RAC FM Giga Special: "We're just Terraforming, mate" Chris Armani👀🦝

Recorded: Feb. 14, 2024 Duration: 1:06:00

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Oh, we've got Max in nice and early.
Hello Max.
I'm not going to talk too much because when people join the room, my sound goes in and
out so I'm going to keep quiet until we get people in.
Max, please retweet out the room buddy, it will be highly appreciated here.
Let me DM a couple of people, I'll be back in a moment bro.
Here we go, Partnering Crime, there we go, DM fam, DM, DM y'all, ooh space is actually
working today, how about that, who sacrificed the goat?
Did you go back to the old version or did you stick on, like have you updated or?
No, I just, if Twitter wants me to be on spaces then it'll work and if not, you know,
what better the shit to be doing.
So yeah, I'll just send Chris a quick DM there, he's a lively character, isn't he?
Did you watch the interview by the way, Finn, or not on YouTube?
The Cosmoverse talk, or no, the other interview he gave since then, yeah, that was interesting.
Yeah, he gave one a few days ago, oh talking about Chris, here he is in the room, yeah
that interview was great, like very, very highly recommended for people who haven't
watched it, but let's bring Chris in, yeah.
Okay Chris, you've probably got the 10 seconds of silence, but you should have a microphone
I believe, yeah.
Yeah, I've got it, can you guys hear me?
Oh dude, you're absolutely fine, I would say, I would say you're goochy but you're all
morning actually.
I'd say that again?
I would say, normally when something's good we would say you're goochy, but tonight we
have to say like you're all morning, you know.
Ah, got it, yeah, for sure.
Dude, we were just talking about the interview actually the other day, Chris, quite interesting,
great insight mind, I thoroughly enjoyed that video.
Was this the Defiant interview with Camila Russo?
Yes, that was the one, bro, that was, because I was startled mind, like I didn't realise
because I'm a little bit of an outsider, I didn't actually realise though that you'd
only been COO, COO for six months before the Dpeg and everything that happened, and I
was like, wow, okay, that was an optimism of fire.
Yeah, yeah, for sure.
Yeah, I've only been there, yeah, I just joined, it was supposed to be fun.
I don't want to like, I don't want to blow up how you guys do things, but they basically
were in a dark room drawing straws, so.
But for who stayed?
Whoever who took that position, no easy task, but you definitely couldn't.
Yeah, thanks.
Yeah, no, that interview was, man, that was a big one, because, number one, it was kind
of therapeutic to go go through everything with someone who actually is realistic about
what happened with Terra, and like, that was honest about, well, it was just therapeutic
to like, go back and like, revisit everything.
And then also, I thought she was she was incredible, right, like, she gets it, she was the defiant
was following dough was one of the first, you know, I would say, we would consult like
mainstream crypto outlets to cover Terra and dough.
And remember, I don't know if you remember this, I used to do these primers on different
protocols that we had, and they would they would do primers on different protocols throughout
DeFi, right?
But they would cover the Terra ecosystem.
And I think, you know, Camilla, we've been waiting to get to this point, one of my objectives
in 2023 was to like, get back in kind of mainstream crypto media, and have a conversation around
why TFL and Terra was different than the centralized companies that blew up, right, like Celsius
and FTX and three arrows.
And how because there's just been shorthand grouping everyone together.
And I understand that, right?
Like, it's not, you know, when things fail, accusations get thrown around.
But you know, for her to just lay out the case for why not for me to do it, but for
her to lay out the case for why Terra was different, right?
And why it shouldn't.
And while even though sometimes people just kind of shorthand throw it in, dough and SPF
are completely different, they're completely different things in every way.
And for her to kind of like, say without me having to do it, you know, that TFL was transparent
about how all this stuff worked, I think was kind of a big moment for us.
We've been waiting to get to have that conversation publicly.
And so yeah, I was very happy with that interview.
I think she gave me a fair hearing.
I think she was tough.
She asked hard questions, but she was realistic as well.
Oh, dude, about meat on the bones.
And that's why I was like, oh, we've got to get Chris round the campfire.
Because like, Chris, you know, that's how we regard ourselves.
Like imagine that you go over to see your family for dinner, you have dinner, you sit
around the table after you have a couple of cheeky drinks, a little sherry or whatever.
That's what Raka Femi has brought.
And you say you love Tara, like, like when you wake up, because we all know you wake
up, you have those couple of seconds, don't you?
But when the fog clears and you're like, oh, this is who I am.
I mean, do you wake up and just jump up and you're straight on the grind every day?
Or I mean, dude, like what I want to ask is, do you look in the bathroom mirror and see
what the fuck is going on?
Or what's the story there?
Yeah, it's been, you know, it changes throughout the last couple of years.
The first the first couple of months after the Deepak, you know, you look in the bathroom
mirror and you're like, what the fuck was I involved in?
And what have we done, right?
That's when the allegations are flying around and everything seems credible, right?
Like every he's just like, everything seems believable.
Like, oh, God, I got to go like chase down this allegation now.
And like, how am I going to explain this to my kids?
I'm already like, God, I got to go to soccer practice.
This is going to be awful.
But yeah, no, I mean, like so it's but it's gotten better over time, right?
Like we've had we've had ebbs and flows, obviously, like we'll take like five steps
forward and you just focus like at a certain point, you just kind of you drown out the
noise and you focus on building.
And that's where it's been like so critical to like hold this company together.
Like, obviously, a lot of people left after the Deepak, but we haven't had anyone
critical leave since Doe was arrested.
And so you wake up every morning and you realize you got 40.
And now with the Pulsar acquisition, 60 other people kind of pull in in the same
direction with you.
That makes it a lot easier. Right.
And you could say that, you know, that that applies both that like the people that you
have helping build and then also the community as well.
Right. Like I get an endless amount of positive feedback from like vocal community
members telling me to keep pushing and from just like random lunatics from the first
time around, they're like, you know, you're not going to see me on Twitter, but I
appreciate what you're doing.
Keep it up. We understand what happened here.
And so, yeah, there's like a.
Yeah, so it's not that hard, like there are bad days and there are good days.
Right. And you guys know, yes, you guys read about the bad days in the news like at the
same time.
