you're being here today how are you doing?
I'm I'm I'm super happy to be here I'm a little I'm a little feverish though
because I'm a little sick so if I don't make any sense it's uh some kind of a
weird fever dream maybe I'm having but I yeah I'm gonna rally for this for sure
okay it's all good it's all good thank you for being here thank you for
soldiering through it I really really do appreciate that and everyone here
appreciates that as well so I do want to start with this um you know I did ask
John a similar question on a scale of one to ten but last week when we when we
talked you know you told me you would not do this interview unless it was
spicy so on a scale of honey barbecue to wild mango habanero how spicy are you
feeling today I don't know about the mango part but definitely I could go a
little spicy for sure why not okay I love it I love it so here's the thing we
do have a lot of topics to touch on today from the transparency report the
roadmap algorithm strategy the state of crypto and all the things but to be on
brand here to be on brand and as promised I do want to start this
interview off spicy you know I'm talking blazing challenge spicy picture on the
wall at Buffalo Wild Wings spicy a little while back your ex-account
unfortunately was compromised by someone and I have been dying to ask you
about it a lot of people have been wondering you know what was the deal
there what happened so without going too far into the rabbit hole just a quick
overview on what happened and did we ever find out who did it yeah so you
know there's a couple of investigations going on and everything I say is like a
legend of course right but I was just if you follow the strict chronology of
things you know and my phone was never out of my sight it's it's never been
out of my sight but I was in a Verizon store buying a little like iPad thing
and after that after I left that store Verizon started getting a lot of phone
calls saying oh I lost my phone I know my pin so I think it might have been
viewed in the store I know my pin and could you please transfer this account
to this iPhone and you know etc etc so I'm not sure how that got to crypto
exactly but maybe you know there's a marketplace I don't know and then of
course there's like 10 people working at Twitter to fix this problem right and I
do want to say that when we finally got somebody I mean it took us you know took
us 24 more than 24 hours to finally get somebody at Twitter but once we did she
was very you know she was very nice and she really did try so I they're just a
bit overwhelmed over there and they've got it a little bit the you know the
customer service around this stuff so that was this other like aspect to it
and you know I got to say though this sim swap thing is a little bit terrified
you know and your Brad Garlinghouse I mean I'm feeling a bit lucky Brad
Garlinghouse got 800 I know a hundred million in XRP sim swap last week or
the week before so I kind of I was unhappy about I'm still unhappy about it
but I'm feeling like I get off got off a little bit you know easy you know they
didn't take any of my crypto or anything like that they just but you
know I am I was listening to a podcast on Friday and one of the co-hosts I made
a very very good point I thought this sim swapping this virtual sim swapping
thing is so endemic in our industry and if this was any other industry they
would have done something about it by now they would have come down and they
would have you know taken these mobile companies to task and they would have
actually figured out a way to fix this for us but you know crypto is maybe just
not important enough and you know they don't they don't care but it's you know
it happens a lot in our industry and they need to they need to figure out a
way to make this safer now I you know of course I was kind of a knucklehead of
course too right not to have the two-factor authentication but but yeah
that's what happened yeah unfortunately you know I will first I'm glad the issue
was resolved first of all and unfortunately you know some people are
just up to no good and you know I'm feeling of people like you Brad
Garlinghouse you know get targeted for these kinds of things you know and
certainly as unfortunate you know I'm glad it's over and we can move forward
so you know forward you know without the guy that hacked into FTX like almost
the day that they shut down I remember because I was watching the I was
listening to the up-only podcast and like during the podcast they had a guy
from FTX on during the podcast FTX was getting hacked and it didn't make so
much noise because there's so much chaos generally going on there but you
know he calls himself El Swapo you know because he's like you know he's he's
actually in court now I think so I mean you know it's just nonsense what happens
with stuff yeah it's just a part of it you know in my interview with Lehman he
made a really good analogy he said you know there's with a hammer you could use
a hammer to hit someone and that's bad or you could use a hammer to build a
house and that's good anyhow and that's just really it is what you make it with
these things and I don't really blame you or Brad Garlinghouse or I mean Ben
with Sims swapped as well I mean it's serious because the people are targeting
people like people like you and Brad Garling it happens it happens it's
unfortunate but I'm glad we're past it I want to keep it moving I don't want to
stay on this on this for too long I have a lot we have a lot so many questions to
get through I know you're not feeling well so I'm so without any ranch or
ranch dressing or any blue cheese any celery no water I want to go to the next
question and of course it has to do with the transparency report first off I want
to say how much I actually you know I do appreciate the quarterly transparency
reports they really should be an industry standard in my opinion I'm gonna
and you know that too I mean it is really I mean it was pretty terrible
before like there was just no it was just like a lot of words and verbiage and
