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The Future Of Finance: Stablecoins, DeFi & more
Recorded: July 8, 2025 Duration: 0:57:24Space Recording
Short Summary
The crypto conversation highlights significant trends in the industry, including the rise of stablecoins, the integration of DeFi with traditional finance, and the potential for mass adoption as infrastructure improves. With innovative projects like Infinify and Affi Network leading the charge, the future of finance appears poised for growth and transformation.
Full Transcription
Thank you. A little out of center, but I'm out of tune
Just kicking this girl on the avenue
But I won't hide it
But it's easy, once you know how it's done
You can't stop and now it's already begun
You feel it, running through your bones.
And you jerk it out.
And you jerk it out.
Shut up.
Push your mouth.
Can't you hear you talk too loud?
No, I can't hear nothing because I got my head up in the light.
I'm fired up at everything that I can do.
I'm chasing cars up and down the avenue.
But that's okay.
It's easy once you know I'm done.
You can't stop now, it's already begun You feel it, but you feel you fall
Jerk it out so
Oh, my God. And jerk it out. Oh, baby, don't you know you really gotta check it out.
Oh, baby, don't you know you really gotta check it out.
Oh, baby, don't you know you really gotta check it out.
Oh, baby, don't you know you really gotta check it out.
Oh, baby, don't you know you really gotta check it out.
Oh, baby, don't you know you really gotta check it out. Oh, baby, everybody.
Welcome back to another banger show with T-Rise,
$2 billion institutional RWA onboarding in a $16 trillion market by 2030. ML AI risk analytics builders on
base. Today, we're talking about the future of finance. We're talking stable coins, we're talking
DeFi, and we're talking more about the stuff that is popping off in the crypto space right now.
We've got some incredible guest speakers who've hopped up on stage to have this discussion with us today. And always, we've got Eduardo with us in the co-host spot. We are
literally in the future, and I'm driving it even further as a co-founder and CTO of T-Rise. Eduardo,
before we go any further, I would love to bring you in here, throwing the mic over to you.
in here, throwing the mic over to you. How's it going? You excited for the show today?
How's it going? You excited for the show today?
Hey, Jack. Good afternoon. Good morning or good night, everyone, whenever you are listening to
this. Good to have you back in the house, Jack. I heard you had a bit of a situation,
but I hope it's resolved. And yeah, as usual, I'm excited to be here and talk about the future of finance, right? Stablecoins, DeFi and much more.
But look, great, great start to the show and really, really fun show to hop back into.
And as mentioned, incredible guest speakers that we can jump into it with.
I'm going to give us an announcement for all those great speakers right now.
Listeners, whilst I do that, if you're excited for the show today, you like this sort of
conversation, a like, a retweet or any way you could show support would be hugely appreciated
as we try and get these brand new shows off the ground and get as many people in here
who should be in here who are excited about these conversations too. And we have Infinify with
us today, the first on-chain fractional reserve system, better than banks, Discord link in the
bio. We've got Affi Network with us today, helping web-free teams launch enabled token-based loyalty
programs in minutes, backed by IBC Ventures and more. We've got Hedgehog
Protocol with us today. And look, kudos on the name, Hedgehog. I absolutely love that one.
In with volatility trade and hedge on chain expenses with modular synthetic block space
launching on Sonic Labs. We've also got Greed Academy with with us today welcome to all of our projects today i'm a big
fan of the names i'm not gonna lie the marketing team whoever came up with this like ggs but greed
academy welcome to the greed academy learn stake and in and look really really fun conversation
as mentioned eduardo do you want to come back in here before the speakers do come in and just give
me your take on where you think the future
of finance might be stable coins defy and more crypto feels like it's primed feels like a
tumultuous time in the space but maybe to the upside would love to know what your thoughts are
yeah stuff is moving in the in the realm of stable coins and that can only be good because
let's face it people people want to
be paid in in in the fiat currencies that they already use and not in volatile coins and apart
from that i think the future is also with defy because again defy is supposed to be permissions
i think it makes complete sense if there are tokenized uh stuff
that can integrate well with d5 because that's what sets people for retirement for their financial
plans for stuff like that without depending on anyone it's what the premise of tokenization
right giving access to those that are less privileged for for example, the unbanked. And all of a sudden, the unbanked can invest in quality real estate, for example,
and they might be able to integrate it with DeFi protocols and earn extra yield
or have even more opportunities and more access to stuff.
So it makes complete sense to mix them together.
And for the future, my vision is still the same since a long time.
It's simplicity.
I think the future is within the reach of our fingertips.
And that's how it's supposed to be.
Yeah, look, obviously, tons and tons of news across the world right now.
Crypto also to the upside.
BTC, you know, floating around the 110 mark now as opposed to,
well, 108, but you know, I'm rounding up here, people don't be checking the charts instantaneously.
But you know, basically it seems to be circulating that new all time high, but it's also stuck there,
right? It's stuck within that sphere instead of running back down below 100. And obviously we've
got the US, we've got a ton of stuff going on there in terms of the regulatory side. We've got maybe new projects or even businesses outside of crypto getting tax
incentives to actually launch with crypto rails. We've got stable coins getting the green light.