Well, Chris, there was a reason there was a reason I asked that question is because
honestly, I was pretty shocked when the December figures come out for the amount of
like, you know, work being done, the amount of like development and you guys are like
length and shoulders.
Why can you tell me why are there so many mid curve and takes on terror?
What am I missing?
Like, is it just historical stuff that people can't get over or because if I look at terror
now in the future and where it comes from, how the fuck people are not like bullish?
You know, I didn't care if you left curve on it, but like, why are there so many mid
curve takes on terror right now?
Well, because I think because there are so many headwinds, right?
Like, so I think it's man, I'm super proud of selling the team.
Like, I just can't believe how much we've been able to like regroup and build and I'm
proud of what we built.
And like you said, that developer activity was through the roof.
I don't know exactly how that's measured.
But, you know, I think like the the the the bear case or like the headwinds are well,
we still have this massive fraud trial coming up, right?
There's still like this guillotine hanging over TFL's head.
And like, can TFL keep it up, right?
Or we can keep it up as long as we're legally allowed to keep it up.
But there's always the risk that with all of these other there are external factors
which we can't control that other ecosystems don't have to deal with.
And so that's just the reality of it.
And I think until people and I don't blame I don't blame anyone for this.
I think it's a rational thing to do to think about it this way is like until people see.
Until some of those external factors that are outside of TFL's control are cleared up, I think.
You know, the mid curve is probably like the conservative place to be.
Realistically, right.
But we just have to keep building.
We do the best we can to build regardless of that.
But, you know, those are those are significant headwinds, right?
And so, look, yeah, like you can be bullish, you can be bearish.
They're rational.
I just try to think of it like they're irrational ways to be.
They're rational reasons to be on both sides of that.
And in the end, I think if we survive and we keep building what we're building.
You know, it'll all it'll all sort out in the long term.
That's why I've always kind of caution people.
It's kind of a long term project.
I know people want token price to go up.
But there are so many headwinds.
I mean, you got to get through.
There's just a lot left for us to resolve before it's like a clear to where until we get to the
point where like it just comes down to execution.
Like, can we build better than other people?
I know we can build as well or better than anyone else.
I know we can.
When I think I think that's the only and that, right?
Like, it's a lot easier to make a token go up.
All you got to do is add fucking money to it.
Like, that's no brainer.
What's hard is building something sustainable that will gradually increase the value of what
is being built.
And it seems that that's what you guys are trying to do.
Well, it is, right?
Because I think the people who stayed are here to prove something,
which is like there's more.
It's like more mission oriented than just making a lot of money.
And like everyone who stayed wants to make a lot of money as well.
I mean, like, you can't, you know, we want to be rewarded if it works, which is part of like
going out and getting the terror community grant was to like align incentives like that.
So it's still crypto.
We all want to be rich.
There's just like a right way to do it.
There's only one way to do that with Tara, right?
Like we've seen there's only one way to do it, right?
And it's like the long term way.
There is no short term.
There's no short term redemption.
There's only a long term redemption.
So we could do it.
There's a lot of things we could do to make everyone feel better for a month or two.
But then you just, once that, that short term thing is over and it wears off and everyone
just ends up feeling worse, right?
It's kind of like, why quit drinking, right?
Like I can always drink and feel better.
And then the next day it feels worse and that accumulates, but that's an over 40 thing.
But yeah, I think, I think most people understand it.
I mean, if you're still here, if you were here before the D peg and you're still here now,
uh, you get it.
Oh, I've been, I've been fucking looking for this conversation for how long,
Finn, this has been in the works for like pretty full in a while.
Like I've sort of, this is so good.
Chris, there's a few things to talk about, but I'm going to ask you like,
if you want to plead the fifth, right?
It's up to you.
You can plead the fifth on this one or not, because I think there's still a question.
Mark over this feather.
Now I'm going to take a run up of this one.
The only reason I'm asking is, is because I listened to the, uh, the, uh, uh, crypto enthusiast,
uh, make a lunatic here and JJ and them on the space.
And the feather thing came up again.
Now we asked Jared, uh, on the space, but Jared unfortunately got a call on how to drop.
So yeah, I mean, I just want to ask, is this still a thing?
I mean, you can, but you can plead the fifth Chris,
because I know it's probably a difficult topic.
Hopefully you'll pay the feather.
You mean feather the product?
No, that's not difficult.
That's not difficult.
We can talk about that.
So I'll tell you what, what's what the full story on that is, right?
Like feather was, and just to put in perspective, like there are a lot of things we work on,
like you probably heard me like tease, like five products that you haven't seen yet.
And like multiple of them have been killed, right?
Because this is a, this is a hard space.
You just got to, you got to build something, see if they work,
see if you can even finish them.
And then you got to take them to market and see if they get positive feedback.
And like enterprise is a great example of that.
Like enterprise could have gone the other way if we had made different decisions.
Um, but the team just executed and it worked, but like feather was one,
I think that started out with really good intentions.
And the idea was to allow anyone to easily and seamlessly launch their own app chain.
Um, and to just take care of a lot of the things that were going to be that made that challenging,
whether it's like technically, like, how do you hire a dev?
Like, like what kind of devs do you need to do it?
How do you spin up the infrastructure?
How do you split up your validator set, all of these things.
And I think where two, two things happened to feather one,
it just like the farther and farther we got into it,
we realized that like the technical challenges with doing it were massive
and that it was going to take longer than we expected.
And then two, I think we had like a, there was more of like a market conversation,
which was like, wait, are we building for something that doesn't,
like by the time we finish this, is this even going to be the app chain thesis scaling model?
Right? Like, or is it Anishia?
And I think dimension is the other one that has recently come out, right?
Or is it going to be more of like a roll app thing where, um,
you know, these things settle to like a Celestia settlement layer.
They don't have to like, yeah, like it just wasn't clear.
Like we don't know what the right, we didn't have a ton of confidence
of what the future of app chains was going to look like,
except that it was going to look different than the world we were living in in 2022 and 2023.
And feather was a product to feather was a product to enable more of like the 2022 app chain thesis.
Yeah. So it was more of like market realization.
Like, dude, we're like skating. You want to be like skating to where the puck is going, right?
And we were almost like skating to where the puck was a year and a half ago, right?
It wasn't even to where the puck was today. It was like we were skating.
