Speaker 1: Hello, and welcome to another episode of the Odd Lots Podcast.
Speaker 1: I'm Joe Wisenthal and I'm Tracy Allaway. So, Tracy, you know,
Speaker 1: it's been obviously an incredible year for crypto overall, for bitcoin,
Speaker 1: for a bunch of things going on ethereum, defy, n
Speaker 1: f t S, etcetera. But I feel like, in some
Speaker 1: sense some of the narrative enthusiasm has moved away from
Speaker 1: Bitcoin at least feels like it in the last few months.
Speaker 1: Oh absolutely, I mean part of this. I think part
Speaker 1: of this is because obviously you and I are in
Speaker 1: financial journalism. We're talking with people who are in the
Speaker 1: financial industry quite a lot. But it feels like the
Speaker 1: enthusiasm from traditional financial players, you know, I'm thinking bankers
Speaker 1: and traders that has squarely moved on to defy two
Speaker 1: things like a theory um to places where there seems
Speaker 1: to be a lot of innovation and a lot of
Speaker 1: changes happening around what you can actually do with the
Speaker 1: technology and with a wider pool of crypto. Whereas, like
Speaker 1: I gotta say, the bitcoin maximalist, sorry you got me
Speaker 1: going now, but the become maximalists are sort of like
Speaker 1: they've turned into the like the gold bugs of the
Speaker 1: traditional market, right, Like everyone kind of makes fun of
Speaker 1: them a little bit. Um. They seem a little bit
Speaker 1: old fashioned and they're kind of just like watching while
Speaker 1: all this new stuff happens around them. Yeah, that define
Speaker 1: that definitely seems like the popular narrative. You know, obviously
Speaker 1: there's a lot of adoption overall or interest in Wall Street,
Speaker 1: and I think the story is like, yeah, bitcoin is
Speaker 1: cool and it's a good like you know, it's a
Speaker 1: store of value and if you worry about inflation, then
Speaker 1: buy it, or if you're an emerging market, it will
Speaker 1: hedge against currency collapse or something like that. But if
Speaker 1: you want to do anything that's sort of like very
Speaker 1: familiar or two people on Law Street, like trade derivatives
Speaker 1: or create things that resemble equity or debt or anything
Speaker 1: like that, then they're all like super hyped on building
Speaker 1: on like ethereum or Salona or something like that. Like
Speaker 1: that is sort of like where the zeitgeist is right now.
Speaker 1: I would say, yeah, absolutely. I guess you could boil
Speaker 1: it down to an open question of whether or not
Speaker 1: crypto is sort of outgrowing bitcoin, and whether or not
Speaker 1: you can have this massive crypto slash finance ecosystem that's
Speaker 1: built on an asset that's ultimately supposed to be relatively
Speaker 1: static and in limited supply. Right, And I think there's
Speaker 1: actually two things, and we're going to explore them today,
Speaker 1: But there's two things that I think, Like one is
Speaker 1: there's a perception that it's harder to build on bitcoin debt,
Speaker 1: Like it's not, you know, because it's designed to like
Speaker 1: do one thing it seems very very well, which is
Speaker 1: be this like secure store of value. It's not easy
Speaker 1: to build on That's one perception. And then I think
Speaker 1: there's like a question of like do people want to
Speaker 1: build on bitcoin or do people want to trade on
Speaker 1: So like it's not obvious to me that a lot
Speaker 1: of the DeFi stuff and you know, earlier in the
Speaker 1: week we talked to Tom Schmidt about you know, yield
Speaker 1: firming and all that stuff and you know, automated market makers,
Speaker 1: it's not obvious to me that like the people in
Speaker 1: the bitcoin world like want those things. Whether there's really
Speaker 1: an appetite or an interest for all that speculation and trading, Yeah, totally.
Speaker 1: I mean it goes back to the sort of goldbug
Speaker 1: analogy that I was just using, right, but I think
Speaker 1: like it's also about who those people are and this
Speaker 1: idea that bitcoin is very very decentralized. It's not led
Speaker 1: by any single person. So even if bitcoiners decided to
Speaker 1: make changes to the overall structure of bitcoin, which they've
Speaker 1: done previously, but it becomes very very difficult to reach agreement,
Speaker 1: and then it becomes very very difficult to actually do,
Speaker 1: whereas with something like ethereum, you kind of have you know, um,
Speaker 1: a figurehead in the form of Vitalic, you like can
Speaker 1: how put some changes and help the thing actually adapt
Speaker 1: and get to the place where people agree that it
Speaker 1: wants to be. It just feels like two very different communities, definitely.
Speaker 1: So so that is the sort of perfect set up
Speaker 1: to our guest, because we're actually going to be speaking
Speaker 1: to a bitcoin maximalist, Bitcoin not crypto, and she's also
Speaker 1: a believer that all of these things, all this defied
Speaker 1: stuff that people are hyped about, that it will eventually
Speaker 1: all be built on top of bitcoin, and that it
Speaker 1: is more than just a digital rock, or that it's
Speaker 1: more than just digital gold. And so we're going to
Speaker 1: sort of like get this perspective, like what is like Okay,
Speaker 1: like we sort of a lot of people accept that
Speaker 1: bitcoin has the store of value properties, is there more
Speaker 1: that can really be built on it? I'm very excited
Speaker 1: to learn about where that is going and to hear
Speaker 1: sort of like the counter narrative of what's going on.
Speaker 1: So I want to bring in our guest today at
Speaker 1: least Kaleen. She is the founder and managing partner at
Speaker 1: the VC firm still Mark, which is only bitcoin focused.
Speaker 1: They buy equity take equity stakes in bitcoin related companies.
Speaker 1: She is on the board of Blockstream, which is one
Speaker 1: of the sort of like biggest builders of bitcoin applications. Man,
Speaker 1: we have it's employees contribute substantially to the bitcoin code base,
Speaker 1: to its uh the project. So at least, thank you
Speaker 1: so much for coming out. O lots great, thank you
Speaker 1: for having me. There'll be a fun conversation, I hope. Yeah,
Speaker 1: I'm really I'm really excited about this because you know,
Speaker 1: you know, we set it up, we know what the
Speaker 1: narrative is. You know. Actually before we sort of like
Speaker 1: get it into like the defy stuff, I mean, we
Speaker 1: sort of um talked about how development on bitcoin is
Speaker 1: perceived to be difficult and or slow it's conservative, but
Speaker 1: actually bitcoin did just have a pretty substantial update to
Speaker 1: the technology of the network, something called tap root. Can
Speaker 1: you sort of describe, like, what is this new thing
Speaker 1: that's going to be that's being implemented. I guess it's
Speaker 1: gonna be implemented in November, But what is this new thing?
