Ep: 218 - Live from Devconnect Argentina, Sandeep Nailwal, founder of Polygon Foundation, William Duran (Minteo), Patrick Kearney (Relay Protocol), Grigore Rosu (Pi Squared)

[00:04] know about respect. [00:06] Okay. Hello. [00:11] We're here to boys club live. Welcome to boys club live. We're here at. [00:15] Dev Connect in Argentina. Buenos Aires. At Money Rails by Polygon. Here we are. [00:22] a really... [00:24] really high production situation here at the news desk. We're at the news desk. We're reporting [00:31] from here. [00:33] It's going to be a really good time. We're going to have a lot of great guests. [00:36] Um... [00:37] I feel as though we should give [00:38] the listener care for the listener and get a let's care [00:41] So we're here at Money Rails by Polygon, which is a full day of programming that Polygon is putting on about [00:49] the future of finance. [00:51] the [00:52] the today of finances. [00:53] The moment of finance. The moment of finance. And we are... [00:58] co-located [00:59] at devconnect. If you're hearing some [01:03] background ambient noise. We're in, we're in the belly of the beast. We are. And that's just, it's part of the, that, [01:10] - It's atmospheric. - Yeah, so you can understand sort of the vibe. [01:14] that we're in. [01:15] But we're also at DevConnect, which for folks [01:18] who aren't familiar is the... [01:22] Ethereum's World Fair. - Ethereum's World Fair. - 15,[redacted address]. - It does. - It feels 15,000 people-esque. - Yeah, and from around the world. They've descended on

[01:34] Buenos Aires. [01:35] and there is a full [01:38] conference, I guess. [01:39] that's how you could call it. I think that's what they say. A conference, [01:43] that's [01:43] on and about Ethereum. - Yeah, my experience of it was like, oh, [01:49] who did [01:50] why... [01:51] Wow. [01:52] My bags. [01:54] Our co- [01:55] cared for. [01:56] in this community of people. We're all backholders. [02:00] Totally. And I will say that it is truly [02:03] Global, like we were just on stage. - Global. - Did a little show of hands to get a sense for where the audience [02:09] is [02:10] from and [02:11] We had a very wide distribution [02:14] of [02:14] people from all around [02:16] Everywhere everywhere. So I know a lot of people make the joke that I [02:20] the HQ of [02:22] of crypto is Williamsburg Brooklyn, which is [02:25] often where we're streaming from, but I will say that... We're the problem. I'm the problem. It's me. That feels totally not... [02:32] true in this room where it's a very global audience. So anyway, we're happy to be here. We're going to be here for a couple hours streaming. [02:40] We're going to be pulling guests from stage to come and chat with us about their thing. [02:44] We're going to be talking with Sandeep in a few, who is the founder of Polygon. [02:48] But before we do that, should we start with some draft tweets just to warm up? [02:52] Let's do it. Okay. So, and for those who don't know, Draft Tweets is... [02:56] Our bit. [02:57] where we [02:58] Read... [03:00] tweets that we have not had the courage to send for one reason or another. Yes. Too scandalous.

[03:07] to not. [03:10] not funny enough work needing to be workshop, needing care. Like that's usually honestly what it is. Um, and, [03:17] You go first? Yeah, great, great, great. I have one... [03:21] that [03:22] I couldn't find the right time to send it. Okay. But... [03:27] Traveled to Argentina yesterday. Mm-hmm. [03:30] had to fly through Atlanta. I live in a place that doesn't have a great international airport. Terrible, I'm so sorry. Was in Atlanta and often flying... [03:37] through Atlanta. And my tweet was, once again, blown away by the incredible vibes at the Atlanta airport, PFK. [03:45] just electric energy there. Oh my gosh. It's, it's, it's the moment. It is. It's the moment at the Atlanta airport. Every time I pass it, I'm like, man, these are having such a good time. Great time. Great time. They're having a beer at, at 915 in the morning. And some, uh, chips, like some, some, uh, Crab Rangon or whatever. I actually, I got that recipe and it's, [04:08] Fantastic. I'll make it for you sometime. I feel as though I get in a flow state in an airport. Yeah. I don't know what it is. Tweeting. [04:15] sending things off like I'm in a creative... [04:18] atmosphere. [04:19] personally in an airport. Do you have an airport-related draft tweet? I don't have an airport-related draft tweet. I do have a tweet that I actually had... [04:28] I was like, this should live in the drafts. And then I said, [04:31] Fuck it. [04:31] Why? That's how the best ones are porn. And it performs not bad. And it's stop trying to have a dick measuring competition with me. Space, space, space, space, space. I don't have one. And I feel it's really layered and beautiful. I do feel like that is a visual one. Like, I do feel like people should go to at Natasha G. Hoskins and see.

[04:49] and see it for themselves. I feel like I'm having a lot of fun with the art form of Twitter, where the spacing, the lines... You're subverting the medium itself. Exactly, exactly. Performance art on the timeline. I will say Cloudflare was down this morning. [05:04] uh... [05:05] and upsetting, upsetting for those terminally online. - Yeah, it's been a... [05:09] somewhat of a black swan [05:12] moment for us [05:14] technical box one, not a financial box one. [05:17] where we're [05:19] had [05:20] lots of [05:21] many days planning [05:22] this moment and [05:24] lots of time and thought put into how it was all going to come together and then of course this morning we wake up and [05:30] The internet is down. The internet. That was [05:34] very hard to deal with in a few moments. We got through it. And Clark Fair, I believe, is back up. And I have to say, you and me and everybody here, in fact, had such good energy around it. Yes. [05:46] We just kept it light. Kept it light. All you can do. Totally. Okay, I feel we have some people we need to and want to thank and talk about. [05:55] Um... [05:55] And then I think we should talk a little bit about what it's like to be in Argentina. Yeah. [06:00] So first of all, huge shout out to Polygon. Huge... [06:03] Huge shout out to Polygon. Love them. Uh, [06:06] incredible team team [06:08] incredible [06:10] uh, [06:11] energy here today at Money Rails. Packed room. Packed. [06:14] Yeah, I just want to give people a comment. It's standing room only at the Money Rails event. [06:19] And

[06:21] Yeah, you know we love Polygon. If you've touched crypto in any way, chances are you've already used Polygon. It's the chain quietly powering a bunch of stuff that actually works. [06:28] that people actually use, like Stripe's crypto payments, [06:31] betting on poly markets, prediction markets, and a bunch more. [06:33] A big announcement was just made on stage. Polygon is partnering with Revolut. [06:38] which is [06:39] Huge, huge. [06:41] Huge. I think... [06:42] I, we got the preview on this announcement and so we knew that it was coming and I think my experience of it was that I have used Revolut, I'm learning French really, really slowly and poorly. But not... [06:55] any [06:56] My tutor's not to blame. [06:59] But I had to pay her. And it was one of those experiences when you're trying to do cross-border payments. Okay. And it was like, how am I going to do this? And it was... [07:09] And she was like, "Revolute?" [07:10] and I was doing it and I was like, wait, [07:13] Why is Crypto not involved here? And look at Polygon. She's entering the chat. So Polygon and Revolut, and then also... [07:20] MasterCard announcement came out? MasterCard announcement. Which was really exciting. So they're shipping a ton of stuff. A lot of announcements are going to be coming out on stage, which we'll share here when they do. [07:29] And then also we're going to be throwing a [07:32] For folks who are at DevConnect, who are in Buenos Aires, [07:36] come through. We're doing a party tonight. We're [07:39] really excited about it. We are doing it with Polygon and also PodCast. [07:44] network. [07:45] and Pod Network. [07:47] dares to ask the question, what if Web3 was as fast and simple as Google search?

[07:51] Wow. [07:52] That's big. That's a big today. I'm like, we need, we need. [07:56] We need some of that energy in the room. [07:59] So really excited to be partnering with them on this event tonight. More coming from them very soon. [08:04] they're really gearing up for some fun stuff. [08:07] And then we're also going to have some party pals there with us. [08:12] We love the privy team so much. [08:14] Privy powers the complete wallet stack. You know them. You love them. [08:18] Great team, great people. [08:20] They had a great year. [08:22] sold it [08:23] Sold to sleep. Good for you. Kudos to you, babe. Kudos for coming. [08:27] And then Blockade, which is... [08:30] securing the largest companies operating on chain. So shout out to Blockade.com. [08:35] That's the party. We're going to be dropping the link to... [08:39] RSVP in the chat and if you are still on the wait list [08:43] maybe make a polite request to be pushed to the approved list. [08:47] in the chat and then it might happen for you but just please be polite and that's all we ask [08:51] Now, second shout-out is going to go to our friends at Stamble. [08:54] stellar. [08:56] Yes. [08:57] Art Basel is coming up. Art Basel. Basil. [09:00] Bessel, Basel, whatever you want to call it. [09:03] is coming up. We took last year off. [09:05] And we're ready to come back in full force. And we're going to be doing a lot of fun things with fun partners. [09:10] It's a great weekend week to be in Miami, Miami Art Week. [09:16] a lot of [09:18] trad art. [09:19] community comes in as well as more emerging artists and blockchain art and

[09:26] digital stuff. It's really fun. And Stellar is going to be there. They're doing Stellar House, which is going to be a great event, sort of [09:35] talking about technology and culture and how that all comes together. [09:39] If you've never been to a Stellar House event before, they're excellent, they're very well-produced, great speakers are going to be there. [09:46] And we'll be there hanging out. We're going to be there hanging out. Just to name drop a few of the speakers. [09:57] uh, [09:57] see a red swan. [09:59] A bunch of folks from Cellar who are going to be there. MoneyGram folks. [10:03] on the Grim folks. [10:04] Serious people. - Friends at Purvy again. [10:07] So very, very great. [10:08] very great very great very great I'm also will be doing some fun stuff with [10:14] base at Basel as well. [10:16] So if you're going to be in Miami, hit us up. You won't want to miss out on what we're doing. So it's going to be fun. [10:23] Okay, I want to, before we have our first... [10:26] guest here. I want to spend some time [10:29] Just... [10:30] chatting about Argentina. [10:33] I... [10:33] Lived here when I was 17 years old. Lived here for six months. I went to culinary school. Deep lore. People have been like, whoa, lore unlock. And that's just what happened. And... [10:43] I haven't been back since. [10:44] So, um, [10:46] A long time. I won't dox how long, but so long that I'm having like a feeling of nostalgia being everywhere. Yeah. And it's been really fun. I went and saw my old apartment. And anyway, it's a beautiful city and a really...

[10:57] Beautiful people, great food. [11:00] I'm having an experience around the cash and the money of it that has never made crypto feel more... [11:06] useful. [11:08] Timely. [11:10] It's basically impossible to get cash out, and you get major discounts. [11:16] paying in cash [11:17] because of the hyperinflation, [11:21] And... [11:21] I think I've just had like a lot of empathy for the experience of living here and not trusting, truly not trusting your financial institutions and getting paid and wondering if that money is going to be there and then being unable to access it. [11:34] and how infuriating and like destabilizing that would be to your day to day life. And so it's been [11:42] when you're, I was here over the weekend and, um, [11:46] I'm staying in house with a few people, a lot of them were at [11:49] some a world is doing it was doing a builder event this weekend [11:53] Talked to a lot of builders who are thinking about... [11:56] who are thinking about... [11:58] actually solving the problems for people on the ground here in Argentina and in LATAM more broadly. [12:03] And it's one of those things where it's like, this is real people's lives every single day thinking about how to. [12:10] show up and pay for things. And so that's been, um, like really amazing to see, see that happening here. [12:16] We're going to have some folks [12:17] I'm not sure. [12:19] talking specifically to Argentinian and Latam use cases on the show in a little bit. Some friends from Rupio and Mintio, and I'm excited to get their take on all of it.

[12:30] Me too. Um, [12:31] Some other things that are happening on the timeline. May I meet you? [12:35] Mmm. [12:36] May I meet you? Here's what I like about May I Meet You. [12:39] that [12:40] - Well, here, I'll start with what I don't like about it. - Do you want to explain what it is first? - Oh, sure, yeah. - Yeah. [12:46] of you who aren't on Twitter all the time. Again, God bless. [12:50] I'm so happy for you. And I, at some point soon, like, keep making the joke that I'm addicted to Twitter. [12:55] Ha ha ha. [12:56] But at some point, I'm gonna have to [12:58] start taking some action about it. - Unplug. Yeah, yeah, yeah. [13:02] I'm gonna need to start drawing some boundaries for myself. That day is not today. [13:06] Certainly not. And I'm so glad because I got to see the May I Meet You thing happen over the weekend. [13:11] So, Bill Ackman, [13:13] is [13:14] hedge fund. [13:15] billionaire guy who [13:16] tweets a lot, too much. [13:18] for... [13:19] The amount of money that he has, he tweets far too much. [13:21] FTFU. [13:22] - Totally. And he is often putting his foot in his mouth, but arguably maybe didn't do it in this instance. [13:32] Many people will argue that he absolutely did. [13:34] But basically he put out this thread. He put out a tweet that was like, [13:39] Speaking to sort of the male loneliness epidemic. Yeah, and there was a study specifically that came out. I do not remember the numbers. I'm going to botch it. But it was essentially something like 40% or more or something of men under the age of 30 have never hit on a woman. Yeah. [13:53] in real life. [13:54] and that study came out and there was some discourse around it and then [13:58] he sort of had a

[14:00] response. He responded. Comment from Bill Ackman. And his comment was... [14:06] sharing an anecdote about how he met his wife. [14:09] And he said, [14:10] and was also speaking to sort of a technique or a tactic that has worked for him in the past, which is going up to a woman... [14:18] thing. [14:19] and saying, "May I meet you?" He was basically like, "It's not that hard, guys." Yeah. Just go up to a woman and say, "May I meet you?" May I meet you. [14:25] And wow, did that catch like wildfire on the timeline. Took it, ran with it, as far as possible. Oh, it's going, it's going, it's going. And honestly, you love to see it. May I Meet You is now like a canon, like everything is computer and a similar sort of sentiments. [14:45] I don't know. I think it's now become so meme-ified. [14:49] that it kind of went through this arc [14:52] I would say. As I do. Where it started, "May I Meet You" bad. [14:56] Don't do that, was my thought. The reason why that worked, he's a six foot three billionaire. Okay? [15:01] Also what I want to say about May I Meet You is that it centers [15:05] person... It makes it about that. It makes it about the person who's asking. I'm meeting you. I'm meeting you. It doesn't make it about... [15:13] me as the person being met. [15:15] Right. Which is like, okay, I guess we could start off like that, but that wouldn't be necessarily my recommendation for how to... [15:22] ingratiate yourself with a new friend. You had to meet a new friend. [15:25] Don't make it about yourself. It started bad. Then it kind of hit this arc of like... [15:30] maybe funny. Like then now bad again. Cause it's like, you're too online. Yeah.