Now, if we'd have been able to get feather out in like six months as we originally hoped for,
it might've worked and then we would pivot it and iterate on it,
but it was going to take another year to finish it.
Millions of dollars of investment. And then like, by the time we were done,
it was like, we were going to be competing with better technology. Sorry. Sorry to cut you off.
No, no, dude, you've basically just answered like 12 months worth of questions in like just
a very short little monologue. And I do highly bloody appreciate that because you've just
answered the feather question like that. That's it. There's no more questions about feather.
Like I don't mean it. There's no more questions. I just mean that I actually,
I'll give you my tier Chris very quickly. I've been a big Celestia fan for a long time.
I'm a big modularity fan. I was looking at this and then I did say what happened
as an outsider. And I was like, maybe they just took a step back because of like,
what's going on elsewhere. And you've just kind of confirmed that like, what pretty much a lot
of us thought is true. You want to be where things are going, not where they've been. And
feather initially in its initial incarnation was, you know, all tech. I appreciate that mind.
What a great view, Finn, right? But then, and then if you think about it, it's not completely dead,
right? It's moving fast. It's breaking things. It's taking the things that do work and then
continuing to build on top of that. And it almost feels like the best parts of what feather was
trying to do, at least providing infra and everything for builders got rolled into what
foundation will be eventually. Yeah. I mean, a lot of the learnings from feather
were kind of like eye opening for me with regards to how challenging infrastructure is in Cosmos.
And so that kind of led to the foundation project, which, you know, again, it will be,
there's like no doubt in my mind, foundation combined. And that also led to like the Pulsar
acquisition, like the Pulsar that you guys know is like the Pulsar we all know is the dashboard
and the dashboard is great. We integrate that with station. It's going to be the killer,
the killer kind of super app for Cosmos and eventually beyond. But the other kind of the
product that they had under development that was less known and is even still now less public,
it's just all of the indexing they've done and all the infrastructure work they've done,
that's kind of like a B2B backend product that we can use to one, either generate revenue and
fund TFL's development without selling Luna tokens or two and two open up for free to people
who build on Terra so that they can like deliver the same type of experiences that we deliver.
And so like Solids, the first example of that, they built on top of, they plugged into foundation.
And so now they get the same view of the world that we have and that we think is unique to Cosmos,
which is like a consolidated cross chain view of your assets and abstraction and bridging
abstraction. And then they can apply that to their applications as well. So yeah, we took that. And
then the other project that I can't talk about too much because like we're just wrapping our heads
around how it's going to work now is Quill, which is like the version of feather that's
actually skating to where the puck is headed and not where it has been. But it's still just like,
I don't want to talk about it too much because it's still very, there's a lot of stuff to sort
out. Like we've proven Quill's not on your website, so that tells us kind of how under wraps it is.
That's okay. Keep it like that. Because I am going to say the Pulsar team are absolute chads.
We sport a couple of them, absolute chads. Dude, I mean, not that I divert, but while we've got
your beer, which is an absolute privilege and an honor, by the way, the Aptian thesis, there's a
lot of folks for quite a while have took heat and shit for saying that the Aptian thesis in its
current form is quite dead. Now you've got all these like roll ups as a service on that.
You know, Chris, there's a lot of like vaporware kicking around. And people are saying we need more
consumer chains, etc, etc. More hubs. What do you think about the concept of the Aptian thesis is
like pretty much dead in its current form? I don't think it's dead. I don't think it's dead.
But it depends on what you consider its current form, right? Like is the current form,
everyone has 120 validators that they have to use to secure the chain. And I think that's
probably dying. It's not dead, but it's probably dying. But like these more innovative ways that
allow you to control your experience and implement, you know, I mean, like the Aptian thesis is so
closely tied to Cosmos SDK. And Cosmos SDK is so flexible and modular and functional that like,
I do feel like in the end, there will be multiple winners, and it will be one of them.
And so it might just be a slightly like, you've got to iterate on the Aptian idea a little bit
and make it such that these chains or these applications can take time to develop and get,
you know, generate protocol revenue and generate users without having to spend so much of their
token and dilute their token so much on security. So yeah, I don't think like, if the current form,
long story short, if the current form is, you know, the version we saw in 2022, I don't know
if it's dead, but it's probably dying. But that's a good thing. That just means that people used it.
They learned they're iterating, and they're innovating, and new and better models will
continue to come up, I think. But it all comes down to like, in the end, it doesn't really matter
if we don't come up with use cases that people actually want to use. And if we don't come up with
and what I mean by that is like, non speculative use cases. And so that's really the key, right?
Like, who has the next killer use case for crypto? And where is it going to live? And the more of
those, the more of those we have, you know, I think the app chain, app chains are still well and alive.
Well, that would like lead me into this little tiny little like inflection point. And I'm just
going to say this that the original Terra project, I always felt was IBC facing last over and obviously,
I know you said you joined like say, like six months before, but if you think like, you know,
wormhole, obviously, like Solana, UST was deploying on Solana and Avalanche and everything,
like, it was almost like the cosmos was like the last place Terra 1 deployed. Now, I've seen, well,
I think I've witnessed the opposite with Terra 2. You guys seem to be a lot more like, like IBC
focus, I'm not going to say a Cosmo Stark or SD card, like IBC because we're IBC maxis, Chris,
right? You guys seem like you're really wanting utilize stuff with like things like Alliance and
stuff. Is that what I'd be right in saying that maybe previous to the day peg, you guys were
outward facing, like looking for, you know, liquidity, major liquidity, and then now it's
a different story. No, I would say, you know, prior to the deepag, I mean, dough was just the
pragmatist and he went where the adoption was. And the reality is Cosmos didn't have an option
and IBC wasn't ready. It was ready for just like basic transfers. And so but there was that there
was nowhere to IBC too. Right. And so like, when osmosis spun up, I think a ton of Luna liquidity
went over there. I know that I was trapped in those pools when it all went to shit. So
right. And so, you know, I think like when I think us, it was always TFL intention to just
try to get us to adopted wherever the users were. And so I think if there were users in Cosmos,
and then it would have that's where we would have focused time. It was just a practical matter. I
think that IBC has improved by leaps and bounds since the deepag, which I always try to make sure
I give everyone credit for that all the people who are working on it, because everything we're
building is on top of that. There's still a long way to go. Like it's like IBC still isn't great,
but it's the best we have, I think. And it will continue to get better. There are so many teams
working on it. I mean, it's gathering this Lindy effect. So yeah, no, I think it's just a practical
matter. And I think like the version of IBC that exists today with packet forwarding middleware
and hooks and all these things that like all these teams have contributed with skip and
routing, man, like you'd be dumb not to build on it. Like I just I don't think the rest of crypto
really truly understands what's possible. And I think we've shown just like a little of it
with station and enterprise. It's just, you know, with Terra's overhang, it's hard to get people
like if that's like it's hard to get people to go out and promote what we've done, because there's
like reputational baggage that comes with it. But someday they will. If we survive someday,
people will step up and take notice. And I think that we've like, like us combined with
like station and enterprise combined with like the skip team have just shown what's possible.
