Hello, hello everybody. Welcome. Just letting you know we've got a number of speakers for
today's topic that will and are joining right now. So we'll get started here in about 60
seconds or so as everyone comes in. So give us just a moment. Awesome. Well, I'm seeing more and
more of our speakers join in and I know a few more are on their way. So we'll go ahead and kick it
off as the final few make it to the stage. But good morning, good evening, good afternoon, good
day to wherever you may be tuning in from around the world. I'm your host today, everyone, Kyle
Ellicott, and welcome to this week's crypto internet show. This is our regular series talking
about everything that's happening in stacks, broader ecosystems and building on Bitcoin layers.
If you're new to this show, just the way how it's going to work, we've got a number of speakers
to talk about a variety of topics that are happening throughout Bitcoin layers. And we'll be doing
that for maybe the first two thirds of the program. And if we have enough time towards the end, we'll
open it up for Q&A for maybe one or two from the audience as well. So if you've got any questions,
just hold them to the end. I'll ask for everyone to throw their hands up and we'll try to bring a few
people up on stage as well. Today's topic is a very important one, one we're continuing from the
last few weeks as we turn here into 2024. And that is Bitcoin L2s or Bitcoin layer 2s. It is a
surging topic amongst the Web3e industry and looks to be that way going into the rest of the year.
Now we have a number of major upgrades. We also have the Bitcoin halving event that is to come
in April as well. So a lot of activity within the Bitcoin ecosystem, which is why we're continuing
this topic and many sub topics around this as well. And we'll be discussing the evolving Bitcoin
thesis that sits more broadly around L2s and Bitcoin layers as well. And as we wait for our
last two speakers to join here in just a moment, a few major shout outs. And then I got a ton of
headlines because I don't know about you, but if you haven't been paying attention to this ecosystem,
last 36 hours has been bananas. So much has happened. But first and foremost,
today's conversation is educational and informative only. Everything you hear today is educational.
It is not financial advice. Please do your own research. We'll be talking about a number of new
technologies, experiments and projects. So again, please do your own research. That said, if you
haven't done so already and you're building in this place, check out the newly announced Ready
Layer 2 competition, ReadyL2.com. If you've got a project you're thinking about or you've been
building in and around Bitcoin layers, sign up for this pitch competition. Also, building on
Bitcoin, February 22nd, BitcoinUnleash.org, a massive virtual conference taking place,
talking about all that's happening between the Bitcoin ecosystem and the greater Web3 industry
as well. Also newly launched N21, N21.stacks.co is a prep program for those that are building
in and around stacks as the upgrade leading up to Nakamoto in April, which was just recently
announced. We got our launch window of the second half of April between April 15th and April 29th
that that upgrade will go live for the network and N21 will be working with a number of companies
of all sizes to help prepare them for that major upgrade here in the next few months.
All right. With that said, run down the headlines. Bitcoin Frontier Fund begins cohort four. Pantera
drops a massive thread on Bitcoin layers and stacks along with Bitcoin L2s. ABCDE Labs shares
a massive Bitcoin thesis and where they see the ecosystem developing and thriving as well. As I
mentioned, we did receive the Nakamoto launch window, which was announced yesterday, April 15th
through the 29th. We also had Valor today, shout out to them and their team, announce a three and
a half million dollar raise. Bitflow recently also launched a raise of 1.3 million. Congratulations
to both teams. We have a very special announcement that we'll be talking about a little later in the
show with Luganodes and some of the new support that they are committing to around Bitcoin L2s.
Stax Tools, so STX Tools.io was just released as a new decentralized exchange or DEX tool
to track market trends, spends, and much more. We also have a new working group that has been
focused and created around Bitcoin and artificial intelligence, a new narrative that we're starting
to see across Web3, whether it be crypto and AI or specific networks or otherwise, again,
Bitcoin and AI. The first working group kicked off today, February 1st as well. ZetaChain
is headed to Mainnet, bridging Bitcoin Ethereum to the Cosmos ecosystem. We also have Stacking
Dow, who just crossed 15 million TVL around their liquid stacking network. OKX enabled a ton of new
standards, everything from stamps, runes, atomicals and much more. And also have a number of new
projects, including a new merge mining protocol enabling side chains and roll ups to receive
proof of work security from Bitcoin miners. And that's OptiMine, which was just announced
earlier today as well. All right. With that said, let's go ahead and get started some quick
introductions because there's a ton to talk about. Elizabeth, I'm going to kick it off with you,
few people that might not know you. Quick intro.
Hey, Kyle. Hey, everyone. Thanks so much for having me up today. Super excited to be here.
I'm Elizabeth Olson. I'm head of growth at Xverse. Xverse is the leading wallet for ordinals,
Stacks, Bitcoin, RareSats, BRC 20 tokens, Stacks 20 tokens, basically anything that's
being developed in the Bitcoin ecosystem. Xverse is like you're all in one wallet. And yeah,
we're here to help onboard people to the space. So if you're new to the ecosystem and you have
any questions or you're looking to get started in any of these different areas, feel free to
check out Xverse and connect with us. Rock on. Shout out to you and the Xverse team. Last week,
we talked about one of the new features that you and the team just announced, which was Inscribe
GTP and how inscriptions in AI are playing a role in some new releases around Xverse. But we're
going to come back to that. Chinta, a few people, very few people who don't know you or Alex.
Quick intro. Hello, Kai. Thanks for having me again.
Unlike your oldest girlfriend, every time you don't have enough host, you would just email me,
right? And I will be here every time. But I'm honored to be here. And today, I think it's,
I would say this week is a really, really special week for us build Stacks as well as for the Stacks
community too. So I'm very, very excited. I'm excited to have you here. I know you've got a
number of things to talk about and you and the team at Alex put out an awesome tweet. I believe
it was today, maybe yesterday, kind of showcasing a visual of Alex layers and what the evolving
Alex ecosystem looks like. We're going to talk about it, but for those who haven't checked it
out, I recommend it. Trevor Owens, T.O., the one and only, the infamous, a quick intro for those
who may not know you. What's up, everybody? I'm Trevor Owens, managing partner of Bitcoin Frontier
Fund, also CEO of Ninja Alerts, creators of the Pizza Ninjas. Super excited that we're very close
to having here. I know Nakamoto's coming out and yeah, I'm bullish. So good to be here, Kyle. Great
to see you again, my friend, and excited for this conversation. Sam, Sam, Trevor, I'm coming
right back to you. We've talked for years at this point of how this ecosystem has thrived from
January 2021 mainnet of Stacks to where it is today. I mean, you and I at Bitcoin Frontier
Fund and the team have been funding a number of these projects and been very fortunate to work
with a number of the founders throughout the beginning to where it is today. That said,
put out a massive report on Bitcoin L2s and layers last week, kind of trying to give a snapshot of
this industry. And you and the team now funding more of these projects, cohort four coming up.
What are some of the trends that you're seeing on not just the ecosystem itself,
but the evolving thesis around betting on Bitcoin and those building on it?