Speaker 1: What's it going to enable us to do with a bitcoin? Well,
Speaker 1: tap it does quite a bit. But one of the
Speaker 1: things that it does that's most topical for where the
Speaker 1: cryptocurrency you know, sort of memes have emerged in this
Speaker 1: market cycle, is that it creates efficiencies that are relevant
Speaker 1: for smart contracting, both at the base layer and at
Speaker 1: higher layers in payment channels for instance, like Lightning network.
Speaker 1: UM So that's exciting. Tap root is will activate in November,
Speaker 1: and not only will it have an impact on privacy
Speaker 1: scalability of the um core protocol, but it will also impact,
Speaker 1: like I said, opportunities in smart contracting, and it will
Speaker 1: allow us it'll sort of set the stage for future
Speaker 1: upgrades like any prevout which has relevancy for other sorts
Speaker 1: of increased functionality at the Lightning network level. And that's
Speaker 1: quite important because when we're thinking about defy in the
Speaker 1: bitcoin space, we're thinking not just about how that's relevant
Speaker 1: to traders, but really how it's relevant very broadly to
Speaker 1: billions of people, not hundreds of thousands of people. UM.
Speaker 1: Taking a quick step back to set context for the conversation,
Speaker 1: all to defy. So what we see happening in the
Speaker 1: ethereum or all coined space, UM, what's been called defy
Speaker 1: now participants. There's about a hundred thousand participants in this space,
Speaker 1: and those are highly engaged participants, sure, but it's quite
Speaker 1: small and in terms of cultural relevancy or impact that
Speaker 1: will be very limited. What has been frustrating, I think
Speaker 1: for folks operating in the bitcoin space is that I
Speaker 1: suppose it feels like it's in the background, um, but
Speaker 1: in fact it should be, in my mind, in the foreground,
Speaker 1: which is that bitcoin has been building a breadth of
Speaker 1: decentralized finance tools that are relevant not just to traders
Speaker 1: but to folks in emerging markets like El Salvador and
Speaker 1: just to folks very broadly. And so we you know,
Speaker 1: we're not we're really not limited um. And also not
Speaker 1: prioritizing Bitcoin's relevance to traders, were thinking more broadly than that.
Speaker 1: So I, Joe, I want to um. You know, maybe
Speaker 1: kind of push bath about one of the ways you
Speaker 1: characterized me at the top. So you said you called
Speaker 1: me a bitcoin maximalist, which I think, um is a compliment,
Speaker 1: but probably not I did. I meant it as a compliment.
Speaker 1: I meant it as a compliment, I understand, So I
Speaker 1: I appreciate the compliment, but you know, it's not where
Speaker 1: I think of myself more as a sound tech maximalist
Speaker 1: than as a bitcoin maximalist. And what I mean by
Speaker 1: that is I'm really looking at protocol level, at relevant
Speaker 1: infrastructure and what that means for sort of the security
Speaker 1: and stability of technologies as a platform. So my background inventor.
Speaker 1: I started Inventor about a decade ago, making investments in
Speaker 1: UM emerging texts at the time like cloud networking, data
Speaker 1: center software, cybersecurity, foundational sort of technologies and bitcoin. I
Speaker 1: found Bitcoin in that sort of mind space, and so
Speaker 1: I saw bitcoin first as a protocol, as a technology
Speaker 1: that would be a platform for the proliferation of a
Speaker 1: new sort of app ecosystem. And you know, in that way,
Speaker 1: I approach it really as a sound tech maximalist, not
Speaker 1: as a bitcoin um maximist. Per se. I also spent
Speaker 1: time in looking at all coins. I I think that
Speaker 1: I was the second or third maybe VC to do
Speaker 1: diligence in UM the I c O space. Even so,
Speaker 1: for example, the second ever I c O was for
Speaker 1: a company doing decentralized storage, and I know that the
Speaker 1: firm I was at the time, clear Stone enter Partners UM,
Speaker 1: and through my leadership, did deep diligence on that opportunity.
Speaker 1: And really, UM what I what we found. The conclusion
Speaker 1: that we came to was that that sort of setup
Speaker 1: didn't require a token, that there wasn't a need to
Speaker 1: incentivize use of the software with a token. And you know,
Speaker 1: I think that generally speaking, I've found that that conclusion
Speaker 1: holds true across projects. So it's not that there's any
Speaker 1: sort of religion against other cryptocurrencies. It just it's just
Speaker 1: that there would need to be a value proposition in
Speaker 1: that cryptocurrency of digital asset that goes beyond just its
Speaker 1: use for trading. Don't feel bad about Joe calling you
Speaker 1: a bitcoin maximalist, because he calls me a silver bug
Speaker 1: all the time and it's not true. So he has
Speaker 1: he has form in this UM. So I mean, just
Speaker 1: on that point, I do think there is a perception
Speaker 1: out there that bitcoin is an old their technology, and
Speaker 1: I know it feels a little bit crazy to say
Speaker 1: that because we're, you know, we're still supposed to be
Speaker 1: in the early innings of everything crypto. But you know,
Speaker 1: if you look back, like it is more than a
Speaker 1: decade old at this point, and you have had newer
Speaker 1: crypto protocols come on stream since then, so you can
Speaker 1: see why people would say like, oh, this is maybe
Speaker 1: technology that is slightly out of date, or it hasn't
Speaker 1: been purposefully designed for a specific use case like a
Speaker 1: defie scenario or some sort of other trading or financial
Speaker 1: use Could you maybe dive into that a little bit more, like,
Speaker 1: what is the technological difference between bitcoin and everything else
Speaker 1: out there, and what is it in your view that
Speaker 1: makes bitcoin suitable to doing new things when I think
Speaker 1: other people instinctively will say, well, it's older and it
Speaker 1: was designed for a very specific use case, right. So
Speaker 1: most important to note is that bitcoin really is a
Speaker 1: technology play first, whereas the theorym and other alt coins
Speaker 1: feel a lot to me like a marketing play, and
Speaker 1: so Bitcoin is a technology play. The Bitcoin starts with
Speaker 1: the presumption that security and stability of the network are
Speaker 1: the first most importance, and so Bitcoin's history is one
Speaker 1: of of prioritizing just that, and what that means is
Speaker 1: that the end result of that is that bitcoin um,
Speaker 1: the cryptocurrency, can be a store of value. It's the
Speaker 1: first true digital scarce resource that we have sovereign access to.
