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RAC FM Special: Levana Protocol in the Studio 🦝🚀
Recorded: Nov. 16, 2023 Duration: 1:46:31Space Recording
Full Transcription
Okay, okay, I can see Levana down there.
Yes, dude, I'll get the request in.
What we'll do is we'll just keep the dialogue down to a bare minimum for now.
We'll get the room filled up.
I'm just retweeting it, and then I'll get a few people DM'd.
There's a couple of people that said DM me to make sure we remind you, Robbo.
And then, dude, I'll do the proper raccoon beginning,
because obviously Finn goes crazy for this shit, you know.
So we'll actually do a proper commencement.
I'll send you the...
I'll get your request up now.
But, yeah, dude, we'll just chill for a minute
while I go and grab a couple of people.
All right, so let me go and grab a couple of people,
come back, do the welcome, and we'll get into it, all right?
Two seconds.
Two seconds.
Two seconds.
Okay, I can see we've got a couple of people jumping in the room.
Shout out, guys, coming in.
I just said to Lavana protocol there that I'm just going to DM a few people,
get the message out there, get the word out.
If any of you guys want to retweet out the space, please feel free.
It will actually obviously help us quite a lot.
But I will say that quite...
I know there's a couple of people busy, actually.
There's a couple of people dare me to say they were busy
or they would have been in there to listen.
But there's also, like I said earlier, a couple of people who have been like,
right, Robbo, remind me.
Send me a DM.
I don't want to miss this one.
So let me get these invites out.
Here's Tank.
And I know your woman wanted to come in.
Where is she?
Jessica, there you go.
Let's see.
Let's see.
Let's see.
Let's build a room up a little bit, yeah?
Let's build a room up.
Mr. Tank's in there.
Superb.
Oh, I'm dead interested for this.
Really interested because, I mean, what's Rack FM all about?
Just while we're waiting to get people in the room, yeah?
What's Rack FM all about?
It's about keeping your finger on the pulse.
I mean, there's Kalk just celebrated their one-year birthday, right?
We were, like, I think the first people to get them on a show, Rama and I, yeah.
Great guys, by the way.
And it's kind of like a little bit of a similar vibe, isn't it, with Lovana?
Obviously, Kalk's deployed.
They were originally deployed on Kujira when we first met them.
But obviously, they're deployed over on Osmosis now.
Osmosis is growing.
I mean, this suite of apps, isn't it?
A little bit like what I see Stargate is doing as well.
But in a different direction, obviously.
Defi related, et cetera.
But holy fuck.
I mean, people are building for fun.
There's got to be a reason, isn't there?
Why people are building on Osmosis.
That's what I want to get down due to day.
Before, guys, I mean, I was DMing how many people asked me to, like, bloody DM.
Like, I'm like, jeez, come on, man, bro.
So, I'm going to do a beginning.
Just a quick date kind of beginning that we normally do for Finn.
You know, the proper rack of them.
So, that's where we start.
So, he's probably, he might not.
He's probably, if he's got any sense, going to cut this bit out.
And I'm going to say that it's Rob O'Hare running the show tonight.
And I want to say that there, in my opinion, there might be two LaVonna's, right?
There might be the latest reincarnation of LaVonna that we're seeing.
This success and this proper, like, chart.
Come on.
I mean, we always recognize shippers, don't we?
And then there's the legacy one.
Well, the legacy shit, I'm just not interested in tonight.
I really am not, honestly.
The thing that we see now, the protocol that we see on deployed on osmosis,
what the guys are doing, exactly what the generic make-up of the team is,
the synergies, I mean, there's loads of stuff.
Just go to their TL and look what there's to talk about.
So, yeah, for Finn, I'll do this.
We've only got a small room, but that's all we need.
It's recorded.
We'll do ridiculous replays, as always.
So, without further ado, good morning, Rack FM.
Yes, that's a good morning, not no good.
Did you get that, Finn?
Aye.
It's 0800, guys, and it is the 16th of November 2023.
And this is your host, Robbo, the Mayor of Rackville.
And I'm delighted to say that we've got, yet again, proper shippardows in there, or shippos, whatever you want to call them, in the studio.
We've had all the guys in, haven't we, this year?
Like, we've had TFM in.
We've had fucking Kajira in.
We've had...
Oh, he's Bruce.
He's going to come in for co-hosting duties, hopefully.
We've had Shade Protocol in.
We've had all the big boys.
And you know what?
Loads of people I speak to personally talk about LaVonna, both online and offline.
And it's quite obvious that these chads are like, you know, it does what it says on the tin, isn't it?
That's the old Raccoon or Rack FM sniff test, isn't it?
Like, does this do, like, what it says on the tin, right?
And it's quite clear that LaVonna is delivering and delivering in spades, and people love it.
I saw Tendermint Timmy.
Obviously, he's been really, really busy, as we all know.
Shout out Timmy, by the way, legend.
But I saw Timmy, like, tweeted out something, and then they retweeted it and said, like,
don't get me wrong, we are really impressed with Tendermint Timmy.
Oh, don't get me wrong, it's taken me a long time, but I'm really, really, really impressed.
I mean, there's no smoke without fire.
So let's check in with LaVonna.
Let's get down to the deets, peeps.
Yeah, let's take you back to your roots.
So put on your fucking big boots, yeah.
We're taking you back to the place of your birth, bang on planet Earth.
Is that Jonathan on the official account?
Hello, Jonathan.
Yes, it is.
Hi, Jonathan, Head of Communications here at LaVonna.
And I just want to start out by saying it's such a pleasure to be here.
You know, I think the phrase is long-time listener, first-time caller.
So it's exciting to, you know, get to talk to this audience, which is an audience that's very dear to my heart.
I know that, you know, the trial by fire that many of us have been through the past bull run and bear market is really hard to be appreciated by any of the newcomers that are going to be entering into the space.
You know, because there's always newcomers that come into the space when the weather looks fair.
But the wreck community, you know, and the Kajira community, and really the guys that went through all of the shitstorm, I don't know how else to call it, that we've been through over the last, you know, over 18 months now, almost two years,
really puts us in a very special bucket that holds a very important place in my heart.
So thank you for having me on the show.
Oh, dude, you're welcome.
Didn't worry about that.
I'll tell you what, you're right, though.
That was a brutal, brutal crypto winter, wasn't it?
Oh, I mean, I know we're going to go through them again.
And I don't actually think we're really out of it just yet, I think.
I think there's a few bumps in the road with election cycle coming around, but we'll, you know, we'll see bluer skies eventually.
But yeah, bro, that was a nasty experience.
I had to take like six weeks away from crypto after the first dip on the May, May 2021.
I took six weeks away from crypto.
It was the best six weeks of my life, bro.
I came back and I was a demon and just made a shitload.
I also lost a shitload after that, but never mind.
Yeah, right.
But, I mean, Jonathan, if you don't mind, flatter us.
Couple of just kind of jokey questions to start out with, right, bro?
Like nothing serious, but the typical.
No, please.
Is that okay?
Yeah, absolutely.
Yeah, yeah, yeah.
We can talk about anything.
You know, and we can talk, you know, and yeah, the floor is open.
And, you know, I like what you said about kind of like what's on the pin is what you get.
And I think that that's, you know, that's really what the goal is, is to be a straight shooter.
And, you know, there's nothing that's taboo.
Dude, in your opinion, was my opening, was it too much?
Sometimes Finn says it's too much.
He gets on my case.
He's like, oh, Robbo, that was overkill, that.
I mean, I do try, but was it too much, do you reckon, or not?
Do I need to tone it down?
No, I don't think it needs to be toned down.
And I think that, I don't know what it's going to be like in post-edit, if there's going
to be a little music in the background or something like that, but it really took me
back.
You know, I'm a child of the 90s, so it took me back to like the radio show hosts, you
know, that, you know, like coming like that, where you'd be stuck on the bus on the way
to school at 6.45 in the morning, and the radio jockey is sitting there for like 10 minutes,
and you're like, well, it's entertaining enough, but I kind of came here for the music.
So it's that nice balance.
You know, with the station.
Oh, I love that.
I love that.
And we have got a co-host, which is great, by the way, guys, because you can manage like
requesting that, because obviously it's a closed mic tonight.
We might get time for questions.
Oh, I've just come outside, I sit and just chill a little bit, and these dogs have got
more chill.
My goodness.
Right.
Quick, quick question, dude.
First question, just a quick one.
What's your favourite sandwich?
Oh, that's tough.
You know, it's just not...
Oh, we're not playing.
We're not messing...
Jonathan, we're not messing around.
We're not playing.
We're big hitters.
So now here's the question.
You know, it's...
You know that like Matrix, like does a Pop-Tart count as a sandwich?
Is a taco a sandwich?
Does it have to be like sliced bread?
If we're talking just simply sliced bread, it's definitely something like a Reuben, you know,
like just like traditional, like a Jewish sandwich, you know, that's like...
Holy fuck.
It's kind of like...
It's like 10 centimetres thick, and like you can barely bite into it.
It's got a pickle on the side.
You know, I'm always a sucker for one of those.
Dude, I'm not shitting you.
I named me top three about like two years ago on Twitter.
I'll find it for you.
And honestly, Reuben's in the top three, like along with the banh mi.
I mean, the banh mi just for me takes it, you know, it's right up there.
But I kind of...
Oh, I'm getting thumbs down here.
I'm getting thumbs down for the Reuben or the banh mi.
I don't know if it's the Reuben or the banh mi, you know.
Look, you know, like rye bread, thin sliced meat, and a little bit of mayonnaise.
How can we go wrong?
So immediately, I know, Sigma, Sigma level, isn't he?
Straight away, right, Jonathan, I just want you to know that the first fucking sniff test,
you pass for flying colours.
On to the next subject.
What's your shoe size, bro?
I am a 41.
So I'm small.
Oh, wait, I'll get the calculator out.
Will I get the calculator out?
Two minutes, bro.
Oh, I don't know what that is.
Okay, I got that.
Yeah, that's European sizes.
I don't know if in the Queen's English what that would come to.
We...