Yeah, I mean, I think when it comes to the L2 landscape, I think we are seeing
to see a pick of a lot of people trying to build Bitcoin L2s now. But I think there's only,
again, there's only a couple people who've actually built, who've already built Bitcoin L2s and have
been in the market for multiple years, you know what I'm saying? And so Stacks is one of those
plays, obviously, and has just an incredible history and pedigree from the team, some very
serious R&D that I think really makes it unique and positions it to be differentiated when you're
competing against the whole blockchain ecosystem. I think that all the Bitcoin L2s need to compete
against not just other Bitcoin L2s, but really, if you just have people know I'm not super bullish
on EVM in terms of Bitcoin L2s adopting it, mainly because it does have an incredible
network effect. But also, I think the teams on Ethereum have had years and invested millions of
dollars. And even is also like a like a V1, you know, it's like the V1 of the virtual machines
for smart contracts, right. And I think there's an opportunity to differentiate. I think Stacks
has done that with the Clarity VM. Of course, you know, it's going to take a while to it has
taken a while to cook because of the inherent network effects in getting exchange adoption,
getting, you know, integrations with with the various existing players that even kind of
sidesteps. But the key point is that you can build differentiation compared to the big
L1 Ethereum players, right. So, you know, so I think that's what's really interesting
about Stacks specifically is like, that because of the unique virtual environment,
because they've been in the market for multiple years now, you know, and are very well capitalized
and have an incredible, you know, done incredible R&D, that there's enough room there to be different
from the leading L1 application players versus another L2 that would just use EVM. Now you're
like, you know, they're competing against Ethereum L1, but they don't have like an underlying tech
that could really differentiate them in the way that a different VM could. And then what I think
with this Nakamoto release coming up, I'm obviously very, very bullish on it. And I think that
the five second block times are going to be key. So being able to do all the stuff that you
can do on L1, and actually really the most bullish thing is that just like,
we all know the gas fees, or the network fees on Bitcoin L1 are going to be insane.
In the coming months, like, we've had a preview of this in the bear market where we've had the
mempool 500 to 700 sats per V byte on and off, we're in a good place now, but when the bull market
comes along, that's going to be the normal every day, you know, probably, you know, the spikes,
the baseline is going to be the spikes of the bear market, and then the spikes of the bull market
are going to be stuff we've that we've never seen before. And so I think that's, you know,
primarily the L2s are going to be like a scaling layer. And so, you know, what I'm bullish on for
teams that are like, generally, we like to see teams that will, you know, start on L1,
get the traction on L1, and then scale onto the L2s. But I think with Bitcoin L2s, there's also
stuff that you just can't do on L1 or wouldn't be scalable, wouldn't be secure to do on L1. And so
having a full, you know, turn almost turn complete VM that you can, you know, write
code like you'd expect to write to write a smart contract on stacks can be a very competitive
advantage. I think it'll be more bullish for the DeFi for sure. I mean, you know, like,
having to use these indexers are very brittle on L1, right? So an actual, you know, a lot of the
a lot of the indexes are the more complex they get, they're just gonna have to end up building
a blockchain. And so, you know, just take the shortcut using L2, when the fees ramp up,
all the L1 application players are going to use that scalability. So people are going to become
familiar with it, of course, Xverse comes from the SACS ecosystem. So everybody is was everybody
in the existence of the stacks now, thanks to experts leather as well, of course, is doing
really well. And so what we're interested in investing in would be the apps that are starting
on L1 right now, and then they're going to be, you know, scaling on an L2 like stacks,
we're very bullish in investing in teams on stacks are building infrastructure to, you know,
work between L1 and L2 to handle that onboarding of users, and then things that require the level
of complexity that would break an indexer or just wouldn't be very secure on an indexer,
and would be much more secure on a Bitcoin L2 because of the complexity because of the
the DeFi aspect to it. Those are the things that we're really excited about are looking forward to.
And Trevor, with that said, a question for you around roll ups. I read earlier today before
today's show that, you know, more roll ups are coming towards Bitcoin. In the report,
Spartan group and I are tracking, I think, maybe 12 different projects that say they're building
or working on some kind of roll up. A new one was just announced today of ZKEVM roll up on Bitcoin by
Satir, CITREA. I'm not going to be able to pronounce it correctly. Shout out to Seth
for privacy who tweeted it out. What are your thoughts about this when it comes to security,
these new roll ups? Is this these projects? Are they experiments? Is this something we're going
to see in 2024? Or is this way off and it's all just brand new when it comes to roll ups right now?
I think there's a scenario where we could see it a year from now or there's a scenario we could see
it several years from now. I think what the Taproot Wizards are doing with Opcat is showing
this play out in real time, right? Because roll ups are not possible. The same type of roll up that
you'd have in Ethereum where you have the execution or the transactions verified on the base layer
is not possible in any way on Bitcoin 01. And so, you know, what we're going to have for the longest
time is really the area of opportunity is building bridges or building
bridging tech that's as good as decentralized as possible. And so, I think SBTC is an example of
this. I think BitVM is another example of this. And so, I'm really bullish on any L2s that are
basically taking the polygon approach. You know what I'm saying? I think polygon is a leading
Ethereum L2. I think you need to build a community, build users. And it's better to start and get in
the market as soon as you can. And then, you know, start working towards that future where roll ups
become possible on Bitcoin in the future. I think almost certainly in the next many years that we'll
have roll ups on Bitcoin. I'm not sure when. We know there's only been, you know, what, like two
upgrades to Bitcoin since 2015 or something like that, you know, Segwit and Taproot. And so, you
know, will the Taproot Wizards, will the Opcats be able to accelerate that and start that discussion?
You know, we're watching that movie play out in real time. I think it's one of the most fascinating
to watch, but there's going to need to be a lot of work put in, even in the best case scenario,
to make Ethereum-style roll ups possible on Bitcoin. And so, I'm generally skeptical,
I guess, of teams that just come out here being like, hey, we're building a roll up, you know,
because again, it's like, well, you know, it's kind of a buzzword almost right now on Bitcoin,
unless they have a very solid plan of like, okay, well, how is this change going to happen to
Bitcoin? Again, I don't see any team really pushing the necessary things other than the Taproot
Wizards. And so, you know, I think that the polygon approach has proven to work on Ethereum,
you know, like when before roll ups, I mean, a lot of the roll ups on Ethereum are still in like
early stages. If you look at like L2Beat, for example, like a lot of them are still not fully
mature. But you know, you have a player like polygon who's coming out here building community,
building use cases, working with Starbucks, working with Reddit, you know, working with a
lot of big players. And some of those things, you know, come and go or they don't pick as much steam,
but everybody knows about polygon. And now they have their the capital, the team, the community
to push towards, you know, making their own ZK, EVM. So that's what I think like the, that's how
I look at in terms of like the L2s I'm looking at investing in. Yeah. And real quick, before we
switch topics, you mentioned OPcat. For those not familiar, can you give us a kind of a TLDR,
just high level, what is OPcat and what that might be defined as again, just for those who may not
know? Yeah, totally. So I mean, OPcat is an OPcode that was originally in Bitcoin, but was taken out
by Satoshi because of some potential, like negative externalities that were unclear at the
time. And it allows a lot of cool stuff. I mean, it's pretty general purpose in terms of what you
can do. There's a lot of momentum in the Bitcoin community between OPCTV and OPcat. I know Robin
Linus, the creator of BitVM was like he said that the number one thing he wanted was OPcat. There's
been a lot of pedigree, old school Bitcoin, OG devs coming out saying that there's no issue with
it, it's all good. And so it would allow you to do a lot of things. Will it allow an Ethereum
style roll up? Potentially, I mean, I'm not really sure yet, but it could open the door to better
bridging to some type of verification on L1. I think with any type of, if we were to go purely
for what we see on Ethereum, you would need just a verifier of EVM verifier on L1. So OPcat is not
an EVM verifier, but it allows you to do other things that could potentially allow sidechains
or various L2s to be more decentralized, more secure. There's a lot of exploration happening
right now. And I think that the most important thing about this is unfolding, is seeing an
upgrade to Bitcoin, period. I try to make my investments as if, assuming there won't be an
upgrade to Bitcoin, generally speaking. We're not banking on it necessarily, but I think the teams
that are pushing this kind of stuff, like Taproot Wizards, that kind of thing makes me bullish when
I see a team that is raising the conversation and is making progress with it. It's just a question
of when, rather than a question of like, will it happen? I'm sure we're going to get some really
cool op codes in the coming two years. And I think the step after that will then be figuring out how
to put the role of some Bitcoin. And we'll definitely be able to speed run in a bit because
a lot of the work has been done on Ethereum, but there's always a lot of work. I mean, this
Nakamoto upgrade for Stacks has been a year long effort of like a really well-funded,
multiple different entities who are very well-funded with very experienced engineers.
