Speaker 1: has much more clearly defined rules. And it's going to
Speaker 1: be more like kind of an early colony kind of
Speaker 1: thing where it's going to be, you know, we're going
Speaker 1: to be more like a like you're going to have
Speaker 1: something that looks more like a gift giving tiny little
Speaker 1: colony rather than you know, an intense commercial hub in
Speaker 1: space of course, as that grows out, you know, it's
Speaker 1: going to go absolutely gangbusters, and as you have places
Speaker 1: where there are people from all over the world in
Speaker 1: different backgrounds, like stable coins is the obvious uh uh,
Speaker 1: you know, way to transact value between them. But I
Speaker 1: think we will see you know, stable coins become the
Speaker 1: preferred method of payments, and you know, like Antarctica, likely
Speaker 1: before we will in space because like you know, uh,
Speaker 1: Antarctica is a great example of a place where there's
Speaker 1: a ton of really smart people who are really you know,
Speaker 1: who are in a place really remote, uh really kind
Speaker 1: of mirrors a lot of the aspects of what it's
Speaker 1: going to be like, you know, being in an early
Speaker 1: space colony. So I think I think we'll see places
Speaker 1: like that be a little bit of a you know,
Speaker 1: really kind of teach us a lot about how these
Speaker 1: kind of like early human settlements offered.
Speaker 2: They're going to look like, yeah, that's that's such a
Speaker 2: great example where yeah, it's using cash doesn't make sense
Speaker 2: and you know, these additional forms of payments, but using
Speaker 2: a more modern system digital currency. And then you know,
Speaker 2: we obviously have robotics and AI on the rise, and
Speaker 2: I could see those being part of the space economy,
Speaker 2: if you want to call that an exploration on different planets,
Speaker 2: even just colonizing the Moon, I don't know if we're
Speaker 2: going to do that, but setting up a base camp
Speaker 2: out up there and all that, it seems like blockchain
Speaker 2: is going to be have to be used to be
Speaker 2: able to control those things, police them in a certain way.
Speaker 2: I think even here right now, we're seeing blockchain being
Speaker 2: used to help police AI fakes and datestamp certain content
Speaker 2: and things like that. So do you see blockchain being
Speaker 2: a big part of the infrastructure in space and space
Speaker 2: colonies and things like.
Speaker 1: That, I mean, potentially, especially where there's areas of international collaboration,
Speaker 1: where again, those are very similar things where you know
Speaker 1: there is both a strong sense of trust and is
Speaker 1: trust at the same time because things are safety critical,
Speaker 1: and there's really a lot of parallels to financial systems there. Again, though,
Speaker 1: I think that the applications on Earth are going to
Speaker 1: come much sooner and will be the driving factor. And
Speaker 1: even though things like you know, stable coins in space
Speaker 1: is like the superior way to do commerce and space,
Speaker 1: it's also going to be the superior way to do
Speaker 1: commerce on Earth, and and it'll likely happen on Earth first,
Speaker 1: because most of us live on Earth, and most of
Speaker 1: us want to live on Earth, and will you know,
Speaker 1: die here as well, and almost all money is going
Speaker 1: to flow through Earth for you know, the foreseeable future.
Speaker 2: Hard question for you, John, And I guess I love
Speaker 2: sci fi, I love space, I love time. Yeah, I'm
Speaker 2: very fascinated by all this. What's your best guess as
Speaker 2: to when we might reach Mars? And is it like
Speaker 2: one hundred years away from from now fifty years you know,
Speaker 2: given your work at SpaceX and much more, and how
Speaker 2: far we've progressed.
Speaker 1: Well, we've already reached Mars. You know, We've already got
Speaker 1: robots on there, which.
Speaker 2: We say what we as human beings get on their physically.
Speaker 3: Yeah.
Speaker 1: Yeah, I think we will see humans and Mars within
Speaker 1: the next twenty years. I think we will have people
Speaker 1: living full time on Mars or the Moon in probably
Speaker 1: more than fifty years.
Speaker 2: Wow.
Speaker 1: I And for many that's actually a bit of a
Speaker 1: pessimistic deal.
Speaker 2: We have.