See, the shoe size is never a judgment of a person, you know,
but we always like...
Because we share this information.
We've always done it, right?
The last question will be, if you had to pick one, you've got no choice.
You've got to wear in public one of them.
There's literally no choice in the matter.
Are you picking a cowboy boots or a cardigan?
What is a cardigan?
I know what cowboy boots are.
I don't know what a cardigan is.
Oh, we need your woman.
She's the best.
She explained to Jake.
You know, Jake the shaman.
You know, that shaman guy from January 6th at the Capitol building,
Congress or whatever.
She explained to him.
Oh, it's like a small sweater with, like, fur on it.
Buttons.
We're buttons.
Buttons up the front.
It's got buttons.
The cardigan's got buttons and two pockets,
two little pockets for your little hands or something, you know,
like where you put your hands in.
I'd probably go for the cardigan then instead.
You know, like I wear a suit jacket on the weekends, every weekend.
I wear a T-shirt starting a week.
But I wear, like, a long coat that goes down to my knees.
You know, it's like, it looks like 1800 style on the weekend.
So the cardigan probably falls under that category.
Can you believe this?
Literally, as you've said those words, look who came in the room,
little gains.
And literally, when you gave your answer, I was like, right,
what's the timestamp?
I'm going to timestamp little gains.
I cannot believe gains.
He chose the cardigan.
He chose the cardigan over cowboy boots.
Oh, Mike, what is it?
It's like 2-1 to gains right now.
We're 2-1, a cowboy boots, a cardigans.
Well, I'll tell you, I don't ride horses.
You know, I have.
I grew up riding horses, but I haven't.
I don't ride horses on a regular basis.
And I live in the desert.
And so my preferred footwear is really open-toed sandals with no socks on.
You know, that's a – so the cowboy boots just sounds like a mess.
Bro, one day I said the gains in the – I was chatting to him,
and I'm like, oh, dude, you're a pretend cowboy, aren't you?
He went, oh, you think so?
And he sent me some photos.
Holy fuck.
Dude, I was worried for my life.
I'm telling you, I was changing the addresses.
I was like, I didn't want that man anywhere.
And he and me, like, those fellas anyway, not that man.
It's probably, like, worse than Yellowstone, if anyone's seen Yellowstone.
Like, the TV series.
Trust me, gains is 10 times worse.
Like, proper cartel shit.
Anyway, let's get on with the goods.
By the way, there were some of the best answers we've had for a long time.
Let's get on to the important stuff.
I do want to ask you, bro, you're vibing with the Osmosis crew.
Just like that's obviously been a big, big fundamental part of the recent past, right?
I mean, sorry, before we say anything, Bruce, do you want to come in here,
or are you just here to be the support?
The supporter?
I'm the support.
I'm the support.
Do you want to welcome Jonathan?
I think you already did it, but I came later than him, so kind of weird, right?
It's all right, Bruce.
I welcome you.
Thanks for joining us.
Oh, thank you.
We really appreciate you having me here.
Thanks, bro.
Thanks, bro.
I'll just be a fly on the wall and maybe join in with some security questions later.
We'll see.
Bruce, you're getting rugged already.
I'm glad you're here with us.
Bruce, getting rugged already.
Oh, Jonathan, here we go.
This is going to be a good one, isn't it?
Right, so, dude, I want to know about vibing with the Osmo crowd.
I mean, Sonny's been on the show before.
He's fucking pretty cool.
Come on.
He's built some good shit.
He knows his shit, you know.
He shouted out Rack FM on bloody the stage at the Cosmos of War.
Cosmos of War, Cosmos of War, Cosmoverse.
That was a Freudian slip, wasn't it?
Jesus Christ.
So, dude, what's it been like since you've kind of, like, obviously got some, like, back
and support help?
Or, like, talk to us about the relationship with Osmosis, if you don't mind to kick it
off.
So, it is, you know, it is, you know, it's wonderful working with Osmosis.
Osmosis has the largest amount of daily active traders, both in terms of unique accounts
and volume.
I apologize.
I'm near a street.
I don't know if you guys can hear the buses go by, but I'll get farther away.
Are you, Gucci?
Don't worry about background noise, bro.
I'm the worst.
Don't worry.
Are you, Gucci?
Okay.
Great.
So, you know, just in terms of access to liquidity, access to a wide variety of assets,
and let me kind of paint a picture, and this is a picture that is, you know, I have to put
a trigger warning on, you know, I think a lot of people are not going to like some of
my views about Cosmos, but, you know, for better or for worse, I think it's, you know,
it's worth sharing, and I want to emphasize that these aren't necessarily LeBana's views,
you know, they're just my views, is that the, when you've got kind of, like, the curve,
you know, like the risk curve meme, where it's got, like, the dunce on the left, and
it's got the Jedi on the right, and it's got, like, the angry guy screaming on, like,
the top.
So, Cosmos has optimized itself to appeal to that screaming guy on the top, and that's,
like, 90% of the community.
It's just that, like, mid-brain guy that's, like, brah, brah, brah, brah, brah, brah,
brah, brah, brah, brah, brah, brah, brah, brah, brah, brah, brah, brah,
and that's our entire community, for better or for worse, or I'd say that's, like, you
know, 99% of our community.
There's obviously outliers, and the reason there is, is that during the last bull run,
it's not just, like, it's not just, like, me being spicy.
It's, like, you know, I've thought about this from, like, a detective perspective.
Like, if you look at the last bull run, where was the place that you got the highest yield
for the lowest risk?
And that was always Cosmos.
You know, the fact that you could just, you had very minimal, you had all these chains,
all the chains used the same code base.
They all had double-digit staking rewards.
They all had very, you know, very deep volatility sinks.
They had limited access to centralized exchanges.
And they, essentially, they were just printing money during the entire bull run.
And so, what you ended up with was a bunch of, kind of, mid-range, you know, they weren't,
like, high risk.
They weren't low risk.
They were, like, mid-risk.
So, they would come, and they would just stake tokens.
They would get their staking rewards, and then they would cash out their staking rewards,
and then, you know, bring it to Binance or centralized exchanges or wherever, and go and
finance, you know, I don't know, their, whatever, you know, degenerate.
Lifestyle that they had.
And I don't say degenerate in a negative way.
I say it, like, very lovingly, you know.
We're all degenerate here.
And these guys, you know, and, like, I don't want to be salty for the guys that made money.
You know, I lost, like, everything in the last crash.
But I think that there's a lot of people that, you know, that survived Cosmos, basically
because of this, like, middle brain or middle bell curve aspect.
And what, and the path that you go on, no matter where you are within the Cosmos ecosystem,
is it all roads lead to osmosis.
So, every single user is familiar with osmosis because you get your staking rewards, then
you take your staking rewards.
You come to osmosis.
You cash out to some type of stable coin, like Axel or USDC.
You bridge to somewhere else.
And then, you know, you party.
And so, again, this is purely conjecture.
But I don't know if this resonates with you or with anyone in the audience.
Dude, you know what we've often said, though?
We, like, because a lot of people are like, oh, I'm bored in the next million users.
I'm bored in the next billion users.
Whatever.
Should I tell you what makes the difference?
Like, the real difference, it's the quality of the user.
We've been talking about, like, I had a really deep conversation about this with Jake Hartland
and them, like, about two or three months ago or something.
We just seem to have, in Cosmos particularly, this ridiculous, like, culture of airdrop hunters
and tag three friends.
Like, it's like every, like, like a good friend says, bing bong, Avon calling.
It's like, dude, it's not sustainable in the long run, these plebs, man.
No, no, for sure.
It's an entire culture.
And I just want to see, I see that B-Bands is on here.
So I just want to give her a shout out.
Welcome to come up here and say hi.
And the, you know, the whole, you know, it's been really interesting being on Osmosis and
kind of, like, seeing, you know, Osmosis has between 50,000 to 80,000 traders monthly on
the platform.
Now, Levana has been on Osmosis for four months now.
We just had our four-month anniversary.
And we just broke 5,000 users.
Not 5,000 monthly.
And half a billion as well?
Didn't you just hit half a billion?
Well, we'll get to that.
Those are the vanity metrics.
But I'm talking just like, like, let's talk in, you know, I don't know how to say it in
English, but in Arabic, you say do-gree.
It's a, let's cut to the chase, you know, is that at the end of the day, there's, you
know, about 5% of the active wallets within Cosmos are really interested in high-risk, high-reward
products, which is what Levana is.
Now, was that number 5,000 you said there?
5,000, yeah?
Yeah, which is about 5,000.
You know, so I'd say that in all of Cosmos, there's probably about 100,000 people.
And what we've attracted to Levana, because everybody, you know, and I'm talking about
people that have tried Levana once, you know, if we look at the people that have tried Levana
once, it's about 5,000.
So, we see that it's about 95% of the users are risk-averse, and about 5% of the users
are risk-on.
So, the risk, the path to survival, you know, because we're still at Levana, we're at the
survival phase.
You know, there's plenty of, like, VC metrics that we can talk about, like total trading
volume and, you know, and daily trading volume and stuff like that, and like, you know, TVL
to trading and usage and all these other things that, like, I would call, like, the BS metrics.
So, all of that, we can kind of put to the side and just say that in order for a product
like Levana to be successful, we've got to figure out how to grow the pie.
And that's something that, you know, we've been trying to figure out.
And one of the things that's most attractive about working with osmosis is that osmosis
is kind of like that central hub that it doesn't matter what chain that you're interacting with
on Cosmos, you know, you end up also interacting with osmosis.
So, it's a great equalizer.
You know, if I was going to point to where is the Cosmos hub today, I would say the Cosmos
hub today is osmosis, more so than the, you know, the actual Cosmos hub itself, like with
Adam.
And what I think is an interesting outlier is the Kajira ecosystem.
I think the Kajira ecosystem is a completely different DNA than the entire rest of Cosmos.
And it's a primarily risk-on ecosystem, whereas the rest of Cosmos is a risk-off ecosystem.
Now, you know, Levana has tried for, I don't know, six months, eight months, whatever, to
deploy on Kajira, but Kajira has zero interest.
