Projects
![]()
No projects found
Investors
New
DAO Treasuries
DATs
Lend / Borrow APRs
Chains
Categories
Spaces
What's Next for Berachain?
Recorded: July 30, 2025 Duration: 0:58:06Space Recording
Short Summary
Bearer Chain Foundation is set to revolutionize the crypto landscape with its new project launch focused on proof of liquidity, fostering partnerships and growth opportunities. The rollout of POLV2 promises enhanced yield for token holders, while strategic collaborations with innovative projects like Dolomite signal a robust future for the ecosystem.
Full Transcription
Thank you. Dope shit like that, Joe.
Oh, hi.
Welcome back to Kits.
Um...
Follow your dreams.
Yeah.
Wanna get a mansion, a jacuzzi, a theater to watch my movies, couple whips and lots
of fancy things, the kids they call the goonies.
I see the future, crystal ball, mirror, mirror hanging on the wall, who the flies, white
boy, yeah, the mall, got your girlfriend screen and all the calls.
She bubbling, we fucking and you cuddling, like baby, where the fuck you been?
I wanna tell you she ain't loving him, so, so we ain't saying nothing, you can probably tell she bluffing, cause she kissed you with? I wanna tell you she in love with him So, so weak Ain't saying nothing
You can probably tell she bluffing
Cause she kissed you with the mouth
She gave me head with my concussion
Kiss me blushin' or red
Wanna rush and go to bed
You interrogate that bitch like you the fed
So she says she in love with a rock star
Rock star, wanna smoke my weed
So she asked me where the tops are
tops are Just a motherfucking kiss Oh Oh
Hey, buddy, fuck bitches
Yeah
Pittsburgh
Hey, hey
These hoes is drunk, wanna come and smoke this blunt?
Then let me take them home and do anything I want
I said, baby, I can't ride ya.
Just let me get inside ya. I can take you higher if you hit this vaporizer. I got that dope dick.
I be your supplier. You grabbing on my sheets and hitting notes like you Mariah. Obsessed with me.
Undressed a freak on ecstasy. I'm out and then she texting me like what you doing next week, next week.
Hear me now. I'm down on knees and praying though my faith is weak. Without you Sophie, baby, please give us a chance. Make amends and I will send them, the millions. Oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, love me. You feel me? So baby, smile. Baby, don't cry. Oh, God. You are the star.
GM, GM, everybody. Welcome to a banger show with Bearer Chain Foundation, accelerating
applications and rewarding users through proof of liquidity. Today, we're talking about what's
next for Bearer Chain, and we've got the man, the myth, the legend, Chief Smokey Officer
Bearer Chain, mascot, builder, bearer, articleer article project stuff from the bearer ecosystem
we got smoky with us today smoky how's it going you excited for the show yeah yeah should be cool
to meet some interesting new people and um also just yeah folks a little bit about what's happening
on bearer chain man dude yeah i'm super excited i i've been ooga booga that a lot uh even since
just the announcement of this show. So,
you guys have been hopping up on random shows every now and again that I've
co-hosted,
but I'm super excited for this one.
And the PFPs are sick,
dude.
I love seeing all the PFPs in here.
I can see slow gold,
AV bearer,
Pedro.
there's literally Vico,
so many dope PFPs.
I absolutely love to see it when the community just immediately rock up for something like this.
Look, this is the first version of this show as well, guys. So if you want to show any extra support, likes, retweets, all the good stuff, let's get as many people in here as possible.
But yeah, today we're talking origin stories. We're talking what's next and we're going to dive in very soon.
Smokey, tell me, how's it going for you right now?
Like markets absolutely cooking,
but it's also kind of wild at the same time. Volatility is everywhere. And how's it going?
Yeah, man. I mean, I think it's, I've had better days. I've had worse. We're seeing a lot of
interesting stuff happening at a high level than the ecosystem as a whole. I think we're seeing a
lot of people adapting and or, you know, building more interesting stuff around POLV2 that we rolled
out recently. I think there's a few things that are coming and or building more interesting stuff around POLV2 that we rolled out recently.
I think there's a few things that are coming out
from the core team a little bit later this week
that should be interesting for folks to see.
I think it's a pretty fun time.
It's definitely beyond busy.
And it feels like, again,
one of those weird pieces in the market
where folks are oscillating between like euphoria and and you
know doom every other day um which is i think like pretty par for the course but nonetheless i think
there's a lot of good stuff in motion um jack give me a second man i'm gonna rejoin this for
my phone my airpods are doing something weird on one side so uh give me all good brother i mean i'll
hook back up all good all good well look guys you heard it he's gonna be back up. All good, all good. Well, look, guys, you heard it. He's going to be back up very shortly,
but likes, retweets, all the good stuff
whilst we get out here.
We are going to talk about what is next
predominantly today.
We're talking about what these guys
have been cooking as well.
So if you need a download,
if you need just a random TLDR
about what has been happening
and what is going to happen,
this is the show for people to hear
a little bit more about Bearer Chain.
So let's hope we can... Oh, here we go. We've got the co-host in think smoky is coming back up now what is next for
bearer chain big big shout out to all of the bearer chain pfps out in here i need to get myself one
of these immediately um someone someone linked me to the collection i need to pick one of these up
um but honestly yeah guys hit us in the comments as well if you've got any questions anything that you want answered then let us know smoky if you
can hear me right now it shows that you're like requesting up but i can't seem to get you
accepted on stage so you might need to refresh x and literally just completely close out of it
refresh it um if you're on a phone especially and then it should work but elon does be focusing elsewhere these
days i'm not gonna lie it's not paying the most attention to spaces yet alone x let's let's be
honest here but um maybe taking over the us is more of a concern of his these days uh okay well
guys help me out here what questions everyone got for me today hit me in the comments you can find it if you plus button, you'll see the show come up. But what I'll do is I'll pin it to the top as well. So if you want to throw any questions or you want to do a like and a retweet, then I'll pin the actual show to the top and then you can easily retweet and follow. Sometimes when you're hosting from desktop, it doesn't give you the option to comment um so i'll make sure we can do
that here we go right well i'm gonna play some music because i've monologued about as much as
i can before i bore you guys enough to leave the show before smoky can give you the alpha
and then we'll keep cooking and we'll keep running on okay i think we got you back oh no gone again oh requested again
saying now remove you from the show smoky as in oh here we go that's why
whoever is behind bearer chain foundation as well you you're a real g because you were quick on that
accept button i couldn't even get it in time. So big shout out to whoever's behind the main account there. Smokey, how's it going then?
