WEBVTT - Pushing Bitcoin Adoption 0:00:04.600 --> 0:00:07.680 So the big question is this, how do investors like 0:00:07.880 --> 0:00:11.800 us get access to the ideas, information, and most importantly, 0:00:12.039 --> 0:00:14.880 the right people that give us the tools and information 0:00:14.960 --> 0:00:19.000 we need to make informed and educated decisions to have success. 0:00:19.600 --> 0:00:22.319 That is the question, and this podcast will give us 0:00:22.360 --> 0:00:25.480 the answers. This is Mark Moss, your host. Let's get 0:00:25.520 --> 0:00:29.760 this started. Hello, and welcome to the Market Disruptors Podcast. 0:00:29.840 --> 0:00:33.000 Today i am joined by Alex Aidelman, the co founder 0:00:33.120 --> 0:00:36.960 and CEO of Lolli. They are pushing bitcoin adoption and 0:00:37.000 --> 0:00:40.600 awareness by providing bitcoin as a cash back award. We 0:00:40.680 --> 0:00:44.400 talk about building companies in the bitcoin space. Is experienced 0:00:44.400 --> 0:00:47.680 building in other spaces, challenges that he's seen building in 0:00:47.680 --> 0:00:51.040 the bitcoin space, where we're at in the adoption cycle, 0:00:51.120 --> 0:00:53.080 since he's at the forefront of it, and so many 0:00:53.200 --> 0:00:55.680 other good topics. It was a great conversation and let's 0:00:55.680 --> 0:00:58.200 just go ahead and jump right into it. All right, everyone, 0:00:58.240 --> 0:01:01.720 Welcome back to another episode of the Market Disruptors podcast. Today, 0:01:01.720 --> 0:01:04.280 I'm joined by Alex Ailman. He's the CEO and co 0:01:04.400 --> 0:01:07.480 founder of Lolly and Lolly is a company that's really 0:01:07.480 --> 0:01:10.600 trying to push adoption, awareness and adoption in the bitcoin 0:01:10.640 --> 0:01:14.319 cryptocurrency space. And so someone that I'm really interested to 0:01:14.319 --> 0:01:17.640 talk to. So welcome Alex. Hey, thanks for having me. 0:01:18.000 --> 0:01:20.000 Yeah great. Um, I know we tried to line this 0:01:20.080 --> 0:01:22.479 up a couple of times. I'm glad we finally did. Uh. 0:01:22.560 --> 0:01:24.000 Like I said, I've been excited to talk to you. 0:01:24.040 --> 0:01:26.840 So for those that don't know, why don't you tell 0:01:26.920 --> 0:01:28.679 us a little bit about who you are, the products 0:01:28.720 --> 0:01:31.440 you worked on the past, how you got here, and 0:01:31.640 --> 0:01:34.880 and what you're doing. Yeah. So yeah, my name is 0:01:34.880 --> 0:01:37.319 Alex Um. I'm one of the co founders of lolly 0:01:37.600 --> 0:01:40.520 and also the CEO of Lolli and uh yeah, what 0:01:40.560 --> 0:01:42.800 we've created is a really simple way for people to 0:01:42.840 --> 0:01:45.559 earn bitcoin when they shop online as they normally would. 0:01:45.840 --> 0:01:49.360 So we have over nine merchants on the platform. People 0:01:49.400 --> 0:01:51.120 are these are These are companies that you shop at 0:01:51.160 --> 0:01:53.960 every day. There's Walmart, there's price Line, Booking, dot Com, 0:01:54.480 --> 0:01:58.040 safe Way, Grocery UM, places that people where you can 0:01:58.040 --> 0:02:00.840 go get your essentials. You get your groceries, you take 0:02:00.840 --> 0:02:05.160 your travel, um, buy your toilet paper, whatever you're looking for. 0:02:05.520 --> 0:02:07.880 And we make it really easy for everybody to earn 0:02:07.920 --> 0:02:10.000 bitcoin when you when you do it. So right now, 0:02:10.040 --> 0:02:13.639 it's a chrome Safari and Firefox extension, and it's sort 0:02:13.680 --> 0:02:15.800 of like follows you around and you go to different 0:02:15.840 --> 0:02:17.440 sites and it pops up and it says, hey, do 0:02:17.440 --> 0:02:20.400 you want to earn ten percent back in bitcoin? You 0:02:20.400 --> 0:02:22.680 can also go to lolly dot com and see our 0:02:22.800 --> 0:02:26.440 nine d plus merchants on the platform and UM earn 0:02:26.480 --> 0:02:28.600 more bitcoin when you do it. UM. So yeah, so 0:02:28.680 --> 0:02:32.440 we're we UM started this company after the whole team 0:02:32.440 --> 0:02:35.920 and I we built a previous company called Cosmic, and 