They just, like, I think they just, like, ignore all my DMs.
But I think that ultimately, when we have the next bull run, you know, that we'll probably
see the most amount of activity within the Kajira ecosystem.
That's just my, you know, in terms of, like, when the market turns from risk-off to risk-on.
That's, like, my, you know, 2,000, 20,000 feet assessment.
Dude, as you actually said that, I did just DM the space to Dead Right.
So if he's free, maybe, like, you'll jump on what I was like.
I don't, but, yeah.
I don't, but I have, we've spoken, you know, about three years ago, I think we had a call.
Maybe, you know, maybe, maybe two and a half years ago.
But, I mean, the guy is, like, the guy is a, he is a rocket ship.
You know, I don't know how else to describe it.
Like, he's a...
Oh, dude, we love, we love a bit of Dove on this show.
We love a bit of Dove on this show.
He's a good, good friend.
He's been our biggest show to date, you know.
Him and Jacob was 3.5K.
We only had a few hundred followers, man, bro.
Ridiculous.
So can you see that we've got Maltrez joined us?
So he's one of the raccoon devs, Jonathan.
And honestly, I didn't even know if he was going to come.
When I saw him here, I was like, oh, he's building Shark Protocol.
I haven't got a co-host at the minute or anything.
But you don't mind me bringing him up, Jonathan?
That's okay?
No, please.
Yeah, happy to talk to anybody.
And I'll just tell you in the meantime, because, you know, I gave a shout out to Dove.
I also want to give a shout out to Sonny.
You know, I have met Sonny in person, you know, I don't know, maybe four or five times.
I've had the opportunity to maybe talk to him for like 20 hours, 30 hours, like in total
in my life.
And just in terms of people that really understand the development of crypto and the kind of like
the pain points of crypto and where things need to go in order for crypto to reach mass
adoption.
I think he is very uniquely positioned.
And he's also, you know, in an incredibly challenging position, kind of of being the
central hub of Cosmos.
But I think that his vision, and if you listen to, I got to see her and speak in person in
Paris about this about, you know, three, four months ago.
But the vision of what osmosis is going to look like in a year from now, which is basically
FTX.
It's basically like a decentralized FTX.
So like building out a decentralized FTX is incredibly challenging.
And it's a, you know, it's a very different development approach to what I like personally.
You know, I come from like the world of scrappy startups, you know, where you try something,
you screw up, you know, you try something else, you screw up, like, you know, you kind
of like build a hill on top of, you know, of like previous dead versions of yourself.
And, you know, you have, it's like, you constantly are trying to, through an act of humility and
growth to improve.
And so it's a very different approach that I think what osmosis is taking, like we saw
it with concentrated liquidity.
They announced in August of a, you know, August of the previous year.
So that's like a year and change ago that they were going to do concentrated liquidity.
And then it took them about a year to deploy it.
So, you know, what Lavonna tries to do is to ship every two weeks.
You know, we ship something every two weeks.
And so we're constantly kind of like, our vision is a little bit like more myopic at like,
what, where are the cracks in the road ahead of us?
And how can we fix those cracks in the road?
And osmosis is much more like Apple or Samsung focused, where it's like, where do we want
to be in two to three years?
And how do we build to get to that?
And so I totally appreciate that approach, although it's not the approach that, you know,
that I've experienced personally.
Dude, for all the shit talking and all the bravado and brasier that you say bloody on crypto,
well, CCT, isn't it?
It's not just CT, it's CCT, Cosmos Crypto Twitter.
But for all the bravado, Ray, nobody can deny just how fundamental and instrumental Sonny
has basically been in this ecosystem.
People would be absolutely stupid to say or think otherwise.
But, dude, I don't want to do a quick room set.
You'll have to watch your mic, bro.
Jonathan, yeah, you've got a hot mic sometimes when you're not speaking, bro.
So just to do a little, like, quick room kind of reset, shout out everybody who's in the
room, little G's in here, tanky's in here, woman, queen, B's here, starlight, I mean,
stray light, uh-huh.
MB, nice little slip there.
Did you get that one?
Oh, I see all your woman's here who's on the show tomorrow.
Saw you was, see, I've gone.
Alex, I see you, Blaise, Poraboo, I see you all down there, Snails, Escoban, all of you
guys, shout out to everybody in the room.
Al, I see Big Al down there.
Yeah, so I do want to just dive into the team a little bit, just to kind of get to know you
a little bit more.
Mol, good morning to you, Mol.
How are you doing, brother?
You okay?
Good morning, guys.
Yeah, I'm doing very great.
Just having, I think I got a flu or something, so my voice is kind of sketchy, but I just
wanted, thanks for the invite.
I just wanted to say to Levana that they're doing a very great job.
I've been using the products for a while now, so it's pretty great.
And basically, I saw you guys did some nice posts on Twitter, so that's why I wanted to
listen to what you guys have to say.
So, yeah, big love from us, doing a great job.
Well, thank you.
I appreciate that.
It's, you know, the Twitter, you know, we are, our inspiration for Twitter is mostly
from Coach Bruce, so I don't know if you're familiar with Coach Bruce.
He was a guy who was popular on Terra, you know, and he's kind of broadened out since
the collapse of Terra, and one of the things that he taught was, you know, you have to
balance between, like, the, you know, like, the shit posting and the making fun of yourself
and the making fun of your community and then actually, like, really insightful stuff.
And, like, if you can kind of, like, hit the nail, the balance there, then you can create
something that has a lot of staying power.
It's, you know, and you have to have a lot of just, like, there's got to kind of be a
lot of willingness to experiment and to just see what kind of hits.
So whether it's, you know, responding to other people that say good things about you or people
that say bad things about you or making fun of yourself or whatever it is, you know, we
just try it all and we see what works and then we try and constantly learn from it.
So I appreciate you enjoying the social accounts.
Bro, he's been watching cartel videos.
He's been watching us making cartel videos, laughing his fucking head off, man.
Nobody gives a fuck over on Raccoon, man.
We do what we want, all right?
That's how we fucking roll from day one.
Yeah, that's exactly what I was going to say.
Like, you don't need to have ego, like, in the sequel, man.
You just need to laugh about yourself, laugh about people, and just have a good time.
So that's why I find it pretty amazing.
But before I shut my mouth, I just wanted to get to know about, Ivana, like, how many
people you guys are because I really like the UI and what, like, what you do is kind
of fluid.
So I was just curious how many people you were.
So we're seven full-time people.
And then in terms of, like, part-time contributors, there's another, I would say, you know, nine
that are regularly contributing.
And then, you know, if you add, like, the hardworking mods and, you know, some of the, you know, the
people that are doing, like, beta testing and QA and stuff, it probably brings it up to,
like, you know, 15 part-time people.
So, you know, in total, there's probably about 20 or so people around the table.
And it's, you know, we were at our height, like, when Terra crashed, we were at almost
I think we hit, like, 56 or 58, if I remember correctly.
And so we're at about a third of the size that we were back then.
And we definitely feel it.
You know, we were able to accomplish and, like, build and ship a lot more than we were
then.
But, you know, in the, I think that what we've done, you know, with the smaller team
is be able to focus and be able to listen more.
And those were two skills that I think that we lacked during the previous bull cycle.
And I think they're very valuable skills that we'll have, you know, as the market continues
moving forward.
So, Moll, quick question for you.
I mean, I'm not saying you've been building something similar, but some comparisons could
be drawn between, say, like, Shark Protocol, for example, and Levana.
Are there any challenges, like, Moll, that you faced that you would ask, like, Jonathan,
about in regards to what you guys have built, in regards to whether it's smart contracting
or whatever?
I don't know.
Yeah, I think, like, the biggest issues that we've faced so far is, just to give an introduction
and just, I don't want to just talk about my project because, like, the show is about
Levana and you guys.
But, yeah, we're building a price prediction market.
No, please shill.
Yeah, shill is what we do.
Yeah, that's my biggest problem.
I have a hard time shilling what we do.
We really believe in it, but, like, we have a hard time shilling it.
But, yeah, we're building, like, a price prediction market on Migalu, which is called Shark Protocol.
And, basically, like, the biggest issue that we faced is just to make sure that everything
is coordinated.
Like, you have the information about Bitcoin, Ethereum, and, like, the assets you want to
place bets on.
And just coordinate at the same time when people do their bets and then you settle the bet.
So, just making sure the contract, the information that's outside the chain, that's brought on
the chain, and then everything just fits together.
That's been our biggest issue.
So far, it's been working well and it's much easier than perps, that's for sure.
But that was one of our biggest issues.
So, if you have any insights or something about that, that would be really appreciated.
Well, I'm actually curious.
So, prediction markets.
So, I was a researcher and an analyst at a crypto hedge fund in 2018.
And that was, like, my first formal job in the crypto space.
Like, before that, I had worked in the Web2 space.
I had sold two companies.
I had built multiple products that had, like, millions of monthly active users.
And, like, I got into crypto pretty early on in the Ethereum DAP ecosystem.
And the first product that I fell in love with was Augur.
So, Augur was the first real prediction market that came out.
And it, you know, it tried to solve, although I think it failed, the trusted arbiter.
And it sounds to me like you are using third-party price feeds or price oracles to be the arbiter.
Is that an accurate assessment?
And if so, what are the oracles that you're using?
Is it PIT? Is it, you know, OHO?
What are you using?
Yeah, so, basically, as of now, what we're using, we're using, like, four sexes information.
So, basically, what we take is the closing price, let's say, the closing candle, the price on the one-minute time frame.
But, like, the bets can be done on the five minutes, 15 minutes, an hour, and 24 hours.
So, we just take the closing price of the most recent minute, let's say.
Got it.
And then, in terms of the pools between the winning percentage, I'm assuming that it's like a bookie system where the ratio of exposure to the success and failure pools creates the odds.
Is that, I've never seen your system before, so I'm just building it in my head from an architectural perspective as we're talking.
So, you might have gone a completely different approach.
But is that how it works?
Yeah, exactly.
That's how it works.
And the cool thing that we decided to do is, for example, let's say, because, you know, when you go in prediction markets, you never know if there's, like, we some sort of create, like, a market, like, we match people.