Speaker 1: A Bitcoin. The protocol, of course, is a public informission
Speaker 1: list sort of ledger system that operates in a decentralized manner,
Speaker 1: and all of those things are necessary to establish Bitcoin
Speaker 1: is a store of value. So bitcoiner's assumption is that
Speaker 1: that's what's what's most important. And after you've established that
Speaker 1: and have a history of of that being true, then
Speaker 1: you can go and add functionality um at the core
Speaker 1: protocol level and layers built on top of the core protocol.
Speaker 1: Now ethereum and alt coins, other all coins were introduced
Speaker 1: really to sort of propose that novel functionality could be
Speaker 1: could attract a new audience. And so they start with functionality,
Speaker 1: and the idea was that they would then migrate to
Speaker 1: sort of secure, perhaps more decentralized networks, and we see
Speaker 1: this with ethereum, right. So ethereum is has been for
Speaker 1: quite a while planning for a state of ethereum two
Speaker 1: point oh, where the network is secured not by proof
Speaker 1: of work but by proof of stake. And you know,
Speaker 1: I propose that that's sort of almost a wild thing
Speaker 1: to do when the network has billions of dollars of
Speaker 1: value on it, to think about then switching what secures
Speaker 1: that network and that value, you know, to me, feels
Speaker 1: um sort of risky, and you know, and I suppose
Speaker 1: that's why I find myself One of the reasons why
Speaker 1: I find myself in the bitcoin space is because we bitcoiners,
Speaker 1: or at least the folks developing at the core protocol
Speaker 1: level of respects that there's billions of dollars of people's
Speaker 1: net worth that's secured by this protocol and that comes first.
Speaker 1: Functionality comes second. So one could argue that it's like, Okay.
Speaker 1: One thing I don't think anyone doubts about the sort
Speaker 1: of bitcoin world is that focus on security, and there's
Speaker 1: probably rightly an extremely conservative development mindset of not rushing
Speaker 1: in any changes. Never I can't it's hard to imagine
Speaker 1: bitcoin ever doing anything radical, such as moving from proof
Speaker 1: of work to proof of steak any anything like that.
Speaker 1: But in theory it seems like there could be a
Speaker 1: spectrum where it's like, Okay, you have like security and
Speaker 1: stability at one end of it, and you have in
Speaker 1: a vation and ability to build on something at the
Speaker 1: other end, and you sort of could in theory move
Speaker 1: the dial towards the other end. You know, it seems
Speaker 1: as though it's not that big from a sort of
Speaker 1: actual numbers, but it seems as though there is a
Speaker 1: lot of interest in the type of defy applications that
Speaker 1: are being built on ethereum. There maybe aren't that many
Speaker 1: people doing it, but there's clearly a lot of money.
Speaker 1: Billions are flowing into the space. Just today, you know,
Speaker 1: you heard that Injuries and Horowitz is has lot raised
Speaker 1: a two point two billion dollar fund. I presume a
Speaker 1: lot of that is going to be in this sort
Speaker 1: of like defy realm, probably not all of it. So
Speaker 1: it appears though that there is this sort of like
Speaker 1: momentum and mind share that Bitcoin is missing right now.
Speaker 1: So why aren't people being attracted to building on bitcoin,
Speaker 1: or why are these people so excited about building on
Speaker 1: a different platform. So I think, you know, it feels
Speaker 1: like you're repeating back to me um fud spread by
Speaker 1: theory or Ripple or other folks and other protocols. Just
Speaker 1: to be fair, like this is literally, this is I'm
Speaker 1: not criticizing bitcoin. I'm saying like, this is literally like
Speaker 1: what I observe, like the Andrews and Horowitz two point
Speaker 1: two billion dollar fund and so forth. Like my question
Speaker 1: is not what's wrong with bitcoin or that there's something
Speaker 1: that is insufficient about bitcoin. The question is what is
Speaker 1: it that bitcoin is evidently missing that so many people
Speaker 1: are looking to build on a different platform. Okay, so
Speaker 1: a couple of things you said, a couple of things there,
Speaker 1: I'll try to hit all of them. So you talked
Speaker 1: a little bit about the attention shifting to defy this
Speaker 1: space where a hundred thousand traders have permissionless access to
Speaker 1: trade sort of the long tail of assets that they
Speaker 1: might not otherwise have access to, and they can do
Speaker 1: that without having to go through a k y C process.
Speaker 1: And you know, it's also interesting to see folks making
Speaker 1: money in a quick way and it attracts media attention.
Speaker 1: Now and a bitcoin side, what's been happening is that
Speaker 1: bitcoin has been declared a legal tender and al Salvador,
Speaker 1: we've seen the folks in all Salvador use bitcoin on
Speaker 1: a day to day basis by using the Lightning Network UM,
Speaker 1: specifically in beach communities in the community called Bitcoin Beach.
Speaker 1: We know that bitcoin is held on the balance sheet
Speaker 1: of multiple public companies, including Tesla, which is on SMP
Speaker 1: five hundred, and bitcoin has been growing in terms of
Speaker 1: adoption at a more rapid clip than than Internet did
Speaker 1: at a comparable time. So there's quite a bit. It's
Speaker 1: really active time, a really dynamic time in the bitcoin
Speaker 1: space in two ways. I talked just a moment ago
Speaker 1: about how active adoption is and the breadth of adoption.
Speaker 1: So we see enterprise, we see countries, we see municipalities.
Speaker 1: For instance, Miami, the mayor of Miami, Francis Sais, has
Speaker 1: talked a lot about how the city feels it could
Speaker 1: benefit from the use of bitcoin the asset and bitcoin
Speaker 1: the technology. There's other cities and other countries that have
Speaker 1: indicated they want to be second movers, are and are
Speaker 1: in the planning stages. I'll take a conservative position to
Speaker 1: propose that that's probably much more importance than the introduction
Speaker 1: of trading tools for tens of thousands of folks, but
Speaker 1: perhaps the media runs behind it. A bit um. At
Speaker 1: the same time as adoption has picked up in the
Speaker 1: bitcoin space, we've also seen really an explosion of technical
Speaker 1: advancement in the bitcoin space. So that's both at the
Speaker 1: core protocol level, at lightning network level, and in side chains.
Speaker 1: I don't know, I suppose it's disappointing to me to
Speaker 1: hear that. It feels like those that sort of work
Speaker 1: has been overlooked um, you know, as a result of
Speaker 1: the hype that exists around you know, all coin defy.
Speaker 1: All that said, though, there are founders building products that
Speaker 1: replicate the best of what's found in the quote defy
Speaker 1: space in Ethereum. Now that will be built in the
Speaker 1: bitcoin space on side chains, you know, by the end
Speaker 1: of the year. So there's projects launching by the end
Speaker 1: of the year, and I want to cover that too.
