Speaker 1: Literally just now actually just before this as well, just
Speaker 1: chatting with another member of the SEC's crypto toss fores
Speaker 1: and how much we can share about that right now.
Speaker 1: But what they were literally saying is they want to
Speaker 1: help to see how they can actually create the environment
Speaker 1: for another DeFi summer. So I think we're at this
Speaker 1: amazing point where we're like, wow, this is incredible. Like
Speaker 1: the SEC that we saw even just a year ago
Speaker 1: was totally different. It was like, how can create a
Speaker 1: new DeFi crash? Whereas now it's like, how do we
Speaker 1: create summer again.
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Speaker 2: go to vchain dot org. Link will be in the description. Hey, everybody,
Speaker 2: welcome into the Thinking Crypto Podcast. I'm your host Tony
Speaker 2: Edward and we are recording at Station three in New
Speaker 2: York's Financial District, and my guests are Dom and Phil Quock,
Speaker 2: who are the co founders of easya. Dom, Phil, great
Speaker 2: to see you both.
Speaker 3: It's great to be ahead, thanks to.
Speaker 2: Our last interview was virtual. It was the beginning of
Speaker 2: this year. A lot has changed, so I'm really excited
Speaker 2: to catch up with you guys, learn about what's new
Speaker 2: with easya, and of course get your thoughts on this
Speaker 2: crazy market. But what are you guys in town for?
Speaker 2: What are you in New York for?
Speaker 3: We've got a couple of meetings we just had.
Speaker 1: We were just well, we were saying apologies for being
Speaker 1: late because we were just over at Trump Tower on
Speaker 1: the traffic getting down here was insane. We have a
Speaker 1: lot of meetings out here, so we have seen a
Speaker 1: lot of projects who are now coming and maturing and
Speaker 1: getting ready for basically prime time. And we're also building
Speaker 1: a lot out with easy A Labs, which we recently
Speaker 1: started up. So we're here on the ground, boots on
Speaker 1: the ground in New York.
Speaker 2: So are you guys helping crypto startups or different projects,
Speaker 2: helping them get started and things like that.
Speaker 1: Yeah, I mean you can think of easy a really
Speaker 1: as being like, in some ways an incubator, because we
Speaker 1: have three things basically that we do. Number One, it's
Speaker 1: the easy a app, which is kind of like Jeweling Go,
Speaker 1: but for blockchain, we're like the onboarding layer.
Speaker 3: Sure.
Speaker 1: Then we host a lot of hackathons, So this weekend
Speaker 1: we're going to be up at Harvard hosting a big
Speaker 1: hackathon there. And then what we also do is we
Speaker 1: then help to get those startups access to a funding
Speaker 1: So over the past couple of years, we've given startups
Speaker 1: millions of dollars to help them build their projects out.
Speaker 1: And actually we were saying that we've been here before
Speaker 1: with one of our other startups called Axel. They raised
Speaker 1: from a sixteen Z crypto so went through their startups school,
Speaker 1: raised a pretty really really neat pre seed round as well. Recently,
Speaker 1: so they've just launched gone on mein net. Absolutely crushing it.
Speaker 2: That's amazing, and it's awesome that you're helping these startups
Speaker 2: and new entrepreneurs and innovators and your platform is is
Speaker 2: it just like helping folks in the US or is
Speaker 2: it also like international.
Speaker 4: All over the world. Yeah, so obviously the US is
Speaker 4: probably our biggest market right now, the most companies and
Speaker 4: users of the Easier app, you know, based in the US,
Speaker 4: but then also rapidly growing communities in Asia, Europe and
Speaker 4: you know all over the world really, so, you know,
Speaker 4: Easier is super easy tool for anyone to use and
Speaker 4: learn about the world's best crypto projects on given it's
Speaker 4: a mobile app, so anyone can download it.
Speaker 3: It's free, it's super easy.
Speaker 4: Sort of like dual lingo but for blockchain as many
Speaker 4: people call it. And yeah, the community has just been
Speaker 4: growing all over the world, you know, over a million
Speaker 4: users now and acting rapidly towards you know, millions more. So, Yeah, definitely,
Speaker 4: definitely exciting times. And we spend a lot of time
Speaker 4: in the US, of course, because that's where you know,
Speaker 4: everything really sort of originated, so to speak. But yeah,
Speaker 4: definitely spending more and more time in Asia and Europe
Speaker 4: as well.
Speaker 2: But is is it like more easier now in the
Speaker 2: US with the favorable environment and legislation getting past and
Speaker 2: things like that.
Speaker 3: Yeah, definitely.
Speaker 4: I mean people are really you know taking crypto seriously now,
Speaker 4: you know, the FED, the SEC, it's sort of really
Speaker 4: you know, core part of their agenda, and so a
Speaker 4: lot of people that we see, especially at the younger stages,
Speaker 4: you know, university students, people who are just getting into
Speaker 4: job markets. They are all paying attention to what's going
Speaker 4: on in the space with stable coins, you know, with
Speaker 4: other areas of crypto as well. And of course, you know,
Speaker 4: the whole Trump organization is really involved in the space too,
Speaker 4: and that's just put a massive spotlight on the space.
Speaker 4: So yeah, definitely becoming a proper you know, career path
Speaker 4: for many young people. And obviously, you know, Phil and
Speaker 4: I do our best to also be role model in
Speaker 4: the space and show people what's possible. In a very
Speaker 4: short amount of time.
Speaker 1: We're literally just now actually just before this as well,
Speaker 1: just chatting with another member of the SEC's cryptotask fores,
Speaker 1: And I'm not sure how much we can share about
Speaker 1: that right now, but what they were literally saying is
Speaker 1: they want to help to see how they can actually
Speaker 1: create the environment for another DeFi summer. So I think
Speaker 1: we're at this amazing point where we're like, wow, this
Speaker 1: is incredible. Like the SEC that we saw even just
Speaker 1: a year ago was totally different. It was like how
Speaker 1: can create a new DeFi crash? Whereas now it's like,
Speaker 1: how do we create summer again?
Speaker 2: Right? Yeah, they were trying to like kill it in
Speaker 2: the industry. Right. It was dystopian. It was doomsday. Now
Speaker 2: it's like bright sunny days and everybody can focus on
Speaker 2: building and innovating a complete one eighty. You know, you
Speaker 2: mentioned something about helping younger folks to find your careers
Speaker 2: and their path in this industry, and you mentioned the
Speaker 2: Harvard hackathon. It just reminds me of Web two, where
Speaker 2: you know, you had Mark Zuckerberg and the folks coming
Speaker 2: out with Facebook and many others tell us about this hackathon,
Speaker 2: and I saw algorithm is going to be participating as well.
Speaker 4: Yeah, yeah, exactly so that's this weekend we're going to
Speaker 4: be hosting a big hackthon at Harvard, inviting the whole
Speaker 4: Easier community from all over the US and globally. Typically
Speaker 4: a lot of people fly in as well for these
Speaker 4: hackthons because they're a great place for people to meet
Speaker 4: other people who want to build in crypto. They're a
Speaker 4: great place for people to actually pitch their projects they're
Speaker 4: working on. So we have typically you know, two days
Speaker 4: of building and then a demo day right at the end,
Speaker 4: and that typically takes place at the end of day
Speaker 4: two and essentially people will pitch their projects, get the
Speaker 4: chance to win funding and then also prize money, and
Speaker 4: that's just a great opportunity for people to sort of
Speaker 4: get their start in the space. And so many projects
Speaker 4: that have come through Easya, come through those hackathons presented
Speaker 4: at demo days, have gone on to build amazing things.
Speaker 4: You know, We've had unicorns come out of Easier hackthons,
Speaker 4: AI companies that are completely revolutionizing the field, like Cognition
Speaker 4: AI and another team that film mentioned earlier, AXL, which
Speaker 4: are you know, working out of this space as well,
Speaker 4: so building really cool yield products now for different cryptos
Speaker 4: so yeah, really long lasting impact. Actually if these events
Speaker 4: that we host and obviously through the work that we
Speaker 4: do at easier and the goals really to you know,
Speaker 4: make sure those projects actually build long lasting value for
Speaker 4: the underlying blockchains we work with, you know, like algorithm,
Speaker 4: like the xopy ledger, like Stellar and all of the
Speaker 4: other amazing blockchains.
Speaker 2: So what are some of like prizes or amount of
Speaker 2: money folks can win in these actons.
