Hello, hello everybody. Thank you all so much for being at this Twitter space today on markets from the near foundation community team and We have a really exciting space because today we have some great people on with us today co-founders of block bank which is a prominent wallet in the web 3 space So cutting it
So, we're going to have a quick look at the future of the project.
platform in the pipeline and then hopefully later on if we have any time at the end we can invite anybody up to ask any questions or raise any discussions if they'd like. So if you if Anna if you want to go ahead and introduce yourself and then we'll let Kelgate go after you. Yeah absolutely.
Hi and hi dear communities of both blog bank and in your protocol. So where to be here? I'm Anna. I'm a CEO and co-founder of blog bank and now we're also turning into video room because we're expanding and we have so many news and so many things to discuss. So Kel just make an intro and let's dive in.
Hey everybody, Keltzier, co-founder of BlockBank, I run things on the backend, look over the marketing, the tech, the AI stuff. I got my hands in a lot of piles in the back of BlockBank. Yeah, that's me.
Hey Marcus, sorry, thank you for having us too, man. This is great. No, no worries at all. We were definitely overdue a catch a post consensus and I appreciate you stopping by the near booth and being active coming out to the horizon, pitch event. It's awesome to see you there. And yeah, great to have this the spaces with you. So it'd be awesome to I invite you to Gabriel up as well.
as a speaker if he's there and listening, you can kind of join if you'd like to let you introduce yourself. But in the meantime, you know, Kell, Anna, whoever wants to kind of answer this, he also gets a little bit of the history of Block Bank. If you could briefly describe maybe what in
inspired the building of Block Bank and also what the mission is. You know it's such a good question and you know what to be fair why we created Block Bank it was very selfish reasons because we're not happy with the solutions that were on the market at the time and it sounds a bit kind of sassy.
But that was the case when Calj firstly built a very first version of them of the app It was a super convenient decentralized wallet with some amazing features that were where had of the of the market and then when we started to build on the top we decided to add some
centralized aspect or of the business because too many users they DeFi was still too complicated for them and then we added banking because we want to want to expand our user base and people joining crypto overall and then it was so funny and sad at the same time with faced so many problems especially when it comes to banks
banking and all things fiat and not only for our customers but also for us as a company that just wanted to be a normal company pay taxes have bank accounts that are not being closed globally so we solved that problem and then it kind of led us to expanding the business but yeah, Calhch please go ahead. Yeah, you're right on point.
And we saw this first it was a tiny gap and then the gap just came bigger and bigger and it started off with my intentions initially were how do we get the right information to the people like unbiased data so that they can either participate in or make
better educated decisions on whatever they're trying to do, whether it be trade or investors, buy and hold. It's not enough of that. Building out this AI robot advisor to help people sort of understand what they were doing. And then it quickly evolved to, okay, for them to action fast, they need a platform
to action it on and platform where they don't have to go from one app to another app to another app, everything can be facilitated within that single application. So it evolved to what is now the current state of block bank, which is again, this all-in-one super-apply
application where we give our users an iBan account, so European users, an iBan account, they can deposit their funds, they can then start trading their Fiat into crypto, and then crypto to crypto trading, participate in Web 3 through our non-crisis
the Stodial DeFi wallet, participate in the DAPS that are in there. So it's a Web3 browser built in so they can do anything that they want on the Web3 side. And most importantly, they can withdraw their funds to a debit card that we provide them with. So basically, giving them utility of the crypto that they've accumulated over the
the last X amount of years, days, whatever it may be. So the whole point of this is everything is facilitated within the single app, single point. So it's quick. You're getting the right prices right at that point and you're getting the best rates because that's what we do as well in the app. We aggregate pricing so that the user gets the best price.
That's a lot. Sorry. That always gets a good background on the on the projects and get a good overview. And I think that you provided a very articulate to the great overview of block bank, kind of what it enables with problems it's solving and how it kind of is unique in a way that
I'm going to go ahead and do a little bit of the process.
I did mention a calendar that you are on the marketing side and as a co-founder as well. But it would be great if you could share more about BlockBank's team, introduce the team to the audience, let the audience have a little bit of an insight into who are members of the team, who do you have working in their backgrounds.