And it's better than anything I've seen in any other ecosystem. So yeah, I'm bullish IBC.
But yeah, any change in kind of any change in direction isn't just practical, right? IBC is
more viable now. Cosmos is more viable now than it was then when Terra launched, all the activity was
was happening elsewhere. So yeah, that's the idea.
Do that skip team absolutely ridiculous. Honestly, I've never felt like having such a
like small IQ in my life, but talking to Sam. So I mean, yeah, they are. They Yeah, they're like,
the great thing about it is, so here's what I love about the skip team. Sorry, I'm going to take a
take a moment. They've got all this IQ, and they can easily take that and go launch some chain or
go launch on some trendy thing, where they launch a token and make ungodly amounts of money.
They can do anything they wanted, right? But they are like 100% committed
to making crypto usable. So that in the long run, we have
Yeah, we actually have experiences that are going to further the mission. And so
they deserve a lot of credit, like not only for how smart they are, but also like what they've
chosen to focus on and what they've chosen to not focus on. And man, we're lucky we have them.
Chris, for exactly the reasons you've just mentioned there is why our last two recorded
shows before you have been at max from time we have last night talked about, you know,
the covenant v two rebalancer, blah, blah, blah, by the way, rebalancer on enterprise
will be so fucking hot, I believe. Well, actually get I'll tell you what, Chris,
I mean, I know time's tied for you. But this convo is really good. And I've got like,
not controversial stuff. But I mean, you know, I asked about feather and bang,
we'll put that the bed straight away. So I think have you got anything to say before I get I think
I've got like three really bang and questions for you. Do you want to bring in anything before we
jump? No, that's definitely go for my only question would be like, just my own personal curiosity,
which is kind of selfish. But I'm just curious, like, what out of the stuff that either you guys
have built or are building, like, what's the one thing that you're just like, yes, this is either
like, extremely necessary, or like, this is going to be super game changing. But that's just for my
own. I can just DM him. Man, I mean, like that's so hard. It's like asking me to choose like my
favorite kid. Yeah, of course, I have one, but I can't tell the other one in front of them. No,
I'm just kidding. No, like, no, I it's hard to say, right? Like, I would say just because of how
much it impacts my daily life, and my daily quality of life. I've owned a lot of different
products in my career back in web two, there's nothing I'm prouder of than station. I'm more
proud of than station just these moments I have where like, on other crypto wallets, I would have
been stranded and frustrated. It just saves me so much frustration, right? And life not only like,
does it enable you to do things? And that's cool. But like, what it keeps you the stupid shit it
keeps you from doing that like, even when you've been in cosmos, like you've been cosmos for five
years and still go straight in an asset like an idiot. You know what I mean? It's just too easy
to fuck up. And the way like, just when I use crypto, I get irritated, I just need to use station.
So like, it'll always hold a special place in my heart. But thank God, like, like what the
enterprise team is building and like the potential long term for like the the entire enterprise
portfolio, including like the treasury management and like this entire B2B suite that will allow
business to be done in crypto. The special project, I would say, so I'm not going to give you a
straight answer, basically, the one project that I'm working on that's kind of like my own baby
is Verity. And that's the identity decentralized identity product, because I think it is one of
the next four or five like killer crypto use cases that can actually onboard hundreds of
millions, I was gonna say hundreds of thousands or millions of people, but could be even more
mad. It's going to enable entirely new types of use cases to be developed. You know, that's my
my own personal. Like, that's my own personal pet project that I work on. And then Quill,
Quill is the one that could change everything. It's just like, what are the probabilities? It's
such a, it's such a big bet that, you know, frankly, the execution risk is higher, right?
And so I can't use that one. But so I basically just like also love foundation. That was my idea.
And I came up with that name. So yeah, I like all of them. I love all of them. I think Pulsar is
also so close. I think once once Pulsar integrates our, our version of transaction history,
that will be one that I use on a daily basis as well. Just to like finally understand what's
happening in my wallet's cross chain is something that's damn near impossible to do right now
without, you know, a third party bookkeeper downloading files and reconciling. So yeah,
I just punted that question. I didn't even answer it. But I'm excited about everything or we wouldn't
be working on it. Bookkeeping. Did you hear that thing? Bookkeeping. It's the only word in this
language. It's got a preconsecutive double letters, right? Did you know that? Mr. Mr. I mean, Chris,
Chris, do you want the proper experience? Can I ask you? Because we've had some rigged gigabrains
on rates the last couple of weeks and we haven't been able to like have a last life properly.
Do you want the proper experience or not? Sure. Let's do it. Right. What's your favorite sandwich?
Favorite sandwich? Yes. Oh, it's like, do you, like, do you want me to give you like specific,
like where I get it or like just the generic? Well, I mean, just the name. Oh, you're mostly
your economist. You build your own, don't you? Then check with somebody build his own. I mean,
I do make my own sandwiches, but that's my favorite. My favorite sandwich is this place
on the street. I don't know if you guys have ever had like Dutch crunch bread.
I think it's like a San Francisco phenomenon or like a Bay Area phenomenon. But yeah, like a good
like deli sandwich on a Dutch crunch roll slathered in like if they slathered like
mayonnaise mustard and pesto. Incredible. So, bro, can I just say you passed the test because you
know why we mentioned the sandwich. You went straight for the bread. You went straight for
the bread. You fucking know. That was probably the best sandwich answer we've gotten in a year
and a half of fucking rack FM. So thank you for that. I'm going to send you I'm going to send you
a link to this thing so you can share it later. Oh, my God. I said maybe I'll just go fucking
get one right after this. He's got links to bread. He's got fucking links. I mean, Chris,
if you had to listen, you've got no choice, right? You're gonna die if you don't do it.