So, okay, markets volatile. We're basically going from peak hysteria to peak food every sort of 60
seconds to a couple of minutes. But you guys have been cooking a ton. Where do we even start with
this conversation? Do you want to tell me about this idea of Fatbearer and the thesis behind it and how it's different to Bearer Chain's approach today?
Yeah, I mean, look, I think that the nice and the good and bad part about the whole Fatbearer thesis,
and, you know, it started as a little bit of a joke, like way back, like close to two years ago,
is that I think more and more parts of it have played out over time.
I think more and more parts of it have played out
over time. The bigger
theme or underlying
thesis there really being that
something that we've echoed
a whole bunch and I think something that we've hopefully been able to
demonstrate or tell people within the ecosystem
which is to say
Oh my god
You're good?
Oh I think that might have gone as as well guys this is the first show bear with us we'll definitely get this running but um honestly there's not really a device you can join
x spaces from these days without getting some sort of technical difficulties
um so iphone tends to be the best but there has been a recent update as well so smoky if you're
hearing that then it might be that the update is either absolutely
screwed you, or maybe you just need to put the update through.
It'll be one of two of those things.
And if you're on Android though, Elon doesn't like Androids apparently.
He really, really doesn't.
Um, yeah, just give me, give me a mic check when you get a second, I will invite you back
onto the show.
And yeah, we will promise guys, we'll get this started.
I promise.
This is not just a massive blue ball situation.
Like, we will get to the alpha.
We're not here just to pull your chain.
yeah we got you we got you holy fuck anyway sorry guys i you know funny story right i walked into
our office today and um the like for the last i'd say a week or so our conference room has
been boiling hot and then the rest of the office is like, you know, pretty like chilly.
And then today I walked in and everything is just like,
it feels like I'm in Miami.
And I suppose there might be trickle down fuckery as a side effect to that
because the wifi was going in and out.
Truly encouraging stuff.
But anyway, I'm going to hope that, you know,
third time's a charm in terms of like things might magically going wrong.
Technically Jack, give me a quick thumbs up or someone in the crowd, And I hope that third time's a charm in terms of things might magically be going wrong technically.
Jack, give me a quick thumbs up
or someone in the crowd,
do me a favor and give me a thumbs up
if this is in fact hearable
and somewhat coherent.
Oh yeah, very coherent, very hearable.
I think, look, 99% of this audience
are definitely going to feel you here as well.
I'm in the UK.
Apparently, we don't expect heat in any form.
So no air conditioning.
We're running off fans in like 30, 40 degree heat.
And yet the Wi-Fi does suffer sometimes for it as well.
So, dude, where are you guys based?
We've got folks all over the world,
but there's sort of a core office in Toronto,
so in Canada.
Then there's a group in Milan
from a team that we brought in a little while ago.
There's some folks spread out across APAC,
some folks in Latin America, a couple of folks in Dubai.
So I'd say there's a pretty, you know,
pretty decentralized group of folks around here.
But there's like those core pods, if you will,
in Toronto and Milan.
And there's a small office in Bangalore as well
that helps handle a lot of the stuff that's happening overnight.
That's easier to miss.
I love that i've heard tovonto is um basically like the extremes you know it gets real real hot in the summer but then it gets real real cold in the winter and but i do need to come over the film
festival i've been trying to get to for years so i'll have to get over there soon 100 you get like
three or four good months and then a lot of like not good months so it's uh it's certainly an interesting place um yeah okay yeah we're talking about fat bearer
right so we're talking about this uh thesis and how it is different from what bear chain have been
doing prior to today yeah so look i think that the way that we think about it is that fat bearer
thesis as a whole is a little bit of like validating, I think, what we've seen the market trend towards over time, which is to say that, you know, back in the day, we almost sort
of oscillated as a space as a whole, right? We started with very basic applications and thinking
about, you know, Uniswap and Compound and thinking that those would accrue all the value. And I think
there was like a meaningful degree of correctness in that. Then we saw the breakout of all these
different Alt-L1s and, you know, different ecosystems forming.
And the thesis was, okay, well, the protocols will accrue
all the value here, as in the chain itself.
And then I think over the last little while,
as crypto has, like, matured a little bit and or, you know,
perhaps, like, you know, seen, A, on one hand,
more regulatory clarity, but B, I'd say,
a more sophisticated group of participants starting to enter,
we're kind of, the pendulum's kind of swinging back.
And it's actually like, okay, well, what matters or what is really important
is protocols that can sort of do one of two or three things.
Either generate a ton of fees and enter this quote-unquote revenue meta,
which feels coherent, i.e. a business should try to make money.
Or protocols that can distribute to tons and tons of users.
Or protocols that can help to bring in a ton of capital, right? And I think that what the
Fat Bear thesis is, more than anything else, is just this belief, which is that the chain should
be playing a role in helping to support that, as in, you know, the chain itself, Bear chain,
or any other chain for that matter, wins as a byproduct of its protocols winning, right? And
the applications, you know, building on top of it actually winning.
And I think that's what we've been trying to hammer home
the entire time.
And the real, you know, the real ideal end game
of the Fat Bear thesis is that BearChain acts
as that base layer, that operating system,
that, you know, booster, if you will,
that helps a number of these different protocols
actually make it from and take themselves from,
you know, 0.5 to 1,
from 1 to 100, whatever you like to call it. Because that way they don't have to start thinking
immediately about diluting themselves, issuing their tokens, going hard out the gates. It actually
means they have the ability to rely on the chain itself as a means of bootstrapping, as a means of
taking themselves from a point of initial perhaps PMF to a point of accelerated PMF. So, you know, in a perfect world and what we'd like
to see with BearChain, POL, everything in between is effectively, you know, BearChain helping
accelerate apps and make them fatter and fatter such that they have the best chance of winning.
