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DeFi 2.0: What's Next in Decentralized Blockchain & Crypto Finance
Recorded: May 8, 2025 Duration: 1:38:03Space Recording
Short Summary
In a dynamic discussion, crypto enthusiasts explored the latest trends in the industry, including Matterfy's victory at the BitAngels pitch competition, the upcoming Tokenize Global Summit, and the Senate's stablecoin bill. The conversation highlighted the growing institutional interest in Bitcoin, its potential for yield generation through DeFi, and bullish sentiments regarding its future value.
Full Transcription
Hello, everybody.
Welcome to our weekly BitAngels Spaces. It happens every Thursday at 1pm Pacific
time when we talk about all things AI, Web3, blockchain, and crypto. This week, after a brief
news and update discussion about Bitcoin being over 100k, Yay! Very exciting. We're going to move into our
main topic, which is DeFi 2.0, what's next in decentralized blockchain and crypto finance.
We want to congratulate Matterfy on winning first place at our recent BitAngels pitch competition
during token 2049. This event was in collaboration with Gordon Einstein, who hosts Dubai Tech
Tuesdays weekly.
It's super awesome. You should check it out if you're there.
Matterfy provides secure user-friendly infrastructure for cryptocurrency and DeFi.
And they are chain agnostic. They integrate with all wallets and AI agents.
And they use end-to-end cryptographic proofs to protect against hacking, phishing,
SIM swaps, and money laundering.
So if you're excited about privacy and security, check them out.
We've got a ton of events this month.
Tonight, if you're in Texas, join our BitAngel City leader,
Sheldon Weisfield, along with Event Horizon Capital and CryptoEQ
for a networking event that's 5.30 to at the canon in west houston um the blockchain futurist
conference returns to toronto on may 13th there's gonna be charles hoskinson brock pierce our
beloved founder michael turpin and if you want visionary insights and next level connections
this is your place to be then after that may 29 May 29th at 31, we're doing Tokenize Global Summit in Las Vegas.
And this one's pretty exciting and super exclusive.
So you're going to want to sign up right away.
There's just 250 guest spots.
It's going to be at a private celebrity gated mansion.
BitAngels Pitch Day is part of it.
So if you're a founder, apply to pitch at bitangels.net
work if you're an investor you can apply for membership um bitcoin ai founder investor mixer
is also happening during tokenize and may 21st at pubkey in new york city our city leaders dwayne
jacobson monica prophet and charles Forrest are planning a very exciting meetup.
So, yeah, without further ado, we'll introduce our guest today, Charles Forrest.
He's a longtime Bitcoin crypto investor.
We're having Lack, the founder of Wagyu Games and Undead Blocks.
James Flew Griffin, known as Definal Fantasy, is a cypherpunk, solarpunk builder,
and ambassador of Coinbase Traders. And we have our wonderful co-hosts Warren Whitlock and
Rock Zacharias. So let's get started. Yay!
So let's get started. Yay!
Welcome, everyone. Thank you so much for joining us today.
Appreciate you having us today.
All right. Are we on?
We are on. I've done all the announcements for our wonderful
guest speakers and all our upcoming events and our winners and all that so you take the floor and
well i i want to i want to get talking uh first of all about uh what i think is the
big news of the day we're're trading Bitcoin over 100,000.
Yeah, that's about time.
I think it's a good sign.
I've been saying since it was falling that once it hit the bottom and Michael Turpin gave us that signal, almost exactly at the bottom.
I don't know.
He'd tell you the exact number.
If he stops by, we'll ask him.
But in the mid-70s, and from my take on it, that means we're up like 30%, 40% from there.
It's interesting when you go down, the percentage numbers are actually less than when you go up.
Because take $70,000 and add half of it, $35,000, you get to $105,000. the numbers the percentage numbers are actually less than when you go up because uh take 70 000
and add half of it 35 you get to 105 so we're not 50 up we're uh somewhere somewhere less than that
but uh we're going to hit a bypass the all-time high pretty soon and what i've been saying all
that time let me go ahead and say it is that I think this is our last time going below 100.
But I'm willing to listen to other people talk about it.
The news I see today is that the Senate is looking at a stablecoin bill with some regulation that was supposed to be talked about today.
I would assume it's happened already.
I haven't seen any news.
But and all sorts.
I listened to spaces this morning and the list of things that are being done that are moving it so family offices and funds can be investing.
moving it so family offices and funds can be investing, it's going to be more like if
they don't have a little bit of Bitcoin exposure, they'll be in trouble.
And running the percentages on that, they're recommending 2% of those funds.
At half a percent, the crypto market doubles or triples
and that's just one source of funds
people are watching what BlackRock is doing
and some others
when we're not worried about
they'll buy too much and take over
I think that nothing but up
is it time that we started looking at Bitcoin as being worth a million dollars
and anything we get below that as a discount?
Well, I certainly agree with you that it's pretty good chance it'll keep going up
if it keeps retesting 100 and doesn't go below that, that it's looking good.
Not a financial advisor, but I tend to agree with you on that.
I posted a video when I first got news that it was over 100
explaining that if anybody needs to see records,
I can prove that I'm not somebody who should be giving finance advice in my history.
I did one good thing.
I listened to Michael Turpin and started hanging on to the Bitcoin I have been paid in.
And that's done very well.
It's not that it's my only investment.
It's just the one that I know that I did really well on.
Yeah.
So is Rocky here?
Trustworthy one.
He is, you guys.
I'm having that same silly
problem we used to have in the beginning with
the co-host thing even though I
cleared up and did all that.
Well we're looking forward to hearing from Rocky.
Yeah he's the... And
Hey guys.
Pleasure to be here as always.
Dubai was a lot of fun. It was good
seeing some of you out there.
Right.
So is Bitcoin going to stay above 100?
Yeah, I don't know.
I think so.
I mean, I don't like short-term predictions, but things are looking good.
I mean, if we don't go up a lot soon, we'll go up a lot in a bit.
up a lot soon we'll go up a lot you know in a bit you know well i started looking at it as being my
my uh million dollar tokens and and anything anything between here and there is just uh
entertainment i've told my friends and family forever try to have a you know one or two or three Bitcoin and that'll be
one or two or three million dollars later yeah that's it's really uh easiest investment that
you can make so have you been seeing other news that are that's happening that's uh that shows
that who is coming in and the different kind of money coming in that it's a little bit more than
the traders are messing around with it um what do you mean are you talking about like i mean i know
there's state yeah i mean there's a cool someone's tracking now um all of the different states that
are racing to start getting bitcoin and there's like seven of them now, eight of them now.
And one of them finally did pass the law.
So, I mean, how we're not at like 500K Bitcoin right now, honestly, I don't get it.
Yeah, it's hard to imagine.
Imagine if we had announced that the government was going to make a Google strategic reserve and start accumulating Google.
I mean, it would be the biggest news in the world.
Whatever reason, Bitcoin, it's still, I mean, 100K, look, I'm not mad.
I started buying it at $200, so I'm happy. But how it's not at $200, $300, $400, $500, $100,000, a million.
I mean, it's a space race now for assets.
And I think countries around the world will start making this part of their strategy.
I've been saying this forever. It never feels more real than it has now.
It never feels more real than it has now.
Yeah.
And if you take, I like the calculation,
if you add up how many people have a million dollars or more,
and if it's one of them tries to get a hold of one Bitcoin,
you know, there's, we'll run out.
There's not that many Bitcoin for sale compared to how many millionaires there are.
And, you know, why leave it to the people that have that kind of money when, you know, BlackRock is going to pay whatever price they pay.
Sailor tells us he's going to keep accumulating.
when funds and family offices start moving a little bit of their portfolio into Bitcoin,
that it takes them a long time to do it, but when they come, it'll be a flood,
and it won't stop because nobody's going to be taking it out when that first downturn happens.
turn happen. Does that describe how family offices work? I also wanted to address what you said about
Does that describe how family offices work?
why aren't people just piling into it? And I think for such a long time, I can just reference my own
family and trying to convince them that crypto isn't some criminal tool to launder money and
nothing else. I think it's just that it's had this kind of reputation for a very long time. And it might take people a little bit of time to trust it
like they would, you know, Google has been around.
They definitely trust that.
So I think once that happens,
everybody's just gonna pile in.
Yeah, I'm gonna say the same thing, Amber.
It's more so the banks.
It's easier access.
I think once you be able to log right in to your bank
and just buy it, buy
Bitcoin, I think that's where you'll start really seeing the mass adoption. It's good
if you have these phones, a lot of Helium and Solana, I know they come up with their
phones to where you can actually use crypto. But I would say more so
once people be able to actually go in
and just go into their bank
to chase the Bank of America
and click one button in their app
and say buy Bitcoin.
That's why I think you're really going to see
Bitcoin go to another level.
I think you're generally right.
But I will push back and say
we kind of have that,
at least in America.
I mean, you can get it on Robinhood.
You can get it on PayPal.
You can get it on Venmo, Cash App.