Speaker 1: But you also mentioned the funding environment for um, you know,
Speaker 1: for DeFi, for ethereum, for all coins, and I, you know,
Speaker 1: I want to acknowledge that as being something that is
Speaker 1: certainly true. And I think one of the I don't know,
Speaker 1: maybe disappointments that I've had and how the cryptocurrency space
Speaker 1: has matured, I think that there's certainly been UM, there
Speaker 1: is today, and there historically has been a missed allocation
Speaker 1: of funds and to venture funds into the space, and
Speaker 1: I think that's because you know, there's um, of course,
Speaker 1: an appeal of quicker liquidity, and what we've seen with
Speaker 1: the introduction of tokens is that you can instead of
Speaker 1: there being a standard venture cycle of you know, seven
Speaker 1: to ten years where funds are waiting to realize returns,
Speaker 1: that it's just a much quicker cycle where you can
Speaker 1: get returns in eighteen to twenty four months, maybe shorter
Speaker 1: than that, and you can get returns that are of
Speaker 1: equal um you know, magnitude as you see for successful
Speaker 1: companies that are taking seven to ten years to exit
Speaker 1: to the public markets or through acquisition. And of course
Speaker 1: that's appealing. And what I hope will happen as more
Speaker 1: time in the space accumulates is that folks will start
Speaker 1: to ask, really what's producing those returns and be cognizant
Speaker 1: of um, you know, the dynamics that exists in eighteen
Speaker 1: month cycle that we're seeing. So maybe now is your
Speaker 1: chance to sort of rectify this misallocation of capital, as
Speaker 1: you put it, But could you maybe talk to us
Speaker 1: about some of the projects or changes that Bitcoin is
Speaker 1: currently undertaking, UM, and you know, get us excited about it, Like,
Speaker 1: what is it that people should be paying attention to
Speaker 1: when they look in bitcoin other than the store of
Speaker 1: value proposition which everyone seems to have been focusing on lately,
Speaker 1: right of course, Um, I'd love to So, so the
Speaker 1: bitcoin spit. Everything that's possible in other protocols is possible
Speaker 1: on bitcoin, but also more. And the reason why there's
Speaker 1: this also more addendum is because bitcoin is decentralized, which
Speaker 1: means that things that are built on top of it
Speaker 1: can also be decentralized. You know, while we can call
Speaker 1: what's happening on ethereum defied decentralized finance, that sentence should
Speaker 1: end with the question mark. Because if the base layer
Speaker 1: itself is not decentralized, I'm not sure that anything built
Speaker 1: on top of it can be. And so that's the
Speaker 1: opportunity for bitcoin and we're seeing that emerge UM and
Speaker 1: applications be live that represent that opportunity today. So an
Speaker 1: example including with protocols built on top of bitcoins to
Speaker 1: an example of that would be Lightning network. And examples
Speaker 1: of products being built on Lightning Network are products, financial
Speaker 1: chat products, for instance, like a sphinx chat, and what
Speaker 1: sphinx Chat is is sort of a level three technology
Speaker 1: that a layer three technology excuse me, that takes advantage
Speaker 1: of the infrastructure of Lightning network to create this Bitcoin
Speaker 1: native financial chat opportunity in which both messages and sets
Speaker 1: the coin sets are sent through Lightning nodes. In this
Speaker 1: sort of distributed network, you can also make and receive
Speaker 1: calls in the same way. And one of the things
Speaker 1: that we've seen be built on this layer three is
Speaker 1: communities around content creators and example first example of that
Speaker 1: are these podcast communities, and so we will see podcaster
Speaker 1: gather their audience on the sphinx chat, create streaming podcasts
Speaker 1: that are paid in UM, streaming stats stats back from
Speaker 1: the audience members, and these sort of affinity groups emerged
Speaker 1: to take advantage of the opportunities that are unique to
Speaker 1: the decentralized network of Lightning network and Bitcoin. That would
Speaker 1: be a sort of competitor to something like a whee chat,
Speaker 1: where the opportunities are different than the dynamics of participation
Speaker 1: are different. It's not permissionless, it can be permission list
Speaker 1: and Bitcoin. And so we see folks like sphinx Chat
Speaker 1: taking advantage of that. Now, to talk about some of
Speaker 1: the development in the side chain space, we maybe I'll
Speaker 1: start with STACKS, which is a side chain, a layer
Speaker 1: one side chain they define it as in the Bitcoin
Speaker 1: space that has fully functional smart contracts live. As of
Speaker 1: January of this year, we're seeing contracts of up to
Speaker 1: a billion dollars in act or get commitments be present
Speaker 1: in that environment. Recently it was announced that there's an
Speaker 1: accelerator built to fund companies that are that are building
Speaker 1: in the STACKS ecosystem. You know, I think that my
Speaker 1: expectation is that we will see projects like a unit
Speaker 1: swap like project be built in a STACKS environment. Joe
Speaker 1: mentioned that I sit on the board of directors at Blockstream.
Speaker 1: Blockstream also has a side chain called Liquid Network, and
Speaker 1: we're seeing similar sorts of activity there as well. The
Speaker 1: opportunity of side chains, of course, is that you can
Speaker 1: leverage the security of the Bitcoin network while also introducing
Speaker 1: novel functionality, either ahead of its introduction on the Bitcoin
Speaker 1: network or in lieu of it being present on Bitcoin.
Speaker 1: And Liquid does that so. As an example, Liquid has
Speaker 1: smart contracting capability through something called covenants, which just means
Speaker 1: that you can essentially program the coin. So Bitcoin is
Speaker 1: programmable money. It is that at the base layer. That's
Speaker 1: you know, one of the areas of popular flood that
Speaker 1: I've seen from this bowl market is you know, saying
Speaker 1: that Bitcoin doesn't allow for smart contracting. Of course that's
Speaker 1: not true Bitcoin smart contracting has always existed at the
Speaker 1: core protocol level, but the sort of smart contracts that
Speaker 1: you can do on liquid as well as other side chains,
Speaker 1: take it a step further, and Bitcoin has that with covenants.
