Thank you. Hello, hello everyone. Welcome. Thank you for joining us early. We're waiting for a
few other guests to join us. We'll be with you momentarily. Thank you.
Absolutely. No, thanks everybody for joining on this Thursday.
Ben, glad to have you on and shout out our guests.
I know you'll do the whole intro, but Brad, I'm sending you an invite.
I'm not sure if you see it on your end, but feel free to get on and you can stay on mute.
I was a little bit under the weather.
I traveled to San Francisco and back in recent weeks.
And man, you know how it goes to 11 hour flights and it wipes you out a little bit.
and it wipes you out a little bit.
I'm really looking forward to this conversation.
I'm really looking forward to this conversation.
I managed to catch up with Simon a little earlier today,
and I'm also really looking forward to the next show after this.
So we've got some good ones lined up.
And, you know, there's a lot of really, really exciting stuff
coming out of the space at the moment.
And Zebek, in my opinion opinion are leading the way when it comes
to those uh upcoming announcements so yep really really good man how are you all good with me i
can't complain yeah that uh change of weather will get you so i'm happy that's it yeah i'm happy to
hear that you're feeling a little bit better and we got a good spaces today you know a lot of stuff
going on obviously you know with uh well crypto the world
in general but i guess within the zebik ecosystem a lot of good stuff going on and uh absolutely
you know the community and update we got some heavy hitters today so shout out the um the two
guests we got and i guess we're waiting on simon to the power we are i'm sure he'll be with us in
a moment while we're waiting hi david let's do a quick uh mic check how are you another day in
paradise no I'm just kidding so thanks to be here today uh I mean 11 hour flight I hear you man I
was two three weeks ago uh in the states uh fly fly over from flew over from Germany and uh I know
what it is and this is rough man 11 hour there's that's not a joke but i'm happy you're uh back in and you feel good yeah great
stuff um well it looks like we've also got brad up as well from xrp las vegas just very quick
mic check for you brad yes indeedy i'm here thank you guys for having me i'm looking forward to it
hello there thank you for joining us really good to have you here. And we also have Simon up on stage. Simon, Simon, where in the world is Simon?
Hello, everyone. Great to be here today.
Doing very well. Super excited for this one.
Yeah, me too. Lots going on, man. Really, really good.
Well, look, we're at one minute past the hour, so I think no time better than the present.
we're at one minute past the hour so i think no time better than the present what i will say to
everyone before we get moving is do us all a wonderful service here we've got a lot to talk
about lots of exciting things so if you could hit that purple pill in the bottom right hand corner
of your listening device and uh go give us a like a repost maybe drop a comment it will
aid the algorithm get more people to come here and join
us as we talk about the things that Zebek are up to. Let's get going. Okay. Good afternoon,
everyone. Welcome back to another Zebek Spaces. I'm Benjamin White. I'm your host for the day.
I'm joined as ever by my good friend, Simon. How are you, Simon?
Doing very well, Ben. It's been a busy month. I think we're already at the end of March.
Absolutely. I mean, how are we at the end of Q1 already? I don't know. But yes, there you are.
We also have David from Tangent, as I was speaking to a moment ago, and Brad from XRP Vegas.
Looking forward to bringing both of you in, guys. So thanks for sitting tight for the moment.
And I've got some great questions lined up for you also.
There's been a lot happening over the last few weeks.
It's a trying time for many.
And so I hope everyone is keeping safe and keeping well.
But I think one of the things that's, you know,
really important to talk about here is that,
well, one thing for me that certainly
cut through is that Zebex move into the Stellar ecosystem has been announced in the background.
And that's a really, really exciting play. To be honest, this feels like one of those moments,
Simon, where things have started to shift from being like interesting DeFi products.
You and I have spoken at length about the infra that you guys are building out
to now something much closer to like real impactful financial infrastructure.
And we've been talking about it and the moves that you're making now
are really starting to show that.
So today I want to break down that properly.
I'd like to get into where you're up to
with the super app. I would like to get to the stellar partnership that you've announced and
what that unlocks. I think it would be great to talk about how this connects to like real world
rails like MoneyGram etc. And we'll also bring in our guests from XRP Vegas where you are speaking
and also Tangent where we've announced even more things.
So a great mix of product infrastructure
Simon, it feels like things have accelerated very quickly.