Speaker 1: Almost all the technology to make it possible. It's just
Speaker 1: about having the political or economic willingness to uh to
Speaker 1: do it. There's some things that we really need to
Speaker 1: figure out about how you know the human body works
Speaker 1: in space for long periods of time. Sure, but there
Speaker 1: are enough people on Earth going to say screw it that,
Speaker 1: you know, like you know that I think if push
Speaker 1: cames to shove, like we would, we would take the
Speaker 1: risk to you know, people would choose to take the
Speaker 1: risk to their long term health to be you know,
Speaker 1: some of the first people two uh you know live
Speaker 1: off the planet.
Speaker 2: Mm hmm. Do you think we're going to send robots
Speaker 2: and and one's getting not talking this year or next year,
Speaker 2: but you know, let's say the Tesla bots or whoever
Speaker 2: else is mating making these advanced robotics where I mean
Speaker 2: they're able to do the labor function properly and not
Speaker 2: be clunky. We're gonna send those things first to get the.
Speaker 1: I mean, the economics makes sense right, like like even
Speaker 1: if you weren't afraid about, like you know, the ethics
Speaker 1: of you know, uh of sending people to their likely
Speaker 1: deaths being the first people to go to Mars. Uh.
Speaker 1: The amount of resources you have to include with you know,
Speaker 1: to keep a sack of meat like humans alive is
Speaker 1: incredible and there are there are a lot of advantages
Speaker 1: to uh to having robotics, especially as we have you know,
Speaker 1: like artificial intelligence and those other kinds of you know,
Speaker 1: like software tools become better. H then uh, I am.
Speaker 1: I'm hopeful that the amount of you know, to accomplish
Speaker 1: our initial goals on you know, Mars and even the Moon,
Speaker 1: that those will be accomplished mostly by you know, robots
Speaker 1: and require not too many you know, infallible sacks of
Speaker 1: meat like you and me.
Speaker 2: Yeah. Yeah, because to your point, all the resources the
Speaker 2: physical aspect, but the mental right isolated. Yeah, just a
Speaker 2: long period of time being in a place you've never
Speaker 2: been before. It's I can't imagine, but yeah, it makes sense.
Speaker 2: Send the robots first, let them set up the camp,
Speaker 2: and then we make our way over. Yeah.
Speaker 1: Absolutely. And also like most of what we're gonna want
Speaker 1: to do there too, is going to be science. It's
Speaker 1: going to be figuring out like, okay, how much life
Speaker 1: was there on Mars before? And actually it's better to
Speaker 1: have non humans do that at first, so that humans
Speaker 1: aren't you know, contaminating too much of you know, the
Speaker 1: surface of Mars and stuff like that.
Speaker 2: Man, it's fascinating, It's it's funny. I almost I have
Speaker 2: a seven year old daughter. I kind of want her
Speaker 2: to be part of that, not you know, as long
Speaker 2: as it's safe, of course, but you know, to be
Speaker 2: part of that group that maybe when she's older can come.
Speaker 2: She's very smart, so I'm hoping, you know, she could
Speaker 2: be part of that group of an I don't know,
Speaker 2: colinize the Moon or something like that.
Speaker 1: Yeah, that's fantastic And again, like the h that's a
Speaker 1: fantastic age to be at as well. For like, the
Speaker 1: way that development of space technology is going is, you know,
Speaker 1: it's going gangbusters. I mean it has been for the
Speaker 1: last you know, fifteen years or so. A lot of
Speaker 1: that was spurred by SpaceX, but I expect only going
Speaker 1: to continue to ramp up. And you see a lot
Speaker 1: of these you know, alumni of the early days of
Speaker 1: you know, SpaceX and other companies are now starting their
Speaker 1: own companies. And there is a really really healthy ecosystem
Speaker 1: of you know, forward looking but also very practical startups
Speaker 1: and organizations really kind of pushing us there. And so
Speaker 1: it's actually a fantastic time to get into the space industry.
Speaker 1: Just don't get into crypto first.
Speaker 2: For sure. So let's segue back to crypto. You know,
Speaker 2: what are your thoughts on how things have changed for crypto.