We've got the big, beautiful bill, which means the money printers might come back on. And we've
got a very pro-crypto stance within the US government right now, much, much different
than even a year or two beforehand. So tons and tons to talk about today. As mentioned,
incredible guest speakers to do that with. For our guest speakers, if you've not been on a show
with myself, Eduardo, or the TY's team before, quick TLDR about how we try and run these,
and then we'll just jump straight in. Basically just going for organic conversation today, which hopefully sounds exactly as it sounds, which is if you want the mic,
you got the mic. Just one thing for me is I am not seeing any facial cues. Obviously this is a
spaces, a bunch of PFPs, some dope logos, but that's about it. So if you do want to come in
on the mic, then there is a heart plus function you should see at the bottom right hand corner
of your screen. There is a hand raise function far right to that. If you get
the hand in the air, we'll get the mic straight over to you. Really is that simple. If that isn't
incentive enough, we do also have jack points. Now, jack points are the most worthless point
system in the entire crypto space, maybe even the world. But you do get jack points every time you
raise your hand in the air. At the end of of the show we'll put all those points together and we'll see what speaker comes out on top to
win absolutely nothing because as i've said completely worthless point system but a good
way to gamify it and a good way just to you know see the support from our speakers from our listeners
and everything in between and so that is it at this point in time i want to do exactly this
open up the mic for guest speakers on stage,
see who wants those worthless jack points. Speakers, what's your take here? Let's just
start with the question in front of us, which is the title of today's show.
Where is the future of finance? Is it stable coins? Is it DeFi? Is it the more? What's got
you really interested right now? What news around these things has got you interested?
What are you excited about? Would love to hear from you. Infinify already with the ham raise. They want
those jack points early. Love to see it. Over to you. Yep. It's good to see you, Jack. Always
a pleasure hanging out. I'm Rob, for those of you who don't know me, CEO and co-founder of Infinify.
And yeah, in my opinion, stablecoins 100% are the future. You got so many different ways to use them.
You can use them for payments.
That's what a whole lot of people are doing is they're using them to pay for, you know, real world assets.
They're using them as a store of value for their personal holdings.
The U.S. government, a bit of a known thing, is currently using them to save the dollar.
It's actually what the play is, by the way.
People were thinking BRICS was a challenge to the dollar's dominance. No, no, no. U.S. government is using stable coins to backdoor the dollar into retail's hands right into those BRICS
countries because the dollar is a better store of value than anything else out there. And as they
successfully pull it off, it's probably going to pull us out of the tailspin in the economies and allow them to turn those money purge back on,
which I for one am looking forward to. Of course, you can also use stable coins
to represent deposits in an on-chain financial system, such as what we are doing, where you can
bring your USDC, USGT, or anything else that you may have on hand to Infinify,
deposit it into our system, either as a liquid or as a duration depositor,
and get between 8% and 14% APY off of that deposit,
with your deposit being a fully fungible token that you can then go out and compose into a variety of other systems,
such as money market leverage looping. That's coming out here pretty soon.
So I absolutely think stablecoins are the future. You're looking for a place to park them? I got
you covered. Look, really, really interesting takes. And look, the idea that stablecoins are here to save the US dollar as well,
definitely something to lean further into during the show today.
We've got Hedgehog Protocol with the hand raise as well.
Great name. Will they have a great take?
Let's see. Over to you, Hedgehog.
Hey, guys. So I'm high.
I'm the BD lead here at Hedgehog Protocol.
I agree with stablecoins, but we have to remember that stablecoins,
they're backed by government coins.
They still have to have something like USDC.
They're still backed by coins that are emitted by the government.
So I'm really excited about stablecoins now,
but I don't think they're the real future of DeFi.
I think the future of DeFi isn't just about tokens or protocols.
It's kind of about infrastructure that's going to turn volatility into some kind of opportunity.
And that's kind of what we're doing here at Hedgehog.
We see block space as the raw commodity of the on-chain economy.
And we don't really see anyone doing that right now.
We're going to, kind of like AWS made compute predictable and tradable,
we're doing the same for blockchain costs.
So that means that turning things like base fees or MEV priority fees,
Bitcoin transaction fees into a financial primitive where you're going to be able to hedge, speculate on, or even build on top of.
So yeah, the first product that we're going to launch is a transaction fee market.
It's going to be live and launched on Sonic soon.
But this is just the beginning.
We're going to unlock kind of a new layer on DeFi where block space is not only going to be used,
but it's going to be traded as well.
So I'm really excited about that.
Really interesting.
And yeah, definitely not something I have seen in the space before.
So interesting to hear projects already.
Like, you know, we're essentially, we're all in crypto.
We're all building within the conversation that we're having right now. We thought leaders we have builders within this space that's why they're on the panel
but still so broad right like such a broad perspective and a broad range of products
being built out here which i absolutely love by the way um really really just just show to the
scale and and honestly just the opportunity that resides within the crypto space.
Look, we haven't heard from Afi or Greed.
I always try and prioritise all our speakers at the beginning of the show
to make sure we do get a take from everyone.
And then we will just free reign it if you guys want to come back in,
as mentioned, hands in the air.
Everyone has just done that, though, which is a big GG
because even if I throw the mic to you,
as long as that hand comes up beforehand,
you do get some of those worthless jack points. So Afi, speaking of which, mic over to you.