And it still takes a year to get it solid. You have to do a test net of it. You have to do all
these things. So yeah. I absolutely agree. And regarding test net again, we've got the dates of
April 15th through April 29th as that launch window, which is very exciting as well. Trevor,
I'm going to give you a moment to breathe real quick. Wolf, by the way, I see you in the crowd,
if you could check your DMs. Elizabeth, you got a point, a comment to add there.
Yeah, I was just going to add to that. Like, I've been thinking a lot about, you know,
why did Taproot Wizards choose Opcat over CTV as I from my understanding, I'm not a technical person
here. But from my understanding, CTV does have a lot of other kinds of benefits that would be,
you know, even more often more robust and flexible opportunities on Bitcoin. And so I'm kind of
thinking, I wondered that their strategy behind Opcat and using this as like the this, you know,
the NFT, I wonder if this, I mean, besides, obviously, a cat is very mimetic. But I wonder
if this is kind of like a more overarching sort of marketing campaign to help. I mean,
obviously, it's about educating people, but really help people start to think, you know, realize,
okay, Satoshi was was for this, you know, Satoshi was for these kinds of opportunities on Bitcoin.
And once that realization clicks in, then then other kinds of exploratory protocols and
developments like CTV, I think maybe people will then be more open minded about it. Because
oftentimes, it's not so much that the tech is wrong. It's more about the marketing behind it
and people's perceptions around what actually should should be viable on Bitcoin. And I think
that's, that's really as developers and builders and startups here in the audience, looking to build
on Bitcoin, I think that's kind of one of the main challenges we have, I think, most of us are here
for Bitcoin layer one, right? And we want, you know, that's, that's what we'd want to do in
the first place is, you know, as Trevor's point, like he's looking at, you said, you're looking at
startups and people who are who are starting on the L1, and then scaling to other L2 opportunities
when the time is appropriate. So obviously, we'd love to stay on L1. But the developments there,
they're just so slow. They take, they take potentially, you know, years and years, I guess,
or something like this. So I mean, if anybody can pull it off, it's the Taproot Wizards team,
I'm very confident, like if they, they're, they're geniuses when it comes to not just like,
you know, developments, but also just, you know, marketing and, and growth, I'm just like,
so impressed with them. And I, you know, I think if anybody's going to pull off and educate the
ecosystem, it's it's Taproot Wizards. So I'm excited to see the changes that they're bringing about.
But yeah, I think, I think it will be very interesting to see, you know, how, you know,
if people want to go to market quicker, we're really going to need to look at L2 scalability
options and obviously longer term as well. So I think it's, it's going to be interesting to see
how how that develops over time. And I think for people who who want to, you know, be be there first,
it is important to consider various L2 opportunities beyond beyond the base layer.
Absolutely. I mean, Elizabeth, we're tracking right now to Trevor's point, we're tracking not
just a number of L2s, layer twos, but I think there's 30 plus protocols that are defining
themselves in the areas of L2s to side chains to federated chains to my merge change. There's so
much activity. I think you're calling it out perfectly. And I mean, even Alex and the protocol
that Chenta and Rachel and the team are building as well, and just the layered ecosystem that
they've got to do what Trevor mentioned. There's so much that's happening real quick. I also want
to bring up a special guest, Wolf Web 3. I know you and I were just chatting a little bit about
some of the comments you have around the L2 landscape stacks and otherwise would love to
hear your comments on Elizabeth and Trevor's points and how you see this evolving, being able to talk
to so many in both the Bitcoin, the ETH, EVM and otherwise ecosystems as well.
I appreciate it, Kyle. Thank you, man. Thanks for giving me the opportunity, obviously, to come
up here and chat with you guys. It's good to meet you, Trevor, Chenta. I'm a very, very big,
I am a stacks junkie. I am as junky as stacks as you can get and as bullish as you can get on
these L2s. Trevor, I just wanted to come up and first off, reiterate and maybe like a little bit
of a plea for everybody that's building either on stacks or I've been trying to get some of these
guys and these teams on with me to really get to the ground level and really speak to the community
because there's a lot of people out here and I'm seeing some of their spaces that maybe might not
be as full. I'm with you. Guys, I am more open invite like I put in the comments below. It is a
100% open invite. I would love to host you guys. We actually hosted the Orange team last week.
Damon and them, they were absolutely amazing. Love what those guys are doing over there.
If anybody that is in here or anybody that you guys know, please tell them my DMs are 100% open.
I would love to explore a little bit more, see what everybody else is doing.
Honestly, I'm all for it, guys. People want to hear about it because there are people that are
in the stacking down telegram going crazy. How do I get my NFT? How do I check it? When you hear
from these teams and they're in the spaces directly, it hits very, very different. I highly
encourage if you're building anything, whether it's this program, Wolf Web 3 or any others,
go into different spaces because it's one community, but we're a little bit spread out
right now. It's kind of sporadic. Shout out to the leather team for getting back to me really
quick and saying they're open. I'm really looking forward to bringing you guys in
and chatting with you. Kyle, thank you, man. I appreciate the opportunity to come up and speak.