Yeah, absolutely. Well, very shortly about myself because without my fantastic team, we're nothing and I'm nothing as well. I'm a lawyer and I started my career working in the European Union Law Enforcement Agency and this is how I came across digital assets, well, Bitcoin and the Silk Road, it's back in a day. But I was just fascinated
by the technology and I was very lucky to find mentors that explained their significance on their decentralization to me. And then in I think it was early to late 2016 early 2017 again I was lucky enough to join a small team back then that was Eastland and then it became Arve. So
So around that time I also met Kelch and Darren, our third co-founder. And you know, when you sometimes meet people and you just click because values align and the way you see industry aligns and of course let's Kelch speak more about himself and Darren. But we are very healthy and unhealthy mix of
regulatory, financial, DGEN, and that's Darren, that we as co-founders we work as one unit basically. And our team is currently based in Australia where Gabe is and our Gabe had a business development, he never sleeps literally, never sleeps.
So we are based in Australia, Lithuania, London, as well as Canada and El Salvador. And we have a fantastic team, you know, from the developers to business development, as well as legal, we are so lucky that we found an aligned our values with team that we continue to
to build. Irrespective of the market, irrespective of what's happening, we just put our heads down, we get licenses and we build and deliver for users. Keltz, please go ahead. I don't think I can beat that, but yes, we've got some pretty great people behind us. And I think you can see if you've been following us over the last few years,
us evolving, a brand evolving, our image evolving, and it's a continuous state of growth. The team has been a crazy little tidbit about some of the team members. They're actually investors who loved what we were doing and jumped on to help us grow full-time because
they see our vision, it aligns with their ideas of what crypto should be and how it should work and a lot of the matches jumped on board and being there for the long journey. Which is kind of crazy.
I'm pretty happy about the proud as well. Yeah. That's awesome. Yeah, it's like love the fact that it's like very diversified. You guys are kind of spread out and kind of work really really well together and I don't even just see that from you. I appreciate that you kind of dove into your
your team structure, where they're located, what their backgrounds are, and how you work. And it's actually really cool to learn that some of the initial investors actually ended up joining the team because they believe with the vision. And I love to see that where investor or VC not only supports a project financially, but also supports a project and make sure that it is
get up to a level like show me you can walk and we'll help you to run. So that's awesome. But I also see it in the overall web 3 space, you know, just being, you know, integrated in just general like CT, you know, seeing things that come up about block bank, like you have a really good reputation and people, you know, people are kind of, seems like you have a good
a good strong community behind the platform as well. So I really appreciate you diving into that. And now here's the question that I alluded to earlier. I just wanted to make sure the audience could get a good introduction and overview of the platform and team. But now we can start getting into the granular details. And you did mention, you briefly
kind of cover this a little bit near introduction, but it would be awesome to hear from you both on how Block Bank really differentiates itself from other wallets or crypto financial solutions out there in the space. This is such a good question because you and I did correct there are many solutions that
act as wallets in the space and this is fantastic. When we started building from the very beginning, our industry is still so small and growing and sometimes when we can't agree even between industry players. Our very limited crypto industry players on how we should all move together, we claimed that we are so
decentralized, but yet all of us act in a very decentralized manner, or we don't support each other. So when we are building and what we have right now, see us as an Expedia, or like Amazon, or any kind of large aggregator, because we want to work and we work with everyone. And we integrate cross services
different protocols and the thing that was so near and dear to our hearts from the very beginning was the fact that we want to stand by DeFi as well as CFi because this is where regulation is going. So we will keep and this is the really unique aspect of our wallet. You can be fully decentralized, your key
your crypto, you can be in more secure and more familiar environments of the centralized services. And also, and this is what we're very proud of, since we overcame so many challenges as a company, we started to support other blockchain companies and we provide them banking services, listing services and advisory services as well, because we wanted this industry to grow.