What would you rather wear a cardigan or cowboy boot?
What was the second one? I didn't understand. Sorry, bro. If you had to wear something,
if your life depended on it, what would you choose a cardigan or cowboy boots?
Oh, cowboy boots. I'm from Arkansas.
Boy, I didn't remember that. Yeah. No hesitation. Zero hesitation.
There's also, I mean, like, yeah, zero hesitation. I'm from Arkansas. There's always just something
funny about a brown guy in cowboy boots anyway. So, yeah, you just got to lean into it.
Bro, I was having a conversation with my mate little kids one day about this road.
And he said they had to get the shit on the cowboy boots. And then he sent me this picture, bro.
Like, putting Band-Aidos, man. I was scared. Like, I was like, this dude knows where I live anyway.
Right. Decent chance the next picture you see me will be in cowboy boots and a cardigan, though.
I mean, why not? Yeah, for the culture, sir. For the culture. Chris, this has been an amazing
conversation. And guys, all your little plebs down in the room, if you're not Ray Clayton,
they shit out what you're doing with your life. Chris, I have got a couple of interesting points
of value in your time here. But I would just like to ask you about the success of X-Luna projects.
I think we've seen some incredible, like, not just what you guys have done. We've seen Kojira,
we've seen Miggaloo, we've been late baller. You know, like, you must get some kind of
self-satisfaction, Chris, from like... I do. Yeah, sorry. Yeah, no, I get a lot of
satisfaction, not because I had anything to do with it. So I don't know, it's more like out of
solidarity than because I had any responsibility or anything like that. Chris, do you not think
it goes to the work ethic or do you not think that like speaks to the work ethic that was there
before the crash and the crash didn't affect the work ethic. And then we're seeing the results of
that, like, mind that grind and mindset. No. Yeah, no. And that's why I've always like,
look, I haven't wanted to subject people to purity tests on whether they stuck with Terra or not.
Like, I've always said we have a special place in our heart for the people who did. But man,
when you've been through it, just survival. So many people in crypto, like, just
launch the token, call it to centralize and walk away. Right. And, you know, the Terra, Terra,
there are some Terra ecosystem people who did, but most of them, a lot of them, right,
are absolutely crushing it. Like, what would Cosmos be right now without the diaspora?
Let's call it diaspora of Terra ecosystem projects. Maybe not diaspora. That's kind of charged.
Oh, that's right. Yeah, that's my heart facing. Well, that's like, that's a hard thing to say,
personally. I think it is. Yeah, I think it kind of describes everything perfectly. And so,
yeah, man, it's good to see. I was in New York a couple of weeks ago for this bankruptcy stuff.
And we did like a little get together, mostly with our team, but like the Apollo
Dow guys are there, and they're just still building, right? And they're not the only ones.
We were, for my Cosmoverse presentation, and I think I gave one of my interviews,
I can't remember if it was like Steadylads or Defiant. Like, I made a point to like,
acknowledge, I don't know how many of these teams wouldn't have made it without the Terra,
the luna allocation from the relaunch of Terra. Like, it's hard to say like, what would have
happened without that. But I know, I mean, if you go just look down the list of teams that got that
allocation, man, there are some good builders in there that are still contributing in important
ways. Yeah, dude, it's very satisfying. More like, again, not because I played any role in that. That
was all doe, who like, hustled through that and tried to find ways to keep everyone alive.
But man, yeah, it's satisfying to see regardless of where they are today.
Yeah, man, I think what I'm starting to see now, especially I tell you what,
what's really impressed me is being like Backbone Labs. I say JG's down there in the chat,
but Kujira as well, they like some really amazing shit has come out of something so bad and
volatile. And like, it's like after World War Two, we had the boom ears, you know what I mean? And
like, after these things, we've just had boom at times. Yeah. Yeah, Backbone's the best example,
because they not only survived, they still did it on Terra, right? And figured out a way to
become sustainable. And yeah, super excited. Oh, dude, we're bringing, we're bringing Finn's
music. Don't worry, we're coming. We're coming to Terra soon. Right. Chris, I've got two kind of
just because I know it's kind of precious. I have got two things to talk about. One will be Alliance
and one will be Enterprise. Now, I'll let you choose which one we go to first, unless Finn's
got something to say. Finn, have you got anything to say before we move on? Nah, perfect. Alliance.
Enterprise. Let's do it. Yeah, Chris, I'm going to go there because we haven't had this con going
public. Shall we go Enterprise? Let's do Alliance. Let's do Alliance first. That one's pretty
interesting right now, I think. Okay. Did you, have you just front run the AZ and mesh security,
like in one go? Is that what happens? Is that what we saw? So let me, I want to like do a couple of
disclaimers first on Alliance. Number one, that was like pure dough, right? Like that is just not
the kind of like thing you see out of me, right? Like I'm more of like an application builder,
which, which you can see with like Stacia and then Enterprise and Pulsar and Foundation. That's
like more of my speed. So this was all like a dough invention. And it's wild, like how prescient
it was in terms of like what you see now with like restaking narrative and all of these different
things that are happening. Alliance was first, right? And it's got so many use cases. And I
couldn't even write my head at Zion on our team. Like if it was up to me, like there were points
where I was like, I don't understand Alliance. I don't get it. And Zion was like, well, that's
what you should. And he just kept pushing it and pushing it and pushing it. And then like the rest
of crypto caught up and he looks like a genius now. But yeah, I know. I mean, like, look, I don't
know, you know, we haven't really pushed it as a security solution because I think there are
trade offs. And so I don't think it's super, you know, just they're, they're, they're definitely
trade offs, right? And so we need to be careful. Like I wouldn't want, I couldn't like stand behind
like someone going and like securing their entire chain with the same, you know what I mean? But
could you do a part of it? And it seems to be getting more adoption, like actual real world
adoption than any other solution like it is getting. And so it works. It's functional. It's
super flexible. You can do like the, I think we're actually posting the community proposal today to
use Alliance to direct staking rewards to a USDC, USDP pool and have like the most liquidity
in Cosmos for that pair on the Terra chain. So like using it to like incentivize pools. There's
so many cool things you can do with it. But yeah, I can't take any credit for that one. But yeah,
it's a fun tool. Yeah, dude. I mean, I just wanted to say when we talk about economic alliances,
like that, that to me was a bit of a front run thing. Yeah. Yeah. And what we keep hearing from
others is that they're same but different. And I believe that eventually multiple parts of these
will be integrated into one just amazing service, you know, like you're going to see these chains
utilizing Alliance for their cross staking, restaking stuff, and you're going to see them utilizing,
you know, whatever else to secure it. Yeah, I don't even think people fully grasp like what
it's capable of yet. It's still so new. Yeah, and I think like, look, I've been recently because
Eigenlayer has been getting so much buzz for restaking. I think it's mostly getting buzz
because it's like airdrop hunters and E3 hypothecation. And so it's like, it's a bag pumping
thing. So I've been like trying to evaluate like what did they do that we hadn't already done with
Alliance a long time ago, and just kind of open source so that anyone can use it and there's no
value extraction from it. And there are there definitely like some technical differences, but
like in generally, this is old stuff, right? We've already been here and like our team built it in
like two months, I think. You're like a two person team. So yeah, just add it to the list of
stuff that the kind of team of TFL has been able to click out.