Speaker 1: That's a great question that it ranges. Okay, so on
Speaker 1: average it's about fifty to one hundred thousand dollars sure,
Speaker 1: and that's totally equity free.
Speaker 3: So it's pretty incredible.
Speaker 1: Like I remember when I did my undergrad at Cambridge
Speaker 1: in the UK and the annual prize, which like everybody
Speaker 1: wants to go for, was two thousand pounds. I'm not
Speaker 1: that of like this wasn't you know before I don't
Speaker 1: know we had all the inflation that we have. OUs
Speaker 1: it was before like the last round of inflation, But
Speaker 1: it wasn't when one pound or one dollar was like,
Speaker 1: you know, worth a million. Ye may be like adjusted
Speaker 1: for inflation, they'll be like, you know, two thousand, five
Speaker 1: hundred or three thousand dollars or so, but yeah, it's
Speaker 1: a lot of money.
Speaker 4: And yeah.
Speaker 1: Actually we also host a big multichain hacked On twice
Speaker 1: a year now together with Consensus, So that is the
Speaker 1: conference Consensus with coin Desk, and at our last one
Speaker 1: we had over a million dollars in prize money and
Speaker 1: forll on funding.
Speaker 2: That's amazing. So are the folks that you're working with,
Speaker 2: like Consensus, are they seeding some of these funds?
Speaker 3: Great question. It's usually with the partners actually the blockchains.
Speaker 3: Oh yeah, yeah.
Speaker 1: So what we do is we have like the biggest
Speaker 1: pool of talent and then they want to tap into that.
Speaker 1: So because we had so many cool projects come out
Speaker 1: of previous hacktons, come out of the community where you know,
Speaker 1: in many ways you could think of us as like
Speaker 1: this onboarding layer into web three, the smartest people pass
Speaker 1: through easyer fust and then that's how we bring them in.
Speaker 1: And all the top blockchains like Ripple, like Stella, they
Speaker 1: want to tap into this and that's how they can
Speaker 1: get the next big big appations building on them.
Speaker 2: I love it and it's a way for them, to
Speaker 2: your point, get more adoption of their chain. Yeah, and
Speaker 2: it's non equity raditional like equity taken or anything like exactly.
Speaker 1: I mean later on there's like all sorts of vcas
Speaker 1: in the networks, sure, but yeah, at the beginning, it's
Speaker 1: really very much in keeping with the ethos of Web three,
Speaker 1: which is, let's build this openly. We want projects to
Speaker 1: build open source as well, so that other people can
Speaker 1: build on them later on. But it's absolutely fantastic. I mean,
Speaker 1: I wish something like this has existed when we were
Speaker 1: first getting started. I remember when I first got into
Speaker 1: crypto in twenty thirteen, and it was literally me and
Speaker 1: my parents' basement, plugging in my computers and like being
Speaker 1: on different online forums and YouTube and a lot of
Speaker 1: people were actually even getting banned from YouTube for talking
Speaker 1: about crypto. Is like just completely different times.
Speaker 2: Yeah, yeah, So what is it like looking back? And
Speaker 2: now we have trad five, We have banks, stock exchanges,
Speaker 2: the biggest companies in the world getting involved with crypto
Speaker 2: in one way or the other, whether they're launching et apps,
Speaker 2: tokenizing their own stable coin. What is that? You know?
Speaker 2: What is I mean for you guys?
Speaker 1: I mean I can kick it off with like where
Speaker 1: I started off, and you know, Dom can chime in there.
Speaker 1: I think twenty thirteen was such a different time. I
Speaker 1: think we all know that early twenty tens everybody was
Speaker 1: very in some ways, like it was cryptoanarchy, right. We
Speaker 1: had this idea that we're gonna completely take over track
Speaker 1: by yeah, and we just absolutely were completely counter governments
Speaker 1: being involved. This was the antithesis of all of that.
Speaker 1: So even if you look at the original Bitcoin white paper,
Speaker 1: it was written and Bitcoin was developed against the backdrop
Speaker 1: of the financial crisis, right, the Great Financial Crisis, all
Speaker 1: these big banks too big to fail to the little
Speaker 1: guy who bolts them up, and Bitcoin was created as
Speaker 1: a reaction to that. And then you have projects like
Speaker 1: the XLP ledger which come out as a better alternative
Speaker 1: bitcoin even but that's what all this experimentation is about.
Speaker 3: And it's almost weird.
Speaker 1: I mean this meme that is going around right now,
Speaker 1: which is like you know, people who are in crypto
Speaker 1: in like early twenty tens versus people today, which is like, oh,
Speaker 1: we want black Rock and all these different guys to
Speaker 1: come in, and it's like what happened to us all.
Speaker 2: What happened to down with the banks exactly.
Speaker 1: Right, It's like now we want the banks to come in, Yeah,
Speaker 1: and it's interesting because I think there's different pockets that
Speaker 1: are still there. There's like you've got some of the
Speaker 1: OG bitcoiners and some of like the really og like
Speaker 1: early early crypto guys who are still feeling like, you know,
Speaker 1: we don't want this, like i'd say, in some ways
Speaker 1: they're the Bitcoin purists. Then you've also got partners that
Speaker 1: we have like Ripple, who from the very beginning, guys
Speaker 1: like Chris Larson like actually the way that we get adoption,
Speaker 1: like there's never really been a technical change which hasn't
Speaker 1: really built on what's happened before and actually sort of
Speaker 1: built its own future by welcoming them in, right, you know,
Speaker 1: that's like how you need to come into this future.
Speaker 1: And so I think that's the approach that Ripple took.
Speaker 3: Ethereum as well. Interesting they sort of have threaded the
Speaker 3: needle a little bit.
Speaker 1: They've had small contracts, so DeFi but also now they're
Speaker 1: welcoming a lot of institutional financing. So I think what
Speaker 1: we're seeing right now is crypto has actually absorbed all
Speaker 1: of these different places. I think that there's different things
Speaker 1: for different people. I'm still fascinated, but I haven't necessarily
Speaker 1: made my mind up as to which one is the
Speaker 1: right or wrong answer. I'm still pretty open minded about it.
Speaker 1: But yeah, it's been fascinating to see how it is
Speaker 1: really really different now to how it was.
Speaker 2: But the ethos of it is supposed to be decentralized,
Speaker 2: So you can't stop an institution from buying bigcoin or
Speaker 2: launching a product, like how would you do that? If
Speaker 2: you believe in the decentralized nature, anyone can access it.
Speaker 2: Somebody in a country in Africa can buy a fraction,
Speaker 2: maybe just ten bucks a bit one, but so can
Speaker 2: the billionaire. How do you It's that's the nature of
Speaker 2: the beasts, so to speak.
Speaker 1: Yeah, exactly, I don't think so. I think it might
Speaker 1: even some in some ways be counter to the idea
Speaker 1: of crypto that you can shot out these guys and
Speaker 1: not the others. The whole idea is it's censorship resistant, right,
Speaker 1: I just yeah, I just think it's fascinating that the
Speaker 1: philosophy has definitely changed. I think the reason that a
Speaker 1: lot of people coming, I mean, that's also not ignore
Speaker 1: the fact that most people come into crypto because they
Speaker 1: want to speculate, and so in some ways it's like,
Speaker 1: let's get the banks in because that means there's more
Speaker 1: money in the space, and that's a valid argument too.
Speaker 1: So yeah, I think jury is still out on which
Speaker 1: one's right. I think there's some areas where there's been
Speaker 1: a lot that's happened in crypto, where like just I
Speaker 1: think there's some areas where the value that it adds
Speaker 1: is probably I'm probably skeptical about you know, even mean
Speaker 1: cooins I think add value in some respect because at
Speaker 1: least they generate more attention. Sure, you know, you have
Speaker 1: like the Trump coin and sort of like a legitimizing
Speaker 1: factor because like wow, if the Trump if Trump and
Speaker 1: the President actually had its own coin, then it's like
Speaker 1: a lot of eyeballs on it. So even that I
Speaker 1: do see merit in even though like I'm not necessarily
Speaker 1: the biggest investment in mean coins, I just think that
Speaker 1: it's interesting, it brings more eyeballs. So like I'm I'm
Speaker 1: not skeptical on that much. But I think there's some
Speaker 1: bits which are like, you know, there's just a lot
Speaker 1: of hot airs that's been encrypto.
Speaker 2: Yeah, what do you think about you know, the change
Speaker 2: and the growth?