But, like, what we did is, like, let's say you stake the token that we have that's called Shark.
Then, if there's going to be someone that's only opening, like, a long position, then we make sure that there's some sort of system that if there's no one that has bet on the short position, let's say the bear side, then the Shark staking system is going to open a position just to make sure that there's always a match between the bets so people can continue playing.
Whereas, usual price prediction market, if there's no position on the other side, the bet's just going to be canceled.
So, we try to create some sort of something new that you can always bet against the house, let's say.
Uh-huh.
That's interesting.
And now, who can create new markets?
Is it permissionless?
Because it seems like that, if it was permissionless, there'd be an easy attack vector.
Or is it just periodic that, you know, over time, you open up new positions for the same markets, whether it's BTC or Atom, et cetera?
Yeah, so, yeah, I missed the question because someone just called me.
Sorry about that.
No, all right.
So, no, no worries.
No worries.
So, the question was, is it always the same market?
Is it that you've got, like, a few different coins that people can make predicted bets around, and then you're just trying to fill out the counterparty position using your own token?
Or is it that anybody can launch a new market on the platform?
Yeah, so, it's always the same market.
So far, we've only went to the open alpha, which was on Bitcoin.
And, yeah, the idea is just to make sure that if someone opens a position, there's always going to be the house that's open, like, the counterparty position, just to make sure that's more enjoyable.
Because if you make a bet and then there's no one on the other side, then it's kind of less fun and less fluid.
But, like, to do this approach, we made some calculation and simulation to see, just to make sure that the house is not going to always get wrecked, let's say.
But, yeah, to answer your question, it's always, like, going to be on the same assets.
Got it. Well, in that case, it would be interesting.
I'd love to talk offline, because there might be funding rate opportunities.
You know, I'll talk a little bit about what LaVonna does to give a bit of background, and then I'll tie it back into answering into your question.
So, LaVonna opens up markets.
We have 20 different markets that are available today.
So it's all of the popular assets and even, like, a bunch of the shitcoins that are not popular but are semi-popular.
So we've got 20 different assets which you can trade, you know, some of them with 100x leverage, some of them with 30x leverage, and, you know, some of them with, like, 10x leverage or less.
And so we, in order to balance the market, there's just a continuous funding rate, you know, from the popular side to the not popular side.
So some cases, like, you know, we have, we launched, like, ThorChain's Rune, which you can open up, I think, 30x leverage on.
And so if you're taking the not popular side, as a trader, you can get paid, you know, last time I saw it, it was, like, 300% APR on it.
So it might be interesting for a protocol like yours to plug into protocols like LaVonna and, you know, Hyperlink and Margin.io and a few of these others that if you detect that there's an imbalance on your prediction market,
that it can be counterbalanced from a larger protocol, and we're getting about, I think, today we had, like, $13 million in trading volume today.
So I wouldn't necessarily call this big, but we're in the top 10, I think, of perpetuals in the market, if I'm not mistaken.
And there's about 150 of them in all of crypto today.
So, you know, if you, if you have a few of these that you plug into.
Can you guys still hear me?
Give me a thumbs up if you can hear me.
Yeah, you came back.
Um, so what I'd say is, is that if you can find another protocol to be able to hedge the exposure within your own protocol,
so then, then your LPs, um, minimize their chance of being repped.
And, you know, we've, uh, we've spoken, like, I had a call about a week ago, um, you know, with, uh, Hyperliquid.
And, uh, you know, we've talked, uh, plenty of times, like, I've had multiple calls with DYDX over the years and with, um, you know, with, uh, the perpetual finance guys.
And, and right now today, the most popular use case on Levana is, is actually, um, uh, funding rate arbitrage where users come and, and they open up a position on Levana, um, which then pays them on a high APR, like a triple digit APR in order to take on that position, to be the counter trader to, um, to, you know, whatever sentiment the market has.
And then they go and they find on Huobi, on, on Binance, on DYDX, like a counter trade, and then they balance it out.
So that actually could be built in to, um, uh, to a protocol like yours, uh, to drastically reduce, uh, the, the operational risk.
Yeah, I think that's a, that's an amazing idea, to be honest.
And, uh, I think we're gonna, yeah, I just wrote.
I wrote all that down and, uh, I think it's very interesting and that was one of the reasons why, because at first when we, we decided to go with this product, like there were a lot of people saying, yeah, that would be the best if we can have like, uh, some sort of perps information up in there.
And that's exactly the, the reason why it would work well together.
And the other thing, uh, uh, just a last question, uh, I just want to, I don't want to hijack, but, uh, what do you think, like, for example, for price prediction market, like, uh, if you're betting, like, let's say on the 15 minutes and then you have some, like, you have some window to bet.
And then the window closes before the bet is settled.
What do you think of like, just putting some sort of incentive, the earlier you get in the bet, the better you could get out of your position.
So let's say you have some quadratic or linear like relationship that if you bet like five minutes before, and then there's someone's betting like 10 seconds before the window closes.
Well, there's more incentives that goes to the person that votes at the beginning, given he or she takes some sort of bigger risks, given like there's more time before the bet closes.
What do you think about that?
So you always need to do risk modeling.
And I think that this is, you know, where I'm, I'm excited to continue the conversation with Bruce.
Um, but you always need to consider is the, are the incentives that you are creating, um, allowing for somebody else to be able to constantly profit.
Um, and, and, and, and that happens even more if there's some type of secondary market.
So I don't know how your, um, positions are, um, implemented, but if your positions themselves have any level of
fungible nature, so then it could create a situation and I'm just like totally answering on one foot right now, but it could create a situation where if I get a bonus by betting early,
and, um, um, then towards the end of the, of the, of the, the, the position and maybe even like the block preview, like immediately preceding the closing, if there's any type of, uh, of arbitrage opportunity that's there, then somebody will figure out a way to just like, uh, to, to, to use it to, to, to create a hedge.
Like for example, um, now that I'm, I'm talking like, imagine that I take a long, um, at the beginning of the epoch and I get a bonus for that.
And now I'm exposed long.
And then now I get towards the end of the epoch and I take a short.
So now I'm market neutral, but I hedge, but so now I just get the, uh, benefit of the spread between the subsidy from the beginning of the epoch to the end of the epoch.
I could do that literally every epoch.
I'd be market neutral over time.
My position, my directional exposure would balance out, but I would constantly drain your liquidity pool.
Yeah.
And that's one of the way we could counter this.
Yeah.
That's a very great answer to be honest.
But the, the, the way to counter this is, uh, given the fact that we create the market, there's some sort of, there are some sort of fees on the pool.
Let's say we take like a 1.5, 2%.
That way, uh, people just don't end up winners.
But the cool thing is if you're staking the token and then you're the house, then you get rewarded with a part of the fees.
So, yeah, what you said actually makes sense.
And we need to make sure that the part of the fees that's redirected to stakers and the person that just take the position that you just said, just don't end up always in profit.
And then we, we drain the liquidity.
Yeah.
Very insightful discussion, man.
Thanks.
Yeah.
Merci beaucoup.
Um, so that's a, it's a pleasure.
Uh, and I'm happy to talk offline.
I, I love, uh, this is like, I'd say like literally half of my day is just spent on risk assessment and just trying to brainstorm about how to ways to break stuff.
So I love this, you know, the other half is just like chip posting on Twitter, but, um, but, but I love this part of the industry.
Um, and so I'd love to, you know, I'd love to continue the conversation in a more private setting.
Um, for sure, man.
Rack FM, fucking Rack FM, Jonathan F, fucking 69.420 coming in your ears five days a week, powered by Omniflix, sponsored by Notional.
Yeah, I just want to ask you, bro.
Uh, that was, I was beautiful listening to you two, by the way.
I was right in the middle of a huge thunderstorm as well.
I was like, I'm so glad these two dudes are just having a rabbit.
It's great that, like, I'm going to enjoy the replay, you know.
We always stress when we're hosts.
Shout out Sefi down there.
Jonathan, a quick one for you.
What's the harshest lesson that you've learned from the past that you're going to carry forward into the next buller market when we prop a buller run?
What's the harshest lesson that you're going to keep in your head and not, like, there from, like, learning that lesson, if you don't mind me asking?
I would say that you always have to be hungry and you have to preserve capital above all else.
You know, during the bull run, LaVonna was, like, flush with cash and it was just, like, allocated irresponsibly.
I don't think there's any other way to describe it other than that.
You know, like, I look, like, we built a bunch of games and, like, you know, hiring somebody, like, that, you know, is, like, to design a game and, you know, to allocate, like, a quarter million dollars to something that is never going to build, you know, create a return to anybody.
It's just going to be, like, fun and, like, a flash in the pan.
So there was no concept, like, while the market was, like, lush, there was no concept of fiscal responsibility and there was no concept of, like, good business practice.
You know, like, we have to build something that's going to be sustainable.
We have to build something that is going to, you know, that's going to last for a decade, that is, that has a path to pay for itself.
You know, and I think a little bit of this is just kind of, like, the euphoria of the bull run.
And I think that a lot of teams kind of went through this and, you know, you see, like, what engineering salaries were like, what marketing salaries were like, what, you know, guys that, like, were on top of, like, would go into the roof and smoke joints and, like, come back, like, in a week and, like, have, like, you know, five pages of a document written and stuff.
And you'd be like, what the hell is this?
And, like, you realize that they just, like, cost you 50 grand.
So there was a lot of, you know, just there wasn't, like, a sense of urgency.
And, you know, one of the things that really was, like, the wake-up call was the FTX crash, which was, like, okay, you know, let's, like, either this is all going to die and it's just going to go to zero.
Or we're going to spend the next, you know, year and a half, you know, which is, like, the runway that we had remaining to try and figure out how to build a successful platform that can actually support itself and not just support itself, but start to bring in enough capital to make itself sustainable.
So how do you focus on sustainability?
And then you have to ask yourself, okay, anything that's not going to focus on sustainability really has to be, you know, has to be either put in an icebox or completely killed or just, you know, just put, like, out of thought, out of mind.