[15:35] It's a red flag. It's an immediate red flag. It's a signal to something that I don't want. So that's my personal take on it. Okay, two minutes left here before our first guest. And so I just want to hear about... [15:46] What are some of the trends we're seeing at DefConnect? What are people talking about? I think we'll sort of intermittently talk about this throughout the stream here. But, yeah, what are you hearing? Word on the ground. Ton of stuff coming through from DefConnect. First one, I'm going to go through pretty quickly, and we're going to hit a few of them. [16:03] Everyone is really excited about [16:05] agents and agentic [16:08] No one knows... [16:09] what they want to do with it. [16:12] Yes. The use case. [16:13] is not clear. [16:14] Okay, well that was crypto for a long time, and look at us now. Okay baby, we found it. The excitement and the enthusiasm, and honestly the technology with X4 too, shout out to Coinbase, it has arrived in many ways. [16:27] no one knows how to integrate it or implement it or, or build a novel use case around it. And so that's, [16:34] Insight number one. [16:35] Two. [16:35] I WANT TO TALK ABOUT THE [16:36] Death of the Foundation model. I'm seeing that. Wow. Boom, boom, boom, down, down. So a couple of weeks ago, last week, Uniswap announced that they were going to be... [16:47] running on the foundation and everything was going to consolidate into labs and there's a lot of [16:52] sort of history and regulatory history, honestly, about why that decision was [16:57] was made in the first place, but basically that's how a lot of, if not most, if not all, of crypto companies are [17:03] I'm [17:05] Organized. Companies is the wrong word for it because of this distinction. But yes, that's how a lot of...

[17:10] organizations are [17:13] Formed. Formed. And so... [17:15] I... [17:15] now that Uniswap is [17:16] saying [17:17] Good night. [17:18] to the foundation. [17:21] A lot of other people are going to be following suit or were... [17:25] expecting them to and that's been a lot of conversation. [17:27] Three. [17:28] This idea of orchestration. This is a new buzzword orchestration. [17:32] Okay. [17:33] past it was perhaps [17:35] Thank you. [17:36] something that was more interoperability interoperability yeah that's what everyone was saying [17:40] Now it's about orchestration, which is like one layer up [17:43] from interoperability. We're interoperable now. Okay. Because we're interoperable, we need, like... [17:48] We need to... [17:49] We need to also have some air traffic control for... [17:52] how we interoperate. Yes. [17:55] And so that's this idea of orchestration, and that is very much a buzzword. [17:59] This next one here, LATEM. [18:02] So here we are in Buenos Aires. [18:04] having conversations with folks. [18:05] You spoke to sort of the challenges around the peso. [18:08] and hyperinflation. [18:10] The team's [18:11] that we're speaking to here. [18:13] that are working in Latin America are like, [18:17] scales. [18:18] There are millions of [18:19] millions of users. [18:21] In the US, of course there's apps that are scaled to [18:25] that degree, but it really feels like it's an [18:28] a different stage of maturity, crypto's in a different stage of maturity. [18:31] with some of the teams that we're talking to here, specifically around payments, specifically around stable coins. So that's really exciting. [18:37] Next. [18:39] Privacy era. I mean, shout out to Claire Cart, who I believe is like doing this work. Yes, she's been doing this work.

[18:45] first. She's carrying it on her back. And there's other folks, of course, but she's doing an incredible job. That's a lot of conversation about privacy. And it also might be [18:54] downstream effect of [18:56] this scaling where [18:58] now that people are... [19:01] stablecoins is happening, people are using the product now, it's kind of like, okay, well how do we make sure that we're not doxing ourselves in a weird way? [19:08] I think that might be a follow on effect from. Oh, interesting. Oh, you're saying that like, [19:12] in the, uh... [19:15] Yeah. [19:16] the scale of these [19:17] Software. [19:19] the software the software's [19:22] it's starting to become more apparent like, okay, how, how is this? [19:25] actually... [19:27] how are the users actually experiencing it from a security perspective. You're saying it's downstream. Okay, that's interesting. Okay, next one, mini-apps. Mini-apps. I'm hearing a ton about mini-apps, both in the base ecosystem and in the world ecosystem. [19:39] Again, was around a lot of that this weekend just because the house I was staying in was really all about it. The world house. It was a world house. And amazing to see. There's a lot of energy around many apps. I think it makes a ton of sense. People are building and... [19:55] deploying things really fast there, especially in both of these ecosystems, you have sort of this built in distribution for testing and iterating on things. [20:03] And in the world... [20:06] ecosystem, like very global, incredibly [20:10] Oh my God. Global. A global ecosystem. [20:14] Um, [20:14] like Japan, all over LATAM, all over Europe, like genuinely amazing to see. And so, I'm

[20:20] One shout out here, Simplify Mini App. You can pay people locally. That's built on the World App. So a lot of excitement I think around Mini Apps across the world. [20:28] in different ecosystems. [20:30] - Yeah. [20:31] folks a sense for how [20:33] why you would build a mini-op [20:34] I'm going to butcher sort of the technicalities of it. [20:37] But basically it's an app that's embedded in a [20:40] super app, a bigger app. And that super app or that bigger app gets [20:44] Probably and hopefully... [20:45] a ton of distribution and has a ton of traffic and people using it. [20:49] already and then the mini apps sort of plug into that. So like you said, that built in distribution is really like what's attractive for mini app devs. [20:58] because they get to like go from [21:00] zero to whatever. [21:01] So faster than if they were trying to like just pushing it in the app store. Yeah. Also a lot of energy around prediction markets, sort of people talking about the coming up age of prediction markets where they've sort of grown into themselves. [21:14] and seeing a lot of that conversation as well, which isn't necessarily new, but feels like very solidified, I feel like. Yeah, totally. [21:21] Shall we pause and welcome up Sandeep? [21:24] that I keep [21:25] I think so. I think, uh... [21:28] He'll be coming up here in a moment. - Okay, great, just really quickly before we-- - Let's do it. [21:33] the AVA app. [21:34] Aave app. I'm hugely excited about the Aave app. Great. Oh my gosh. And here's why. [21:39] Okay. [21:40] they have the 9% earnings on savings. That's a crazy number. It's boosted. I don't think it's going to last for that long. Okay. But that's still a compelling amount. Very. Very compelling amount to boost. [21:50] your savings.

[21:51] what is, I think much more compelling is that it's, [21:54] The deposits are insured. [21:57] most some deposits I have to read the fine print but deposits are secured [22:01] THE FAMILY IS GOING TO BE [22:02] deposits are insured [22:03] for a million dollars, which is above the FDIC. The FDIC only ensures 250k, yeah. - Wow, okay. [22:11] for folks. [22:12] Who, I don't know. That, for me... Oh, they have so much money. They're like, sure, fuck it. We'll insure it. Okay. Insured. [22:17] You get insured and you get insured. [22:21] think that concept of insurance [22:23] Yeah, that's amazing. Yeah, I'm actually like, I would love to have somebody on and have them talk about it. Me too. Me too. I'm really excited about that. I feel like that will really reduce the middle of the night. [22:34] anxiety that I often have. Oh man, you have so much of it. You have so many. About my crypto that I hold. And I'm like, I wake up and I'm like, [22:41] Thank you. [22:42] Where is it? And if I this and so this insurance like really speaks to me. Yeah. Like, okay, at least I could know that. [22:48] I might. [22:49] it's sub $1 million. So I'm protected. My first million safe. [22:54] So anyway, shout out to the ABAP. It looks great. I'm excited to use it. And yeah, if you're listening, we'd love to have you on the show. [22:59] Okay. Okay, okay. Should we say the U.S.H.? [23:02] Two more minutes. [23:03] Great. [23:05] Okay. Finally, some drama at the Uniswap Cup. Okay. So this is so inside baseball. Like it's painfully inside baseball, but it's worth noting. They're Uniswap. [23:16] had an event called the Uniswap Cup here on Sunday.

[23:21] hugely successful. - Tuniswap for folks who don't know is [23:24] I think it's a great question. [23:25] decentralized exchange. [23:27] And they did a soccer tournament. Uniswap Cup is a soccer tournament. And... [23:32] as someone who runs events and does events a lot [23:35] When an event pops. [23:37] you want to celebrate it and you want to shout it out and say, [23:40] Good job. Kudos. I'm giving kudos left right here. Kudos. But they did a great job. And how it was set up was all of these different teams... [23:49] all of these different [23:51] companies had... [23:53] teams and a variety of how they formed those teams. [23:57] So [23:57] Some teams were actually people who worked at that place. - Uh-huh, like the world team, yeah. [24:02] Uniswap team, whatever. [24:04] and then other teams did some things that I feel are not ethical, which was they hired people to play on their team. [24:10] And then those [24:11] The two teams that did that, one, [24:13] Obviously. Totally. Obviously. Anyway. Although it was dark because we're going to be talking about who those teams were. And so maybe if the goal was. [24:20] Let's get people to say our name. [24:23] marketing. And yeah, so the teams took it really seriously, but there was a punch, a physical altercation that happened. There was a punch thrown and we were, this is rumored. So I do want to say this is a rumor mill here, but if, [24:36] If we can't talk about rumors on this show, [24:39] Where can we talk about rumors? Totally. Like, what are we doing? [24:42] So the rumor is... [24:45] I [24:45] someone from ENS was punched in the face. I actually don't want to say who... [24:50] punch DMS in the face because I don't... Okay, Bungie.

[24:52] The bungee team. [24:54] It's a rumor. It's a rumor. Rumored. It's rumored. But I'm sorry. You're going to throw a punch. You got to own totally that punch. So that's, that's what folks are saying. That's what the chat saying. Um, [25:04] And shout out to Leighton Cusack. He scored a goal. We're really proud of him. He is from the world team. And I'm so glad he scored a goal because that must have felt really great. [25:15] Here we are. Sandeep, come on down. [25:19] Great to see you. [25:20] So we have Sandeep Nawal, founder and CEO of [25:24] Polygon Foundation. These are for you? [25:27] Let's make sure your headphones are working there. [25:29] Can you hear me okay? [25:31] Okay, great. Here you go. How come you guys have this table thing? I'm sorry. I'm sorry. No, you look cooler holding it. It's more nonchalant. [25:40] Thank you for coming on Boys Club. We're so happy to have you. [25:43] And you had some big announcements today. Where should we start? [25:47] I think just tell us how's your money rails been so far? How's your DevConnect been? Yeah, I'm very happy with the event, like the turnout, the venue looks super cool. Full house, full house by the way. It's a full house, the talks looks very good. [26:03] and my talk I thought was went well also. [26:06] I'm [26:07] He's feeling confident. Good job. Good job. Okay. So we're here in Argentina. [26:13] We've been talking a little bit about the experience of crypto in Argentina and the relationship between sort of those two parties. [26:20] What's Polygon's relationship with Argentina? What work do you do here?