I mean, it's all over.
But, yeah, I think eventually it will be.
You know, if you could have it in Bank of America, in Chase, et cetera, yeah, that'll be even bigger.
Right.
There's a lot of different attitudes to how to invest.
I was reviewing one just this week that's a little bit of an aside, but just blew my mind. I'm 69 years old. And a guy who keeps talking about all the baby boomers have retired. We're two-thirds into baby boomers being over 65. And I go, okay, I'll listen listen to that i have no intention of retiring but you know let me find out what the what the rest of the world say and he said it a little bit different the other
day he said that that means when you retire you make a conversion of your um your at-risk portfolio
into things that have no risk and i know his attitude on bitcoin he doesn't like it
um i try he's really good on geopolitics and some other things so i always listen to this guy
and i go like wait wait a minute i'm supposed to get to a point when i don't want any risk
anymore but my safe money is in bitcoin what would I switch to if I was to pull it
out and do something else? I don't trust that government security is going to remain solid
or fiat money in general. And you're supposed to move out of stocks and into bonds. I can't
even see ever wanting to do that. So I need some help if anyone could explain to me how people retiring would have any kind of attitude of doing that.
To put their money in anything but Bitcoin at this point.
Now, obviously, Bitcoin is the safe money for me.
It's been the safe money for a long time.
Right.
It's the only investment I've ever made that continues to do well.
And my Ethereum was pretty good,
but you've seen what's happened to that lately.
And you see, it's almost hit 2100 today.
Yeah.
It's really nice, but it's got to double
before it gets back to anywhere near its former highs.
So, you know, and it's in this market. before it gets back to anywhere near its former highs.
So, you know, and it's in this market. So I don't know, I don't understand enough
about the uses of Ethereum.
I believe they're there, that it's, you know,
huge in corporate banking, whatever,
in behind the scenes as a utility token,
in part what they're doing, not money. And not just behind the scenes as a utility token uh in part what they're doing not money and not just
behind the scenes i mean we're seeing it up you could see it right on the blockchain i mean it's
got more tbl more total value locked than every other blockchain combined i mean wow ethereum is
i i think it's pretty fucking undervalued. I understand the hesitation people have had recently, but I think people massively oversold on the hesitation when they saw Solana doing well.
And they thought, oh, is Ethereum going to, you know, if you look at the trajectory of Solana growth versus Ethereum, you know, there's definitely, you know, it looks some of these look like scary graphs.
But when you people are often cherry picking a lot of those numbers too.
So it's not, you can't just look at, you know, one stat.
Like on TBL, I mean, Ethereum, Solana isn't even, it's like not even a tenth of, I think it's like 7% of Ethereum or something.
It's like nothing, but there is a lot of usage there don't
get me wrong guys you know solana has done well for itself but it isn't killing ethereum you know
it reminds me of the of what i heard when social media was the rage to talk about it in groups like
this you know 15 years ago and you know would explain to you in great detail how some things come and go
and Facebook beat MySpace. But, you know, if you were around and watched that stuff, that's not the
way it happened. It's not a war between Twitter and Facebook and Facebook won. Facebook just won
and invented stuff that didn't exist before. And when we're out on the edge in innovation, boy, that's quite a whistle.
So when we're out on the edge in innovating stuff, we're increasing markets.
I just saw a graph this morning when someone was discussing steel production and can we bring it back so i looked up what is steel production in
the u.s since the 70s the absolute peak was 1973 111 million ton it then went down to in the staying
in the 90s most of the time and in the eight eighties that uh don it makes up the 90 million.
And in the 1980s, it went down and hit like 75.
So it was a big crash in how much steel we were making.
Then more efficient mini mills went on.
All the big old steel mills like my dad worked at are gone.
And there's other operation.
The volume is now hanging around that or maybe a little bit
higher back to the 90 million range we have not got rid of steel production we've just and we
didn't move any jobs it didn't like they're not like they picked up the plant and moved it someplace
out but yeah people investing in the old steel industry didn't do well but in the new steel industry it's a
viable uh a viable industry just less jobs for a ton of steel manufactured so you know
the reason i bring this up is then i looked at this chart and this chart showed um the uh the
amount of steel worldwide in which countries were making it.
Europe and the United States remain about the same.
China is now like double the Europe and United States put together.
Because they're making steel that wasn't made.
It could go to places that didn't buy it before.
The total market just mushroomed.
It was huge at the end of that graph uh would
look like a funnel uh turned on its side so that you know but in the us it relatively stayed the
same europe relatively since because we weren't innovating and making new things do we need steel
that's a whole different discussion i'm not ready to take that on, but, um, when you start looking at the numbers
and you, you know, you don't cherry pick your numbers, like you were saying,
you know, if you go back, uh, you know, two, two months and there's been a
meteorite rise, but if you go back three months, you find out it's a down off of
the high, so, you know, it just, it depends on what you're looking at.
Um, and, and how far back
you go so uh but i don't see any charts saying that there are going to be less buyers for bitcoin
yeah so i got a question for you more when you say like europe and us did the same versus
production that means it actually went down because the dollar is going to be
quite severe.
Yeah.
I think it's not adjusted to the real dollar.
Well, I don't know.
Did you say that you were
referring to the numbers about steel?
Yeah, for steel.
But actually,
the graph I'm referring to
is the number of tons of steel manufactured.
It had nothing to do with the price.
Oh, okay.
Right.
Okay.
Got it.
Interesting.
Yeah.
And I certainly, you know, don't take investment advice from me, but I can absolutely guarantee
the worst thing in the world to do is take investment advice about steel.
I know nothing about how steel works and the manufacturing and what the profit margins are.
The business of steel is totally foreign to me.
But, you know, I know it's there.
When I saw that, I recalled that my dad only allowed one bumper sticker ever,
and he was reluctant about putting it on his truck because he's a
steel worker and he he had to have it because everybody else would laugh at him at the parking
lot he did put up a buy american steel bumper sticker and i laughed the first time i saw it
i'm going like dad you know that american steel is no different than other steel it has to do with
the quality of the steel.
How about you guys start making the best quality steel and then everybody will buy it?
Obviously, I didn't go to the steel mill and say this.
But anyway, enough about steel.
I think we'll be back when robotics and AI kick in, right?
I think what's going to happen, we're going to get modern manufacturing.
And if you go to a modern factory in China, at least the videos I've watched, it's not a sea of people working.
They still have some of that.
But the misnomer is that somehow if you build a new factory, it's going to be more blue collar jobs.
if you build a new factory, it's going to be more blue collar jobs. Right now, we have about
a half a million job openings where a skilled worker doing manual labor can get a job.
There's openings. They're not being filled. We don't have the workforce to do that.
So the myth is that if somehow through tariffs or whatever, we get these manufacturing plants back in the U.S.,
it'll create that kind of jobs.
The kind of jobs we see today are robots and automated processes.
But doesn't the free market start to adjust for that?
Like if there's enough job openings for long enough,
won't the employers have to raise what they're offering?
I would hope.
Definitely.
Yeah.
Well, if it's economically viable it's
not economically viable to make some of the stuff that that where somebody closed down their plant
and a plant opened overseas in many cases it was a different company opening up that that second
plant and competing i haven't seen any data on on this, so this is all off the top of
my head. My experience tells me that because somebody shut down a plant, it's because they
didn't have the mechanism to keep it open. I saw one, it was Miller Brewing. They had, I believe,
nine breweries nationwide, and they'd automated to the point that they only needed six.
So it was a program, a documentary on trying to keep the worst plant open.
The city totally backed.
The union totally backed it.
Everybody totally backed this thing.
Management thought it was a good idea.
They had already voted to close down the plant, but because I think 60 Minutes was doing the documentary,
for whatever reason, they decided to give it another,
oh, it's an early version of 48 Hours.
And I loved it because they spent, you know,
48 hours covering everything they could,
turned it into an hour documentary,
and apparently no one else watched it
because 48 hours went on a
totally different direction but but you're watching this thing and they're begging they're pleading
no one is saying it's not a great idea to have a plant there how can we automate what can we do
oh they just spent millions of dollars renovating the plant but they sit there and in the end, they had no choice. They had to vote
to shut down the plant. And you know, everybody's ready to cry. But little things during it was,
let's go into the home of the family that's affected because both parents work for Miller.
And the woman's talking about her job is to feed labels into a labeling machine to put on the beer bottle
and they show her at work and she's picking up a stack of labels and putting them on the machine
and i'm going like in your 10 years of working there didn't you ever think that maybe somebody's
going to figure out a way to put those labels on a roll or you know how to have been a different
different way mechanize what you're doing uh and today of course even a robot would be doing that
but this was 40 years ago and you know you're making 17 an hour you've got some brains think
about it make something 17 an hour early 80s. He was doing okay. But, you know, instead of doing that,
she kept doing her job and hoping the union was going to take care of the job and everything was
going to be fine. I'm all for the company town, staying the company town. That's wonderful life,
but economics have to come to play. Even if it's not a free market.