GM, GM, how's everyone doing? Great to be here today. My name is Pinaki,
Pinaki founder and CEO at Afi Network. Afi Network is a loyalty-based solution. We help
Web3 businesses and crypto projects reward community actions instantly.
A very simple product,
very complicated under the hood,
very easy to use,
specifically helping projects with incentives.
And yeah, prior to this,
we were running influencer services in Asia.
So we had a nano-influencer business
working with brands like Decathlon, Stabilo, Lock & Lock in Asia. So we had a nano influencer business working with brands like
Decathlon, Stabilo, Lock and Lock across Asia. And yeah, I mean, we were paying, you know,
incentives with local currencies. And it was actually a very complicated process. You know,
we had to go to the banks and stand in line. And, you know, we knew that scaling was going to be a
challenge. And so we instantly saw that, you know, crypto was actually a way to handle payments globally, right? And at the time,
we were thinking, you know, cryptocurrencies are volatile. And, you know, stablecoin is actually
the perfect way to distribute incentives, right? And it was obviously very early and now it's almost inevitable.
So people see that this is kind of like the obvious way of distributing incentives.
This is a way that people could trade or swap out of their cryptos and hold stables.
So there's so many interesting use cases, but also we can't deny the power of DeFi and how powerful DeFi is on its own.
Just simple tools like Aave, where you can actually just lend your Bitcoin and borrow USDT against it, for example,
DT against it, for example, and how that's actually structured in a decentralized manner
with tens of billions of dollars just sitting on the blockchain that's extremely powerful.
And that's why there's so many people that are coming into crypto, right?
And that's why Bitcoin is extremely powerful, because there's tons of really smart people
around the world just contributing to the growth of this space, right?
So it's very exciting to see it develop.
Very awesome to be here.
And I think everybody here is still very early.
So I'm very excited to see how this kind of develops
over the next decade as well.
Yeah, absolutely agree.
And such a fun conversation to be having right now
because it feels like a moment in the space
that a lot of us have been building
and waiting for for a long, long time.
Even if we're just traders, even if we're just participants within the space that a lot of us have been building and waiting for for a long long time even if we're
just traders even if we're just you know participants within the space it feels like
the momentum is shifting but it really isn't even a tiny tiny fraction of what this space will become
when you do zoom out far enough um which is just if not more exciting when we do have this sort of
conversation i'm really really appreciate all of the speakers on stage giving us their time today
and letting us know a little bit more about them as well greed throw the mic over to you next we'd
love to hear your thoughts on all of this hello hello again jack hope everything is going good
and thank you for having us here um yeah well well, the quick intro. I'm Daniel, the director of the GRID Academy.
We're basically a nonprofit that does education for free in the space, and we both incentivize and create education.
That's pretty much what we do.
And I have a bit of a take on DeFi and stablecoins and then this entire part of the ecosystem. And I think it's probably the only application
that has shown a true product market fit
in the longterm that can be sustainable out of everything that we have been doing
in crypto for a long time.
It's probably the first or the intended first idea
that was starting to mind,
which is peer-to-peer digital money with Bitcoin.
And it's proven once and again,
that this is the biggest pro
of the entire crypto space until now.
And I don't think there's gonna be any other
that are gonna become close
because basically it's trying to mimic or use this,
move this TradFi system into on-chain permissionless,
anybody can access it.
And I think when we're talking about all these protocols
and all these infrastructures and we're all builders
and we all know this ecosystem,
I think when I first joined crypto,
I was also of this mindset
that we're building something great and huge
and it's amazing.
And it feels a bit like a bubble.
But I realized like I can tour through years in when I was with some Venezuelan friends,
that they were talking about the struggles they were having with their money in their country
and also like neighboring countries in South America, that a lot of them were using actively
crypto to do payments, to trade value and all that stuff. That's very
basic things that we take for granted with our credit cards going to the store and just paying
and tapping and nobody cares you're paying euros, dollars, whatever it is. These guys for them, it
was like a mechanism to be able to survive and be able to, you know, live their lives. And so this
opened up like the belief that DeFi and crypto and stable coins and all these tooling makes a lot more sense
in a lot of places that we don't even imagine sometimes
or we don't even take into consideration.
So I think the future of DeFi is extremely bullish.
There's going to be a lot of stuff.
There's going to be a lot of products.
There's going to be a lot of cool stuff going on.
But at the core level, I think we're moving in the direction
where it's going to become more and more available and more and more like taken by these communities and these people that actually need it to be able to like make a living or live their lives as they want to, instead of having to be dependent on some governmental entity that's corrupt or that's some sort of, you know, not aligned with their values, basically.
Yeah, look, absolutely great take, Daniel. And honestly, great take from all our panelists
right now. I think for me, yeah, it's the irony of the crypto space, actually, right now is,
you know, it's for a long, long time. the word crypto and the word scam have been so heavily
connected but actually at its core at the technology's core is transparency and it's a
way to avoid that crime and that honestly the scams that do happen that also happen outside
of this space so look completely completely on the same here. I think when it all boils down to it, people still need to do their own research. We still need to make
sure that teams are being transparent and they are held accountable and those regulations make
sure that happens across the globe. But for the best part, the blockchain is transparent as any
infrastructure that's ever been visible in the technological evolution of this world and to give
people that opportunity to freely transact safely transact and know not only where their money is
going but how that money is operated in like these are some of the core fundamentals to all of this
so yeah great great takes really really interesting perspectives on the show eduardo your hand is
raised would love to hear your thoughts now that we've heard from all of our panelists.