And then the way I think about this, like at a really high level, Jack, is like,
I wouldn't say it's deviated from what we've done to date, but I think it's almost a refocusing of initiatives. And I think it's a little bit about
making sure that we're thoughtful about which applications are really in that position. Because
for better or for worse, right, not every app is going to find PMF. Not every chain is going to find
PMF. And I think we're crossing that chasm or that value ourselves at the moment. And I think that the best thing that we can do is ensure that there's
applications that are really benefiting from proof of liquidity itself and using that to,
you know, boost their ability to attract users, capital, fee generation, everything in between.
I think a great example of this is like a group like Dolomite that's been taking off a bunch
recently for a number of different reasons. On one hand, you know, they have an incredibly sharp team
that's been building the space for quite a while.
And, you know, I think it's just like a group of like high caliber,
high integrity builders.
But on the other hand, you know, their CTO, their CEO, Corey,
is also the CTO of World Liberty FI.
And they've been leveraging BearChain both as their native chain
and as a source of you know
the majority of their fee generation revenue and i'd say you know close to majority if not a
majority of their tvl over the last little while as well and plugging into proof of liquidity to
incentivize effectively deposits around bara around honey around certain stablecoin loops and
everything in between and i think that that you know ended up being a pretty cool case study for
how proof of liquidity can actually help fadden an application that, of course, already has its own independent means of finding a win condition.
So, you know, our goal is to find and to help, you know, as many of those apps as possible, you know, have that kind of breakout effect.
And of course, you know, it's never about, I think, taking credit for that.
And it's never about saying, oh, you know, this only happened because of BearChain. And, you know, the farthest thing from it.
I think it's more about saying,
hey, BearChain helped to foster an environment
that, you know, made this outcome more likely.
And BearChain itself at a mechanical level
or at the chain's, you know,
I'd say functionality point of view
really helped to take that application forward.
So I hope that, you know, makes sense
that a high level isn't too incoherent
in terms of what the actual, you know, thought process behind the Fat Bear thesis is. No, I really like it. And I think,
look, anyone who's been in crypto for any amount of time will know that attention is the lifeblood
of any ecosystem. And honestly, it does go way beyond crypto. But at the end of the day,
it's not the best app or the best chain or the best game or the
best nft that is going to win it's going to be the whatever version of that thing that you like
or interested in that can also bring in attention and get eyeballs on it and consistently do that
as well um so yeah i think the idea of the chain being sort of the forefront of that and ensuring
that that you know the attention does come from there
and the liquidity comes from there is obviously a massive, massive thing. And I know you guys know
the space very well. I sort of became aware of you like quite a while ago because I used to attend a
lot of IRL events. I think the last one I was in was like Dubai, but like Bearer Chain just kept
coming up as like an event you needed to get to. And I was like, okay, well, what is this thing?
And then like, obviously I started doing more and more spaces. You guys kept coming up as like an event you needed to get to and i was like okay well what is this thing and then like obviously i started doing more and more spaces you guys kept coming up even literally i
think it was last week i was talking to somnia i was talking to paul and um he's the um the founder
or one of the co-founders of somnia network and asking him you know who are you looking at to
get any sort of experience from who do you like the way they're executing from a chain level
and your name actually came up as like one of three names that he provided where
you just got a great way of both defining what you guys are trying to do and not honestly not
flip-flopping on that idealism as well like you know just this is what we're doing we know the
value is here anything else that you guys want the market
it happens there's going to be matters but this is the overall goal i think that's super super
important as well dude so now completely aligned i think that's a great great focus point for you
and as the bull market comes in attention isn't easier it's even harder because more and more
products and projects are going to come out the woodwork and better executors as well with the regulation that's coming in so I think those two things
really do need that one focal point where you can get the attention and you can get the liquidity
and yeah I loved your article as well that I would love to talk to you about in a little bit
more detail but I'll give the mic back over to you for a second just to hear any response to that
yeah no man I think you're entirely correct, right?
Like bull markets are entertaining in that they 110% cause things to move pretty quickly.
And it all becomes a little bit more like the rolling ball of money effect sort of accelerates above all else, right?
So, yeah, not surprising at all.
Yeah, not surprising at all. I expect that trend to continue. And again, it's really funny, right? Because I think that for a lot of like crypto Twitter, people are like, oh, I can't tell if we're in a bull market or not, or it doesn't quite feel like a bull market. And I think that's also just because we have a very different base of capital sort of entering the market right now, which is a little bit of an allusion to what I was mentioning before.
I expect that trend to continue.
And again, it's really funny, right?
right and that um i think typically what we saw in the past was you know you maybe see the coinbase
premium starting to spike you'd see you know coinbase moving up in the in the app store and
whatnot and then you say oh you know retail is coming in here perhaps you know attention is
going to flow from eth to other alts and on one hand this time we've had a super bitcoin driven
cycle and and look i'm the farthest thing from macro experts and i will always footnote that
because it's just very true.
But I think, you know, we're seeing, I think, very different capital flows and that some of those groups that, you know, would, I think,
have been in here chasing the next 100x, you know, runner,
whatever you want to call it, are A, either just like completely
disillusioned from the space, B, deep in the meme coin trenches
and, you know, somewhere on, you know, playing like Bonk Fun or Pump Fun launches or something like that. Or C, they're just like not there at all.
And the people who are actually participating for the most part are, you know, a lot more like
institutional participants and family offices and large crypto funds who are plowing into these,
you know, plowing into these like digital asset treasuries and everything in between.
So I think like that, that capital formation effect and the knock-on alt market or quote-unquote alt season
that we all like to yell about,
if it comes, we'll probably have a very different form
or feeling than it's had in the past.
Just because I think the GDP of the space
has recomposed quite a bit.
It's not the same group of folks
or the same, I think, vibe of market participants
that we had in, you know, let's say the 2021 glory days, if you will. I think it's a very
different capital base. And I think that affects their behaviors a ton as well.