What's the last couple of weeks look like inside Zbeck?
We've only launched the Super App four weeks ago,
but we're seeing incredible momentum
on both the product and the ecosystem side this year.
We're hitting all of our targets
in terms of the app rollout.
New chain expansions are coming every month
and we're going to be seeing new products
also coming into the Super App very soon.
So super exciting time for us
and crazy to think that, you know,
this has all been done in the past quarter, right?
We're only at the end of Q1 now. and and you know we we talk a lot sometimes in these spaces about people being
there's a like a notion that people are absolutely up to spec and it may not be the case so
break it down for me a little bit more someone's just joining today first time maybe they've seen
the headlines maybe they haven't fully connected the dots.
How would you describe what Zebek is building right now in its simplest possible terms?
Well, as I've said many times now, Zebek is building the rails of the real-time finance
Streaming payments, which is our core product, has become an infrastructure layer that's
now extending beyond our core use case of just payroll.
Through that infra that we built at Zabek, we're breaking down what we like to call the friction of payments. And we're opening up businesses and consumers to payment options
that happen in real-time intervals rather than the conventional monthly or weekly batch of
payments. So this can and will fundamentally transform finance. Absolutely.
And what's changed recently then that makes this moment different from, say, six months ago?
Well, we've now expanded streaming payments beyond Solana for the very first time.
So we're going to be looking at many more payment-focused chains that are capable of
onboarding large institutions and supporting
cross-border flows. Two very big priorities for us this year. And this is going to continue to be
a major focus as we try to build out the breadth and depth of our network so it's usable across
geographies, across enterprise type, and across consumers. I love that. Okay, brilliant intro.
There you are, everyone. You're up to spec.
If you want more information, go check out Zebeck's account up the top there. Follow the
links through to the site. Go do your research. There's so much of it out there. I want to now
touch on the thing that I think most of the people who have been here for a while are curious about.
So let's talk about Zebeck partnering with Stellar and how becoming the stablecoin payroll infrastructure provider in that ecosystem kind of changes things up.
Break down why this is so massive, Simon.
Well, Stellar is one of the largest chains that's truly optimized for financial transactions.
They process over $30 billion in annual payment volume and I think somewhere north of $3 billion in transactions.
billion in annual payment volume, and I think somewhere north of $3 billion in transactions.
So in other words, Stellar can handle the high throughput payment load that we need to support
enterprise payroll on a global scale. Stellar also has real world infra in place that many
chains are still lacking today. So for example, its direct connection into MoneyGram's global
remittance network and its leading position in asset tokenization make it super attractive
for both retail users as well as enterprises looking to work with Zbeck. As I've said,
I think in the past, we've been in talks with Stellar for a very long time to bring this to
fruition. And now it's finally here. The product will be going live in a couple of weeks and we'll
be having spaces with Stellar and doing a lot more to explain to the community the rollout and also to bring some major companies onto this platform.
Okay, I mean, that sounds amazing.
There are some serious numbers there.
Tell me then what it actually unlocks,
because I guess, and forgive me for being
a little bit flippant, I don't mean to,
but partnerships like this get announced
Like, oh, we're collabing, we're partnering. What did this actually enable that wasn't possible before, Simon?
Well, by building Zbex Payroll Streaming natively on Stellar, allows us to integrate
directly with financial systems that Stellar's already plugged into and using. So beyond accessing
the 10 million or so active users that use Stellar every day,
Stellar is working with a number of very large globally recognized companies
that are looking for a stablecoin payroll solution that is secured by the Stellar blockchain.
And until now, this is something that was never offered.
So by bringing in Zbeck as its stablecoin payroll partner,
and of course taking our five plus years of experience on Solana to some of these larger enterprises that run payments on other chains and ecosystems,
we will see a large growth in the number of enterprises that are using our payroll tools
this year. Okay, right. I've got it. And you mentioned earlier, and I captured it in my notes,
the MoneyGram piece. That's one that really will make people stop and think
because 50 million users and physical locations,
How important is that in making this usable
That seems like a huge drive forward.
I mean, MoneyGram's ramp service,
it's a game changer of what we've done on
the payroll product. And what it does is it essentially solves what I would call our last
mile problem of stablecoin-based payments by bridging them between what you get on chain in
terms of your earnings and what you can actually spend and use in the physical cash economy.