I mean I would read that thing I'm like I don't I just don't understand what
information we're conveying about this we need to they need to know like where
you know under what you know category money is being spent that's what they
want to know and then like we should brag about some stuff that happened during
the quarter too so yeah I mean for sure a lot of you know especially your cue
for last year even on the miss our report there was a lot of really
bullish narratives for our grand you know with new people coming in the market
cap going up and to the right you know a lot of really good positive things
especially you know even with the roadmap coming personally I'm very
excited for algo kit and people being able to develop in Python all that but
you know to follow to get into the question with the transparency port
transparency report is sometimes when you pull back the curtain for everyone
to see sometimes there is a little bit of controversy waiting for you there on
the other side and the part of the transparency report obviously shrouded
in controversy is the deal with Eric's in capital and I know there's stuff you
know with NDAs and all but Stacy what what can you tell us about what I can't
really tell you too much about it you know we were an LP in the fund and you
know we're under an NDA with the fund and you know we you know we have to
explain the money that we spent right that's the point of the transparency
report and so we invited you know we you know we invited Arrington to not have
the NDA and we just I mean we didn't mean that to be particularly provocative
honestly but we we you know we just like we can't violate an NDA so we're
not gonna do it you know we can't do it we do feel some obligation to tell the
community what we're up to so we tried to walk that line maybe we didn't I mean
we're a bit surprised by by all of the I mean but this is a community that gets
you know they get energized quite quickly about things I should have I
should have realized but but yeah so I mean I think it's kind of it's died down
a bit but yeah for sure and you know I definitely understand I mean this is why
we do the transparency report I mean what would the Agaran family rather have
been in the dark on that or have seen it and known about it and you know I think
being upfront and transparent about each and everything good or bad I mean that's
a part of it this you know at the end of the day you know crypto it's the
business world and sometimes the business world things don't always go to
plan but it's not the end it's not the end of the world either you know I mean
so I think that people would much more do appreciate seeing it than not than
being left in the dark and that's for sure and I definitely see that that they
I don't feel that they held up their end of the deal and I don't feel like you
guys are in the wrong on the on this at all that's the way I see it I don't think
it gives us a free pass though the transparency report I do want to make
sure I say that like if you are you know cheating on your wife say and you
come home and you're like look I'm telling you I cheated on you like it but
I'm being transparent like I told you honey you know it doesn't mean like it's
okay so we are we don't want to be like that in general I'm not talking about
the Errington thing I just mean like in general we are gonna put stuff we're
airing some laundry and that thing some of which we're not you know we didn't do
so well some of which we're not so proud of some of which was great but the
point is like it's web 3 you got a you got a you got a you know it's community
money right so we got it we got to tell it all as we can yeah I mean it's very
brutally honest point that I love you that I'd love that you made that point
it's completely true and I know I just think I've always seen Algorand taking
the best foot forward with these things in terms in terms of you know when
things kind of go sideways I've always felt that Algorand has been very good at
rolling with the punches and anytime there's like a problem Algorand is very
quick to come up with the solution yeah this is something I've talked at length
about in several of my videos so yeah I do want to say I mean Stacy I have you
here I don't want to just talk about all the hard stuff I want to really pick
your brain on like you know what's happening in crypto right now this is and
you nailed two back-to-back spicy questions out of the park yeah so it's
all making sense now so Stacy zooming out a bit I mean Bitcoin hit 50,000 this
week this is the highest we've ever seen Bitcoin pre-having in a phase of
quantitative tightening we're not really quantitatively easing this is
insane conditions we're pre-having so you know I want to ask you what are your
overall thoughts on the crypto market and like how do you see it shaping up
over the next couple years yeah you know I think the the ETF thing with Bitcoin
cannot be underestimated because if you think about registered advisors registered
investment advisors RAAs they they buy ETFs for their clients to buy ETFs for
their clients and everybody of you know who's sort of 50 to 70 now they they use
registered investment advisors and that's a lot of money that's trillions
and trillions of dollars now only it you know and if those registered those RAAs
say just you know a tiny allocation to crypto it's always going to start with
Bitcoin of course just like just for diversification purposes a tiny
allocation that ends up being a lot of money even if it's only 1% or 2% of
portfolios right and so and I think the technical design of the ETFs now are not
also not optimal so it's a it's gets a little weedy but they could be done I
think a little bit better and so we saw the next generation of these ETFs I
think are going to be a lot there's gonna be a lot more participation from
these things so I think that's super important the second thing is that we
we need to you know right now we've got good pilots everywhere you know I could
talk about my ecosystem right but so if you look at you know travel X right