Speaking of economics, China, United States,
and Bitcoin, I have to apologize
to everyone because I said something
a few weeks ago that was sort of, like a
statement about how China
is not going to catch up. But then I did
some deeper research and it seems like in most
of the categories, China
has exceeded us after my research.
So yeah.
So let me just correct.
You said,
hold on.
I wasn't there.
I don't think you said China wouldn't catch up.
I mean,
you've been,
you're relatively bullish on China with nuance,
right?
I mean,
you always happen for a bit,
right?
Well,
I mean,
okay.
So where that,
where that comic came from was because, yeah, I lived in China for 21 years from my early 20s to my mid-40s, right?
I moved back two years ago.
And then when I moved back, it was because they were interlaterally.
So it was like a three-party system and they made it one party right
um xi jinping also uh made it so his term became indefinite right and then they started it was
during code lockdown so they had just like created like a lot of policies that was just brushing
the economy and um and uh and then i left right so my So my understanding of China sort of paused at that point in time
as I acclimated back into
U.S. culture
and surrounded myself with U.S.
social media, you know, for two years.
But then I
realized, you know, but then I went back.
I went back a few months ago
and I saw that it did
rapidly in two years,
but I didn't realize it had improved on so many dimensions. And I thought that it did, it did, um, rapidly in two years, but I didn't realize it had improved
on so many dimensions.
Right.
And I thought that because of, because of like, you know, this, I mean, I have this
idea that ultimate power, if you have like complete power, it will eventually corrupt
you.
Right.
And so freedoms will erode, um, you know, the common person will suffer.
Right.
But, um, it wasn wasn't it wasn't like that
um when i went back and i also researched things that i didn't experience directly
right because i was just like visiting friends there all right but then i started i started like
researching multiple like many different pillars of the economy and i I sort of had to eat my words. I think in most categories, they're past us now.
But one thing they're not past us is Bitcoin.
We had two states in 24 hours, right,
make it a law for the Bitcoin reserves.
I'm curious what you guys think about the other states.
Are they going to start falling like dominoes within like two months or is it going to take a year?
I mean, what's your read on this, guys?
I think you're going to see some patterns.
You're going to see, you know, some of what you're saying, but all of those.
Some will tell you, some will not.
It has to do with what, you know know what the politics are in that state what the
people think and then there's more than one way to do things and having a reserve is something you
know a lot of states live in in deficit spending using bonds so you know it's i think there's a
whole bit a lot of different ways to do it and it would be there's there won't be all one policy
I mean you know traffic rules are different from state to state but the the uh how long has it
taken to to legalize pot uh you know cannabis laws are still being bought in in some areas and some areas it's still illegal um so yeah
it's it's a mixed bag anyone else got an idea yeah most definitely i know yeah i've been
all right can you say something i think i got rug there uh there's going to be a lot of differences i'll give one
example uh the kentucky the state of kentucky put the pension of all of our teachers into
russian stocks and they lost about 98 of that money if you look the occ the office of the
comptroller just put out yesterday that they
approved that banks can buy sell and hold uh crypto for their customers and they're going to be moving
into doing more things like that I think that state funds like teacher funds like retirement
funds like nursing home funds things like that will start moving into bitcoin uh and starting
to get yield and define other things like that as they start to get into bitcoin uh and starting to get yelled and define other things like that
as they start to get into those avenues and start to learn about them i am talking with legislation
here in frankfurt kentucky our capital trying to get them pushed into those avenues and where they
can actually start getting into them and being educated about them right the stupid things that they did
aren't going to keep them from
keeping the whole back because they're worried
about making another move like the
the Russian move
that's that's interesting
what's the Russian move
they were invested in Russian
stocks I think you said yes they
invested in Russian stocks right before the war
kicked off if you look into some of the brokerages that some of these companies use they don't always put it
in the most secure means of uh getting their funds back i guess you would say you can look into that
there's a whole big stink about it it happened right before the ukraine russian war kicked off
they lost over 98 of all teachers funds retirement funds here in the state of Kentucky.
They're not the only state that did that. They're just one of the ones that got lost.
How is that possible? They went 98% into these things?
Yeah, go look and read into it. It's one of the worst investment jobs I've ever seen in my life.
I don't know how the firm can even tell them.
I wouldn't tell a pension, as much as I'm a Bitcoiner
and I've been evangelizing it for 10 years, I would
not tell a pension to put 98% of
their assets in Bitcoin. I wouldn't tell them to put
98% in anything.
In anything. Nothing.
Not bonds either. You gotta be diversified.
I think that's the concept
I was asking about with
retirement. I don't see myself
retiring anytime, but if I did,
would I change and then suddenly want my money to be safe? Boy, outside of I, you know, I rationally
can see Bitcoin's the best place to be. When I put that aside, look at it emotionally and what
history tells me, I don't want everything in Bitcoin. I'd be scared, but I don't want everything in bitcoin i'm you know i'd be scared but i don't
know where i want it the one thing i know i can always count on is i'm going to come up with
another way to get the cash that i need and as i study history going back a couple hundred years
no one was dependent on having money put aside for anything. Yeah, modern times, we live longer.
We finance things differently.
But I think we rely too much on the idea that work hard, put the money away,
and somehow it's going to be safe someplace.
It's certainly not safe being a teacher in Kentucky.
Safety is a myth anyway. Anyone usually trying to sell you safety is trying to take
advantage of you in some way. Absolutely. As soon as people internalize that, the better they'll do
throughout their life. Plot of a TV show I watched last night. Woman lost her house. Somebody came
and said, you need to have your house in a trust so it'll be safe. Got her to sign papers, a deed, uh, turning over the house to somebody else.
I'm thinking like, I'm not stupid.
I wouldn't do that.
And then I look at some of the things I have done.
Check my Twitter account.
It had 462,000 followers.
But back in January, I just hit a thousand this morning, uh, building a new account
because I, at 17 years of
work, went down the tube because I pushed the wrong button and trusted somebody I shouldn't
have trusted. Um, and, and fortunately, you know, I don't, I don't get paid on that amount of
followers, but, uh, boy, it's opened some doors to have built that over all this time. And it's the relationships I really miss.
And so, you know, and every time I think about anything about giving somebody control so that I can have safety, it just makes me more and more libertarian as life goes on.
Those who would give up freedom in order to increase their safety deserve neither.
Absolutely.
Following on what Warren was just talking about,
the woman who handed over her title,
I have a counter story to that.
So my friend is getting divorced
and his mother owns a bunch of real estate rental properties,
but because she doesn't have a trust,
she just put her kids on the deed.
Well, now he's going through a divorce and she didn't even tell him he didn't sign anything.
She just added him. Well, now his ex-wife soon to be ex-wife is getting half of all of one third
of the equity of the entire real estate empire allocated to her side. So she owns a business worth millions.
He owns a business worth 50,000.
He doesn't get half of her millions because his mom put that all on there.
So estate planning, number one thing in crypto,
if you're going to invest, talk to an estate planning attorney.
Get your stuff in order.
I would never imply that getting a trust is a bad thing. Absolutely. Get your stuff in order. Thank you, thank you, thank you.
I would never imply that getting a trust is a bad thing.
In the story, it was the promise of a trust, not an actual trust.
Correct.
Had the woman actually put her property into a trust, it would have been safe.
Because she put it into, signed papers thinking she was putting it into a trust is where
the fraud happened. Absolutely. I've talked to my main trust guy, and he's going to be
joining us here on one of these spaces pretty soon. It's just the numbers just make so much sense. You, you don't have to have a lot before getting a trust makes sense.
Uh, having a fully good trust system, uh, hiring attorneys to do that may not be possible
unless you have enough assets, but all of us should be looking into it.
Uh, because when, when I have a milliondollar Bitcoin, I will have it in a trust.
Let's bring it right back to right here.
And that's to bring us right back to where, you know,
with decentralized finance and blockchain and crypto finance,
what do you guys think about some of these companies coming out now
to whereas, you know, you do have that, you know,
they're saying, hey, you know you do have that you know they're saying hey you know you can um you know put your trust or shall i say put your assets on the blockchain
or you think about some companies are coming out looking about putting their putting like life
insurance or putting their assets on the blockchain or tokenize their assets what do you guys think
about that anything that goes into a database can can go into blockchain and be more secure.
That's a technical issue.
However, when a company comes out and says, I've got a brand new financial product, and I'm going to revolutionize the whole industry, I look really carefully before doing anything with them.
Because, you know, when you start making these kind of transactions transactions you don't get to go back if you do it wrong so hey hey it's uh we're 38 minutes in it's time
for me to break in and say that this is bid angel spaces our weekly spaces on x.com and uh And we are sponsored by BitAngels, the network of founders and funders.
And we are pushing along, bringing the future of blockchain to the world.
And so if you want to be a part of that, if you are a founder or an investor, you sign up at BitAngels.network. It's free and we want you to be a member.