I'm going to jump on and add this thanks Anna this also ties into your previous question about our team. They help us differentiate our products and services to because each one comes from a unique background and a path of life. What I mean by that is we've got people on
on our side that have been in the traditional finance space for over 30, 35 years. People who have written laws, regulations around, again, traditional finances and how they should operate. We've got people who are degenerate crypto traders.
on our side as well. So we fully understand what the dynamics of the market is and how the product should fit into that market. And again, it's a constant evolution in the state of crypto. So it's us being fluid with what the market is sort of dictating as well.
because there's a lot of ups and downs. And each point in these ups and downs requires a different product or service. I've been in the space since 2013, 2012. My co-founder, Darren, as well has been in the space. And we've been through bull and bear markets, I think about four or five times.
And each sort of time it gives birth to a new service, right? So the latest one with Salsius and let's take Salsius for example, lending protocol people put in their money into these platforms because they thought they were getting a great return on their investments, but the transparent
and transparency wasn't there. They were sort of mimicking what the traditional finance markets did when they were re-hypothicating funds. It just turned out to be this circle of the money going from the same people to the other people to the same people. So it wasn't really new money evolving into
improve the ecosystem. But what we've seen over the last little while in one of our product and services is, hey, infrastructure has got a great path to adoption. It's not rehab authentication, it's not anything of that sort. It's basically assets that are
put towards the good of crypto, right, to evolve respective chains and products grow out of it. So, you know, adding features, going back to my previous point.
each market, a new product is born and us being so fluid and being able to add such products and services sort of gives us that edge right we're quick to take something to to make
could a product or a service. Again, we're growing and we're operating within regulatory confines. So that's important, too. And us navigating both spaces gives us an upper hand, I feel.
That's my 30 second talk about that. It's a good insight to like kind of how you're kind of your outlooks. I mean, you have all the experience with being in the market as long as you've had. So you've kind of been around and seen that the different changes in the landscapes and how things have evolved from, you know,
From then to now and like you mentioned I mean one of the things that I would love to dive into and it's something that you raised Just now and I'm kind of genuinely curious to is you mentioned that every cycle there's like kind of a new technology that emerges and You know that there's this wave behind it and we kind of see this right now and we're
So like AI, right? AI is like this big new thing and I'm really curious to see how AI evolves and kind of makes its way into Web 3 and how the future of this will shape. But I'm curious are you guys exploring any integration with AI into block bank services and how if so, how will it benefit the user?
This is such a good question and funny story we started working on AI and R&D before it became trendy and before it had a separate tab on the coin market cap. The thing is in order to build models that are sustainable and that can really benefit
users, it does take a lot of time. And AI is CalJos Baby and CalJos Topic, but it's so funny that we started building it and working on it before it became so trendy. Yeah, now way way before I'm talking like 2017, again, this was the inception of Block Bank to
it is today was on the basis of AI and how it can help people make better educated decisions. The path has been long and windy on the AI front. Simply because the technology keeps evolving, we get access to better resources, better data.
Again, it's a timing factor. You get access to better data because of historical charts and trading and patterns and stuff like that on the crypto side. Now, what we've been doing over the last year, which is I think moving forward, going to be the base of our AI, is we're
working with reputable universities, Professor students to enhance what AI actually means for crypto. What we're seeing, we actually released a little beta testing program, which is sort of the foundation of how we gather all the data.
data is a little AI chatbot that you can ask questions to very generic sort of questions, but also it has a little bit of machine learning on the backend for our purposes. What that does is gives us a pattern of what kind of questions the population's asking, right? Whether they're new to crypto, whether they're
There are a lot more experienced. We're gathering that data. Questions like what is crypto? It's really basic stuff that we programmed into there. What is crypto and then it's evolving into, okay, what are the
Bands looking at for this particular trading chart and it's able to decipher this is a big beta testing going on right now on this but Giving us a sentiment of where this asset is going but with crypto it's a little bit more it's a little bit different because now we've got
other AIs on the other side of this, that's pumping and dumping assets. So how do we differentiate those signals if they are organic or if they are bots? So what we've got in place is
set of algorithms that are able to monitor various social media platforms. Let's take Twitter for example. So what we're implementing is something that's looking at say the top 1000 influencers in the space looking for keywords
And then analyzing if those keywords or those conversations are actually bought driven or if they're genuine conversations happening. And that gives us extra data to help train our AI as to what to look for. Right. It's pretty cool.
might not release it because it might be so useful on our back and that we know what's brought driven and what's organic. But again, AI is going to help people make clearer decisions based on unbiased, non-bot.