0:02:36.280 --> 0:02:39.919 we sold into very similar space, UH, into into merchants, 0:02:40.000 --> 0:02:42.560 and we would go to merchants and we would UM 0:02:42.720 --> 0:02:44.760 sell the solution to them that let them sell their 0:02:44.760 --> 0:02:48.839 products anywhere. With this mission of democratizing commerce. UM. We 0:02:49.000 --> 0:02:51.440 ended up learning about bitcoin a couple of years into 0:02:51.440 --> 0:02:54.079 building the company and found it just to be this 0:02:54.200 --> 0:02:58.240 like fascinating technology. UM. The whole team was really drawn 0:02:58.280 --> 0:03:00.920 into this idea of giving everyone in the world the 0:03:00.960 --> 0:03:03.000 ability to have the same asset and be able to 0:03:03.040 --> 0:03:05.239 trade that asset and send it anywhere in the world 0:03:05.240 --> 0:03:09.440 a cross border, thus democratizing commerce native to a currency. 0:03:09.520 --> 0:03:11.919 So we all got really excited about it. It never 0:03:11.960 --> 0:03:14.480 made sense for us as like a payments mechanism with 0:03:14.520 --> 0:03:16.560 our last company, and we talked to merchants about it. 0:03:16.680 --> 0:03:18.440 They weren't really excited about it because it didn't really 0:03:18.480 --> 0:03:21.079 solve their real problems at that moment. So that was 0:03:21.120 --> 0:03:22.960 sort of where we started, like grew in this in 0:03:23.000 --> 0:03:25.640 this idea of how do you distribute bitcoin to more people? 0:03:26.840 --> 0:03:28.400 The next phase is, you know, we end up getting 0:03:28.440 --> 0:03:31.400 acquired by a company called pop Sugar to come into 0:03:31.400 --> 0:03:34.240 power one point two billion and retail revenue. A year 0:03:34.280 --> 0:03:37.360 after that, after we grew quite a bit post acquisition, 0:03:37.720 --> 0:03:40.840 a bigger company came along, Ebates, which is the largest 0:03:40.840 --> 0:03:43.600 cash back company in the US. They came along and 0:03:43.640 --> 0:03:47.480 bought us away from Pop Sugar in a divestiture. So 0:03:47.600 --> 0:03:49.200 we were there for about a year, got to learn 0:03:49.240 --> 0:03:52.920 the cashback model, and I was thinking while I was there, like, 0:03:53.000 --> 0:03:55.320 you know, pitch this to them. How incredible would it 0:03:55.320 --> 0:03:58.040 be to use the cash back model as a distribution 0:03:58.080 --> 0:04:02.240 mechanism for bitcoin to teach people about bitcoin and spread 0:04:02.240 --> 0:04:04.800 it to more people. And the central thesis of that 0:04:04.960 --> 0:04:08.360 is that most people are not investors, and even more 0:04:08.400 --> 0:04:11.400 than that, most people are not minors. So how are 0:04:11.400 --> 0:04:15.840 you going to get mass bitcoin adoption without attracting a 0:04:15.880 --> 0:04:18.719 whole new wave of consumers. So we said, let's take 0:04:18.760 --> 0:04:22.880 the consumer that shops online that knows rewards, that once rewards, 0:04:23.240 --> 0:04:26.040 and let's share a bitcoin with them and introduce them 0:04:26.080 --> 0:04:29.440 to bitcoin in this new way. Um. And so yeah, 0:04:29.440 --> 0:04:31.960 we we launched about eleven months ago and it's just 0:04:32.000 --> 0:04:35.480 been incredible. We're bringing new people into bitcoin. We're bringing 0:04:35.640 --> 0:04:39.560 I think importantly women into bitcoin. Um there's thirty of 0:04:39.600 --> 0:04:43.320 our users are female. And and so just shows sort 0:04:43.360 --> 0:04:47.599 of like early signs of increased adoption by new people 0:04:47.920 --> 0:04:51.479 that previously did not have bitcoin where we're not um 0:04:51.520 --> 0:04:55.760 in the space. Yeah, that's awesome. So I think everyone 0:04:55.839 --> 0:04:59.320 is aware of the system, I suppose, right. So we're 0:04:59.320 --> 0:05:02.200 earning like actually or rewards back, so whether that's airline 0:05:02.520 --> 0:05:05.640 miles or target reward points or whatever. And then there's 0:05:06.080 --> 0:05:09.640 the cash back. Right So now credit cards companies probably 0:05:09.680 --> 0:05:11.480 started it, but you know now they'll