Yeah, I've heard it referenced as if retail do come back, which people don't believe they have
yet, you know, we are talking institutional moves that have really seen the upside to our price action right now but if retail do come back they're not going to be
aware they've came back because it'll be through like pension funds and it'll be through these
things where they don't know they have exposure they just do and i think that really does
encapsulate what you've just talked about here and i do agree like it is a different market
um i do wonder you know if if we hit
a certain point you know what what value does bitcoin or what value do alts need to hit
where they are just such a premium to how other stocks are trading how gold is trading etc where
people do just start paying more attention even from a retail standpoint and we do get you know
that nft season 21 22 where you know a bunch
of people are just looking for more upside um and there's been enough coverage there's been a
board api club or something that has made them go oh okay this is this is some version of upside that
i cannot get traditionally but we're not there yet we're definitely not in that version of a bull
market yeah no i think we still got a ways to go to that sort of
mania and i think that there's probably a lot of folks that ended up um burned enough by that last
time and i feel like a lot of that energy now ends up you know more uh rotating towards like
the meme coins and that kind of thing um just because it you know when i think about it at a
very high level right it's that um people were chasing you know large quick multiples and increases and
in exposure right um and i think on one hand uh the forms of distribution in the space have
changed quite a bit um but on the other hand like if people were looking for lottery tickets and
before that lottery tickets were like all these alts um i feel like a lot of that veil has dropped
and now people are just like well i'm just gonna just going to, you know, I'm going to play a lottery ticket in its purest form, right? So I think it's a combination of
that and distribution methodologies that probably has caused things to change quite a bit. I do,
however, believe there will 100% be points where there are like very asymmetric opportunities in
the market. And I think, but I do think a lot of that will come to come down to making sure that
people position themselves outside of just the crypto Twitter crowd.
And maybe that's a biased comment because a lot of our initial user base has been crypto Twitter.
But I also think that if one looks at a lot of the coins that have had the most sustain over the last few years,
and that actually do last a few different cycles, and you can check back in 2017 and you can check back now
and they're still there and swinging away.
Some of it was just having massive ICO boom,
treasury type eras
and then just having a ton of ETH on hand
that turned into a ton of treasury holdings.
Others simply did a good job of getting their tokens
in the hands of people who are perhaps
a little bit less mercurial or a little bit less emotional in their trading patterns or spam from an intention point of view. Not in the sense of, oh no, who's my exit like? But a lot more in the sense of, okay, well, who's someone outside of this microcosm of people that might find this interesting as well?
I think NFTs have been an interesting onboarding tool in the past.
And I still think that NFTs build some of the strongest communities, which is why it's great to see when people pop up on spaces like this.
And you see a bunch of folks rocking Steady Teddy profile profile pictures or you rock an azuki or whatever it might be
um i do think there's like some interesting uh avenues inwards with that um but all things
considered i i think that uh you know as a space we probably have to get more creative more targeted
and sharper as a whole with the way that we actually distribute content to people
um and that's 100 part of what we're going to be focusing on in the next little while as well.
And while I can't say too, too much, I think I can sort of tease that within the next couple of weeks,
you guys should see a couple of larger partnerships that are built alongside sort of these Web2 brands
that are very much focused on helping get BearChain in front of a completely different subset of people.
And I'd even give a quick shout out to one of the groups that I see listening in the
crowd right now, the team from Starglow.
The Starglow team is doing something pretty cool, which I didn't know a ton about until
Ella, who leads a lot of our APAC work, told me about them a few weeks ago.
And they're actually allowing people to basically have a fan engagement and I'd say
sort of like earnings tokenization platform
for a number of different,
you know, idols and or stars
across the K-pop universe.
And that's like, you know,
I'd say a pretty funky thing
just because on one hand,
it gives people access
to an interesting new asset class,
which is correlated to something
that they may or may not be bullish on
in terms of, you know,
K-pop idol earnings, right?
But on the other hand, it's actually a completely different be bullish on, in terms of, you know, K-pop idol learnings, right?
But on the other hand, it's actually a completely different user base,
and I think that, you know, is the majority of CT users.
And they've got close to 100,000 wallets from different users who are engaging with their fans, or engaging with their idols,
and, you know, building on bear chain now.
So, I mean, I think that that's just a case study
of one of the many ways that the ecosystem is starting to expand
beyond its sort of, deeply crypto native roots.
And I think we're going to have to see like a very, what's our word, a very careful but healthy balance between the two worlds of, you know, how do we make sure that we don't sort of alienate your crypto native users who have, you know, seen us over the last three, four years from the peaks of degeneracy.
And, you know, from the good old days where
everyone would just ape own forks and whatever, you know, NFT had like some form of generative
art on it to, you know, now when people are trying to make sure they position incredibly,
you know, cleanly to institutional capital, to retail users and everything in between.
So I think we'll have like a pretty interesting, you know, toe the line sitting at the intersection
of a Venn diagram type experience over the next
few weeks and months that's super exciting and really does sort of fall back to your earliest
take around you know what the main differences are and bringing that attention in and because
yeah you can't bring attention in if you don't have it yourself right and i think you know trying
to find those different pockets of audiences who have provided tremendous value in other areas um very very good way to do
it like k-pop you know i think labubus basically for anyone who knows those little funky weird
ugly collectibles that you put on a keychain and they basically got a lot of their initial success
and the attention that you know they were going for 10 years um but it was really only this year
that they sort of hit the mainstream and it was based on a bunch of different artists around that side of the world.
And basically, you know, really, really pushing the fact that they held these things and they
collected these things and the fans just came for it. Like once they knew that, um, they,
they were all over those things and then it got into the Western markets and that was it. It was
just world domination for those guys. Um, So I do like that idea of finding these strategic pockets and partners who can get you exposure that,
you know, even not in NFTs or crypto, but just have had these massive moments of attention and
bringing that attention to whatever the product or the project might be. Look, I've pinned your
article up at top and I'll be remiss
if I don't talk about this, because it's a recent article. I'm sure people have questions around it.
I think the first thing that came to my mind is that you mentioned this idea of a new shift,
but the fact that that is actually a return to the traditional, and also rising to opportunity.
So I'd love for you to talk a little bit about that. I think I can imagine where we're going
from your initial takes on the conversation.
But what exactly does that mean in the Barrett Chains context?
Yeah, I mean, I think it's a good question, man.
And it's one that probably requires a decent degree of nuance.
So I'll try to be as clean about it as possible.