they have spent time you know making sure that they are you know signing up
airlines etc they have two airlines but fast forward you know those guys hustle
right fast forward a couple years from now they're gonna have you know 10 20
25 50 airlines right and you can say that across the ecosystem right now we're
very much I would say in not entirely but very much I would say in the pilot
phase and so those pilots need to kind of work out find themselves find their
footing and and then you can see this kind of explosive growth and usage right
I think also what takes time is you know getting properly regulated right and so
as companies do you know there's a lot of first mover disadvantage in this it
takes a lot of time I mean you know the guys at Qantos I mean they spent you
know almost three years getting regulated right and so but as more
companies come on then the regulators have seen this before they get more
comfortable with it and then in a couple of years like the next Qantos it comes
along it's like okay yeah we've seen this before you know we're comfortable
and you know probably won't take three years right so I mean I know this is
almost a cliche in crypto now but we're so early and the thing is we are so
early right and so for us it wasn't our you know I mean this is not a very
motivating goal but you know we were we needed to get through this crypto
winter right and so the survivors that survived are going to be around and
stronger and we say this for ourselves and also for the company's building on
Algorand to take advantage of a more benign you know environment and and more
and you know a more broad public kind of awareness of the of the you know the
tech is just so good there's just so much nonsense out there and financial
services just to use one kind of example but of course you can also talk
about supply chain right somebody said to me once and I thought this was a
really great thing financial services it's croquet you look at it from the
front and it looks clean and perfect but you look in the back and it's like a
mess you know and it's just like this kludgy mess of stuff and that kludgy
mess of stuff does not need to be there a blockchain just makes it so much
easier with instant settlement and atomic swaps and all of that and
clearing equal settlement on the blockchain right so you don't have to
have the swift clearing process and then the correspondent banking settlement
process it's just too good of a technology for the world to ignore it
but we got a we that we just got to keep pushing forward on it you know so
yeah I'm bullish Wow that was really good point a couple things you said
there I really like what you said about the first mover disadvantage you know a
lot of times in markets we kind of here like you know in the DeFi summer back
in the day like the coins that came out first got the gains first and everyone
said like first mover advantage but in terms of regulation first mover
disadvantage because they have to go through the blender to go through the
ringer when everyone else can show up at in the back of the line and walk
straight through because they didn't have to deal like that yeah copying what
the first person did so you know the rules a little bit okay that those guys
were approved so what did they do what does it look like I'll just use that you
know which is fair enough right but it's you know my point is more that it's
getting easier not that you know that anybody's free riding yeah 100% so I'm
certainly also overall very bullish on crypto moving forward you know Bitcoin
everything I mean we've never seen conditions like this pre-having we
couldn't really be asking for a better scenario with people when we consider
the ETF and the institutional attention that we're getting mixed with you know
the Bitcoin having and what generally happens with in the market cycle itself
when people start throwing around the word super cycle you know my eyes kind
of my eyebrows raised up a little bit because I do see the big picture I think
it's possible especially if you know there's some phase of quantitative easing
paired with that as well we've never been through a bull run in a phase of
quantitative tightening so I do want to ask you know with you know this bullish
projection and buying for the overall crypto market zooming in like you know
like where do you see Algorand in you know a year or two and then what's the
strategy to get us there yeah so we have a so obviously you know I have said
before you know top 5 and 25 I mean that's a very aspirational goal of
course right but we got it we just got to keep moving up the ranks and
everything from and we have good numbers on things like monthly active wallets
and that kind of thing but we need to keep moving up the ranks and and Algo
denominated TVL very strong right so we but we need to just keep moving up the
ranks in terms of the size of this you know I call it Planet Algorand and our
planet needs to get bigger and bigger and bigger right like that's the job
right to be to be and so when we think about it internally we think about it as
the big six and just by the way I cannot think of an acronym that will use the
first word the first letter of all of these words so if anybody writes it down
and you have a you have you come up with a good acronym for us then you'll get a
prize I guess so okay so the first thing is in terms of our goals these are not
force ranked but we have six big things we need to do first is adoption so we
have got to drive real-world use cases big bets that that on things that are
important so and you know maybe this was an error on my part but I have never
let us announce things that are kind of vaporware and so we have missed a
little bit of some of this like false false stuff that you know people just
and that make a big deal out of something that doesn't isn't really
anything but I do think that the market generally is much more skeptical of
stuff like that now so I think the era for that is kind of coming to a close
but anyway obviously we need to get these kind of high-value implementation