Appreciate it. You got tons of great names, not only here on stage, but in the audience
in depth as well. Appreciate you as well, Wolf. You bring up exactly the topic I was about to come
on to gente about, and that was liquid stacking. Before we get into that, I think maybe I do want
to hear about Alex. I mean, Chinda, you, Rachel, I'm going to give you the credit, and Elizabeth,
I got a ton of stuff for you and experts, but Alex SuperApp, you tweeted out this picture. I'm
going to call it out because it's a beautiful graphic, but you are showing how Alex began as
this idea to this MVP, to this protocol, to now, as it's called, the SuperApp. You've got stable
coin yield, liquid stacking. You've got leverage. You got order book. You got swap. You got launch
pad. You've got X-Link bridge. You also have a Bitcoin oracle. You have all these different
pieces. What's missing at this point? What's next? I was telling one of the partner that I wish
Alex can cook for me. That's the only thing I'm missing. No, but honestly, I know, Kyle,
you and Trevor and Muneev included. Everybody had been yelling at me. You've got to focus. You've
got to focus, and it's really good to have trouble here because, as everybody knows,
that Alex was one of Bitcoin's first baby. We joined the first cohort. That was Q3 2021.
Now you see where we are now. We are really becoming the access point gateway of the whole
Bitcoin economy. We really become a WeChat for Bitcoin economy. Honestly, it was not a plan. I
just have to be very frank to everybody. You know our journey, Rachel, my journey. We started
here because we thought, okay, Ethereum has a DeFi TBL of $200 billion with $277 billion
whereas Bitcoin has $800 billion right now, but the DeFi TBL is $0.1 billion, so lower than $100
million. It's just somehow if you as a builder, as an entrepreneur, the first thing is you want
to have the first move advantage. That's what we saw. We came to build Bitcoin DeFi, and then
looking around, not many other chains that have smart contracts on top of Bitcoin, so we decided
to build on that. Obviously, as everybody knows, we are all Bitcoin builders here.
Despite the security and decentralization, Bitcoin really suffers from extensive tooling
integration. There's just not much tooling for DeFi to build on Bitcoin, but also the block time
is really an issue. 10 to 20 minutes block time, you just cannot have those native DeFi experience
for users. That's what we were facing, basically, the challenges. It's very, very different from
building DeFi on Ethereum, that Ethereum itself is a smart contract layer, right?
So, through that, I think we started building end of 2021. We mainly launched early 2022.
What we have built so far is really, we have done, you know, already know, I would say Bitcoin
Oracle that supports all meta protocols on Bitcoin, so it's not only supporting the BRC-20,
it can support the RRC-20 rule, et cetera, et cetera. So, that's the Oracle. That's one piece
of info, that's very, very important, and again, it can support all meta protocol on Bitcoin.
Then, you know, we need to integrate with smart contract capability, L2-like stacks,
to enhance the Bitcoin capability. Then we need, you know, a seamless, almost like a seamless
layer bridging between L1 and L2, and that's why we have built this X-Link, which is a bridge
between Ethereum and also between Bitcoin and L2, you know, et cetera, et cetera. But I think,
as of today, we are very proud to say that we built the important info, the necessary info,
such as Oracle bridges. We built DeFi primitives, such as AMM, Launchpad, staking yielding, you know,
order book, and then 2024, now we can really focus on what we came here for, and that is to offer
yield products, a suite of yield products, because we want the Bitcoin economy to grow,
we want Bitcoin to be a product with assets. So, the yield product, the first one will be
LISA, the liquid stacking, which you kind of, everybody understand it, if you stack your
style, you get a Bitcoin yield, but how can you make this stack stack liquid, just like stacking
it down? So, the idea is very similar, but the design will be very different, so I'm very excited
to see that. So, that's the stacking yield. The next will be dollar yield. Now, my American friend
laughed at me, said, why do I need a stablecoin on Bitcoin with real dollar yielding? You know,
I just tell them, if you are, number one, if you are in Argentina, you won't put your dollar in your
account, because your government screwed you twice. If you are in Turkey with your hyperinflation,
you do want to have a dollar, but you don't have a dollar account. So, in emerging market, the usage
of a stablecoin is huge, and it's already understood by individuals as well as corporate,
but to have a stablecoin issued on Bitcoin, and because of the top row, now we are able to do
that. So, that will be the second yield product, and obviously, naturally, the next one will be
Bitcoin yield product, because we are building on Bitcoins through those financial activities,
such a lending barrier. Naturally, you can offer this Bitcoin yield. So, that's a very long way
I'll say about that super app. You got a few things going on. You and the team got a few
plates in the air. Just a few. Just a few. Well, and I want to continue that conversation because
I do want to talk a little bit about liquid stacking and get your, Elizabeth, Trevor, and
even Wolf's opinion on that as well. But I know we got Andre and Max just up on the stage as well,
and want to bring Andre up for just a moment, Max, as well. We've got a very exciting announcement
to talk about further support around Bitcoin L2s and stacks as well, just continuing this evolving
Bitcoin thesis we've been discussing. So, Andre, I want to turn it over to you. Welcome, Max,
to the stage as well. And Andre, I know you got a few questions you wanted to throw out.
Yeah. Hi, everyone. And thanks, Kyle, for having me up here. It's great to be here today. We have,
as you mentioned, we have some exciting news that I'm excited to share here today. And we have Max
here on stage joining us to help us talk through it. So, the news for today, some of you may have
seen at LucaNodes has announced that they will be supporting the stacks Nakamoto upgrade becoming
one of the signers on the network. This is really a critical development for us seeing more
companies being prepared to support Nakamoto upgrade when we go live. And especially
for those who may not be aware, signers on Nakamoto play really a critical role of validating
new stacks blocks, as well as SBDC deposits and withdrawal transactions. And so, our goal for this
is really to have a decentralized validator network when we launch. So, having companies
like LucaNodes coming on board is really a big step towards achieving this. So, I just want to
give a quick shout out to Max and LucaNodes. So, for those who may not be familiar, LucaNodes is
one of the largest-taking companies in the space. And they not only have a reputation of being a top
validator on other networks like Polygon and dozens of other networks, but also getting actively
involved in the networks that they support. And we've already been able to benefit from some of
the experience they have in taking projects from testnet onto mainnet. So, I couldn't be more excited
to have them on board working closely with us on the Nakamoto launch. I guess on that note, maybe
I'll turn it over to Max. Max, I'd love it if you could give just a quick bio about yourself and
about LucaNodes. Absolutely. Thank you, Andre. Hey guys, it's great to be here with you. I feel
a little bit that we are coming finally home and I explained it in a little bit why. But first of
all, about LucaNodes, as Andre mentioned, so we are a staking validator from Switzerland, from Lugano.
And we are institutional focused in the sense that we mostly work with institutions being at
crypto-native VCs that stake with us, could be also exchanges, financial institutions that need
a reliable non-custodial partner. And as Andre mentioned, we have been around for almost like
two years now. And we've been live on many proof of stake networks. We are, for example, the biggest
staking validator on Polygon. We are, of course, live on Ethereum, on Solana, and the other popular
POS networks. And we often got involved in these networks from the early beginning, right,
supporting the network in the definite stage, in the testnet stage, and launching as a genesis
validator, as a genesis node operator on the mainnet launch. And this is also something that,
of course, we try to do as much as possible here with stacks when it comes to the Nakamoto upgrade
to give our feedback, to give our lessons learned, not only on the technical side, but also maybe on
the community side, on the incentive side, to make the launch or the upgrade as successful as
possible. And regarding the coming home, so as mentioned, as our name suggests, right,
we are from Lugano. And anyone who might be familiar with this city from Switzerland,
it's a very Bitcoin slash crypto-focused city. They do a lot of initiatives called Plan B
for the wider Bitcoin blockchain ecosystem, where they have our own yearly conference.