And I think that, you know, in this period, post launch,
there's lots of times where you get like a little bit of like, like almost like mentor advisor whiplash, right? You'll have hundreds of different people, whether they be, you know, team members,
you know, friends, you know, community members, people building on the chain, investors,
everything in between saying, you should do this, you should do that, you should do this,
you should do that. And I think that somewhere in that, like, you know, that that that flotsam and jetsam we found ourselves a little bit lost in terms of like what is the
message or what is the um you know the the vibe that we want to put out to the world um and you
know we sort of went from from having this like uh lackadaisical but competent attitude if you will
of like hey we're gonna have fun doing what we're doing but we're going to you know continue to
execute along the way to saying oh no, no, people are worried about price.
What do we do here? What do we do there? Like, you know, it always is interesting to see. And I
think we were particularly subject to the thoughts of like, oh, no, how PA affects sentiment. Because
of course, I think that's something that is like, quite impossible to avoid in the world where one
issues the token.
And I think that in that like back and forth period,
there's times where we sort of let ourselves like divert from our roots a little bit, right?
We became a little bit more stale with our updates.
We became a little more stale with our messaging.
And it's like, well, you know, if you,
if you sort of lose that emotion or lose that same energy that took you to,
to where you were, I don't know.
I think it can be like shooting oneself in the foot twice, right?
So, you know, in efforts to, you know,
make sure that we were being more communicative,
more, I'd say, more like personable
or more, you know, professional in certain ways,
I think we ended up taking away from some of our own energy.
And I know that can sound like a little bit like wishy-washy
or like hand-wavy in terms of the wording,
but I think people get the sense as well, right? And that bear chain has always had a little bit of like a fuck it we ball type of energy but of course it gets a little bit tougher to to have
you know fuck it we ball energy when numbers go down and then people are like well you know dev
do something and we're like well you know we're going to continue trying to do what we can do best
but we can only do so many things there right right? And I think that part of the whole
thought process that I wanted to put back out into the world there was, A, on one hand, there's
some things that we've always wanted to do and have just sort of been a matter of time and legal
execution and engineering execution that we're going to be shipping, whether that is the enshrined
lending market or purpose in the future and things that actually drive more and more revenue to the
chain, whether it's the actual P POL evolution and effectively closing that value loop between
Bera and BGT and providing a really, I think, stable and more than anything else, an easily
accessible home for the Bera token, especially for the vast majority of users who might not be
super deeply, I'd say, ingrained within the DeFi ecosystem and be thinking about all the different
types of derivatives of Bera and BGT and everything in between that might exist.
And then I think sort of like making sure that we, you know, don't lose our overall,
I'd say, brand and our enthusiasm and energy as an ecosystem, as a team, just because it's
so easy to have that happen.
And I think momentum is one of those things that compounds quite meaningfully within crypto,
if not all spaces, but I'd say especially so within crypto.
And making sure that we sort of stayed on top of that
and continue to highlight the people that are winning,
doing interesting things in the ecosystem.
And I think making it very clear that like,
hey, this is a chain that's six months old,
but nonetheless has a variety of projects
that are doing millions of dollars in revenue
on a regular basis, that are reaching tens of thousands, if not hundreds of thousands
of users that has a number of partnerships online with some of the largest brands.
And I'd say largest corporates in the space, whether that be PayPal or, you know, a top
100, you know, global enterprise on the other side of the world, or whether it be, you know,
some of the more notable
folks in the Canadian region that we'll be able to talk about more as well in the near future.
You know, my take has been that it felt like we kind of just needed to get our vibe back a little
bit. And I feel a little bit cringy saying that because it's like, yo, man, like, let's get our
vibe back. And it's like, you know, it's not quite that. It's more just, I think, an internal reset
of like, okay. There are also times where I think in that, that mentor
whiplash, that back and forth process, if you will, you'd have people thinking, okay, well,
you know, we got to go in one direction or we got to go super credibly neutral, or we got to go super
wag me. Um, and I think that we probably swung the pendulum a little bit too far towards, um,
a lack of opinionation in terms of saying like, yes, you know, everything should be on the same terms for everyone.
Because, you know, on one hand, you want to foster a really open and I think collaborative environment for builders.
On the other hand, there's 100%, you know, some teams that will be more all in and put in more effort and simply have a greater chance of succeeding than others.
than others. And you're kind of remiss if you don't actually do your best to help those teams
And you're kind of remiss if you don't actually do your best to help those teams win.
win. Because, you know, if I was to draw an allusion to something else you mentioned in terms
like that, you know, Labubu effect, if you will, right? The company was making blind boxes for
years and years, like you mentioned, but all it takes is one breakout hit to then have a ton of
attention on Popmart, right? And I think that I view a lot of ecosystem building in a similar way
in that one does kind of have to have strong opinions about which groups are doing really non-popmart, right? And I think that I view a lot of ecosystem building in a similar way,
in that one does kind of have to have strong opinions about which groups are doing really interesting things. Do your best to help put them on different pedestals and do your best to help
them get as much exposure and as many potential win avenues as possible. But at the same time,
do as much as we can to support the people who have been earnestly building and, you know,
working away nonstop, whether their projects are starting to
reach that breakout velocity or not. So, you know, TLDR is on one hand, making sure that we do not
lose our sort of like kind of, you know, I guess, degenerate, but endearing, you know, attitude as
a whole towards the space. I think on the other hand, making sure that we are clearly communicating
how the chain itself drives value and how the chain itself is actually, I think,
pretty much very much an outlier and end of one
in terms of the way that it actually supports its applications.
And then also making sure that we are drawing attention
to the apps that are really going to be able to win
and giving them as many opportunities as possible to do so.
So multifactorial, but nonetheless,
a lot of things that can be actioned on.
And I think that, you
know, bit by bit, we're seeing that happen. So like, even when it comes to the rollout of PULV2,
that's something where we're in conversations with pretty much every major centralized exchange.
In the interim, we've seen about, I think, close to 40% of all the WBRA on chain,
actually make its way into that staking protocol. And I think that as we, you know,
find ourselves across more and more centralized venues, and i think that as we you know find ourselves across
more and more centralized venues in terms of accessibility from you know one click staking
point of view we'll be able to have more and more people earning some of the best yields possible
on now one token while getting exposure to real yields and real revenue that are byproduct approval
liquidity so i guess my my overall view on a lot of these things is that um there's a lot of pretty good things happening on parachain.