I think also just like this goes back to Cosmos SDK as well, where like you
by implementing these custom modules, you can do so many things, which is bullish as well.
You finished there, Finn, you're happy with your Alliance stuff, mate?
Yes, yes, thank you.
Because Finn, I have to be honest with you, bro, I'm getting a bit pissed lately, like Finn,
shall I tell you why? Oh, please.
I'm seeing plebs on the on the TL, like arguing about what's the best deltulin. Now,
we've gone all this time with fucking nothing. Like if anyone knows anything about the history
of like real dows and dowtulin and proper governance, and I'm not talking about the stuff
that like, you know, nurses safe and stuff will do. I'm talking about proper shit. For the first
time in history, we've actually got access to excellent to learn, right? There just happens
to be a couple out there in the wild. And we're arguing about who should be using what or what's
getting the most publicity. Now, I didn't want to start like clarifying me TL is being like fucking
major mid curve and not for anyone in this room, not for sure. But you know what I mean?
Like, hmm, how do I see this? It's not like we start bitching about, you know, osmosis versus
like after port or something like, so like, where does Finn you know what I mean? Like it's horses
for courses, like there'll be frontiers on both ends, we've had multiple wallets, we've had
multiple taxes, like, we utilize everything. I mean, before we go to Chris Finn, before,
because I don't know, I know you're not a fan of dows. That's putting it that's underestimate
in that statement. Finn, any comment about this? Like, you know, enterprise, we doubt out crap
that was saying that's just ridiculous. Well, I think at the end of the day, people use what works
and people use what works for their specific use case. Everybody's different. Everybody has
different ideas in mind of what they want a doubt to be or to be able to offer. And I think where
we're at currently, like, they both offer dope shit. I mean, you see GMC and SPs and pixel lines
and everybody utilizing enterprise, you see a lot of these other ones utilizing Dow Dow with stargaze
and with Juno, like, I think it just depends like where you landed and what you're trying to
accomplish. Like for me personally, I like just leaving shit staked and then, you know, not having
to worry about it. Some people like clicking buttons every day, you know, it just it all depends.
Yeah, we need the choice though, at the end of the day, there can't just be one, like we need
multiples to create some sort of otherwise, you know, how devs get, they get all lazy and shit,
like you've got to have them some sort of competition happening. Microsoft was really
good at this. You need your you don't want it too much to where it's like cutthroat, you know, like
holding hostages, but you definitely want some competition there between between devs so that
they are inclined to create better shit. You see, Finn, it's very parallel, right? To again, the
mid curve convo that, you know, about stargaze and omniflix, where if you don't look at these
two platforms as completely like individual entities, that yeah, might have some like
cross chain devs and stuff and all this right and cross chain entities, it's all here.
Like you can't fight it. And I think it's just, it's pissing me off a little bit, right? To see
like this, like, oh, well, why are people like utilizing this more than this? Anyway,
Chris, you get our sentiment from that little conversation. I don't need to ask any questions,
right? No, well, yeah, I don't know why it makes you mad. Like, I don't know. Like I came,
I've had a long career where you can compete without being disrespectful, right? And so
I think sometimes in in cosmos, we try to like avoid direct competition by
saying things like grow the pie. But why don't we just compete? Like, it's not personal.
Um, I like it when people are out there saying, I like it either way. Like, I like it if people
are out there talking shit about enterprise and saying that I was better than my team just gets
mad and, and builds more. So let's compete, right? Like, I want to grow the pie, but then I want to
eat the whole fucking pie. I don't know what that means, right? Like, I want to eat the pie.
Um, and so, yeah, like, I wouldn't get upset about it. I don't know. Like, I'm not upset about it.
Like, let's, let's compete in the end. Yeah, robo, life is too short to be upset over what
Dow tooling the internet uses. Exactly. We need to be more woosa. You want to, as long as I mean,
they're all going to be on, it'll all be on enterprise eventually anyway. So like, let's
let the, let the kids have fun. In the meantime, you'd rather eat this like the watermelon than
the whole grape, right? So I have this weird feeling. I have this really weird feeling,
not that kind of feeling, but a weird feeling that there's something we don't know about enterprise
where it's like, it's almost like the Starship enterprise where it's like venturing the
uncharted like waters, right? So I get the feeling that like, you're going to one day,
we're just going to wake up and you're going to surprise us. And we're going to be like,
the word enterprise to me means business. I was telling Blackberry enterprise servers,
early, early 2000s. So the word enterprise means business to me. Now I've heard you talking about
this. I feel like you've got some big, big plans for enterprise actually. Is that right?
Yeah, it is. I mean, there are two things about enterprise that like, if you're paying
really close attention, you'll know. But if you're not, you know, I wouldn't expect you to
keep track of like enterprise. I mean, to me, it's like has two different issues, right? It means
business, but it's also can be used in the context of like an enterprising individual, right?