Speaker 4: Yeah, I mean I think, you know, the space has
Speaker 4: changed so much in the last couple of years, and
Speaker 4: even more so in the last year or two. You know,
Speaker 4: I think we went from seeing like pil mentioned SEC
Speaker 4: that was very much anti crypto to one that's very
Speaker 4: much embracing it. They want to actually hear what's happening
Speaker 4: at the ground level. We just yeah, we just spoke
Speaker 4: with the Task Force. Actually, we had a meeting with
Speaker 4: them earlier today, and they were really telling us, you know,
Speaker 4: about how keen they are to hear from people who
Speaker 4: are actually building on the ground about you know, how
Speaker 4: they can actually make legislation that is favorable and also
Speaker 4: you know, really welcoming for these new companies who are launching.
Speaker 4: And obviously we deal with so many of those companies
Speaker 4: all the way from early stage startups to our you know,
Speaker 4: big partners like Rapol and Stella and all of those,
Speaker 4: and we have a very good oversight of what's going
Speaker 4: on both on that side. But then also with our backgrounds.
Speaker 4: You know, Phil used to work in Lord Sullivan and Cromwell.
Speaker 4: I used to work at Blackstone, biggest you know p
Speaker 4: fund in the world, and I think, you know, back
Speaker 4: in those days when I worked there in New York,
Speaker 4: they were very anti crypto, but now you know, they've
Speaker 4: started actually, you know, looking at the space in more detail.
Speaker 4: My colleagues, who you know previously never really understood anything
Speaker 4: about crypto, they want to learn more about it. They're
Speaker 4: asking me all the time every time they see a
Speaker 4: podcast or something. You know, they're like, you know, how
Speaker 4: do we learn more? How do we get involved? And
Speaker 4: so I think we're going to see a big shift
Speaker 4: towards you know, institutional adoption. Obviously that we're already starting
Speaker 4: to see, you know, pockets off you know, ETFs and
Speaker 4: tokenization of funds, et cetera.
Speaker 2: Do you think part of it is in addition to
Speaker 2: making money, because that's a big incentive for everybody, whether
Speaker 2: you're institution or retail. I came in because I wanted
Speaker 2: to make money off of bitcoin, but then I stayed
Speaker 2: for the technology. I was like, Okay, I see this
Speaker 2: as the next layer on top of the Internet, and
Speaker 2: it's going to change the way we transact and do business.
Speaker 2: You think a lot of them are starting to recognize
Speaker 2: that this is not just speculation. Every market, every asset
Speaker 2: has a speculation layer, real estate, precious metals, whatever, the
Speaker 2: stock market. But wait, we need to build on this
Speaker 2: because this is going to disrupt our business.
Speaker 4: Yeah, definitely. I mean I think, you know, with JP
Speaker 4: Morgan was a great example, Jamie Diamond, their CEO was
Speaker 4: very much anti bitcoin, and now there's larning to see actually,
Speaker 4: you know, we kind of need to embrace bitcoin. We
Speaker 4: need to make sure that we can provide services to
Speaker 4: our clients and both on the institutional but also private
Speaker 4: client side, that we can actually you know, show them
Speaker 4: these are the different spite of products we have, and
Speaker 4: we need to obviously cater to their desires to make
Speaker 4: money in the space and to actually invest and do
Speaker 4: things in crypto. So I think, yeah, the you know,
Speaker 4: it's been a seismic shift obviously in the space, and
Speaker 4: it's only going to continue. You know, once a big
Speaker 4: bank like JP Morgan starts making it clear that they
Speaker 4: want to actually embrace the space, everyone else obviously will
Speaker 4: have to follow. And we have many friends who you
Speaker 4: know obviously work on wall streets, and you know a
Speaker 4: lot of these banks are now setting up crypto trading
Speaker 4: desks dedicated to crypto you know, crypto research as well,
Speaker 4: and really you know, just like devoting a ton of
Speaker 4: resources to the space because they know this is how
Speaker 4: the world's going to be operating in the future.
Speaker 2: I mean JP Morning and Jamie Diamond Crypto's final is boss. Right.
Speaker 2: He was the guy at the head of the hill, right, ye, saying, hey,
Speaker 2: this is all a skim, don't talk to me about it.
Speaker 2: I remember he was saying he was a good would
Speaker 2: fire anybody who touched this thing. Now complete one to
Speaker 2: eighty exactly, amazing how things have changed. All right. We
Speaker 2: got to talk XRP because it's a lot you know,
Speaker 2: the XRP Army wants me to ask you guys a
Speaker 2: ton of questions.
Speaker 3: So you guys are.
Speaker 2: Working closely with Ripple. Are you building with the XRP
Speaker 2: ledger as well?
Speaker 1: Yeah, well there's a lot that we will be able
Speaker 1: to share about that very soon. Our journey into the
Speaker 1: XOPL community was very interesting. I mean, we first started
Speaker 1: working together with Ripple about two years ago now, in
Speaker 1: order to bring more builders into the xrpl at ecosystem.
Speaker 3: It's one of the biggest.
Speaker 1: Criticisms at the time, and you know this is pretty
Speaker 1: valid criticism, is that there weren't enough people building on
Speaker 1: the XRPLH. It was this fantastic piece of technology, but
Speaker 1: we haven't seen the same applications built on the XRPL
Speaker 1: that we've maybe seen an ethereum right where you have
Speaker 1: these killer billion dollar applications like UNI.
Speaker 3: Swap, like are they like compound you.
Speaker 1: Know on the xrplger that hasn't necessarily been that DeFi
Speaker 1: renaissance or even explosion right, sort of not so much
Speaker 1: activity on the NFT space. There's amazing stuff that is
Speaker 1: going on with like XRB Cafe and those guys, but
Speaker 1: it hasn't necessarily seen that. And so one of the
Speaker 1: team over at Ripple, they actually came to one of
Speaker 1: the hack ons that were hosting and he was like,
Speaker 1: we should do something together, and we got chatting. We
Speaker 1: came over to the office and we got talking more
Speaker 1: and more and more, and then we hosted hacked On together, huge,
Speaker 1: huge success. And that's how we actually started working really
Speaker 1: really closely together with a Ripple team.
Speaker 2: Was it David Schwartz or someone else?
Speaker 1: It was actually another person. Then later on we met.
Speaker 1: First time we met David was actually in Tokyo. I
Speaker 1: was on the second floor. It's like, you know, pretty
Speaker 1: sort of small meet up and together the team, and
Speaker 1: that was when we were chatting we're like I actually
Speaker 1: asked David. I was like, David, why do you think
Speaker 1: that there haven't been that many developers building on the
Speaker 1: XHART p leasure right, And he was like, well, you
Speaker 1: know what, developers always want to feel like they can,
Speaker 1: like they are able to build anything that they want.
Speaker 1: And the way that the XLP lasuer was designed was
Speaker 1: for a very very specific use case for payments, and
Speaker 1: it doesn't allow you necessarily to build anything that you
Speaker 1: could possibly want. It's very different because it doesn't have
Speaker 1: smart contracts natively baked it right, And so David was like, yeah,
Speaker 1: you know what, develop because they want to be able
Speaker 1: to just tinker an experiment, and people like are very
Speaker 1: experimental with those sorts of things. And so that was like, oh, actually, well,
Speaker 1: you know, the product market fit for blockchain really is
Speaker 1: in payments anyway, and basically taking what finance has traditionally
Speaker 1: done for hundreds and hundreds of years and bringing it
Speaker 1: on to the Ledger. And so that was the start
Speaker 1: of our initial you know, conversations together. I went up
Speaker 1: on stage with David Schwartz twice basically in the following year, sure,
Speaker 1: and we basically just started working together off the back
Speaker 1: of that, and so yeah, flash forwards today we actually
Speaker 1: have mentioned easier labs just earlier. We are going to
Speaker 1: start to build actually directly or well, maybe I've said
Speaker 1: too much already, but there's stuff that's coming.
Speaker 2: Sure you can't give more details, guys, now I understand,
Speaker 2: and maybe we'll have you back on when you know
Speaker 2: that stuff is.
Speaker 1: I mean, this is like the culmination of many, many
Speaker 1: years of figuring out what does the legend need, what
Speaker 1: does crypto need, what do users want? And also there's
Speaker 1: so much that I've learned from speaking with David, from
Speaker 1: speaking with other people on the Ripple team and the
Speaker 1: ecosystem that we just see this like there's this massive opportunity.
