1
00:00:00,000 --> 00:00:03,040
All right, welcome to the Presidio Bitcoin Jam.

2
00:00:03,320 --> 00:00:03,920
How are you guys doing?

3
00:00:04,740 --> 00:00:05,060
Great.

4
00:00:05,560 --> 00:00:06,060
How are you doing?

5
00:00:06,580 --> 00:00:06,860
Good.

6
00:00:07,280 --> 00:00:09,640
Must be Friday because we're here again live streaming.

7
00:00:10,300 --> 00:00:11,520
We're at the Presidio.

8
00:00:11,740 --> 00:00:12,860
Actually, no, we're not.

9
00:00:13,000 --> 00:00:14,280
But we're still at Presidio Jam.

10
00:00:15,560 --> 00:00:17,100
The brand carries forward.

11
00:00:17,480 --> 00:00:18,060
The brand carries.

12
00:00:18,380 --> 00:00:22,200
I've literally been traveling for 12 hours just to make this show.

13
00:00:22,500 --> 00:00:23,020
Wow.

14
00:00:23,660 --> 00:00:25,220
And I just got home.

15
00:00:25,920 --> 00:00:28,820
I woke up at 3 a.m. Eastern time.

16
00:00:29,180 --> 00:00:29,620
Oof.

17
00:00:30,000 --> 00:00:30,600
Wow.

18
00:00:31,000 --> 00:00:32,780
In rural Georgia.

19
00:00:33,920 --> 00:00:36,780
So midnight California time.

20
00:00:37,540 --> 00:00:40,960
Was that for Bitcoin-related business or was that family stuff?

21
00:00:42,780 --> 00:00:43,760
Just a vacation.

22
00:00:43,960 --> 00:00:44,680
You don't have to answer.

23
00:00:44,840 --> 00:00:46,060
I've never been to northern Georgia.

24
00:00:46,300 --> 00:00:47,460
It's really beautiful there.

25
00:00:47,700 --> 00:00:49,040
It's just south of Chattanooga.

26
00:00:50,240 --> 00:00:50,660
All right.

27
00:00:50,780 --> 00:00:51,160
All right.

28
00:00:51,560 --> 00:00:51,720
Yeah.

29
00:00:52,380 --> 00:00:54,240
Stayed at the Cloudland Resort.

30
00:00:55,460 --> 00:00:56,020
Recommended.

31
00:00:56,020 --> 00:01:07,020
but um no the plan was to get back get to atlanta fly out at 7 a.m get back to sfo in time to make the

32
00:01:07,020 --> 00:01:12,360
studio so we could record in person right and then number one problem is we learned that the

33
00:01:12,360 --> 00:01:18,840
entire building's power is out today right that's why none of us are at the studio and then secondly

34
00:01:18,840 --> 00:01:22,340
despite making it to the airport

35
00:01:22,340 --> 00:01:24,520
in plenty of time

36
00:01:24,520 --> 00:01:26,480
one of the flight attendants

37
00:01:26,480 --> 00:01:28,200
decided not to show up to work today.

38
00:01:29,540 --> 00:01:30,500
Too much fun.

39
00:01:30,740 --> 00:01:31,980
Too much fun in Atlanta.

40
00:01:32,540 --> 00:01:33,680
Too much fun in Atlanta.

41
00:01:34,160 --> 00:01:36,820
So that means the flight can't take off.

42
00:01:37,560 --> 00:01:38,380
So fortunately

43
00:01:38,380 --> 00:01:39,860
they at least found another flight attendant.

44
00:01:40,420 --> 00:01:41,780
But it did delay the flight

45
00:01:41,780 --> 00:01:44,380
and I just got home

46
00:01:44,380 --> 00:01:46,060
right in time for the show.

47
00:01:46,700 --> 00:01:47,940
Straight on the show.

48
00:01:47,940 --> 00:01:55,640
So who hosted Nick Batia yesterday? Because I saw that he was in attendance at Presidio Bitcoin. None of us were there.

49
00:01:55,640 --> 00:02:06,040
Fortunately, we have great people and I'm not the only one that has to be running the show. I think Alex hosted Nick.

50
00:02:06,520 --> 00:02:08,160
Oh, cool. And how was it?

51
00:02:08,160 --> 00:02:13,660
I saw a few folks sharing things from it.

52
00:02:13,740 --> 00:02:15,100
It sounded like it was really interesting.

53
00:02:15,220 --> 00:02:15,980
I wanted to go.

54
00:02:16,540 --> 00:02:19,340
But sadly, I've also been a little up and down this week

55
00:02:19,340 --> 00:02:20,800
since I saw you guys last time.

56
00:02:21,260 --> 00:02:23,060
I made that quick trip to Mexico.

57
00:02:23,540 --> 00:02:25,860
Last Friday at our show, things were totally chill.

58
00:02:26,000 --> 00:02:28,860
And then afterwards, I think I had the 72-hour delay

59
00:02:28,860 --> 00:02:30,960
Mexican stomach bug.

60
00:02:31,420 --> 00:02:33,720
And so it's been coming on and off in waves,

61
00:02:34,020 --> 00:02:35,080
finally feeling good now.

62
00:02:35,080 --> 00:02:37,780
But yeah, yesterday, I was all stoked to go in the office

63
00:02:37,780 --> 00:02:40,540
and go there, but it did not cooperate.

64
00:02:41,200 --> 00:02:42,720
But from what I heard, it was a hit.

65
00:02:42,880 --> 00:02:45,000
I mean, it sounds like people love meeting him.

66
00:02:45,540 --> 00:02:47,280
He's definitely one of the thinkers

67
00:02:47,280 --> 00:02:49,200
that has influenced, I think,

68
00:02:49,300 --> 00:02:50,840
most of my thought on the idea

69
00:02:50,840 --> 00:02:52,400
of the lighting network reference rate of return,

70
00:02:52,600 --> 00:02:54,160
the idea that routing can become

71
00:02:54,160 --> 00:02:56,000
something like a yield free rate of return.

72
00:02:56,580 --> 00:02:58,140
So yeah, I'm sad I missed him.

73
00:02:59,000 --> 00:03:01,000
I'm also bummed I missed,

74
00:03:01,180 --> 00:03:03,680
but I did tune in actually on the live stream

75
00:03:03,680 --> 00:03:05,280
for a little bit.

76
00:03:05,560 --> 00:03:06,500
Oh, how was it?

77
00:03:06,500 --> 00:03:08,220
it was nice

78
00:03:08,220 --> 00:03:09,260
I mean it was kind of cool

79
00:03:09,260 --> 00:03:11,620
I'm usually there right

80
00:03:11,620 --> 00:03:13,400
so it was fun to

81
00:03:13,400 --> 00:03:15,020
play the role of me

82
00:03:15,020 --> 00:03:16,000
did they live stream the whole session?

83
00:03:17,500 --> 00:03:18,700
yeah I think so

84
00:03:18,700 --> 00:03:19,940
did he drop it

85
00:03:19,940 --> 00:03:23,640
I tuned in like maybe 50 minutes in

86
00:03:23,640 --> 00:03:24,920
so it was like during a Q&A

87
00:03:24,920 --> 00:03:27,920
did he drop any new insights

88
00:03:27,920 --> 00:03:29,800
or have any comments about like for example

89
00:03:29,800 --> 00:03:31,700
the square 10% routing

90
00:03:31,700 --> 00:03:33,380
and if that sort of validates his thesis

91
00:03:33,380 --> 00:03:34,820
or was he going a different direction?

92
00:03:34,820 --> 00:03:36,860
I think we'll have to

93
00:03:36,860 --> 00:03:39,300
ask that

94
00:03:39,300 --> 00:03:40,840
someone who was there the whole time

95
00:03:40,840 --> 00:03:42,300
I didn't hear it in my

96
00:03:42,300 --> 00:03:44,200
three minute window

97
00:03:44,200 --> 00:03:47,220
maybe if a listener

98
00:03:47,220 --> 00:03:48,740
here today we have an answer someone

99
00:03:48,740 --> 00:03:49,680
they can tell us

100
00:03:49,680 --> 00:03:51,360
somebody can chime in

101
00:03:51,360 --> 00:03:53,720
yeah go ahead

102
00:03:53,720 --> 00:03:55,940
David I didn't answer your question

103
00:03:55,940 --> 00:03:58,260
I was in Georgia for business

104
00:03:58,260 --> 00:04:00,140
not for pleasure

105
00:04:00,140 --> 00:04:02,560
and I think it's going to be

106
00:04:02,560 --> 00:04:04,640
one of the topics for us to talk about today

107
00:04:04,640 --> 00:04:11,280
that would be the Georgia is the proto what we know about Georgia um we can also talk about when

108
00:04:11,280 --> 00:04:16,060
we're done talking about Georgia we can talk about uh the proto launch as well right so that was that

109
00:04:16,060 --> 00:04:21,000
was a big deal I'm actually I'm excited to hear from you guys because I saw it all over Twitter

110
00:04:21,000 --> 00:04:24,760
and people were talking about it but I haven't dug in I wasn't part of the live session or anything

111
00:04:24,760 --> 00:04:29,900
so I'd love to hear kind of what that's all about I've got some of the minor bits of background that

112
00:04:29,900 --> 00:04:34,180
you know kind of what it was intending to be but I didn't catch the longer bits you say

113
00:04:34,180 --> 00:04:40,700
yeah yeah i heard little odds and ends of pieces of what proto was all about and i think there's

114
00:04:40,700 --> 00:04:46,960
even a proto chip in the in at presidio bitcoin right along the in the kind of display case right

115
00:04:46,960 --> 00:04:55,980
there is uh there's one one asic in uh in the presidio bitcoin um yeah i'll i'll give a summary

116
00:04:55,980 --> 00:05:00,920
and i think max you probably checked it out some too so i'm super curious to hear your

117
00:05:00,920 --> 00:05:02,820
take as well.