[26:25] And what are some of the projects that you might want to highlight around that work? [26:29] Yeah. [26:30] Argentina, like first of all, like overall LATAM polygon has been really big, right? I also said on the stage that around 60% of the local stable coins in LATAM region [26:40] They are on Polygon. Wow. [26:42] And what we are now seeing is [26:45] in Argentina particularly multiple [26:49] large financial fintech startups are using stable points. And primarily they use polygon rails. [26:57] I think Bello is one, Tekenos is one, [27:00] There's one more which I am forgetting the name. What was the name? [27:05] I think it is called...I'm forgetting the name. I don't want to miss the name. Like, Camipe. [27:15] Yeah. It's also very big, right? [27:17] Some of these are really, really doing well. [27:20] And because I'm not from here, so I don't get to experience the local, which apps are being used. [27:26] But on a global scale, like when I get [27:28] monthly statistics, weekly statistics and I keep seeing Argentina top of the charts, Latin top of the charts. [27:35] There's a lot going on there. [27:37] and we continue to love to see it you tweeted on on Monday about Polygon's [27:42] stablecoin volume and how exciting and up and to the right it is. Can you tell us more about what's happening there? [27:48] The Polygon stablecoin volume, like we talked about on the stage also, [27:53] that overall I think we see numbers between

[27:57] Pure stablecoin movements on the chain if you see 50 to 200 billion dollars a month. Wow. Wow, a month? [28:04] Oh my gosh. [28:05] But many of those transactions include [28:08] exchange transactions, arbitrages, so we don't want to consider them as stablecoin usage. [28:14] because you know it's like a trading use case [28:17] So... [28:17] But we actually try to count the [28:21] P2P. [28:22] use case. Okay. And in P2P, John was telling on stage that [28:26] last quarter has been $14.6 billion in P2P payments. - And that's like one person sending to another person. - Yes, yes, and that is the actual [28:36] like I see as an actual measure or metric [28:39] of people using and stablecoins getting into the average person's life. [28:46] Because institutions like, you know, the trading volumes and all that, a lot of chains will say we have... [28:51] 100 billion, 200 billion dollar volume and all that, but that's actually some [28:55] trading bots. [28:56] of the market makers trading something in the background. That's not real usage. That can go away any time. [29:01] If they find a new way, [29:03] to do [29:03] you know, their arbitrages and all that, right? The real usage, I think, is the P2P for me. Yeah. [29:09] B2B, I'm not trying to... [29:11] you know, diasporage, like the B2B [29:13] adoption. Yeah. Yeah. We love B2B. We love B2B too. You said 40% market share for P2P payment volumes for Polygon. [29:22] Yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah. That's crazy. Yeah, the global, that's also insane. Like, and [29:26] in

[29:27] I think Polygon... [29:29] in terms of its payments as stablecoin adoption is criminally undervalued [29:33] in the markets because [29:35] Like you know one chain having 40% of the all of the P2P [29:39] payment share is [29:41] Incredible. Yeah. Yeah. [29:42] Okay, we've been seeing a lot of activity with the Japanese stablecoin [29:46] And by the way, I want to clarify that. You know, that 40% is why the number of transactions and number of users... [29:52] The volume probably, you know, the [29:54] Because crypto [29:56] We started with those... [29:58] measures like TVL and volume and all that [30:01] So by TVL, an amount of money moving [30:04] Tron would be higher, right? Because Tron has like people sending... [30:08] hundreds of thousands of dollars or millions of dollars moving here and there. But we are talking about an average user paying [30:14] $100, $200, $500 in and there. That's where Polygon dominates. [30:19] Right, which is... [30:20] by many measures, the harder metric to achieve. Extremely hard metric. So, yeah. But that's long term also. [30:27] like once you keep that keeps on going at the in that organic traction mode [30:32] eventually large transactions also [30:34] start coming in and they are then very sticky. [30:36] Yeah. Like some of the Trons [30:38] Tron's, you know, kind of usage is also very sticky. [30:43] because a lot of people... [30:45] are moving this cash movement like cash converted into [30:48] the dollars and cross-border payments, they use it. [30:51] And for the larger payment like $10,000, $100,000 they used on and that is also fairly sticky. [30:56] But for the average user, we want to get into that Venmo style user. Like you're paying $20, $50, $100.

[31:03] to someone, that's where we want to win. [31:05] - Cool. - On that note, I wanna get your take on sort of your [31:08] stablecoin thesis more broadly and this idea of there being [31:14] an unlimited amount essentially of stablecoins that get fractured into all these different use cases versus [31:20] the usage consolidating onto a few [31:23] coins. Like, what's your take on [31:26] sort of how you see the ecosystem developing. Yeah, I think that the power laws always play out the same way, right? [31:32] 80%, like 20% of these stable coins are going to have like 80% of the usage. There's absolutely no doubt about that. [31:39] But [31:40] We also need to see that as governments are waking up [31:44] the local governments are waking up to the threat of dollar stable coins. [31:49] Why? [31:49] Because countries like India, [31:51] like in LATM because they're [31:53] their currency is so... [31:54] you know kind of inflationary. Yeah. [31:57] that [31:57] a lot of [31:59] I think there is some... [32:00] Level of [32:02] That's it. [32:03] government [32:04] you know, kind of approval. I don't think like there's a formal approval, but they're like kind of okay. People are doing it. It looks like it. They're kind of okay. [32:12] In India it's not [32:13] It's not that, right? Okay. So a lot of these local governments are waking up that stable coins are being used for XYZ purposes. [32:21] Um... [32:22] For some of the countries where the stablecoin's primary usage [32:26] is to [32:27] is to avoid the inflation [32:30] of the currency or devaluation of the currency

[32:33] That's okay. They are going to use dollar stable coin. [32:36] but a lot of other local use cases [32:39] are [32:40] also becoming, you know, dollars take dollars, right? Okay. [32:43] I mean, I was... [32:44] I don't know whether you guys experienced it or not, but yesterday I went to meet somebody in a cafe [32:50] I paid for the coffee in dollars. Like I didn't know that [32:53] you know the Argentina you know there's like oh we might need you to move your mic a little bit closer completely you know dollarized in terms of the payments yeah [33:03] So that is happening for a lot of countries. And countries slowly are waking up [33:08] very strongly and they're going to react with [33:11] local stable coins [33:12] No, okay, you know, you want to use it, use the local stablecoin or at least [33:16] You know, if there's a cross-border payment, it comes in USD, but then once it lands into, let's say, India, it gets converted into INR. Why would it need to come in USD in the first place? Because of the remittances, right? Like, if you are a US person, you're sending money into this. It's much better. And also, like, you know, why USD? USD remains stronger. [33:34] is that let's say you are in Argentina [33:36] and you are sending money, [33:38] So probably... [33:39] You know, because of the forex exchange market [33:41] would not be that great for your stable, let's say Argentinian pesos to INR, right? So what you will do is you will convert at a low slippage to USD. [33:51] that USD travels... [33:52] cross border [33:53] comes to the you know let's say India or Hong Kong or Philippines [33:57] and then gets converted into pesos. So that path will be cheaper than you trying to convert Argentinian pesos into Filipino pesos.

[34:08] so that's [34:09] That's where some of these stablecoin users will be there. [34:13] I think the local stablecoins is going to be a pretty large deal. [34:17] Because government... Because I recently tweeted about it also that, you know, previously... [34:21] the dollar's relationship with the rest of the world was a kind of a B2B relationship. [34:28] that. [34:29] You know, previously the dollar was... [34:31] issued by government, you know, US government treasury. [34:34] and the other countries' treasuries will buy dollars. [34:37] It's not like the average person was buying dollars. Now with stablecoins what is happening is the average B to C, the relationship is converting from B to B to B to C. [34:46] - Yeah. [34:48] I was really surprised. My father traveled to my... [34:52] you know, native place which is like a hinterland in India and all that, like the normal [34:57] money rails are not there. [34:58] And he said that some people are using Polygon there. Like, you know, I heard... And I was like... [35:03] They're using polygons? What are they using polygons? [35:05] And only later on I realized that they are using USD on... [35:09] on Polygon for some of this and me being from India like I actually [35:12] want India to adopt INR stablecoins and at least these local use cases where people are paying 1% or another [35:19] should be used in stablecoin. Only problem is government [35:23] Because crypto has a very bad branding problem. We have like... [35:27] You know, from 3AC, Luna, to FTX, to Mt. Gox and all these scenarios. And 90% of the activity many times is scams or gambling. [35:37] So government has a very bad view of crypto. Right. But I think what they are not realizing is...

[35:42] actually stable coins [35:44] are a much better way of [35:46] currency movement within their geographies and all that because it's more traceable, more trackable. [35:55] and they can actually... [35:57] there is an illicit activity, they can confiscate also. So they are in much more control than they are with cash. [36:04] So while they have a digital form of currency, they should actually promote stablecoins. I also think what you're speaking to is that local people and their constituents will start to be using stablecoins for peer-to-peer transactions. And then I think that will push a government that may be, local governments that maybe have some... [36:21] skepticism about crypto and seeing that, okay, local people are using this. Like we need to adapt it into our practices as well and kind of catch up with the times of how people are actually using money online today. We're seeing that the Japan stable coin JPYC on Polygon had like a huge growth the last few weeks. Can you talk to us about what's going on there? Right now, it seems like it is growing like two orders of magnitude faster than any other chain. And we actually recently heard that [36:51] the local government has praised it [36:53] a lot. [36:54] And a lot of this activity is purely organic. [36:56] Right? Because, you know, Japanese yen is also [36:59] you know, is devaluing constantly. Recently the government is pushing in, putting in [37:05] hundred and ten billion dollars in stimulus which will further [37:07] Okay. [37:09] JPY coin [37:11] and probably people are using it to

[37:14] many times like the [37:16] convert the money into JPYC and then maybe [37:19] have this arbitrage, convert this into USD... [37:22] where they want to protect the value whenever they want to use, bring it back to JPYC and things like that. But we are very pleasantly surprised that it is growing very organically. A lot of people are using it. And Japan being very forward-looking in technology is... That's cool. Okay, so we're here at Money Rails. We're talking about, you know, payments more broadly. Can you give me the pitch for why Polygon as it pertains to payments specifically? Yeah. So I think, like, there are multiple factors to it. [37:52] Hold on. [37:53] historically it's an 8 year old [37:56] 7-8 year old chain. It is extremely entrenched in [37:59] in the payment rails and the money rails everywhere, right? When I say, what do I mean by that? Like literally every on-ramp provider is connected to it. Literally all exchanges are connected to the chain. [38:12] Literally [38:13] You know, if you are doing any card payment and all that, cards are connected to... [38:17] Yeah. So all of that. [38:19] thoughts [38:19] having a compounding effect on the network. [38:22] you know, the money effect on the network. [38:25] One is that [38:26] Second is, [38:27] We recently... [38:29] In the last one year, we have scaled the blockchain from 200 TPS to 1500 TPS. [38:34] And now we have a very clear path to in next three to six months to go to 5000 DPS. And from there in 12 to 24 months to 100,000 DPS. At 5000 DPS, it is an EVM chain which people are very comfortable with. The wallets are very, you know, kind of deeply wallets. All wallets are also integrated. And the cost of the transaction becomes extremely low. Right. So at 5000 DPS, it will be it will be higher throughput than, for example, Solana itself.

[39:04] Oh, [39:05] You would see... And Solana, why am I? Because Solana is like the trailblazer of this, like, high-throughput chains and all that, right? So now... [39:14] I think like due to all of these things, this interconnection, then people use applications like Polymarket, applications like Courtyard, where people are actually using stuff, not only speculating. [39:26] Like there is speculative use cases are less on Polygon, right? Like for example, your perp trading, your DeFi loopings and all that. [39:35] which [39:36] You know, many times, like as I was saying on the stage also, we are not that great as a DNA of the team. We are not, or the community also, is not very speculative friendly. Yeah. It's more on the real world utility friendly. So, that's where like for the payments, it's right up their alley. It's the network effects. It's the people knowing. And the cost, the transaction costs are extremely low for the users. Like they are literally transacting for free. That's why you see the daily active users. [40:06] Circle stablecoin, we have the largest number of... generally we are number one daily active users. [40:12] for USDT we are generally the third ranked in the daily active users and [40:19] You know, the non-USD stablecoin I already talked about, like 60-70% of the market usage in LATM. [40:25] 80 to 90 percent in Saudi Asia. [40:27] So-- [40:28] you know it looks like crushing it I love it [40:30] Okay, we have a few more minutes here. I want to give you some time to talk about the two big announcements you had, both

[40:35] with Revolut and MasterCard. Can you just give us a sense of what those two look like and what that means for quality? [40:41] People know that in Europe it's a [40:43] It's a juggernaut for payments. [40:46] and uh [40:47] the Revolut has been very [40:49] you know, open for stable coins and they understand the value of stable coins [40:53] and we have been working with them for quite a long time. [40:57] and you know they only recently now we are making it public but [41:00] In the background, Revolut has already processed $700 million worth of payments on Polygon already on the day of announcement. [41:08] and [41:09] Polygon is now becoming a preferred chain there because users prefer it based on the gas fees and everything. [41:15] And now we have like very strong plans to grow and add more and more users. [41:20] and you know grow these users there. And with MasterCard this is one of the many things that are coming with them. But like you know in crypto [41:30] transferring from address to address becomes very costly. Yeah. And like, you know, error prone, [41:35] So we know these ENS names. [41:37] in the ecosystem. [41:39] So with MasterCard, we have launched exclusive MasterCard names. [41:43] on Polygon where you can actually, like I can have a Sandeep.com [41:47] you know, [41:47] - So for easy payment? - For easy payment and all that. [41:51] and MasterCard and Visa, these are the behemoths. Totally. They are now getting in [41:55] with these small [41:56] you know kind of activations but slowly [41:59] the plans are much bigger to be... Yeah, it's a signal for where they're headed. Yeah. Yeah. [42:03] That's great. [42:04] Okay.