So we have instant cash out services that will be coming through MoneyGram's large global network of about 450,000 locations around the world.
Meaning that if you're an employee or a worker that's using Zbeck for extreme salaries, you see your USDC or whatever stable coin it is in your Stellar wallet, and you can immediately walk into one of MoneyGram's locations and withdraw that money in local fiat.
locations and withdraw that money in local fiat. So it solves that problem. And of course,
for the large global population that's also unbanked, this now completely eliminates the
need for them to have a bank account, right? You have payroll streaming on Stellar through
Zbeck. You'll have Stellar-enabled Zbeck cards to spend that money. And in the event that you need
cash for a local payment, you can walk into a MoneyGram and and take cash out so what it does is it completely circumvents the bank from the payment process and it solves the issue of cross-border payments as
well right given that employers can now pay people uh with no fees anywhere in the world with usdc
and have an instant off-ramp in that local economy amazing amazing truly um i've got a few more
questions i want to drop in because that's not the only stuff that's been going on here that this kind of like links up.
And I'm eager to bring in our guests, but let me just hit you for a couple of other questions that I took down earlier.
You mentioned this is like the first major move beyond Solana. So does that signal broader multi-chain strategy?
signal broader multi-chain strategy? Absolutely. I think as we mentioned in our roadmap spaces at
the beginning of the year, going multi-chain is one of our top priorities as a company this year.
Stellar is the first major blockchain expansion on the payroll streaming side. Of course,
we've already supported north of 20 chains on the card side. But this year, we're going to
really see that expansion on payroll streaming, as well as the super app in new chains added.
So if I can summarize everything we've spoken about at the moment, this is Zebek plugging into existing global payment rails, not just building parallel systems, right?
And when you think of it, at the end of the day, Zebek is a network, right?
And the value of the network is about the number of connections that it has. So the more payroll rails, the more traditional finance systems, and the more blockchains
that we plug into, the more usage we will inevitably see.
March 15 was a pretty significant date for ZBCN, right?
Can you walk us through what actually happened there and why that matters?
For those that follow the token, they would know that our vesting period has come to an end, right?
There's no more new unlocks hitting the market from March 15th, which is a big milestone really for any project, right?
Because it means that no new circulating supply will ever enter the market again.
And we shift now to a fully deflationary model where value will continue to accrue back to the token and the ecosystem.
model where value will continue to accrue back to the token in the ecosystem.
Amazing. Yeah, well, congratulations to you and to everyone at the Zevek team. That's great to hear.
Another point to touch on before we bring up our guests. So ZBCN is now available inside
tax-free IRA accounts via crypto.com. I saw that. That's not something you see every day in
crypto. What does that mean in practice for someone who's thinking about long-term exposure
to the token? Yeah, well, we're really happy to bring this to market alongside our friends
at crypto.com. This, of course, is a product geared at Americans. The IRA is a tax-advantaged
account in the US, and it allows you to invest in an asset,
you know, whether that is a stock or a crypto or a token like ZBCN and let that asset grow tax-free
until you're in your retirement year. So for those who are long-term investors, which we hope most of
our community is, it's a great vehicle to see those gains grow without having to pay IRS taxes on them.
Okay. Well, look, thank you, Simon. I'm going to give you a rest for a moment. Amazing updates.
Quick fire. I love it. We should do this more often. And I'm going to bring up a couple of our guests now. So first, let me introduce Brad again from XRP Vegas. Hi, Brad. How's it going?
It's going well. Thank you guys for having me.
Amazing. Well, it's great to have you. And it was such a good idea from Simon to bring you up,
given that Zebek and Simon will be speaking at the event. For anyone who hasn't come across it
yet, XRP Vegas, it's, well, quickly becoming one of those events that people really, really pay
attention to. What is it becoming?
Can you just give us a quick overview of the event at large?
And again, thank you guys for having me.
We're so excited to have Zabek join us and Solana too this year.
Just to let you know, one of the beautiful things about this year that's so special
is that we wanted the conference to grow year over year, and it has greatly, by the way.
But one of our objectives was to really become just like the world we're moving to.
And we're moving to a multipolar, multi-asset world and a multi-chain world.