118
00:05:03,380 --> 00:05:04,980
And then you guys might have some questions.

119
00:05:05,180 --> 00:05:06,820
But this has been a long time coming.

120
00:05:08,120 --> 00:05:09,160
This project started

121
00:05:09,160 --> 00:05:10,960
four and a half years ago

122
00:05:10,960 --> 00:05:12,100
at Block.

123
00:05:14,180 --> 00:05:14,740
And

124
00:05:14,740 --> 00:05:16,520
really the genesis there,

125
00:05:17,660 --> 00:05:19,080
like why did Block get into mining?

126
00:05:21,580 --> 00:05:23,100
Block started

127
00:05:23,100 --> 00:05:25,020
doing a lot more

128
00:05:25,020 --> 00:05:26,780
analysis of

129
00:05:26,780 --> 00:05:29,120
the energy consumption of

130
00:05:29,120 --> 00:05:30,860
mining. I mean, the actual

131
00:05:30,860 --> 00:05:39,880
real genesis is that block needed to do like a carbon report for shareholders and max kind of

132
00:05:39,880 --> 00:05:45,660
knows this because he was part of he was part of this uh early genesis project um so there's

133
00:05:45,660 --> 00:05:52,560
internal folks who didn't know anything about bitcoin mining needed to understand what's the

134
00:05:52,560 --> 00:06:00,100
carbon footprint of the company and that's there's like already a playbook for the for everything but

135
00:06:00,100 --> 00:06:04,280
Bitcoin that any corporation can use. So that was pretty straightforward.

136
00:06:06,240 --> 00:06:09,980
But for Bitcoin, it's really hard to measure.

137
00:06:10,420 --> 00:06:14,460
There's different accounting methods. So they asked me to help out with that.

138
00:06:15,480 --> 00:06:19,800
So I helped with that. And I already understood mining.

139
00:06:19,800 --> 00:06:25,000
I thought quite well at that point, but it turns out I didn't.

140
00:06:25,000 --> 00:06:32,360
I certainly had passed the 101 course, but I learned that I needed to take the graduate level courses.

141
00:06:32,860 --> 00:06:35,840
So I went down the mining rabbit hole much deeper.

142
00:06:37,020 --> 00:06:46,860
And instead of coming away with fears of ruining the environment, I came away with saying, oh, you can make a lot of money in mining.

143
00:06:48,340 --> 00:06:50,900
But those aren't always exclusive.

144
00:06:50,900 --> 00:06:53,220
we may

145
00:06:53,220 --> 00:06:55,840
destroy the environment but we can also make a lot of money

146
00:06:55,840 --> 00:06:57,480
we can talk about the environment as well but I don't think we

147
00:06:57,480 --> 00:06:59,840
I think we've

148
00:06:59,840 --> 00:07:01,220
well actually I mean

149
00:07:01,220 --> 00:07:03,240
but my guess is you're not

150
00:07:03,240 --> 00:07:05,780
swayed by just the opportunity to make money

151
00:07:05,780 --> 00:07:07,620
there's more to it than just that I would guess

152
00:07:07,620 --> 00:07:09,840
well number one you can make a lot of money

153
00:07:09,840 --> 00:07:11,680
especially if you

154
00:07:11,680 --> 00:07:13,740
sell picks and shovels

155
00:07:13,740 --> 00:07:14,740
and in this case

156
00:07:14,740 --> 00:07:17,700
ASICs and ASIC chips

157
00:07:17,700 --> 00:07:19,660
and rigs

158
00:07:19,660 --> 00:07:20,080
and then

159
00:07:20,080 --> 00:07:25,180
And yeah, I mean, secondly, another thing that was happening,

160
00:07:25,360 --> 00:07:28,640
this is during the bull market of 2020, 2021.

161
00:07:29,780 --> 00:07:33,660
And usually with a bull market comes concerns over energy usage

162
00:07:33,660 --> 00:07:34,940
and environmental impact.

163
00:07:36,740 --> 00:07:39,740
So that's where, I mean, Max and I already known each other for,

164
00:07:39,740 --> 00:07:41,700
I don't know, three years or three or four years.

165
00:07:41,820 --> 00:07:46,960
But we roped Max into helping us out writing a paper.

166
00:07:46,960 --> 00:07:50,160
and that was, you probably remember the exact title,

167
00:07:50,320 --> 00:07:52,660
but like a clean and abundant energy world,

168
00:07:53,040 --> 00:07:54,100
something like that.

169
00:07:54,980 --> 00:07:55,560
But, you know.

170
00:07:56,240 --> 00:07:58,680
Bitcoin is key to a clean and abundant energy future.

171
00:07:59,060 --> 00:08:00,100
Thank you, thank you.

172
00:08:00,740 --> 00:08:05,260
So anyway, there's just a lot more mental energy

173
00:08:05,260 --> 00:08:08,180
expended on Bitcoin mining.

174
00:08:08,740 --> 00:08:10,880
And it is a combination of both,

175
00:08:10,980 --> 00:08:12,340
oh, great business opportunity.

176
00:08:12,340 --> 00:08:30,360
Secondly, a weakness in Bitcoin's decentralization theme is that there's one game in town for chips, and that's Bitmain. If you expand it a little bit, it's Bitmain and MicroBT, but two Chinese companies.

177
00:08:30,360 --> 00:08:35,360
so that's there's a big centralizing factor that's a risk and concern for bitcoin

178
00:08:35,360 --> 00:08:43,000
even if those two companies are good actors they're both chinese so like the chinese government

179
00:08:43,000 --> 00:08:47,960
could just like cut them off or the united states adds crazy terrorists or whatever i mean all these

180
00:08:47,960 --> 00:08:54,340
geopolitical events so that that's a risk to bitcoin and then third like even more than before

181
00:08:54,340 --> 00:08:59,960
i was convinced that it's not some environmental disaster like i felt like it was like i felt like

182
00:08:59,960 --> 00:09:03,980
ethical proceeding to work in Bitcoin and promote Bitcoin

183
00:09:03,980 --> 00:09:06,940
and use the purpose of work.

184
00:09:08,520 --> 00:09:11,960
Anyway, then the company

185
00:09:11,960 --> 00:09:15,860
agreed and started working on this project. It's been a long haul.

186
00:09:15,860 --> 00:09:20,020
It's four and a half years later. But the great news is

187
00:09:20,020 --> 00:09:23,940
finally had a launch event this week. I thought it went

188
00:09:23,940 --> 00:09:27,880
really, really well. So proud of all the people on that team that work on it.

189
00:09:29,960 --> 00:09:32,500
I mean, just so listeners know, I run Spiral.

190
00:09:32,640 --> 00:09:33,600
I work on open source stuff.

191
00:09:33,840 --> 00:09:40,420
So there's an entire commercial team at Block that did all the hard effort to build this and make it a reality.

192
00:09:41,120 --> 00:09:42,240
So what was announced?

193
00:09:43,500 --> 00:09:49,660
I think the company's been very open and transparent about the project from the beginning.

194
00:09:50,600 --> 00:09:54,100
So I think people already knew that, oh, we're going to design our own ship.

195
00:09:54,100 --> 00:09:57,960
block is going to open source

196
00:09:57,960 --> 00:10:01,960
the software, the firmware, as much of the hardware designs

197
00:10:01,960 --> 00:10:05,800
as possible. That's sort of already been known. And there's even

198
00:10:05,800 --> 00:10:09,820
block announced a customer earlier this year, Core Scientific. And that's actually

199
00:10:09,820 --> 00:10:13,900
why was that in rural Georgia? Well, the event was hosted at

200
00:10:13,900 --> 00:10:17,840
a Core Scientific Bitcoin mining industrial scale

201
00:10:17,840 --> 00:10:21,080
site. So that's why we were there.