And I think that we need to do a better job of making sure that we tell people about them.
And I'm really glad that we have everything from our team members to help beat out those mouthpieces to sort of like these, our mini ecosystem KOLs, if you will, like folks like Fent who are in this call, who tirelessly talk about all the cool things happening in the eco i think it's about making sure that we give that you know a platform and a formal way of
winning alongside you know just i think making sure that we actually actively go out there and
highlight things that are working um so yeah i hope that you know helps answer the question a
little bit jack yeah honestly i i real talk here for a, I have been in the space for about five years, literally like just coming up to it.
It was early 2020 and then very active from 2021,
like when the NFTs really started to pop.
But I haven't heard so much cohesion.
And like, I really, it's so linear
in terms of everything that you've described so far
makes so much sense to me
in terms of the initial goal that you guys have reset on and and it's it's actually really refreshing and transparent to hear you talk about
the failures too you know that you have strayed too far away from that path and you're trying to
bring that back but everything that you're explaining to me right now makes complete sense
for that overarching goal of just having attention come to the chain and therefore go to the apps and
everyone else building on that chain but i think the the big, big thing for me, and you said it here, but I'll just
double down on this. If I was to be involved in chains and projects, if I invest, which I do,
and obviously I hold a bunch of NFTs way more than I should for exposure's sake. But all of that
being said, the reason I do that and the projects that I hold, what you've
just explained is what I look for, which is this idea that attention is mandatory, but
also this idea that by sitting on the fence, you are not going to get it.
It just doesn't work.
And I can see why as you scale and as you get bigger and as your voice has more weight
towards it, there will be a period of figuring that out because it will be a first time and it'll be like okay so you know we we can't
focus just on these individual projects we need to be more for every space and the scale we have
and the projects that are coming in we need to figure this out but realistically if you want
attention and if you look at anyone who has attention from creators to products to projects, there are people who are going to hate that chain.
And there are people who are going to be really against the thing that that person is saying.
But there's also going to be the real advocates and the ride or dies there.
And you don't tend to get one without the other.
You can't really bring attention without polarizing a certain group because it's not going to be for everyone and if you don't understand that and you know this idea of pleasing everyone is like the overarching
goal then yeah you're gonna end up in like that sort of no man's land of just not really having
anybody really live and breathe for the project for the chain and just gonna have people who are
like yeah you know nothing they say upsets me but it also doesn't excite me so you know what what we
doing here so i really do just like really implore like how you've come at this i love that we're
doing spaces and you're able to really put that across as well i think that's very important for
the goals that you've just talked about um there is a lot of change that i am hearing though like
literally like this sounds like one of those moments where
you have sat down with the team with the major stakeholders and said okay we need a reset here
what are the signals or what were like the milestones that told you bear chain was ready
for that big change that like end game phase now yeah i mean like look i think it is really much
the really as i said like the beginning of what that end game should look like. And I think that was more of a byproduct of conversations with a like some of the best builders and strong teams in the ecosystem, and reaching out to them and understanding like, hey, what are their needs? What are the things that they are looking for most, right? And on one hand, one can give very generic answers. I'm like, hey, we want like, you know, more TVL. It's like, okay, cool. Or like, hey, we want like, you know, more users. It's like, okay, yeah, I understand.
But there's also something that can be said about, hey, we want to understand how we can
actually like, you know, build ourselves into a better business, right?
And I think that, you know, a lot of that just simply means that our attitude has to
be around making sure that we are A, 100% there for those builders.
And I think it's a constantly, it's something that, you know,'t think there's ever like an up a ceiling on how that experience should be um in that you
know i don't think it's ever possible to be perfect there but it is possible to continue improving on
and maintaining an upwards trajectory and always being proactive and thoughtful about how we can
make their quality of life and their experiences as good as possible right um and then i think that
you know the the other part of it in
terms of like, you know, protocol level shifts around POL, etc. were, I think, a byproduct of
a number of different discussions around like, you know, where value accrual actually occurs in the
system, the balance between, you know, token value accrual, messaging, narrative, and everything in
between. And I think that the narrative for better for worse that was starting to form is like, okay, well, you want to hold, you know,
BGT or a BGT derivative,
but you don't want to hold Bera
because that's just the other token.
And I'm like, well, that's probably not great
given that Bera is a token
that's listed on all the major exchanges
and it's kind of what the chain's named after.
And like, it is relatively important.
And, you know, we thought to ourselves
that even from just the perspective,
like I mentioned of, you know, a user who isn't super, super deep in these like, you know, DeFi trenches, if you will, it's really important to find a way to actually participate in bear chain and gain upside from proof of liquidity without really getting diluted and without also, you know, getting lost in the weeds along the way.
way. Because again, there's only that many, you know, power users on chain, right? There's only,
let's say 20,000 folks who really know what they're doing back and forth in these environments.
And that's a lot of, you know, there's a much larger world out there, right? So I think that
the thought process was guided by a lot of conversation with builders who were, you know,
very active, engaging with POL, et cetera, in the ecosystem. A lot of conversation within the team
of like hey
what are the areas that we feel like we're missing and where we know we can do a better job
and then what are the ways that we can make sure that we position things in a manner that is both
intellectually honest and accessible and understandable to people right so on one hand
it's hey we've always said that we want to make sure that we have these core defy apps built into
the chain at one point we probably swung the pendulum too far to the left and said,
okay, yeah, we only want to support third-party apps on the network,
but there's also something to be said about the chain having a base source
of revenue generation that's helpful, especially as the meta matures
and as people think more and more about the quote-unquote classic fundamentals
of the business.
On the other hand, I think that we very much let the narrative around proof of
liquidity move in a direction that wasn't the most constructive to us and that people like,
oh yeah, you just farm. But the other side of that narrative is actually that proof of liquidity
and or bear chain is the only blockchain that actually has a form of real revenue generation
built into the chain itself, right? Like in a typical L1, you know, you're giving away your
block awards to people who are holding your tokens. And that's great, right L1, you know, you're giving away your block awards to people who are holding your tokens.