Speaker 1: Now there are projects building on liquid that will replicate
Speaker 1: a unit swap like experience. I'll mentioned one specifically that
Speaker 1: has recently sort of made their R and D work public,
Speaker 1: and that's a company called bit Matrix. And what the
Speaker 1: Matrix is do is doing is creating an m M
Speaker 1: and automated market maker on top of liquid, where your transactions,
Speaker 1: of course are private, and where you can actually trade
Speaker 1: in a gasless sort of state. What that means is
Speaker 1: that it's a contrast to to the ethereum trading spaces
Speaker 1: where you have to buy either in order to be
Speaker 1: able to execute a trade. That's different in a matrix
Speaker 1: environment on liquid, where you don't need to own the
Speaker 1: underlying asset in order to execute a trade, because that
Speaker 1: sort of settlement happens as part of the trading contract
Speaker 1: contract and bit matrix. So this gets back to another
Speaker 1: question when I enter when we started did the introduction,
Speaker 1: I mean, first there was this question of like, okay,
Speaker 1: building on bitcoin, and there's this perception that is not
Speaker 1: as easy, but as you point out side chains such
Speaker 1: as a liquid or stax um, they do exist. The
Speaker 1: other question I have is like do bitcoiners actually actually
Speaker 1: want this stuff? And you know, I remember like the
Speaker 1: sort of like the block size fight in Seen, and
Speaker 1: the question is like, should be the bitcoin base layer
Speaker 1: be expanded so that it's cheap enough and fast enough
Speaker 1: to buy a coffee with? And then lightning camera came
Speaker 1: so that you don't didn't have to expand the base layer.
Speaker 1: But it's not obvious to me that bitcoiners actually want
Speaker 1: to buy coffee. So even though maybe a theory that
Speaker 1: you could, you know, I don't think like lightning is
Speaker 1: like that. It's not that big, it's not ubiquitous. So
Speaker 1: you know, it's been a few years around how much
Speaker 1: does the bitcoin community care about something resembling unit slop
Speaker 1: or care about having n f T s on the
Speaker 1: side chains versus how much is it is it just
Speaker 1: to prove that it can theoretically be done. Well, bitcoiners
Speaker 1: are not a monolith, right, and so it doesn't I'm
Speaker 1: not sure, you know, I'm not sure frankly, that I
Speaker 1: care what bitcoin or that we should care about what bitcoiners,
Speaker 1: which I imagine you're mostly referring to folks that are
Speaker 1: active on social media. I'm not sure that it matters
Speaker 1: whats want um. The importance of bitcoins to bitcoin is
Speaker 1: that they are It's a stakeholder group in a multi
Speaker 1: stakeholder ecosystem, so you have folks that use the tech,
Speaker 1: and that's where being present on social media matters. Having
Speaker 1: a voice and representing a community during a contentious dialogue
Speaker 1: or ahead of a proposed change to bitcoin cops, that's important.
Speaker 1: Other stakeholder groups, of course are miners and then developers,
Speaker 1: and everyone has, you know, an equally weighted voice. That
Speaker 1: was actually Satoshi's. I consider Setosia's most important innovation was
Speaker 1: was the discovery of a way to inline stakeholder incentives
Speaker 1: through the introduction of bitcoin. What's more important is making
Speaker 1: sure that we take advantage of what bitcoin can do
Speaker 1: as a technology. Now that bitcoin as a currency has
Speaker 1: been established as a store of value and allowing its
Speaker 1: full sort of opportunity to be real realized, so that
Speaker 1: it's not you know, it's not the tens of millions
Speaker 1: of users that use bitcoin today that are defining what
Speaker 1: bitcoin is. But it's much broader than that. And that's
Speaker 1: why my job is exciting, because I get to meet
Speaker 1: with founders that are really thinking through what bitcoin means
Speaker 1: for other communities. And you know, I think that best
Speaker 1: example of that is what's happened in All Salvador, where
Speaker 1: Joe people do use bitcoin and Lightning Network to buy coffee.
Speaker 1: They use it to receive payments for coffee. So I
Speaker 1: I push back on the assumption that bitcoin is not
Speaker 1: being used for payments. It absolutely is. You know, I
Speaker 1: use sets every day in my messaging at because I
Speaker 1: use Sphinx Chat, and I think many people do that.
Speaker 1: But remember that the activity on Lightning Network is not
Speaker 1: all public, so we can't to measure actually what's happening
Speaker 1: on Lightning Network is you know, not possible, and to
Speaker 1: guess at it is difficult because we're not sort of
Speaker 1: probably poritizing our ability to report accurate metrics we're prioritizing
Speaker 1: the value that the system has to offer, and the
Speaker 1: ability to transact privately is you know, something that the system,
Speaker 1: the network, Lightning network can provide, and and so for
Speaker 1: that reason, it's hard to measure the activity happen now
Speaker 1: in Lightning network. However, that said, in the communities that
Speaker 1: have received the most attention in the past couple of
Speaker 1: months for it, like I mentioned before Bitcoin Beach, we
Speaker 1: see that Lightning Network is a critical infrastructure to people's
Speaker 1: everyday lives. I think it starts in All Salvador, and
Speaker 1: we've already seen countries signal that they want to be
Speaker 1: second mover here. I came into the space in in
Speaker 1: really because I saw a bitcoin as um fintech for
Speaker 1: the unbanked or underbanked, and so my hypothesis then was
Speaker 1: that we would see adoption in emerging markets before we
Speaker 1: saw you know, significant penetration and developed markets, and so
Speaker 1: you know, I saw, I suppose that I expected to
Speaker 1: see countries like El Salvador adopt bitcoin. And I'm happy
Speaker 1: that there's companies like Gloy or Strike that have made
Speaker 1: sure to think about how what they've built is relevant
Speaker 1: to people that are you know, outsiders basically to the
Speaker 1: traditional financial system. So I don't know if this is
Speaker 1: a question that's actually possible to answer. But one thing
Speaker 1: I was wondering is we've spoken about the perception that
Speaker 1: it is difficult to affect change on bitcoin um protocol,
Speaker 1: and secondly, we've also mentioned that despite this perception, there
Speaker 1: happen changes in the past. So I'm wondering, could you
Speaker 1: maybe walk us through, like, exactly how does change happen
Speaker 1: when it comes to bitcoin, Like how do you build
Speaker 1: consensus since the aligning of an sentives is one of
Speaker 1: the big underlying I guess the fundamental things that bitcoin does,
Speaker 1: Like how does that process actually work in practice? Could
Speaker 1: you maybe walk us through it? That's important, So thank
Speaker 1: you for reminding me to circle back to that. You know,
Speaker 1: So one of the defining features of bitcoin is how
Speaker 1: changes are introduced and the fact that it's not there's
Speaker 1: no sort of leader that can suggest a change that's
Speaker 1: as executed without community consent. And so what that does
Speaker 1: is it creates a system that is truly opt in
Speaker 1: versus something that is um, you know, in any way coercive.