202
00:10:21,080 --> 00:10:23,820
but what was revealed that was new

203
00:10:23,820 --> 00:10:25,620
number one is a rig

204
00:10:25,620 --> 00:10:27,800
not just a chip but it was

205
00:10:27,800 --> 00:10:29,020
the first reveal of

206
00:10:29,020 --> 00:10:31,700
Blox or Proto's

207
00:10:31,700 --> 00:10:33,160
rig and they called it

208
00:10:33,160 --> 00:10:34,940
Rig so it's a very

209
00:10:34,940 --> 00:10:36,560
succinct name

210
00:10:36,560 --> 00:10:39,380
they also announced

211
00:10:39,380 --> 00:10:41,720
their software for

212
00:10:41,720 --> 00:10:43,680
fleet management and it's called

213
00:10:43,680 --> 00:10:45,840
Fleet also a very succinct name

214
00:10:45,840 --> 00:10:47,580
so they announced Rig and Fleet

215
00:10:47,580 --> 00:10:50,800
Rig is a novel

216
00:10:50,800 --> 00:10:53,080
design, like an industrial design

217
00:10:53,080 --> 00:10:54,900
and mechanical

218
00:10:54,900 --> 00:10:56,800
engineering design, they're able to fit

219
00:10:56,800 --> 00:10:58,780
50% more mining

220
00:10:58,780 --> 00:11:00,380
half-rate in the same

221
00:11:00,380 --> 00:11:01,800
linear footage

222
00:11:01,800 --> 00:11:04,020
of what a standard

223
00:11:04,020 --> 00:11:06,740
rack is. So that's

224
00:11:06,740 --> 00:11:09,020
novel. They made it hot-swappable

225
00:11:09,020 --> 00:11:10,740
so it's way

226
00:11:10,740 --> 00:11:11,720
easier to repair.

227
00:11:13,040 --> 00:11:16,860
perhaps even more importantly

228
00:11:16,860 --> 00:11:18,860
than that, current

229
00:11:18,860 --> 00:11:20,780
miners, you have to

230
00:11:20,800 --> 00:11:35,780
If one part goes bad, like if a power supply fails or a fan fails, you typically have to replace, or certainly if a chip or hash board fails, you have to replace the entire unit and e-cycle the whole thing.

231
00:11:38,380 --> 00:11:45,520
But with the new rig design, you can just take out one of the nine hash boards and hot swap and replace it.

232
00:11:45,520 --> 00:11:47,960
If a fan goes bad, you just replace the fan.

233
00:11:48,680 --> 00:11:50,720
And they've designed it so you can do that replacement

234
00:11:50,720 --> 00:11:52,500
and that repair work very, very quickly.

235
00:11:53,580 --> 00:11:55,320
So there's a lot of wins, I think,

236
00:11:55,460 --> 00:11:58,260
with the industrial design, mechanical design.

237
00:11:59,640 --> 00:12:01,160
And then the chip itself,

238
00:12:01,880 --> 00:12:06,180
they announced some performance metrics,

239
00:12:06,460 --> 00:12:08,920
which they had not done previously.

240
00:12:09,880 --> 00:12:13,780
And it's super exciting to see that it's very competitive

241
00:12:13,780 --> 00:12:15,120
with the best of the best.

242
00:12:15,120 --> 00:12:17,660
Bitmain's always been the best on this particular measure,

243
00:12:18,260 --> 00:12:19,540
like joules per karahatch.

244
00:12:19,700 --> 00:12:22,820
How much performance do you get for every wad of energy?

245
00:12:25,380 --> 00:12:29,480
And there's never been anyone really threatening Bitmain

246
00:12:29,480 --> 00:12:32,520
on that metric for the past 10 plus years.

247
00:12:33,760 --> 00:12:36,800
And Proto's performance that they announced

248
00:12:36,800 --> 00:12:42,000
is definitely in the ballpark of the best performing Bitmain ship.

249
00:12:42,000 --> 00:12:44,460
and I think that bodes well for the

250
00:12:44,460 --> 00:12:46,700
future as well. And one interesting

251
00:12:46,700 --> 00:12:48,440
thing about the rig design too

252
00:12:48,440 --> 00:12:50,340
if a new chip

253
00:12:50,340 --> 00:12:52,540
and hashboard does come out say

254
00:12:52,540 --> 00:12:54,080
6, 12, 18 months later

255
00:12:54,080 --> 00:12:56,540
you don't have to replace your entire thing

256
00:12:56,540 --> 00:12:58,580
you just replace the hashboard, put it in the

257
00:12:58,580 --> 00:13:00,460
new hashboard and it's a much more

258
00:13:00,460 --> 00:13:02,060
economical upgrade.

259
00:13:03,500 --> 00:13:04,720
So that's the hardware

260
00:13:04,720 --> 00:13:06,380
I probably forgot a few things

261
00:13:06,380 --> 00:13:08,360
you guys can ask questions but then on the fleet

262
00:13:08,360 --> 00:13:09,860
management software I think that's really

263
00:13:09,860 --> 00:13:14,040
interesting too. The mining industry is known for having

264
00:13:14,040 --> 00:13:16,880
really low quality software.

265
00:13:19,720 --> 00:13:21,960
Third party software is pretty

266
00:13:21,960 --> 00:13:25,400
low quality. Often it's done in house and then you get

267
00:13:25,400 --> 00:13:29,960
a mishmash of stuff. And the fleet management

268
00:13:29,960 --> 00:13:33,600
software from Proto looks

269
00:13:33,600 --> 00:13:37,960
professional. Basically both the hardware and the software looks like

270
00:13:37,960 --> 00:13:42,060
because it's designed from people who built Square and Cash App.

271
00:13:42,880 --> 00:13:45,340
And guess what?

272
00:13:45,420 --> 00:13:48,280
It's because literally people that have been working at the company

273
00:13:48,280 --> 00:13:52,000
for five, eight, ten years that have worked on Square for a long time,

274
00:13:52,280 --> 00:13:54,280
a lot of them did work on Proto.

275
00:13:54,280 --> 00:13:58,120
And I think it showed through in yesterday's reveal.

276
00:13:59,260 --> 00:14:01,360
And did you say that Fleet is fully open source?

277
00:14:01,960 --> 00:14:03,520
It's fully open source.

278
00:14:03,800 --> 00:14:05,780
It also works on other equipment.

279
00:14:06,020 --> 00:14:06,980
So it works with Bitmain.

280
00:14:06,980 --> 00:14:13,140
so like it yeah so i mean this is kind of interesting right if you're if you're a miner

281
00:14:13,140 --> 00:14:20,800
and you've got like tens of thousands of bitmain machines if you like the fleet software you you

282
00:14:20,800 --> 00:14:26,100
can just use it for free you don't even have to buy proto equipment so so you don't have to you

283
00:14:26,100 --> 00:14:30,720
don't have to have a customer relationship with proto you just download the fleet software and

284
00:14:30,720 --> 00:14:35,480
there's a good chance that's a better experience to manage your fleet.

285
00:14:36,440 --> 00:14:40,000
And then if you do have equipment from a variety of vendors,

286
00:14:40,120 --> 00:14:44,600
you're able to really nicely compare the performance of each as well.

287
00:14:46,060 --> 00:14:53,220
Now, my understanding on the rig is like traditionally the rig and chip are all bundled

288
00:14:53,220 --> 00:14:57,540
and that they might have a typical lifespan of like three years or so.

289
00:14:57,540 --> 00:15:02,780
and that some of the unbundling here is that there's a deeper investment in the rig,

290
00:15:03,040 --> 00:15:05,320
so it's designed to maybe last for 10 years or more.

291
00:15:06,040 --> 00:15:12,320
Is that like a major point of why people should be caring about this configuration?

292
00:15:13,880 --> 00:15:17,120
Yeah, and there's really two aspects to that point.

293
00:15:17,300 --> 00:15:19,860
One is that Block will sell the chip alone,

294
00:15:20,280 --> 00:15:24,700
and that's not done by Bitmain or the other major vendors.

295
00:15:24,700 --> 00:15:32,400
now existing industrial miners the way they operate today that might not be of interest

296
00:15:32,400 --> 00:15:37,260
to them they just want to buy rigs and deploy them as cheaply and quickly as possible but

297
00:15:37,260 --> 00:15:42,000
there's definitely mining companies and potentially startups too that have an idea for a new type

298
00:15:42,000 --> 00:15:46,280
application a new industrial design a new electrical design new mechanical design

299
00:15:46,280 --> 00:15:53,760
in which they don't want to just take proto's rig and form factor or someone else's

300
00:15:53,760 --> 00:15:56,100
and deploy that.

301
00:15:56,220 --> 00:15:57,960
So they can just buy the chip and do their own design.

302
00:15:58,120 --> 00:15:58,780
So that's one aspect.