[42:06] Should we do a show minute? Yeah. [42:07] Okay, so we do a game on the show. [42:11] where we have, you have one minute. [42:13] to shill anything. [42:15] Ideally, it's not Polygon. Ideally, it's something else. It could be one time somebody shielded the Bay Area. It can be anything. 60 seconds on the clock. [42:26] You ready? [42:26] let me think quickly what do I want to just your favorite any favorite thing of yours TV show or something that you've used recently an app your hometown it can be anything [42:38] Okay. [42:39] Okay. Okay. Okay. 60 seconds. Go. Gotta show the camera. I mean, the first thing I want to shill was Polygon Excel because yesterday I said somebody asked you. A good founder. A good founder. Somebody asked me what is the most underrated thing on Polygon. I said Polygon is the most underrated thing on Polygon. But like to shill. [42:57] I would say that I would shill meditation a lot. Oh, nice. You know, spirituality and all because we human beings, I think we are moving into this age of abundance. Yeah. Where... [43:09] you know like lot of our physical world [43:12] traumas like you know the fights that we have to fight to [43:15] to gather food or to have like a, you know, for shelter and clothes for us and all that. [43:20] these [43:21] problems will go away [43:23] And human beings are going to find themselves more and more hollow about like what am I like what is my purpose? [43:28] to be here, like right now. [43:30] 80% of our purpose actually gets absorbed [43:33] in being. [43:34] you know just surviving as a human being but once the AI enables that survival the age of abundance comes

[43:39] then we are going to find a lot of emptiness in our lives [43:42] And I think spirituality helps [43:44] in solving that emptiness. Yeah, perfect. And I do meditation a lot and I think [43:49] these mental problems, psychological problems are going to become bigger and bigger and bigger. [43:54] And I think like having a daily meditation regime. I love that. I love that. Wait, we're not over time. But no problem. Sandeep, thank you so much. Thank you. Such a pleasure to have you. Congrats on today. Thank you so much. Great to be here. Thank you for having me. Thank you. Thanks. [44:06] I need to meditate. I need to meditate, too. Thanks for the reminder. I feel really... [44:14] in need of a meditative moment. Also moved by that message because [44:17] uh... [44:18] I believe it. It was like, I was like, oh, that's what I'm experiencing now. [44:24] That's what my problem is. [44:26] I need to go hunt and gather. Okay, what a great... [44:32] A great guy. Really nice to hear about. I love when you hear from someone who really believes what they're talking about. Just great founder energy. [44:41] Yeah, I think [44:44] It just is... [44:45] Passion is contagious. It is contagious. And... [44:48] being around, that's [44:49] part of the reason I love working with founders so much is because [44:52] you get a good one and you're like, man, I believe that you're going to move heaven and earth to make your thing. Yes. [44:57] Yes. I get that from him. So totally. Very cool. Okay. I, um, [45:03] I'm wondering, uh, [45:05] We have a couple minutes before our next guest. - If I'm looking shiny. [45:08] I had a whole thing on whether on... I think you look great. I might need your Mac compact as we go, okay?

[45:17] - On the go. What's happening on the timeline? Twitter's back up. Twitter's back up. I'm seeing that we're [45:26] Still live, which is great to see. [45:28] We have a next guest coming in about seven minutes. [45:32] Um... [45:33] There's a few things that I want to talk about that are unrelated to crypto, really. [45:38] are interesting that are happening. [45:40] Should I talk? Should I get into them? Okay. So I wanted to talk to you about [45:47] a thing that happened last week. We didn't have time on our livestream last week to talk about it, so this feels like a good moment at the Polygon Experience to get into it. Oh, wait. Actually, our next guest might be here. Oh, let's do it. Come on down. Come on in. [46:03] Thank you. [46:03] Let's go. Okay. We have William Duran, who is the co-CEO and founder of Mintio. So nice to meet you. [46:12] Nice to meet you. Okay, these are for you. [46:14] and then [46:17] You're going to want to hold this quite close. [46:19] Okay? [46:20] There you go. Check that in there. Okay. [46:25] practice [46:26] Testing, testing. Can you hear us? [46:28] Uh... [46:28] Okay, great, great. It's going to need to be a little... There it is. There it is. How are you doing, William? [46:34] Good, how are you? We're doing great. We're doing great. So happy to have you. [46:37] So tell us, let's start, what's Manteo? [46:40] So we're a stable co-nature for Latin America, so you can think of us as sort of like circle for LATAM. So we meant... [46:46] You know, the stable coin of the Colombian peso, which is launched the Brazilian real. And we're launching Chile and Mexico in the next couple of weeks.

[46:54] Where are you from? I'm from Bogota, from Colombia. Oh, nice. Beautiful. We were there for [47:00] DevCon. Oh, no, it's like three years ago. Yeah, yeah, three years ago. Okay. A great city. I love Columbia. It's so beautiful. So, okay. [47:08] Where do you guys sit in the, we're talking about the global money stack here. Money rails. And I'm curious, like, yeah, where do you guys sit in that stack? Like, where is Mintio? [47:21] I would say we're in the sort of like trust layer issuance, right? Because at the end of the day, it's all about trust as an issuer. [47:28] And then I would also say we're in the infrastructure layer, right? Because at the end of the day, you need to be able to have... [47:33] Sort of like a way to connect in and out, on chain, off chain. [47:38] So we always sort of consider ourselves sort of like that, like, [47:40] 2.5 version of... [47:43] of crypto, right, or Web3. That's what we said. Can I ask a dumb question? [47:48] Yep. [47:49] that's sort of business related. So I am wondering what stops [47:54] circle from [47:56] minting [47:57] the Columbia Peso or from minting some of these other currencies in LATAM? Yeah, that's a good question. I mean, I think at the end of the day, it's about, one, like business focus. I mean, do you want to actually go into these regions and then if so... [48:11] Say you make the business decision of going into a region, which countries do you focus on? [48:16] And then there's the complexity around actually building a product that [48:20] appeals to the local market, which I think in LATAM [48:23] A lot of times people think of it as a region, as a whole,

[48:28] But at the end of the day, each country is very different, right? Like different compliance, different... [48:33] money rules, different culture. [48:36] different banks. [48:39] So it's kind of funny because at the end of the day, [48:41] I think the hardest part for us has been building country by country. [48:45] But at the same time, it also makes it the most defensible, right? Because you have to have all these... [48:49] sets of accounting rules and all these different [48:51] things, licenses, [48:53] And I think that's why [48:55] Like Circle could potentially come in, but then they would have to figure out sort of like country by country how to do it. Got it. Okay, that makes a ton of sense. And then for them it's like, [49:03] maybe they're just focused on the U.S. [49:05] dollar USDC. And so that at that point, it becomes fragmented. That makes sense. Yeah. And if you think about it, like, [49:10] If you think about the US dollar supply, I think right now there's probably only 1% of it tokenized. [49:17] You know, it's really tethered circles that are sort of like leading that. [49:20] I would say there's probably so much more to do even just there. [49:24] in terms of like, you know, [49:26] protecting market share and continuing to sort of like [49:28] Dollarize. [49:30] a lot of these economies. It's really just a decision for them, I think. [49:34] Yeah. [49:35] Okay, so how did you come to start this? [49:37] What's sort of your origin story? [49:40] Yeah, that's interesting. So I'm actually a Colombian, non-Colombian in the sense that I live most of my life overseas. So I actually grew up in Africa. I grew up in Angola, West Africa. [49:48] Saudi Arabia, I've lived in the US for over 10 years, and I came back about eight years ago to Colombia [49:56] And, yeah, I don't know. I just, like, realized that there was, like, so much stuff that was wrong with...

[50:01] the financial system with payments. There's so much opportunity. [50:04] um and it just ended up being this type of thing where i i was supposed to stay only for six months ended up staying for two years and then [50:11] you know, [50:12] Everything happened, pandemic, and somehow I just ended up, you know, living sort of like the last decade there. [50:17] So it's actually quite interesting. I mean, I had been... [50:21] doing stuff previously in finance and private equity. I've done a little bit of payments [50:26] And then I met my co-founder who co-founded sort of the stripe of Columbia. [50:31] called Wampy. [50:32] And we just, you know, we decided like, okay, like you have all this experience. [50:37] I have a bunch of different things that I bring to the table and like let's [50:41] let's build something together with this technology, right? [50:44] And do you find that there is, I imagine the answer is yes, but I would love to hear you talk about the demand for, say I'm an app developer in Brazil, [50:53] the demand for having a local current [50:56] a local stable coin embedded in that app, and why they would choose that. [51:01] versus having [51:02] another stable coin in the rap. Like, just talk to me about sort of the... [51:06] the builder relationship. [51:08] Yeah, so I guess there's two things. One is why would you want... [51:13] a local currency versus US dollar and then the second one is like why would you choose ours right [51:18] So I guess to address the first one, I would say [51:22] You know, at the end of the day, money... [51:24] in its core, and going back to first principles, has sort of like four... [51:28] uh, [51:29] four core functions. One is store value,

[51:32] Two is unit of account, which is basically cultural, right? We're used to transacting with certain currencies. [51:38] talk to you about Yens or about some other thing, that you might just be lost, right? So I think at the end of the day, that's something that's important. [51:44] medium of exchange, which is like sending money [51:46] peer-to-peer. [51:48] And then credit? [51:49] So I think at the end of the day, like, the way that we've approached it, that we've realized, like, [51:53] there's a mass consumption for US dollars [51:56] as a savings tool and I think that's grown a lot in Africa, in Latam, especially these high inflationary countries. [52:02] And I think Tether and Circle have done really well, sort of like, you know, [52:06] catering to that market. But then at the end of the day, like... [52:09] You know, most... [52:09] transactions, local transactions, credit, everything. [52:12] happens in local currencies, right? And there's like a few countries that are fully dollarized, but that's not the norm. And you look at Mexico, that's not going to happen. You look at Brazil, that's not going to happen. Colombia, because they also have very strong sort of like voluntary policies, and central banks are not just going to... [52:25] allow full dollarization in this economy. So I think that's why I think we're bullish on [52:30] local stable coins and then in terms of us and the relation with builders and [52:34] I think it's about trust, so... [52:36] One, like we've [52:37] you know, build a big company before, so I think that there's trust there too. [52:41] We're regulators of digital asset business in Bermuda, similar to Circle, to Coinbase. [52:46] to a lot of these large companies, so we have safeguards around user funds and these type of things. [52:53] And, yeah, I would say, I mean, ultimately I think those are sort of like the type of things that… Yeah, makes sense. [52:58] Yeah, all around. [52:59] Yeah. [52:59] I'm curious what the sort of regulatory environment is in all of these different countries, like this obviously

[53:06] It's coming from a very US centric POV, but so much of what has been possible for crypto over the last year has been [53:13] because of a different regulatory environment. [53:16] I can't imagine sort of [53:17] the business you have navigating country to country, all of these different sort of, yeah, what the relationship is to crypto. So curious how you're navigating that and then sort of what you're seeing over the last few years and in different countries throughout that time. [53:29] Yes, I think. [53:31] you know, um... [53:33] U.S. policy has been very positive the last year or so. I think at the end of the day what we've seen is that [53:40] there's sort of this drop-down effect [53:42] with the genius hack, with all these things that makes regulators in other places of the world realize, like, okay, maybe we should [53:50] figure out what to do with this and how to regulate this. I mean, you're seeing that happening in Brazil right now. [53:54] Just last week they announced that they were going to have VASP licensing. [53:58] for stable conditioners and basically for different types of operators. [54:03] So that's coming into place. Brazil is very, you know, very, [54:07] forward looking with these type of things. [54:08] and there's chatter in different countries. So I think it takes a while, but I think in general, [54:13] It's good that there's like Mika, that there's this [54:16] genius hack because at the end of the day, just [54:18] leads to more conversations around how you should... [54:21] classified assassins. [54:22] And what's the appetite from Enterprise? [54:24] let's say in Colombia, what's the sense from industry outside crypto to adoption? I think it's growing, right? I mean, I think if you look at it last year, there was appetite, but there was no conviction. I think if you look at this year, there's appetite and there's starting to be conviction.

[54:40] and ultimately I think a lot of that is because [54:43] the [54:44] there starts to be more regulatory clarity [54:46] uh... [54:47] which ultimately leads for people to want to start thinking about integrating these type of products. [54:54] Can you talk... [54:55] Can you talk to us about a few of the use cases that you're seeing? Like, how is it coming to life? [54:59] Yeah, so I mean I would say obviously the big one that everybody talks about now is cross-border, right? [55:06] It's obvious in the sense that [55:07] We figured out that these stablecoins [55:09] beyond just... [55:10] you know [55:11] being a number in an exchange or whatever, [55:14] whatever its origin story was, but [55:16] I think now we're starting to see that this is sort of like a format that we can use to move value from point A to point B and then... [55:22] you start realizing that there's a bunch of economies like Africa, [55:26] even Southeast Asia, Latam, that [55:29] This really sort of like solves a problem around, you know, crazy fees of like 5, 7, 8, even 10% sometimes to move money. [55:37] where we can really bring them down to maybe one or two percent, potentially even more over the next couple of years. [55:42] But I think that's sort of like being [55:44] a big game changer. And then obviously there's more... [55:48] local specific use cases that honestly just kind of vary country by country. I mean, I think in some countries, [55:53] Um... [55:54] you know, for example, Columbia... [55:56] We have very poor local payment rails, so... [55:59] typically... [56:00] It could take a full day, sometimes two days to receive money from a bank account to another bank account. If it's a long weekend, it could be four days, right? So, [56:08] There's no instant payments, and I think that's something that

[56:11] is actually solvable through stablecoins very easily. [56:15] Lastly, I would say... [56:16] A big one is really what we call sort of like FinChains, which is like fintechs building on chain. [56:22] And at the end of the day, what we see is [56:25] it's just like [56:26] there needs to be more financial products in the region. [56:29] in LATAM and the reason why we don't have them is because [56:32] legacy systems are so complex to integrate with. [56:35] that is just very hard for builders to actually build stuff, right? So I think that's [56:38] That's something that we think is going to change in the next couple of years. [56:40] Hmm. [56:41] And what's the... [56:43] AS. [56:43] as CEO, what's the one [56:45] metric that matters to you the most? Like, what are you looking at every day? Right now we're looking at volume. And, you know, really it's volume. [56:54] and also like velocity and really... [56:57] how transactional this product becomes because [57:00] if you think about going back to dysfunction of money, [57:03] you know, local money is used mostly for transactions, right? Paying things, [57:08] paying friends, [57:10] paying bills, like these type of things, and it's like [57:13] if you get [57:14] to a certain level of adoption. [57:16] it starts becoming really interesting for us because then ultimately [57:21] And if you have a lot of distribution, ultimately what you end up having is a bunch of players... [57:26] that in some way touch [57:28] the OPM, which is our Colombian token. [57:30] or BRLM, which is in Brazil. [57:32] And then ultimately, you're building an ecosystem. [57:33] So I think for us it's about building this ecosystem. Obviously you want to have [57:38] As a senior management, you want to grow this float.