Yeah, like a few minutes ago, I said that the future for tokenization has lots to do with DeFi.
And I say this because we are working with stuff from DeFi that we want to announce coming up soon.
So I can't say what it is, but this is a small peek, a small spoiler.
I know some RISE token holders have been messaging me with questions about the things that we're
launching soon. And we don't launch half-baked stuff. It goes out when it's ready.
But you see, the thing with DeFi is that
right now we have a piece of tokenized real estate
that is live right now.
It's a $23 million construction project.
So it's a new construction.
It's not an existing property.
And it was very hard to put it on the tape,
but it's live.
And if you are an American investor that is accredited, you can invest into this deal.
So you see, there are conditions.
You have to be an American investor and you have to be accredited.
So it's not as easy as DeFi as in being permissionless.
Anybody can come and just invest into this project.
But that's because of complications.
I mean, sorry, compliances.
I always confuse those two words.
I guess they're the same.
But yeah, I mean, the first deal was the hardest.
The first one is always the hardest.
Like there was so much work done behind the curtains
to be able to put this construction project on chain
to get the TVL live.
But the next ones, things are much easier.
Cool, excellent.
But we're still doing the work behind the curtains
so that we can take the offerings,
the deals that are on the T-Rise platform
in the direction of DeFi,
where it's permissionless,
and truly anybody can get access to these kinds of deals.
So that's where it goes, in my opinion,
when it comes to the future and tokenization,
RWAs versus DeFi.
DeFi is at the center of it
because it's the simplest way in terms of not having to do all these things related to regulations or compliance, you know?
No, look, absolutely. And dude, as someone who natively speaks English as a first language, I get those words confused too so yeah let's let's not be too hard
on ourselves that's a joke actually
there's just a seed that goes in there like compliance complication it's the same
love it love it dude and look I think overall you are dead right like defi is for those who already participate in it is a much more free way
to transact the biggest issue has just been the user experience right like it's it's just the fact
that you know there's a lot of crypto assets out there there's a lot of alternative assets out there
and because of that i think there's been a bit of a conflation in between these two things. It's like, oh, DeFi, it's definitely better for like financial rails for the globe.
And it's like, okay, but then when we try and get people to utilize that, the user experience
and the infrastructure is still quite hard to build on depending on what, you know, crypto
asset we're talking about here.
And even if it's not hard to build on, it's harder to build on and do it securely and
do it safely when there's so much at stake, which means that people don't necessarily see that transparently from the get go.
If you are just a retail user who is very, very used to just operating on a traditional banking network, especially in some of the more economically developed countries on this planet.
some of the more economically developed countries on this planet.
Completely agree.
Would love to keep pushing this forward now
and talk a little bit more about the macro,
talk a little bit more about where your heads are at
in terms of what is next,
what we should be paying attention to
as the premise of this show,
the future of finance.
So we've got, obviously, the big, beautiful bill,
which I almost always laugh and chuckle when i say these words
because it sounds like something a five-year-old would call a bill but it's actually what the bill
is going to be called and i think it's also going to be a bill that we look back on in history and
have to reference quite frequently which again makes me chuckle because you're going to be
telling your kids about this and they're going to be like, yeah, I get it. It's a big, beautiful bill. What's not to understand? So that is one
thing that has definitely got a lot of attention from the market right now. Would love to hear
your thoughts on that. We've also obviously got regulation and this has been brought up time and
time again, but there has never been a more clear time to operate within the crypto space,
especially when we do talk about the US.
And obviously, the assumption being that across the globe, people are going to have to follow this
because it's just going to get more competitive. And if other countries don't follow it,
then they're going to be concerned about being left behind. Would love to know, based on all
of the macro news that is going on right now, where you guys think this is going to take us
next? What should we be
paying attention to the most? What do you feel it means for in the near to midterm in terms of what
it means for the crypto space, what it means for these assets that belong here? Reminder to our
audience, this is not a financial advice show. These are builders building projects and building
businesses on crypto rails on the crypto space so not
financial advisors just people were very familiar with it because they put their whole livelihoods
and their whole businesses on top of it and but we are talking about this because we like to and
because it's our passion not because we have any financial advice to give out eduardo your hand
came up during that so i would love to get the mic back over to you here what what are the big
news items that's caught your attention and what do you feel
they mean for the future of the crypto space?
Yeah, it's funny that you asked me about the news because I'm completely out of the news.
I'm not aware. Most of my time I spend building. You said we are builders here and yeah, I'm
building. I don't check the price of Bitcoin. I don't check the price of Bitcoin.
I don't check the price of Ethereum,
the price of the RISE token.
I'm more into the tech news.
So yeah, I do, I do.
I'm aware of the new trends,
but my take on it,
I mean, I am aware that there are some bills coming out.
There's no more regulation coming out.
And my point here,
what I want to share with the listeners and with you is that it's cool.
It's cool that we're not really talking about technology anymore.