give you cash 0:05:11.520 --> 0:05:15.000 back instead. But rather than in earning a cash back 0:05:15.120 --> 0:05:19.880 or a rewards point, you're given bitcoin exactly right. So 0:05:19.920 --> 0:05:22.760 we're taking something that people are already familiar with. We're 0:05:22.760 --> 0:05:25.159 not having to convince them that rewards are good, free 0:05:25.200 --> 0:05:27.880 things are good. Um, But we're also assigning value and 0:05:27.920 --> 0:05:31.799 having people pay attention to it, not just around price 0:05:31.839 --> 0:05:35.640 and not just around investing, but around passive earning. And 0:05:35.720 --> 0:05:39.080 when they can go see that their points are deflating um, 0:05:39.160 --> 0:05:41.920 you know, and and there's this like um or the 0:05:42.080 --> 0:05:47.320 starry inflating. There's this inflationary nature to two points, whereas 0:05:47.360 --> 0:05:49.920 bitcoin is like there's only twenty one million of them. 0:05:50.000 --> 0:05:53.599 You're getting real bitcoin, and that is going up in 0:05:53.680 --> 0:05:57.719 value because there's scarcity UM and because more people believe 0:05:57.880 --> 0:06:00.440 in bitcoin and they're learning about the principles of bitcoin. 0:06:00.839 --> 0:06:03.560 Then like so far, like our users have seen bitcoin 0:06:03.640 --> 0:06:06.240 triple and and they haven't seen the reward triple, and 0:06:06.240 --> 0:06:08.520 they haven't seen their points triple. They've seen their points 0:06:08.560 --> 0:06:12.279 stay the same or deflate um in value. So I 0:06:12.279 --> 0:06:15.560 think it's really important. It's almost like a forcing function 0:06:15.640 --> 0:06:19.640 of teaching somebody about the importance of bitcoin indirectly, then 0:06:19.720 --> 0:06:22.200 they value it more and then they become more invested 0:06:22.240 --> 0:06:25.200 in it um and they're choosing us over cash back programs, 0:06:25.200 --> 0:06:28.680 which is a really great signal. Yeah, something is uh, 0:06:28.720 --> 0:06:31.080 something definitely switches in your brain when you start to 0:06:31.120 --> 0:06:35.200 realize how a deflationary currency works. And so Um, A 0:06:35.240 --> 0:06:37.080 lot of people do come for the money aspect to 0:06:37.120 --> 0:06:39.280 make money, but then, like you said, as you see 0:06:39.320 --> 0:06:41.279 it going up in value, you're like, Wow, what the 0:06:41.320 --> 0:06:42.919 heck is this? I need to learn more about it. 0:06:42.960 --> 0:06:45.720 And it's weird because it even changes the way that 0:06:45.760 --> 0:06:47.320 you want to spend money, the way you look at 0:06:47.360 --> 0:06:49.200 spending money, Like I look at spending dollars and I 0:06:49.240 --> 0:06:51.280 don't really think about it, but like, oh no, I'll 0:06:51.279 --> 0:06:57.760 never spend my bitcoin. So, um, that's interesting. Now. UM, 0:06:57.800 --> 0:07:01.280 if I guess your primary market right now though it's 0:07:01.320 --> 0:07:04.039 people that are already aware of bitcoin, is there like 0:07:04.080 --> 0:07:07.239 an option where people maybe at first want to earn 0:07:07.400 --> 0:07:10.000 cash back and then they have an option to choose bitcoin. 0:07:10.040 --> 0:07:13.280 Are you only do bitcoin? We only do bitcoin. That's 0:07:13.280 --> 0:07:15.360 our that's like what we're really focused. And there's plenty 0:07:15.360 --> 0:07:18.640 of cash back companies out there, and I don't think 0:07:18.640 --> 0:07:20.880 that there needs to be any more competition on that front. 