303
00:15:59,000 --> 00:16:01,360
But then I think more to what you're pointing to

304
00:16:01,360 --> 00:16:04,420
is that with Proto's rig,

305
00:16:04,420 --> 00:16:08,240
yeah, it's a very different framing

306
00:16:08,240 --> 00:16:11,120
and positioning to miners.

307
00:16:11,460 --> 00:16:14,160
Any miner that's really playing the long game,

308
00:16:14,300 --> 00:16:16,640
they intend to be around for more than three years.

309
00:16:17,000 --> 00:16:19,080
It's a pretty interesting value proposition

310
00:16:19,080 --> 00:16:21,200
to buy this equipment

311
00:16:21,200 --> 00:16:24,300
that is intended to last 10 plus years.

312
00:16:24,740 --> 00:16:28,940
And then you can just naturally upgrade the ASICs as they,

313
00:16:29,120 --> 00:16:30,780
you know, there's an expectation

314
00:16:30,780 --> 00:16:32,840
that ASICs are going to keep improving rapidly.

315
00:16:33,920 --> 00:16:35,720
And, but that's all you have to upgrade.

316
00:16:36,120 --> 00:16:37,980
Like the fans, the power supplies,

317
00:16:38,080 --> 00:16:38,980
all the other components,

318
00:16:39,460 --> 00:16:41,620
they're not going to need to be upgraded

319
00:16:41,620 --> 00:16:42,640
over the next 10 years.

320
00:16:42,960 --> 00:16:46,100
Do we have a sense of what the kind of typical CapEx cost is

321
00:16:46,100 --> 00:16:47,980
on rig versus chip?

322
00:16:48,480 --> 00:16:49,840
You know, it gets bundled, I think,

323
00:16:49,860 --> 00:16:50,800
when you buy it from Bitmain.

324
00:16:51,200 --> 00:16:57,580
But is the rig like 20% of the overall cost and the chip is 80% or is it like, do we have

325
00:16:57,580 --> 00:16:59,020
much sense of what that is?

326
00:16:59,060 --> 00:17:03,260
Because that, that might also help us build an intuition around why it's important for

327
00:17:03,260 --> 00:17:04,280
the rig to last so long.

328
00:17:05,160 --> 00:17:05,560
Yeah.

329
00:17:05,680 --> 00:17:10,840
I mean, I don't, I don't have a specific number, but I think your guess there is probably roughly

330
00:17:10,840 --> 00:17:11,060
right.

331
00:17:11,120 --> 00:17:11,880
I mean, it's definitely true.

332
00:17:11,960 --> 00:17:15,300
The ASIC chips are the highest cost component.

333
00:17:15,300 --> 00:17:17,860
a rig typically has

334
00:17:17,860 --> 00:17:19,960
I mean in general a rig

335
00:17:19,960 --> 00:17:21,980
typically has like 300 ASICs

336
00:17:21,980 --> 00:17:23,800
or 400 ASICs in a rig

337
00:17:23,800 --> 00:17:26,080
Frodo's rig

338
00:17:26,080 --> 00:17:27,500
might have even more because

339
00:17:27,500 --> 00:17:29,920
there's more hash power per linear

340
00:17:29,920 --> 00:17:30,300
foot

341
00:17:30,300 --> 00:17:33,740
there's hundreds and hundreds of these ships

342
00:17:33,740 --> 00:17:41,540
so I think

343
00:17:41,540 --> 00:17:43,100
the 80-20 ratio is

344
00:17:43,100 --> 00:17:45,160
like a ballpark correct

345
00:17:45,160 --> 00:17:48,520
but still

346
00:17:48,520 --> 00:17:50,900
saving

347
00:17:50,900 --> 00:17:53,180
not having to replace the 20%

348
00:17:53,180 --> 00:17:54,500
cost is a win

349
00:17:54,500 --> 00:17:56,120
is a big win

350
00:17:56,120 --> 00:17:59,180
mining is a game of small

351
00:17:59,180 --> 00:17:59,660
margins

352
00:17:59,660 --> 00:18:02,600
or it certainly is going to wind up that way

353
00:18:02,600 --> 00:18:05,080
so a 20% win over some period

354
00:18:05,080 --> 00:18:06,120
of time is significant

355
00:18:06,120 --> 00:18:08,980
also you typically have to pay money

356
00:18:08,980 --> 00:18:10,100
to get rid of this equipment

357
00:18:10,100 --> 00:18:11,920
so you don't want to have to get rid of this equipment

358
00:18:11,920 --> 00:18:13,720
you don't want to be contributing waste

359
00:18:13,720 --> 00:18:15,120
to the world

360
00:18:15,120 --> 00:18:16,300
and have to pay that cost.

361
00:18:16,380 --> 00:18:17,420
So there's a win there as well.

362
00:18:18,240 --> 00:18:18,320
Right.

363
00:18:18,660 --> 00:18:20,040
I really like the analogy

364
00:18:20,040 --> 00:18:22,400
that Keon made on Stack News

365
00:18:22,400 --> 00:18:24,280
comparing this to framework computer.

366
00:18:24,580 --> 00:18:25,900
Are you guys familiar with that company?

367
00:18:26,660 --> 00:18:27,040
Yeah, no.

368
00:18:27,500 --> 00:18:28,280
Very cool company.

369
00:18:28,840 --> 00:18:30,120
I forget if they spun out of,

370
00:18:30,200 --> 00:18:31,020
maybe it was Meta,

371
00:18:31,440 --> 00:18:34,280
or although I guess more of an Apple-type approach,

372
00:18:34,460 --> 00:18:36,320
but an Apple-type aesthetic

373
00:18:36,320 --> 00:18:38,000
with a more modular approach.

374
00:18:38,120 --> 00:18:39,640
But they basically allow you,

375
00:18:39,700 --> 00:18:41,020
it's a privacy-focused computer,

376
00:18:41,120 --> 00:18:42,460
but you can basically pop in and out

377
00:18:42,460 --> 00:18:43,040
whatever you want.

378
00:18:43,040 --> 00:18:44,160
So if you want to upgrade your RAM,

379
00:18:44,240 --> 00:18:45,000
you can constantly do that.

380
00:18:45,120 --> 00:18:46,620
I imagine that's also a possibility.

381
00:18:46,760 --> 00:18:48,480
I don't know exactly how this would work,

382
00:18:48,560 --> 00:18:54,260
but if someone maybe started with less CapEx from day one,

383
00:18:54,320 --> 00:18:55,640
but maybe in the future they're doing really well

384
00:18:55,640 --> 00:18:57,660
and they want to upgrade and add a bunch more chips,

385
00:18:58,100 --> 00:19:00,580
this probably makes it a lot easier to add future chips to the rig

386
00:19:00,580 --> 00:19:02,200
or more rigs to the area.

387
00:19:02,200 --> 00:19:05,200
It'll also probably better plan the actual physical space

388
00:19:05,200 --> 00:19:07,480
that you're building in if you know these are the rigs

389
00:19:07,480 --> 00:19:09,280
that are going to be there for 10 years or something like that.

390
00:19:09,720 --> 00:19:11,000
So I like that modularity.

391
00:19:11,160 --> 00:19:13,740
I mean, it also fits really well with the whole Bitcoin open source,

392
00:19:13,740 --> 00:19:16,720
with these open source transparency to plug and play.

393
00:19:17,420 --> 00:19:19,220
Yeah, I like the modularity a lot.

394
00:19:19,320 --> 00:19:21,700
I wonder, do we have an intuition

395
00:19:21,700 --> 00:19:23,180
that we can start building around

396
00:19:23,180 --> 00:19:26,120
how that modularity will impact the markets?

397
00:19:26,200 --> 00:19:29,360
We could say, certainly, you can swap things out,

398
00:19:29,700 --> 00:19:31,340
you probably operate more efficiently,

399
00:19:32,000 --> 00:19:33,680
but I would guess there's also a play

400
00:19:33,680 --> 00:19:37,320
that's going to enable maybe a new type of miner

401
00:19:37,320 --> 00:19:40,660
or a new type of competition in mining to emerge.

402
00:19:41,280 --> 00:19:43,480
And maybe somebody wants to compete very deeply

403
00:19:43,480 --> 00:19:47,200
at one layer and sort of modularize the, you know, commoditize the complement or work

404
00:19:47,200 --> 00:19:48,560
sort of above or below them.

405
00:19:49,100 --> 00:19:53,480
And I wonder, like, you know, my understanding is like Bitmain is extremely full stack, not

406
00:19:53,480 --> 00:19:57,960
only the rig and the chip, but sometimes financing and which tool you have to be a part of.

407
00:19:58,040 --> 00:20:04,980
And there's all kinds of like other requirements that kind of strengthen their kind of sort

408
00:20:04,980 --> 00:20:05,940
of defend their position.

409
00:20:06,260 --> 00:20:10,160
And I think this being everything open source and all modular sort of doesn't have that.