And that's great. Right. Like, you know, you hold a token, you get more tokens.
In the case of bear chain, the chain is actually earning a form of revenue from all those block awards because apps are actually bidding for that.
Right. And really the way that that becomes a positive sum game or becomes more interesting at scale is that it is a form of, you know, I don't want to use one
plus one equals three math because that probably has the wrong callbacks. But what I do think I
can say is that it's something where the chain itself is gaining revenues that it would not have
in the base case. The applications are getting a money multiplier on their spend. And above all
else, the chain is actually investing in growth. And when we look at how any of these massive tech companies or, you know, quote unquote,
real businesses have won, it's been a matter of actually making sure that they have as
many different potential, you know, high, I'd say high potential growth factors as possible.
So in the same way that Apple might invest in the App Store, and then the App Store
becomes the means of distribution for every app, whether that's Instagram or WhatsApp
or Snapchat or B-Real or whatever that might be, right?
BearChain serves a very similar purpose in the case of POL,
because POL is there to help distribute and accelerate all the different applications building on top of it.
And I think the way that we've very much seen this is like, you know,
the chain is putting its money where its mouth is,
and we have an opportunity to tell that story a lot better.
So I think that like, you know, to actually answer your question, Jack, I think I see it as a series of, like, small shifts or redirections around how we tell the story of what we're actually doing,
combined with a couple of small mechanical shifts to make the story and the actual product itself that much more compelling, right?
Because it's not reinventing the wheel.
It's actually,
A, just following through on things that we wanted to do. And B, making sure that we make the concepts really accessible to people. Because I think one of the gifts or curses of BearChain
was that, you know, I think we came up in an era that was, you know, incredibly DeFi heavy,
and had lots of, I'd say, more abstract mechanisms. And, you know, that's great at a point in time.
But I'd say over the last like couple of years, I say people have more abstract mechanisms. And, you know, that's great at a point in time, but I'd say over the last couple of years,
I'd say people have lost as much of the appetite
to engage in that, right?
So even though there might be
some very interesting DeFi mechanisms,
you know, underpinning some of this logic
that I'm mentioning around POL,
sometimes people just want to say,
okay, cool, like I have this token
and by holding this token, I get X or Y, right?
And some of the changes are actually meant
to very much help points in that direction as well
so that the subject matter as a whole
can be that much more accessible
and so that people don't have to reinvent the wheel
and that they can say, okay, cool.
This like reminds me of like other places that I've been,
but there's interesting, unique applications.
My earnings potentials are actually better
and I can actually basically earn
by doing whatever I'm doing.
So like, you know, the way that we're trying to, I think, have all this come together is such that one can actually tell the story of BearChain in a pretty different manner, depending on who you're looking to, while being very intellectually honest.
Which is to say, to crypto natives, you could say, hey, it's a place where one is building a whole variety of different applications, and the chain is helping them bootstrap their liquidity.
And a lot of people understand that in terms of bootstrapping liquidity or activity um in the
world of you know a more traditional institution one can say bear chain looks a lot more like a
traditional growth stage business because it takes its balance sheet or its block awards and
submissions and it invests them into high potential opportunities in the network which return value
back to the base layer right in the same way that way that, you know, you'll have the Microsoft suite or the app store or Facebook, you know, initially not monetizing.
And then finally, if you're thinking about a retail user who might look like me or you,
and they might not know a ton about crypto, but maybe knows about Ethereum and Bitcoin,
you can also tell a very clean story of like, hey, look, you know, we had blockchain 1.0,
which is proof of work in Bitcoin. You had blockchain 2.0, which is proof of stake in Ethereum.
And BearChain is looking to really start that wave of blockchain 3.0
in terms of proof of liquidity and chains that actually drive value
back to the applications that are built on top of them
and help the things that actually make that chain useful
go out there and succeed.
So I think that everything I mentioned in terms of the end game,
if you will, and transitioning into that, like, you know, more mature phase, if you will, has been built with a
lot of those purposes in mind of making sure that we, A, don't try to make everyone happy, like you
said, because if you boil the ocean, you get nowhere. But B, have an opinionated and coherent
stance about how bear chain's future can be palatable to a number of different participants
stance about how Baruchin's future can be palatable to a number of different participants,
um and also pretty rational if you view it from a bird's eye lens so that's kind of where we're
going man and it felt like the right time to you know put that out there uh and then try to rally
as many people as possible behind it um you know the devil's in the details and the execution so
that's what we're going to be spending all of our time on. But so far, I think that we're taking a number of the steps in the right direction. Yeah, look, again, really like this
centralized approach of like, okay, not just trying to reward everybody. We've seen that in
every different avenue of crypto, and I haven't seen it work yet. You know, you've seen it with
marketplaces, you've seen it with NFT projects where they're just like, oh, we have to keep all our holders rewarded.
And it's like, okay, here's five bucks each, because that's what happens when you try and
basically give everybody, 10,000 plus people, hundreds of thousands of people value in the
same respect.
It really does have to drill down to, okay, but where is the value returning from?
And overall, what is providing value back to that
chain that product that project and yeah that's that's really interesting i i guess i've heard of
pol like this proof of liquidity i think you've done a really good job of like defining that for
us and there's also these terms like pol v2 that have come out and also i guess from a token
holders perspective because we've just heard about the apps and how they're going to bid for it, but I'd like to know from a token holder's perspective, what is the upside here for POL?
And give us any key differences that you haven't hit on in terms of the V2 and what that means to the users.
look, I think that the way to think about it is that under the initial implementation of POL,
you had block rewards going across the chain, and those block rewards were coming in the form of
BGT. And while Bera was able to be used for staking and could participate in lots of different
pools and I'd say DeFi applications within the chain, it was often Bera and something else,
or you're taking on a couple of different forms of risk. Or it's effectively, you know, bearer and something else, or you're taking on a couple different forms of risk.
Or, you know, it's effectively, there was no equivalent,
there's no means of earning very competitive yields from holding bearer alone.
I'd say the best proxy for that was by holding BGT and or a BGT derivative,
which is great in a way, right?
In that it, you know, means that some of that bearer stays out of circulation.