0:07:21.240 --> 0:07:24.040 You technically can like you can exchange it for cash, 0:07:24.080 --> 0:07:27.320 like you can you you get Bitcoin is the default currency, 0:07:27.720 --> 0:07:29.800 and I think that's really important for our brand to 0:07:29.880 --> 0:07:32.920 be around bitcoin. Um, but you can get cash and 0:07:32.960 --> 0:07:35.040 you can do whatever. Your bitcoin is your bitcoin like 0:07:35.120 --> 0:07:37.480 you can do it whatever you want with it UM 0:07:37.600 --> 0:07:40.360 and so some you know, very few people have like 0:07:40.560 --> 0:07:44.120 cashed out when you know, when their bitcoin triple double whatever, 0:07:44.200 --> 0:07:46.840 you know, whatever point that they got into UM. But 0:07:47.120 --> 0:07:49.480 for the most part, people were turning people into holders, 0:07:49.800 --> 0:07:52.760 you know, hoddlers and and and that's been like our 0:07:52.800 --> 0:07:55.520 bread and butter. And do you offer a wallet or 0:07:55.560 --> 0:07:57.760 do you transfer to the wallet of the address of 0:07:57.760 --> 0:08:00.680 their choosing so loally is effective a wallet. It's a 0:08:00.680 --> 0:08:04.240 custodial wallet, and most people are keeping it within the wallet. 0:08:04.560 --> 0:08:06.800 There's certain like bitcoin maximalists that have earned you know, 0:08:06.880 --> 0:08:10.160 hundreds of dollars in bitcoin and are you know, feel 0:08:10.320 --> 0:08:12.840 safer you know, holding their own keys and so you 0:08:12.880 --> 0:08:15.240 can transfer it out and hold it your own it's 0:08:15.240 --> 0:08:18.200 really up to you. Um we it's sort of our 0:08:18.240 --> 0:08:21.760 mission to teach people the importance of self sovereignty and 0:08:21.840 --> 0:08:25.000 being their own bank and owning their keys. But there's 0:08:25.040 --> 0:08:27.440 a lot of people that want other people to manage 0:08:27.440 --> 0:08:29.560 that for them. And so, you know, we can't come 0:08:29.600 --> 0:08:32.200 from a payment's background. We come from uh you know, 0:08:32.240 --> 0:08:34.679 our last company was pc I Level one compliant. We 0:08:34.679 --> 0:08:38.440 were uh you know, we we had an extreme dedication, 0:08:38.559 --> 0:08:40.320 you know, partly because we had two in the security, 0:08:40.400 --> 0:08:42.640 privacy and all of that good stuff. So I think 0:08:42.640 --> 0:08:44.160 there a lot of people you know, are trusting us 0:08:44.160 --> 0:08:46.240 with you know that we're we're taking the same principles 0:08:46.240 --> 0:08:49.400 and protocols and applying them to the bitcoin space that 0:08:49.440 --> 0:08:52.600 we did uh in the payments world. Um. But you know, 0:08:52.679 --> 0:08:55.160 some people don't you know, trust anybody, and they want 0:08:55.200 --> 0:08:58.360 their own bitcoin, even with like fifteen dollars a bitcoin. 0:08:58.480 --> 0:09:01.199 So it's really up to the consumer. Their money should 0:09:01.200 --> 0:09:02.880 be you know, up to them. And that's the whole 0:09:02.920 --> 0:09:05.720 thing that we have to teach people, is like you 0:09:05.720 --> 0:09:07.400 should have control of your money and be able to 0:09:07.400 --> 0:09:10.839 do it with what you want, and you shouldn't um 0:09:10.880 --> 0:09:13.040 like if you you know, give a bank cash, like 0:09:13.120 --> 0:09:16.160 it's debatable if that's really your money. Um, the bank's 0:09:16.200 --> 0:09:18.520 doing all these things with it, they're lending. So we 0:09:18.600 --> 0:09:22.000 like to think about like the future banking system giving 0:09:22.040 --> 0:09:25.760 these like attraction layers of earning like lending um cash 0:09:25.800 --> 0:09:27.480 back these sort of things, and giving it back to 0:09:27.559 --> 0:09:31.559 the consumer. Uh. I think that like one of the 0:09:31.600 --> 0:09:34.320 most difficult things about bitcoin, which you can probably relate to, 0:09:34.880 --> 0:09:37.200 is a lot of people just don't understand what money is, 0:09:37.200 --> 0:09:40.040 and they don't understand how money works. Thus they're like, well, 0:09:40.080 --> 0:09:42.280 what what are the issues? Like my cash works, at 0:09:42.320 --> 0:09:45.199 my you know, at my whole foods, like my credit 0:09:45.240 --> 0:09:48.040 card works, but they don't understand the back in systems 0:09:48.080 --> 0:09:50.200 of like how it all works and why and where 0:09:50.200 --> 0:09:53.760 it breaks down. So bitcoin is like better money. It's 0:09:53.760 --> 0:09:58.280 more efficient. It's like it functions without needing any any 0:09:58.320 --> 0:10:01.600 trust in any centralized party is and no data breaches. 