so that's adoption number two is a prosperity the protocols and the
company's building on Algorand need to be successful and grow and and and become
rich right and so that is very much and as I we talk a lot about our bear hug
strategy we absolutely need to make that happen and do whatever we can to help
you know to help that happen number three is and I use this word in a very
secular sense but we need to cultivate religion and by religion I mean that
people are irrationally passionate about the Algorand ecosystem and I think that
we're pretty good there already I mean I think we have a I'll tell you one funny
thing about this this hacker so he was DMing a couple of his friends on my DM
so I have all of these DMS and he's like boy these guys these guys are on fire
these algo guys they're just so like they're they're just so relentless like
they're just they're so they're such maxis like they're really crazy these
alma like yep that's my community that's my algo fam so but anyway that
that kind of religion is really is really important and then fourth is and
as everybody knows we've got to get more awareness we need to be top of mind we
need to be in the zeitgeist we need to be talked about we're not being talked
about in the way that we need to and that is like absolutely a priority fifth
is we need to move to a more of an open source kind of ethos in this community
and in product development and that means you know protocols having their
own code be open source it also means sharing responsibility for things like
and you know to speak very bluntly not blaming the foundation like every time
something goes wrong I mean we have like sometimes people on Twitter that you
know a protocol will have a problem and and you know it's like at Stacey warden
why did you know shouldn't you have done this on testnet more and like that it's
like kind of like that's not web 3 right web 3 is like you are you know you are
decentralized there's nobody and you're kind of responsible for yourself and so
that's very important to us and also a lot of the work that burn is doing on
standards would be very important for this and then last is sustainability and
decentralization right and this is where the you know incentivizing consensus is
going to be so important so we've started this march towards
decentralization in that our grants program is now managed by the community
we are still building the tool and of course that is our responsibility to
build this tool and make it easier for them so we're going to spend these
three-quarters doing it we gather feedback you know it doesn't work as
well as it could in some places and and the rules but the rules are set by the
community already right so so we've got it we've got to get adoption we've got
it we've got it the you know the protocols building have to be prosperous
we've got to keep driving religion we need this awareness we have to inculcate
and cultivate this open source idea and we need to just continue on our march to
to decentralization that's it that's all we got to do just just those six things
yeah yeah I think that's really good I think we could easily I'll get back to
you with an acronym I think I can think of one for sure I noticed you know the
the with decentralization open source de-awareness open source you could say
Dow and then make something Dow out of that you know do you know I already
already saw that you're the crab I don't know I'll find it the letters around I'm
open to changing a word or two to if we can keep the same meaning and it comes
in it makes for a good acronym totally I'm open for that and then I you know
you don't have time to go through this but we have force ranked strategic
priorities and force ranked operational parties for the next three years and for
this year so we're very we're pretty tight ship on that kind of thing so just
like trying to march forward step by step by step yeah for sure and you know
when you look at the tech for Algorand and you know how fast it is how it's
getting faster over time not to throw any shade not to throw any hate but I
kind of still can't believe you know how many people are still using aetherium at
the level they're using aetherium and I'll tell you why you know this isn't
throwing shade it's just an observation a couple days ago my friend he did it
he put out a tweet that said like I just sent $100 on aetherium it took 10
minutes it cost me $12 and you're reading that tweet made it made me want
to pull my hair out you had to wait 10 minutes and it cost him $12 over a
hundred dollar transaction you know with Algorand obviously that would have cost
less than a penny and he only would have had to wait 2.9 seconds like hello so my
question is how do we get the people who are already in crypto into the algo
family how do we get them to see the true value prop here yeah I think one of
the really core things about markets is that liquidity begets liquidity and so
even if it's a QWERTY keyboard that's not a good keyboard you know people use
the QWERTY keyboard because like everybody else is using it right and in
finance it's even more so but what but we have you know to two ways that we
think about this one is how do we attract people that aren't in crypto and
how do we attract people that are in crypto and for to attract the people
that aren't are in crypto we have like kind of I would say probably four or
five things we need to do first we need to make sure and I have a team of three
people working on this at director level guy working on making sure that
the algo the USDCA and the ASAs are available wherever everything else is
available like there were on exchanges that were in the wallets that we I mean
I know when USDCA like I know that on Coinbase right like I know that's an
issue and we have to just keep you know this can be very expensive though right
like it's kind of it can be it can be expensive to get this stuff done so but
we just absolutely have to get through that to you know get make sure that that
happens and we've made a lot of progress on that of course since I've been here