[57:42] But I think... [57:43] the approach has to be sort of like [57:45] Transactional [57:46] and community-based first, and then you start actually [57:50] having this money sort of like sit there [57:52] which is very different than if you look at, for example, Tether or Circle because [57:55] a lot of their adoption was for people that wanted to hold it as access to saving dollars. [58:01] So it's just like almost a different approach in terms of sort of like the go to market there. [58:05] That's really interesting. [58:06] So, okay. [58:07] What? [58:08] What's your relationship with Polygon? [58:10] How does that work? Yeah, we have a good relationship with Polygon. Polygon was basically the first [58:17] chain that we deployed in, we've been very close with the Polygon team [58:21] in growing this ecosystem. And actually it's interesting that [58:25] The main reason, or the original reason we launched on Polygon was because all our potential clients were already on Polygon. [58:31] It's just... [58:32] you know, [58:33] It just kind of makes sense. - I'd be able to hear that. - Yeah, like Letheal was her first client, and they were on Polygon. [58:38] And, you know, I think especially when you're getting started, you don't want to put even more friction on. [58:43] So it's just like, no, I mean, people are using Polygon. I think Polygon's done quite a lot in terms of [58:47] you know, being involved in Latin America, right? - Yeah. - You push hard in Latin. [58:52] And that relationship is continuing to strengthen. They've helped us with liquidity. [58:57] you know, DeFi pools, [58:59] these type of things. So it's actually been a very good relationship. Nice. That's awesome. Okay, we do this thing. Should we do a shill minute? Let's do a shill minute. We do this thing on the show called the shill minute. It's 60 seconds where you can shill anything. [59:11] you want ideally

[59:12] It's not meant here. We've talked about that. Ideally, it's something else. [59:15] Sundeep, for example, did [59:17] meditation. [59:18] Like it can be anything. It can be an app you've used. [59:21] A movie you saw, a book you read. Where you're from, whatever. Anything. [59:26] Do you have something in mind? I mean, I guess. Let's go for it. Okay, great. Hold on. 60 seconds on the clock. [59:33] Let's go. [59:34] I think traveling, you know, and it's pretty... [59:37] It's probably a pretty standard answer, but I would say, you know, I've traveled my entire life, right? I've been to probably over 60 countries, maybe 70 now. [59:43] lived in five continents. I think for me, it's like [59:47] the way that you... [59:49] I'm [59:50] you realize all these problems that there's to solve is by just like [59:53] having a bunch of paradigm shifts, right? And like living a bunch of experiences. I think it's like... [59:57] it's almost like a consumptive, you know, overly consumption of experiences. I think [1:00:02] that really kind of opens your mind to really figuring out not only what you want to do, but also like... [1:00:07] how you do it, how you solve things. So I would say... [1:00:09] If you don't get out of sort of like a... [1:00:12] you know you're [1:00:13] It's like your daily routine. It's going to be very hard for you to actually be exposed to the problems you have to solve in the world. [1:00:17] I would say, you know, and I would shill Oman. You have to travel to Oman. [1:00:21] amazing destination. It's kind of like a weird underrated one. [1:00:25] And obviously Argentina. I love Argentina. [1:00:27] I try to come every year. Perfect. Exactly. Six seconds. I love it. How many languages do you speak? [1:00:32] Does that agree with you? No, I speak English, Spanish perfectly, and then [1:00:36] Portuguese pretty well, because I lived in Nagola and that's Portuguese. [1:00:40] Call? Yeah. [1:00:41] learning a little bit of Arabic.

[1:00:45] Oh, nice. [1:00:46] But, yeah, I would say that's it. [1:00:47] That's it. Almost four. [1:00:50] William, thank you so much. It was so nice to have you. Love the work that you're doing. And we hope to have you on again soon. Awesome. Thank you so much. Thank you. Have a good one. Bye. [1:00:58] Okay, travel. I love travel. I love meditation. I love travel. Great chill. Great chill. Thank you. Bye. See you later. [1:01:05] Um, [1:01:06] Okay, I am we have a few more minutes again before our next [1:01:11] our next [1:01:12] guest here. Just checking the time here. [1:01:16] - Thank you. [1:01:18] Amen. [1:01:20] Here we are. [1:01:22] It feels like I'm... [1:01:24] This is quite an old concept, but a telethon. [1:01:28] It does feel like a tell-long. I actually thought it feels [1:01:31] More... [1:01:32] To me, more close to like... [1:01:35] I feel like I'm at the Olympics. [1:01:36] Uh-huh. [1:01:37] And I'm like, [1:01:38] Okay. Swimming 400. Come on down. Tell me what's going on. Having so much fun, though. Having so much fun. Another shout-out to Polygon. Incredible event. The room is still full, which, having done events in the past— I know. It's great. —in the past. [1:01:54] very hard it's really easy to get a full room for [1:01:58] starting keynote. [1:01:59] Yes. [1:02:00] If you can't fill that room, [1:02:01] Something's broken. Something's broken. Yeah, something's... [1:02:04] really a mess. [1:02:05] Uh-huh. [1:02:06] Vitalik is always going to have a [1:02:08] They're hanging from the rafters. As you should. Totally. [1:02:11] Now, it is... [1:02:12] much harder. [1:02:13] when as the day goes on to sustain the room being full.

[1:02:18] And [1:02:19] It's still full. People are standing. I'm looking at people. It's great. [1:02:22] layered in standing area in the back. [1:02:25] happy for them [1:02:26] Really happy for them. [1:02:27] Really happy for them. [1:02:28] Okay, let's see what's happening on the timeline right now. [1:02:34] And if there are... I'm seeing a lot of, like... [1:02:37] I don't know. I'm seeing something on the timeline that I don't particularly love. Oh, great. Coming in with some waters. Kate. [1:02:44] Look at her. Look at this fit from the Philippines. Yeah, if Kate could just give it a little spin. Kate was recently in the Philippines. Thank you so much. [1:02:50] There it is. I hope it's good. [1:02:52] I hope it's captured. Thank you so much, Kate. I think she might be out of shot. You're the best. It looks great. [1:02:56] Cheers. [1:02:57] Yes. [1:02:58] Huh? [1:02:58] Um... [1:03:00] Amen. [1:03:01] I'm seeing something on the timeline around [1:03:05] Sort of. I'm going to tell you something I've loved on the timeline, something I've hated on the timeline. [1:03:09] And I actually don't want to hate it. [1:03:11] But it just kind of bothers me. And I'm seeing this trend of people being like... [1:03:16] Um... [1:03:17] Around San Francisco. [1:03:19] where people are like, "Oh, San Francisco is so unfashionable." And then girls being like, "Be the change you want to see," and being really fashionable. [1:03:28] and taking fit pics of it. [1:03:30] And I want to like that. [1:03:32] I want to support it. [1:03:33] in my heart of hearts. It's got hater energy. [1:03:36] But having said that... Okay, hater energy is coming through. It's just like... [1:03:40] San Francisco is never gonna be that. [1:03:43] I love the individual girlies doing their thing. They all look so cute. They all have really, it's inspirational to me. But it's just like, don't,

[1:03:51] It... [1:03:51] You know what it is? It's a failed mission. [1:03:54] I'm like, you're doing, you're setting yourself up for something that will, it will never be. And that's okay. That's really okay. I also think it's like, it's fine that it's not fashionable. Not every place is. Needs to be. Exactly. Not every place needs to be. [1:04:04] The thing that I am... [1:04:05] loving on the timeline and like of course and everybody who's anybody knows about it at this point but [1:04:11] Timmy, tell me. [1:04:13] That man cannot lose IMO. Like he did this incredible... [1:04:18] He's doing a press tour for his new movie that's coming out, Marty Supreme, Christmas Day. Okay? It comes out Christmas Day. Obviously, the... [1:04:28] promotion has been going well because I know when it's coming out he did an 18 minute what a bit like a what can only be described as a bit where he pretended that it was it was a zoom recording of him with his like [1:04:41] the marketing team for this upcoming movie. [1:04:43] And it was... [1:04:45] so deeply funny, like hilarious and... [1:04:49] Now, of course... [1:04:51] So... [1:04:52] which is what they intended. [1:04:53] that has had a life of its own. Screenshots on screenshots, all of these different moments in it, [1:04:59] all of these builds on this sort of artifact of the internet. [1:05:03] And I'm here for every single one of them. I'm liking each one, which means then I live inside of the algorithm of Marty Supreme. And I will pay good money for... There's a jacket, a Marty Supreme jacket. I would pay very good money to... [1:05:16] to wear that jacket. Okay. You've come across this. [1:05:18] I've seen it I have not watched the 18 minute clip you have not watched it not yet not even oh Dina it's so funny I'm fully planning to okay you are I don't need to convince you no no no I'm gonna get there for sure your 24 hours of travel there wasn't an opportunity at that time to lock in on that okay we are looking for our next

[1:05:40] Guess. [1:05:41] Um... [1:05:43] Patrick Kearney from Relay, who I'm going to be doing a panel with later in the day. [1:05:48] Oh, great. What's your... [1:05:50] Pin on. It is. [1:05:51] perps [1:05:53] prediction markets and [1:05:55] Amen. [1:05:56] Payments. Payments. And I'm going to be chatting with... [1:06:01] our friend Patrick from Relay about that on stage, so... [1:06:03] excited to meet him. [1:06:05] Yeah, I'm excited to talk with him. What are you seeing on the internet that you're liking these days? Uh... [1:06:11] Let's see here. [1:06:15] Thank you. [1:06:17] Anything on TikTok? [1:06:20] Yeah, I actually have a TikTok video that I wanted to show. I fear it's maybe a bit too technically... [1:06:27] complicated to stream it now but I can tell you the concept of it [1:06:31] it was a guy who is rewatching. Well, they're watching, uh, [1:06:35] Twilight the film yes it's having a big moment 25th anniversary is it something's happening 25th anniversary is it [1:06:41] I know. [1:06:42] How? I know. [1:06:44] That's crazy. Or maybe 20th. [1:06:45] Somewhere in there. [1:06:47] Long time. Anyway, I'm not going to do the clip justice, and maybe we'll put the clip in the show notes. But... [1:06:53] Like, Twilight is playing, and he's like, [1:06:55] I'm going to go crazy because I need to tell you guys what's... [1:06:59] going on with the flags in the background of a shot in a school. [1:07:03] Okay. And he's like, it's a guy talking in front of a screen. Okay. Okay. [1:07:07] screen is paused. It has Twilight. Twilight paused in the school. Okay. I've actually never really seen Twilight, but they're in the cafeteria or something. Okay. Yeah. And he's like, I'm going insane because looking at these flags on the, on the wall in the school.

[1:07:19] is crazy. There's like [1:07:21] North Korea like there's all these flags from all these places that it's like that are also like oh no like things that were countries but like only moments of time okay like yeah it's a really odd weird Soviet flag collection that has been placed by the prompt department of Twilight they like found them somewhere yeah exactly [1:07:40] So I really loved that. That's really fun. One of the beautiful things about... [1:07:46] One of the beautiful things about Twilight is that it was so extremely low budget. [1:07:49] that there are some wonderful moments like that because it was like [1:07:52] 19 year old girl who was like they need flags and like she went to the dollar store totally and also my experience of watching Friday Night Lights [1:08:00] Yes. Where the department of [1:08:03] Friday Night Sites. [1:08:04] There's one. [1:08:04] Um, [1:08:05] really low budget and one example that is [1:08:09] I was watching it. [1:08:10] and [1:08:11] there's someone who's handing someone else a drink [1:08:13] And there's a whole line. [1:08:15] in the drink. Like it wasn't even cut up. [1:08:19] And I just hand it and I go home. Wait, that's not low budget. That's just, like, lazy. I don't even know what that is. So lazy. It's just, like... [1:08:25] Yeah. [1:08:25] Oh my gosh, that's funny. Okay. Oh, our next... [1:08:28] Our next guest is here. [1:08:30] They're going to come on up right now. [1:08:34] Patrick Kearney from Relay coming down. Great to see. What's up? How's it going? Hi, I'm Natasha. [1:08:42] Nice to meet you, Dina. [1:08:44] Come on down. These are going to be for you. And then you're going to want to hold this quite close.

[1:08:51] to your mouth. There you go. [1:08:53] Um... [1:08:54] Patrick Herney from Relay, thank you for being here. Head of Growth and Marketing. [1:08:58] Is that right? Growth and marketing, I think, is the official LinkedIn title. [1:09:02] There we go. It's really just, you know, anything that that kind of, you know, the day brings. [1:09:07] Great, great. Anything and everything. Okay. I want to tell you how I use Relay, and then you can tell me. [1:09:14] how it's [1:09:15] correct or incorrect. And... [1:09:17] what more it encompasses. [1:09:19] Does that sound fair? That sounds great. Okay, great. Okay, so I like have USDC on ETH in my wallet. [1:09:27] I need that to be hype. I go to you guys. [1:09:30] You swap it. [1:09:31] And then it's in my wallet. Yeah. Is that correct? Yeah. And then, I mean, depending on what you're trying to do, if you're trying to trade perps... [1:09:39] go to app.hyperliquid.xyz, probably enable a VPN depending on where you are. And then straight away, spot, [1:09:46] You know, whatever you kind of want to do on the app itself is going to take place directly in the Hyperliquid. [1:09:51] We just are really the rails to get you there. [1:09:53] Nice. [1:09:54] And so I can really just think of you as that. [1:09:56] bridging. Yeah. [1:09:58] swapping rails. Yeah, I honestly think that the best way to [1:10:01] at least I have found to explain it to people. [1:10:04] is we kind of started out with cross-chain execution, and we were gonna help Zora basically do cross-chain [1:10:11] you know, buys of NFTs and things of that nature. [1:10:14] And we realized we had just built... [1:10:16] an API that was super robust [1:10:18] for same chain swapping, cross chain swapping, bridging, cross chain execution, if you want to call it.