BOT data. And I think that's super important. It's kind of scary because I see this evolving into the traditional financial space where financial advisors are going to probably be obsolete in our generation.
#This is not financial advisor. This is my opinion as to what it's going. Our goal is to make it again accessible and convenient to users and both retail users because historically they are the most vulnerable and they have little resources to do really due diligence, protocol,
smart contract and then also for other protocols and chains as well as some other projects because there is so much data and unfortunately since our industry is so fairly young there is so much BS. So the things that we're building it's basically transparency tools that then there will be available on everyone's
fingertips to use. Yeah, these are two really important topics that you touch up on. I'm really glad to hear that you're kind of leveraging AI technology and it's cool, Kelj, that you've been working with AI for as long as you have. But yeah, leveraging AI technology to tackle these two points where on one side, education is one of the most important things right now in Web 3.
It's still kind of a new subject. It evolves extremely quickly that the landscape changes incredibly fast. And it's hard to keep up with. There's a lot of technical jargon. It's very early, right? It's still early, and we're still technically in the DOS stages of the internet and regular operating systems.
And it's hard to wrap your head around that if you're not really ingrained in the space. And on the flip side as well, tackling the transparency issues as well. Like you said, there's a lot of, you know, it's the Wild West. And then there's a lot of kind of, you don't know if you can trust somebody or you don't know of information that you read on a certain website is correct. You don't want to#
So by kind of really using AI to tackle these two points and kind of bring more trust into the space helps the space in general, not just Blom. Blom. X platform. So really glad to hear that you're leveraging AI and kind of working with the to tackle these two areas.
And this is really cool. I have another question that's kind of in line with this. But I guess the question that I have is what are block banks' main achievements to date, but you can also maybe tie in like, where are you currently with that AI initiative? And could this tie into that question? You know, is that an achievement you have to
date? Is it something that we can use right now? Is it still in the works? What can we expect from that? It's a good and hard question on the achievements because it's not fair to ask the team what we have achieved, right? Because of course in our opinion we are the best and we are the greatest, but internally we
feel very proud of a technology that we've built and usability of the platform that is available on iOS, Android devices as well as web app. Our card program is going live any day now. We're already done with beta testers. So it's
going to be another amazing tool for crypto community to spend the crypto to use different savings tools, again, all in the same platform in the same in the one app. When it comes and this is second aspect that we're very proud of that we stayed regulatory compliance throughout the way. So it was hard, but
it was very important for us to do things right. So internally when it comes to, again, it's called just baby, I'll let him speak, but we are very proud on our expansion and on our user growth, both on the retail side as well as B2B side. We are so happy that we can provide useful services
to fellow blockchain companies such as bank accounts and treasury management and OTC and again banking is such a and you guys probably know it from your ecosystem and your other projects that you work with that it's a painful topic. So we're so happy that we were able to solve this and we're solving this problem for so many
other fellow blockchain companies. And for our retail users, we are so blessed having community that provides us feedback. So if there is any bug, any issue, any usability problem, they come back to us and we fix it. So for us, achievement is something, it's a process and we're improving what we have every day.
Yeah, I'm going to follow on with a couple of things and actually reference a previous question about market cycles and products that are developed over the last bear market actually. And the banking side. So I think what the market's shown us is that banking is a massive issue and
One of the things that have grown on our side of the fence is our institutional arm. There's a lot of crypto projects out there that are underserved on their banking and they're basically now being turned away from a lot of the major banks, especially in North America.
So one of the biggest achievements I think just to touch on that part is our institutional arm has grown massively. We're onboarding tier one L1 chains. We're onboarding massive liquidity providers simply because you know, we
understand the troubles and the hassles and issues that they face because we went through the same thing. That's why we sort of started the whole "Let's start a bank" path. And it's right now what I see is retails very
stable. There are opportunities, the market's given them to enter at a fairly cheap price, I feel anyway, in my perspective. But the projects themselves, man, the amount that we're talking about, I think we're talking as well, I'm not disclosing anything, but
run your day-to-day business banking and general finances like access to money should not restrict business operations and we're helping a whole ton of a ton of them so that was one of the big achievements I think this year for block bank on our institutional side.