you know second though we have to go where they are we have to go like we're
going to East Denver running a student hacker house we're pretty excited about
this at the end of February we are we were at La Bicconf in November so we are
very much like going to the other ecosystem and I'm not saying we're
unique in doing I mean a lot of people go to eat Denver but we're very we're
very careful to make sure that we're seen in other places the same or its
conference was another thing about that like that conference is very exclusive
conference right they accept 16% of the applications we are yeah they only let
200 people in but all the best investors go to this conference and we you know we
are the main sponsor of that conference right and so we just make sure that
we're there and that was a bit I was invited to speak there before I was the
head of Algorand just as a person that you understood and so on the back of
that we we cultivated this relationship so stuff like that is super super
important the last piece I think is that we need to have a reputation for being
good to our builders and being good to and so like oh Algorand they take care
of their builders they help them not just you know by giving like grants but
by helping them with their other business needs that they have we treat
them like businesses not like protocols right so how are you going to do
financial forecasting how are you going to think about compliance what are you
going to do on this like how can we help can we do bulk purchasing of finance
software that maybe you all protocols can use that kind of thing is going to
be a really important part of our strategy that we get a little bit of
that reputation maybe the ecosystem is smaller over there but they're well
cared for you know and so that's kind of that's that's how I think about it and
then of course it's going to be important to have a grassroots strategy
right influencers making sure we do podcasts making sure we're out there we
have just signed on with needle PR really really great PR firm and so we're
expecting to do you know I got it I had a PR firm before that they didn't
understand their big financial firm but they didn't understand crypto it's just
not the same thing you PR firm that understands what you're about and what
the ecosystem is about so that kind of stuff and is you know it's it's like
blocking and tackling stuff I think yeah no I mean for sure I feel like you know
all the pieces are there and I also feel like I you know as an influencer
myself I really kind of know where the state of crypto is that you know someone
who's really has followed you know other very large influencers in the space you
know I know what the the views for a video should be for a top influencer now
and what they used to be back in 2021 we're talking to completely different
story well yeah it's much lower now you know much much lower now for still the
top people in the game so it's one of those things that I feel when that kind
of excitement comes back when retail fully comes back I mean we're still
pre-having you know and I kind of feel like that is the story you know for a
lot of the visibility for a lot of crypto projects as well because you
know not as many people were watching you know all the top influencers like
they used to back when crypto was pumping but then you know retail will
come back and that consequently you know kind of hey I even saw this when I was
doing research on Algorand for a video I did a couple a couple weeks ago I you
noticed like from from what like January of 2021 to March of 2021 like a
couple hundred million dollars just flows into market caps like it happens
very fast and like I think when we kind of see like not to get into price
predictions or anything but when we see that kind of quick exponential run-up I
feel like the visibility will exponentially multiply you know for
crypto projects and crypto YouTube channels as well I think they're all
interconnected from retail attention so I feel like the pieces are there it's
just a matter of being systematic and consistent just like anything else so but
this is not this is kind of not not your question because you said people that
are already in crypto but if you think about people that are not in crypto yeah
we're doing a education program with the UN for example they just told us they
expect 10,000 people to watch our our course on what is blockchain how does it
of course Algorand is the example right and so we are through this course doing
the basics but also the lectures on this course are a lot of the protocols on
Algorand that they're going to give their own so gives them exposure as the
example of you know of the thing that we're trying to teach right so that's
the kind of thing I'm like I was so surprised by that 10,000 people like no
but they they need a blockchain 101 you know my aunt said to me are you still
in crypto I thought they arrested that guy you know and like and you know when
you think about like stuff like that you just realize there's so much education
to do it's just so much broad education to do the job is just you know but when
people start understanding then they start seeing the value of it and you
know yeah yeah I feel like you know it happens slow but but it happens fast at
the same time I was thinking about you know the evolution evolution of music
you know from a track players to cassette tapes to CDs to iPods to
streaming like you know there was educational process for everybody as the
technology got better and better and I kind of feel like the same things
happening right now with finance and it's just gonna take a little bit more
time it's a little bit more involved but I feel like it's certainly going to
happen it's just a matter of time in my opinion so yeah but crypto is not ruining
Christmas streaming music ruins Christmas because you can't give CDs for
Christmas presents anyways you know it's terrible that's actually very I
used to give people CDs and like box sets of CDs like the Sopranos the Grinch is
streaming so that's so funny all right so Stacy we started off pretty pretty