[1:10:24] which is really, I think OpenSea's integration is a very good example of this. [1:10:29] where if I want to buy an NFT or I want to buy or swap a token on the platform, [1:10:33] It really is just cross-chain execution that's occurring behind the scenes. [1:10:37] And we then, you know, built the front-end app to really... [1:10:41] showcase I think the power of that and [1:10:44] how kind of [1:10:45] quickly you can go multi-chain, if you will. Okay, you're doing the Lord's work, because no one... [1:10:51] And I mean, no one wants to deal with the cross-chain. [1:10:57] Issues. Issues and... [1:11:00] who's talking to who and who isn't talking to you. And so... [1:11:03] I mean that genuinely. It's not just a show. I feel grateful to have people like you who are... [1:11:09] abstracting, I mean there's the app and that's [1:11:12] something that I do as a user, but I understand that there's like other abstraction that you guys do behind the scenes that's [1:11:16] Just, yeah, really appreciate it. Thank you. It's very... It's so... [1:11:20] It's really seamless. All the scary parts are gone. I'm sure they're under the hood. [1:11:29] What is the difference? [1:11:31] between bridging and swapping. [1:11:34] That might be a dumb question, but genuinely. No, it's a great question. Okay, thank you. Thank you. One that I didn't necessarily understand. [1:11:40] early on in my career as well. [1:11:42] Bridging is effectively going from one chain [1:11:45] to another chain but in the same current. [1:11:47] - Okay. - You're not swapping tokens, and ideally, [1:11:49] you know, you're not... [1:11:51] minting or burning, you know, on the other side. Okay. It's the same standard. Really, if you want to think about it, it's like, let's take USDC...

[1:12:00] on Arbitrum [1:12:01] Okay. Let's go to mainnet. Okay. We're not going to change the token standard. We're not going to change the token or the asset in your wallet. [1:12:07] but we are gonna change the actual underlying chain it's on. - Okay, okay, that makes a ton of sense. [1:12:11] And then swapping would be like you're actually changing the currency and the blockchain. Exactly. And this is where that qualifier of is it a cross-chain swap or is it a same-chain swap? I see. Okay. Comes into play. [1:12:23] The irony being is a cross-chain swap really... [1:12:26] is a bridge and then a swap. Okay, okay, okay. If you want to get out of two parts, right? Yeah, yeah, yeah. Okay, that makes sense. That makes sense. And since you have to... [1:12:34] I mean, since your role in the ecosystem is to [1:12:38] connect all these chains, like you must have so many friends. [1:12:41] Do you have a lot of friends? [1:12:42] across all these different chains. I think by design, if you ask anybody close to me, [1:12:47] They would say I'm just a social butterfly. I mean, it seems like you have to be going one by one to get all these people integrated. So which one's your favorite? [1:12:56] Oh, whoa. Spicy. [1:13:00] Uh... [1:13:00] I've known Adam Ilinich probably for the longest time. Okay, nice. I love naming names. Yeah, and like that... [1:13:07] You know, if you want to do the LinkedIn research, we can then find the partner that follows on it. [1:13:11] I was just joking. But everybody's fantastic, right? Everyone's great. We love them all equally. Anyone, yeah. We love them all equally. Thank you. [1:13:17] Okay, so... [1:13:19] that [1:13:19] That makes a ton of sense. [1:13:23] What? It's a man. [1:13:24] So you have the app. [1:13:26] And then there are other integrations that people are using you in their stack too, right?

[1:13:31] Exactly. So the app really... [1:13:33] you know under [1:13:34] under the surface just utilizes the API. Yeah. Okay. And I think it does a good job of, like, showcasing just what you can do with it. But then you look at an app like Axiom, [1:13:42] We're helping users onboarding into a specific token. Same thing with-- [1:13:46] you know, the underlying kind of [1:13:48] partnership with Fun, who powers Polymarket... [1:13:51] Katana, you know, the list goes on. Yeah. But... [1:13:54] I think that is really the more powerful experience because in that UX, [1:13:58] You're doing what you want to be doing on chain. [1:14:00] You know, the UX on a bridge [1:14:02] or a swap provider. [1:14:04] It's like, [1:14:05] great. Now I have to go to where I actually, you know, want to play on chance. [1:14:09] Yeah, yeah, totally. That makes a ton of sense. And are you thinking about, like... [1:14:14] I don't know. We're living in a world that's sort of like a cross-chain universe. I think that that will continue to be the case. [1:14:20] and I think there will be, you know, a few chains that win in the end, but... [1:14:26] Curious, like, how are you both, I guess, personally and also at Relay thinking about... [1:14:32] sort of the future of multi-chain worlds? What is sort of the internal conversations around that? [1:14:39] - That's a great question. I think I even before I knew [1:14:43] I mean, before Relay existed, I've always had the thesis, [1:14:46] amongst many people I think in our space, that it is going to be a multi-chain future. Yeah. Like I'm pretty sure that thesis isn't proven at this point, but yeah. [1:14:53] I'm not a scientist, so bear with me. [1:14:55] I think when you look at, like yesterday, [1:14:59] For example, I was paying a vendor who had made some custom mate mugs.

[1:15:04] And they wanted USDT on Tron. [1:15:07] Okay, well, and... The vendor did? The vendor did. Okay. [1:15:10] Incredible, right? [1:15:12] And so I literally went to relay and just [1:15:14] Fire it up. [1:15:17] And, you know, I kind of said to myself, I was like, oh, shit. Like, we are in a multi-chain future. Yeah, it's happening. And this is the future of payments to an extent. Yeah. So, yeah, I think some of the more interesting conversations are around... [1:15:29] more recently launched chains like Plasma, which [1:15:32] Plasma and Katana have both integrated yields [1:15:35] by default into their ecosystem. I think it seems like we're going into an ICO kind of winter. [1:15:41] if you will. Um... [1:15:43] and I think all of the underlying infra that's been built to facilitate that [1:15:47] is very, very interesting. Like Portal and Monad... [1:15:50] And there's been a number of pretty significant L1s that launched this year. [1:15:57] Same to say, like, the EVM space obviously continues to... [1:16:00] to be incredibly vibrant now bringing in so much of the institutional capital [1:16:04] and making it super, super easy for... [1:16:07] both retail users and institutions alike [1:16:10] to really start to trust crypto again. [1:16:12] Man, I'd want to be in your guys' business right now. [1:16:15] With the last year of announcements around different chains and coins and everything, I'm like... [1:16:21] It's a good business to be. Although I will say, I- Engineers hate us. [1:16:24] Yeah, yeah, yeah, I'm sure. Like, another change. There's nothing quite as scary as bridging. Like, I will say that's probably one of the... [1:16:33] most fear-inducing moments. I think that's trauma from you being in crypto too long.

[1:16:38] Because I feel like it's gotten, I mean, it was four years ago. It was like, don't do it. It's 15 minutes. Don't do it. Just don't do it. Like, it's just not going to happen. Whatever you need, don't go. Exactly. And I think, like, honestly, in the last year, I don't feel that same, like, horror. I'm sweating. I'm doing this thing that I did. I guess the reason I say it, though, is just to be in it. [1:16:59] His shoes. [1:17:00] like [1:17:01] as a business it just wouldn't [1:17:02] I would not be able to sleep at night. Literally. That's why we're doing this. [1:17:08] Okay, I want to talk a little bit about the scale. Six million plus users, 75 plus chains... [1:17:15] 60 plus million transactions, $8.5 billion in volume. [1:17:20] That's crazy. That's a lot. [1:17:21] What are some of the common behaviors, swaps? What are you seeing? None of the status is accurate anymore. It's like we're probably pushing. It is. And it's not that old. Okay. Okay. Um, but it's just been, it's been a crazy last couple months. Wow. It's been a wild, you know, I mean, really it's maybe 20, 21 months old. Yeah. Uh, [1:17:40] and we went from single digit in the millions volumes to [1:17:44] Now pushing... [1:17:45] Obviously tens of billions. Wow. That's incredible. Over the whole time, really. [1:17:50] But, um... [1:17:51] I think a lot of it has to do, and we were just talking about, you know, the past trauma dealing with bridging. And I think a lot of that comes with both difficult UX, certainly, and then the security kind of risks. [1:18:01] so many [1:18:03] stories [1:18:04] you know [1:18:04] of bridges that had been exploited or whatever. [1:18:07] But one of the more interesting aspects about Relay and not to get too technical

[1:18:11] But [1:18:12] The cross chain intense piece. [1:18:13] really allows us to ensure that our users at the end of the day... [1:18:17] remain very, very safe. [1:18:18] Okay. [1:18:19] there's only so much at stake, right? Yeah. We don't ever have their funds. Yeah. [1:18:22] And so it's like, we can't, [1:18:23] be exploited. [1:18:24] because we've never, you know, it's [1:18:27] Kind of beautiful, but... [1:18:28] it only exists with this underlying kind of [1:18:31] slow but secure layer of like native bridges. Yeah. Yeah. [1:18:34] Anyways. [1:18:35] So what do you see swap most often? [1:18:39] I think it's-- [1:18:40] I mean, we are in stable season for sure. So I think it's going to be USDC, USDT. [1:18:45] mainnet Ethereum... [1:18:47] Um... [1:18:48] I'm trying to think who else [1:18:49] There's been obviously a ton of soul, like soul, whether it's going to BNB or on soul itself. Okay. And, you know, people still being participate, you know, participating in that. [1:18:59] Meme point. [1:19:00] I don't know if I can swear on this, but shitcoin. Yeah, totally. Go for it. You know, kind of meta. Yeah. But [1:19:06] I think the other pieces, you know, you have a chain like Katana or Plasma, which a lot of users are going to. [1:19:13] Yeah. And not really... [1:19:15] drawing. Oh, interesting. Okay. And so you're starting to see that adoption of like, okay, I want to go into a currency that is also generating yields. [1:19:22] and not really have to think about it or within that [1:19:25] you know, experience self, I can, you know, [1:19:27] integrate directly with Morpho or Ave, you know, wherever they decide to kind of [1:19:31] earn those yields from. - Okay. [1:19:34] - Great question. - Cool, interesting. [1:19:36] We are at time, but we do a little game here where you get, it's called the shill minute.

[1:19:44] And you get one minute to shill anything. [1:19:48] And hopefully it's not really. Hopefully it's something else. So far what we've had is meditation and travel. Previously we've had the Bay Area. [1:19:57] One time we had someone do the cube that makes you not be able to use your phone. [1:20:02] It can be food, it can be drink. [1:20:04] whatever you want, but it's one minute on the clock. Are you ready? [1:20:07] Okay, go. Okay. [1:20:09] The take? [1:20:09] is... [1:20:10] We need more DJs. [1:20:12] But I want to add context. And this is coming from 12 years of DJing in New York. Okay. Whoa. You're going to. Okay. I'm giving you a minute. Because playing a playlist, putting a playlist on does not make you a DJ. Facts. Setting a record on a turntable and dropping the pin at the right time, being able to mix. [1:20:32] without the heads-up display of a CDJ. Okay. [1:20:35] That is true instrumentation and craftsmanship. [1:20:39] We need more DJs. We do not need more playlist pushers. We do not need more sync button pushers. Okay. [1:20:47] We just need better, better kind of. Wow. Artists. DJ Arden. Artistry. Exactly. Okay, wow. You made the point in 45 seconds. That's pretty iconic. I recently tweeted, you can't all be DJs, and I got to tell you, it got a lot of activity on Twitter. Wait, what was it? We can't all be DJs? You can't all be DJs. 100% agree. Like, that's without question true. I think you guys are aligned. We're on the same page. Okay, Patrick, thank you so much for coming on. Thank you. This is so fun. We love your product, genuinely.

[1:21:17] And great to meet you in person. Pleasure. Natasha, Dina, thank you so much. Thank you. [1:21:22] Um, great stuff. Okay. Love relay. We love space and time. Oh, I don't see her, but not here yet, but I feel she will arrive. [1:21:32] She will arrive soon. That was a great show. [1:21:35] Great show minute. Great show minute. I think I had the vibe that he had, that's his subway take. He had it locked and loaded. And I was like, yeah, I love that. Coming in ready. [1:21:45] What I wanted to ask him, but we didn't have the time to, is [1:21:49] I wanted to know what the weirdest swap he's ever seen was. I know, esoteric swap. I saw that in the notes, and I'm like, that's a beautiful name for something. A show, esoteric swap. [1:22:02] I wanted to know what the most esoteric swap people have seen and the route it takes. Like going some front... 75? [1:22:07] blockchains. Like, there's some in there that are just [1:22:09] hot take too many blockchains like a dead dud thing that someone was like I mean I've been that person before where I had something in a chain that essentially had died no I literally saw the help email come through and I was like a help email to a chain we're in a dark spot but you had like money you had to get out I had $2,000 that's [1:22:28] Significant. A used Toyota Camry. Yes. In a dead chain. Maybe the Jetta that you own. In fact. That was... [1:22:36] sitting on a dead chain that... [1:22:39] Honestly, I wouldn't even be... I would be happy to name and shame them if I could remember it because they... You were so upset about it. I was so upset about it. Yeah, fairly. And all of their...