But ironically, being a staking provider, working with proof of stake networks, we never had the
opportunity really to work on the Bitcoin front. So that's why it feels a little bit that we're
finally coming home and could get our hands dirty, hands-on approach to work in the Bitcoin field
with you guys. So very exciting to be here again. Absolutely. Now, one of the favorite things that
I learned from working with you guys at Lugano is already on the Bitcoin standard or has taken
steps to really adopt Bitcoin in the town. I believe Lightning Network is well-supported
there as well. So hopefully we can make Stacks as part of that and work to increase broader
Bitcoin expressivity to the town of Lugano. So Max, I'd love to drill into one thing that you
said, which is really around taking protocols like Stacks from Testnet into Mainnet. And so
could you share anything with the audience around maybe what you have learned from this process and
maybe what the Stacks community should expect from spinning up this sort of validator network?
And how do you think the Stacks community might be able to benefit from your expertise as part of that?
Yeah, absolutely. So there are many aspects that one should consider. On the one hand, this is of
course the technical aspect where experienced developers, experienced validators slash
node operators, have a very communicative ground to also help communicate
debugs, being in Discord, for example, or in Telegram channels. So having these strong
communicative communities to really participate in these testnets and deathnets is very essential
for that. And also when it comes to the launch, what I think what we saw with our
networks, for example, just giving you one example with Cosmos, where not much is maybe
moving fast, but they have a very great governance model, right, when it comes to decentralization
and fair decision making. So this governance model where everybody can participate in a very easy way
and have their voice heard was also very crucial, in my opinion, for the development of the ecosystem.
It might look sometimes a little bit, for example, chaotic, right? But that's exactly the point also
of openness and decentralization, that it's sometimes very hard to make changes. But therefore,
the changes are very, very substantial, and very healthy, so to say, right? And we saw that in
Bitcoin. So this is something that I really appreciated when I saw launching new networks
like Cosmos, for example, back in the day. Absolutely. That makes some sense. And, you know,
yesterday, the Stacks Foundation announced the launch window for the Nakamoto upgrade. So that's
been announced as April 15 to 29. We'll be locking in a date as it gets closer there. But, you know,
the next milestone will be the public testnet launch. So Nakamoto today is on a controlled testnet.
And basically, this next milestone that will activate in Q1 will basically activate the new
signing rules for consensus. So that's when we'll be able to start onboarding companies like Nougat
nodes to participate. And I know, Max, from our conversations, that you guys are very excited
to participate in this testnet and to get involved in that early stage. Yeah, absolutely. And also,
we're from Nougat nodes. So we are bare metal operators, to mention that, that we have a very
hands-on attitude and experience. And again, we're not scared, let's say, to be active in the test
and not only join participants when everything is quite stable, right? But to get the hands dirty,
share the experience, record some bugs or some misbehavior, so to say, in the network and solve
them together. So I think this is very important to be a very active member of the ecosystem,
especially in the beginning when it's crucial and work towards the goal together. Because also,
again, we've mentioned that we work mostly with institutions. We, as a non-custodial service
provider, we always had this challenge that, of course, every entity had exposure to Bitcoin. But
when it comes to make it a productive asset, it was always challenging because of the, let's say,
centralized custodial aspect so far, where it would put us also, maybe the entity,
in some regulatory challenges. So this development of stacks, right, is also very exciting for a lot
of larger entities and where we could support them to make their capital also put to work
in a non-custodial way. Yeah, absolutely. And you know, that's exactly the kind of feedback that
we're looking for as we go to testnet. And so, you know, especially looking forward to getting
that from you, from you guys. Now, I'd like to zoom out a little bit and talk sort of broadly
about how you're seeing the Bitcoin ecosystem develop. As we know, it's been a really exciting
year for Bitcoin and innovation on Bitcoin and new experimentation has seen a huge resurgence
over the past year. A lot of this was detailed in the Bitcoin layers report that was recently
published by Spartan Group and our very own Kyle Ellicott here on the stage here. So Max, you know,
I'd love to ask you, you know, what are you seeing from your clients in terms of their renewed
interest in Bitcoin and the folk that you typically work with? And I know that was part
of the pitch for getting involved in stacks, right, and being able to offer Bitcoin stacking,
Bitcoin staking via stacks. And so what are you seeing there from your clients?
Yeah, absolutely. Absolutely. So as just mentioned, one of the challenges for the
financial institution, for the institutional investors, might be financial institutions,
might be crypto native VCs, for example, or also centralized exchanges, right?
They have always this compliance hurdle, and especially after the last two years with the
with the implosion of some centralized parties, right, that could not hold up to the promises,
which was already against the ethos in some sense, right? This is this was it's a non-custodial
aspect, it's very critical to them. It doesn't have to be the latest and newest feature, right?
But a simple, straightforward feature like the stacking of Bitcoin, right, with stacks, for
example, would be already good enough as a first step. But again, the non-custodial aspect is very
important. And if you then rely on a federated system when it comes to the to the pack tokens,
that was already in the in the recent past a hurdle for the entities to get involved also
fast even to get involved. So the trustless, the trustless setup that will come with the Nakamoto
upgrades and with the SBTC will already be a very substantial step for them for the institute,
for many institutions to get involved in making their holdings a productive assets making their
whole BTC a productive asset. And then of course, the sky's the limit, so to say, right, if we talk
about just mentioned liquid, liquid stacking with liquid BTC or decentralized lending protocols that
are based on BTC, this would be the further steps. But I think the first step would be, again,
to clear out the aspect of being 100% non-custodial to avoid also challenges on the regulatory side.
Yeah, absolutely. And so, you know, the trustless non-custodial staking is the first step, as you
mentioned, but that kind of is the precursor to a broader explosion of permissionless DeFi on
Bitcoin. Right. And I think that the upgrade for stocks coming later this year on SBTC is a key
part of that. Right. I know, Max, we've talked about it a little bit, but I would love to hear
if you have any sort of high level thoughts on, you know, use cases that you're particularly
excited about when you think about this vision for programmable Bitcoin. What does that mean to
you? Why are you excited about protocols like SBTC and the applications that can be built on top of
it? Yeah, absolutely. I mean, no surprise here, right? Most of us basically started their crypto
journey with Bitcoin. It's the most recognizable asset, the asset with the highest market cap,
best branding recognition, deepest liquidity. Also, the story behind Bitcoin, right,
with the anonymous founder, these are all contributing to the demand of Bitcoin being
the most centralized one, the most secure one. But unfortunately, right, the DeFi in the natural
sense was not possible, right? Until now, it was always with the custodial aspect, with a
federation set of custodians, for example, and this already was, again, a hard hurdle. So I'm
very exciting, again, excited for making DeFi applications with BTC as a native asset. It could
be very straightforward applications we're all familiar with, right, from other chains, like
lending, even stablecoins, as mentioned before, liquid stacking. This would be enabled in a
non-custodial way, and we see them already working, right? We see them already working on other chains
that are less secure, less decentralized, and we see them working. So I think this is a no-brainer
also, and it's much needed for Bitcoin to come into realization, and stacks are a substantial part of
it. Absolutely. And that really is part of the key innovation here, right? When you look at Bitcoin
assets over the years, they've relied on this sort of federated closed system. And so obviously,
with SPTC, what you enable is an open and permissionless validator set. And so again,
couldn't be more excited to have Luca Nodes involved with this. Max, I want to take, we can
go ahead and take a question from Wolf here, but maybe before we do, Max, I just want to give you
a chance, any sort of final thoughts, and also where can folks further connect with you and Luca Nodes?