We have meetings happening all the time, all over the place.
Just find out about them. Look up your region
on bidangels.network. And if you don't see something
in your area, tweet me. Well, let's talk about it. I'll get
you to the right person.
Or Elise Sams is the global director or any of us here.
We'd love to hear about what you want to do in which direction.
And we have resources to help you.
And, of course, the other sponsor is Tokenized Conference.
Same sponsor because it is the tokenizedconference.com with the BitAngels Day.
Coming up immediately following Bitcoin 2025, which will be here in Las Vegas in about three weeks.
Actually, our conference starts three weeks from today.
three weeks from today so you you better come a little bit sooner if you're going to bitcoin 2025
So you better come a little bit sooner if you're going to Bitcoin 2025.
but uh yes come to vegas stay and play all the way till saturday we will be at the tiger mansion
where mike burpin lives and uh it is a fantastic uh fantastic time every time we do this the people that come and speak are just like world-class
wonderful ogs founders all sorts of people and uh the speakers come to tokenize and they
they stay the whole time uh so it's like a networking party that lasts three days and you want to be there no matter where you are
uh and get introduced to people i'll be there come up to me let me know who you need to meet
what you need i will be happy to make the introduction i might even get you an introduction
to rock uh though you know i can't promise that um and so back to the show.
I believe we have some people invited to be here today.
So let's talk about DeFi.
What's happening in DeFi?
Before you get into that, Warren, I mean, speaking of Vegas and BitAngels, we're doing a collab with BitAngels.
It's the Vegas Bitcoin AI investor founder mixer and we took down the
mansion right across from the mike tyson mansion the the david copperfield mansion right elise and joyce and michael helped us uh you know rent that mansion so uh come on come all it's the there's a pinned tweet up top uh to bypass the ticket price everyone here limited
time only 2025 btc unicorns is a vip code so um jump on that because it is limited okay great
let's go let's move on with the with the show because uh we have have some special guests here today.
Where do we start?
Amber, do you want to tell us where to start?
Yeah, sure.
Well, we've got James Flew is on.
We've got Lack and Charles Forrest. They're here to tell us all about the future of DeFi.
Okay.
So let's, this is the format.
We'll go in the order you announce the names.
And let's spend a few minutes with each as they tell us what their views are on either
what we've been talking about or DeFi in the future.
And then after the three of them talk we will move into questions and please all
of you stick around for that and i believe we won't be done with guests but uh that's a good
way forward right now so let's do it i'm happy to chime in after you guys also because we like our
platform bitcoin is top lab we probably have the most deep-eyed Bitcoin projects
in the last three years so happy to chime
in afterwards
great let's go with our scheduled
guests I think that flow
flows up first
by the way Albert
let's talk after the show
or you know in our group
maybe with Richard and stuff and let's figure out how we're going to
collaborate in Vegas yeah let's, and let's figure out how we're going to collaborate in Vegas.
Yeah, let's do it.
Let's do it.
If you're in Puerto Rico, let's meet this weekend.
I would, but I have a cold from Dubai right now,
so I don't know if we – I don't want to get you sick, man.
That's all right.
Let's do a Zoom call then.
All right, cool.
All right, cool.
I'm just getting over the shingles, too.
I'm just getting over the shingles too. I don't need to get sick again.
I don't need to get sick again.
Don't you guys bring that stuff to Vegas.
I mean it.
Should be gone by then.
All right.
Yeah, hopefully.
If not, you guys are all going to get shingles.
So once again, we have speakers.
We have announced them.
Let's let them speak, and then we'll move on hold your
questions i think flow is uh to bring flow up okay what's up crypto black how you doing
all right what's going on brother how you feeling man i'm all right man warren you're telling your
father to just make better steel like what, what's wrong with you, bro?
You want people to buy your stuff?
Do it.
Make it better.
Make it better.
Sell it for less.
What's wrong with you?
Dad stopped making steel a long, long time ago.
I've learned a few things since then.
Did he listen to your advice?
Did he start making the steel better?
No, I never told him that.
Oh, shoot.
All right. Well, I was like, that's some wild stuff.
Dad repaired cranes, and he did a great job of that until he fell 50 feet.
But, you know, well-working cranes didn't make better steel.
I don't know that their steel was bad.
So I'm on the record as saying
buy American steel
if you can find it.
Did he die from falling?
No, he did not.
He got up and went back to work in a
few days.
Apparently there was a rope involved that
he was able to...
All of the damage was to the palms of his hands.
But 50 feet.
Of course, as he got older, after he retired, it became higher and higher.
So I can't confirm that the 50 feet was even 50.
I wasn't there.
I caught a 200-pound bluefin once.
Yeah, exactly.
That was it.
Boy.
Now I'm contributing to taking this off topic.
I'm so sorry.
What is the topic, though?
So are we...
The topic is DeFi.
DeFi and U.S. Steel.
No, wait a minute.
Yeah.
Oh, boy. We're going to be the u.s deal no wait a minute yeah oh boy not american
who is speaking because it's super muffled we can't hear you
that's like you're in a car or outside
who's trying to speak?
Or was it?
It sounded like they were talking about DeFi, so I don't think it was someone outside.
Black, can you say something so we can make sure we can hear you?
Yeah, I'm here.
I'm just listening.
Oh, so you weren't.
Oh, gosh.
I have no idea who was speaking.
This thing's all glitchy.
I think it was Flew and Warren at the same time, and I think they were overlapping, and it was kind of hard to hear either side.
It's going to be just you now.
Well, since you're on, do you want to tell us what you see out there in the DeFi infrastructure lately, and where do you think it's improving, where you think it's falling short maybe?
Like start there.
DeFi, I see a lot of it coming back.
A lot of that left.
We had DeFi summer.
I can see another DeFi summer, possibly a DeFi fall coming as Bitcoin,
Ethereum, all your majors run.
You're going to have a lot of things that's coming new from Sonic and a few other places that used to be Phantom that done a lot of good things in DeFi.
As I said earlier, the OCC, the comptroller, has come out, let banks get in as custodians
for buying and selling.
I think that's going to move them into DeFi at some point in time when they actually understand
that and they see the yield.
Most of those bankers and brokers that we spoke to in the past that we've talked
to about yield they can't even believe the yield that's possible here so i see that moving into
that avenue uh i see defy bringing a lot of people back into gaming as well as there's some aspects
it's coming to where people can earn and actually take that and get into DeFi and actually earn even more in different avenues.
That's just a few that I would see.
The biggest one is the OCC with the bank.
I personally know bankers that have been waiting to get into DeFi to have that green light.
Now they're going to have that green light.
They're going to have that regulatory clarity.
So again, I think that DeFi is just something that's just beginning to the masses, to the big money that's going to be coming in.
When they figure out the large yields that they can get, I think they'll be pulling money from life insurance and all kinds of things to be trying to get those yields and try to get as much profit as they possibly can.
What yields are you talking about here?
What are you seeing?
I mean, to me, to be honest, just push back a little bit.
I think the yields in crypto are the safer ones are not very high.
They're okay right now.
I mean, we're not in a raging bull market, but that means they're more of the kind of baseline, what the yields actually should be.
And where there are very high yields, it's pretty unsafe to me. Do you have anything in mind you're
talking about? That is true, but I think with regulatory clarity that you're going to get
safer avenues, it's going to give more yield. It's going to take time. People like you at
QuickSwap and others are going to have other avenues that they can bring in to bring in new
revenue to bring those yields up. It's going to take time. Again, I don't think that it's going
to happen. They might not even be able to get time again i don't think that it's going to happen
it might not they might not even be able to get into d5 fully and have their full treasuries in
by the end of the year it might be something that we're talking about more in 2026 might be something
we're talking about after bitcoin's a half million uh but i do think that that is building in that
sector again uh i don't predominantly build in d5 so i'm not an expert on that i'm just going off of
some other people and some things that i've read and also what the occ comptroller is trying to do
so we'll see i think i think i think that you would you would say that like defy for the for
the team that's here would fall on me but i'm sorry for not being available earlier or for my
mic i'm working very well and i i derailed the whole conversation by asking about Warren's father again, which I'm not
going to do again, even though I do think that we need a whole episode just featuring
your father and him answering questions about his accident, like 100%.
And as far as the gentleman from QuickSwap, the yield is very good.
And not only is the yield very good, the yield doesn't have to be that good in order to make a difference in companies' accounts and specifically accounting.
A lot of the things that companies do are cross-departmental.
The money will flow from one entity to another entity of the same company.
And being able to cut out the middleman from that, the bank in this situation,
is like, that's its own sort of yield. That's a whole like removal for like a whole line item
of an expense. Like it's a massive, massive amount of money. And on the other side of that,
It's a massive, massive amount of money.
And on the other side of that, as far as the yield goes,
if you just count on transactional volume on QuickSwap as a whole,
you can bet on QuickSwap as a whole, right?
Like, I'm bullish on those sort of underlying financial perimeter.