Sounds like you guys have a lot in the pipelines. You guys are working on a lot of things in your heads down, especially in this market cycle being that kind of diligent and motivated. It goes a long way and it shows your dedication of the platform and building it out. I feel like I said I'm really excited to see what's in store and how it evolves, especially with the AI.
I'm a little bit polluted to this a little bit in that kind of by answering that question. But I would have loved to get into it. If there's anything you want to raise here, like some of the challenges that you guys faced and how you've overcome them, I mean, especially with what you're building, I'm sure you've, you've kind of definitely run into some blockers and
And it's always good to get insight as well for anybody in the audience who are probably some awesome founders here. And to kind of educate them and they can get learnings from you guys on what have you overcome? How did you overcome it? What advice would you give to people in regards to those blockers? So yeah, it'd be really good to kind of dive
to that side of things. You know, in any industry, and especially in the blockchain industry, when you're starting to build a business and a company and a technology, I think we have every day, we have a new challenge. And right now we developed this idea of, okay,
Okay, what pliers are we putting out today? And it comes from regulators, they love to throw some curveballs out of nowhere recently. And second, I think large chunk of internal challenges is building and identifying what actually user
Because internally when we build, at some point we overbuilt and then we had to really simplify the platform, the application, because sometimes it's very hard to lose focus who is your target audience and who you're building it for. You know, we're building for people that might have never seen crypto or never
touch crypto and even what crypto. So for us it was very important to really simplify it and make it as accessible as possible. And then when we started servicing business clients, that's a totally different audience. So we had to reshape some of the features to service them. So it's I think what
helps us with Kelsood earlier that some of our investors became our team members, as well as getting constant feedback from advisors and from community. Because it's so easy just to concentrate on the thing that you're building without taking any feedback. And of course, you shouldn't listen to everything but
people say because you have to deliver on your vision at the end of the day. But it's challenging but it's exciting and advice for any other founders or people that are planning to start a company, just do it. Just do it. Have an MVP and release it into the wild and then gather feedback and then pivot if needed.
Yeah, I don't know if I can add anything for that, but just keep building. And see, change like you guys near protocol and the initiatives that they have for builders, I think that's a great ammunition and it gives you
confidence as well, right? So when you're getting this acknowledgement or validation from like your foundation, for example, it's a great feeling like, okay, cool, I'm building something that's going to make the difference. And what you guys are doing on that level is kudos to you, man.
Yeah, it's definitely I love that advice and I like just keep building you know it's a learning process You can kind of observe there a lot of people are building a lot of cool stuff in this space and kind of observe and take little things about Take things from what people are building and kind of build upon it and Kelcey your point. Yeah, I mean near you know we we
So, we kind of went, well, near foundation announced that the positioning near is a blockchain operating system. So, near is now a blockchain operating system to add to that. We're kind of contributing to this multi chain future where you can look at the blockchain operating system almost as like a decentralized GitHub, Versel, and AWS, like all wrapped up in
to build on network. You can look into people's code. If you're interested in something that somebody built on boss, you can see the code. You don't have to go find the GitHub. It's all there. For a cell, you can discover apps in front-end. You can watch a decentralized front-end.
So yeah, to kind of add to your point, we're really kind of like really contributing there to allow people to build and just build and iterate and you know you can kind of collaborate on your platform. So it's awesome to hear that sentiment and I really appreciate it. And you know Marcus just to add to that because
What are you guys doing with blockchain operating system? It's not only simplifying and make it easier for other people to build on it, but it's such a great collaborative space. And it leads to the fact that partnerships and real meaningful partnerships where you can ask questions and you'll be correct.
it and you'll be advised it's so important because one thing that I truly love about our trouble sometimes, sometimes trouble crypto industry is that we help each other, we help each other, we advise each other and we try to build something together. So and everyone will make mistakes but it doesn't really matter because eventually the end users they will just get a better product.