Because if you don't achieve that sustainability, nothing else matters.
You know, you can always have, like, a Ponzi game where, you know, let's just focus on the short term and let's just try and make sure that somebody else buys our bag and then we'll exit and leave the collapse onto the next generation.
But if you have ethical problems with that and you want to build something that's going to last for, you know, many years, then you just, you have to focus on, you know, like, where's every penny going and how are you going to build something that's sustainable?
And that influenced that shift in our mind, which happened about a year ago, you know, that was a very painful shift, but it was a very fruitful shift at the same time because what it allowed us to do was to really look at the market and to say, what are the things that we need to be building in order to make success, make long-term success?
And then what is the definition, what's the definition of success?
And, you know, that definition, I think I articulated loosely of saying that how do you build something that creates sustainable value?
And then how can we capture that value so that we have the ability to expand the value offering to a broader set of experiences way beyond necessarily what's going to bankroll the platform?
And a lot of mistakes that I've seen with many other projects is they spend way too much resources and capital on marketing and not enough on innovation.
And so we've tried to course correct that.
Maybe we've course corrected it too much.
You know, that's definitely a discussion that we have internally.
But what we've created right now is an incredibly capital efficient platform where we have, where we can spin up like, like, let's say the Rune market.
I don't know exactly what the, we spent, we, we, the Rune market has been live for, you know, less than a week.
It's already, I believe it's already passed a million dollars of trading volume.
I know the Solana market has been up for like two weeks, you know, and that's way beyond a million dollars in trading volume.
And, and these markets were capitalized, you know, with like, like $5,000, $10,000, and then they just organically grew because of the sound economic mechanisms that were underlying them.
That the fees that are generated, even without a token, without hyperinflating a token, you know, Levana doesn't have a token today.
We, you know, we just announced that, you know, that if you were part.
Well, that was the next, that was the next question.
That was the next question, bro.
So you, you were talking about sustainability, you're talking about sustainability, and I'm like, didn't I listen to a space with you and Rana, where it was like a late night Jay Cardinal space.
And he was like, absolutely have a non-avert about Levana releasing a token, right?
Can you remember that little discourse you two had?
Absolutely.
Well, yeah.
So the thing is, is that if the system needs a token, then it doesn't deserve a token.
That's kind of like where the stance that I'm coming from, is that if the only way that you can stay in business is by, you know, hacking a coin down the chain, you know, and, and kind of like pulling all of the shtick that you see within the industry, then it means that you have something at your core.
That's fundamentally unsustainable.
And, you know, if, if the only reason that your platform works is because people are wash trading on top of it in order to get some type of a token, then, then ultimately you're going to run out of tokens or you're going to hyper inflate your token to zero.
And then, you know, the party stops, the music stops, but if you can build something that's sustainable and can actually bring in revenue to, to justify its own existence.
So now if you use a token as a means to decentralize the operation and decision-making to, to use as an, a user acquisition tool to, to significantly broaden the, the user base.
And you can use it as a, um, alignment tool that the various different players, whether it's directional traders, whether it's market neutral traders, whether it's liquidity providers, so you can align all of their long-term interest.
So now you've got a token that makes sense.
And now you've got something that can actually stand the test of time that can make it through bull runs, make it through bear markets.
And I think we saw that with GMX.
You know, I think we saw that with a few other platforms that really were an inspiration from an architectural perspective for Levana.
And, and, and the goal really is, um, you know, and I, I've always, I, I view myself and I've always viewed myself as, as a toy maker.
You know, I entered into, I started programming when I was in sixth grade.
I don't know how old you are in sixth grade, but about like 11 years old on a TI-82 calculator.
You know, I, I, I, I got a book of TI basic and I just wrote like a dozen video games.
And I, you know, I've basically been making video games as a hobbyist and, uh, my entire life.
And, and what I love about, um, about games is that games essentially trick people into, into forming habits.
You know, anybody that's been on Duolingo, um, you know, and I've been using Duolingo to learn Mandarin for the past 103 days.
And my, you know, and I, and I look at how many, I, I know like now, like about 200 words in Mandarin and I can, you know, have a few minute conversational, uh, conversation.
And like, it would have been impossible to do this without the fact that Duolingo presented itself as a game.
Um, and ultimately, you know, where the, the, the, the, the bear market is going to, um, is going to thaw and we're not gonna, uh, only be, we're right now.
The only people that's around the table that have any sense of capital, um, is, is the institutional capital and the institutional capital wants one thing.
They want, um, a risk averse, uh, ability to be able to make directional exposure, um, to various markets that they feel like they have some type of an alpha to.
And that's the product that we've designed today.
But what we're super excited about is that the next generation of crypto that's going to come to market is going to be largely retail driven, which is what the last market was, which is what really every market is because, you know, the people that come are not, you know, the JP Morgans of the world and things like that.
It's, it's, it's, you know, it's, it's the, the general population of the world.
And so now how do you get those people to interact with complex financial services?
You essentially build a Duolingo.
You build something that's going to be easy to use, that's going to feel familiar, that's going to be entertaining.
And, um, and then you use this, um, to, to, to educate and to navigate people into a more complex, more serious environment.
And I don't know exactly what that looks like, but I know that, you know, from growing up dyslexic and not knowing how to read until third grade and, you know, going through all of the, you know, the different workbooks and like afterschool programs and stuff that like, you know, made reading fun or at least tried to.
And then, um, you know, and then various language learnings, you know, learning Spanish, learning French, learning Hebrew and Arabic and, you know, various other languages, now Chinese.
Um, it all comes down to, uh, adding a form of entertainment into the, the monotonous and mundane.
And, uh, you know, and, and we don't have exact roadmap for that, but we're very confident that that is the lighthouse or that is the shining star to be successful in the long-term period.
So, can I ask you, you're talking about long-term there, just quickly, do you guys harbor, like, Kujira or Migaloo ambitions?
Are we going to see a Levana chain in the near future?
So, I don't know.
I hope not.
You know, we did the assessment.
Do you have any idea?
It costs like two million bucks to build your own chain and to run it for like a year.
And like, with all of the rewards and the dev ops and like everything, I'm like, I don't have too many bucks.
Like, the alone team doesn't have too many bucks.
So, like, I don't know how any of these guys are affording it.
Um, maybe it's why they're struggling to ship at the same rate that Levana ships.
Is that because they focus on all these, this backend and dev ops stuff?
Um, but, uh, you know, it could be that there would be a...
So, yeah, are you just going to have outposts?
Are you just going to have out, like, what's some outposts in that, are you?
Or what?
I, you know, I'm, I'm, you know, I've been talking to the TFL guys, uh, which I, you know, I have a lot of respect for Chris.
I think that he's in a, you know, he's basically taken...
Sorry, who?
Chris?
Chris, Chris who?
Chris, Chris Gucci.
Uh, yeah, how do you say his last name?
Chris Gucci.
Chris Gucci.
Um, so he...
Dude, I'm rugging.
Sorry, bro, I'm rugging.
His name's Chris Armani.
I know, but we call him Chris Gucci over here.
We call him Chris Gucci over here for the culture.
Just for the culture, bro.
So, I mean, I'll take it.
I'll take it.
So, Chris has probably the hardest job in all of crypto today.
Because he has to, like, literally, you know, everybody else kind of, like, fell down into the gutter.
He, like, fell down, like, 10 stories under the gutter and has to, like, pull stuff out.
So, um, I think he's done an amazing job.
And part of the resources and utility that he's created is mechanisms to make it easier for projects like Levana to eventually launch their own chain.
Now, I don't want to get ahead of ourselves that, uh, um, that, uh, you know, we would, like, you know, we have no plans to launch our own chain.
Um, and, um, what we, you know, but, but, but I think that as the difficulty and cost of launching your own chain, um, decreases.
So then the benefits of having your own stack increases.
And so we always just kind of leave that as like a, uh, you know, as like a dot, dot, dot.
But in the meantime, the outpost, uh, uh, methodology, which is let's not ask the liquidity to come to us.
Let's just go to where the liquidity is.
And we all saw the uphill battle that Kajira, you know, amazingly successfully fought, you know, to achieve.
Like, I think they just passed over a hundred million dollars in liquidity.
I saw that.
Um, but, uh, but whatever the, uh, the, the, the monumental success is, it's like, it is a, a huge risk and a huge challenge to try and just start out as your own chain and to build up your own liquidity and, you know, and to manage all of the DevOps and things like that.
So, so that's not really where, where we want to be focused at right now.
We're very happy to be partnered with, uh, osmosis, which results in, you know, 99% of all of our, actually it's like 95%.
I think 5% comes from injective and, you know, 0% comes from say, um, and, uh, and, and we're very happy to, you know, to, to be a, a member of the osmosis family.
And, um, and, and, and, and I think that as osmosis grows, we, we will grow with them as well.
So, dude, we're coming up our perfect time and, uh, I will go to Bruce if he's got any, like, questions on the Lovana front because I want to speak to you on a personal basis about where you are right now.
Bruce, have you got, uh, anything, uh, for Jonathan?
Are you just sitting, chilling?
Are you, uh, cutting down trees again?
Nah, I'm, I'm back in the city.
I'm just sitting and chilling, but I got some questions just so, I don't know.
He can talk forever, man.
He can just go deeper and deeper.
But remember what, remember what Karen, remember what Karen and HR is like, you know, she'll be up soon, won't she?
Karen in, uh, Portland?
Yeah, I know.
She'll be up, I know, she'll be up soon, so be careful.
Well, you know what we've been told, the gigalong interviews we're getting so much trouble for.
But go on, Bruce, shoot, go on, shoot, because I'm going to ask him about some personal stuff in a minute.
Okay, I just want to talk, a touch on the risk modeling just a bit, if you don't mind, Jonathan.
No, for sure.
I didn't expect that, sorry.
No, no problem.
So, I'll give you the high level.
I just noticed my phone is at 7%, so I need to run back to the car and get a power charger.
You're just like Robo, man.
Yeah, right?
And so, uh, so what we do is that, um, so we have a completely different model than every other perps.
And that's because we, we watch and analyze as every other perps collapsed at one point in their life.