Speaker 2: Obviously under President Trump and in a new regime, there's
Speaker 2: been a much more friendly approach, less sec enforcement actions,
Speaker 2: Congress is working legislation, you got tradi Fi launching ets,
Speaker 2: a huge record breaking ETFs, the bigcoin ets right, tokenization,
Speaker 2: and much more. You know, are you how are you
Speaker 2: feeling about all that, and what's your outlook, you know,
Speaker 2: as as things progress.
Speaker 1: Yeah, I mean, I'm actually feeling really optimistic and relieved
Speaker 1: in many ways. I Mean, crypto is a political issue,
Speaker 1: but it doesn't need to be a partisan one. And
Speaker 1: again because it is so vital to the United States
Speaker 1: is economic prosperity, Like we have such a lead in
Speaker 1: ensuring that the US dollar is the primary, you know,
Speaker 1: unit of exchange on the Internet that I'm really glad
Speaker 1: that it is becoming less part is it as well,
Speaker 1: Because even though there is you know, understandably a lot
Speaker 1: of concern about you know, the push for crypto potentially
Speaker 1: you know, enriching people in power or things like that,
Speaker 1: the truth is is that, like it is fantastic for
Speaker 1: economic freedom in the world, in the United States, and
Speaker 1: so I'm feeling very optimistic about the outlook even like
Speaker 1: a post Trump presidency, because it really feels like there's
Speaker 1: enough momentum that it is going to outgrow any particular administration.
Speaker 2: Yeah, that's such a great point. And I think of
Speaker 2: it of similar to what Bill Clinton did in the
Speaker 2: nineties with the Internet. I forgot the name of the bill.
Speaker 2: I keep forgetting, but it was like nineteen ninety six
Speaker 2: they signed his key important bill that gave the ability
Speaker 2: for the Internet to be built and all the innovation
Speaker 2: to happen. Because I believe the telecom companies are trying
Speaker 2: to block it, you know, they were seeing the competition
Speaker 2: and things like that. But similar now they get this
Speaker 2: legislation pass, it feels like there's going to be this
Speaker 2: innovation boom.
Speaker 1: Yeah. Absolutely, And that's exactly right. It's you know, even
Speaker 1: though crypto is very unique in many ways, and people
Speaker 1: continue to make comparisons about, you know, the way crypto
Speaker 1: is going to the early Internet, it's all kind of true.
Speaker 1: Like it is really following a very similar pattern. And
Speaker 1: even though a lot of people can you know, look
Speaker 1: at uh, look on the microscope, find a lot of
Speaker 1: flaws with it, the trend is absolutely undeniable and we
Speaker 1: are going to continue to see maturation of uh, not
Speaker 1: just the world's perspective of crypto when it's opportunity, but
Speaker 1: also crypto companies are maturing period and for us it's like, hey,
Speaker 1: you know, like they're maturing. You don't have to settle
Speaker 1: for clunky crypto operations anymore. Like you can. You absolutely
Speaker 1: can reduce manual errors and you can operate at the
Speaker 1: same level of you know, efficiency and maturity as you
Speaker 1: know Web two business on chain.
Speaker 2: Yeah, great, great point. And I've seen that maturation myself.
Speaker 2: I got into the industry in twenty sixteen, obviously as
Speaker 2: a retail investor, buying some big coin things like that.
Speaker 1: Yeah.
Speaker 2: Yeah, But then as you know, I started the podcast
Speaker 2: and I started interviewing people and studying what's happening, who's investing,
Speaker 2: who's building. I've seen a lot of growth obviously twenty
Speaker 2: twenty two with FTX, and that's a hard time, but
Speaker 2: I see the industry picking up the pieces and moving forward,
Speaker 2: raising the standard, higher proof of reserves, putting in the
Speaker 2: proper guard rails, the transparency, and now trad fi's here,
Speaker 2: So you kind of have a collaboration with the crypto
Speaker 2: startups and the trati fi companies and they're building a
Speaker 2: better infrastructure.
Speaker 1: It looks like, yeah, absolutely.
Speaker 2: John, we're coming up on time. So I got some
Speaker 2: wrap up questions here for you. First, if you could
Speaker 2: create your own metaverse, what would theme be?