100% we are in not only an industry but at the point that we're in this industry it's more important than ever to kind of help each other out we need to make sure that we work together and by kind of advocating for each other
And that's how we're going to build the space up to where it's going to be for massive adoption. So really, really appreciate those sentiments. I love kind of the description there about, you know, about kind of challenges and advice the founders building. And Keldt, we're kind of like getting into another one now. I'm going to really
I really try to open up the floor to anybody that might have any potential questions before we stop, but you did allude to some things in the work, some exciting entities, whether they're layer ones or just companies in the space that you're collaborating, you're like, "God, I'm the pipe on it for collaboration."
I'm just wondering if you can at this time elaborate on any partnerships or collaborations that Block Bank is currently working on or with? Yeah, man. So I'm going to talk about us, near and block Bank, and how near you are to us.
We've integrated your assets into our platform. We're also talking to a hand-hand full of projects building on the near ecosystem and how we can help them out in two different ways. For us, the mindset is
The journey for our user without having to jump from one app to another app, right? So integrating near is one step closer to that, to that vision. But not only that, we've got to work very closely with the near projects so that
our community and other communities in our ecosystem has access to those projects and are aware of their existence. So we're working with a handful to get their tokens listed on our platform access to their products and services.
services. And this is for our retail users. But on the institutional side, a lot of these projects need help. So we're supporting them on the bank
So, it's kind of, you know, multiple ways that we're supporting the project.
There's news following in the coming weeks as to which projects that we're working with and I don't know if you follow us on Telegram or Twitter, but every day or every other day there's an announcement of a project that's joining our ecosystem and how we're helping them.
Because it leads back to our core vision of becoming one place for all things crypto because we want as many new users or existing users to be exposed to near protocol and near ecosystem as well as to be honest all
other protocols because the space is so vast already that we have to educate users, provide them safe space, safe and secure space to transact and also explore. And then they can find what they want to use for what purpose and
maybe perhaps what to build on. So for us being a project agnostic is very important because we support them as KELS said not only with the asset listing but also with a lot of things if a project A needs a back account will provide it to them and will assist them as well.
So founders on here, if you have any questions, ping us directly. We'll help you through whatever you're going to do. 100%. 100%. We've been through the shit times. So we know how to navigate certain things. We're here to support you.
That's awesome stuff and it goes back to what I said, you know, we kind of we're talking about earlier we need to make sure that we kind of Not only build what we're building but also keep in mind the support for others in the space as well It's really important that we lift each other up and we also kind of share our learnings so people can kind of you know not only
I can actually get into it now.
platform that really leverages and adds to all of the benefits of what Web 3 is. It kind of embraces what Web 3 is and what blockchain technology is. Aside from the services that you're providing and happy to support founders,
like how can the community and founders get involved in support block bank? Like is there anything, are there any initiatives right now going on? Are there any kind of like testings coming up? Anything that you want to raise to the community and audience to kind of like get involved in? Well, it's a great question and we haven't published it yet.
So it will be the first time when we're announcing we are launching Founders Initiative where we would be supporting Founders with their fundraising efforts. So see it as a blog bank ecosystem fund. So I can't disclose more details right now so wait for the official announcements.
Again, it tells back to the fact that we want to support and grow this ecosystem together. So, and in any case, even before we launch it officially, just DM us and we'll see how we can work together.
I think we gave us a lot of information on that announcement. Yeah, no wait here to support. Reach us through telegram, Twitter, email, send us a yeah. Reach us that I just wanted to say I didn't know if you had anything to add to that count. So awesome. Yeah, I just want to
And I'm going to make sure that the community and audience here have clear CTAs if there's any way that they can get involved and awesome initiatives you have coming up. So that's great to hear. And just a couple last questions and I'll open the floor. I'm really interested. You kind of got into this a little bit earlier, Keljon, and you a little bit as well, Anna. But it would be awesome to hear
your thoughts, you guys are founders of this platform that is tackling this industry. So it would be awesome to hear some of your direct thoughts on how blockchain technology is changing the banking and financial industry. It's such an interesting topic in a sense that what we
here and what we see in the news sometimes is not what is actually happening because the core functionality of the blockchain meaning transparency and almost instant delivery and settlement, it's something that traditional, Thrat5 is aware of but it's not usually the case. So in some
financial cases, blocked installs so many problems and it comes from fees to transactions to different jurisdictions as well as assets and collateralized assets and trading of those assets. But also on the other hand, I think sometimes we do forget that drug pie they don't really
care about all the hype and sometimes noise that is happening. And there are quite a few large financial institutions that are building their internal systems on the blockchain just for care delivery of financial transactions. So in this sense, blockchain
chain slowly but surely is changing the financial world. When it comes to all the hype in noise, it's not the business of a tradfi to deal with that. So it's something that I think we need to give it five more years and blockchain will be almost by default used by every major bank.