Speaker 1: I mean, I think one of the key things that
Speaker 1: I'm constantly amazed a is just how early we really are.
Speaker 1: And like it's people say it a lot. It's almost trite, right,
Speaker 1: It's like we're so early, but we really are, Like
Speaker 1: we speak. Our younger brothers were just saying, he just
Speaker 1: started in trading right here in New York.
Speaker 3: And there's so much that.
Speaker 1: Just happens that is so archaic that could be ten x,
Speaker 1: Like I have one hundred x improvement in efficiency just
Speaker 1: by coming on chain. But it's like we're literally like
Speaker 1: just scratching the surface.
Speaker 2: You think we're like nineteen ninety eight of the internet
Speaker 2: type if you were to make it, I.
Speaker 1: Feel like earlier, I like so much that even happens
Speaker 1: just literally with pen and paper almost or like he
Speaker 1: was showing us on his his screen. There's like this
Speaker 1: stuff I think, I don't know, like it looks like
Speaker 1: it's from like Windows XP almost and it's it's crazy.
Speaker 1: It's like not even Excel. It's like these sheets, which
Speaker 1: are you know, the just about digitized paper.
Speaker 2: Sure, yeah, I mean, and I tried to remind people
Speaker 2: of that, like we're very early. There's further iteration that's needed.
Speaker 2: Maybe we're in the dial up days and we haven't
Speaker 2: hit the broadband days, you know.
Speaker 4: Yeah, yeah, I mean, I think there's a good parallel
Speaker 4: actually between how you know, the Internet first came about
Speaker 4: in you know, two thousands, for example, dot com Boom
Speaker 4: and you know crypto today, because I think in the
Speaker 4: early days of the Internet, not many people realize, you know,
Speaker 4: all of the things you could do number one, but
Speaker 4: also people didn't really trust it. And I think that's
Speaker 4: the same thing that we're seeing in crypto and blockchain. Now,
Speaker 4: people don't realize, you know, the potential of the blockchain.
Speaker 4: Most people don't realize what the use cases are. And
Speaker 4: number two, people don't really realize you know, the yeah,
Speaker 4: the sort of you know, they don't have a trust Basically,
Speaker 4: they don't realize, like the beauty of the blockchain is
Speaker 4: everything is transparent, you can see exactly what's happening. People
Speaker 4: mostly see, you know, these are just like tokens that
Speaker 4: are being launched by people, and oftentimes, if you're not
Speaker 4: in the space, allociate crypto with scams, and I think
Speaker 4: that's something that people are going to have to learn,
Speaker 4: especially if they're not already in the space. You know,
Speaker 4: we see so many people on Twitter and all over
Speaker 4: the place in person who are you know, really brought
Speaker 4: into the idea. But a lot of people still don't
Speaker 4: really grasp it if they're not you know, spending every
Speaker 4: day on Twitter, you know, consuming the stuff and actually
Speaker 4: living and breathing it. So yeah, I think, you know,
Speaker 4: we're still very very early, and once those two things
Speaker 4: are cracked, you know, obviously we're working big time. One
Speaker 4: point one, which is educating people about it. Yes, showing
Speaker 4: them the use case is why they want to build.
Speaker 4: And then number two, you know, once they sort of
Speaker 4: you know, educated, then they start to realize, Okay, this
Speaker 4: is the real piece of technology. It's not just a
Speaker 4: bunch of different coins and scams. And then you know,
Speaker 4: that's really sort of when mass adoption will happen. And
Speaker 4: that's why we found it easier, really, and that's why
Speaker 4: we see easy as being such a core bit of
Speaker 4: you know, crypto infrastructure essentially.
Speaker 2: Yeah, I think you're your point. Definitely core because even
Speaker 2: in my end, I have a podcast and I still
Speaker 2: have to explain to people like family members and friends, hey,
Speaker 2: how can I make money? I'm like, wait, slow down.
Speaker 2: First I want you to read the bigcoin white paper
Speaker 2: and then read the theorem white paper. Like you don't
Speaker 2: have to understand everything, but understanding this is a technology first,
Speaker 2: and here are the benefits. And yes, you can speculate
Speaker 2: that that's one component. But it's like the Internet that
Speaker 2: you use right now. You didn't necessarily have to go
Speaker 2: invest in Google stock or you don't have to invest
Speaker 2: in it. You can use it, you can build with it,
Speaker 2: you can become an entrepreneur exactly, and that education part
Speaker 2: is so much needed.
Speaker 1: You're really right, And I think part of the reason
Speaker 1: why maybe the line is so blurred there is because
Speaker 1: blockchain is inherently financial. Yeah, And I was chatting about
Speaker 1: this together with robod and my Deelfellow one of the
Speaker 1: co founders of Polka dot actually and he, you know,
Speaker 1: we were just chatting before we went up on stage,
Speaker 1: and he was like he views tokenization as being like
Speaker 1: one of the most important parts of what's going to
Speaker 1: lead this next bill market Number one and number two
Speaker 1: also just that the blockchain really is inherently financial. There's
Speaker 1: like loads of application I think a lot of blockchains
Speaker 1: as well which have come and gone, which will try
Speaker 1: to do stuff which doesn't really target maybe the financial side.
Speaker 1: You know, there's a lot in gaming. I think gaming
Speaker 1: is interesting and sort of you know, other sorts of aspects.
Speaker 1: They're social fi, all these different like X five which
Speaker 1: have come and gone. But ultimately what stayed and what's
Speaker 1: really got product market fit is defied because blockchain solves
Speaker 1: the double spend problem. And so to your point about why,
Speaker 1: you know, people coming into the space, we're often like, well,
Speaker 1: how do I you know, maybe the way to use
Speaker 1: cryptos like you know, I just put money in and
Speaker 1: then get like more money back out. It's because like ultimately,
Speaker 1: where the product market fit is on the blockchain is
Speaker 1: these financial use cases. So I think sometimes people when
Speaker 1: they're coming just new to the space don't necessarily know
Speaker 1: the difference between the difference, you know, the difference between
Speaker 1: like using a crypto application sure, and like buying the
Speaker 1: coin right for example.
Speaker 2: Yeah, And in public blockchains, what we've seen, you need
Speaker 2: a token with value to kind of grease the system
Speaker 2: for it to work, right, And we've seen that a
Speaker 2: lot of companies are when the permission private route and
Speaker 2: it didn't work, and now they're flipping to the public blockchains. Yeah,
Speaker 2: but for the public blockchains to work, you got to
Speaker 2: have a token with value.
Speaker 1: Yeah, And that was a really interesting phase as well,
Speaker 1: when there was this sort of war between permission versus
Speaker 1: permission less blockchains. And actually we see like we chat
Speaker 1: a lot with a lot of financial institutions. I'm actually
Speaker 1: consistently surprised how many have internal permissioned ledgers sure where
Speaker 1: they are running a lot of this stuff. Obviously they're
Speaker 1: not yet connected up to public blockchains, but I do
Speaker 1: see it happening where actually, because they have all this
Speaker 1: stuff in house, Yeah, there's going to be some sort
Speaker 1: of connectivity which happens where they're going to realize, actually,
Speaker 1: we can tap into this huge, huge pool of capital
Speaker 1: outside or even expand our offerings to way beyond the
Speaker 1: people who we have in our current customer base by
Speaker 1: connecting those up. So I think that we're at this
Speaker 1: phase right now where we started off totally permission less
Speaker 1: with its very public blockchains like Bitcoin, right soon after
Speaker 1: xop Leigure came along and then Ethereum, and then we
Speaker 1: were like, you know, maybe maybe there's more stuff to
Speaker 1: be done in permission blockchains, and that was again several
Speaker 1: years ago now, and then over the past couple of
Speaker 1: years were sort of we've reached this point where everybody realizes,
Speaker 1: actually permissionless as much better and much more open blockchains
Speaker 1: are better, but there's definitely still that use case where
Speaker 1: not every bank wants all their stuff to be totally public,
Speaker 1: right right, And so I think we're at the stage
Speaker 1: where we've experimented with both models, or at least lots
Speaker 1: of different people have experience with these different models, and
Speaker 1: now it's about connecting the two together.
Speaker 2: So essentially you see bridges being built for those permission
Speaker 2: to the permission less public blockchains. To your point of
Speaker 2: banks they want to use this, but internally it's fine.