Yeah, absolutely, Andre. So please check out our website, luganodes.com. As mentioned, we do a lot
of also content material, not only for staking on proof-of-stake networks, but now more and more
involved in our hometown, so to say, within the Bitcoin ecosystem, starting with DEX, but they're
also coming very exciting projects. And please also check out, I think, the city where we're
coming from, our home city, Lugano. They deserve also way more credit. Lugano Plan B, if you just
Google that, you can find the landing page of the city that also has a lot of initiatives written,
as Andre just pointed out, they facilitate the lighting network for payments. You can pay your
taxes, you can go to restaurants and pay with Bitcoin in the city. And I think seeing these
initiatives on a city level is very impressive, and this is what real world adoption looks like.
So I also wanted to give a shout out to Lugano, the city. Lugano Plan B are the keywords here.
And if you would like to follow me here on Twitter, you see my profile here. You can DM me,
and we can follow up later as well. If you would like to discuss anything Bitcoin related, but of
course, anything staking or infrastructure related, then happy to get in touch with you.
Awesome. Thank you. Wolf, Andre said you might have had a question, a quick question, Wolf,
and then I've got a bigger question for Elizabeth and Chinta as well. But Wolf, do you have a question
for Andre and Max? Sorry, it wasn't even a question. I just wanted to stress, I thought it was an open
question that Andre had asked, I didn't realize it was specific, but it was just to stress, like,
what we're excited about, whether it's SBTC, the Nakamoto upgrade. I don't think people genuinely
realize how much wrapped Bitcoin just sat on Ethereum doing nothing for ages, literally nothing.
And now we actually get to unlock the DeFi power of Bitcoin, I think it's something insanely
powerful. I mean, last I checked, I think it was almost, it was over 240,000 Bitcoin that just sat
on Ethereum, literally doing shit. So for me, that was like the biggest thing, but didn't have a
question, but great points, guys. Thank you so, so much. We'll have great points as well. And
Elizabeth and Chinta, I want to come back to the conversation and also tie into what Andre and Max
and Wolf were just talking about, and that's liquid stacking. This is a rising category
within not just the Bitcoin ecosystem, but we're starting to see across Bitcoin layers,
stacking Dow crosses 15 million in TVL this week, only have been launched about 45, almost 60 days
now. We'd love to get your thoughts both generally on this, as we've got Lisa, there's also a few
others I know working on this in the space as well. But Elizabeth, thoughts, I mean, how are you
seeing this as beneficial of a category to Bitcoin layers? But also, how is X-Verse thinking of
supporting, if at all, this opportunity as well? Yeah, I'd love to chime in here. I mean, we're
always talking about unleashing Bitcoin, but I think what's so exciting here is that we're
unleashing stacks, you know, most people who are stackholders, we're all staking, we're stakers,
we're fixed-take people, and we love to stack. And now we can actually have liquidity while we're
locking up our stacks. Now we can actually do something with our stacks. Personally, I
experienced this issue when I had my most of my stacks locked up. And then all of a sudden, we had
sordinals, you know, stacks, ordinals. And I was like, Oh, man, I really want to be like,
minting this stuff, but my stacks are all locked up. And it's just kind of a fun idea. You know,
I mean, I'm not sure how this would technically work out today. But you know, hypothetically,
now you can you can do things with your stacks that you wouldn't have been able to before.
And what's also pretty cool is that there are some tax benefits as well. And I'm not sure if I'm
totally understanding this correctly. But from from what I've read, basically, now you can trade
without forfeiting your proof of transfer yield. So like, you can you can have like stacking yield
payouts are taxable usually. So stackers are pretty heavily taxed. But now with with stacking dows,
like stacking dow, and I guess, I'm not sure chanting, you can probably speak to this around
Lisa, but basically stacks is stacked from a smart contract and stacks yield is added
to that contract. And then the liquid stacks is progressively backed with more stacks without
triggering that income tax. So basically, your your tax free auto compounding stacks yield,
it's not considered capital gains. So there's like interesting tax benefits there as well with
with the stacking dow and you know, with what we can do with liquid stacks. So it's pretty,
it's pretty cool. I'm excited. And yeah, we're definitely looking to support this, you know,
with with experts being integrated into this, the stacking dow and, and also other other stacking
opportunities out there, you know, definitely our own pool, I think there's different ways that we
can support this. So yeah, it's really, really interesting development here. And exciting to
see this in the ecosystem, I think many people are going to be really excited to be able to,
to use their their liquid stacks.
Absolutely. agenda is Lisa. Similar, similar question. What are you seeing? Is this a
category of but also how is Lisa playing a role in liquid stacking? Thank you, Elizabeth.
Right. So a protocol like stack issue have, you know, more than one liquid stacking protocol,
right? If you think about all the criticisms that people have towards Lido being, you know,
one of the biggest on Ethereum. So I think it's actually very, very healthy for the ecosystem
to have more than, you know, two, three liquid stacking protocol, and everyone will have some
nuances that the design will be different. And, you know, this is not unhealthy competition on
the contrary, it's just like I have always saying, we need more than one, one AMM, right,
within stacks ecosystem. At the moment, Alex AMM is just by far too dominant, right? We are really
looking forward to other AMM coming. So that's the thing, you know, the more the better, I would say,
because we are building on Bitcoin decentralization is what we are all thriving to.
And number two is that stack itself is a very different animal from Ethereum. So stacking your
stacks, at the moment, there's still a lot of inefficiency. Inefficiency means that your return
are being eaten away, and that your return are being put on a table that you are not getting that.
So you will see not just Lisa, but I hope that upcoming liquid stacking protocol will improve
this efficiency. So your reward will be more superior. And also, you know, your governance
will be more decentralized. And last but not least, think about packing, right? What type of
protocol, what type of design that can ensure that there's a packing between your stack stacks
and the stack? That's really most important, right? So there are a lot of nuances, and I don't want
to put all my cards on the table yet, if that's okay. But I think March will be the launch of
Lisa and I'm really excited about that. That will be the first stack, that will be the first yield
product from Alex and Alex's ecosystem. And the second one will be the stablecoin with a real
dollar yielding. And when you hear about how it is collateralized with what kind of customer deal,
you will blow your mind away. Again, be very careful when you put your Bitcoin on a centralized
exchange. Either they don't give you any yield, or they give you a 4% yield, but that is not
collateralized. Be careful. And then we are going into a Bitcoin yield product. Thank you, Kyle.
Oh, my goodness. So, so many, so many nuggets right there to noodle on for the next few weeks.