You know, whether it's injective or perpetual protocol or, uh, future, um, you know, future finance or, you know, uh, mango market, drift, you know, they all end up with insolvency.
And insolvency is pretty simple to achieve when you have leverage because what are you doing at the end of the day?
Is that you are, um, you know, you have, uh, a, um, you know, you've got, like, let's say that, that Bitcoin costs, you know, I'll make the numbers simple.
Let's say Bitcoin costs, you know, $10,000.
Um, so somebody puts in $10,000, you know, to collateralize one Bitcoin and then they go, um, 10X leverage on it.
You know, so they'll be paying some fees and now Bitcoin runs from $10,000 to, you know, $50,000 or $100,000.
So the, the system needs somebody to, to, to, to, to pay the profits when that, uh, that, that long trader closes their position.
And, um, and that usually comes from a funding rate that inspires people to take the counter trade.
So when Bitcoin goes on a run like this, nobody in their right mind is taking that, that counter side.
And then, so now you need to have, um, liquidity providers, uh, that, that, uh, are putting into an insurance pool or a risk fund on the counter side.
And, um, and the thing is that they can see the open interest, how it becomes imbalanced.
So they can, uh, remove their position.
And so when push comes to shove, you end up with insolvency.
And we saw this over and over again in the centralized services, like, um, you know, like, uh, like, uh, uh, like the rear capital.
Um, we saw it with, uh, like, you know, Voyager and, uh, BlockFi became insolvent.
Um, and we've seen it with plenty of DeFi protocols.
So Levana wanted to invent something that was called the well-funded model.
So the first thing that we did is we separated every market, every market.
We have 20 markets today.
Every market is completely separated.
So one market completely die and it will never be able to draw upon capital from LPs or from traders from another market.
Because they're just technically from the smart contract perspective, completely different, uh, you know, like separate products.
Um, second thing is we've got no centralized risk funds.
Every time that a position is open, the position must be opened with a max gain.
So that max gain is the total amount of capital that the protocol could ever be in debt to this position in the best case scenario, whether it's long or short.
And, um, and, um, and so by forcing every position to open with a max gain, so then we know exactly how much to allocate from the liquidity pool from that position.
So the, and, and, and when the, that, when the market, uh, kind of maxes out, because there's no more unallocated capital within the liquidity pool.
So then nobody can open a new position.
And, you know, we get, I actually get alerts on my phone when that happens.
And we've seen numerous times, like, especially in the atom market and the Osmo market that people are just trying to open positions, but that's it.
We're tapped out, you know, we've got, um, you know, we've got like 2 million bucks.
So we've got about $7 million in change, um, in TVL right now.
Um, and so when, you know, the market becomes like incredibly bullish or incredibly bearish, you know, in many cases, the, the LPs, the liquidity pools will just get tapped out.
And so then no new positions can be open.
Um, so it's, um, it's a different model and it's a much more conservative model than many other, um, perpetual swap systems, but it's designed for the bull run.
It's designed for Bitcoin to run to a million and we will survive to hit that million dollar mark.
And that's what our goal is.
Awesome, man.
That's a very, very good answer.
That also brings me into my next question.
So, oh, you've really prepared, haven't you?
Well, I always, bro, bro, I always prepared.
I just choose when I want to, when I contribute, contribute, that's the difference.
Anyway, Jonathan, so if we hit like an extreme situation with Levada, right?
The conditions are extreme.
Do we have like some mechanism implemented, oh, sorry, implemented for emergency shutdown or holding?
Sorry, can you hear me now?
Yeah, yeah, yeah.
It's on me.
Um, so yes.
So the short answer is yes, but I think not for the reason like what you described.
Um, there is an emergency shutdown, but it's not necessarily because of extreme market conditions.
Um, it's, if there's detection of, uh, it's primarily about the, uh, two things.
One is if, uh, if we want to, um, if we want to eject the market, meaning like, uh, let's say, um, you know, that there's, let's say that we decided to shut down, uh, the same markets.
Um, you know, we've been on say for, um, I don't know, a couple months now.
And, uh, right now there's like, maybe like, I don't know, half a dozen users there.
Um, but there's still capital.
Wait, when you said we, when you said we, what is we, is that a multi-sig?
What's, what's the we in that?
That's a multi-sig between, um, between investors of Levada, devs of Levada and core and members of the safe foundation.
Um, so that's, you know, so, so the, yeah, so Levada tries, I mean, Levada has succeeded, but Levada's goal is to be the minority signer on any of, uh, any of the markets.
You know, so, so it should require, uh, outsiders primarily, like, for example, we've got, uh, Johnny from, who's, uh, who's one of the, you know, the core team members of Osmosis is on the, um, is one of the signers, uh, uh,
on, um, the Osmosis, uh, chain, um, Achilles is one of the signers on the, uh, injective chain.
I forget who is the signer of the state chain.
I'd have to look that up.
Um, but, you know, that, that's kind of what the goal is.
And we've got a, a, a three of five multi-sig, um, with, uh, two of the members being devs on the, uh, the Levada side.
Um, and, um, and so, you know, if, uh, if a market suspects that there's spot price manipulation and spot price manipulation kind of looks like this.
Like, imagine that the, um, that the order books become so thin in the spot price that it only costs, you know, $10,000 to move the price 2%.
So if you take a, uh, you know, if you take a 10 X position on that, so then that means that you can go leverage short 10 X, you can just dump $10,000.
And then you go to that, that drops the price 2%.
And then now you benefited 20% on your leverage position.
So you really only needed, you know, the breakeven price was $2,000 on Levada, $10,000 on Binance.
And then now you just broke even.
And, and if you put more than $2,000 on Levada, then you could profit.
And so you're, it's essentially, um, organizing a precognition attack.
So we've got, uh, a bunch of, uh, of things to detect market manipulation like that.
Um, which is not like, it's not, it's not even unfair.
It's not, it's not hacking the system.
It's just, this is some of the danger of, of leverage with low market cap positions.
And, um, and so the emergency shutoff mechanisms are really designed, um, primarily to be able to protect, um, the, you know, legitimate market participants from aggressive whales that are manipulating the market price.
Um, and, and what we don't need or what we hope that we don't need is what other perps have with their emergency, uh, stop mechanisms, which are, um, where, if there's bank runs, you know, if everybody on DYDX, um, like, let's say that let's, let's, and DYDX is, uh, you know, an extreme example because they're very large.
Um, but let's imagine you had baby DYDX, baby DYDX Jr.
And they, they didn't have, you know, um, the, like all the massive investors and stuff like behind them and like all the hundreds of millions of dollars that they earned in the last bull run.
Um, but, uh, you know, the same, the same mechanism from just purely math perspective.
So imagine that the system went, um, like Bitcoin went on a run from 30 pay to 60 K and then everybody that was long, just close their position in profits.
So now the system doesn't have shorts against it.
Um, so they could just lock the market, eject everybody.
And then kind of, it was like first come first serve.
Like if you got your profits, you got your profit.
If you didn't get your profit, you didn't get your profit.
Now I'm really oversimplifying things.
And I'm like playing out the worst case scenario because we're talking about risk.
So it's not really exactly like what I described, but, um, you know, the, I'm trying to illustrate a point, which is that when you don't focus on insolvency and rather you focus on a bandaid of like, let's just have money on the side to bail out people in case the winners win too much.
Um, then you end up in these situations where you kind of need emergency shutoffs so that you can prevent people from winning too much.
Um, and you know, so that your system doesn't collapse.
Awesome, man.
Awesome.
So I got like five more points, but I think I'm going to cut it short and maybe just go to the regular, regular risk.
Oh, Dr. Bruce.
Okay.
Bruce.
Yeah.
Just cut to the chase.
Regular.
Right.
So talking about risk modeling regarding regulatory risks, and we have like a, it's crazy times in the regulatory world regarding crypto at the moment.
So what thoughts have Levana made in this context?
There's, there's, there's, there's a lot of jurisdictions, which recognize the self sovereignty and freedom of their citizens, and they allow for their citizens to be able to, you know, take, you know, exposure on digital assets as they see fit.
Now, unfortunately, America is not one of those places, and also unfortunately is that America takes on the view that its responsibility is kind of to be the police of the whole world.
So you could be sitting in Taiwan and, you know, running some type of financial service, and you can have nothing to do with Americans.
But at the same time, America might feel that you, that you pose some type of risk to them, and so they will literally destroy your life.
You know, they will make sure that you can never get a credit card, that you can never open a bank account, that you can't travel, that your visas are declined when you try and get from one place to another place.
And that, you know, that, you know, that they can make sure that you are constantly just being inundated with, with, you know, legal bills, which, you know, are in the hundreds of thousands, you know, to millions of dollars.
And, and they will, you know, and, and again, it's like, you're guilty until proven innocent.
So America is, is in, like, is a, a bastion of discrimination and, and, you know, and, and, and I would even go so far as to say it's corruption when it comes to DeFi and crypto today.
So if you are a, a proponent of freedom and of, you know, human decency, I don't, I would definitely make sure that you, you know, that you express, that you vocalize your displeasure with the current, you know, regulatory environment within America, which is essentially they make no rules.
They make no boundaries, they make no recommendations, and then they just essentially with no trial come and destroy projects through destroying developers that are building them on a personal level, financially and ethically.
And then they come after the projects themselves by getting them locked into impossible to, you know, to clarify legal issues.
So we saw this with Libby, we saw this with, we saw this with Opine more recently.
And, you know, there's, you know, there's, you know, it's a, it doesn't make a lot of the headlines, but I get to talk to other, you know, developers within the space, and there are hundreds of developers that have seen their personal lives decimated in the last 18 months, because of, you know, Gary Gensler, and, and his policies.
So, um, how this impacts LaVonna, um, LaVonna does everything in her power to prevent Americans from using the platform.
So this means, you know, we, um, you know, we geofence, um, we, uh, you know, we don't give support to Americans.
Um, we make sure to try and block VPNs, you know, and it's a constant cat and mouse game, you know, people try and find ways to circumvent the, the blockage.
And so we have to constantly find ways to, to, to circumvent their circumventation.