So it's like ambition. And so it has dual meanings to me. Enterprise will be a brand,
Dow will be a sub brand in it. Enterprise will be, you know, if like, we make it multiple years,
it will be the best kind of like application for business in crypto. And so like the suite that
will go under that, I mean, there's so many things, there's like a treasury app, it's like a
across chain version of of Gnosis, but like integrates with other things like Gnosis,
for example, to kind of leverage some of the business, the BD stuff that they've done.
There's the labor market that we've been wanting to build. I've been teasing.
I've been teasing how like identity and decentralized identity and reputation is
going to play into that. And what we built on that, I've been teasing that in like our,
our work cast channel. Yeah, I mean, there's like an unlimited amount of different, you know,
sub products under enterprise that we could build if we had time to do it and resources.
So, you know, we'll just keep grinding away on that. I think the thing that like,
that's going to enable that it's just like the architecture of enterprise, which is
completely different than what you would see in DAO DAO, or what you would see with almost any
other like kind of cross chain application where they're taking the code and deploying it on every
individual chain. And then so now, the more chains you expand to, the more code you have to maintain.
And so it just makes like, it doesn't scale, it just doesn't scale or be like, you know,
launching an application, like if Netflix tried to maintain its code across 10 different
cloud service providers, it just doesn't make sense. Right. And so it took us a while and
people were shitting all over us and trying to get us to like do the exact same thing with
enterprise. But we insisted on a different model where the hub lives on Terra. So like the brains
of it are all on Terra. And that's one code base that we maintain in one place. And then we use
IBC and interchange accounts and everything else to orchestrate anything else you want to do on
these other chains. And so like, launching a new chain is like as simple as like launching a very
simple contract contract on a new chain. And maintaining the code means maintaining in one
place. It's not like something breaks on Terra, now you've got to go fix it in on 20 other different
chains. So just scales like the the cost of developing and the time for developing is going
to scale so much faster than anyone who's trying to just deploy a full application on every chain.
And the amount of resources we, you know, will need will be significantly less or we can just
ramp up the resources and deliver a lot more. But that's why you're starting to see like
enterprise acceleration, enterprise like development acceleration is insane. We just
launched pulsar dashboards, which are killer. Prior to that, we have launched the ability to
go to deploy cross chain DOWs, or cross chain treasuries. We had also a launch ability to create
a token DOW from any chain. I think by the end of the month, we'll do cross chain NFT DOWs. So
it doesn't matter where your NFT is, you can use enterprise as your governance tool. But like all
of that, we don't have to deploy it, we don't have to deploy any of that on new chains, like
enterprise is still the hub is on Terra, the votes take place on Terra, the governance happens on
Terra, and Terra becomes like the governance hub. So yeah, there's a lot there, like the way we
design it, the way we've architected it, all of those things matter. And we think will be
advantages. And then that's not even to speak of like all the different products that will come
under that umbrella. Oh, you know something, I'm gonna have to really go back and listen to the
replay for that, because I've actually got a major question in my head. But it's like, it's not for
now, because I need to like really, really think about this in regards to like, treasury like
wallets and what can be done and how they can be moved with ICU and stuff like that. But uh,
okay. Yeah, let me know. We're available anytime you need me to explain it more. But yeah,
I think it's like, once you wrap your head around it, man, it's pretty impressive. And again,
it's all built on on work that other people have done with IBC. And so they deserve a lot of credit
for that. But it's just a completely different model. It's chain abstraction at the best I think
we've ever seen it. Yeah, we're super proud of it. We're not only proud of it, because it like
accomplished something no one had accomplished before. We're proud of it, because it's gonna
allow us to fucking ship relentlessly. And I don't think anyone else is going to be able to keep up.
Chris, this is gonna be my final question. Because like, I mean, on the hour mark,
that's when the Spotify but like, we'll get the best hits and stuff. We know this one like that
our interviews generally get like the biggest hits. Can I ask?
Actually, I just told it. I just told him that so he keeps his
five hour spaces to an hour minimum. And so far, it's been working. So
let's work the algorithm. Let's go.
I'm gonna play devil's advocate and just ask in the bigger picture, the bigger picture of what
we're seeing of all of these blockchains, right? Obviously, I'm talking like I would try to cause
more what we're saying, you know, with all these L2s, etc, these D levels launch, and there's more
coming. Where does moving forward, where because it's a hub of development. I do like really get
that like Chris, it's an unbelievable development of talent and ingenuity, terror. But where does
it fit in in the bigger picture? Is it there that there was some features that you'll have the
energy and connectivity pushing. So like, you know what I mean, in the bigger picture of all of
these L1s and shit, and we'll see what's going on all these different languages, you got Cairo over
on stark net, you got move with updates and so on. Where does terror fit into the whole fucking cogs
of crypto? Look, I mean, a lot will be determined in the next, I would say three to four months,
right? Like we have to be cognizant of the fact that we still face existential risk at TFL. That
doesn't mean that terror does. But I think a lot of people have now agreed that, you know, TFL is
a driving force behind terror. And, you know, like our ability, we want we want to be back on the
what I call the main stage, and we want to be competing at the highest levels of crypto
as a layer one. And there have been a lot of fads in terms of like new chains and new technology,
and they get an option because there's airdrops and things like that. But in the end,
the market will sort out who's where the best applications are. And I think in the end,
the application will win, and people won't care as much about where it lives. And so that's why
you see us trying to lead by building unique, usable applications. And we've still got a long
way to go crypto does before we can onboard like normies. But that's why you see us trying to
number one lead by building our own types of applications that we think are significantly
differentiated and provide different types of experiences. And by building them learning what
a chain needs in order for other developers to build those same types of applications,
and implementing those and kind of like at the infrastructure layer and products like foundation.
And so I think if TFL survives and we can get Terra back to
the main stage and back to full kind of mainstream crypto relevance, it'll be because not because
we've pulled some new rabbit out of the hat with regards to some new scaling technology or
something like that, it'll be driven by building useful applications. That was the DNA of TFL.
Prior to the D peg, and it came in the form of a stable coin. And you know, that's no longer
possible for us. But it's still the DNA of TFL. And what we're trying to do with Terra is a place
where the best applications are. We had that crown, I think before, and we've got to get it back.
Oh, we had that crown before your man's golden isn't he? Golden. Yeah, Finn, I'll tell you what,
what a fucking blast tonight's been or today, or one morning, whatever time it is for you guys.