Speaker 1: So when bitcoin is introducing changes like a tap root,
Speaker 1: that happens through something called soft fork, And really all
Speaker 1: that that means is that you don't need to adopt
Speaker 1: tap root to continue to hold your bitcoin or to
Speaker 1: continue to use Bitcoin the network, so you could be
Speaker 1: and I think that lowers the barriers to entry for
Speaker 1: who can participate, right because you don't need to be
Speaker 1: continually paying attention to Bitcoin, what's happening with bitcoin developers
Speaker 1: or any of the sort of rigorous debate that occurs
Speaker 1: in these ecosystems. You can unplug from all of that
Speaker 1: and know that you can step away from bitcoin for five, six,
Speaker 1: seven years and when you come back, you're going to
Speaker 1: find your bitcoin. They're presuming that you've secured it properly
Speaker 1: and that bitcoin the promises the bitcoin made when you
Speaker 1: came into the system have been maintained. And so what
Speaker 1: are those promises. It's things like that bitcoin is decentralized Bitcoin,
Speaker 1: how there's twenty one million bitcoin, the ledger is public
Speaker 1: and changes transactions. New transactions are committed to the ledger
Speaker 1: through secure mining known as proof of work. Um, that's
Speaker 1: sort of you know, definitely sal to bitcoin, and that's
Speaker 1: what makes bitcoin the cryptocurrency as sound money. The fact
Speaker 1: that those promises are there. It's not what the promises are.
Speaker 1: If the toshi had said it's, you know, ten million
Speaker 1: bitcoin versus twenty one million, it's not the number, it's
Speaker 1: the fact that it's set and fixed and folks can
Speaker 1: count on that. So you don't need to be actively engaged. Now.
Speaker 1: In other spaces, for instance, ethereum, the way that changes
Speaker 1: are introduced is through a hard work, and the community
Speaker 1: has been the culture of that has been that the
Speaker 1: leaders of the community will say, this is a change
Speaker 1: that we're introducing it. It's happening in you know, in
Speaker 1: a few months, it's happening in six months. It will
Speaker 1: be happening through a hard work, And so folks need
Speaker 1: to adapt to a new software, and if they don't adapt,
Speaker 1: they're sort of exibit from the network because a hard
Speaker 1: work is not compatible with its prior software. These are
Speaker 1: two completely different pair times, and I hope that the
Speaker 1: explanation of that sort of presented. Uh, you know why
Speaker 1: the barrier to entry and to participation in bitcoin is
Speaker 1: is much lower. It's just it's, you know, I think
Speaker 1: it's just fundamentally different, to the extent that I would
Speaker 1: almost consider bitcoin to be a different class of asset
Speaker 1: than all coins are. So I want to actually ask
Speaker 1: you about a controversy in the question of bitcoin development,
Speaker 1: and there is a view that you're on the board
Speaker 1: of Blockstream. There's all these criticisms even among bitcoin as
Speaker 1: a block stream, that it exerts an extraordinary amount of
Speaker 1: influence on bitcoin core development, that there are all their
Speaker 1: other ideas such as drive chains, which is a different
Speaker 1: idea for scaling bitcoin, that don't get momentum because people
Speaker 1: who work at Blockstream aren't into it. Blockstream has its
Speaker 1: own side chain company as you already met, or project
Speaker 1: as you already mentioned, called liquid. What do you say
Speaker 1: to that criticism that there are other sort of visions
Speaker 1: and that the that the over influence of Blockstream within
Speaker 1: the bitcoin developer funding a lot of the developers has
Speaker 1: sort of cut off avenues of potential development in favor
Speaker 1: of the blockstream business model. Well, I think that that's
Speaker 1: another fun meme. Right, So that argument of Blockstream having
Speaker 1: more influence in this space than other companies that are
Speaker 1: operating in bitcoin was introduced by the leader of another
Speaker 1: protocol of the b cash protocol. I believe, and you know,
Speaker 1: I suppose that it can be sticky, but the fact
Speaker 1: that I'm encouraged by folks critically reviewing the work of
Speaker 1: anyone in the bitcoin space. I actually think that while
Speaker 1: at times that can be frustrating, including when critiques feel unfounded,
Speaker 1: like in this case, you know, I think that it's
Speaker 1: one of Bitcoin's greatest strengths. So when you're in a
Speaker 1: conversation about development happening in the bitcoin space, whether that
Speaker 1: be in an open source protocol or in a private company,
Speaker 1: the conversation is rigorous, and people are expected to be
Speaker 1: able to defend their positions, their tech, the tradeoffs they've
Speaker 1: made in the tech. There's always an ask that you
Speaker 1: acknowledge both opportunities and sort of the risk that are
Speaker 1: inherent in what you're doing and how the core value
Speaker 1: of decentralization is impacted. And so if folks are to
Speaker 1: criticize block stream on UM, you know, having more influence
Speaker 1: in the space than they should, you know, I don't
Speaker 1: UM Well, two things I think we should acknowledge when
Speaker 1: that's coming from outside the space as a way to
Speaker 1: attack Bitcoin, and when it's coming from inside the space
Speaker 1: as a sincere critique. I think that it's an important
Speaker 1: UM conversation to engage in. But what I've seen historically
Speaker 1: is that what people have meant, what the be Casher's
Speaker 1: meant when they said that blockstream had undue influence, they
Speaker 1: were tying that to its influence on core development. And
Speaker 1: if you look at the number of core developers in bitcoin,
Speaker 1: you know, it's kind of that critique is sort of
Speaker 1: laughable because bitcoen small minority of those are folks employed
Speaker 1: by Blockstream versus folks employed elsewhere, or you know, folks
Speaker 1: said even are anonymous, that we're studnonymous, that we aren't
Speaker 1: sure who they are. So I just want to like
Speaker 1: sort of go back to like the big picture, and
Speaker 1: that is, you know, we started this, like the premises,
Speaker 1: like people for what you know, we could abate the sides.
Speaker 1: We can debate the sustainability people are. There are a
Speaker 1: lot of people who like this sort of like defy stuff,
Speaker 1: whether it's swapping like a unit swap, whether it's collateralized
Speaker 1: lending of tokens, dows um perhaps as part of it
Speaker 1: there it obviously has called a lot of people's attention,
Speaker 1: and it's captured imagination definitely among a lot of people
Speaker 1: on Wall Street, Like is in your view the vision
Speaker 1: to replicate that that all of that will be built
Speaker 1: or can be built on Bitcoin, or is like, is
Speaker 1: the vision of defy on bitcoin fundamentally something different? Well,
Speaker 1: the answer is um, the Bolt propositions are true. So
Speaker 1: all of that is being defy the way that you
Speaker 1: know excites Wall Street. The sort of open nature of
Speaker 1: being able to trade that's being built on in bitcoin
Speaker 1: environments now across multiple side chain products. And my example
Speaker 1: that earlier as bit Matrix, which will be introducing essentially
Speaker 1: a unit swap like product on Liquid, and just to
Speaker 1: take a quick pause to mention other side chains that
Speaker 1: will see similar activity. We have not just Liquid, but
Speaker 1: we have r s K, which is an e v
Speaker 1: M compatible side chain. All of that, all that means
Speaker 1: is that the same dynamic of smart contracts that are
Speaker 1: possible in Ethereum are also possible in r s K
Speaker 1: with Sovereign, for example, is built on r s K,
Speaker 1: which has you know, also has automated market maker products
Speaker 1: you can borrow, you can lend to earn yield. There's
Speaker 1: liquidity mining on Sovereign. I mentioned stacks earlier. There's also
Speaker 1: a side chain called gnomic which is a proof of
Speaker 1: steak Bitcoin side chain. So that's I believe it's the
Speaker 1: only proof of steak bitcoin side chain, and this team
Speaker 1: is arguing that by matching proof of steak and it's
Speaker 1: trade offs to Bitcoin's proof of work, you can get
Speaker 1: this nice compliment that is advantageous for a variety of apps.