Speaker 2: You can use your own blockchain, but if you want
Speaker 2: someone to trust what you're doing, you got to connect
Speaker 2: to some public blockchain.
Speaker 1: It's the percent and the beautiful thing about blockchain is
Speaker 1: not just the fact that it is like blockchain rights,
Speaker 1: like anyone of us could run our own internal block
Speaker 1: chain in house, like within our own family members. That's
Speaker 1: not what makes its exciting. It's not exciting when it's
Speaker 1: just sided within a bank. The really cool thing is
Speaker 1: this idea of like money legos, right. I think that's
Speaker 1: a really nice image to have in our minds. Sure,
Speaker 1: it's when this stuff is public, when it's permissionless and
Speaker 1: permissionless in the sense that you don't need to ask
Speaker 1: for JP Morgan's permission to use whatever yield bearing asset
Speaker 1: they have, Like you don't need to sign a contract
Speaker 1: with them, it's just they're on chain.
Speaker 3: And you realize that.
Speaker 1: Actually, maybe if you take this asset which is generating
Speaker 1: like six percent yield, and you know you can, for example,
Speaker 1: lend that out to people, right, or other people can
Speaker 1: borrow against it.
Speaker 3: You can use it as collateral.
Speaker 1: It says money lego, right, and it's like literally the
Speaker 1: lego where you would build houses together, and you can
Speaker 1: build entire ecosystems around this sort of thing. That's what's exciting.
Speaker 2: Yeah, jumping back to the XRP ledger, you know, one
Speaker 2: of the things you guys were mentioning about adoption and
Speaker 2: building and expanding the ledger. Do you feel though one
Speaker 2: of the roadblocks was the SEC lawsuit? Like, why would
Speaker 2: a develop our institution want to run the risk, right,
Speaker 2: because many of them are risk averse. Their legal team
Speaker 2: probably say, hey, hold off because we don't know what's
Speaker 2: happening here. But now Ripple has won, the case is done.
Speaker 2: It allows people to freely not having to look over
Speaker 2: their shoulders to go build.
Speaker 4: Yeah, definitely, I mean I think you know, obviously, when
Speaker 4: any company has a lawsuit against it, there are obviously
Speaker 4: a lot of barriers to partnering with other companies and
Speaker 4: obviously to getting potential clients and customers, you know, in
Speaker 4: which case, yeah, it just makes it a lot harder
Speaker 4: to achieve the overall goal. But now I think you know,
Speaker 4: obviously that the case is closed and it is finally over.
Speaker 4: It feels like it's been going, you know, on forever now,
Speaker 4: But now that it's finally over, a lot of companies
Speaker 4: can now start to actually partner together with Ripple in
Speaker 4: a much more formal capacity. They can actually start to
Speaker 4: use the underlying technology. The xopy ledger. Developers are much
Speaker 4: more interested actually in building on it too, So that'll
Speaker 4: obviously help, you know, spur activity on the ledger and
Speaker 4: ultimately lead to you know, landmark projects being built that
Speaker 4: actually showcase the true power of the technology underlying. So
Speaker 4: I think definitely it's gonna be a big tailwind for
Speaker 4: report going forwards, and ultimately I think, you know, it's gonna,
Speaker 4: yeah be what actually you know, catalyzes the next stage
Speaker 4: of growth, and that's obviously one reason why we're really
Speaker 4: bullish as well.
Speaker 2: Yeah, for sure. Recently I saw you guys did an
Speaker 2: interview at the Stock Exchange. You give an exerpre price
Speaker 2: prediction one thousand dollars by twenty thirty. To your point
Speaker 2: of you know, this lawsuit being over, x RPS performed
Speaker 2: really well this bullmarket cycle. It's been one of the
Speaker 2: leading all coins. Do you have a price prediction for
Speaker 2: this cycle that you can share. What are you guys
Speaker 2: thinking not.
Speaker 3: For this cycle in particular.
Speaker 4: I think you know that's that's you know, maybe something
Speaker 4: that well, well, I guess we're still formulating, sure, but
Speaker 4: you know, can release that eventually. But I think for us,
Speaker 4: you know, one of the big things is, you know,
Speaker 4: having that institutional adoption come into the space, both in
Speaker 4: terms of the technology, but then also in terms of
Speaker 4: the investment side. A lot of funds are looking now
Speaker 4: to actually deploy capital into different tokens, and one of
Speaker 4: the big drivers obviously off token price is not only
Speaker 4: retail excitement, which has obviously driven a lot of the
Speaker 4: excitement around XRP and around other tokens, but also on
Speaker 4: the institutional side, So making sure that funds can actually
Speaker 4: number one best in tokens other than bitcoin and ethereum.
Speaker 4: And I think a lot of the legal teams inside
Speaker 4: those funds or not think, but no, a lot of
Speaker 4: those legal teams are now looking at ways that they
Speaker 4: can actually deploy capital into other tokens, and that's going
Speaker 4: to obviously create a huge inflow of new capital. So
Speaker 4: you know, getting the mandates updated internally, making sure that
Speaker 4: legal then approves investments in these different products. Is going
Speaker 4: to all be huge positive catalysts because right now, you know,
Speaker 4: you turn on TV and you see on Bloomberg or CNBC,
Speaker 4: everyone's just talking about bitcoin and ethereum. Those are pretty
Speaker 4: much the only two tokens that anyone really talks about.
Speaker 4: Sometimes they'll talk about Solana, but I think what we're
Speaker 4: going to start to see is them actually talking about
Speaker 4: other tokens like XLP big time, because those are ones
Speaker 4: that you know, you just can't ignore. And obviously, now
Speaker 4: the SEC lawsuit has been you know, removed essentially from
Speaker 4: all of their you know, screens, that's something they don't
Speaker 4: have to worry about, and they can actually now start
Speaker 4: to really talk about it, but then also put money
Speaker 4: behind those words. And I think that's going to be
Speaker 4: another massive tailwind for XRP and for other old coins
Speaker 4: as well. I think as well, you know, we're going
Speaker 4: to start to see developers take notes of that, and
Speaker 4: obviously developer activity very closely follows token price as well, yes,
Speaker 4: and so when the token starts to move up in
Speaker 4: a big way, developers also start to come and follow that.
Speaker 4: So token price is obviously really important thing that I think,
Speaker 4: you know, blockchains don't always want to necessarily admit they
Speaker 4: focus on but ultimately they have to focus on it
Speaker 4: because a token that's you know, at all time lows
Speaker 4: is never going to obviously reflect well on the technology.
Speaker 4: You know, people see that and they see a chot
Speaker 4: that's just basically crashed all the way down, like a
Speaker 4: lot of the new launches that a lot of new
Speaker 4: layer ones and their tokens have seen. It's assually just
Speaker 4: like you know, a chart that just goes straight down
Speaker 4: and plateaus basically and tends towards zero. And that's obviously
Speaker 4: just not a good look for the blockchain. But also
Speaker 4: developers coming in they don't want to, you know, they
Speaker 4: don't want to see that. And I think, you know,
Speaker 4: obviously you mentioned XRP has performed so well this year.
Speaker 4: It's one of the top performing coins this year, and
Speaker 4: that's obviously given rise to a lot of people building
Speaker 4: products around XOP, you know, whether it's staking for example,
Speaker 4: whether it's you know, all sorts of services. They're looking
Speaker 4: to actually capitalize on the momentum that's around the XOP
Speaker 4: and that really strong community, and that's obviously a result
Speaker 4: of the token and I think, you know only as
Speaker 4: that's only going to continue basically as the token continues
Speaker 4: to go upwards.
Speaker 2: You know, you mentioned some great points there, and I
Speaker 2: thought of network effects, like in nature of blockchains. You
Speaker 2: can see network effects in religion and politics and crowdsourcing
Speaker 2: different movements. But to your point of developers are going
Speaker 2: to flock to chains that have network ex activity value.
Speaker 2: And it's so funny how that is playing out in
Speaker 2: the digital world, and it's a new dynamic. Is it
Speaker 2: also relates to meme coins, which you were mentioning earlier.
Speaker 2: Not necessarily an investor, but there's the network effects that
Speaker 2: things can catch on because of human nature, like we
Speaker 2: find something funny and we all crowd around it. So
Speaker 2: it's just fascinating this dynamic that's playing out.