spicy I do want to have some fun I do have some fun I want to play a game of
pros and cons of course starting with the pros because I won't have fun give
me three pros for algorithms tech okay so number one two and three is that we
have instant finality I mean I just cannot I cannot overemphasize we are the
only blockchain that when you send a transaction is final immediately it is
deterministic it's random and also deterministic so but number four I would
say you know we've got everything that we need in layer one right so you can
have smart smart contracts are programmable in layer one ASAs are in
layer one atomic transfers rekeying everything is in the layer one you don't
need all of this to use your blockchain example of earlier you don't need all of
that that they have to do right and and I think the third I hate saying this but
it's resilient like we haven't had any downtime I do sort of feel like I tempt
the gods every time I say that but yes I'm gonna I'm gonna go with that is my
number is my number three and then of course we're still working we're still
working on this but you know we have the post quantum cryptography now so the
history of the chain is post quantum secure and you know of course we're we're
very proud of that when I say we I mean like you know our cryptographers not not
our management yeah yeah certainly I mean I feel like quantum resistance is a
thing like we don't really think about it now but there will be a point in time
where that's really gonna matter and I don't really know the timeline on
quantum computers but it is certainly something to consider that people it's
kind of like AI like before chat GPT it was just kind of like an idea but then
we actually all got to like use it and see what it could do I think a similar
type story will be the case for quantum computers so so we got three pros what
about three cons ways we could improve oh well you know the row out you're
giving me a way to talk about a roadmap but I think then the first problem that
we have and we are of course very cool we're in the seventh inning of solving
this is that you know it's just very hard to deal with PyTeal right so we
need a Python environment and we're going to roll out another language at
the end of the year when I first came anyone on this listening tour I expected
to hear a bunch of different things and really everybody just complained about
how you know you're the guys building the protocol in Boston they care very
much about the protocol but they don't really care about the developer
experience and you know John woods in our very first interview we talked about
the importance of like having this developer experience and they've been
working pretty hard with maker X want to give a shout out to those guys and so
we're gonna roll that out but like the easier it is to use and the better you
know the next iteration of that as well as of course the para wallet right like
the easier that thing is to use the more that it can do the better the UI on it
that's going to be it's like I call it kind of excuse elimination so we got to
just make sure we keep chipping away at that stuff the second thing I think is
really in fact I might even make this the first thing is that we don't
incentivize consensus and so Silvio has a very purist view about this which I
don't disagree with actually that you know if you're going to use a network
you have a responsibility as a good citizen to uphold the security of that
network well as it turns out though people respond to incentives right and
so we have a governance program where people complain about you know are these
votes really as meaningful as they could be and people are running relay nodes
and they're not getting compensated and now we move to a a situation where I
mean they are the relay nodes are the foundation does of course compensate
many of them for running relay nodes but if we have now a a system where you
stake algos and you are compensated for that for keeping this network secure
that helps with the decentralization and helps with the security of the network
so that is that is like super super important I think and then I think you
know I like the dynamic round times we've got to get it everything a bit
more efficient a bit faster I like this idea that you don't have to wait if you
don't need to for the block and then you know on the TPS I think going from I
think it was 1,200 or 1,400 when I got here to 2,500 then to 6,000 that kind of
like didn't matter that's just not enough you know so it was great you
know because they were making progress on their roadmap but it was not it's not
until you get to 10,000 transaction per second that you actually can say
anything or can do anything and can stay at scale in any way right and so now
that we have that we can start thinking about the things we care about around
micropayments and stuff like that right but you can't it's great to go from two
to six but it's also not meaningful in a way so you know Stacy I love how when
you know we're pros and cons and the cons are all things that are getting
worked on that are in progress that are developing and yeah that's what I've
always said about Algorand anytime there's a problem you've always rolled
with the punches I've always found a solution to whatever it is that you know
you want to improve upon and I just love how you frame that I would give
you my good no no no no I would just say because our bedrock belief is that you
know this tech is so good this is the blockchain that everybody should use so
we have to just get rid of the reasons get rid of the friction around it right
solve problems around it and then it'll it'll speak for itself 100% I couldn't
agree more I would give you my pros and cons but you know we don't have three
hours to get through the pros so I'm just gonna pick the next question you
know so I know the search for a new CMO has been going on for a little while you
know I can't imagine how difficult you know searching for the right person how
difficult that could be not at all an easy role to take on you know marketing