Speaker 1: We have our g B and there's just there's a
Speaker 1: whole list of side chains that are developing and stoe
Speaker 1: Mark I plan to invest in activity happening across uh
Speaker 1: you know, probably multiple side chains, not just Liquid. But
Speaker 1: then I want to respond to the last part of
Speaker 1: your question where you asked about how we think about
Speaker 1: defy and the bitcoin space, and I think it's it's
Speaker 1: really much much broader than than defy for training. So
Speaker 1: the bitcoin is defy, and bitcoin is defy regardless of
Speaker 1: how you're accessing bitcoin, but it's specifically defy if you've
Speaker 1: taken control of your own bitcoin. And so that means
Speaker 1: if you're self customing your bitcoin by holding a ledger
Speaker 1: or by using a software provider secure software provider like
Speaker 1: a CAUSA, then you're participating in bitcoin defy. By the way,
Speaker 1: CAUSA helps secure billions of dollars of bitcoin through their
Speaker 1: multi sig software and essentially it's almost like it's almost
Speaker 1: like a banking app on your phone, but it's a
Speaker 1: banking app where you're in charge of your funds versus
Speaker 1: the bank. That's Bitcoin defy. We also see bitcoin defy
Speaker 1: on lightning. Maybe if I could just run you through
Speaker 1: a couple of quick ways that bitcoin defy exists on lightning.
Speaker 1: I want to note that there's multiplex smart contracts on lightning.
Speaker 1: So what does that mean. We see automated rev share
Speaker 1: contracts on lightning, so where you can sort of split
Speaker 1: payments between various recipients and that's part of your the
Speaker 1: transactions M contract execution. We see screw contracts. There will
Speaker 1: be something called DLCs that are available on lightning, and
Speaker 1: really what what that can do or things that can
Speaker 1: introduce things like to centralize options trading. But it can
Speaker 1: do even more than that. And one of the things
Speaker 1: that I think, um it's possible through DeFi on lightning
Speaker 1: that is most you know that piques my curiosity most
Speaker 1: is the opportunity for things like stable balance channels, and
Speaker 1: so what that means is that you could have a
Speaker 1: payments channel, a lightning channel that was denominated in your
Speaker 1: regional fiats. So for instance, in us D UM, without
Speaker 1: ever having to hold us D or to hold you know,
Speaker 1: a cryptocurrency that was meant to represent us D instead,
Speaker 1: you could just um, you could just denominate the channel
Speaker 1: in us D through a smart contract that was fully
Speaker 1: collateralized by bit coin. You know. So those are the
Speaker 1: sorts of things that when introduced, you can there's two things. One,
Speaker 1: you can understand how that could be relevant to a
Speaker 1: breadth of people, not just in wealthy countries like the US,
Speaker 1: but in emerging markets as well, not just for trading,
Speaker 1: but for things like remittance, for cross border payments, etcetera, etcetera.
Speaker 1: So there's defy as really broad on bitcoin. It starts
Speaker 1: with just holding self customing your own bitcoin, and it
Speaker 1: goes from there. So we see it at core protocol level,
Speaker 1: um when your mom or dad is holding bitcoin on
Speaker 1: their ledger. We see it on lightning, and we see
Speaker 1: it on side chains. And so you know, my experience
Speaker 1: of of one has really been you know, one of
Speaker 1: sort of profound respect for the entrepreneurs building in the space,
Speaker 1: because in bitcoin, when you're building, you're normally doing it
Speaker 1: without fanfare, and you're doing it without seeking you know,
Speaker 1: this really sort of like hit and run type of exit, right,
Speaker 1: And so this isn't you know, there's no sort of
Speaker 1: pump and dump dynamics here. It's really founders that are building,
Speaker 1: hoping to build valuable companies. But in order to get there,
Speaker 1: they need to create valuable products that are of value
Speaker 1: and sustained value for a broad group, you know, not
Speaker 1: something that accrues value for just for the length of
Speaker 1: a bowl market. That's not enough for bitcoin founders. And
Speaker 1: I think that's why you see really exceptional folks building
Speaker 1: in the bitcoin space. And on that final note, a
Speaker 1: couple of times in our conversation you've referenced I think
Speaker 1: that it's harder to build in bitcoin. I want to
Speaker 1: acknowledge that that piece is that's actually true. So that's
Speaker 1: one of the memes that you see a shot over
Speaker 1: a Bitcoin from other sorts of environments, is that there's
Speaker 1: more developers in protocol X or Y versus Bitcoin. But
Speaker 1: actually there's a sort of missing detail from that that's important,
Speaker 1: which is that it's you know, it is harder to
Speaker 1: build in bitcoin. The language required to build in bitcoin
Speaker 1: is something that's um, you know, kind of like more
Speaker 1: exclusive in terms of the skill set required. And so
Speaker 1: while you can be a JavaScript developer and build a
Speaker 1: smart contract in the ethereum space, that's not true in
Speaker 1: the bitcoin space. And I think we're working towards that,
Speaker 1: towards sort of lowering the bary barrier to entry for development,
Speaker 1: but we're not there yet. So what you're seeing is
Speaker 1: not that there's eighty percent of all developers building and
Speaker 1: cryptocurrencies present in bitcoin, but you're seeing that maybe of
Speaker 1: the top decile of developers building in the cryptocurrency ecosystem,
Speaker 1: they're building on Bitcoin. I have one more question just
Speaker 1: based on all of that, But like, we're talking a
Speaker 1: lot about perceptions, and you made the assertion that you know,
Speaker 1: defy as bitcoin, and yet that doesn't necessarily seem to
Speaker 1: be the popular narrative that's out there. Is Bitcoin losing
Speaker 1: the marketing war on this or is there something that
Speaker 1: Bitcoin should be doing differently in order to counter a
Speaker 1: lot of these perceptions or attitudes. Well, there's something we
Speaker 1: could probably do differently that might be you know, helpful
Speaker 1: in catalyzing media interest, which is that you know, bitcoiners
Speaker 1: are folks that like to under promise and over deliver,
Speaker 1: So folks folks that are building, whether it be at
Speaker 1: the protocol level or at the app level or or infrastructure,
Speaker 1: are wanting to talk a lot about what they've done
Speaker 1: and less about what they think is possible to do.