and we should distinguish like it won't be cryptocurrency, it will be blockchain. Another interesting thing is central bank digital currencies. So it's very interesting to see how that is going to be rolled out. Are they going to be using one particular blockchain or it's going to be government supported block
So I think in that sense we need to be worried because I think a lot of us joined and loved blockchain for privacy and security that it provides, you know, with a bit of distrust of governmental services. So it's going to be exciting but very challenging times ahead.
100% yeah, I mean I agree with you there and it's we're here for the journey we're in for the ride And we are lucky to be in a position where we're watching it play out and then you know once Once blockchain tech and web 3 is at a point where the internet or web 2 is now we we're gonna have a lot of stories to tell and we have
a lot of experience. It goes for everybody here in the audience. You're all part of this space now, very early times, and the experience we're all gaining now will be completely invaluable. So definitely don't take it for granted. And then lastly, just before we kind of open the floor, I'd love to kind of hear from you guys on how
block bank. You really kind of dove into this. I'm not sure if there's anything more to say on this from your end, but I'll go ahead and ask the question specifically. How does block banks see its role within the near ecosystem? What are some of the things that you're excited about and what attracts you to near
and what are the some of the things that you're observing? Oh, it's going to be a long list. So first of all, the the pack that you are actively developing and contributing blockchain operating system, again, as I said, this kind of collaborative effort will deliver so many net benefits for all
us, you know, and we come going to see how it plays out. We try to support you, you mean, near protocol and all of your projects in a very practical way. We have this amazing platform and amazing wallet and we want to add as many projects and as many near supported
services into us so we can service them in a very practical day to day way. We would like to actively and perhaps more actively participate in some other initiatives. Now when our platform is built, our developers have a bit more time to explore what else we can build.
We perhaps we can build some of them aspects of some of the services on near protocol as well. You guys, what are you doing and we see a highly encouraged everyone to follow near protocol on how many community initiatives they have. And this is something again that will benefit each and every one of us.
Awesome. I really appreciate it and Keltz, is there anything that you want to add at all? And if not, we'll open the floor, so we'll open it up right after. No, man, I'm good. I think we've covered a lot of things on this call and builders, if she need help, ping us. If we can't help you, we can
direct you in a path where someone will help you so. Awesome, awesome, awesome, sounds good. Really appreciate it, really appreciate the insight. And like I said at the beginning of the spaces when it started it was amazing catching up with you, Kelj, at Austin.
What an event. So I've seen things evolve over the last little while and I see this based the projects coming out are just so much more mature, thought out and more impactful. And a thank you for contributing to that to that progress. Is there one
What happened with you guys over the last little while that you want to share, Marcus? >> Really just been kind of pushing since consensus, we've really kind of been developing on the protocol level blockchain operating system. And then also this was something that was formally announced at consensus but has been making progress.
since then is nearest Horizon platform, which is really ramping up their partnerships, the initiatives that they're running with the partners. So there's an on-code club initiative happening right now for education. There's an accelerator program as well happening for projects that would like to submit
And there's a lot of coming as well in the horizon side and it's going to be almost like an ecosystem dashboard, but that goes further to kind of connect projects with relevant projects. So if you're building something and you need to connect with infrastructure, tooling projects to facilitate or if you're raising all everything
Everything is going to be facilitated and happened on Horizon. So it's a super platform. And this is definitely something that I can do and everybody to check out. It's all built on the blockchain operating system. And then as we speak just now, literally about a few minutes ago, the near con 2023 website just went live. So definitely everybody
everybody go check that out as well. It's going to be another amazing conference if you didn't see the footage from last year's. It's one of the greatest Web 3 conferences. There's so much care and attention to detail and passion that goes into putting it together. And yeah, just definitely check it out. But really appreciate you guys popping
And we have about 10 minutes left or just just over. So I want to make sure that we make this an interactive session. If anybody from the audience has any questions for the amazing Block Bank team or any discussion points or topics they want to raise, anything that curious about, go ahead and request speaker and we can get you up here.