I think that that's actually how progress will be
and his interoperability and the cross-chain messaging and all of that sort of shit plays out over time.
It'll just get better and better and better and scaling up into the type of thing where the sort of worlds that my colleague and CEO, the boss man himself, Mr. Lack over there has has attributed i think that like we haven't even we haven't even let ourselves
look at what that world is going to look like because it's just going to be the standard for
accounting as opposed to just like a fringe option for accounting everything is going to move in this
way ai and crypto are going to eat the world. The only
question is, are you going to be on the side
that's preparing the fucking food
to make sure that it doesn't eat you next?
Or are you going to be on the side
that gets eaten? And that's
the question. That's just what
I always like to set myself up to be like.
I want to be cooking.
That's it.
That's fantastic.
I see CK Cardano's got their hand up. You want to say if you would?
Yeah.
Yeah. So this has been such a vibrant conversation and thanks again,
as always for having me up and taking part in these,
these incredible conversations that really are,
we are building the future together.
I think those of us that have been in the space long enough understand what this is.
Like, shout out to like those folks, you know, back in Europe before the French Revolution.
You know, I mean, obviously there's shadow and light to that, but conversations were
had in salons and coffee houses and in pubs that, you know, these kinds of things.
And it's like this.
I think that we're having these conversations like this and we're changing the world together.
When we look at what DeFi does, guys, right now, right, we've put our deposits in banks, right?
Put it in your savings account, $20,000. What do you get? 2%, 3%, 4% if you're lucky.
Meanwhile, the banks are making, you know, 16%, 18%, 20%.
DeFi allows us to leverage our own capital such that we realize that 18%,
we realize that 20%. I believe it was rock that was having this great exchange with lock about
like, how do we get these yields safely in DeFi? And I say this, guys, tether stable coins,
tether, for instance, here's a little fun fact, right? Per employee, tether has less than 100
employees.
Guess what?
They move more than a billion dollars of revenue per employee.
They have something like 73, 76 employees.
So think about that, right?
Google at its peak in the early 2000s moved something like a quarter of a million dollars per employee, a little under, I think.
That's impressive, right?
Especially because they employed more people and all this.
But so what I'm saying is is and someone mentioned transaction volume.
We're building the visas, the MasterCard networks in DeFi,
and we will be able to participate in the future.
Someone now, bro.
Amen, bro.
Like, so I guess to stick the landing on this plane,
when we look at the lending and borrowing potential in DeFi
and we look at others, a project called Bitcoin underscore O.S.
That leveraged zero zero knowledge cryptography
to show that you can essentially trustlessly and while maintaining self custody
in a hardware wallet like a treasure, for instance, you can take your Bitcoin,
write a zero knowledge proof to the Bitcoin L1 and then create an asset
that by virtue of having the private key
shows that you actually own that L1 Bitcoin. And then you can suddenly interact in DeFi
environments. So for instance, when you then have a Bitcoin worth of capital on Cardano,
which is what they proved, you can then collateralize that Bitcoin, trade it for a
stable coin. So for instance, you can borrow at 3.6 something percent ADA, right?
You can swap your ADA for USDM, various stable assets, right?
That are currently lending and borrowing at like 16, 18, sometimes 20% because the liquidity,
it's precious.
People are looking for these stable assets in all these various DeFi environments.
So that's where a lot of that that safer, more conservative yield comes from,
really is in the stablecoin environment. So when we look back on the macro, and again, guys,
Bitcoin just broke $102,000. Let's go markets. I think we're going to see stablecoin legislation,
just like we saw out of Arizona. And I celebrate Arizona, New Hampshire, Arizona, first two
strategic Bitcoin reserves at the state level.
I'm hearing that Texas is coming real close.
They already got the Senate passed.
They're coming up in the House and the governor saying, get that paper on my desk.
So, you know, you know, you know very well that we're going to get three states here very soon.
Anyway, I think we're going to get a 2 a.m.
announcement that stable coin legislation has been passed.
And when you understand the value flows for the tether, you
understand why these new companies that are coming like Jack
Mahler's company that's backed by Cantor Fitzgerald, Tether,
SoftBank out of Japan.
All right, a little alpha there, guys.
Again, do your own research.
But if I had to pick a pony for what's the micro strategy of
the next 12 months, I'm looking at CEP slash XXI, whatever that
ticker is that Jack Mahler's is going to head up.
So we're seeing, if you guys have noticed, we are in the gradually then suddenly.
Look at all of these things, these green lights, bing, bing, bing, bing, bing.
All of these publicly traded companies.
Suddenly Arizona pivots on a dime, you know, and signs legislation.
We're going to get stables, guys.
It's going to surprise us.
It's going to be a great catalyst in the market.
And then sticking the landing on this plane, Friday, the tariff
talk, right? Clarity with China and Switzerland. Guys, what if it was announced international
trade in Bitcoin is moving forward while negotiations continue in fiat environments?
Could you imagine, guys, if this begins the
auspice for international trade in a nationless sort of unit of account that is global, that no
nation owns, and we can step into this new world where we enter an economic state of fair play
from you and me and everyone on this call to the Exxon Mobiles and the nation states and whatnot
of the world. So together we're strong,
we're building it. I'm excited for these DeFi tools, the future to me, how we get our privacy,
how we get our scalability on Bitcoin. I think this OpCat, OpReturn stuff is really wasted energy.
I think Bitcoin doesn't have to do any more than be Bitcoin. And then we use that asset,
we use that value that we globally validate and we scale it with these different layers.
And my pony that I'm picking is the UTXO technology, but it's exciting times, guys. Let's go. We use that value that we globally validate and we scale it with these different layers.
And my pony that I'm picking is the UTXO technology.
But it's exciting times, guys.
Let's go.
Wow.
I wanted to say some stuff on that.
This is Sheldon.
I'm talking to you from Houston, Texas.
Firstly, if you're in Houston tonight, we're going to have an event at 530 at the Cannon in West Houston. But CK, I wanted to interrupt you so many different different times but just couldn't get you because i just didn't want to but when you talk about visa and mastercard i think we
all need to recognize that is a global tax on commerce and we've all been subject to it and
with the evolution of the stable coin uh legislation that clearly is going to pass last week i was in
boston i had an opportunity to sit with the state representative from New Hampshire that was pushing that bill and the evolution of what's going to happen in Texas.
If you look at the record books, April 2014, Texas Department of Banking Regulatory Affairs passed the first ruling 1037, which gave clarity and guidance on Bitcoin and how Bitcoin commerce would operate through an ATM network. And we're going to
see the adoption of stable coins. And I think it's going to come on strong. When you look at the
total dollar volume between the two top leaders, Circle and Tether, Tether is doing a little over
$100 billion a day at points and Circle's doing almost $40 billion a day.
The picture is very clear.
And all I could say is congratulations
to all the evangelists that are on this call,
because you are an evangelist in the circles
that you have influence into.
And I just wanna push the whole BitAngels community
and the opportunity to participate in the different events
that are supported through our communities,
both directly through BitAngels and through the Tokenize conference, and through those of us that have
different events in your cities. We host what we're calling Token Talks now here in Houston,
and we'll have a meeting here once a month, and I encourage you to participate.
What time was it tonight?
What time was it tonight?
5.30 over at the Cannon, West Houston.
Damn, okay.
I'm like driving down to Austin right now, but I don't think I can make it to Houston instead.
But I totally would.
Do you got anything going on later this week?
Well, that's our event for the month.
We're going to do one event a month.
You'll go to bitangels.network.
There's a calendar there.
I'm pretty sure those events are
on that calendar and uh also i want to push everybody that startups and entrepreneurs that
are developing projects to submit your project to pitch at a bit angel network event we're going to
have an event in toronto unfortunately i'm not going to make that here next week but at the end
of the month we should all be in las vegas and submit your project, bitangels.network.
And let us have an opportunity to take a look at it.
A lot of us are, like Warren says, we're founders and we're funders.
I'm transitioning to be a founder, actually, from being a funder because I'm super stoked and enthusiastic on the evolution of the industry itself.
And I see a huge window of opportunity.
And again, I say publicly opportunities don't go away. They just go to other people. So seize
the opportunity. If you pitch your project at a BitAngels event, you also get a free subscription
to the cryptoeq.io resources. They've got a huge library of all different types of projects.
They came out with FTX as deficient.
None of us that were looking at that got burnt on that deal or the FTT token.
So the whole story is do your own research.
This is a wealth of knowledge on this call.
And while we want to take massive action, make sure it's built on the foundation of
good, solid resources and research
and information thank you everybody for that share a few words nothing like having a solid foundation
you know as dad said had i been standing on something with a better foundation i wouldn't
have fallen um since this we're making today warren's dad's show. On Warren's dad's day show,
could I ask all the listening audience
to go to the speakers,
follow all the speakers.
It helps drive the numbers
and follow all the speakers,
follow the listeners,
because anybody on this call,
as a listener or a speaker,
you're important to the whole ecosystem.
Yeah.
I appreciate that.