0:10:01.679 --> 0:10:04.600 It's just like this beautiful, incredible piece of code that 0:10:04.640 --> 0:10:08.360 we all can use, um, you know, hypothetically for this 0:10:08.440 --> 0:10:11.560 like new money. Yeah, it's crazy. Ye, you're absolutely right. 0:10:11.559 --> 0:10:14.480 People have no idea how the financial system works. And um, 0:10:14.600 --> 0:10:17.240 when I do a lot of uh, I do a 0:10:17.280 --> 0:10:19.040 lot of digging through history to kind of bring some 0:10:19.080 --> 0:10:21.520 of those lessons back. And it's interesting because when you 0:10:21.559 --> 0:10:23.400 look back all the way to like the founding of 0:10:23.440 --> 0:10:25.320 the United States, and you see some of the quotes 0:10:25.320 --> 0:10:28.840 from Thomas Jefferson, but Benjamin Franklin, but even Henry Ford 0:10:28.840 --> 0:10:31.440 in the early nineteen hundred said that, uh, you know, 0:10:31.480 --> 0:10:33.839 he said that if if the average, if if the 0:10:33.880 --> 0:10:37.000 Americans understood how the financial system worked there would be 0:10:37.000 --> 0:10:38.960 a revolution overnight, and like this is like in the 0:10:38.960 --> 0:10:42.440 early nineteen hundreds and they got it back then. Um, 0:10:42.600 --> 0:10:44.839 numerous quotes of you know how much danger will be 0:10:44.880 --> 0:10:48.319 in if the central banks take over and all these things. Um, 0:10:48.360 --> 0:10:50.920 but now you know over you know, the last eighty years, 0:10:51.000 --> 0:10:53.679 hundred years of education has been completely changed and now 0:10:53.760 --> 0:10:56.960 nobody is aware of it. But hopefully that changes. I'm 0:10:57.000 --> 0:11:00.760 curious because now you've built your you're a builder. You've 0:11:00.760 --> 0:11:03.640 built a couple of companies and and a couple of acquisitions. 0:11:03.640 --> 0:11:06.000 So you built it in like the payments based and 0:11:06.160 --> 0:11:09.080 in like the reward space, cash back space, and now 0:11:09.400 --> 0:11:15.240 bitcoin space. Um, how similar is it or how much 0:11:15.320 --> 0:11:18.320 different is it building in the bitcoin crypto space versus 0:11:18.360 --> 0:11:21.120 like a traditional like points back or cash back space. 0:11:21.880 --> 0:11:24.720 So yeah, it's a great question. Um. I mean building 0:11:24.720 --> 0:11:26.360 a company is build a company, and a second time 0:11:26.679 --> 0:11:31.520 it's just like it's so different like the second time around. UM. 0:11:31.600 --> 0:11:34.760 And I love to like share my like musings with 0:11:35.040 --> 0:11:38.360 they just building companies in general. Um. And so we're 0:11:38.640 --> 0:11:40.160 like one thing a lot of people don't know is 0:11:40.160 --> 0:11:42.120 like we're building with the same team as our last company. 0:11:42.200 --> 0:11:45.280 So we we had an incredible team. We like everyone 0:11:45.600 --> 0:11:47.920 got the band back together to start this. So having 0:11:47.960 --> 0:11:51.040 like the trust built into the this next company, we 0:11:51.160 --> 0:11:53.319 you know, we we built some pretty incredible technology with 0:11:53.360 --> 0:11:55.760 the last company. We love building together. We all trust 0:11:55.800 --> 0:11:58.040 each other, We work really well together. And so u 0:11:58.840 --> 0:12:01.600 of us built our our last company together. UM, and 0:12:01.640 --> 0:12:03.840 you know, I've taken a lot of like learnings from that. 0:12:03.920 --> 0:12:06.760 So our day to day is very similar to building 0:12:06.800 --> 0:12:09.679 any company. UM. You know, you're hiring people, you're you're 0:12:09.840 --> 0:12:13.120 you're doing that, everything very similar. The customers are a 0:12:13.120 --> 0:12:16.760 little bit different. I don't think that a lot of people, UM, 0:12:17.040 --> 0:12:19.640 because so our last company was mainly like an enterprise 0:12:19.679 --> 0:12:23.240 company that was like our our primary play. And building 0:12:23.240 --> 0:12:25.520 a consumer company, I think is very different. And building 0:12:25.520 --> 0:12:29.200 a consumer company in the bitcoin space is also very different. UM. 0:12:29.240 --> 0:12:32.200 I think that you have to be very very transparent. 