410
00:20:10,160 --> 00:20:18,780
But I wonder what else around financing or the modularity might enable a very new type of competitor?

411
00:20:19,020 --> 00:20:22,020
Or how much is this existing miners are going to get much more efficient?

412
00:20:24,120 --> 00:20:33,820
Well, to address one point, I mean, it's true that Bitmain has AMP pool and has most portions of a full stack.

413
00:20:34,480 --> 00:20:37,080
But they don't really require it.

414
00:20:37,080 --> 00:20:46,200
I mean, obviously, Foundry has 30% hash rate or whatever, and there's lots of bit main machines on Foundry.

415
00:20:48,180 --> 00:20:57,180
But yeah, I mean, Block starting with a few of those components, there's obviously potential for more.

416
00:20:57,440 --> 00:21:04,680
I mean, Block has been a lending business for a long time, so that would potentially be a natural fit in the future.

417
00:21:04,680 --> 00:21:09,100
potentially running a mining pool

418
00:21:09,100 --> 00:21:12,160
and there's lots of different angles there.

419
00:21:13,040 --> 00:21:17,340
What I get most excited about is the ability for entrepreneurs

420
00:21:17,340 --> 00:21:21,360
and maybe not with this first gen, but eventually to experiment with just new form factors

421
00:21:21,360 --> 00:21:24,760
for mining. So the first one that comes to mind for me that I would love to see

422
00:21:24,760 --> 00:21:28,680
is if you think in the long run where mining is going

423
00:21:28,680 --> 00:21:33,100
perhaps the big HVC AI compute takes the really

424
00:21:33,100 --> 00:21:38,100
really really big scale farms that that's where that ends up but mining you know becomes more and

425
00:21:38,100 --> 00:21:43,580
more of the bottom feeder at the edges of things and so one area i fully expect to see this is you

426
00:21:43,580 --> 00:21:50,900
know distributed solar within the inverter of a solar panel someone is going to put an asic uh

427
00:21:50,900 --> 00:21:54,600
once it's cheap enough to do that maybe it's you know the the older ones first and that's going to

428
00:21:54,600 --> 00:21:58,440
be a phenomenal new form factor for mining when people are mining they don't even think about it's

429
00:21:58,440 --> 00:22:01,900
just when i get solar installed in my house which now california is like a requirement i think for

430
00:22:01,900 --> 00:22:03,840
new albums. There's just

431
00:22:03,840 --> 00:22:05,860
a Bitcoin miner in there and I just know that there's

432
00:22:05,860 --> 00:22:07,900
this little chip that has the option or I don't even know

433
00:22:07,900 --> 00:22:09,980
about. There's some software, maybe Square writes it

434
00:22:09,980 --> 00:22:11,800
or Tesla or whatever startup

435
00:22:11,800 --> 00:22:13,960
ends up bringing this to market and I just know

436
00:22:13,960 --> 00:22:16,000
my bills are lower. I just happen to make a little

437
00:22:16,000 --> 00:22:17,920
extra money every month. Those are the

438
00:22:17,920 --> 00:22:19,880
kinds of things that the modularity gets me most

439
00:22:19,880 --> 00:22:20,440
excited about.

440
00:22:21,660 --> 00:22:23,960
In the open, I mean, so David

441
00:22:23,960 --> 00:22:25,660
you listed a bunch of things Bitmain does

442
00:22:25,660 --> 00:22:27,440
so sure, Proto could

443
00:22:27,440 --> 00:22:29,860
copy all those and it might make

444
00:22:29,860 --> 00:22:31,900
sense. But the open platform

445
00:22:31,900 --> 00:22:33,900
selling the chips, I think that's

446
00:22:33,900 --> 00:22:36,320
one thing

447
00:22:36,320 --> 00:22:37,540
that would be very new here.

448
00:22:38,660 --> 00:22:39,440
Opening up

449
00:22:39,440 --> 00:22:41,920
a whole ecosystem of new

450
00:22:41,920 --> 00:22:43,960
mining applications that weren't really

451
00:22:43,960 --> 00:22:45,980
possible or

452
00:22:45,980 --> 00:22:46,840
practical before.

453
00:22:47,500 --> 00:22:49,900
Did we get any sense, Steve, in the announcement

454
00:22:49,900 --> 00:22:51,820
on the actual cost? If someone wanted to start

455
00:22:51,820 --> 00:22:53,740
running these numbers and looking at the

456
00:22:53,740 --> 00:22:55,760
solar inverter model to get a sense of

457
00:22:55,760 --> 00:22:57,240
is it economical today or not?

458
00:22:57,240 --> 00:23:05,840
uh you can contact sales to learn more i think uh i mean that that is the literal answer yeah i think

459
00:23:05,840 --> 00:23:13,960
um because i think the initial customers i mean this product is for industrial mining right and

460
00:23:13,960 --> 00:23:20,620
that's a short list of customers so i'm pretty sure the team and the sales team at proto are

461
00:23:20,620 --> 00:23:22,680
already in touch with all these potential customers

462
00:23:22,680 --> 00:23:23,420
talking to them.

463
00:23:25,180 --> 00:23:26,680
So, you know,

464
00:23:27,020 --> 00:23:27,620
I think

465
00:23:27,620 --> 00:23:30,660
my take on this is the marketing

466
00:23:30,660 --> 00:23:32,520
of rig is, it's not really

467
00:23:32,520 --> 00:23:33,040
retail.

468
00:23:34,820 --> 00:23:36,700
So, you know, and then as far

469
00:23:36,700 --> 00:23:38,120
as customers who do buy it,

470
00:23:38,540 --> 00:23:39,780
it really depends on their,

471
00:23:40,460 --> 00:23:42,540
how they customize it. There's many

472
00:23:42,540 --> 00:23:43,460
different configurations.

473
00:23:44,780 --> 00:23:46,520
And also with mining ships

474
00:23:46,520 --> 00:23:48,600
in general, you can tune them

475
00:23:48,600 --> 00:23:50,380
different ways. I mean,

476
00:23:50,380 --> 00:23:55,360
The joules per tera hash number is always the one that gets the limelight

477
00:23:55,360 --> 00:23:58,140
and is the one that's sort of marketed heavily.

478
00:23:58,860 --> 00:24:03,340
And it's an important metric, but so is the area efficiency

479
00:24:03,340 --> 00:24:11,260
or basically like dollars, tera hash per dollars or dollars per tera hash.

480
00:24:11,800 --> 00:24:13,160
And that matters as well.

481
00:24:13,700 --> 00:24:14,980
And a bunch of other factors.

482
00:24:14,980 --> 00:24:16,260
so you can

483
00:24:16,260 --> 00:24:18,980
tune the chip

484
00:24:18,980 --> 00:24:31,111
to optimize for one or the other there trade there so different applications are going to care more about energy efficiency than others Yeah I also have a ton of ideas that are flooding in right now

485
00:24:31,511 --> 00:24:35,291
The first is we should 100% do

486
00:24:35,291 --> 00:24:38,571
a Proto Hack Day episode of Bitcoin.

487
00:24:39,711 --> 00:24:41,091
Or even if it's not Proto,

488
00:24:41,271 --> 00:24:43,891
I guess the fleet, the open source software.

489
00:24:44,051 --> 00:24:45,011
Ideally, I'd love to see,

490
00:24:45,391 --> 00:24:46,851
because I guess what I was getting at is

491
00:24:46,851 --> 00:24:49,071
not just with the commercial users,

492
00:24:49,071 --> 00:24:59,711
But can we see a developer, some DIY tinker that gets the first version of the chip with a solar inverter just to prove it's possible?

493
00:25:00,211 --> 00:25:06,391
But I mean, I guess if we already have access to the software, we could have an open source hack day or something and see all kinds of weird and crazy examples.

494
00:25:06,711 --> 00:25:08,591
And who knows, maybe some of those ideas are really good.

495
00:25:10,291 --> 00:25:16,571
So definitely on both, but the fleet software, I think that would come first.

496
00:25:16,571 --> 00:25:29,571
And even at the hackathon we held at Presidio Bitcoin in May, one of the participants had a hackathon project which created mining management software, right?

497
00:25:30,011 --> 00:25:32,611
And added like AI to it and stuff, which is pretty cool.

498
00:25:32,711 --> 00:25:40,731
And actually part of the fleet announcement incorporated AI in the management, in fleet's UI.

499
00:25:41,251 --> 00:25:45,631
That might have been inspired by the hackathon project because the person who did it.

500
00:25:45,631 --> 00:25:46,751
This comes back to Presidio Bitcoin.

501
00:25:47,391 --> 00:25:49,151
Actually, it did,

502
00:25:49,271 --> 00:25:50,831
because the person who had that project

503
00:25:50,831 --> 00:25:51,991
was a block employee.

504
00:25:53,071 --> 00:25:54,691
It was shared internally.