Um, and it's really awful and it's really unethical, but it is, uh, you know, it's, uh, you know, you kind of like wake up every morning and you look at your children, you know, and you make them breakfast and you take them to school and you ask yourself, like, am I going to be sitting in a jail cell, you know, when, you know, and, and miss your wedding because I wanted to create open finance.
And, um, and, um, and that's kind of the situation where we're in today.
That took a turn, huh?
Almost went straight into cartel videos there, Jonathan.
I mean, it's, it sucks.
It really sucks.
I really, I really hope that, uh, that, that the, you know, that the, the country that prided itself on individual freedom, um, you know, returns to its roots.
And, um, you know, and, and, and recognizes that the most important technical revolution that's happening is not something to fight, but rather something to embrace.
And I think that only happens from, you know, Americans coming and talking and like writing to their governor and senator.
Well, I'm going to try and stay out of that conversation, but I, I, I'm not, I'm not disagreeing with you at all.
But, uh, for other reasons, I just want to, just want to go to the last questions.
Um, I have so many questions, Robo, you have no idea.
You should see my list, but I, I'm going to try to keep it short for Karen.
I also know you want to do some personal talk, but when you, when you talked about circumventing the circumvention, like how about the risk management or risk modeling regarding educational resource?
Because it's, I think as a perp market, it's pretty hard to onboard new users, right?
You kind of want to get existing users to use your platform.
Yeah.
Look, I mean, we've got, uh, you know, we have, like I said before, we have, uh, 5,000 people in change that have used the protocol.
In the last four months, um, we have about 200 to 250 that are using it on a daily basis.
Um, and, uh, about maybe 700 or so that are using it on a weekly basis.
And so, and, and if you look, actually, if you go to trade.levana.finance forward slash stats, um, or if you just go to trade.levana.finance
and then you click the stats button, um, you'll be able to see, um, uh, you'll, you'll see there's a flip side dashboard there.
And if you look at the flip side dashboard and you go to users, you'll be able to see the retention and the retention.
And I've been, I've been a product builder, um, since 2000 and really like 2002.
So like 21 years, like my entire professional life has been building consumer products.
And I built products that, you know, like in total have probably passed, you know, 20, 30 million people.
And I have never seen a product with the retention, like what LaVonna has, you know, you, and, and you can, and it's all on chain.
And, um, and the funny thing is, is that if you look at some of the wash trading competitors, and I don't want to punch down on anybody.
Because everybody's struggling and this bear market has been awful for everybody.
So I totally get why people, um, incentivize wash trading, but it's, it's so transparent.
When you look at how frequent it's like, once we get a trader to come and make two trades on LaVonna, that's it.
I know that we have a new long-term customer, so to speak.
So I agree with you completely.
It's, it's absolutely critical to be able to better, to, to focus on the existing users and to educate them.
And, uh, you know, to, to, to, um, teach them about all of the subtleties because LaVonna is really designed to be the simplest purpose platform that you've ever used.
But while at the same time, the most robust purpose platform that you've ever used.
And we do that because we, um, we layer it like an onion, where the outer layer of the user interface is very simple.
Just, you know, Hey, go 10 X on Bitcoin and just deposit a couple of, you know, just deposit like a thousand bucks of Bitcoin.
And, you know, tell us when you want to close the position and profit, tell us when you want to close it in, in loss and then press go.
And we'll take care of it from there.
Um, so, so, and then when you get more complicated, now you get into the liquidity pools and you get into the funding rates and you get into all of like the little complex stuff that's going on underneath it.
Um, but, uh, you know, at the end of the day, all we need to do to get you as a dedicated customer is to get that second trade.
Um, and so all of our, our user interface improvements are, are designed around that fact.
And, and it really sucks having to cut off different markets and especially to cut off the American market, which represents like 90% of the opportunity.
Um, so it's like, we're, we're, we're playing with like two hands behind, tied behind our back.
Um, but we care about our children, so we do it and, uh, and, and we try and balance that, you know, we try and have a focus on the Korean market, on the Chinese market, on the Japanese markets, on the Taiwanese and, or not the, you know, just general Asians to Taiwan and, uh, and Hong Kong.
Um, and, uh, and then also like Vietnamese and Indonesian, um, and those become like the biggest markets that we can appeal to because ironically, those are the ones that have the most amount of financial freedom.
Um, and, and, and we just focus on retention and education for them.
Awesome.
Thank you, man.
Robo, Robo, did you notice every time he mentioned that second trade, he went from sounding like a giga-ed chat to like,
kind of drug dealer-ish type, right?
Just want to get that second trade from the customers.
I like it.
I like it, man.
It's the urgency.
No, I, and I totally agree with you there is that the first trade is usually a small trade.
It's like I put in 10 bucks.
I went, you know, 20 X long.
And I, you know, because what is it?
Is that what's the itch?
You know, is that I come on and I'm like, oh man.
You know, Solana is on a tear.
This thing is going to fly.
Um, wait, I heard that I can get leverage exposure on Levana because what is leverage exposure?
Leverage is when I'm not limited by my liquid capital.
Rather, I'm only limited by my conviction.
You know, with spot, if I've got a hundred bucks, I can only go a hundred bucks long,
Solana.
But if I've got leverage, then my hundred bucks could be $3,000 worth of Solana.
And that is, you know, juicy and interesting.
Now, the risk is astronomical.
The risk, you know, will make people that are not degen, it'll make their stomach sick.
But if you've got that level of tolerance, then you come and you look at this and you're
like, I've got strong conviction that the market's going to move in my favor.
So let me throw 10 bucks down and I'll take a $300 bet.
And then I closed that $300 bet in profit.
I just doubled my money in like an hour.
And I'm like, wow, this is real.
So now I come back and I put 200 bucks down and I leverage that to 10x.
Now I've got $2,000 on this thing.
And I closed that in profits.
When that happens, that's it.
You're a dragon rival.
I think most of the guys or most of us in this room can recognize the feeling you're
talking about.
It's always like spot is like a cigarette, right?
5x leverage, that's like a joint.
10x leverage, that's like a bong, right?
And 50x leverage, that's like a syringe straight in your arm.
And everything is all right.
Everything is all right.
Well, it's all right.
It's all all right until the shit hits the fan.
You know, there's got to be proper, you know, risk management.
And that's also, that was a big part of building the platform is that, you know, the thing with
is that we don't want to build junkies, you know, like I'm up to, I'm with you up to the
bump, you know, once it comes like shooting things in the arms, then I'm like, I don't
know, that was never my part of the party, you know.
I don't know if that's oversharing.
I hope my kids aren't listening to this.
But the thing is, is that we want people to take stop losses.
And, you know, to, and one of the things that we did, which was very clear on Lovato, which
not a lot of platforms do, is that when you open a position, you can see your, you know,
your estimated wins and losses from the platform, you know, before you even open the trade.
So you can say like, okay, if I'm right, I will win $2,000.
If I'm wrong, I will lose $50.
And then you can actually say to yourself, is that a risk reward profile?
You know, I win $2,000 or I lose $50.
You know, if I'm comfortable with that, bam, I'll hit the trade.
If not, then I won't.
Maybe I'll readjust it.
Maybe I don't want to lose $50.
Maybe I'll only want to lose $25.
But this way, it's not the same as like, you know, shooting up smack.
You know, it's just like, you know, maybe it's like, you know, you know, bumping coke and
then bungee jumping, whatever it's called.
You know, it's a little bit less risky, but it's still fun.
Gotcha, man.
My granddaddy always said that there's no pockets in a funeral shirt.
I hear that.
I hear that.
But I do want, you know, the trader that survives comes to trade another day.
Absolutely, man.
Taking profits never made a man, Paul.
Never.
Yep.
And minimizing losses.
You know, never, I don't know what the corresponding, you know, idiom is, but like nobody ever felt
guilty about minimizing losses.
So, bro, you can think you minimize losses, but maybe you just exited the trade too early, right?
Sometimes.
Well, you're right.
You're right.
There's always that end of it.
Look, all I know is that, like, I bought my first Luna at, like, sub 30 cents.
Like, I think I bought my very first Luna at, like, 18 cents.
Like, I don't even remember now.
But it was, like, somewhere in the ballpark there.
Um, and then, you know, I, uh, and, like, some of that, that bag, like, I, I definitely
sold a bunch of, like, six, or I sold a bunch of, like, 30 and 50, and then, like, you know,
I bought back in at six, and, like, it was a wild ride.
Like, Luna was crazy.
And especially because of the, um, philosophy behind Luna.
Like, we were, I was, like, so, I drank the Kool-Aid so hard.
And that was also another thing that I learned, is that, like, you can't drink the Kool-Aid,
you know?
Um, and, uh, and so the idea there, like, that, that, uh, we should just, um, ride this thing,
you know, from, like, 18 cents.
Um, to where I, my children home, grandchildren homes, to, I'm so poor that I don't have enough
money to pay rent next month.
That's not really rent.
It's mortgage.
But, but, you know, it's, it's more expensive than rent.
Um, and so it's, like, that's a, that's a wild ride from a personal perspective.
And I would not wish that on anyone.
So, like, just from that, um, I think it's important to emphasize, uh, risk-adjusted
strategies.
Gotcha.
Gotcha, man.
I was talking, before the crash, I was talking with a young kid, 19 years old, and he was
doing all the right things, right?
He was taking profits, taking profits out in stable coins, constantly de-risking, right?
Well, the thing that sucked with Terra was we took profits in stable coins, and it didn't
work.
Exactly.
Exactly what he did.
That was a tough, tough ride, man.
Yeah.
Yeah.
It's, uh, I, you know, I, I still, I go to therapy every Sunday for that.
It's, uh, it's not easy.
It's definitely not easy.
But, you know, we're still here.
Look, I've got friends that are not here anymore.
Um, and, uh, and I, I'm thankful every day that, uh, that I made it through it.
Yeah, that's a big, it's a big hurdle to overcome.
It's, I guess it, I, I, I wasn't affected, luckily.
But I guess it's, um, could be some, some, uh, some of a trauma to go through, man.