And now it's a thing about regulation.
It's about compliance.
It's about law.
So why is this cool?
Because the infrastructure is already here.
Like we have someone here that's launching stuff on Sonic.
Wow, Sonic is such an amazing
chain for DeFi. It's incredible what a great work they did in there. Like I was even bearish
at first when they decided to rebrand from Phantom to Sonic, but seeing what they did
in there, I was like, oh, whoa, I need to use this. But then it's just like you said,
Jack, like on the tech side, we just need to make the experience a bit better. Like it's still hard.
Even for me, like I had to go to a learning curve on how to use Sonic Chain and the apps that are
in there. And yeah, so I'm mostly unaware of what's happening with the macro conditions.
I'm a builder, but I know there's stuff is happening and
I think it's fascinating that
it's about law.
The tech is already there.
We're ready. We're ready for whatever comes.
Let's go. And brother, look, this is
what these shows are for, right? Like, you're a
co-host here. You get to ask the questions.
You don't have to always have the answers.
And we've got an amazing guest
panel to fill in the blanks we've got an amazing guest panel to
fill in the blanks here but also of course builders i'm pretty sure there was a bit of sentiment shared
there on your you know i'm heads down building jack i don't have time to be trading on the
macros here but yeah look look great great take i actually learn i take my news from the spaces
that i go to in the spaces that i listen to but yeah it's very industry specific
right yeah absolutely and look at the only other thing i would say is the dollars up
um which 2021 you know it sort of bottomed out and when we did see that big risk on shift uh it's
looking very very similar right now it's from an all-time low of 0.72 against the British pound, which is what I look at, to 0.74.
So it's up 2% already on the day, I think.
Yeah.
On two days, on a two-day market.
But yeah, great, great stuff to see.
Infinify is coming with the hand raise.
So Rob, I'd love to hear your thoughts on all of this.
Just the latest on the news?
Yeah.
I'd say what's sneaking up is the genius act people are talking
about the big beautiful bill that the genius act has quietly been advancing its way through
and looks poised to be passed fairly soon that would implement a regulatory structure for stable stablecoins, which would be absolutely fascinating.
Sorry.
Second.
Oh, good.
I'll give you some cover on the mic there.
You're good.
So yeah, implementing a regulatory structure for stablecoins, which really opens the doors to what the current administration's goals, in my opinion, are, which like I said earlier,
they're trying to backdoor a bunch of these BRICS countries. Why are they doing that? Well, there's two ways you can deal
with inflation. You can, one, either print less money, and that's not really an option right now,
just because of where we are with the economy.
If you don't start chilling out rates, you're going to kill it in a very different way than if you print money infinitely. But if you start printing money infinitely, you end up jacking up,
I believe, you could end up triggering hyperinflation. But if instead you go with option two,
which is increase the number of people
who are receiving the printed money,
so rather than decreasing supply,
you increase demand.
Well, that actually solves your problem better
than decreasing supply does
because now you're able to both do what you need to do,
which is start burning money,
and also not cause hyperinflation.
And stablecoins are the perfect solution for that.
They allow all these nations that previously have not been able to,
well, the citizens of these nations haven't been able to hold dollars,
in that they'd probably like to,
because their banks go under all the time.
They're not able to hold dollars and that's the
entire strategy that the trump admin is using is in encouraging the stable coin revolution and
proliferating it they're literally routing around china they're routing around the governments of
every one of the brick stations and ensuring that the dollar's dominance remains relatively unchallenged it's a very good
strategy yeah honestly it's not something i've heard on a show before so really appreciate
the take on this robin you know bricks obviously referencing well sorry not obviously referencing
but is referencing brazil russia India, China, and South Africa.
That's what it stands for.
For those unfamiliar with these terms,
countries that, as mentioned by Rob,
don't generally get any exposure to the US dollar because of the governments and the countries involved.
Hedgehog, hi, would love to hear your thoughts on all this.
So I feel a little bit kind of like Eduardo.
I don't see a lot of news there are a lot
outside of crypto um i've been seeing a couple of things about regulations and stuff but i just
wanted to share that this week something that i found it was kind of funny it was this news that
was being shared in all of the groups, like everywhere. It didn't matter the language the group was in.
About TonCoin being put on stake for visas in the United Emirates,
but it ended up being fake news.
I don't know if you guys saw that.
But I found it was so funny that the news were being shared
every single group, like everywhere.
Even people that weren't from crypto they sent me these
news um and at the end of the week after like two or three days it ended up being fake news so
just to uh i think it's just a reminder don't trust verify even if you see like some news always
make sure to go look after the information because not everything that we see out here in this space
might be true
it was some really good news that you could just put maybe i think 100k on stake and you could get
like the golden visa for the united emirates that's usually like 500k um and it ended up being
fake news so just be careful out there guys a lot of the stuff that we see out there is not true
look this is such a great and timely conversation to be having.