505
00:25:57,531 --> 00:26:00,391
Even yesterday, right after the announcement,

506
00:26:00,551 --> 00:26:02,231
I had several people pinging me

507
00:26:02,231 --> 00:26:04,891
excited to contribute

508
00:26:04,891 --> 00:26:07,371
to the open source fleet management software.

509
00:26:07,711 --> 00:26:09,251
Several were frustrated

510
00:26:09,251 --> 00:26:10,411
that they didn't know this already

511
00:26:10,411 --> 00:26:11,431
because they'd been working

512
00:26:11,431 --> 00:26:13,011
with several other developers

513
00:26:13,011 --> 00:26:14,591
the past three or four months.

514
00:26:14,591 --> 00:26:17,571
on fleet management software components.

515
00:26:18,291 --> 00:26:21,651
So I think there's going to be a lot of interest

516
00:26:21,651 --> 00:26:24,451
in contributing to that and improving it.

517
00:26:24,751 --> 00:26:27,571
And it's an open source project.

518
00:26:27,831 --> 00:26:30,671
And again, it's not tied to the proto hardware.

519
00:26:31,671 --> 00:26:35,311
I think there'll be good community interest there.

520
00:26:35,611 --> 00:26:37,791
So that would make for a great hackathon.

521
00:26:38,291 --> 00:26:39,771
And even without availability of the hardware,

522
00:26:39,891 --> 00:26:43,391
we could just have Bitmain hardware to test it out.

523
00:26:43,391 --> 00:26:49,471
And there's a comment in chat that says, can I use Proto Fleet to control a fleet of BitXs, lol.

524
00:26:50,111 --> 00:26:53,411
But I think that's actually what the demo of the hackathon showed.

525
00:26:54,231 --> 00:26:54,791
Exactly.

526
00:26:55,251 --> 00:27:00,811
The person commenting, come to our hackathon that we're going to have.

527
00:27:01,631 --> 00:27:08,271
Because that's exactly the kind of project that I believe right now Fleet only supports rig and Bitmain.

528
00:27:09,091 --> 00:27:10,731
And I think it's like more to come.

529
00:27:10,731 --> 00:27:16,791
but uh you know this this that's a perfect hackathon project where someone could add support

530
00:27:16,791 --> 00:27:23,771
for bidaxe uh yeah to the software i love it and it's also super in line with our ideas on making

531
00:27:23,771 --> 00:27:27,731
procedure bitcoin more diy you know if we if we're really going to get serious about putting

532
00:27:27,731 --> 00:27:31,471
our own solar and storage and our own fleet of miners and like we should absolutely let our

533
00:27:31,471 --> 00:27:36,851
wizards be uh creating all kinds of fancy products on top the other thing that comes to mind when

534
00:27:36,851 --> 00:27:39,991
you're talking about the financing piece that you brought up, DK.

535
00:27:40,451 --> 00:27:40,751
I don't know.

536
00:27:40,871 --> 00:27:43,791
One of you guys shared, Qbaby was on it again,

537
00:27:43,991 --> 00:27:45,751
talking about how obviously Block,

538
00:27:46,051 --> 00:27:48,991
you've got a history of doing this with both consumers and businesses.

539
00:27:49,151 --> 00:27:51,831
The closer you are to them, the better you can make lending decisions.

540
00:27:52,251 --> 00:27:53,291
Of course, you're into that mining.

541
00:27:53,911 --> 00:27:54,711
No inside info.

542
00:27:55,091 --> 00:27:56,371
Steve, you don't even have to blink twice.

543
00:27:57,091 --> 00:28:01,811
That just seems like so obvious and such a good and very, very obvious business model.

544
00:28:02,351 --> 00:28:02,751
There it is.

545
00:28:03,151 --> 00:28:04,391
You saw it here first, folks.

546
00:28:04,391 --> 00:28:15,911
But as I started thinking about all the places this could go, I don't know if we've announced it on the show, but we're obviously going to be hosting an energy event at Presidio Bitcoin coming up soon as well.

547
00:28:16,491 --> 00:28:27,191
And what this gets me thinking about is, for the longest time, I've been interested in basically how you can create effectively new and open markets for energy, new and open grids.

548
00:28:27,191 --> 00:28:28,751
that's a much, much longer conversation.

549
00:28:29,331 --> 00:28:30,931
But even the marketplaces,

550
00:28:31,771 --> 00:28:33,431
my sort of dream product

551
00:28:33,431 --> 00:28:34,731
or dream software I've wanted

552
00:28:34,731 --> 00:28:36,931
for many, many years is,

553
00:28:37,071 --> 00:28:37,731
I have an electron,

554
00:28:37,931 --> 00:28:38,651
what do I do with it?

555
00:28:38,891 --> 00:28:39,551
Do I use it?

556
00:28:39,611 --> 00:28:40,171
Do I sell it?

557
00:28:40,211 --> 00:28:40,811
Do I store it?

558
00:28:40,851 --> 00:28:41,411
Do I mine it?

559
00:28:41,851 --> 00:28:43,431
And this is a really interesting

560
00:28:43,431 --> 00:28:44,471
kind of like,

561
00:28:44,511 --> 00:28:48,331
sort of beachhead to start with here.

562
00:28:48,411 --> 00:28:49,271
There's a couple of companies

563
00:28:49,271 --> 00:28:49,971
that have tried to create

564
00:28:49,971 --> 00:28:51,731
like open source energy management software

565
00:28:51,731 --> 00:28:53,471
and open source utility software.

566
00:28:53,891 --> 00:28:55,151
And maybe some of that stuff could work,

567
00:28:55,271 --> 00:28:56,391
but for a variety of reasons,

568
00:28:56,391 --> 00:28:58,471
I think it ends up getting pretty siloed.

569
00:28:58,831 --> 00:29:03,971
But this is interesting because this could actually get broad adoption on the Bitcoin mining side first.

570
00:29:04,551 --> 00:29:08,411
And then you could start thinking, well, I'm already mining whatever, all these fleets with it.

571
00:29:08,471 --> 00:29:10,731
Now I could start to add other functionality to it.

572
00:29:10,891 --> 00:29:22,971
Like, okay, in real time, if I'm an operator, a large operator, should I route this electron towards mining in my fleet or should I route it towards my AI compute?

573
00:29:23,211 --> 00:29:24,791
Well, I have to make that decision in real time.

574
00:29:24,791 --> 00:29:48,171
And I also think that with the Bitcoin piece, this is one of the biggest opportunities I can't stop thinking about. I don't know exactly how this is going to materialize, but is to basically recreate all energy markets and all energy products, like all the derivatives and stuff that are basically traded down to Houston, Bitcoin backed, and basically create a whole new marketplace for those contracts and futures and whatnot.

575
00:29:48,171 --> 00:29:51,171
and this could be a really interesting starting point

576
00:29:51,171 --> 00:29:52,591
to start playing with that.

577
00:29:54,451 --> 00:29:56,791
Yeah, I'll have a lot more ideas to share on that,

578
00:29:56,811 --> 00:29:59,091
but I think this could lead to something much, much, much bigger.

579
00:29:59,711 --> 00:30:00,811
Let's keep jamming on that.

580
00:30:00,991 --> 00:30:05,591
I do like the idea of a mini hackathon or something around this

581
00:30:05,591 --> 00:30:07,971
at PresidioBitcoin,

582
00:30:08,191 --> 00:30:10,471
or maybe a global event or something like that.

583
00:30:10,791 --> 00:30:12,351
Yeah, well, a couple of things.

584
00:30:12,411 --> 00:30:14,211
I definitely want to talk about Stratomv2 a little bit,

585
00:30:14,291 --> 00:30:16,471
but there's a comment here from William.

586
00:30:16,471 --> 00:30:22,211
I recall the mining hardware market was estimated at $20 billion a year in a previous jam.

587
00:30:22,311 --> 00:30:23,691
Is that still the opportunity size?

588
00:30:25,611 --> 00:30:28,951
So we probably talked about that.

589
00:30:29,071 --> 00:30:29,711
I don't recall that.

590
00:30:29,711 --> 00:30:31,231
I think this is like the security budget, right?

591
00:30:31,811 --> 00:30:32,091
Yeah.

592
00:30:32,391 --> 00:30:33,751
Might be referring to the security budget.

593
00:30:34,431 --> 00:30:34,651
Yeah.

594
00:30:35,211 --> 00:30:35,471
Yeah.

595
00:30:35,811 --> 00:30:40,451
Well, so one thing we can calculate, we can look at any point in time,

596
00:30:40,551 --> 00:30:45,831
how much revenue have miners generated over some period of time, right?

597
00:30:45,831 --> 00:30:48,111
and I haven't even looked at this year.

598
00:30:48,611 --> 00:30:50,231
There's certainly been a year

599
00:30:50,231 --> 00:30:52,711
where it's been on the order of $20 billion.