It means that you have a great yield bearing vehicle that's earning sort of like three-figure APYs,
but also meant that for a lot of people
who are trying to understand
what they could do with their bearer,
they were faced with, I'd say, deeper question marks, right?
Or it meant that there was a degree of upscaling
or a degree of increased risk that they have to take on
in order to actually maximize their bearer earning potential.
So what POLV2 does more than anything else is it says, OK, well, right now there's close to $50 million a year flowing towards BGT in terms of incentives.
And that's what's helping to power these massive yields.
And that's from these applications bidding on block boards, like I mentioned.
What if part of that was actually split towards people who were holding and staking Liquid
Barra?
And what gets really interesting there is that on one hand, over time, we're able to
incorporate LSTs into that design such that that can actually help be a form of yield
help be a form of yield and network security, you know, in the long run. But in the interim,
and network security in the long run.
it also means that, you know, Bera effectively goes from a token that was primarily used for gas
and, you know, basic transactions and some degree of speculation to effectively the best yield
bearing L1 token that's out there that's not powered just by, you know, emitting more of
itself, but it's actually powered by real yield from other applications on the chain so um you know i think that's the biggest like transformation point if
you will as in taking bear from purely a gas slash you know network security staking asset
to an asset that is actually earning you know right now like close to 100 apr powered by you
know sustainable buybacks and powered by revenues from the applications that are building on top of the chain. So really helping to close that value loop where, you know, the chain emits blocks,
right? Applications bid on those block rewards. Those applications end up, you know, getting more
than a dollar for their users in exchange for the dollar that they put up. And then part of that
dollar that they put up flows back to barrel holders and BGT holders. And the system ends up,
you know, sort of going in full circle. So I'm not going to say the word flywheel because i think that's
almost become like a bad word recently like i feel like every time i've heard a flywheel recently
it's been like you know bearish flywheel um but i i do think that what i could say is that what
we're seeing is is a better closure of that value loop and allowing someone to be able to look at
this and say okay my bear is like a meaningful cash flowing asset that's downstream of the productivity of the ecosystem
that's built around. Yeah, look, I'm so with you on the flywheel side. I've seen many of those posts
where it's just anything that's like business terminology, like from the traditional world,
anything that you would be brought into a boardroom or brought into like a meeting and a pitch deck.
And if that word is on that board or is in that pitch deck, you cannot no longer use that in the
crypto space without at least a couple of KOLs or a couple of people within the industry just
giving you a lot of shit for it. And for whatever reason, like these words exist people, you know,
but I think you're right. Like just stay away from the word for now. Um, it'll probably have
its foot. It'll have its moments and it'll be back but honestly that sort
of is what it is right like it is just like this fully thought out value proposition that isn't
just like hey here's what value we're bringing but it's also how as a project or as an app or
as whatever you are going to be using alongside bearer chain to provide that value back and then
that reciprocal nature just going and going so yeah i absolutely love that take and look we're
53 minutes in like this one is absolutely flown by i know we had a couple technical issues at the
start but i really really appreciate everyone bearing with and smoking you you got there we
got you in so thank you for the persistence because it's been a really fun show for me
and before our listeners if you're not already you can still like and retweet the show like the
whole thing's recorded people can listen back to it at their own rate if you want to show any support
you can do that either by hitting the little plus symbol at the bottom of your screen or
going to the pinned post and the second post is the show so people can find it there but at this
point in time as well i would just say if you're not already it's obvious very very clear that you need to be following bearer chain and you need to be
following smoky because there's a lot coming and there's going to be a lot of updates a lot of
advancements so please please make sure if you haven't already follow those main accounts and
make sure you got the noties on as things continue to move and i guess look smoky to just round off
this show and again i can't thank you enough for giving us your time today is there anything you would like the listeners to know
if they are trying to decide whether to build on bear a chain right now or trying to get involved
in bear a chain is there any like updates milestones we haven't touched on or any things
that you feel like should be really fundamental to understanding to actually, you know, working with you guys on Baruchain?
Yeah, that's a great question, man.
I think I'd say that the biggest thing that I try to put out to, you know, new or existing builders is that a lot of our focus over the next little while is going to be on distribution and network expansion as a whole, right?
And I think that, you know, above all else, that means that we're going to try different things. We're going to try, you know, working on different spaces with folks like
yourself, right? But it also means that we're going to have to, I think, incorporate a few
different elements that we haven't seen yet. And I think that the goal is to make that as minimally,
what's the word, minimally jarring as possible. But it means that we're going to try to expand
outside of our own audiences, outside of our own comfort zones, and actually get BarraChain into the hands of, you
know, hundreds of thousands and millions of people from an easy exposure point of view. And my goal
is then to take as many of those folks as possible and find ways for them to be exciting, interesting
new users for all the applications across the chain. And I'd say that when it comes to people
who are looking to build on Barra, my take would be that if you're building something cool, new,
and interesting that you think has a something cool, new, and interesting,
that you think has a chance of really being end of one,
having high breakout potential,
and or just something that's simply cool,
like, you know, hit me up, slide in my DMs.
I respond to as much stuff as I can.
Definitely not every last thing, but do my best to get to most of them.
So, you know, we're here to support folks,
and we're here to be, I think, your biggest cheer cheerleaders and we'll continue to do so as much as we
can.
Well,
again,
Smokey,
thank you so much for your time today.
It's been such a fun show.
And I honestly,
people,
if you haven't taken away how much is coming,
but also just the way these guys really have it planned out,
like how everything that has been said today really leads to like the next moment and the next movement for the chain then uh you haven't been listening so
go listen back yeah this has been a great great show and massive shout out to bear a chain but
of course huge shout out to the listeners here you guys have just come in in droves and honestly
just seeing all the pfps all the support is huge for what is a fair show. No matter who you are, what chain you are, what account you are,
how many followers you have, to see that many people just flood in
and get to know the next steps and be engaged enough to get the next steps
is honestly all I need to know to be bullish on what is next.
Smokey, any closing thoughts?
And then I'll play this one out.
No, I think that's probably all we got for now, man.
A couple of busy and hopefully exciting weeks ahead
so I'd say keep your eyes peeled
and thanks everyone for showing up
yeah thank you guys
okay we'll play this one out
we'll catch you on the next one Thank you.