0:12:32.240 --> 0:12:34.040 You have to be you have to tell people exactly 0:12:34.080 --> 0:12:36.320 what you're doing. You're you have to have you know, 0:12:36.440 --> 0:12:39.720 we have open source code and like we we we 0:12:39.960 --> 0:12:43.120 want people to UM, you know, make sure keep us 0:12:43.160 --> 0:12:44.959 honest about like the things that we're doing, the business 0:12:44.960 --> 0:12:47.440 practice that we're doing, which be very transparent with our community. 0:12:47.920 --> 0:12:51.160 Um that said, we get, we get, and we have 0:12:51.360 --> 0:12:54.520 this extremely engaged community. Like if you follow us on Twitter, 0:12:54.920 --> 0:12:57.720 you know, like like people who use Lolly are obsessed 0:12:57.760 --> 0:13:00.680 with it and they love sacking stacks, they love earning 0:13:00.679 --> 0:13:04.199 bitcoin and and so when we're building in this like transparent, 0:13:04.360 --> 0:13:07.040 like I think people love the story when they love 0:13:07.400 --> 0:13:09.960 to feel like they're building with us, and we because 0:13:10.000 --> 0:13:13.800 we build so open and we like leverage our community 0:13:13.840 --> 0:13:17.040 to go get new merchants, which increases the adoption of bitcoin. 0:13:17.520 --> 0:13:20.720 Like every like we're all working together, like they're stacking stats, 0:13:21.160 --> 0:13:23.880 we're you know, we're getting new merchants. Um. We do 0:13:23.960 --> 0:13:25.520 this game where we're like, oh, who do you want 0:13:25.559 --> 0:13:27.440 to see next, and like people are like, oh, I 0:13:27.480 --> 0:13:30.800 want safe Way, I want um, I want like hotels 0:13:30.840 --> 0:13:33.080 dot com, I want Booking dot com. And then we 0:13:33.120 --> 0:13:35.320 go show those two like Booking dot Com and we 0:13:35.360 --> 0:13:38.400 go get them on board because our community demanded it 0:13:38.640 --> 0:13:42.800 and they see this like this incredibly engaged community. So 0:13:42.960 --> 0:13:44.880 building in the bitcoin space, I think it's like really 0:13:45.000 --> 0:13:49.160 nice because with with with when we were at ebates, 0:13:49.400 --> 0:13:51.320 one of the things we learned is like the coupon 0:13:51.920 --> 0:13:55.440 clippers and sort of like this older generation that transition 0:13:55.480 --> 0:13:58.079 into ebates and was obsessed with cash back is like 0:13:58.120 --> 0:14:01.400 this rabid customer that like us getting their cash back. 0:14:01.840 --> 0:14:03.800 And I mean, who doesn't love getting like things for 0:14:03.840 --> 0:14:06.719 free and like getting castion. And so people who are 0:14:06.720 --> 0:14:09.400 like getting stats back and people who are getting bitcoin 0:14:09.520 --> 0:14:13.079 back are like so excited to like get involved. And 0:14:13.640 --> 0:14:16.360 every time we land a new merchant, it's like one step, 0:14:16.600 --> 0:14:19.440 you know, forward for the bitcoin community. Because we've been 0:14:19.520 --> 0:14:23.120 very transparent about our roadmap. It starts with rewards, and 0:14:23.120 --> 0:14:26.560 then over time, as we as bitcoin transitions from a 0:14:26.720 --> 0:14:29.400 store of value to a medium of exchange, we're at 0:14:29.440 --> 0:14:33.040 that point of transition with that, like vertex. And that's 0:14:33.040 --> 0:14:35.120 what gets so excited when we go drive fifty million 0:14:35.160 --> 0:14:37.200 dollars in sales for Walmart and I go to them 0:14:37.240 --> 0:14:39.800 and say, hey, you guys are spending five billion dollars 0:14:39.800 --> 0:14:41.880 in credit card fees. I don't even know how much 0:14:41.920 --> 0:14:44.760 you're spending in chargebacks. Why don't you use bitcoin? Why 0:14:44.760 --> 0:14:47.760 don't you use some sort of digitally native currency with 0:14:47.960 --> 0:14:53.800 immutability to solve your issue around UM fraud, to solve 0:14:53.800 --> 0:14:56.200 your issue around like credit card fees. And if we're 0:14:56.200 --> 0:14:58.600 at that point of purchase, and we have all these 0:14:58.600 --> 0:15:00.880 consumers that