I wish I could follow and talk to each one of you.
And if I miss you, please follow me, send me a message.
Let's talk.
And we'll talk to anybody anytime on my public feed
and direct messages when that's needed.
So, yes, and Sheldon reminds me, by him just being here,
of pizza day coming up.
Pizza day is May 22nd.
That's the day when one brave man took Bitcoin
for another brave man who was able to send it for his pizzas.
And by, you know, having that transaction, it's not about whether or not somebody made a lot of money on being able to trade Bitcoin when it was essentially worthless.
It's that they pioneered the idea that we could trust each other with this system.
And without us trading in Bitcoin, Bitcoin would be worthless.
So let's celebrate that every year on May 22nd.
Go to bitangels.network.
You'll see a list of some of the events that are being held because BitAngels participates wherever they can.
hell, because BitAngels participates wherever they can.
Warren, the functional utility of 10,000 BTC for two Bitcoins just 15 years ago today
is how many billions?
You just do the simple math.
And I encourage all of us to support a BitAngels and or a Pizza DAO-sponsored event in your
city or some city near you.
May 22nd. Is it a very historical date in this industry? a pizza DAO sponsored event in your city or some city near you.
May 22nd, is it very historical date in this industry?
10,000 BTC were used to buy two pizzas,
and we celebrate that because of the functional utility.
Had you had the opportunity and the foresight
to do that transaction, to order pizzas,
maybe on your credit card for somebody
to have sent you via the internet 10,000
BTC would have been life-changing had you had the foresight and the vision to recognize the
utility of this technology. Warren, I want to share with you everybody. I had a call this
morning with the founder of Compubank. Many of you don't know who Compubank is, but Compubank
was founded by a fellow, ironically, in Houston, Texas, who was a second-generation banker family.
And he had an idea that you could do banking on the internet.
Imagine that.
And Frank and I were talking about this project that I'm looking at being involved with.
And like he says, okay, so you want to be a pioneer?
Are you willing to take the arrows in the back?
And I think each and every one of us are that pioneer.
And so if we understand that science and math and technology is going to evolve, it's going
to grow, it's going to get adopted.
There's all these brilliant people on this call that are doing amazing things.
The people will look back with a lethargy of regret that they
didn't get involved or a lethargy of regret that they didn't get involved more than they did.
But we as a community, we're making a difference. And I'm always honored and privileged to
listen to all of you. And, you know, you say your prayers.
And, you know, you say your prayers.
It is always such a delight.
Absolutely.
Thank you so much for coming on and sharing that you're having an event tonight.
I have all that info posted on our BitAngels profile.
So if anyone can't remember all the dates to all these things, go there and check it out.
James or Leif, do you have any comments on all the amazing info that was just shared?
any comments on all the amazing info that was just shared.
Thank you, Amber, for hosting and all you do to help make this event come to life.
Thank you so much.
Again, it takes the community.
We all have our little piece.
Well, I know Amber is going to make sure that everybody that was invited to speak today
I know Amber is going to make sure that everybody that was invited to speak today gets a chance.
gets a chance.
So take it away, Amber, and let's make sure we get everybody.
Yeah, I do need to run in a second here.
I'm five minutes late for a call.
I told them I'd come in five or ten.
So there's two things in DeFi that seem very interesting to me right now.
Very interesting to me right now.
And a disclaimer, Lunar Digital Assets, our venture studio,
is incubating a project in each of these, actually.
These are things that we actually believe in.
One of them is roll-ups-based DEXs.
So, you know, I'm co-founder of QuickSwap.
At one point, we were the largest volume DEX in the world,
peaking at $1.5 billion a day in volume.
We gave all the tokens to the community.
It was kind of fun.
I'm sure here, a lot of people in the audience probably made a lot of money from that.
I didn't.
I never sold a single token.
But so what I probably can say, yeah, one of my co-founders at QuickSop has been building with some pretty interesting players in the industry, ZK roll-ups based club decks.
So what this does is it basically rolls up to Ethereum.
I don't want to give too much of the secret sauce
because it's not public yet.
The project is not at all public.
Are you talking about Katana?
No, no.
Katana is a chain.
Not at all related, no.
Yeah.
But it's not through Aglera at all either?
It will be plugged into Aglera, yes.
But it's nothing to do with Katana.
Okay, cool.
Yeah, so...
Okay.
Yeah, basically the concept is roll-ups are hard to do.
But in the future, I firmly believe,
most either chains or applications at the app level will be using
rollups in some way. They're just a really cool technology that allows you to do massive
computation off chain, but prove it with a mathematical proof on chain. So this can be
done at the chain level, which is like what Katana you mentioned, they are doing.
ZKEVM and Polygon's AgLayer and CDK are all doing.
Optimistic roll-ups and Arbitrum, they're doing optimistic roll-ups.
That's just a medium game.
The end game is ZK roll-ups.
And right now, if you try to do them in a ZK EVM format, it's hard. It's like running an
emulator almost. And right now, the technology is not quite there for this to be like, you know,
earth shattering, change the world just yet. But there are people doing some versions of
these ZK rollups where they've removed the EVM component.
It's still layer two of Ethereum, still rolls up to Ethereum, but doesn't have to do all the EVM
baggage essentially. And so recently we saw Vitalik talk about moving Ethereum to a RISC-V.
I don't know if you'd call it a RISC-V model or language or compile.
It's like a little above my pay grade on the dev stuff.
But essentially like getting rid of the EVM,
but allowing the EVM to still run on this more bare bones, I guess.
What is RISC-V, guys?
Is it a, it's not a compiler.
Anyone, maybe it doesn't.
Maybe it's a chipset.
What's that? It's a chipset? It's a a compiler. Anyone? Maybe it doesn't. Maybe it's... Chipset. What's that?
It's a chipset?
It's a chipset.
Yeah.
Okay, interesting.
And so it's...
Go ahead.
Oh, okay.
So anyway...
It's a...
Okay, so it's a...
It's like a whole open architecture for how chips are designed.
And so it increases, it's like the thing that allows the Steam Deck to play so many games so efficiently.
And other like PC handhelds, it's part of what, like why they're using Linux on all of those things.
Anyway, it's a whole thing. a yeah that's a good point it's a it's an open interoperability standard and and i'm i'm gonna shut the phone no no that's
that's great man um so yeah there are computers already using risk-five so it's interesting it's
not like this is a brand new thing but now implementing this with ethereum would be pretty
interesting um i think it might be an implementing this with ethereum would be pretty interesting
um i think it might be an efficiency thing that ethereum you know this could be the thing that
uh keeps ethereum ahead of everyone else it lowers the entry yeah it lowers the bar to entry to run
like nodes and and everything else like it lowers the overhead on a lot of that sort of hardware
and so it increases the uh
decentralization through like the the approachable nature of the of the hardware needed to run it
essentially yeah so that's that's an interesting thing i'm watching is um roll-ups based applications
including um dexes but they feel like sexes so uh you don't even need smart contracts but you
but there's it's decentralized
they don't take any custody of your assets there are some other teams who built kind of similar
stuff hyper ledger is a little bit like on this note but still has centralization but hyper ledger
has grown pretty fast i think they're at like five billion a day in volume already um so it shows
kind of a case study for this stuff um another thing that I think is interesting that we're also incubating a team doing it called StratX.
They actually won second place in Dubai at BitAngels.
First place was Matterfy, which is another company we're incubating that Amber talked about earlier.
But yeah, I guess we do work on projects we believe in.
But yeah, so StratX is a DeFi strategy marketplace. It basically allows an open
kind of platform for people to launch DeFi strategies, compete against each other. The
best strategies get put into vaults that are like indexes of strategies. So you can have
a Strat ETH, Strat BTC, Strat USD. These are vaults. And then those vaults have a,
they're a combination or an aggregation of the best strategies. So the best risk adjusted yields
with insurance and all this stuff. So I think that's really interesting since we've been
building that for about a year and a half. We'll have the MVP for that actually in the next couple of weeks.
But there are a bunch of people now building similar stuff.
It's good to see competition coming.
It shows, I think, that we're onto something with this idea.
But yeah, so those are two things.
Roll-ups-based applications, I think, are interesting.
And then more advanced Dey strategy vault type stuff
great with that i gotta go sorry guys i gotta get on my call but uh great great to be here
thanks for being here for rock rock does answer answer his uh uh messages on twitter and his staff will help you out too.
We really appreciate having
Rock around.
Please, ask
questions about it because the stuff
he's doing rocks.
Thanks, man. Appreciate you, Warren.
Fun hardly attended.
Rock, you're going to be at
Token Iso. We'll all come there.
I'll be there in Vegas.
I will get a few lucky people to meet you.
Actually, we have another project we're incubating that will be announcing.
This is going to be a crazy one.
I've got to be careful not to leak this.
But it will be announcing at Litecoin Summit during Tokenize, unfortunately.