I think we need some background music on like the Jeopardy. Yeah, we'll put on the background music while while while we wait sometimes there's a little bit of a
But if anybody wants to speak or ask any questions, oh, looks like cigar has a question. I'll go ahead and bring cigar up as a speaker.
All right, cigar, the floor is yours. You are now a speaker.
You are here trying to speak, your mic is muted.
There may be some technical issues on cigar sites, so if you're able to work those out, you can feel free to request again, but we have another speaker, Basala. I'll bring you up here to ask any questions to the Block Bank team.
Alright, and you are now a speaker. You can go ahead and raise what you'd like to. Hi, good afternoon everyone.
Hey, we can hear you loud and clear. Good afternoon. I'm trying to block a question to the developers.
I'm from from Nigeria and is there any possibility that an engineer who has access to the block bank up in the near future because I try
download the app and it shows that the app is not available in my region. I think it will be a good thing if we can access the app because blockchain is getting a limelight in here and
from all indications your strategies are good and your ecosystem is very good. So that was the question.
Thank you, Michelle. Yes, it should be available. You're trying it on iOS or Android.
iOS. With iOS, we're going through a geographical expansion that the process is a little bit different. It might not be available on the app yet, but look up the web app is totally available. It's
We've got a massive initiative for the continent over there. There's some big things happening over the next 16 months for Africa.
Webapp, try that, give that a go. Support is available 24 hours a day. They're super quick to respond. If you have any issues, they're there to walk you through any process that you need.
Okay, thank you. Thank you.
Awesome. Great question. And yeah, I think it's super important as well to kind of target certain geographical regions. It would certainly that it was certainly benefit that this is kind of a really good good topic for this is what web three empowers essentially block blockchain tech. So awesome.
question and glad to have you up here. Alright, let's see. We have a couple minutes left. I mean we definitely have time for at least one or two more questions. So if anybody else has any questions or any points they want to raise to the block bank team, go ahead and request speaker. We'll get you up here.
I think we covered a lot. You guys were very, very, yeah, you got really granular. You were very comprehensive. So I appreciate it. I think you've definitely covered quite a bit. We have one more person that requested.
Alright, and it looks like they're connecting now.
While our speakers connecting spaces is a good example where a company should take user feedback and kind of improve the service. Because it is great, but it has still few bugs to fix. Yes, story of Web 3. We need to, we need to take a centralize
platform for this. And I know there are definitely some out there, but the thing with Twitter is it's such a big space that has the audience. So it's like, how do we kind of get, you can build a platform just getting the audience on there. But I'm sure I'm very confident that we will see this in the future. But yeah, it looks like they weren't able to connect.
And there has been no other requests to ask any questions. So yeah, Kelly, like you said, I mean, you were really comprehensive. You got into a lot of details. So really, really appreciate you guys hopping on here. Really appreciate you guys being comprehensive. And we will definitely catch up again at some future events.
Is there any last things you'd like to bring up before we close out? Yeah, absolutely. Well, again, Marcus, thank you for having us. It was great to hear updates. And I think everyone will check out near Web 3 conference. I'm sure it will be great. Hopefully we can attend. From our side, please just come.
Join our platform, order the cards, start using it, get cash back and for founders and other projects just come to us and we'll try to help you. We're here to work together and develop the secret system further. You can find us on block bags
We're soon going through a branding upgrade over the next couple of months. I'm not going to give you a timeline, but you'll follow us on social media to get an update on that. Awesome. You heard it here first. Looking forward to that. Yeah, we'll keep talking
based and looking forward to what comes out of the block bank pipeline. And I hope you all, thank you all so much for joining today. Hopefully we had an insightful session that you got a lot of good information from and hope you have a great rest of your week. Take care everybody. Thanks Marcus. Take care. Thank you. Thank you, bye bye. Keep doing what you don't. Ciao.