And it's such a great context here because AI is only making this easier, right? Like you really
cannot even trust what you see these days unless you see it IRL, like seeing it is no longer
believing it if you're seeing it through a screen. And I definitely do think that this is a prime example
of it, you know, just news. We saw it in 2021 and 2022, though, and it literally like used to move
the markets when it was like way more based on speculation than product like it is this day and
age, which is funny because it's literally four years ago. And that's something normally your
grandparents would say to you, but still feels very very prevalent um yeah you used to have like news items that were completely fictional but people would
pump them purely because they knew the market would react to those moments and those that fake
news and then they would just sell the fake news before people realized it was fake news so yeah
look very very very important for all of our listeners to understand
that. Yeah, AI is a thing. Fake news only grows as the market gets hotter and it bubbles because
it becomes more reactionary. And this will happen to you regardless, you know, if you're playing
with your own bills and you've not got something just DCA and on the side, or you've not got
something that doesn't factor in emotion which
obviously every human does then you will see these news items and you will see them hit every chat
that you think they should hit to be able to verify them and then they will end up being fake
and you could maybe try and take advantage of that news and get burnt by it so look great great point
i think you know the the other thing that we've spoken about, but we haven't
talked about the other side of this is retail is coming, right? Like we've talked about user
experience, not quite being there yet. We've talked about institutional side very much being
there right now. Stable coins, given the green light, institutional funds coming in, in a big,
big way. Are we ready ready if it does keep going
in the direction it looks like it's going there seems to be consensus on the timeline which by
as we've just mentioned is not at all consensus in real life but it does feel like it's a positive
direction that the crypto space is broadly going right now the us the same way which obviously is
very good for the crypto, because it means everything's
going to be more risk on if the printers come back on, which we're not sure about, but seems
to be the case, or it seems more likely now more than ever. For our speakers up on stage,
how confident are you that this is the moment that the crypto space is going to take the next leg up
in terms of both the assets, but also just the attention
and the retail attention to this space? And also, are we ready for it? Do we have the
infrastructure? Do we have the user experience that if in the next couple of months, Bitcoin
keeps reaching further and further into that all-time high and stablecoins become more and
more prevalent within not just the us but
globally have we got the user experience and infrastructure to deal with all that retail
inflow and are they going to be happy with that experience would love to hear some thoughts on
this uh we've got infinify with the hand raise rob coming in clutch again taking the lead on
those jack points rob over to you gotta get those jack points but Rob, over to you. You've got to get those jack points. But yes, I think that this
is the cycle.
I don't think that this
is this year.
I think that we are about
to enter
what some have previously called
a super cycle.
However, I don't think that it's going to be nearly
as forever
exciting as some people think that it is at the same time.
I think it's just the transition from digital assets into a very four-year cyclical state into probably still some four-year cyclicality,
but considerably, in my opinion, less extreme volatility than what we've witnessed in the past,
since we're now reaching more mainstream adoption.
In other words, it's a very boring success.
Not the, you know, forever we are the most incredibly rich people on the planet,
you know, doing a thousand X here.
It's not that fast.
It's going to be probably slower than it has been,
unless you're in, you know, old coins like ETH, which I think is going to have quite a good time.
But in terms of stable plan adoption, yes, I believe that we are here.
No, I don't believe that a lot of the industry is fully ready.
Like, for instance, Infinify, we're going to be able to capture a lot of people in DeFi and begin capturing people in TradFi.
But most of my distribution, I don't think is going to come from retail traders using
MetaMask.
I think I'm going to be able to hook into neobanks and other people like that who are
getting retail interest in crypto products and want that, you know, that sort of
intermediated access
so that they don't have to deal with the complexities of the space themselves.
So are we ready to service a million, sorry, a billion new retail participants?
Not directly.
Indirectly?
Yeah, I think we are. I also don't think that this is the peak in the way that you might think, oh, this is, you know, the moment it all to run people start to take this whole thing seriously but i also don't think that uh we're in the peak hype phase yeah look rob i'm in complete
Yeah, I think we are.
agreement there you know not sexy not generational wealth for everybody moment um but definitely
the start of something here i i also keep hearing this as consensus
around builders as well builders definitely bullish right now um and honestly i take the
news from builders more than i do traders for the most part you know it's the people actually
building the infrastructure dealing with the issues of building on the infrastructure when
they get really bullish and when they see more users come in and more adoption come in that's when i get excited and uh yeah just great great take overall you know
maybe if you've picked the amazon stock if we are talking 96 and we are talking you know that
dot-com era there will be generational wealth for those select few there's still a lot of pets
dot-coms out there though people you know it is still early days and we don't quite know all of what is going to work and what isn't going to work and even the stuff that looks like it's
going to work is going to see some very big competition come in and if you watched the
internet world develop over that period of time you'll be very aware of like how that works and
how lucky you had to be to pick a winner um but, we just don't have that exact history
to replay itself.
So we just don't know yet.
Look,
loads of hands came up
during that take.
So massive shout out
for Rob for incentivizing that.
Love it.
I'm going to try
and go in the order.
I saw those hands pop up
for fairness.
So I think it was Greed first.
Greed, over to you.
I think it was Hedgehog first,
if I'm not mistaken.
I don't want to take over. Oh, what a gentleman. Hi, do you want to come in first and then we'll go over to greed sure no problem um so it really
depends on what you call like mass adoption i think uh i don't think that we've hit that moment
yet not in the way that most people imagine mainstream adoption. Yes, people are
buying Bitcoin. Yes, we've got banks offering it, companies holding it, even governments building
reserves, right? But buying and holding Bitcoin is not the same as using crypto. If we look at DeFi,
the numbers I think are still pretty low. And that's because we haven't really solved, I think it's a concept called Maya,
most advanced yet acceptable. The user experience is still pretty fragmented.