And we wanted our conference to reflect the world that we're moving to. And that's why we're so proud to have Solana and Zabek and Simon on our stages this year,
because we're embracing projects that have utility. And this really is like a flag on the
moon for us. And that's why we have the slogan this year for the conference, XRP plus everything.
And that's where we're going. That's an amazing slogan. I love that. Can you
tell me a little bit more about like who attends and why it's different from standard crypto
conferences? Just give me a little flavor for what's coming up this year. Absolutely happy to.
So normally what we what I like to do with my style of putting conferences together, one of the things I try to focus on now, I'm a 40 plus year professional musician by trade.
So I look at conferences the same way I look at like rock concerts or festivals.
And when I look at that, I look at that and say, OK, well, what's the analogy?
Well, I like the top industry leaders,
former regulators, congressional officials. These are the rock stars of our space, of our industry.
And I like to showcase them, just like Simon from Zbeck. I like to showcase Brad Garlinghouse,
right? David Schwartz. These are the rock stars of this space. And I like to celebrate them and elevate them. And one of the key things that makes our conference different, because you'll see people like this at conferences,
but one of the things that makes it different is that the stage is our focus.
And the industry leaders and former regulators, regulators, congressional people, this is our focus,
because these are the people that are building out where our future is going or regulating it overseeing it or passing legislation for it so at the end of the day
it's most important to us at xrp las vegas that the messages that are found and discovered on stage
are the real they're the real weight of the conference. Now we have an exhibit floor and it's beautiful and we have
amazing companies that we've selected for everyone to engage with. But I will say that one of the
things that we do different is that I do have an exhibit floor, but it is highly selective who we
allow on that floor. And the reason we do that is for two reasons. One, the quality of the conference.
We don't want the exhibit floor ever to be bigger than the amazing people on stage because the message they're carrying is what you're going to want to remember.
that are on our floor, the highest probability for attendee engagement. So you're not competing
with hundreds of other exhibits on the floor. You're competing with the 20, the 15, 25 exhibits
that we allow on the floor. So this way you get maximum engagement with every attendee that's
walking around on there. So that's really what the style of our conference is. And this year, to your point,
Benjamin, is that we're focused on Ripple will be there, Brad Garlinghouse, they're a premier
sponsor this year, Emeritus CTO David Schwartz. We're going to have Evernorth's Ashish Berla on
stage. We're going to have Flare Network's Philion on stage. Super excited for that DeFi
conversation. Lantern will be there to talk about DeFi as well. We're going to have Uphold on stage.
Moonpay will be on stage. Tucrium, Bitwise, Canary Capital, all your ETFs. So the conversation just
goes on and on and on. We'll have Caroline Pham, the former interim CTF CFTC chairman. We'll have the former CTF CFTC chairman, Christian Carlo, for a fireside chat. We'll people firsthand, but to also really hear about where their insights are on where this space and where they're going specifically with their projects the next two to three years.
Absolutely. Fantastic. You weren't lying when you said XR plus everyone or everything.
Yes. Yes, absolutely. That's great. Can I hear from,
I don't know if you want to touch on it quickly, Brad, then I'll bring Simon in,
in terms of like where Zebek fits into the event this year. Oh, absolutely. Well, you know, for one,
I'll let Simon answer too, but I'll say that, you know, for me, it's that, you know, it's XRP plus
everything. And what that really means to me personally is simply if you have utility, we want you at our conference. We want you on our stage
because that is the next wave that is coming in this space. It is utility that will end up being
the price driver of this market and speculation will always be there as it is in any market like oil or gold
but the reality is for the first time in history we're going to get legislation and we're about to
see traditional finance show all of us who the real utility winners are and I couldn't be more
excited about that opportunity in that moment that's coming our way. That's fantastic thank
you so much it's great to hear
someone speak so passionately about their product, Brad. So thank you very much, Simon. I don't know
if you wanted to quickly jump on top of that. I mean, there's a lot to cover there, some incredible
speakers, et cetera. Maybe speak to me a bit about Zebek this year there. And also, I know that
you're speaking on the main stage with Brad Garlinghouse and all of these people that Brad just spoke about.
So we'd love to hear more about it from your side.
Super excited and, of course, honored to be speaking on the main stage
alongside industry titans like Brad and all the other great folks
joining the conference this year.