Speaker 1: And I think in other sorts of spaces, you see,
Speaker 1: you know, less of that restraint, and so it's you know,
Speaker 1: it's fun to hear about what can happen in two,
Speaker 1: three or four or five years. And if we spent
Speaker 1: more time talking about that in the bitcoin space, I
Speaker 1: imagine that that would probably be a benefit in terms
Speaker 1: of accruing you know, like sort of social media or
Speaker 1: media attention. And I wouldn't mind seeing that myself. I
Speaker 1: hope that we did a little bit of that today.
Speaker 1: I think it's exciting. You know, that's the space that
Speaker 1: day I live in right and working is thinking about
Speaker 1: how what's introduced in these open source protocols, and how
Speaker 1: that's relevant for the business of bitcoin, how that's relevant
Speaker 1: for entrepreneurs building in the space, and what that means
Speaker 1: our next sort of like five to ten years will
Speaker 1: look like. And you know, I'd love to hear sort
Speaker 1: of more of that at least. Thank you so much
Speaker 1: for coming on the odd locks that was great. Thanks
Speaker 1: for having me. Thanks at Laz. Yeah, that was really appreciate.
Speaker 1: Its great to finally have you. Likewise, it was it
Speaker 1: was great, thanks guys. So Tracy, that was a really
Speaker 1: interesting conversation. I was thinking back to something, you know,
Speaker 1: like when we were talking the other day with Tom Schmidt,
Speaker 1: a defy on ethereum and like the sort of like
Speaker 1: the eye popping ap wise that they get you get
Speaker 1: for like yield farming, and it's like get these extra
Speaker 1: tokens and stuff like that, and you know, it does
Speaker 1: feel like and at least I think really said it
Speaker 1: in the last answer to you specifically, but it really
Speaker 1: does feel like there isn't some level even if technologically
Speaker 1: some of these things can be replicated, it feels like
Speaker 1: there is like a very different cultural attitude towards a
Speaker 1: lot of this stuff, like this sort of like slower longer.
Speaker 1: Even in her case she's talking very specifically about like
Speaker 1: you know, not investing for tokens or anything like that,
Speaker 1: but like equity and companies, like it definitely feels like philosophically,
Speaker 1: it's still even even in this sort of like pure
Speaker 1: like defy replication, like a very different mentality I would
Speaker 1: totally agree with that. And again this is something I
Speaker 1: mentioned at the top of the conversation, but you definitely
Speaker 1: see a lot more banker and trader and finance industry
Speaker 1: types gravitating towards defy in its current form, and not
Speaker 1: necessarily Bitcoin, which still has this overhang of you know,
Speaker 1: changing the world, challenging the existing financial system and stuff
Speaker 1: like that, which might not necessarily appeal to that base.
Speaker 1: So I totally agree with that, although I will say,
Speaker 1: like I have a hard time keeping up with the
Speaker 1: bitcoin narratives because they do seem to change quite often,
Speaker 1: and clearly bitcoin means different things to different people. But
Speaker 1: I would broadly agree that there is a split there. Yeah,
Speaker 1: I mean I think like that, like, as she pointed out,
Speaker 1: like these other like chains that are sort of like
Speaker 1: built off of like bitcoin security, they exist already, so
Speaker 1: like there're on some level, like you know, if there
Speaker 1: was if there was a lot of excitement or sort
Speaker 1: of like interest and like these like eye popping yields
Speaker 1: and stuff like that, and if you mentioned there's like
Speaker 1: more of this like being built, like she mentioned that,
Speaker 1: think bit Matrix, which is getting launched, like the units
Speaker 1: wi pon. We'll see how much action there is. Like,
Speaker 1: I'm not convinced still that a lot of the people
Speaker 1: who are like into bitcoin are into doing more than
Speaker 1: holding it, although she said, like, you know, in different contexts,
Speaker 1: maybe different countries, etcetera, maybe some of the maybe some
Speaker 1: of the dynamics will prove to be different. Yeah, And
Speaker 1: I'm still very, very interested in that sort of consensus
Speaker 1: building aspect of it and whether or not you can
Speaker 1: align incentives in such a way as to, I guess
Speaker 1: achieve different outcomes in different things. Because it gets back
Speaker 1: to that split, right, Like, it doesn't feel like no,
Speaker 1: I mean, there really does seem to be this trade off,
Speaker 1: and she was obviously at least was you know, like
Speaker 1: it seems like okay, So like Ethereum, it has like
Speaker 1: a live, existing founder who is an extraordinary I don't
Speaker 1: think like the tolic is the dictator, but obviously his
Speaker 1: extraordinary sway. But so on the one hand, perhaps development
Speaker 1: is faster on a network in which one person has
Speaker 1: a lot of vision. But on the other hand, you know,
Speaker 1: she would point out, you are you are paying the
Speaker 1: price of decentralization by having to trust Vitellic, by having
Speaker 1: to trust his judgment and obviously bitcoiners plays decentralization and
Speaker 1: store of value properties like clearly above everything else. Right,
Speaker 1: But then, of course the flip side is it does
Speaker 1: become more difficult to build that vision and agree on it.
Speaker 1: I think, like I think of anything like over the
Speaker 1: past five years or so, we've sort of like come
Speaker 1: to appreciate centralized systems, and maybe that's going too far. Okay,
Speaker 1: can we leave it there. Let's leave it there, all right.
Speaker 1: This has been another episode of the All Thoughts podcast.
Speaker 1: I'm Tracy Alloway. You can follow me on Twitter at
Speaker 1: Tracy Alloway, and I'm Joe Wisn't Though. You can follow
Speaker 1: me on Twitter at the Stalwart, And you should follow
Speaker 1: our guests on Twitter. Elease Colleen. She is at a
Speaker 1: Lease Kaleen. Follow our producer Laura Carlson. She's at Laura M. Carlson.
Speaker 1: Follow the Bloomberg head of podcast Francesca Levi at Francisca Today,
Speaker 1: and check out all of our podcasts at Bloomberg under
Speaker 1: the handle at podcasts. Thanks for listening.