Speaker 1: It's true, and it's very much a flywhell. Price attracts attention,
Speaker 1: Attention attracts developers. Developers then build applications which then attract
Speaker 1: more users, yes, which then has a lot of effects
Speaker 1: on the price that maybe we don't have enough time
Speaker 1: to go into the precise dynamics, but I know people
Speaker 1: are interested in how to developers affect price. There's so
Speaker 1: many different dynamics. There's obviously applications burn the tokens when
Speaker 1: they're used in transaction fees. They are also locked up
Speaker 1: in defis. That's why DeFi is so important as well,
Speaker 1: so there's a reduction in the amount of circulating supply.
Speaker 1: There are all sorts of things, and they bring new
Speaker 1: users in tons of different ways that adds value to
Speaker 1: the network. But I think coming to your point, really,
Speaker 1: when we look at an ecosystem, it really the value
Speaker 1: of an ecosystem is the people who are there in
Speaker 1: terms of users and in terms of developers. And when
Speaker 1: you mentioned meme coins again, I think where I am
Speaker 1: today is I'm not like, I'm not really against mue coins.
Speaker 1: There was a time when I thought, actually, meme coins,
Speaker 1: they're just like annoying and a bit of a waste
Speaker 1: of everybody's time. While you're wasting our time with these
Speaker 1: silly things. When the blockchain is meant for something that's
Speaker 1: a lot bigger, it's like, why do we get into
Speaker 1: this space in the first place. But I've realized that actually,
Speaker 1: over time they do attract new users. Literally, we were
Speaker 1: chatting with two new people who joined our team on
Speaker 1: the video side. They're not like you know, super you know, cryptonative,
Speaker 1: but we were chatting with them. I was like, you
Speaker 1: know what interactions we had to watching Satan as we
Speaker 1: grabbed lunch, and we were just chatting about them, and
Speaker 1: they're actually like, oh, I just like bought some meme
Speaker 1: coins because I wanted to play around, and like they're
Speaker 1: not necessarily the most blockchain native people. Sure, but they
Speaker 1: bought some meme coins to have a bit of fun.
Speaker 1: And I think what a lot of people who are
Speaker 1: really good at meme coins in terms of like building
Speaker 1: applications that people want to use on that side. Sure,
Speaker 1: what they realized that other people don't is that these
Speaker 1: are very social experiences. Yeah, that actually the blockchain has
Speaker 1: entertainment value even amongst those things. And so whereas a
Speaker 1: lot of people were looking at social fi before as
Speaker 1: being like how do we bring Facebook on chain, it's
Speaker 1: almost like maybe that's not the right analog. The right
Speaker 1: thing is like, actually meme coins trading are inherently social,
Speaker 1: people posting up screenshots of like their wallets and their
Speaker 1: wallet balances, and that's the way that these things grow.
Speaker 1: And yes, it is sort of you know, blowing the
Speaker 1: line again between like the financial side of the blockchain,
Speaker 1: the speculative side, or those different pieces. But at the
Speaker 1: end of the day, it's more eyeballs, more attention, and
Speaker 1: more people who are actually getting exposed to the blockchain,
Speaker 1: which is I think on balance in that postive.
Speaker 2: Well, it's funny because it's human nature. Like you and
Speaker 2: I we could be at a coffee shop and you
Speaker 2: find a meme funny and you share it me, I'm like,
Speaker 2: this dog is so stupid, right or whatever. But now
Speaker 2: it becomes financialized. It's like this weird paradigm shift that's
Speaker 2: taking place.
Speaker 4: Yeah, and it's kind of like, well, it's almost like
Speaker 4: a game, yeah, but it's actually you know, has some
Speaker 4: like investments that you have behind it. And I think
Speaker 4: whenever you have money involved, which is what makes you know,
Speaker 4: crypto so exciting, in many cases, it actually not only
Speaker 4: helps with retention, but also helps keep that attention you know, focused.
Speaker 2: Right.
Speaker 4: It's like if you have a couple hundred dollars or
Speaker 4: a couple thousand dollars or maybe even more or less,
Speaker 4: you're just much more likely to pay attention to what's
Speaker 4: going on in the space and what's happening with that
Speaker 4: meme coin or that you know, utility token that you've
Speaker 4: invested in, and so I think, yeah, anyone who's to
Speaker 4: get into the space, the best way to do it is,
Speaker 4: you know, just put a bit of money into a
Speaker 4: couple of different tokens and then you're always forced to
Speaker 4: actually look at what's going on, and you'll spend time
Speaker 4: on Twitter, you know, you go down different rabbit holes
Speaker 4: and you'll learn a lot along the way. Whereas if
Speaker 4: you don't have much invested or don't have anything invested,
Speaker 4: it's very hard to actually, you know, keep an eye
Speaker 4: on what's happening. And yeah, it's it's a good way
Speaker 4: to force yourself to get brought into the space.
Speaker 2: And it's funny because there's new possibilities that you know,
Speaker 2: maybe it's a bit weird for our generation, but future
Speaker 2: generations may now look at it is weird. Like everything
Speaker 2: tokenized in a way, right, the token economy relationships, I
Speaker 2: don't know, like love coins, I don't know.
Speaker 3: They still be together in twenty years. Yeah, prediction markets,
Speaker 3: prediction markets.
Speaker 2: You just think all the different things that could be
Speaker 2: tokenized and just taking human behavior like what we do
Speaker 2: in our normal day lives in society, and it goes
Speaker 2: on chain. Not everything, but a lot of it.
Speaker 3: I think it's.
Speaker 1: Really what a lot of this boils down to, as
Speaker 1: well as truth, like money and financializing, a lot of
Speaker 1: these things bring out the truth. I think that a
Speaker 1: lot of people there's this big, big meta right now,
Speaker 1: and what a lot of people realize are realizing is that,
Speaker 1: for example, like you bring up prediction markets, a lot
Speaker 1: of people have realized and are realizing today that the
Speaker 1: news that we see in the mainstream media doesn't have
Speaker 1: an incentive to actually give us correct news or the
Speaker 1: right news, right. Their incentive is to get us to
Speaker 1: watch for as long as possible so they can make
Speaker 1: as much money as possible selling ads, so to string
Speaker 1: us along and just to get us to you know,
Speaker 1: watch till the end or come and you know, turn
Speaker 1: on the TV again, whereas in reality the story might
Speaker 1: be very very simple, right. I think we see it
Speaker 1: all the time with things like you know, it's often amazing.
Speaker 1: I mean social media as well as in some ways
Speaker 1: also contributes to this in terms of like, you know,
Speaker 1: people on YouTube might want to like string you along
Speaker 1: to the when they could have just like given you
Speaker 1: the answer, right, and so that all the dynamics are
Speaker 1: sort of a little bit messed up, right, because the
Speaker 1: way that people are at this attention economy works is
Speaker 1: about retaining eyeballs. Yes, whereas you go to something like
Speaker 1: a prediction market and you can see, oh, this is
Speaker 1: what people really really think. And so we see a
Speaker 1: lot with for example, hoaxes. I think this week there
Speaker 1: was a big hoax about like how Donald Trump was
Speaker 1: dead or something like that. It's like, obviously, it's very interesting,
Speaker 1: like if that were the case, then you know, you
Speaker 1: want to click. They're like what actually happened? But in
Speaker 1: reality it could just be complete nonsense. And it's like
Speaker 1: the news and the entertainment is all mingled together and
Speaker 1: that is what really benefits like people who make up
Speaker 1: that sort of news, whereas in reality, like the financial
Speaker 1: side of it can just bring everything to the fore
Speaker 1: and it's like, you know, almost like sunlight is the
Speaker 1: best disinfect and it's like, I don't know finance or money,
Speaker 1: just put your money where your mouth is, right, is
Speaker 1: that sort of thing. And at the end of the day,
Speaker 1: those sorts of things really just like bring a lot
Speaker 1: of truth to light.
Speaker 2: I hope is eventual because I'm starting to see like
Speaker 2: AI driven content, deep fakes and things like that. Right that,
Speaker 2: eventually blockchain and AI is used to verify content. So
Speaker 2: if you see a rumor, where's this from? And you
Speaker 2: can maybe click on a dialogue box and shows the
Speaker 2: history this came from this profile, This is not a
Speaker 2: credible source, most likely fake, YadA YadA. You know.
Speaker 1: Yeah, I think there's a lot of interesting stuff, and
Speaker 1: maybe this is going off topic it a bit, but
Speaker 1: I personally think it's the idea of a truth bond
Speaker 1: is very interesting.
Speaker 3: It's like, if I.