We have already improved some things like on-ramps, custodies, some wallets are still
working on it, but we've improved those but composability security i think
even predictability there are still some weak spots that we have to improve on defi to have
these users actually be spending crypto on a day-to-day basis so it depends on what you call
mainstream if the bar is people just owning crypto in some ETF or app, maybe we're already there.
But if the bar is people using on-chain tools natively, daily, like they use fintech or e-commerce, then no, we haven't hit it yet.
And I'm not sure we're going to hit it this cycle.
Yeah, look, that's great context to give here again.
And I love the takes from all our speakers, but it's really at high value here.
No pun intended.
I think, look, the real crux of this is exactly as mentioned.
It really depends on your definition of mainstream.
I think it's better than we've ever seen it before.
I think that, you know, if we say 2021 was the peak bull run era
where just everybody knew what it was,
I think that's sort of where my mind goes right now is even your grandma is going to be asking
you about Bitcoin or Ethereum very, very soon. Will they own any or will they have the infrastructure
understanding? Of course not. So yeah, I think it definitely depends on that mainstream view.
I think it's growing. Is it literally just going to be the way we don't even talk about the internet
anymore or the websites on the internet no like there's still going to be those conversations to
be had right who did we have next i want to say it was greed because they were a gentleman and
then we'll get the mic over to afi next i totally agree with with both previous takes um i think if we if you look
at historically what has happened in crypto which is very short period and especially like when since
defy has been existing which has been basically nothing um if you look at the cycles and the the
big boom of defy the famous defy summer of 2020, if anybody remembers, that was like a huge
influx of retail and whatever.
But the main use case or main volume was still driven by the native people of crypto, which
then turned into an NFT boom and all that stuff, right?
And it also brought a lot of people.
It didn't make a lot of people stick.
And it's because we, I think we've come a long way in these past few years.
Like it hasn't been that long, like five years since the last DeFi boom.
We've come a long way in terms of experience and all this stuff, but it's also lacking
a bunch of, the onboarding is great, like for a lot of things, the unramping, like as
it was mentioned, but things like security, things like regulation, things like making people feel comfortable and confident about using these tools, specifically in DeFi.
I'm not talking about like some CeFi products that integrates some on-chain component to their fronts.
And still, there's a lot of caveats because these companies don't want to get super wet and their feet in deep waters where they are
not able to control a bunch of aspects of this.
So we're still like, there's still a long way.
There's still a lot of like knowledge that you need to be able to operate properly in
crypto.
Like when people come to this space for the first time, usually it has happened to everybody
here probably.
Probably the first thing they've done is lose money somehow some way either by some kind of scam or some kind of nefarious activity that was done to
them or some misunderstanding of some concept or not understanding fully what
they're getting into and then not having any recourse right like you call your
bank you make a bank transaction you call the bank bank cancels it this
doesn't exist here so that kind of thing I think people still don't have a grasp on it yet and don't have
the confidence enough to be able to come here and make that kind of moves and then have
to face the consequences because there's no other way than just eat them up and go cry
in a corner and let's go for the next thing.
Right.
So I think we're still a long way. I don't think it's going to be a cycle
that we're going to get the mega retail boom
that everybody's expecting.
But I think there's going to be cycles of these DeFi booms
that more crypto people start joining in
and it starts becoming this more comfortable,
confident tooling to use in a day-to-day basis
that people can actually, you know,
use as a regular thing instead of just being
the same bubble of people using it now daniel love to take and um yeah for me i just like to
buy tops you know i didn't get scammed in any way um i just love to buy tops and sell bottoms
that's that's that's my whole bag um which i definitely see it coming under the misinformed category here, or just the mis-bullish.
You know, I can't take an L if I never sell, right?
That's the old term.
That's a good thing.
I mean, I don't disagree with the take.
But yeah, look, a lot of way to lose money, people.
I completely agree with Daniel's take here.
Let's get the mic over to Afi.
Afi, we'd love to hear your thoughts on this.
And then we'll go back to Eduardo.
And again, just massive shout out to all of our speakers today.
Tons and tons of takes, loads of engagement.
You guys are crushed at it.
Yeah, absolutely.
So thanks a lot, you know, again, for having me.
Super awesome.
Yeah, so I think we're not at the peak, right?
Definitely not at the peak.
And I think I echo the thoughts
of some of the other speakers here as well.
I guess we've been in the space for a while.
As builders, we know there's still lots to do,
many changes along the way
that are still to come in this space.
And so what I think really is that the billion
who are to come onto Web3,
they won't know that they're coming to Web3, right?
So it would be fully abstracted.
It would be fully gasless.
And there's still work to do, right?
So yesterday I had a call with one of the team members
from Stable, so that's USDT's new stable chain.
And they're building ways to make it easier for people to transact stable coins.
But it's still likely going to take time for them to go from test net to main net.
And then achieve even a fraction of adoption that they expect.
So I think we know that only a small percentage of people actually have, you know, exposure to crypto or even own Bitcoin.