Yeah.
Yeah, definitely.
What kind of, uh, what kind of therapy?
Just, uh, you know, conversational, uh, it's a better place, uh, uh, or no, it's
sorry, uh, better, I'll tell you the app, uh, better help.
So it's an app on the iPhone.
You can, uh, you can book, uh, therapists, um, you know, and it's, it's very anonymous,
um, which I'm very, you know, I prefer.
Um, and, uh, you can kind of jump around and find somebody that, that you really connect
with.
I think it's good.
I think it's a, I think it's very helpful for anybody in this industry that's kind of
gone through very high highs and very low lows to find somebody that they can talk to.
Oh, absolutely, man.
Not even just any, any human being.
So the reason why I asked is because both my parents are therapists and I grew up in the
environment, so to say.
So I was just wondering if, what kind of specific therapy it is, if it's cognitive or if it's
IFS or ACT or.
I think it counts as cognitive.
Um, you know, it's, uh, it is, it's, I think it's poorly defined, uh, on purpose because it's
modular based on the needs of the individual.
But, um, you know, it's, uh, I mean, it's, you know, it's, it's mostly like the, you know,
I feel like from a meme perspective, it's like, uh, um, uh, like, uh, on the couch kind
of just, you know, chat about, um, highs and lows.
And, you know, what I, one of the things that I've learned from myself is that, um, watching
the market go up, um, is just as painful as watching it go down.
You know, it's like, it's, uh, I've heard this, I'm a chess player and I've heard this
from other chess players is that, um, that losing a chess game is more painful than winning.
And so then therefore they're disincentivized from playing.
And I, I see that after, after kind of like working on recovery from the crash of the last
market, um, is that, you know, missing a run can mess with my head more than nailing it.
And so it, it just makes it challenging to be an active participant, active, like a member
of the market.
Completely, man.
Completely.
I play chess myself.
I'm not a very high player, but when I'm on a losing streak, I'm, uh, I'm going to take
breaks from playing.
Yeah.
No, no, no.
I've, I've, I've definitely lost like 500 points of like elo just from like, like one
after another losing point and losing breaks.
Well, this has been a cozy space, hasn't it, Bruce?
Been enjoying yourself there?
But in general, I mean, look, we're at 35 K.
Roughly, you know, wait, now I'm looking at you at 36.6 K.
There you go.
Like the, the market is hot.
Um, we've got the, you know, Jonathan, what did you think of the rejection?
Uh, Jonathan, what did you think of the rejection?
Um, we've got, what did you, dude, what did you think of the 38 K rejection way, which
means more rational, um, you know, governance from the American perspective.
Um, we've got, um, you know, um, like, uh, we've got everything that's being deployed
within like the Kajira ecosystem.
And I'm a, I'm a heavy holder of Kajira.
Um, we've got, uh, you know, all the bullishness that's happening within osmosis.
We've got, um, real serious conversations that are happening on, uh, you know, cosmos hub
in order to improve the general, uh, atom ecosystem.
And then on a micro level, like Levana just hit half a billion dollars of trading volume.
Um, you know, we went from two months ago, $2 million of daily trading volume to today.
We're averaging $10 million of trading, uh, trading volume.
That's five X in four weeks.
I mean, there's so many bullish signals that dude, dude, be honest though.
Wait a minute, Jonathan.
Did you not think that was a savage rejection of 38 care that like loads of people were warning
about?
Like that was pretty brutal rejection.
No, do you think we'll break 38 care this year?
I don't think we'll break 38 care this year.
No, I don't.
I'd be very surprised if we did.
Well, leading into the Bitcoin, uh, having, I think that if you don't think that we're going
to hit, I said this year, I said this year, I don't think we'll break 38 care this year.
Now.
I mean, it's getting too close to Christmas people.
You know what it's like?
No, no, nothing.
Yeah, absolutely.
There's no, I don't think we're going to break 38 care at this calendar year.
Sorry.
Um, we speak a slightly different version of English.
Um, but yeah, the, but before December 31st, I don't think 38 K is possible, but, but who
knows?
But I think, uh, it depends on, you know, did we have Thanksgiving yet?
Did Thanksgiving happen?
When is Thanksgiving?
No, mate.
I don't, I don't think it's happened yet.
No, no.
I think it might be, uh, is it the third Sunday or something?
I think it's the last Sunday.
What month are we in?
We're in November, right?
Yeah.
Yeah.
It's definitely Thanksgiving, but it's later in the month.
Jonathan, Jonathan, you're on earth.
This is a reg FM space and we're doing an interview.
It's November.
Everything is all right.
Well, thank you.
Um, so I think that, that, uh, Thanksgiving is a time, uh, historically where people get
to talk about crypto because they sit down with their family for hours and there's, uh,
like a preaching session that can happen.
So it can go very bad and it can also go very good.
So I think that depending on how Thanksgiving goes this year, that will determine whether
or not we break 38 K.
Well, I'll tell you what, it's been a blind and weird, it's been an absolutely blind and
space.
Honestly, Jonathan, you've been a fucking great guest, by the way.
I have to say this, dude, I've got to ask you a question.
Like, uh, am I right in thinking where are you in the world right now?
I'm in Jerusalem.
So we're in the middle, I'm in the middle of a war zone.
I thought so.
Yeah.
Yeah.
I mean, I didn't want to presume that you were like, say still there or whatever, because
I've never heard from you for a couple of weeks.
So is, I mean, is everything going all right?
Is it obviously daily life, serious like adjustments being made to daily life or how
was that working out for you?
Are you okay or what?
So I'm Jewish and I live in a very mixed community with a lot of Palestinians and, uh, a lot of,
uh, and a lot of my friends are Palestinians and, um, you know, it's a very painful time
period.
And we really, uh, I think everybody that, that is coming from like a very composed secular
perspective is really hoping for, um, a speedy, uh, resolution to be able to create an opportunity
for peace.
And so we're, I think we're just in general, hopeful, hopeful for that.
Fair play brother.
That was well said.
Actually, that, that was well, well said and actually a great note to end it on.
Jonathan, is there anything as like a closing statement or anything you'd like to say like
about either yourself or the team or what, like, you know what I mean?
About like how bullish you, I mean, I know you've said a lot tonight.
It's been fantastic.
Like any clinical kind of like conclusion that you've never said like tonight, go on, round
us out with something decent.
I would just, you know, I mean, I'm just going to end on a, on a complete, like shameless
show.
Like if you've, if you've made it like what we've been talking for like an hour and 40
minutes, like what the heck are you doing here?
Like, if you're still listening to this and you haven't tried Levana, please just go to
trade.levana.finance.
And just like put like 10 bucks in, like we've designed the product for you.
We've designed it to be a super simple product where you can express your exposure to the
market according to your will, not according to what, you know, a government says, not
according to what your capital says, but like, according to your desire.
So just play with it and give us feedback.
And, and the, you know, if you come onto the Levana discord and you say like, Hey, I've
got some feedback, how you can make it better.
I promise you, we will get on a phone call with you.
We will write down notes and we will improve the product based on your feedback because
everything that we have to date, all of our success has been based on the, the, the negative
and constructive feedback that people have given us.
So please be vocal, but you got to give us a chance.
That could be a great tagline that couldn't it play with it and give us feedback.
That was a classic tagline that one.
I like it.
Brucey, anything you want to say before we say a good night and God bless you, man.
I just want to say thank you for Jonathan for being such a chat, man.
Really, really informative and precise and well articulated answers, man.
Really enjoyable.
Really enjoyable.
Well, thank you.
I, you know, I, I, I don't know about Chad, you know, Chad is what I aspire to be, but
hopefully I'll get there.
But in the meantime, I'm happy to just be a bro and, you know, and to just keep iterating.
Good man.
Good man.
So people, this has been another episode of Rack FM.
Uh, obviously the, uh, morning, U.S. morning, uh, crypto breakfast show, but, uh, we've thoroughly,
thoroughly enjoyed your man's company tonight.
And all I'm going to say is, you know, good night and God bless.
Remember that you can go, I'm sorry about the noise right at the end here, but nevermind.
Needs must.
I am going to say that you can go and find, uh, all about Finn's music over at imaginethesmell.org.
You can visit RackFM.org.
You can find, uh, RackFM on Spotify.
We're pretty much all over the place.
But yeah, Amir, we're, Amir, I mean, Bruce might be, Bruce, do you want to jump on this
account and throw up one recorded after?
Till I get home?
Yeah, sure.
I think I'm going to go out and get some food, man.
Have some cigarettes.
But we'll get people.
We'll get people in.
We'll get people in, yeah.
Amir, yeah, we'll get, uh, we'll do it.
We'll spin up another one in a minute.
We're going to close this one out.
But yeah, just from the RackFM team, uh, Jonathan, you've been absolutely great.
And we wish you all the best for the future, bro, yeah?
Well, thank you.
I appreciate it.
This was definitely fun.
This was probably one of the, uh, best spaces that I can remember being on, at least in
the last six months.
And my memory doesn't really, uh, span beyond that.
So, thank you so much.
And, uh, again, happy to talk to anybody, anytime.
Are you, Gucci, bro?
We'll definitely have you back on sometime in the near future.
And drop in anytime you want.
Anyway, we're told Sentinel Days down there.
We've, we've, we've told everybody, man, just drop in.
We are the public square.
And that's why if we deem ourselves to be the public square and we were, we'd be stupid
not to get Levana Protocol on.
But yeah, from the RackFM team, we just wish all the best for the future.
And I'll see everybody down there.
Shout out, Tank, Sentinel, Mr. Fox, IBC, Mafia, Dizzle.
So he was there.
He's just jumped Porriburu.
I see Maria's in here.
Hey, lovely to see you here.
Come again.
Yeah, Snails.
All the gym, everybody.
All of yous.
Take care.
Good night and God bless from the RackFM team.
And remember, the perps are in the pudding.
The perps are in the pudding.
Bye-bye, everyone.
Bye.
Bye-bye.
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Bye-bye.
Bye-bye.
Bye-bye.
Bye-bye.
Bye-bye.
Bye-bye.