Again, shout out to you, Rachel, and the entire Alex team for all that you guys continue to do
and how Alex layers continue to evolve. It's an exciting piece of the Bitcoin layers puzzle and
technical stack that we're seeing continue to mature around the greater thesis as well. But
we'll hold on. We won't push any more for Lisa. We'll wait for it. As it comes, I know there's a
Twitter handle somewhere in the audience that you guys all might be able to follow as well. And
again, we are talking on an educational and informative basis. Nothing being talked about
is financial or tax advice as well. So please do your own research and consult your own advisors
in that respect as well. Elizabeth, circling right back to you, you mentioned S ordinals.
Is that how you pronounced it? And I know that it is a Yes, I am not on point with my pronunciation
today. I realized that. But I it is a new standard that you had experts are talking about. But also
supporting are you opening up to additional standards? As I mentioned stamps, runes,
atomicals, we've got BRC 2721 E, we've got a ton, I think I'm tracking about now 12 different token
standards and experiments that are rising. Is this something that you and experts are keeping an eye
on? Are you guys opening up? What support you may have around these new experiments and standards?
Yeah, that's such a good question, Kyle. And honestly, it's funny, I mean, we're,
it's literally all those different various protocol communities are coming to us every day,
you know, when experts support, and we're definitely looking into it and constantly,
you know, researching and trying to get a sense of, you know, where is the most demand in the
ecosystem. It's funny, actually, we took a poll the other a few weeks back between various token
standards and protocols, and it got bought it. And and it became quite controversial, because
we tweeted out, Oh, you know, this one is congrats to this protocol that one and people were really
upset, because they're like, No, it was bought it. And, you know, like, sorry, we didn't mean to like
endorse it. But, you know, we do have to have, you know, be very sensitive to like, what what is like
the authentic demand versus, you know, what are what are people, you know, just trying to,
trying to push forward for their own purposes. So, but anyway, yeah, back to the question,
we're, we're definitely looking to various, various protocols and developments to support,
I think it, a lot of it depends on, you know, what, what's going to be around long term.
I mean, it's interesting, because we, we, we were first to ship support for, for ordinals,
but we actually weren't for brc 20. Because initially, when it came out, you know, there was
most people like the devs, the influencers out there were saying, you know, this is probably not
going to be around long term. And, and then sure enough, it took off just the same. So the market
can be difficult sometimes, you know, even when things are developed in a matter of four hours is
what Domo told me he said he made brc 20 in four hours. So, you know, sometimes, sometimes, you
know, the, the interest, the market fit is there and things take off. And you just have to, you
know, make the best, best bet with the information you have on what you're going to support. So I
would say our probably our top priority right now is around rooms. So we're working closely with,
with, you know, the core team and checking out what what's being developed there. So we're going
to be supporting rooms. And we're, you know, really, we're interested in that. I think it's
something that probably will be around longer term. And, you know, the, it's not going to have
so much congestion around the protocol. So it's, it's definitely a better, better solution for
Bitcoin. So I think that's something that we're, we're interested in as well as, you know, what's
actually good, good for the Bitcoin blockchain, and it's going to not only support the demand
that's out there, but really, yeah, be around longer term. And yeah, I mean, stacks, ordinals,
this is interesting stacks 20. Also interesting to us, we we ship some fun apps out there with
our sats connect API. So if you haven't tried it yet, we have an app that we developed in a couple
days, just to kind of showcase what you can do with this sats connect API. So the app is called
inscribe GPT. So if you go to inscribe GPT dot experts dot app, and I can try to pin it up here,
I'll have to go back and find the post somewhere. But basically, you can now create your own stacks
ordinal by by using AI. So just like any, any other AI prompt, like you can type in like Pepe,
the frog is enjoying a nice bath with surrounded by Bitcoin, gold, you know, something like that,
you can just like make up whatever you want. And it will populate this fun AI visual. Actually,
I accidentally did it with like this, this cat and dog, I was just playing around to figure out what
was the gas fee, and I accidentally inscribed this cat and dog that's now forever on stacks. But,
yeah, so you can you can play around with it. And then you can inscribe it onto stacks,
using experts. It's just like a really quick fun to quick thing. So we're, you know, we'll see if
it takes off, you know, it's just something fun that we're, we're messing around and having fun
with with with the API and just kind of showcasing what people can do. But um,
but yeah, you can do that you can we also have a mint app. So both for stacks 20 and BRC 20. It's,
you can simply click through and and start minting tokens really easily and and see what's see what's
available to mint. So yeah, there's a lot of there's a lot of fun things we're developing.
Definitely, definitely follow follow experts if you're interested to keep up with what's being
developed. Absolutely. They're in there in the audience as well. So just simple click and follow
you're ready to go. So with that said, I want to come to one big question for everybody. We
just finished the first 31 days of the year. And with that, as I started this spaces out in the
beginning, have had a number of headlines that are seeming to just amplify by the hour and by the
day, thus far, and I don't see that slowing down, which is very exciting. And so we'd love to hear
each of your thoughts on where does the Bitcoin thesis evolve to over the next three months,
as we look towards the having a major milestone for all of the industry, as well, and we'd just
love to hear your general thoughts of where all this goes, maybe things you're excited about and
opportunities that those listening in the crowd should be paying attention to, and thinking about
if they're looking to build a project or otherwise and expand on Andre and the author of Bitcoin
writes one of the best, greatest, I'm showing it newsletters in this space, also covering everything
about SBTC and all that evolves with it. Andre, what are your closing thoughts here today,
predictions of the next three months leading up to the having of the Bitcoin thesis?
Yeah, thanks, Kyle. So I'm really excited to see the Bitcoin L2 landscape really develop over the
course of this year. I think we're going to see a lot more experiments in this space. And obviously,
Stacks, Nakamoto upgrade with SBTC is a particular type of bridge that enables really
low trust bridging. It offers strong economic incentives for science to participate in this
network and very much looking forward to how SBTC with that can unlock these new use cases for
for Bitcoin DeFi. And also looking at ways that new technologies that are just coming out
can even augment and improve some of those efforts. So I know there's a lot of interest
around the VM right now and sort of what that can do to continue to reduce the trust assumptions
around Bitcoin, potentially even offering sort of like optimistic rollups to Bitcoin.
And so I'm constantly kind of looking at these technologies to see like, are there ways that we
can incorporate this into future SBTC designs, really building out the roadmap for that? So
my basic prediction is that there's going to be a ton of experimentation around this space.
Developers are looking for ways to continue to reduce those trust assumptions. Obviously,
the holy grail being like full ZK rollups on Bitcoin, which are likely going to be a couple
of years out because they require some changes to Bitcoin, likely some new op codes. And so
SBTC is really the best version that we can launch without any of these new op codes. But
as these potential changes to Bitcoin are explored and evaluated, we want to be right there
so that if there is a new op code change over the next coming years, that we're in a position
to really integrate that and continuously sort of upgrade the designs for SBTC.