Speaker 1: Don't know, CNN or whatever, use out that there is
Speaker 1: has skin in the game that if what they're saying
Speaker 1: is not true and it comes out turns out not
Speaker 1: to be true later on, they're going to give up
Speaker 1: that money.
Speaker 3: Then that's interesting. That's going to force them to be
Speaker 3: a lot more accurate with every.
Speaker 2: Sure, Yeah, they got to be accountable, right, Yeah, that
Speaker 2: makes sense. And I wonder, yeah, like media and all
Speaker 2: these things can be disrupted by blockchain and throw an
Speaker 2: AI into there, and it could really help the future
Speaker 2: of information.
Speaker 1: Maybe it's not as entertaining, you know, you'll just see,
Speaker 1: like you go on a prediction market and it's like
Speaker 1: yes or no. Yeah, yeah, but then you've got your
Speaker 1: fix of information. That's it right, Well he needs no
Speaker 1: Trump is alive. Yeah, but the world will be in
Speaker 1: a better place.
Speaker 2: People wouldn't be gaslighted and fear mongering and all that,
Speaker 2: and we could probably get along a lot better. Maybe
Speaker 2: it's like you know in history, you see in civilization
Speaker 2: we have these dips and then because new technologies are
Speaker 2: new things come along and they expose us, and then
Speaker 2: collectively as a civilization, we have to learn and then
Speaker 2: grow from there. Like these things have happened over time,
Speaker 2: and the technology is here to help us do that,
Speaker 2: to learn and grow beyond these things. Definitely anyway, not
Speaker 2: to get off the crypto train here. So Genius Act pass,
Speaker 2: huge for stable coins. Clarity Act coming up in the fall,
Speaker 2: potentially passing in the Senate. What do you think the
Speaker 2: Clarity Act would mean for the market? And you guys
Speaker 2: are as builders.
Speaker 1: I think the key thing that I made a tweet
Speaker 1: about this actually even like a year or a year
Speaker 1: and a half ago, but I always said that legal
Speaker 1: clarity is one of the biggest biggest factors in terms
Speaker 1: of driving economic activity and adoption. I like, my background
Speaker 1: is in engineering and in law, and so I was
Speaker 1: an attorney. I still technically I am an attorney in New York.
Speaker 1: But one of the things that we were taught at
Speaker 1: law school and that we have seen true today is
Speaker 1: that when you have certainty in the law, when people
Speaker 1: can do business, when people can do things and they
Speaker 1: are not going to be called back on retroactive laws,
Speaker 1: be punished retroactively or for stuff that they didn't even
Speaker 1: know some sort of like calf guess sort of stuff.
Speaker 1: That's when things happen a lot more smoothly, and that
Speaker 1: literally has a very very clear impact on the amount
Speaker 1: of economic value that can be created. So you look
Speaker 1: at a country like this compared to a country that
Speaker 1: is very much behind, let's say economically, often you can
Speaker 1: look at the legal system and you can see that
Speaker 1: things aren't clear, there are there's no effective enforcement of contracts,
Speaker 1: so people can't actually do business together. This was actually yeah.
Speaker 1: We were at the xrpl Apex conference in Singapore and
Speaker 1: Ripple had invited a couple of speakers as well who
Speaker 1: are talking about the legal system in Brazil, and they
Speaker 1: said that apparently, if like legal judgments or like claims,
Speaker 1: even if you win take about like I think no, no,
Speaker 1: yes debts they take about ten years to be enforced
Speaker 1: or like twenty years, and that's insane, right, So you
Speaker 1: can imagine that it's very very hard to do business
Speaker 1: like that and to tie to tie things back to
Speaker 1: genius act to clarity. When we have clarity over well, clarity,
Speaker 1: that's why it's name like that. If we have clarity
Speaker 1: over which digital assets are securities, why they might not
Speaker 1: be securities, that can just mean that everyone, you can
Speaker 1: do it a lot more together, right, It means that
Speaker 1: economic activity can absolutely explode and so very very bullsh
Speaker 1: on just certainty. I think there's even regardless of you know,
Speaker 1: what final form these things might take, what amendments might take,
Speaker 1: I think they're just having clarity over those things.
Speaker 3: Obviously.
Speaker 1: A key part as well is the fact that and
Speaker 1: how we test has been very very difficult. Let's say,
Speaker 1: I mean obviously in some respects it's outdated and previous.
Speaker 1: You know, some people have said, up, it's actually fine,
Speaker 1: it's fit for purpose. But I think the broad broad
Speaker 1: consensus in the Web three community is it's very difficult,
Speaker 1: and I think it's very easy to see how it
Speaker 1: can be interpreted to say that something as of securities
Speaker 1: and something's on and it's not like you can't just
Speaker 1: be a normal person and just realize that, you know, Okay,
Speaker 1: this is what I can do, this is what I
Speaker 1: can't do. It's like you're going to get legal opinions
Speaker 1: from lawyers and even then like not totally sure, and
Speaker 1: but the value is that you just legal opinion.
Speaker 3: Yeah.
Speaker 1: So I think that those sorts of things are extremely important,
Speaker 1: and I think that could offer in just so many
Speaker 1: more people. Similar to how like what Don was saying
Speaker 1: about sec lawsuit against Ripple, those sorts of things held
Speaker 1: back Ripple, right, made it much more difficult for it
Speaker 1: to do business. Similar thing for what we're seeing with
Speaker 1: the Clarity Act. I think just it's going to open
Speaker 1: the floodgates to business being done on the blockchain.
Speaker 4: Yeah, I mean, I think, you know, institutions don't want
Speaker 4: to get into a space that they don't know it's
Speaker 4: going to be around number one, because of regulations, and
Speaker 4: number two, they don't want to get into a space
Speaker 4: that you know, anything can change in in the next
Speaker 4: couple of years, because those institutions have a long time horizon,
Speaker 4: you know, investments are looked at over years, you know,
Speaker 4: five to ten years. Funds are raised, you know, to
Speaker 4: deploy capital over a while, and they don't want to,
Speaker 4: you know, deploy capital in something that they don't think
Speaker 4: is going to be around, and that could just you know,
Speaker 4: one day become illegal. Even though you can't you know,
Speaker 4: like we were saying, obviously get rid of the blockchain,
Speaker 4: you can make it a lot harder for people to
Speaker 4: invest and therefore obviously the press price. I think as
Speaker 4: well in terms of young people getting into the space,
Speaker 4: it'll be a big green stamp you know from like
Speaker 4: you know, the SEC and from proper government bodies that
Speaker 4: this is a legitimate institution, legitimates you know, company, legisimate sector,
Speaker 4: and you know, you can actually build a career in
Speaker 4: the space, as opposed to before where it's like maybe
Speaker 4: I'll go in for a little bit, you know, maybe
Speaker 4: launch token and then you know, disappear and you know,
Speaker 4: go do another project or something, or go get a
Speaker 4: real job. I think people start to realize, you know,
Speaker 4: crypto is something where you can actually make a long
Speaker 4: time career out of.
Speaker 2: Yeah, I'm excited, man, because this setup is beautiful here
Speaker 2: with legislation, trad fi and all these folks are coming
Speaker 2: in and in more capital. It's I see like maybe
Speaker 2: a big economic boom coming out of this industry, kind
Speaker 2: of like the imployee, like a lot of wealth, created
Speaker 2: a lot of jobs and much more.
Speaker 4: That's why it's called web three. Yeah, you know, Web
Speaker 4: two is what we're in right now. Web three is
Speaker 4: what's coming. Yeah.
Speaker 2: So the hard question, and which I don't know which
Speaker 2: one of you want to answer, is but what does
Speaker 2: web three look like in twenty thirty five years from now?
Speaker 1: That's a really good question. I think people often say
Speaker 1: the five year bit. It's probably the hard bit, right
Speaker 1: because it's not so close that you know exactly what's
Speaker 1: going to happen, but it's not so far away that
Speaker 1: it could be wildly, you know, wildly off into the future.
Speaker 1: And things have like a ton of time. I think
Speaker 1: five years from now will.
Speaker 3: Be in twenty thirty. That was actually pretty crazy. Yeah,
Speaker 3: twenty thirty.
Speaker 1: I actually remember when I was a kid, I was
Speaker 1: thinking like even twenty twenty would be like complete future. Sure,
Speaker 1: But yeah, I think in terms of where we will be,
Speaker 1: I think one thing is for certain, which is that
Speaker 1: we're going to have way more of what currently happens
Speaker 1: in finance on chain exactly which pits I will take
Speaker 1: a couple of bets I say, I think people have
Speaker 1: already started to trust their banks less. I don't know
Speaker 1: a single person who likes their bank, and I think
Speaker 1: that if anybody could get away from the bank, they would.