[1:22:47] products. [1:22:49] had been deprecated because no one was paying attention anymore. And no one was building it and no one was updating it. And then I had tweeted about it and someone was like, Oh yeah, just come to this page. [1:22:58] connect your wallet to my thing, which was... [1:23:01] 100% going to be a scam and they were going to drain my funds. 100%. But it was masked in this like, oh, I'm going to help you. [1:23:09] luckily I had my wits about me and I did not good for you. Good for you. Because the other day you did not have your wits about you and you opened up a paperless post scam. [1:23:20] We're on our weekly, our daily stand-up, and Dina goes, ooh, I think I just opened up something I shouldn't have. It was actually quite sophisticated fishing. It was the fishing. [1:23:33] Attempt. Attempt. [1:23:35] Unsuccessful though in the end. Well, I mean, it was successful in that I opened the email, but I did not download the software that it was then prompting me. Okay. Well, what happened is it was a paperless post. It was a paperless post. [1:23:46] It was an email that said, I'm inviting, it was like a. You're invited, Dina's like, I'm there? Oh my, please, loneliness epidemic. [1:23:52] It speaks to such... [1:23:54] So here's what I will say. It was from not a person that I knew, but as [1:23:58] parents know [1:24:00] you get stuff. [1:24:01] paperless posts from [1:24:02] kids invite things. People you don't know. Yeah. From other parents that you're invited to someone's 10 year old birthday party. And so, [1:24:07] getting an invite from someone's email that I didn't recognize was actually [1:24:10] pretty typical behavior. It's happened. Yeah. I just want to [1:24:14] point that out to start. [1:24:15] But yes. [1:24:16] I opened it. It was a paperless post graphic that was embedded in the email. It says click here. Well, you know, paperless post user flow. You have to click it. I've been there. Yeah. And as soon as I clicked it, it's downloaded. Downloaded. Downloaded is so scary. And I was like, okay. Anyway, what people need to know is what you do in that case scenario is you move it to trash.

[1:24:36] Empty trash. [1:24:38] reboot your computer. [1:24:39] I didn't reboot, but I did put it in the trash and I did empty the trash. I did not download this offer. And then I downloaded... [1:24:48] And then you threw your computer in the trash. Well, no. Then I downloaded another thing, which was recommended... [1:24:54] Now I'm starting to question all my decisions. 100%. It was something that was going to scan it. [1:25:01] scan my computer to see if there was [1:25:02] any issues on it. Anyway. And that's a drawing. [1:25:09] Oh my gosh, I'm just joking. So anyway, that's [1:25:12] where we're at. I don't see Catherine. I don't see Catherine. Um, we, uh, we, uh, [1:25:18] G [1:25:19] Giorgio? [1:25:21] Grigore, where's he from PiSquared? Wow, I can't read. Okay, from PiSquared, we'll be here momentarily. [1:25:27] Um... [1:25:28] I would love... [1:25:30] to do like a little like a [1:25:34] lipstick. [1:25:36] Oh, a little bio break. [1:25:37] yeah like a little just a five second five minute I'm gonna need your compact your Mac [1:25:44] cosmetic compact. So we can just chat. I don't know. That's what a live stream is, I think. [1:25:50] Thank you. [1:25:51] Amen. [1:25:51] you are in there for that only [1:25:53] getting my, I don't know where it is. [1:25:56] so I oh I think it's right there um I [1:26:00] We could do actually a little shill. [1:26:03] chill for our cosmetic bags. [1:26:05] I recently went to a wonderful event where they gave out

[1:26:10] Um... [1:26:11] Charlotte Tilbury [1:26:13] lipstick. [1:26:14] as like a parting gift. Charlotte Tilbury. Like 40 bucks, I think. [1:26:20] A pop. [1:26:21] And... [1:26:22] Hi. [1:26:25] We're taking a little reapplication. [1:26:28] Thank you. [1:26:29] No problem. [1:26:30] I'll just let him do something. [1:26:32] Thank you. [1:26:32] Okay. [1:26:33] Thank you. [1:26:34] - [1:26:37] Okay. [1:26:38] - So, Wayne University signing, [1:26:42] Thank you. [1:26:43] We're going to take a little break. Taking a break. We'll be back. [1:26:50] Okay. Here we are. [1:26:52] We're back. [1:26:53] Had a little break. We did have a little break. I just want to... [1:26:56] talk again about. [1:26:58] our event later today. [1:26:59] Yes. It is with Polygon and Pod Network. And... [1:27:05] uh... [1:27:06] also Party Pals, Privy and [1:27:08] Blockade. [1:27:08] Shout out to them. [1:27:09] I'm going through the RSVP list right now and [1:27:13] uh, [1:27:14] Basically what happens is you RSVP and then [1:27:17] we... [1:27:18] Thank you. [1:27:19] Decide your fate. [1:27:21] Ha ha! [1:27:21] No, we approve [1:27:23] people from there. [1:27:24] And just to give a sprinkling of the who's who of crypto that will be at this event tonight. [1:27:30] I'm seeing folks. [1:27:31] from [1:27:32] I'm seeing folks. [1:27:33] from Uniswap Foundation, Monad... [1:27:39] I'm seeing folks [1:27:40] from BitPanda, off-chain labs,

[1:27:44] block were [1:27:45] let's see, a lot of Uniswap Foundation people. [1:27:49] Um... [1:27:50] just, it always ends up being... [1:27:53] All the people that you need to run into. A lot of people. I will say, I had a little funny moment last night that was really... [1:27:59] Really nice. Baruchain, yeah. [1:28:00] Wonderful. [1:28:02] moment. I... [1:28:05] I had reached my limit of socializing and bailed on a dinner. I just couldn't. And [1:28:12] I was walking home and I was like, I'd love to get a little sausage. [1:28:17] Little sausage. Uh-huh. [1:28:18] snack [1:28:19] before bed, as one does in Argentina. And I stopped into this place that's like, [1:28:25] I had had pinned [1:28:27] That's a really local... [1:28:29] spot. [1:28:29] like a local [1:28:31] sausage sandwich spot, I guess. [1:28:34] And anyway, I go in, I'm waiting, I'm... [1:28:36] I order and then I'm waiting. [1:28:38] The tempo... [1:28:40] Tranquila Tranquilo I don't know which one but wow slow [1:28:46] And that's fine. And I was kind of waiting there and standing there. A very nice man comes up to me, taps me on the shoulder. [1:28:51] And he's like, are you from Boys Club? And I was like, oh, yeah. And he tells me that he listens to the live stream, which is really nice and so kind. And he was really complimentary and talked about how we do a great job of breaking down. [1:29:02] Very complex things. And that was such a lovely thing to say. [1:29:04] And then we finished up talking, chatting, and he was like, also... [1:29:09] Can I get off the waitlist tomorrow? [1:29:12] And I was like totally. Wait, did we get him off? I did. I got him off. I got him off. So anyway.

[1:29:18] DM us and we'll do our best. - Yeah, if you're waiting to get approved, [1:29:23] but [1:29:24] Actually, here you go. [1:29:25] Drop a little... [1:29:28] Hello in the chat here, or drop a comment in the thread that has this live stream on it, if you're still waiting to get approved for the party tonight. [1:29:36] And I'm going to approve you. So that's your way in. [1:29:40] Okay, we've got... [1:29:42] Let's go. Let's do it. [1:29:45] Okay, we have Grigori Rosu from Pi Squared. Come on. [1:29:49] coming to join us here. How's it going? [1:29:53] Okay, these are gonna be for you. And then you're gonna want to hold this quite close. [1:29:59] Okay? [1:29:59] Hello, hello. There you go. So you're just fresh off the main stage. How you doing? [1:30:05] Great, great. It was a great audience. I loved it. They asked questions. [1:30:08] We are not used to questions in such a big room, but people ask questions. No, people are really locked in. They're very engaged here. It's been really impressive. [1:30:16] Full house and lots of questions. - So okay, what's pi squared? [1:30:21] Pi Squared [1:30:22] is... [1:30:23] a new company, we launched it last year, [1:30:25] And its mission is to build [1:30:28] the fastest decentralized network. [1:30:30] for instant payments. [1:30:31] for humans and AI. [1:30:33] Okay. [1:30:33] Okay. [1:30:34] And [1:30:35] What differentiates what you're building across other blockchains and protocols that are doing similar work? [1:30:43] Great question. [1:30:44] We are not a blockchain. Great. That helps. So we are

[1:30:49] a massively parallel network where all the transactions are being [1:30:54] validated, finalized and settled [1:30:57] independently and in parallel. [1:30:59] Okay. And this brings unlimited scalability. So this scalability limits of blockchains [1:31:06] The Apostle. [1:31:07] Okay. [1:31:08] So you're not a blockchain. Not a blockchain. A parallel network is what you call it. Yes, exactly. For us, a blockchain is a smart contract. If you need a total order... [1:31:15] implement it yourself. [1:31:17] Okay. [1:31:17] And what secures your network then? [1:31:20] The network is massively decentralized. Okay. Okay. And in order for a transaction to be validated, you need a quorum of validators. So you still need a quorum. You still have the same security guarantees as in a proof of stake blockchains, two thirds plus one need to be truthful for the, and then you everything that you, any transaction that you submit, you sign. So it's the same private key, public key mechanism. The same cryptography. The only thing that we eliminate from the picture is the total order. [1:31:49] on transactions, the chain property that we see in blockchains. And because of that, we don't need blocks either. So we don't have blocks. [1:31:55] No blocks. [1:31:56] Not chain. [1:31:57] Okay. Okay. And what [1:31:59] So you said you started this year ago. What was the motivation to start this? [1:32:04] So we... [1:32:05] So the name Pi-squared comes from proof of proof. [1:32:07] we developed a universal verifiable computing framework where you can take everything that is true, a computation, for example, in any programming language or a mathematical result, anything that comes with a proof, [1:32:17] And then, [1:32:18] We verify the proof and generate a cryptographic proof out of it. So we do ZK proofs of mathematical proofs.

[1:32:23] So this is proof of proof. [1:32:24] is the ultimate argument for correctness. And then we had all these amazing results [1:32:29] with proofs that had to be settled. [1:32:30] And we realize that ZK is not a problem. Many people think that well, ZK is slow. ZK is the problem. It's great, but it's slow. [1:32:38] Mathematical rigor, but it's slow. [1:32:39] First of all, I'm not sure about the mathematical rigor either, but definitely it's slow. [1:32:44] but that's not even the big problem. The big problem is that in the end [1:32:47] All the claims that are proved with ZK Proof need to be settled. And we implemented our first version of the network as a layer 2. [1:32:54] Okay. And it was dead. [1:32:55] slow. [1:32:56] we didn't even reach 100,000 DPS. [1:32:59] and we want to have unlimited [1:33:01] And I said, why should we order... [1:33:05] Payments in particular. [1:33:06] If I pay you and you pay her, then why should we [1:33:11] have a blockchain decide an order that my transaction first and your second. [1:33:15] or the other way around. [1:33:16] Let all validators validate in whatever order they want. [1:33:19] and that frees them from communication. It makes it [1:33:22] Super fast. Doesn't the... And I might be speaking out of turn, but... [1:33:27] my understanding of why there was an order was to prevent the double spend problem. How does yours solve that? That's a great question. Great question. Great question. [1:33:36] So indeed it was believed in early 2000s, and Nakamoto was a product of that philosophy, [1:33:42] that in order to avoid double spending you have to totally order the entire universe. [1:33:46] and then every single player will [1:33:49] have to order their transactions. Either one comes first or the other. Actually, not them.

[1:33:53] the blockchain will order for them in case they try to double spend. [1:33:57] Well? [1:33:57] It turns out that there is a better way to do it. And that was invented five, six years ago. [1:34:01] So in Nakamoto's defense, he didn't know the science. [1:34:05] So it has been proved by academics [1:34:07] with very rigorous proofs, very complex proofs, that actually, instead what you can do is the following: [1:34:12] The validators maintain a total order only for each client. So all your transactions will be in order. All your transactions in order, all my transactions in order. But they don't have to be globally. [1:34:23] or in any different way. They can be interleaved arbitrarily. [1:34:25] And it turns out that even if validators receive all these payments, transactions in different orders, [1:34:31] eventually they will have the same state. [1:34:34] This is called strong eventual consistency in concurrency theory and disability systems, [1:34:38] And that's what we prove. Blockchains have strong consistency, which is a stronger notion, saying that everybody at any given moment, all the bodies will have exactly the same state. [1:34:47] but it's too strong a requirement. [1:34:49] for payments. [1:34:50] And we need... [1:34:51] payments, first and foremost, in Web3. Scalable payments. [1:34:55] Okay, and so we're at a blockchain conference. We're here at the Ethereum World Fair. [1:35:00] What? [1:35:02] with your take that [1:35:04] Blockchains are over. I saw you have a hot take that said blockchains are over. [1:35:07] why would if [1:35:09] why would I choose [1:35:10] Pi squared versus... [1:35:13] one of these other networks to deploy on. [1:35:15] that is a traditional blockchain. [1:35:18] Why am I deploying on PiSquared? [1:35:21] because you want instant finality,