crypto is you know one of the most difficult things probably in the world in
my opinion you know so my question is is you know how is the search going and
where do I send my application you've got the job the search is over it's
yours it's yours I don't know if I'm gonna I don't know if I'm gonna want you
to do the side hustle all the time that you might have to give some of that up
but I'm joking I'm joking of course you know I also don't want to of course I
don't want to throw shade but I I cannot mess up this higher I cannot do it like
I cannot mess up this higher right and so I have to take my time and we have
three now good candidates I they keep where we're using we're working with
intersectional growth partners and I gotta say they keep bringing us really
good candidates and so I've met a lot of people a lot of people I probably met
maybe almost ten people so far and we've got three people we're excited about
but the thing is I have the luxury of taking my time because we have a very
good head of marketing vice president of marketing now and her name is Alexa
Carr and she went on maternity leave last year for five months and we all
kind of fell apart a little bit when she did that but she's the brainchild behind
you know the chess roadmap and the brand and the look and all of this stuff and
she's just I mean she's just terrific and so I feel quite lucky that I have
the luxury of getting the absolute right right person in the next time so we so I
you know it's a it's a big priority for me of course and the thing is the
pressure is on right because we've got the algo kit launched right we have the
roadmap we need somebody we need the perfect marketing person who can talk
about who knows product marketing who can talk to a community who can talk on
retail sales for some of the stuff the more BD type stuff we're trying to do I
mean it is a tricky it's a tricky hire right so
when they come though everybody hello be nice all of you all of you play nice
no one's perfect learning no I agree that that is very serious pair of shoes
to fill to get in there and uh you know but honestly to be fair I feel you know
even without a CMO at the moment that you guys have still done a pretty good
job look at what if what has come out since there has been no CMO I still feel
like it you know it kind of is a testament to the to the pre-existing
team and the structures there how well things have gone while you're still
trying to find that you know very crucial role I think it is a testament
to the rest of the team to be honest I will also say for those in my Twitter
feed that are not Python developers if you're not seeing the marketing it's
because we're not marketing to you we're marketing to Python developers and so the
fact that you don't see things you also have to kind of ask yourself am I the
intended audience and are they doing actually a very good job of audience
targeting and of course we need the broader of course right and so we're not
giving up on that but we're trying to be very surgical about going after these
full stack web to type and there's only like 10 million of them right like so we
you know we just need to convince a few of them we got to go where they are and
where they are is not necessarily where we are as the algo fam community right
yeah no certainly certainly I am looking forward to um to seeing who you guys
pick and you know how that the adjustment phase there and of course um I
hope everyone is receptive and open-minded and I feel like it will go
over I feel like you guys are you guys and you know you know what you're doing
that's what I'm saying I know you try I will I will tell you that I will put
this new marketing ahead on your show how's that when we're tired when we are
sounds good yeah yeah the day after they get hired they're coming on the
livestream and we're putting them through the ringer day one welcome the
crypto perfect so you know um I do want to zoom out and talk about a few projects
building on Algorand um you know I know that the token it's organization of
assets and you know RWAs very big big narrative in Algorand and in that field
specifically project or projects stand out to you well I you know I keep
talking about travel X I mean I just love this company I mean it just it's
because you know why it's creating a market that doesn't exist anymore doesn't
exist yet right it's creating a new market it's not taking a slice of the
pie away from somebody else it's it's new it's it's a win-win right so this
idea that you can trade on a second you should go to the fly bond your website
the website is full of like airline tickets for sale people are selling to
each other these these tickets and that that is one kind of tokenization that I
think is super super important it's not fractionalization though because it
tickets a ticket right but I also think there's a lot in fractionalization of
assets too right so this idea that you can be an investor in a large thing that
you never had access to before because you can tokenize it and you can be an
investor it's just a little bit of a fraction of it right and so there's a
lot of examples on Algorand of that right I think about control alts you know
none of us have ever invested in alternative alternative investments
right because if you're not an accredited investor you're not an
institution you don't have access to that kind of thing this is like a power
to the people kind of thing the lofty AI is the control alts right the the best
equities right like this is all stuff that and not to mention just you know as
I was saying before the back office and the settlement stuff just gets much
more efficient and more secure right so these are the kinds of things I think
there are super are super serious you know the stuff that that Algorand labs
is doing with the bank central bank of Italy they're in this incubator and you
know what they're trying to do there is have on the back of the government bond
market tokenizing bonds and tokenizing fiat euro fiat and so that you can do an
atomic swap for for bonds for sovereign bonds and technically that's not super