So, yes, it's going to be our first year representing at XRP Vegas.
We're going to have a booth there. We'll have a few different representatives from the team. And of course,
I'll be delivering a keynote speech on the main stage. And we'll be announcing a major,
major development for Zbeck on that stage in Vegas. So I encourage everyone to stay tuned,
attend the conference if you can. And if not, we'll have all of the clips online afterwards.
I know we've got some spaces lined up before then but we should definitely do what we do immediately afterwards because this uh i'm excited to hear what this announcement might be
sounds uh sounds a lot of fun um just flag for me simon very quickly or for everyone listening i
suppose there's also an all expenses paid trip-paid trip, right, for grabs?
What does that look like?
Yes, yes, we wanted to do something for our amazing community at Zabek.
So we are giving away three all-expenses-paid trips to Las Vegas
to attend XRP Vegas, to meet us and the team, and to learn, most importantly.
So I encourage everyone to watch our Twitter.
I think we're running a number of trivia campaigns.
We also have our custom limited edition XRP Las Vegas wallet alongside Tangent.
We'll be on the spaces in a moment.
And if you buy one of those wallets, it also adds to your chances to win the trip.
And I think we'll be announcing winners at some point next week.
So we still have another week until this closes.
I want to bring in our friends at Tangent.
Thank you for lining that up, Simon.
Like I said, another day in paradise.
And I really need to tell you, I probably need another minute
because I'm checking right now, LibEx on TradingView.
And I'm ready to put some money in there because
you guys made an amazing pitch.
I know ZBEX from my community.
I know ZBEX at least from Tangent and they work together.
And what I heard right away regarding payrolls, regarding what you're doing with the IRS and
the tax-free situation, I mean, this is amazing, guys.
And I think this is what it comes down and
adoption is the key. So thank you very much to bring that also on my radar again. But
nothing less, I really think that Tangem and Zeebex is a great fit because Simon, you said
it very, very, very great frictionless experience for the users. And this is exactly what Tangem
is doing. We're bringing 8 billion people to the
blockchain with hardware technology. So coming back to your question, I'm very good and I'm
very happy to be here today and have a chance to talk with you and the community about Tangem.
Well, thank you so much for joining us. That's amazing. Something huge dropped this Monday.
Can you give us more information about the wallets that you're working together on, please?
David, go first, because I know Simon has already spoken on it a little.
Yes, Simon can rest a little bit.
He made some great pictures again.
Yeah, so we were really proud to partner with you guys together
and decided to make a customized wallet specifically for the ZBIX token
and also have something very unique made for the community.
So maybe speaking a little bit about the Tangium wallet.
So as you may all know that self-custody is not a punishment, it's more like a gift.
So you can come to the beautiful position that you store your cryptos in your own wallet.
I mean, keeping your assets on an exchange or maybe on a software
wallet is probably not the best idea as you may have experienced in 2022 with FTX or maybe with
HECS, etc. And Tangem is definitely the market leader when it comes to the most user-friendly,
the most affordable, the most secure and the wallet with the most features on it.
So for everybody who's not aware about what Tangem really is,
I mean, we're a hardware wallet supplier or a hardware wallet producer.
We were found 2017 in Switzerland, in the heart of Europe.
So yeah, this is really very important for us.
We have a really big team spread out all around the globe.
And community comes first for us. We have a really big team spread out all around the globe and community comes first for us. So whenever you see something that you might have changed on Tansom, maybe new
network, maybe new quality of life feature, maybe a nod that needs to have another color, please feel
free to shoot it over to us. We collect all the informations in our databases and really make sure
that that what triggers the community the most or what's very important for the community, we definitely fit into our wallet.
And here comes the biggest point when it comes to hardware wallets.
I mean, everybody might have experienced other hardware wallet products
with knobs, with displays, with batteries that die after a year
and does not get changed because it's a wear part.
We at Tandrum said, you know what, let's make it more simple.
Put a hardware wallet to that, what it have to be, an offline device.
So we decided to grab one of the most secure elements on the market,
an EAL 6 Plus microprocessor patented by Samsung,
into a plastic card, put some antennas to it and highly encrypt
your private key directly on that microprocessor so that nobody in the world can extract from there
and this is what tangent is tangent is a simple plastic card that holds your private key and
whenever you sign a transaction you have to grab one of your three cards, tap it to your phone
to prove that you are the owner of your hardware wallet.