Speaker 1: So we have evolved into this system where where banks
Speaker 1: previously were providing a service to us, most of us
Speaker 1: are actually hostages to our banks now, Like we just
Speaker 1: have our money in there. When we try to take
Speaker 1: it out, they're like, no, what are you using that for?
Speaker 1: If we try to send it to other people, they're like,
Speaker 1: who are using that?
Speaker 3: You know? What are you doing?
Speaker 2: Like?
Speaker 1: What are you financing? Is like no, I'm just trying
Speaker 1: to pay an invoice, Like that's it. I think that
Speaker 1: they we're really fundamentally getting a raw deal in many respects,
Speaker 1: and that's ultimately why banks were able to make so
Speaker 1: much money. We've also seen with the collapse of Silicon
Speaker 1: Valley Bank and having to be rescued and all these,
Speaker 1: you know, the regional banking crisis, really really really recently,
Speaker 1: that money is actually not super safe in a bank
Speaker 1: right fractional reserve banking. I think if I'm looking at
Speaker 1: one area that I think is going to really really
Speaker 1: change and that I personally actually want to drive forwards,
Speaker 1: it's to help make this system a lot safer, right
Speaker 1: where actually you can again be in control of your
Speaker 1: own assets, right, And I think that comes down to
Speaker 1: obviously the money in your bank acount. It is easiest
Speaker 1: to think about just getting control over your own money again, right,
Speaker 1: having that safe, safer way from banks like lending it
Speaker 1: out irresponsibly, because at the end of the day, they
Speaker 1: are profit driven institutions, and whenever you are extremely profit driven,
Speaker 1: you're going to be forced to take more and more risk. Right,
Speaker 1: you want to take your own risk with your own money.
Speaker 1: If you want to lend it out, you should just
Speaker 1: be lending it out, and you should get like, you know,
Speaker 1: the full apuy on that. But you're making that decision,
Speaker 1: you're in control. I think that if you know, we're
Speaker 1: talking about property rights as well, I think having property
Speaker 1: rights very clearly being enforced as well on the blockchain,
Speaker 1: your rights to your money, your rights to your property,
Speaker 1: all these sorts of things. So I fundamentally just think
Speaker 1: that within the next five years. It's not like super long.
Speaker 1: So I'm not going to say the stuff about maybe
Speaker 1: like you know, all sorts of democracy coming on chain.
Speaker 1: I think that's like up there. Ultimately, that's why web
Speaker 1: three was created to bring the principles of democracy. As
Speaker 1: Gavin Wood said, who you know coined the word into
Speaker 1: the Internet as we know it today. But I think, yeah,
Speaker 1: I think that probably it's really going to start off
Speaker 1: with finance. I think banks are going to be given
Speaker 1: a run for their money in terms of when we
Speaker 1: have these competing products which are just as good as
Speaker 1: having your you know, you might have your money in chase,
Speaker 1: but you might equally just have it on chain. You know,
Speaker 1: it could be on the XRP lher and it's always
Speaker 1: there for you. You can have a look and it's
Speaker 1: like the balance that you see there is the real balance.
Speaker 1: You can always take it out any one time. I
Speaker 1: probably think that in five years that is going to
Speaker 1: look very different. I think that we're going to have
Speaker 1: like challenge of banks which are totally on the blockchain.
Speaker 2: Yeah, it's going to be an interesting world dominat know,
Speaker 2: if do you have any additional thoughts on that.
Speaker 4: I mean, I think we'll covered it all pretty well.
Speaker 3: I mean, I think as well.
Speaker 4: The other big thing that we're going to start to
Speaker 4: see is tokenization of real estates. Not only tokenization, but
Speaker 4: then also a big focus on letting individual investors invest
Speaker 4: in real estate in a way that they couldn't previously,
Speaker 4: So tokenizing real estate, but then also then allowing individuals
Speaker 4: to buy shares off you know, office buildings for example,
Speaker 4: and you know, getting dividends you know, from the rent payments,
Speaker 4: et cetera. So I think that's going to be a
Speaker 4: huge one because there's so much real estate, you know,
Speaker 4: it's not billions worth, it's literally trillions worth, you know,
Speaker 4: all over the world, you know, from New York to
Speaker 4: all the major cities, and allowing people to actually on
Speaker 4: a retail level invest in those projects and you know,
Speaker 4: make money. So I think that's another huge aspect that
Speaker 4: people aren't really factoring in yet. It's the tokenization of yeah,
Speaker 4: just you know, pretty much everything. But obviously real estate's
Speaker 4: a very natural one to be tokenized in the first place.
Speaker 1: It's in many ways a blockchain super app. Yeah, right,
Speaker 1: five years we could have a blockchain super app where
Speaker 1: you don't like, it's your web three equivalent or blockchain
Speaker 1: equivalent of your bank. You get access to all these
Speaker 1: different opportunities at the end of the day as well.
Speaker 1: It is these money legos again, right, So you've got
Speaker 1: the money in your account, You've got these different investment opportunities.
Speaker 1: You can package them up in different sorts of ways.
Speaker 1: You could even have your own stable coin, for example,
Speaker 1: which is collateralized maybe by these different things, by the
Speaker 1: yields that you get on your real estate, all these
Speaker 1: different types of things all put together so that you
Speaker 1: can actually, for the first time, really be fully in control.
Speaker 1: You have different stable coins, you have different types of yields,
Speaker 1: and I think as well, crucially, I think one of
Speaker 1: the key things here is a lot of people have
Speaker 1: realized that the money that they put into their savings
Speaker 1: account and the USR they hold is just continuously deflating. Well,
Speaker 1: it's going down and right appreciating. Yeah, So I think
Speaker 1: that this is one of the biggest biggest tailwinds for
Speaker 1: blockchain right now, is that people realize they want to
Speaker 1: get out of the system. And I think we're going
Speaker 1: to see a lot of people actually coming to it
Speaker 1: because of.
Speaker 2: That final item here, Because there's a lot happening on
Speaker 2: x a lot of cryptotribalism link marines versus XRP army
Speaker 2: in this ari. It's funny because it's what we've been
Speaker 2: talking about earlier with network effects, right, everybody's kind of
Speaker 2: trying to grab more people to their network more value.
Speaker 2: Isn't it funny again? Human nature playing on on the blockchain?
Speaker 4: Yeah, I mean, I think, you know, it's one of
Speaker 4: the things that makes crypto fun community. But I think
Speaker 4: as well, you know, sometimes it can go a bit
Speaker 4: too far ye either direction. I think, you know, obviously
Speaker 4: you don't need to fight against each other because the
Speaker 4: space is still so nascent, and you know, in the
Speaker 4: grand scheme of things, only seven percent of the world
Speaker 4: actually on crypto today, and so there's so much more
Speaker 4: that you can actually spend your time getting as opposed
Speaker 4: to fighting with the existing small crowds. And so I think,
Speaker 4: you know, from our perspective, we work with a bunch
Speaker 4: of different blockchains, ones we're most personally bullish on as well,
Speaker 4: and ultimately, I think, you know, for us, we just
Speaker 4: want to grow the space as opposed to fighting over
Speaker 4: the you know, the small sort of population that's currently
Speaker 4: in the space relative to what it can be. You know,
Speaker 4: it can be so much bigger, and I think that's
Speaker 4: really where people should be focused on, not just you know,
Speaker 4: trying to get people away from one token to the other,
Speaker 4: because you know, there's always ways that you can, like
Speaker 4: you know, spin arguments and you know, split up facts
Speaker 4: and look at different like token prices of a different
Speaker 4: horizons that make one look you know, better than the other.
Speaker 4: And I think that's more of a futile thing as
Speaker 4: opposed to getting new capital into the space, new developers,
Speaker 4: new blood, new retail audience, even into the whole crypto space.
Speaker 4: And that's you know, ultimately how the tides are going
Speaker 4: to rise, and it'll lift up all the boats along
Speaker 4: the way.
Speaker 2: Yeah. Well said Tom phil Pleasure looking forward to the
Speaker 2: future updates around easy A and looking forward to the
Speaker 2: XRP ledger news. But thank you guys for taking the
Speaker 2: time to do one