are like you saying, Wally is like the 0:15:01.040 --> 0:15:04.440 preferred rewards wallet. That gets really exciting. To save people 0:15:04.480 --> 0:15:07.960 even more money, to bring even more transparency to eat commerce, 0:15:08.000 --> 0:15:11.680 to purchasing, to commerce in general. Like, that's that's where 0:15:11.680 --> 0:15:14.400 it gets really exciting. So I personally love building in 0:15:14.440 --> 0:15:16.800 the bitcoin space. I think it's really exciting, and I 0:15:17.080 --> 0:15:19.520 just don't think there's like too many markets that have 0:15:20.600 --> 0:15:24.240 a consumer that is so passionate about the future and 0:15:24.480 --> 0:15:27.200 this like new world that we're all creating together. Well, 0:15:27.200 --> 0:15:29.040 it's a it's a it's a it's a good thing 0:15:29.080 --> 0:15:31.440 and a bad thing. I think the reason why the people, 0:15:31.600 --> 0:15:33.880 the consumers are so passionate is because we're in such 0:15:33.920 --> 0:15:36.840 an early stage, and so in the early stage, the 0:15:36.920 --> 0:15:40.560 early adopters are like the true believers, and so the 0:15:40.560 --> 0:15:42.960 true believers, the early adopters are going to be super 0:15:42.960 --> 0:15:45.080 passionate about it and are going to want to share it, 0:15:45.120 --> 0:15:47.120 which is why it's amazing to work with them. The 0:15:47.600 --> 0:15:50.000 con to that is that it's a small segment of 0:15:50.040 --> 0:15:53.120 the population. Uh so, um, you know, as that segment 0:15:53.120 --> 0:15:56.200 of the population grows, maybe some of that enthusiasm. Enthusiasm 0:15:56.280 --> 0:15:58.800 died down a little bit. But that's an interesting insight 0:15:58.840 --> 0:16:01.160 that you have and I can that. So people are 0:16:01.280 --> 0:16:05.160 used to getting rewards back. People like getting cash back better, 0:16:06.000 --> 0:16:09.280 but we have cash everywhere. This is this is bitcoin 0:16:09.360 --> 0:16:11.120 and so for the true believers, they really want that. 0:16:11.640 --> 0:16:14.400 I guess, uh, you know, So on the consumer side, 0:16:14.400 --> 0:16:18.080 I get that. I'm thinking more about like the new 0:16:18.200 --> 0:16:20.200 maybe like regulatory side that you have to deal with. So, 0:16:20.280 --> 0:16:23.280 for example, you're a wallet provider, so now you have 0:16:23.360 --> 0:16:26.040 like a bitcoin custody to deal with. I would imagine 0:16:26.080 --> 0:16:29.120 that's more challenging than just sending points back or cash 0:16:29.160 --> 0:16:32.880 back or is that not much different? Um? I mean 0:16:33.080 --> 0:16:36.200 it is. But it's like, you know, we work with 0:16:36.240 --> 0:16:39.160 some like, you know, incredible third parties that like like 0:16:39.320 --> 0:16:43.800 are you know, they have um like the regulatory licenses 0:16:43.800 --> 0:16:45.720 that we need, so we can off board a lot 0:16:45.760 --> 0:16:50.120 of the um the that side of the house to 0:16:50.280 --> 0:16:55.400 other parties that specialize in custodial solutions and we can 0:16:55.440 --> 0:16:57.360 really focus on the part of the business that we 0:16:57.400 --> 0:17:02.560 are uniquely great at. And it's it's it's just as uh, 0:17:02.720 --> 0:17:05.080 it's I mean, it's hard to build anything. But like 0:17:05.160 --> 0:17:06.960 I mean, building our last company was really hard and 0:17:07.040 --> 0:17:09.800 has our last company has so many challenges that we 0:17:09.840 --> 0:17:11.080 had to deal with that we don't have to deal 0:17:11.080 --> 0:17:13.920 with this company. So there's like given, you know, sort 0:17:13.920 --> 0:17:15.720 of a give and take in pros and cons to 0:17:16.119 --> 0:17:18.159 building any business. And I think, you know, I mean, 0:17:18.480 --> 0:17:20.800 I think a lot of people, including myself, are maybe 0:17:20.840 --> 0:17:24.679 concerned or at least aware of of It's. See, it 0:17:24.720 --> 0:17:27.640 seems to be very difficult to do crypto based businesses, 0:17:27.720 --> 0:17:31.080 bitcoin based businesses in the United States. Um we saw 0:17:31.240 --> 0:17:34.080 I think just this week even Goldman Sachs Company Circle 0:17:34.320 --> 0:17:36.919 announced they're moving most of Poloniacs offshore because they just 0:17:36.920 --> 0:17:40.320 can't deal with US regulations. UM. So we see this 0:17:40.440 --> 0:17:43.920 happening over and over and over. Um US people being 0:17:43.960 --> 0:17:47.600 blocked from participating in different different exchanges and things like 0:17:47.640 --> 0:17:49.720 that as well. So I was just curious if you 0:17:49.920 --> 0:17:52.560 experienced any roadblocks. But as far as you're concerned, you're saying, 0:17:52.600 --> 0:17:55.000 it's kind of about the same for what you're doing. Yeah, 0:17:55.040 --> 0:17:57.320 it's pretty much it's a lot of the same. And 0:17:57.320 --> 0:17:59.080 there I mean, like I guess it's you know, you 0:17:59.080 --> 0:18:00.800 only know what you don't know. Oh, and like when 0:18:00.840 --> 0:18:02.679 we started this business. There's so many things that we 0:18:02.760 --> 0:18:04.400 learned and we had to learn and we've gotten good 0:18:04.400 --> 0:18:06.439 at so and like also, you know, we've been in 0:18:06.440 --> 0:18:08.240 the bitcoin space for five years, so it's not like 0:18:08.280 --> 0:18:11.440 these are new things to us. We we know the regulations, 0:18:11.520 --> 0:18:13.679 we know how to like we've built in the space 0:18:13.760 --> 0:18:16.840 for a long time. Uh. And I actually think that payments, 0:18:17.119 --> 0:18:20.320 the payments space, which is what we're doing, previously had 0:18:20.359 --> 0:18:23.159 way more regulations and was way more I mean, like 0:18:23.160 --> 0:18:24.960 our claim to fame in the payments world, which you 0:18:24.960 --> 0:18:28.000 know doesn't get a lot of press or credit or whatever, 0:18:28.119 --> 0:18:30.399 is like we survived the Target breach. Um, you know 0:18:30.440 --> 0:18:32.919 five six years ago. Uh, Target had like the biggest 0:18:32.920 --> 0:18:35.440 breach of all time, and we had just landed them, 0:18:35.480 --> 0:18:37.720 and we had to survive all of these penetration tests 0:18:37.720 --> 0:18:40.879 as like this four person company, and and so that 0:18:41.000 --> 0:18:43.320 was like a really scared moment. But you you know, 0:18:43.359 --> 0:18:47.240 we've built an incredibly secure platform. What does that mean? 0:18:47.280 --> 0:18:52.160 You had to survive the penetration tests, so without disposing 0:18:52.160 --> 0:18:56.360 too much information from targets And basically like when Target 0:18:56.440 --> 0:18:59.000 got breached, when anyone gets breached, you they have to 0:18:59.040 --> 0:19:00.920 go test all of their vendors to make sure that 0:19:00.960 --> 0:19:04.359 everyone is compliant and and then they do advance like 0:19:04.440 --> 0:19:07.480 security screenings on all the different technologies, and like third 0:19:07.480 --> 0:19:11.199 parties come in UM to reevaluate which which parties they 0:19:11.200 --> 0:19:12.840 can keep, which parties they have to get rid of 0:19:13.359 --> 0:19:16.480 UM because they have revamped security to never have a 0:19:16.480 --> 0:19:19.800 breach again into like you know, really like lockdown. And 0:19:19.880 --> 0:19:23.040 as the smallest vendor by far that they had, we 0:19:23.040 --> 0:19:26.840 were able to survive that breach. And so we only 0:19:26.880 --> 0:19:29.960 did that because we built the best technology and the 0:19:30.000 --> 0:19:32.800 most secure technology in the space. And we did that 0:19:32.840 --> 0:19:34.639 from day one. And there's a lot of things that 0:19:34.680 --> 0:19:38.200 I think my team, like our principles are around where 0:19:38.200 --> 0:19:40.520 we like we will not compromise on privacy, we will 0:19:40.560 --> 0:19:43.280 not compromise on security, and doesn't matter if it takes 0:19:43.320 --> 0:19:45.800 longer to build and ship because of that, we just 0:19:46.359 --> 0:19:49.399 we're we're not willing to give that up. So we 0:19:49.440 --> 0:19:51.880 took we took those principles with Cosmic. We were rewarded 0:19:51.920 --> 0:19:54.840