So we might have them announce there and then announce at Token as well uh this is a big deal this is something i think everyone here there's there's a i'd say 70
chance you will hear about this without talking to any bit angels people this will be the whole
industry is going to talk about this one it's pretty fun it's pretty interesting it'll be a
it'll be a little bit of a how do I say this without saying what it is?
It's the first Litecoin news I've heard in years.
It's going to be big.
Yeah, there you go.
It's going to be big Litecoin news.
Real big.
Yeah.
Okay.
I wandered into a Litecoin conference that was held in the same building as Stoke and I a few years back.
And I just was overwhelmed with how little I know.'s like a whole nother world going on there and litecoin has got so much uh still so much
traction so much payments yeah uh it's held its price well over the years yeah so any news there
i want to hear what's that?
Litecoin is a better Bitcoin, I remember back
in the forums on Bitcoin Talk
Litecoin was going to be
launched with Charlie
and like the whole thing was
it's better to have a thousand of
one thing than one of one
thing, that was the whole fucking
game, that was the whole reason
that it existed, it was a whole fucking game that was the whole reason that it existed it was a play
on psychology and like the gambling mindset and it was proven out a thousand fucking times
most recently through the pump fund bullshit they almost tanked our whole fucking industry
and allowed politicians to make themselves rich on the backs of all the fucking dgens
anyway litecoin is better bitcoin less centralization risk private payments on the backs of all the fucking dgens. Anyway, Litecoin is better Bitcoin, less centralization
risk, private payments
on the L1 or the L0,
however you want to fucking refer to it.
And it's got shit on top of it,
like Bitcoin computer, Litecoin computer.
JavaScript is on the base layer.
Thank you very much. I'm sorry.
I gotta break in. I know
we line up people to speak.
Hey, Warren, I got to run.
I just want to say,
Litecoin is not a better Bitcoin.
I love Litecoin,
and we'll be announcing something
with Charlie Lee on stage,
but Bitcoin is Bitcoin.
Litecoin is the silver to Bitcoin's gold.
All right, see you guys.
Bitcoin is great.
Absolutely.
Please, please put yourself on mute. The noise is just getting to me. And sorry about that. But let's move on. Amber, do we have one or two more?
Oh, sorry. I was on mute there for a second. I think everyone who was invited to talk today has had a chance and we can just open up for general conversation.
We have 10 minutes for questions.
So now let's open it up to somebody that hasn't spoken.
Is there anybody with their hand up from the listeners or requests to speak?
Oh, let's see.
Actually, there was Donna.
Donna, are you still there? And would you like to ask any of the people who have spoken today any questions? Not there. CK Cardona, why don't
you go ahead? Yeah. So I just wanted to say thank, you know, rock left, but it's always great,
having them roll through the rooms and just just again awesome awesome exchange great alpha.
We always love to hear about what you know what people are building what people are bringing to the space because at the end of the day one of the great things to me about open source tools is that it's like engineers if you've ever been like, you know, gone through an engineering education or whatnot, you learn humility and the respect and the power of teams, right? One engineer,
a talented engineer can accomplish a lot. You get two engineers together and three, my word.
And so as we get more and more of these open source code protocol tools, platforms, literally,
open source code, protocol, tools, platforms.
Literally, we have people that are open sourcing
like Coinbase in a decentralized form.
Can you imagine that?
When you can copy and paste the functionality
of Coinbase for the world,
they can't be captured, can't be, you know?
So this is where this is going.
So when Rob tells us about like ZK roll-up technology,
optimistic roll-up technology,
all of these things.
Oh, I'm sorry, Warren.
What's that, man?
Yeah, I was going to ask you to explain that because I don't have a firm grasp on it.
What is the optimistic roll-up technology?
Yeah, yeah.
So optimistic roll-ups lean more into the determinism of like the UTXO based model.
So one of the reasons why Ethereum has had a first mover advantage
relative to UTXO based models,
it has to do with the difference between accounts and UTXO.
Bitcoin is a UTXO based blockchain.
Ethereum and Solana are EVM and accounts.
With an optimistic rollup.
It relies on the determinism of mathematics.
So for instance, we all know built into the protocol that there are only 21 million Bitcoin,
right?
And we know that it will asymptotically approach an issuance of 21 million Bitcoin in circulation
at approximately the year 2140.
But I digress. But the point is,
because we know that there's that maximum 21 million, we can exquisitely follow the way that
it moves through our global ecosystem and our publicly distributed ledger, right? So if I take
a UTXO and I decide to send it to, you know, 50 different outputs, which is now actually possible with UTXO
on UTXO ledgers to have, you know, to split one UTXO into multiple different, you know,
obviously it always has been, but I'm going further afield. Anyway, so leaning into the fact
that we have mathematical assurances in UTXO land allows us to build cryptographic roll-up technology that relies on mathematics that holds in UTXO
systems where we know that there's only 21 million, whereas in an account system, because I can declare
new global variables, right? So for instance, if I can say Bit Angel's account
is worth 10,000 units, right?
The Ethereum doesn't validate and everyone agrees
that Bit Angel's worth 10,000 units,
but with an accounts model, I can just make that so.
And then I can say, okay, Warren's worth 5,000.
Problem is we can't all optimistically assume
that an outcome will be so.
So that's kind of what the optimistic part of the role of technology is.
So in accounts, because the math doesn't follow like in a two plus two way,
it's more of a trust me, bro.
You can't have the same assurances on UTXO.
But as a result, because there's that mathematical formalism required,
it took a lot more years to get the smart contract
expressiveness built on the same technology as Bitcoin, right?
Whereas Ethereum said, okay, look, we know this isn't going to scale globally.
We know it will fail if we get like 50,000 people using it at the same time, but we can
also make $60 million in 90 days.
So we use 20 million of the 60 to fix the problem we know is coming before it gets us. And
that's where we find ourselves today. And if you notice, they're retroactively becoming Cardano.
Cardano said, look, let's forego the money tomorrow. Let's play the long game. And when
we get that momentum, we never have to stop. So, I mean, with love and respect, because I think
people are going to make money in Ethereum, XRP, Solana, all these things, right? I don't FUD anyone's bags. My view is that UTXO-based
technology is going to win because I believe Bitcoin will be 60% to 80% of the market.
And we're going to use Litecoin and Cardano to get privacy, expressiveness, speed, all these
things, right? That's why I'm not stressing OpCat and OpReturn. And I think it's silly.
Bitcoin doesn't need to do anything but be Bitcoin. And we're building these tools. And
what's great is every month, guys, that our capability becomes more potent. And this summer,
if you guys missed the news, 48 hours ago, for the very first time, a zero-knowledge proof was
written to Bitcoin L1. And it unlocked self-custodial DeFi expressiveness for Bitcoin on Cardano.
And it's leveraging that UTXO basis. And this is something that you cannot do with EVM and
accounts-based models, which is why hearing Rock talk about bypassing that EVM and getting some
more maturity, I think that's great. But even when we look at what Vitalik is saying, he's looking
at a five-year time horizon, right? Whereas Cardano has missed the last five years. But guess what,
guys? The era of UTXO is dawning. This summer, people are going to realize, those of us that
have been sitting on Bitcoin for 10, 15 years, not getting yield, we are going to have publicly
audited code that isn't, trust me, bro, if you believe two plus two equals four, suddenly you
can get into
lending and borrowing and you can make yield on your bitcoin assets and i am here for it so uh
thanks for letting me ramble there while we while we yeah what's up so what you're telling us is
that uh we're going to be able to do more of the things that people build other things around
bitcoin uh and it's going to lock that into bitcoin cardano is that the pivotal piece or do more of the things that people build other things around Bitcoin.
And it's going to lock that into Bitcoin.
Cardano, is that the pivotal piece or is that are there others doing the same thing?
There are others doing the same thing, like my fastest pony in the race is Cardano because because of this reason. Right. So Bitcoin is based on UTXO, right, which stands for unspent transaction output.
UTXO, right, which stands for unspent transaction output.
Now, Cardano is built on EUTXO, and all that stands for is extended
unspent transaction output.
So basically what Cardano did like seven years ago is they said, OK,
we like the security assurances.
We like the mathematical formalism that like governments and security agents
build on the code that Bitcoin is founded on
and what Cardano is founded on,
like security apparatus at the global level rely on that code.
They don't rely on Ethereum with respect, right?
They don't even rely on what XRP is like, you know,
and for those that don't see that XRP is going to be the CBDC,
again, I have a lot of friends developing there,
but I'm just calling a spade a spade, right?
And folks that don't see Salon has a lot of VC money, right? Whereas Bitcoin, Litecoin and Cardano, I have a lot of friends developing there, but I'm just calling a spade a spade, right? And folks that don't see Salon has a lot of VC money, right?
Whereas Bitcoin, Litecoin, and Cardano, I would argue, is more open source freedom people, you know, money.
So, but I digress.
But yeah, yeah, Warren, we're-
No, I think there's some plays here.
Again, not investment advice because, you know, I'm stretching to understand some of this.