hard to do right and and so but regulatory as you can imagine everyone
they're taking their time they're being very cautious they're going very slowly
right so a lot of this stuff you know back to that what we started in the
beginning of the conversation it's not so much about the technology it's about
getting the environment right and sometimes you just have to wait for the
environment to catch up you know I might be about to sneeze but
it's kind of like a band that was like before its time and it wasn't
appreciated yet and then yeah I feel like there's a good there's a good
analogy there but certainly we'll be looking forward to that narrative I saw
some some like currently the RWA market cap and crypto is like 260 billion but
it's projected to be like 30 trillion by 2030 or some absorbent Lee high number
like that maybe with like 15 trillion I forget the exact statistic but you know
I feel like there's a we have a long way to go between A and B but I certainly
feel like the tokenization of assets is certainly going to be a heavy narrative
and I think any project that's you know doing a good job pulling that off is
going to be a big winner Algren included right oh but you have to have
instant finality I mean you have to have instant finale to do this you are not
going to sell something and give up your good tokenized or not and then think oh
maybe the payment didn't come through I thought it came through but it didn't
because you know it was on the wrong side of the you know soft fork right
like that's just not a thing and so you know we have inevitability on our side I
think yeah Algorand is inevitable I love it I love it um so you know I saw
this photo of you floating around last month with an Algorand foundation ice
ice sculpture what was that about what was I not invited well you know this is
the st. Moritz thing that we are the sponsors for three years for the st.
Moritz conference and then as I said it's a it's you know I go to and I go to
these because I have lived my career in finance right so I go to these finance
conferences I still get invited to them and the crypto stuff is just weak
really weak I gotta say then you go to you go to crypto conferences with some
exceptions but the hardcore finance stuff is a bit weak right this kind of
digital assets and how point zero form is an exception and and st. Moritz is an
exception to that and so they've got a very nice niche and as I said they
always invited me to speak and then when they found out that I you know is now
the CEO of the Algorand foundation they approached me about this sponsor very
you know we're not going to tell you what our sponsorships cost but very
reasonably priced and for that we get a couple of tickets and I get to do and
we get to sit on a panel and moderate a panel so you have some speaking slots
and in addition to that I get to give this speech on the final night and then
they do this big dinner and he kept telling me we have a surprise for you is
a surprise for you because you want signage in this thing so I was like oh
and so he when we when I got to give this speech and then we everybody goes
downstairs the dinner is in the kitchen and then in the dessert room where he
made the assumption that everybody's gonna go to the dessert room at least he
made this algorithm was a gift to us so we didn't pay for this or anything but
and it was a Algorand ice sculpture and he said how's this for signage I was
like okay that's pretty good that's pretty good actually and he said I was
just doing a recap with him a couple days ago and he said it was the most
viral video that they've released on saber it's so so that was good too you
know yeah that was when I saw that I was like look at that I've always been kind
of fascinated by that so I found that very cool but it was not it wasn't really like that it was
just it was this conference and then you know like this conference I mean
honestly like and you you know you come out of an elevator and like the founder
of Uniswap was walking out the elevator I'm like oh okay you know I mean it's
like really like an OG kind of place that conference yeah that's for you
honestly speaking of conferences I'm excited for decipher I think I think
decipher is going to be yeah I've never been to Barcelona before I've never
never been over that way I really looking forward to that lie it's gonna be
great it's gonna be great it's gonna be really like the on the ground bear hug
is going to be for developers for builders for entrepreneurs and we are
going to do much less panels and many more workshops around you know what it
what is it at that you know that people need to grow their businesses that's
like the idea of this conference of course we'll have the dev track too of
course but yeah like a roll up your sleeves kind of a working conference
you're still invited though even if you're not running a company yes I'm
invited I made the cut thank you I'm so excited yeah well Stacy I don't want to
say you know thank you so much for your time yeah it means the world to me that
you did this interview especially being sick I do want to thank you I want to
thank John JT everyone that the algorithm foundation for making this
possible and of course the algo fam I mean would not be possible without the
algorithm family and so you know in that is my final question for you if you were
not the CEO of the algorithm foundation and you were just another person another
community member in the algo fam what would you do to try to help get the
community more traction like what would be the objective because I feel like the
algorithm family like we have this this powerful tool this amazing community
with all these really smart people and I just feel like we just need like
something to get us all together on some sort of initiative like I just feel like
there's something there and just to use the tool we already have you see you
see what I'm saying I feel like there's something there and I just I don't know
what it is yet I'm fishing right now I'm brainstorming yeah I mean I think I