[1:35:24] If you go to our website, we have a wallet you can play with, fastset.xyz. Our protocol is called FastSet. [1:35:31] and you'll see that it is instant. Every transaction you make is instant. And then you look how many transactions [1:35:36] are going on and you see a hundred thousand plus [1:35:38] at the same time. Everything instant. [1:35:40] The same security, the same decentralization, actually even more decentralized. The code is simpler. Actually, the value data code is simpler. We can have multiple clients. We'll have more diversification than blockchains. [1:35:50] And... [1:35:51] Also scalability, that's why. [1:35:53] Okay, can you bring to life who are a few people that you're working with that are using PiSquared? [1:35:59] what are they using your product for? Like, how does it look like, um, [1:36:02] for them. [1:36:03] Right. [1:36:04] So first of all, we are very new. We started last year. We only have 30 MOUs signed with different partners. [1:36:11] But we believe that the most important use case is AI agentic payments. [1:36:17] Because unlike humans, AI agents are not patient. They do not want to wait five seconds for a transaction. They do not want to wait one second for a transaction. [1:36:26] They do not want to wait 400 milliseconds for a transaction. They want everything to be instant and super cheap. [1:36:32] And we started talking with several AI-agentic companies. Initially, they were very disappointed. They thought they have to implement around layer two. [1:36:39] because the existing blockchains are too slow and so on. And then we started showing them. [1:36:45] How fast facet can be and I said wow then we should use facet for payment. Yes [1:36:50] So we believe AI agents will be [1:36:52] our first major use case. But with the U.S. Genius Act, there will be a lot of pressure

[1:37:00] on web three [1:37:02] for transaction volume as well from humans and banks and stablecoin issuers and real-world asset issuers. [1:37:08] And all this together will... [1:37:11] I think make blockchains [1:37:13] Um... [1:37:14] Absolutely. [1:37:16] Yeah, I don't want to... I have many friends working on blockchains, don't get me wrong. And actually even investors, they often ask me, you know, do you want to come up with a better layer one than Monad and MegaEat and so on. And I think, no. [1:37:30] I think these are amazing technologies. They push the blockchain technology to its [1:37:34] limit. [1:37:35] So these are... [1:37:36] pieces of art literally in the blockchain space. But we think that we have to go beyond blockchain at this point if we want to go to the next level of scalability. [1:37:45] And what types of [1:37:47] And so you're here at Deaf Connect. Who are you? [1:37:51] looking to connect with? Is it builders to deploy on your network or enterprises? [1:37:55] to leverage your network in some way. [1:37:58] I'm curious. [1:37:59] what your goals are from being at a conference like this? [1:38:02] Well, all the above. All the above. Plus, I have lots of friends. I've been in the blockchain space since 2016. [1:38:08] and I've been to many of these conferences. I know lots of people. They can say me crazy a little bit, you know, by saying all these things, but I have proofs. And do they feel... Science is on my side. Do the folks at... [1:38:19] the... [1:38:20] blockchain is like, do they feel threatened by what you've built or do they feel like it could be added to their stack? [1:38:26] I think what will happen is that many blockchains will slowly migrate.

[1:38:31] We already see signs in SUI, in MegaEast, in Monad, where they push a lot parallelism. Yeah. But they still have a sequential mindset. Okay. [1:38:43] So parallelism is only an optimization. They say, okay, if we have these transactions which don't depend on each other, let's optimize, let's execute them in parallel. [1:38:52] But the overall semantics of the whole blockchain is still a sequential order, and that simply slows us down. [1:38:59] Actually, MegaEth, I would say, is probably the best. [1:39:01] blockchain technology around at this point [1:39:04] And I'm proud to say that the founder of Mega8 was my student, my... [1:39:07] student for seven years. He also worked in our company, Ranta Verification. He's amazing, and I know the quality of the project. He's just amazing. [1:39:16] but it's built on the same religion. [1:39:18] that we need a total order, we need a ledger, and then to optimize we need blocks. [1:39:23] But what MegaEath does compared to other blockchains, which I think is amazing, is that they incorporated knowledge in the sequencer. [1:39:29] Mm-hmm. [1:39:29] that allows the validators then to execute in parallel much faster much more optimized while other blockchains they say well this is the block [1:39:36] let's try to execute as much as we can. No, they planned for the parallelism. So that's what makes them faster and better than [1:39:43] I think all the other blockchain. But there is room beyond blockchain. That's my point. Yeah. So you feel embraced. [1:39:49] Not... [1:39:50] people don't... [1:39:51] you don't get the sense that people feel threatened by you. You get the sense that [1:39:55] they're embracing what you built. [1:39:56] Thank you. [1:39:57] I believe so. I firmly believe in science. I believe in science.

[1:40:01] - And science is staying supported. [1:40:05] So for you, over the next 12 to 18 months, what are... [1:40:09] the most important. [1:40:10] important metrics that you want to hit? [1:40:13] So... [1:40:13] First. [1:40:14] We don't even have a testnet. We have a devnet yet. So we want to launch a testnet by the end of this year. Then by Q2 next year, we want to TGE and then also launch our mainnet. [1:40:26] but minimal mainnet only for payments. [1:40:29] And one product only, which we call OmniSet... [1:40:31] which think of it as a [1:40:34] universal liquidity hub that unifies liquidity on the various L1 cell tools [1:40:39] So we are not exclusive, we do not exclude blockchains. On the contrary, actually, with this Omniset product, [1:40:44] we link our fast-end network with all the other blockchains. Think of it like a wormhole. [1:40:50] Where instead of the guardians, we have our own decentralized network, which may contain millions of nodes. And they see what happens on every chain. [1:41:00] and because we prove everything that happens on every chain even on megaeth we have a partnership with megaeth and everything megaeth does at this amazing speed of 10 milliseconds per block [1:41:08] We prove everything and settle it also on facet. [1:41:11] Mm. [1:41:12] And then the result of this settlement is that MegaEath did whatever he did correctly. [1:41:17] And now MegaEast can claim... [1:41:20] and they are still thinking about it, they can claim nearly instant finality. [1:41:23] In spite of the huge performance, they can also have nearly instant finality. [1:41:27] thanks to the technology that [1:41:28] you know it's complimentary it's very complimentary very complimentary and I think there'll be a migration migration way so they take your car you know you when you migrate from a gasoline car to an electric car

[1:41:40] That's an easy migration, right? It's not like the end of the world. No, you don't change anything. You still go from point A to point B with your car. It's still you. Still the same thinking, you know, as you drive. [1:41:50] Exactly the same will happen here. Users don't care. [1:41:52] if there is a total order or not under the hood. They just want it to work. And I think blockchains will migrate slowly in that direction. - And similar to electric cars, is the idea also that like, [1:42:01] You can be an electric car that takes gas. [1:42:03] similar? Could it be a blockchain that's using... [1:42:06] uh, [1:42:07] Using a traditional sequencing and using you guys as well? Yes. Actually, even on our chain, you can write smart contracts that implement sequencing. [1:42:15] Okay. So for some applications like Uniswap, you need sequencing. [1:42:19] trading, that's sequencing by design, then those can implement sequencing themselves. Our philosophy is that everything is parallel, same like the universe, [1:42:26] and if in this equation, implement it yourself. [1:42:29] I love it. Wow, totally different. Totally different vibe. Okay, we're at time, but we do this one game with our guests where you get one minute. [1:42:39] To shill anything. [1:42:41] But hopefully it's not your product. [1:42:43] So far we've had meditation. [1:42:46] Travel. [1:42:47] DJs? [1:42:49] And so it's one minute on the clock. [1:42:51] It can be an app, it can be a type of food, it can be anything. [1:42:54] Do you have something in mind? [1:42:56] No, I don't have anything in mind. Okay. You took me by surprise. No worries. [1:43:02] Where are you from originally? Romania. Romania. Do you show Romania? Yeah. Yeah. Okay. Tell us about Romania. Well, in Romania we make our own alcohol. Okay. Wait. Sorry to talk.

[1:43:15] Okay, you make your own alcohol. What else? In Romania, we make our own alcohol. We like dancing a lot. [1:43:20] Those are a good combination. [1:43:24] Yes, they reinforce each other. [1:43:28] Right. And one of the best memories I have with my father is when we were making alcohol together. [1:43:33] What kind of alcohol is it? It's like palinka, it's made out of plums, we call it suika, it's like rakie in Eastern Europe. [1:43:44] Everybody makes it differently and everybody is very proud the way they make it. Okay. Nice. And of course, my father and I, we play big game on and make alcohol. Wow. Oh my gosh, that's great. And then we get drunk. So what... My father has to finish the job. What's the name of it again? [1:44:00] The name of the alcohol? Suica. Suica. [1:44:02] Suica. Okay, a show for Suica. [1:44:04] incredible stuff. Thank you so much. Thank you so much. Such a pleasure to meet you. Have a great conference. Thank you. [1:44:10] Thank you. [1:44:11] All right. [1:44:12] Bye. See you. [1:44:13] No, it was great. It was great. Thank you. Oh, that was so fun. What a lovely guy. Okay, we have one. [1:44:22] Sebastian Serrano from Grupio. [1:44:26] I wonder if Sebastian is around... [1:44:30] Let's take a look-see. [1:44:33] If not, [1:44:34] He said it's like a cure. [1:44:36] It's like a Kirsch. A Kirsch. A Kirsch. Have you ever had Kirsch? [1:44:40] Kirsch is like a vodka adjacent, um... [1:44:44] I don't know why I'm chilling here.

[1:44:47] but it's very common. Um, [1:44:49] I do a really fun New Year's tradition. [1:44:52] Okay. [1:44:53] Sorry, hold on, let me just move this. [1:44:55] A New Year's tradition where I make cheese fondue. [1:44:57] Uh-huh. [1:44:58] and get a bunch of friends together. Not me. We'll do it this year. I'll come to Nashville. [1:45:05] I make homemade cheese fondue, and you have big salads and lots of bread, and you dip your bread into the cheese fondue. And then if your bread falls off of your fondue stick into the thing, you have two things that you have to do. [1:45:25] You have to kiss the person to your right, and you have to take a shot of Kirsch. The whole table has to take a shot of Kirsch. [1:45:30] So it's so fun. And by the end, you are so... [1:45:32] so fucked up. Because you've just been like... [1:45:35] And you have to be really strategic about where you sit. Totally. Yeah. Wow. That's way racier than I ever thought your party's going to be. I mean, it's not like we're making out. It's like a kiss on the cheek, okay? Got it. But it's fun. But it's a clear liquor. [1:45:48] It's a clear liquor. Okay. It is. [1:45:51] Something you take and think, that's medicinal. Yeah, yeah, yeah. Yeah. Okay. Because I was thinking it was like a purple cure. No, no, it's not. Like a cure. Oh, no. [1:46:00] Maybe. I was thinking it was adjacent to Kirsch. Okay. But maybe it is a dark liquor, and I'm wrong. Yeah, well. We'll have to ask. We'll have to go to Romania. Check it out. Yeah. [1:46:08] Lovely guy. That was fun. Really fun. I was like, this is a whole different way of thinking. Okay. I was like, I hope that, [1:46:16] and I've probably said it too many times, but I hope that he...

[1:46:20] I hope that people, I mean, there's some, you could interpret what he's building to be very competitive. [1:46:27] Yeah. [1:46:28] to blockchains. [1:46:29] But I think he got to that in the end, that it wasn't. And I think... [1:46:32] that day that [1:46:34] there's a [1:46:35] complimentary [1:46:36] uh, [1:46:37] experience of, oh, I think we've got Sebastian here. Great. [1:46:42] Yeah, complementary to other blockchains. The analogy of... [1:46:46] electric car was really helpful for me. I was like, wow, he should leave with that. [1:46:52] It's a note for next time. A note for next time. [1:46:54] Okay. [1:46:56] - [1:46:57] Hi, hi. [1:47:01] No problem, how are you doing? [1:47:03] How's it going? I'm Natasha. [1:47:06] So nice to meet you. [1:47:07] - See you man. - That's the way you do. [1:47:09] Okay, I know we're tight on time, so we'll keep it to a hard five. [1:47:16] Okay, tell us, what's Ripio? [1:47:18] - RIPIO is one of the first crypto companies in Latin America. [1:47:22] We started in April 2013, so we are 12 years old. [1:47:27] We basically started... [1:47:29] one of the first Bitcoin wallet in Argentina. [1:47:33] I'm one of the first in the world. [1:47:35] Over the years, we grew across all Latin America, [1:47:38] We have wallet exchange and B2B services. [1:47:42] Over the last few years, we have focused a lot more in B2B and [1:47:47] that we are providers of some of the largest

[1:47:51] Institutions, fintechs, and banks. Uh-oh, they need you on the main stage. They need me. Oh, they need you on the main stage. Well, it's lovely to meet you. I did a lot of research on your company, and it's incredible what you built. [1:48:00] So thank you for being here. We're very fans of Polyon. Us too. Us too. They are picking me up. Okay. [1:48:07] Nice to meet you. [1:48:10] The main stage calls, you must answer. You must. And I will say, I was really excited to chat with you. I know. I was like, I'm dying to talk about hyperinflation with someone who understands it. I know. And... [1:48:20] Yeah, home country, home crowd. I thought you were going to say homeboy. I was like, sure, yeah. No, I was really... 24 million users on... [1:48:29] on the platform [1:48:30] And yeah, so we're a lot of people mass adopted. [1:48:34] adopted. I would say we hit that. [1:48:37] Okay, well, this has been such a lovely time here. Is that the end? [1:48:41] That's the end. This is the end. [1:48:45] Or just the beginning, depending on how you look at it. Yeah, well, it is the beginning of... [1:48:51] the rest of the conference. [1:48:54] Again, if you are... [1:48:56] coming to, uh, if you are in Buenos Aires and you want to come to our event, [1:49:01] Please. [1:49:02] Reply on that thread. We'll push you through on the list. [1:49:06] approval and excited to see everyone. It's been so fun to be here with 20,000 of my closest friends. [1:49:13] This is so fun. This is so fun. I'm so grateful to be here. Hopefully we'll see many of you tonight. [1:49:18] And that's all for now. See you next time. See you next week.

[1:49:22] Okay. [1:49:23] Thank you.