But summarizing what you've said,
if you're a Bitcoin maximalist, this is all good news.
It's fantastic.
Bitcoin's going to continue to go up.
If you're into Cardano, it seems like a pretty solid play.
Cardano's path is to go up based on what you've told us about.
And then the other thing is the other players,
the unknowns, whatever comes out at a sub penny and, you know, goes up to several dollars.
And any one of those could be a phenomenal play too, much more risky than just hang on to your Bitcoin and know that it's going to benefit from all of this play. The world's going to go more
and more towards crypto. It's going to become safer and safer to be in crypto because i think we're we're reaching a
tipping point to where it can't go away uh i don't trust anything as being forever but uh boy you
know it's just looking like at this point we've built so much so much of history that way what
you know it's going to take a nuclear war to get rid of it.
And I don't want to try to even think about those scenarios.
It just makes sense to trust the Bitcoin and then start looking at what can you do to get some yield on it.
Meanwhile, over in Saudi Arabia, I understand they're working on a whole new system of, or
another system, an existing system,
whatever it is, they're working on it
so that they can do DeFi
without interest. Because
under Islamic law,
you don't have interest.
I think that's fascinating.
I think we rely, I mean,
I love the idea of interest, of
something is going to, you know, make money
while you sleep, et cetera. You're going to get paid on your assets. But wow, what about a world
where we don't rely on getting better and better yields and just the abundance gets passed around
faster and faster? If we have a global economy that triples in size over the next 10 years, every person on
the planet is going to benefit. Not equally, that's life, that's how things work. But
even the poorest of poor are going to benefit from a great increase in the ability to produce,
and I'm going to say goods and services, not the money supply.
We triple the money supply really easily.
But if the actual output of what's being made, manufactured, services rendered, whatever it is goes up,
and I believe with AI and robotics, we're going to see that.
I've also been studying nanotechnology an awful lot lately, because I think it's just as big.
And these things start to go together, you know, exponential times exponential.
If you can get a great yield on your Bitcoin, wonderful.
If you can change the world, now we're talking.
I think it's going to be a lot of fun coming up.
Anyone else want to say the last
word hey Donna if you want to chime in for a moment go for it thank you thank you for having
me up I first heard of you guys last Thursday and I thought how come I have never heard of Big Angels before?
So I'm actually glad I'm here.
I just chimed in and listening.
There were so many layers to the conversation today.
It was amazing from manufacturing or steel to the technologies that were actually.
And Warren's dad.
And Warren's dad, of course.
I forgot about it.
Can I just do a little bit of a touch point on what's being spoken from my point of view, if that's okay?
This is no financial advice.
So here in Australia, like, we have some challenges with,
and I'll go through the manufacturing, just a simple point.
And a lot of it has got to do with the skills retirement cliff,
which basically experienced workers are about to exit the workforce.
And one of the things that we find is that the next generation
will lose all that knowledge
that's exiting manufacturing especially.
We talk about net zero manufacturing particularly
with my daughter's generation, the Gen X,
because they've witnessed COVID.
So they've seen what it's like, you know,
the air quality has improved through that.
And it just seems like it's just they prioritise sustainability.
So one of the things I've learned,
because we have a family business in manufacturing,
is that there's a lot of leverage into the digital twins
and the processes to reduce the labour that we're doing,
so AI being integrated.
So that's with manufacturing from my lens anyway.
With...
Oh, sorry.
Oh, go ahead.'m this is fascinating ah yeah i loved the the discussions on d5 so that some from my daughter she her father's an engineer um runs the
manufacturing plant or we own own it but mom's more into the education and the finance
and tech i.e. defi side so she's got a wealth of uh knowledge for her to be forward well so moving
forward on all of these fronts we're going to have enough abundance to take care of everything. First of all, don't retire.
Stick around.
We need your knowledge, and we need the experience.
The knowledge is all getting captured by the AI,
and the AI does its tremendous job of looking up and giving you information
and doing simple tasks and repetitive tasks that sort of thing but the
wisdom that comes from years of toiling and you know just in life we land something that way
i think it's going to be a wonderful time when i get ai doing most everything i need
i have some robots you're taking care of things like that. And I have an opportunity to commune with people.
Forget communing with nature.
I want to be with people.
I want to help out.
I want to see everybody gets everything.
And I just look at all the possibilities.
I've been studying some quantum theory in the last day because, know i'm always always reading something new and
i fell on quantum theory and i'm reading a book on it and it always comes down to the history
of who came up with quantum physics and what did they change and how einstein and boer fought for
years over what the meanings was and then they basically made you know made it some assumptions and then went
with that and einstein died say it was a what what came to me today is einstein's brain carrying on
he died just before i was born uh you know if he was today working on stuff with all the extra
tools they have they were doing things like having to go to a conference
meant booking passage, going to a different continent,
and staying for months because it just took so long to travel or do anything.
It wasn't like you could call home every night.
The tools we have today have sped up innovation so fast
that we just expect that to come. So
in the future, yeah, I get up, I do a couple of things to make sure the income continues to come
in that I need. Other things get taken care of and provided for. I'm provided for myself, for
whoever else I can. And that's okay because it's going to take a short amount of time and for each of us not
just me but everybody is going to be living that kind of lifestyle what are we going to do we're
going to get together and dream up something else to do I don't know what but plenty of time to do
it after we get everybody fed and housed and clean drinking water, then we can really do some fun stuff.
There's so many possibilities coming.
Yeah, you're right.
I can remember when my grandmother was alive,
and she couldn't believe that you could get money out of a wall,
which was quite funny. Now she'd be going oh my goodness
the the things that we don't know about when we get into why is it i read the other day and i
i don't understand this stuff the more i study quantum theory the more more I'm sure that we don't understand anything.
But essentially, it was talking about a measurement that is an astronomical measurement.
It is millions of light years away, and we are able to determine what the temperature is to a thousandth of a degree in that chemical reaction that's happening in the star.
in that chemical reaction that's happening in the star.
And then we are able to look at one that's another direction
that is the same sister star to it or something.
And we can see that they're somehow entangled.
When one moves, the other one moves.
And they're measuring this in the thousandth of a degree.
And they say, we don't know what's happening.
They can't be communicating they're
too far apart um it's not a coincidence and everything happening exactly same in those two
people two places uh though boy i probably told it wrong and that just an inkling i get just the idea
that two places can be influenced an atom in one place could be influenced by an atom in another place through this quantum entanglement or whatever, fast communication in subspace, call it whatever sci-fi terms you have for it.
The thought of that, we just don't understand anything.
And so I invite you all to keep studying crypto.
That is one thing I've learned as well.
Like I said earlier, none of us, this is financial advice, but do the research, find
out, you probably come to the understanding if you're here at the end of this show, that crypto is something you want to be investing in, along with other great technologies that are completely changing the world.
And that the safe place for money seems to be Bitcoin now.
Again, I like the theory that we start explaining to people that Bitcoin is worth a million dollars a coin.
Why?
Because we haven't figured out how to justify a higher number.
It's going to be worth a million dollars a coin.
Why aren't you getting some?
This is not an idea of will Bitcoin go up next week.
It's an idea of are you going to hang, are you going to wait until it hits 500,000
to buy it on its journey to a million? No, buy it now. You're investing in the future. Math works.
The math behind Bitcoin is going to stay the same. Don't put all your money into Bitcoin,
but it makes sense that you might want to put some of it there and it seems to be a fairly safe place so this has been bit angel
spaces uh we are on x.com every thursday at 1 p.m pacific time uh i don't know what time that
is in australia but that's got to be pretty early in the morning uh it's on fr Friday mornings in Australia, right?
Well, yes, it is Friday, and it is 6.30 a.m.
6.30 a.m., so I guess we start at 5 a.m. Australia time.
Oh, you're Australian early birds.
I am early to rise.
It's probably part if you're in if you're in
Dubai
it's probably
you're probably not here
because it's too late
Europe
boy thank you people
that are
staying up first in Europe
basically
the American continent
we are on
in the
in the afternoon and or very late morning if you're Hawaii.
And excited to talk to you every time.
I believe we're up to 20s in number of episodes.
I'm not counting them.
30s.
Oh, congratulations, 30th episode.
That means we are doing it.
We haven't missed any.
We've had a few odd things happen where we go way up or way down.
But we're going to continue to do it.
We'll be here next week, which will be May 15th.
which will be May 15th.
And then we'll be here again
talking about how Bitcoin just hit 250,000, I'm sure.
Or I wish.
And that's it.
Thanks so much.
And you can all go and retweet the episode.
Follow me and follow each other
and continue the discussions
there. We'll see you next week. Bye. Bye, everyone. Thank you, everyone. Yes, thank you so much for
all of your insights today. It's what makes the show an amazing place to be. We're very grateful.
We'll see you next week. Það er hann. Það er hann.
Það er hann.
Það er hann.
Það er hann.
Það er hann.
Það er hann.
Það er hann.
Það er hann.
Það er hann.
Það er hann.