Yeah, Finn, what do you think about tonight? It's been really good to speak to Chris, because I was
very concerned that we just couldn't be that like normal generic shit that he might have to go
through, you know, and he's like, Oh, fuck this shit, you know, like giving the same answers every
time, like we have to mix it up a bit, right? You absolutely have to. That's why people listen.
Yeah, I think I actually I'm quite actually buzzing that like, that there are like some
people still trying to fit like, fucking terror at this point, like the December thing, the dev
activity for December was like the biggest wake up call for me. I was like, Whoa, wait a minute,
fucking hell. That tells you a lot. And like that I was like, right? Okay, we're good.
Yeah, and I mean, I get it. People are emotional. It's an emotional space more so than probably any
other space I've ever worked in besides cannabis. Like you see the same thing in like these
artisanal cannabis extractors, they get super emotional over their work. And it's, it's good
to see its passion, you know, if you can't be passionate about what you're doing, like why are
you doing, you know. Oh, Chris, I'll tell you what, Backbone Labs as well as GHA down there,
he was I say Backbone. Yeah, they're gonna do some custom open edition mint stuff for things
there next music. Is that right, Finn? We're nearly finished with launching. Yeah, it's not,
it's not open edition. Other people aren't going to be able to use it, but it will be for putting
the one of our EPs on on terror. Absolutely. All right, now tell you what. Sorry, Chris.
I was just saying that's great. I was I was man, I was using Acropolis yesterday to get my
what are we GMC GMC GMC to get my GMC and fuck that as a smooth. I don't know. I don't know when
the upgrade was made on that NFT marketplace. But man, that was good. It was a good experience.
It was about three days ago. There's a testing channel that's been buzzing. Yeah,
a lot of work from a lot of people like making sure that shit is smooth. And yeah, they nailed it.
They did know it. Yeah. Raw that that mint was insane. Chris, I was like so shell shocked by
that mint how quickly that ran out. That was an insane mint. Honestly, God, I was like buzzing
because we interviewed the guys a couple of days before, you know. Yeah, no, happy for them.
It's a great team. They've been working on that for a while. Yeah, well, it's good to see NFT buzz
back on terror. Like remember pre crash, like NFTs were blowing up on terror. People were coming
over from Solana. I was interviewing like three projects a day, it seemed like, and everybody had
gripes about the chain they were on and why they came to terror. And they were like, this shit just
works over here. Like, we were going to launch over here on this other chain and the chain was
down on our launch day. So we couldn't do it. They're like, we come over here and everything
is so smooth. And it feels like that's what we're getting back to, which is awesome. I hope so. It'll
be a lot of people, right? I still think people are sleeping on the Alliance Dow NFTs as well.
I see 4719. He's doing some fun stuff with those, but like, those are going to be valuable. And yeah,
there's a lot of like potential offshoots from that. So yeah, I think we can have some fun,
especially, I think enterprise can lead a bit of an NFT narrative with this cross chain NFT
staking thing as well, and just get people thinking about terror as a place for NFTs again.
It's funny, all the I saw posts about the ARK protocol and people bridging their GPs to
stargaze. And in the thread, it was like you can bridge them here or you can bridge them back to
Terra to do all of the stuff with them. It's like, well, like I like stargaze, but why would you
bridge it there and just to bridge it back? I guess just so that you can do it. It was just
funny because there's no real actual use case other than just having them listed on the stargaze
market. But then all of the actual utility for the NFTs, if you want that side of it,
is on Terra in enterprise. Yeah.
Of course, it's good, though. People can put them where they want.
Yeah, whatever keeps people busy.
I'm just going to say, guys, talking about NFTs. I mean, Finn, what a week to have Chris on. The
week we dropped a Rektorquan. So for anybody that doesn't know, we've just been doing this
little social experiment with Rekclips. It's a bit of fun, like 50 stars. But, you know, we've
got a DAO up and running. And like the DAO holders have bought the first NFT and staked it. They get
a vote on the clip. It all goes through the DAO, the entire thing. We put props up to then, you
know, forward money over to the artist through DAO retroactive payments. So it's up in the nest.
It's only a bit of fun. But actually, I actually think this is one of
Ambedo's best bits. When you look at that, when you listen to the clip and you look at the artwork
and you're just like, okay, I get it. When you get it, you get it for 50 stars. Like people throw on
shade on a 50 stars NFT. You're an absolute disgrace. But yeah, Finn, what a night it is.
What a day it's been to do this interview. Absolutely fantastic, Finn, right? Before we
wind down, yeah. Oh, yeah, you got to wrap it up. I've got all the spaces from yesterday to get
caught up now that our internet is back. And it's not any faster than it was. So I don't even know
what they were doing. Probably out there bugging lines or something. But yeah, got to get all that
stuff. And then we'll have the rack FM from yesterday and the rack FM from today up over
on parespaces.org. So Chris, sir, thank you so much for making time for us. And we definitely
appreciate it. Always a pleasure chatting with you. Yeah, thanks for having me on. Go get a
sandwich now. Oh, dude, you'll have to send me a photo of that bread. I'm telling you,
bro, I need that bread in my life. Don't send me your address. I'll send I'll send you a loaf.
You've been I'm going to be honest with you, dude. You've been an exceptional fucking guest
mind. And I knew that from the minute I asked that question and bang right on the money. We
appreciate this. Like like we're real, you can tell we're real, but from the street, we didn't
care like like, anyway, bro, you've absolutely totally exceeded our expectations is what I want
to say. So just from me personally, thank you very, very much. Yeah. Yeah, thanks. I'm glad we can
finally make it happen. Cheers, everyone. Take care. Yeah, watch what you're doing, bro. So guys,
yeah, you just heard from Chris Armani, the CEO of TFL. And once again, this has been RAC FM. Yeah,
you know, we tried to make shows that we want to listen to. And hopefully for anyone listening on
the replay, you'll understand like what a great show tonight's been. It's an honor and a privilege.
And guys, Finn's music is going to kick in any minute now on the podcast recording. Never listen
to the spaces recording. Always go to Spotify once it's open a couple of days. And yeah,
I'll leave you with that. But over and out. Good night. And God bless you. Absolute legends. We
love you so much mind. Right. Bye bye.