600
00:30:55,011 --> 00:30:56,751
Fees are very low right now.

601
00:30:57,591 --> 00:31:00,611
Bitcoin having occurred a little over a year ago,

602
00:31:00,711 --> 00:31:02,471
but the Bitcoin price is very high right now.

603
00:31:02,991 --> 00:31:04,731
So since we're not in the studio

604
00:31:04,731 --> 00:31:06,511
and I'm on my laptop at home,

605
00:31:06,671 --> 00:31:08,191
I can look it up.

606
00:31:08,611 --> 00:31:09,911
That's the advantage of this.

607
00:31:11,371 --> 00:31:12,291
So let's see.

608
00:31:12,851 --> 00:31:14,191
The path is...

609
00:31:14,191 --> 00:31:17,951
a go-to site, Steve, that you use for tracking

610
00:31:17,951 --> 00:31:22,031
these revenue metrics? I still use fork.lol, which is

611
00:31:22,031 --> 00:31:24,411
from Segwit Wars.

612
00:31:26,991 --> 00:31:29,931
But it breaks things down nicely. The past

613
00:31:29,931 --> 00:31:33,951
week, the average block reward

614
00:31:33,951 --> 00:31:37,491
Coinbase in fees, $376,000.

615
00:31:38,291 --> 00:31:41,491
Right? So we can take that

616
00:31:41,491 --> 00:31:43,551
times 144 in a day

617
00:31:43,551 --> 00:31:44,951
times 52 weeks.

618
00:31:45,871 --> 00:31:46,931
Divide that by

619
00:31:46,931 --> 00:31:55,271
I must be doing something wrong.

620
00:31:55,651 --> 00:31:57,391
Oh yeah, I need to take it times 365

621
00:31:57,391 --> 00:31:59,031
days, not 52 weeks.

622
00:32:01,531 --> 00:32:02,831
And I get

623
00:32:02,831 --> 00:32:05,831
20 billion dollars.

624
00:32:06,351 --> 00:32:06,671
Oh wow.

625
00:32:07,351 --> 00:32:07,591
Alright.

626
00:32:08,111 --> 00:32:10,771
So I don't know what the cumulative is

627
00:32:10,771 --> 00:32:21,411
for this year, but taking the past week's revenue generated, annualizing that, it's $20 billion.

628
00:32:21,891 --> 00:32:27,171
Now, that is not the market for equipment, though. That's the total revenue. And then,

629
00:32:27,531 --> 00:32:34,451
you know, how does that break down? Well, there's profit margin, there's some cost for like security

630
00:32:34,451 --> 00:32:36,171
and operations and things like that.

631
00:32:36,451 --> 00:32:40,671
There's electricity and there's CapEx.

632
00:32:42,231 --> 00:32:43,831
And there's financing costs.

633
00:32:44,151 --> 00:32:46,151
So there's a bunch of components there.

634
00:32:47,071 --> 00:32:49,331
At a really high level, it kind of shakes out

635
00:32:49,331 --> 00:32:55,551
to the two dominant ones are energy and equipment.

636
00:32:57,431 --> 00:33:03,831
So from that, you can kind of see the equipment market

637
00:33:04,451 --> 00:33:06,131
size is

638
00:33:06,131 --> 00:33:08,251
5 to 10 billion dollars

639
00:33:08,251 --> 00:33:09,671
in a year

640
00:33:09,671 --> 00:33:12,931
there's a lot of uncertainty

641
00:33:12,931 --> 00:33:14,911
in the market too right we don't know

642
00:33:14,911 --> 00:33:16,851
what the revenue

643
00:33:16,851 --> 00:33:18,891
is going to be next year we don't know what the price

644
00:33:18,891 --> 00:33:21,011
is going to be we don't know what transaction fees are going to

645
00:33:21,011 --> 00:33:22,691
are

646
00:33:22,691 --> 00:33:24,951
they going to actually come along etc

647
00:33:24,951 --> 00:33:26,711
but think on the order of

648
00:33:26,711 --> 00:33:28,191
5 to 10 billion dollar

649
00:33:28,191 --> 00:33:29,891
market I think

650
00:33:29,891 --> 00:33:32,251
analysts

651
00:33:32,251 --> 00:33:34,431
project something lower than that.

652
00:33:34,511 --> 00:33:36,431
I don't quite get that, but I think they project

653
00:33:36,431 --> 00:33:37,731
like $2 to $4 billion.

654
00:33:39,731 --> 00:33:40,171
My

655
00:33:40,171 --> 00:33:42,411
live estimate

656
00:33:42,411 --> 00:33:44,371
right now would be more on the order of like probably

657
00:33:44,371 --> 00:33:46,711
$5 to $7 billion

658
00:33:46,711 --> 00:33:48,411
for the total

659
00:33:48,411 --> 00:33:50,491
equipment. In the long run, do you

660
00:33:50,491 --> 00:33:52,451
expect that, because we talked about the

661
00:33:52,451 --> 00:33:54,451
security budget stuff, do you expect that that's

662
00:33:54,451 --> 00:33:56,551
kind of in the range of healthy

663
00:33:56,551 --> 00:33:58,571
and stable, or is there some reason to believe that

664
00:33:58,571 --> 00:34:00,651
that might grow substantially from

665
00:34:00,651 --> 00:34:01,951
$5 to $10 billion to

666
00:34:01,951 --> 00:34:03,091
50 billion or more?

667
00:34:04,351 --> 00:34:06,251
I mean, it could go either direction.

668
00:34:06,491 --> 00:34:08,391
But for people who have been listening to our show

669
00:34:08,391 --> 00:34:09,971
the last few weeks, it can go

670
00:34:09,971 --> 00:34:11,111
way, way down.

671
00:34:12,451 --> 00:34:12,531
Right?

672
00:34:13,731 --> 00:34:14,211
Now,

673
00:34:15,791 --> 00:34:16,151
what's

674
00:34:16,151 --> 00:34:18,191
the clear, you know,

675
00:34:18,251 --> 00:34:19,711
what's going to make it go up?

676
00:34:20,651 --> 00:34:21,591
Two things.

677
00:34:22,051 --> 00:34:24,511
The price of Bitcoin and transaction

678
00:34:24,511 --> 00:34:25,431
fee,

679
00:34:26,111 --> 00:34:28,011
demand for transactions

680
00:34:28,011 --> 00:34:28,931
and block space.

681
00:34:28,931 --> 00:34:34,651
what we talked about the last few weeks is concerns about the latter and that's very

682
00:34:34,651 --> 00:34:40,031
important long term now the price of bitcoin that's one where probably our audience and

683
00:34:40,031 --> 00:34:45,751
ourselves are quite bullish on over the you know next decade or so so if the price does

684
00:34:45,751 --> 00:34:51,311
appreciate to half a million or a million dollars for bitcoin obviously that directly

685
00:34:51,311 --> 00:34:57,511
impacts minor revenue security budget and the size of the market for this equipment

686
00:34:57,511 --> 00:35:01,951
another thing that's certain

687
00:35:01,951 --> 00:35:04,111
we know the schedule

688
00:35:04,111 --> 00:35:05,771
of the halvings

689
00:35:05,771 --> 00:35:06,911
every halving

690
00:35:06,911 --> 00:35:09,931
half as much bitcoin is minted each year

691
00:35:09,931 --> 00:35:11,971
so take whatever the price

692
00:35:11,971 --> 00:35:12,951
is times

693
00:35:12,951 --> 00:35:15,751
those number of bitcoin

694
00:35:15,751 --> 00:35:16,891
but then cut it in half

695
00:35:16,891 --> 00:35:19,071
so it just literally halves the market

696
00:35:19,071 --> 00:35:21,831
for the security budget

697
00:35:21,831 --> 00:35:24,051
for the equipment etc

698
00:35:24,051 --> 00:35:25,491
especially when transaction

699
00:35:25,491 --> 00:35:28,511
I mean, that's true when transaction revenue is essentially zero.

700
00:35:29,811 --> 00:35:37,751
But yeah, the reason to be bullish that this market will remain that large or even grow much more is if the price of Bitcoin moons.

701
00:35:38,771 --> 00:35:47,131
A reason to be concerned medium to long term is that people actually don't use Bitcoin transactions in the Bitcoin network.

702
00:35:47,131 --> 00:35:54,891
And then it will go, it'll decline to potentially a much smaller market than even today.

703
00:35:55,491 --> 00:35:59,811
But that would also, you know, sort of be the end of Bitcoin as well.

704
00:36:00,971 --> 00:36:05,511
Cool. Can we talk a bit about the Stratum v2?

705
00:36:05,991 --> 00:36:14,311
I assume that some of what we can do with an open modular system is that people could sort of contribute in different ways.

706
00:36:14,811 --> 00:36:24,571
I know Stratum v2 is a mining pool protocol, if I understand right, that was designed to try to encourage, I'd say, like some more decentralization in mining.