Right. And so there's still a lot of work to do to actually, you know, get get that kind of adoption that we all we all kind of came in thinking was very close.
But I think the longer you're here, I think you kind of realize that we're so early.
I think someone mentioned 1996.
Right. And so that's kind of realize that we're so early. I think someone mentioned 1996, right?
And so that's kind of what it really feels like.
But yeah, I had a call with another VC friend today,
and he was at ECC right in Cannes, and stables was a hot topic. So definitely a very bullish narrative right now,
and so many people building in this space.
Also, my suggestion is just to be careful
because um you know you don't want to have like a stables kind of bubble as well with so many
projects kind of coming in and um yeah you know there's a lot of stuff that we don't know in the
space and um yeah you know just just got to kind of be careful really um but yeah you know we we
think that eventually you know we will get a billion people that come onto Web3 and we hope that we're playing a role there.
And we strongly believe that token incentives will be the reason people come to Web3.
So that's kind of our big bet, right?
Incentive to promote, incentive to contribute, incentive to learn, incentive to play, right?
And that's the reason people do things. And so we strongly believe that token incentives
is what's going to drive people in, right?
And we're here for it.
Yeah, look, great, great take again.
Love the perspectives on the show
and I think really wide variety of them as well.
Like people more bullish, less bullish
and somewhere in between,
but everyone bullish more
broadly on the space just not exactly if we're gonna hit mainstream in the next 30 to 60 days
maybe um but all in all really enjoyed the conversation today massive shout out to all of
our speakers listeners if you've enjoyed this one likes retweets but it's great to see the numbers
in here right now and thank you so much for all the support already. Eduardo, before we do close out,
any updates, any milestones,
anything you'd like to share
on behalf of T-Rise?
And of course, feel free
to give your final take
on the conversation
we've had today.
Oh, yeah.
Thank you, Jack.
I want to do a shout out
for the speakers too.
And I'm happy to finally
have a woman in the space.
I mentioned actually
in a call earlier today that half the population is kind of underrepresented in the space. I mentioned actually in a call earlier today,
that half the population is kind of underrepresented
in the spaces that I go to.
I think Web3 is not 50-50 like the world,
but I'm glad to see that someone is here
representing the Hedge Health Protocol.
And shout out for the listeners too.
I see many RiseNet ambassadors in the house.
I'm always energized when I see you guys in the audience.
But I wanted to give a take on
adoption.
I think that the infrastructure is
already here.
I don't think this is a matter of infrastructure,
as in the Web3 infrastructure
is totally capable of supporting
all the financial system
nowadays. Not with a single chain,
but multiple chains.
But what is next?
The next step for me is that the traditional businesses,
they integrate with Web3.
So let's have the existential infrastructure
integrate with the Web3 infrastructure.
As in, instead of having Web3 try to replace Web2,
let's make Web2 transition to Web3.
So, for example, let's not launch a new cinema business because we want to take
cryptos payments for tickets to the cinemas.
But let's have existing cinemas accept stablecoin or RISE tokens or any tokens
RISE tokens or any tokens through DeFi as payment.
through DeFi as payment.
I know that nowadays we can have credit cards backed by crypto.
I myself, I have one, but it's not the native web experience.
So instead of paying like 3%, 5%, 8% or whatever fees one needs to pay
when they're using credit cards for payments,
let's just make an on-chain transfer to pay when they're using credit cards for payments, let's just make an own chain transfer
to pay for our cinema tickets.
And not only cinema, but everything else,
like retail as a whole.
As in, hey, you can tap to pay with your MasterCard,
you can tap to pay with your Visa,
or you can tap to pay with your hardware wallet
in the base chain or the Sonic chain.
And yeah, I can imagine this future
in which nothing is on the bank.
At least for me,
and then all my value,
my worth is stored in blockchains.
And maybe I have some
in the form of tokenized real estate, right?
It's not stable,
but it's resilient as an asset class.
And tokenization can allow us to have these assets liquid so we can easily swap these security tokens that represent
my ownership in real estate for some rice tokens or for stablecoin and then i can use those to pay
for climbing gear i'm a clim, if you didn't notice yet.
But yeah, to me, mass adoption is coming when I can use RISE tokens to buy climbing gear in any of the retail stores that sells them.
In other words, the future is when on-ramp and off-ramp is no longer needed.
It's no longer a pain.
It's no longer a thing.
It's all the same ramp.
There's no ramp.
We're all already there all the same ramp. There's no ramp.
We're all already there in the same platform and we use crypto to pay
for everything.
Yeah, but I know that can happen
without Visa or Mastercard
being upset about their business models
no longer making any sense in the future.
Yeah, it's
going to be the disruptors versus them.
It's going to probably be a moment where either they have to get on board because the competition are winning um or yet
someone just disrupts the hell out of it all and we just don't use the term visa or mastercard in
the future because you know it's some new product that does allow you to do all those things eduardo
thank you so much for the takes today massive Massive shout out to T-Rise more broadly as well for putting on this show.
Incredible show to have today.
And a massive shout out to Infinify,
to AFI Network, to Greed Academy,
and to Hedgehog Platform as well.
Protocol.
So guys, that is all we have time for today.
Massive, massive shout out to all of our speakers
and our listeners.
And we'll catch you on the next one.