I didn't realize that was your tech.
Yeah, that is, I mean, again, we're super simple.
We really made sure that nothing can really get extracted,
and we're super proud of that.
We have right now a little bit more than 8.3 million
produced cards out there on the market.
None of them ever get hacked.
This is something I can tell you we're absolutely proud.
Here's another key takeaway.
Everybody of you might have experienced
being very careful with your hardware wallet,
metal cylinder and treat it like a raw egg. I have lived over three and a half years in the United
States. And if you don't mind, just check out our Tangem YouTube channel. I made a video in a
fabrication facility where I ran over one of the Tangem carts with a 10-ton forklifter i shot on it with a caliber 22 i
drilled a hole through it i burned it i brought i put it into dry ice i froze it i cooked it i
washed it guys i did everything with that card and it still works and this is great amazing
and i love that and another and another last point i want to highlight, we make sure that you really treat your assets very safely and in an absolutely safe environment.
So what that means is everything what happens on the card stays on the card.
And we completely give you an interface where you can directly buy with fiat.
You can directly swap on your Tand your tandem wallet not only in the same
network so you can not only swap solana to zback you can also swap xrp to zback you can also swap
bitcoin to zback so you can also have also cross-chain swaps we also allow staking opportunities
and we have one absolutely cool feature out right now that is smart gas.
It means that you don't need any more for specific networks right now,
but we're working on integrating much more.
The layer one token to pay your gas fees.
If you want to do a swap, if you want to send something.
And really, and truly spoken,
if you are starting as a beginner with your hardware wallet or with self-custody,
I mean, what happens first
time? Yes, you're going to send your token to your wallet. You're super proud. You want to send them
back to the exchange. What are you missing? Yes, the layer one to pay your goofy gas fees.
And this is what Tangem is avoiding completely right now with a lot of networks right now.
You only need your asset, so your token, and we take the gas fee directly from the token.
And there are also many more things.
Maybe the last thing I wanna highlight,
we are also integrating TangentPay right now,
what means we have an integrated Visa terminal,
what allows you to swap your crypto assets,
no matter what crypto assets,
directly into US dollar or euros or whatever you want
and pay everything what you want on a visa term.
Well, great to see this, David.
I'm going to pass it over to Simon very quickly just to retort because that means this feels
like the right moment for this, Simon.
Yes, I mean, the Tansion partnership is a great addition to the Zbeck ecosystem.
It fits in very well with our broader vision about making crypto usable on a day-to-day basis
and really having full custody and control over your assets.
So we encourage everyone in the community that does hold ZBCN to look into a Tangent wallet
as a secure way to store that.
And of course, other tokens like XRP,
which also works seamlessly on the wallet.
So we're really excited to be taking this partnership
to the next level this year.
Of course, we've been both sponsors of the Bundesliga this year
in Germany with Bayern Munich and other leading teams.
You've seen our ads all over there,
and there's more coming on the sports front
between these two companies this year.
Okay, well, look, I want to be conscious of everyone and respectful of everyone's time.
Brad, did you have something you wanted to say quickly?
I just wanted to say again, thank you guys for having me.
We're so excited to have Zabek join us on stage at XRP Las Vegas.
And I just want to remind everybody out there, if you're on the fence about coming to this
conference, get your tickets and book your
room because they're discounted as low as they could possibly go right now and they're on sale
until april 1st thank you brad i appreciate you have a great um event i'm certain it will be i
wish i could be there i know simon will capture lots of content from there and I'll help him break it down
afterwards. Thank you for having us. No problem at all. I think that's probably enough information
for everyone. Simon, let me give you the final word before we close things out and then we'll
finish up. Appreciate everyone joining today. Lots more to come in April. It's going to be a
really big month for us in terms of both the product side, the ecosystem side,
culminating at the end of the month
So looking forward to meeting
many of our community members out there.
So thank you everyone for joining today.
Thanks so much, everyone.
JJ, I'm going to pass over to you.
Everyone, have a great day.
Thanks everybody for joining. Thanks, David. Thanks, everybody, for joining.
And then, yeah, I'll see you guys on the next one.