I love it. Tenta, you, Alex, Rachel, the whole team, what are you looking for? What are you excited
about over the next three months? I want to share our view and prediction
from a different perspective. I think number one, from builder's point of view, you know,
you are excited about building on Bitcoin. The Bitcoin L2 at the moment is a buzzword,
but just like the ICO time, a lot of those projects have a lot of words in their GitHub,
but no substance. So be careful because once you choose the L2, it's hard to move to other places.
So be careful what you choose to build on. Look at if the Bitcoin asset, you know,
bridge in, bridge out, peg in, peg out. It depends on Bitcoin's finality or not. And just like Wolf
said, you know, if it's the same as a rare Bitcoin Ethereum, you might not bother. So from builder's
point of view, there are too many L2s out there, not enough to have substance. Watch out. From
investor's point of view, yielding Bitcoin ETF is coming. I have seen that in the graph by
once the spot ETF, future ETF is there, the derivatives will come. It will be, you know,
inverse ETF, 10x ETF, and then you will be yielding ETF. So whatever you want to build on Bitcoin
in terms of defects, think about how can you package it into yield product for Bitcoin holders.
That's from, you know, investor's point of view is that look out for Bitcoin yielding product.
Now, last but not least, for the startup, for my, you know, cohorts here, Bitcoin frontier fund
travel was here. When market is so hot, it's sometimes it's hard to concentrate, to focus,
right? You have to talk to investor, you have to talk to all the partners you want to build.
And then Haden texts me this, and I love it. He said that startup doesn't die when they run out
of cash. They die when the founder run out of energy. So if you want to join a group that's
really being well mentored throughout your lifetime, if you want to join a group that where,
for example, Alex want to give back, we want to run the token track program for Bitcoin frontier
fund. I say I have to get a yes. So choose a group where you don't run out of energy. So that's my
three prediction. I think there'll be many, many more great builders coming to join us. Thank you.
Thank you as well. And if you haven't done so already, make sure to follow the Alex team,
definitely sign up and subscribe to Bitcoin rights. Bitcoin layers report.com to get the
report for free. We made it free for everybody, which has been referenced multiple times here
today. So definitely check that out in the market maps that are in it as well. Wolf, quick 30
seconds, your predictions as well, having talked to so many in both of the realms of again, if an
EVM to Bitcoin, and the greater web three industry, where do you see things going over the next three
months? Yeah, appreciate it. So really quickly, I think I think these these ETFs are going to
dominate the headlines, at least for the next like two months or so. I highly encourage people
to truly understand, like what the inflows and outflows, what the what that actually means,
really dig into it, understand what the grit, what like GBTC is, what grayscale is doing,
like, because then and only then can you truly like appreciate and genuinely see, like, how,
like fast this is being adopted, and how much Bitcoin these institutions are buying up,
because I think the biggest narrative is going to be when the teachers union and the police
officers and every ambulance worker has a piece of a Bitcoin in their 401k. So I think that's going
to be kind of the growing narrative. I'm super excited for everything you guys got going. And
one quick little plug for my guy, Dr. Rolex down there, he's got an 850 stacks bid out on that
Diamond Genesis NFT. So if you're in this audience, the highest one or the next one below him is the
highest is 42. So I go check your wallet. Somebody wants it. Thank you so much. Well,
if again, nothing here is as financial advice or tax advice, all educational and informative only.
Elizabeth closes out your prediction looking towards the next three months as well. Q1.
Well, let's see. First of all, okay, I'll do I'll do three things. First of all,
I'm obviously excited for SBTC coming up. So that's I guess that's more Q2. But definitely
we're gearing up to support that. There's already so much demand for stacks that we're seeing.
You know, stacks 20 stacks ordinals, you know, I think everything that's happening around Bitcoin,
it's it's naturally going to go in that direction. So really exciting to see that that L2 development
there. Personally, I'm really excited for the for the bull run. It's gonna be my first bull run
working as a like professionally in the crypto space. So that's really exciting. Now with the
happening and ETFs, it's just really a thrill and excited to see everything scale and grow. I mean,
definitely, we're growing our team and experts and also partnering with so many builders in this
space with Sats Connect. And yeah, just really excited to see that the ecosystem and become so
bullish. And and I love seeing you know, people from other other ecosystems come over. You know,
I think also just development and and good work being done with, you know, converting the maxis
to a certain degree as much as we can. And people meeting IRL post post a pandemic. I just think
there's so many wonderful developments happening. So excited for that. And then thirdly, really
bullish for ordinals Asia, I'm just going to give a quick plug, but we are co hosting ordinals Asia,
it's going to be the biggest ordinals event yet, bridging the east and the west, it's going to be
in Hong Kong on May 11, right after Bitcoin magazine's Bitcoin Hong Kong. So that's May 9
and 10. So right after we'll we'll have ordinals Asia. So if you haven't been to Asia yet, or you're
looking to get plugged into the ordinals ecosystem deeper and really expand your network east,
this is this is the event for you, it's going to be really special. We're working with all the
best partners out there. And I'm, you know, actively also talking to Shannon at the Stacks
Foundation. So I'm sure there's going to be a lot of stackies out there. And yeah, it's something
that I think is going to be really interesting. Because I think so often there's there's this kind
of like, cultural and language barrier where where we haven't been able to, to interact as much with
this group, a lot of people aren't on crypto, Twitter, for example. So, you know, I think if
you really want to expand your network out there, and obviously, you know, Asia is the alpha, there's
so much development, there's so much scalability happening and opportunities happening out there.
So especially these next few years, I'd say in regards to regulation. So yeah, without getting
into it further, save the date, May 11. Perfect. All right, May, May 11, everybody.
That's a big thank you to everyone who joined today, guests, special guests amongst and again,
congratulations. On the exciting announcement, Andre, thank you for taking the time, along with
Max and Lugano's, to share the announcement about the support around Stacks, Bitcoin L2s
as well. Very excited to hear that announcement as well. And Trevor, Chenta, Elizabeth,
Wolf, thank you all as well. And thank you to everyone here in the audience for tuning in,
and for all your wonderful questions in the DMs. Really appreciate that today. If you haven't done
so already, again, make sure to sign up BitcoinRights.com best newsletter in the game,
and also talks about all the developments happening around SBTC. BitcoinLayersReport.com,
it's tagged up at the top of today's post to get that report that has been referenced throughout
today. Myself and Spartan group put that together. We're giving away free to everybody. So please
enjoy that. If you are building anything in this space, whether that be on Bitcoin, one of the
surrounding ecosystems or layers, check out N21.stacks.co to join that Nakamoto prep program
to prepare you and your team, along with some additional support and resources as leading up
to that Nakamoto upgrade, again, announced between April 15th and April 29th. Building on Bitcoin,
February 22nd, BitcoinUnleash.org to get your ticket and also register if you would like to
be a speaker as well. With that said, everyone, again, a big thank you for tuning into this week's
crypto internet show. If you would like to tune in live, ask questions or join the conversation,
be sure to follow Stacks on Twitter and tune in every week at our normal time of 5 p.m. Eastern
on Wednesdays. Again, today's conversation was education and informative purposes only. It was
not financial advice. Please do your own research as we talked about a number of projects, experiments,
and new ideas and concepts. So, again, please do your own research.
Until next time, I'm your host, Kyle LeCot. Take care, everybody.