Speaker 1: So you may have already guessed from my you know,
Speaker 1: for my questions about space, I'm not actually gonna choose
Speaker 1: space because I actually want my I would want a
Speaker 1: metaverse that enhances my existing connection with the world. I
Speaker 1: love the world as it is. I mean, there's definitely
Speaker 1: some things I change, but I do love the world,
Speaker 1: and i'd really like it to enhance that experience rather
Speaker 1: than be some separate thing. So let's make the theme
Speaker 1: of my metaverse some like I don't know, this is
Speaker 1: going to sound like maybe travel, but with some emphasis
Speaker 1: on sensory things like food. Space is super awesome. But honestly,
Speaker 1: I think there's gonna be so many space metaverses I'm
Speaker 1: not even gonna have to contribute.
Speaker 2: I'll just you know, yeah, no, that that definitely makes sense.
Speaker 2: And to travel one, I would love that because I'm
Speaker 2: the same way like I would love to you know, like,
Speaker 2: right now, you can chat with someone online from a
Speaker 2: different country, but I would love to instantly be able
Speaker 2: to jump into some sort of immersive world where I
Speaker 2: can see where they're at, walk around with them, chat
Speaker 2: with them, and they can say, hey, here's this and
Speaker 2: that right, jump to some place in Vietnam or Malaysia,
Speaker 2: I don't know, someplace in Europe. I would love to
Speaker 2: be able to do that where it's immersive.
Speaker 1: Yeah, me too. I mean, like my happy place is
Speaker 1: like I'm always drawn to like the forest and the mountains,
Speaker 1: and I would love to just be able to just
Speaker 1: be like boom, I'm on the trail of one hundred
Speaker 1: giants in Sequoia National Forest, you know, like and be
Speaker 1: able to always access kind of like you know, that
Speaker 1: place of peace. That would be absolutely incredible to me,
Speaker 1: Oh for sure.
Speaker 2: Okay, rapid fire questions. Favorite food, Yeah.
Speaker 1: I live in La Soo Street, tacos.
Speaker 2: Nice.
Speaker 1: Favorite musician or band Okay, not my favorite music, but
Speaker 1: the story of Moondog, who is a blind composer who
Speaker 1: dressed like a viking in wandered the streets in New
Speaker 1: York in the sixties is absolutely incredible. Look it up,
Speaker 1: super weird. Interesting, dude. I would call him my favorite
Speaker 1: musician just for like the just for the cool factor.
Speaker 2: I have to look that up. That sounds very interesting.
Speaker 2: Favorite movie.
Speaker 1: I really kind of like classics. I mean two thousand
Speaker 1: one of Space Odyssey is a wonderful choice. It's timeless.
Speaker 1: Doctor Strangelove is hilarious and very much my sense of
Speaker 1: humor or even like being John Malcovich. But I'd say
Speaker 1: a two thousand of Space Odyssey if you put a gun.
Speaker 2: In my head. Nice.
Speaker 1: Favorite book Rhyme of the Ancient Mirror Mariner by Samuel
Speaker 1: Taylor Coolridge.
Speaker 2: And when you're not working at Stackup, what are you
Speaker 2: doing for fun?
Speaker 1: So I'm the kind of person who has many very
Speaker 1: specific hobbies that come in and out of my life
Speaker 1: very intensely, just where my curiosity will take me. But
Speaker 1: one thing I keep coming back to is baking because
Speaker 1: it has this great mix of like art and technical
Speaker 1: skill that I really enjoy and even if I really
Speaker 1: screw it up and get disappointed, I still get to
Speaker 1: eat it at the end of the day. Like, so yeah,
Speaker 1: I'd say.
Speaker 2: Baking very nice, John, absolute pleasure and looking forward to
Speaker 2: the future. Updates are on stack Up. I love I
Speaker 2: love the mission. I love what you guys are doing
Speaker 2: because it's such a critical piece that is needed for
Speaker 2: a further adoption of this technology. But thank you so
Speaker 2: much for joining me.
Speaker 1: Thank you so much, Tony, m.
Speaker 2: M hm
Speaker 1: Hm