707
00:36:24,571 --> 00:36:31,111
and so far maybe it hasn't gotten broad adoption so would we expect that fleet would be a good way

708
00:36:31,111 --> 00:36:35,851
for it to get broader adoption or is it another part of the modularity it's it certainly helps i

709
00:36:35,851 --> 00:36:43,171
mean the the joke on the on the proto team with me is it like from a proto perspective this is like

710
00:36:43,171 --> 00:36:48,911
one little tiny feature it's the one that i talk about all the time uh and it's just because like

711
00:36:48,911 --> 00:36:59,251
My role in Spiral and working on broader open source Bitcoin is often I'm advocating for improvements to protocols.

712
00:37:00,251 --> 00:37:11,051
And certainly one thing I've learned very deeply now is improvements to protocols takes a long, long, long time to occur, especially in something decentralized.

713
00:37:11,051 --> 00:37:21,431
And, you know, anyone who's followed like internet protocols or protocols that need to be adopted by like thousands of companies knows how long it can take.

714
00:37:21,491 --> 00:37:25,051
And that's certainly the case, certainly the case of Bitcoin.

715
00:37:25,831 --> 00:37:34,451
So Stratum B2, yeah, Spiral and many, many other companies have been working on it, specking out, writing the code, testing it.

716
00:37:34,451 --> 00:37:41,671
There are several companies in the space that are actively developing towards launch of Stratum B2.

717
00:37:42,651 --> 00:37:46,251
And I'm actually feeling really good momentum now.

718
00:37:46,771 --> 00:37:49,231
A lot of them are not public information yet.

719
00:37:49,451 --> 00:37:55,311
So I'm happy that Proto now publicly announced that the rig will support Stratum B2.

720
00:37:56,491 --> 00:37:58,751
Yeah, so I think it definitely helps.

721
00:37:59,211 --> 00:38:00,091
It'll help adoption.

722
00:38:00,091 --> 00:38:02,451
because we have to convince

723
00:38:02,451 --> 00:38:06,171
miners need to be convinced to adopt it

724
00:38:06,171 --> 00:38:07,071
pools need to

725
00:38:07,071 --> 00:38:10,411
even the Bitcoin Core project has to be convinced to adopt it

726
00:38:10,411 --> 00:38:12,471
because right now if you want to run Stratum B2

727
00:38:12,471 --> 00:38:13,831
if you're a miner or a pool

728
00:38:13,831 --> 00:38:16,471
you have to fork Bitcoin Core

729
00:38:16,471 --> 00:38:18,871
and use a patch

730
00:38:18,871 --> 00:38:24,971
that's been created by the Stratum B2 project

731
00:38:24,971 --> 00:38:30,071
and we of course want that integrated into Bitcoin Core

732
00:38:30,071 --> 00:38:31,891
so you can just use stock Bitcoin Core.

733
00:38:32,091 --> 00:38:33,491
But like the Bitcoin Core does,

734
00:38:33,671 --> 00:38:35,391
their stance is like,

735
00:38:35,451 --> 00:38:36,631
we've heard about this for years.

736
00:38:36,931 --> 00:38:38,071
Is it actually getting adoption?

737
00:38:38,591 --> 00:38:41,271
So seeing Proto announce this formally

738
00:38:41,271 --> 00:38:44,891
and when others will be announced soon,

739
00:38:44,971 --> 00:38:47,431
I think that creates great momentum

740
00:38:47,431 --> 00:38:48,331
and will help.

741
00:38:49,911 --> 00:38:54,051
Is there any disruptive opportunity?

742
00:38:54,051 --> 00:38:57,211
I would guess with just being able to swap in and out,

743
00:38:57,211 --> 00:39:05,611
you know uh the the chips real time um creates different operational needs within an existing

744
00:39:05,611 --> 00:39:12,151
industrial miner just like they have to retool their workflows and workforce to some extent uh

745
00:39:12,151 --> 00:39:18,671
to take advantage of these new opportunities and so um i'm wondering are they all mostly

746
00:39:18,671 --> 00:39:24,211
like leaning into those types of things or are they more like a little bit wait and see or it's

747
00:39:24,211 --> 00:39:26,251
going to take some time to adopt

748
00:39:26,251 --> 00:39:28,271
these things? Does everybody consider it a clear

749
00:39:28,271 --> 00:39:30,131
win or are there questions that

750
00:39:30,131 --> 00:39:32,131
people have outstanding? And then kind of a

751
00:39:32,131 --> 00:39:34,031
follow-up is if there

752
00:39:34,031 --> 00:39:35,611
are questions, are there

753
00:39:35,611 --> 00:39:38,171
newer upstarts that are sort of taking

754
00:39:38,171 --> 00:39:39,351
more aggressive stance on this?

755
00:39:41,971 --> 00:39:44,071
Can you say, sorry, I was reading Austin's

756
00:39:44,071 --> 00:39:45,551
question. Can you repeat

757
00:39:45,551 --> 00:39:48,291
just the

758
00:39:48,291 --> 00:39:49,931
first part of your question? Yeah, just wondering

759
00:39:49,931 --> 00:39:51,931
because there's enough operational

760
00:39:51,931 --> 00:39:53,871
differences and challenges that

761
00:39:54,211 --> 00:39:58,611
you know, being able to swap things in and out quickly, you have to maybe retrain your

762
00:39:58,611 --> 00:40:02,231
workforce or decide new workflows that you're going to implement.

763
00:40:02,331 --> 00:40:06,651
So if you're an already at scale industrial miner, you know really well how to do this

764
00:40:06,651 --> 00:40:10,911
with the old systems, maybe with like the ant miners or the bit main stuff.

765
00:40:11,231 --> 00:40:16,171
But maybe there's a bunch of new operational stuff to learn to make it work with kind of

766
00:40:16,171 --> 00:40:16,731
rig and proto.

767
00:40:16,731 --> 00:40:24,731
So the design of RIG took into account dozens of miners' feedback.

768
00:40:25,531 --> 00:40:32,011
And we saw yesterday, both from the miners that were in the audience that I spoke with firsthand and then also social media reaction,

769
00:40:32,751 --> 00:40:43,431
they're very happy with the design of RIG because it addressed their top 10 or 20 concerns and points of feedback.

770
00:40:43,431 --> 00:40:46,351
so I don't think that's going to be

771
00:40:46,351 --> 00:40:48,271
basically it's a shit show

772
00:40:48,271 --> 00:40:50,251
right now so they're going to

773
00:40:50,251 --> 00:40:52,311
get rid of the shit show in terms of operations

774
00:40:52,311 --> 00:40:54,251
and repairability and all that stuff

775
00:40:54,251 --> 00:40:56,171
so is it a new process

776
00:40:56,171 --> 00:40:57,671
yes it's like but it's like

777
00:40:57,671 --> 00:41:00,631
you know it's eliminating 95%

778
00:41:00,631 --> 00:41:02,251
of the time and

779
00:41:02,251 --> 00:41:03,691
energy and effort

780
00:41:03,691 --> 00:41:06,391
as opposed to like replacing

781
00:41:06,391 --> 00:41:08,431
something with something that's just as

782
00:41:08,431 --> 00:41:10,471
much effort that's different it's not really

783
00:41:10,471 --> 00:41:11,251
like that

784
00:41:11,251 --> 00:41:26,871
So is it fair to say it's kind of a no-brainer that as the upgrade cycle comes that every one of these industrial miners would choose this new system? Or do you think there's going to be holdbacks or questions that they would have that they need to answer before they make that transition?

785
00:41:26,871 --> 00:41:33,751
yeah well i mean i i don't think um you know from this day forward a hundred percent of sales are

786
00:41:33,751 --> 00:41:41,051
gonna immediately go to proto um you know what so if i'm a minor it's like well this is the the new

787
00:41:41,051 --> 00:41:47,751
new guy on the block like so can can i trust it i mean the marketing and sales pitch sounds good

788
00:41:47,751 --> 00:41:55,131
let me get some you know some some units and test them out um i do think it's very attractive if

789
00:41:55,131 --> 00:42:02,591
if you're a miner, to allocate a small percentage of your new purchases to a new vendor.

790
00:42:02,711 --> 00:42:09,211
As long as that new vendor meets some minimum bar, which in my opinion, I think Proto does.

791
00:42:09,211 --> 00:42:10,791
I mean, Proto is definitely competitive.

792
00:42:12,311 --> 00:42:21,171
Because even if you allocate 10% of your new purchases to a new vendor,

793
00:42:21,171 --> 00:42:25,651
you are, especially when you're dealing with a monopoly or duopoly,

794
00:42:26,091 --> 00:42:28,151
it gives you a lot better negotiating power.

795
00:42:28,951 --> 00:42:32,911
I mean, for the past decade, Bitmain's sort of the only game in town.

796
00:42:33,191 --> 00:42:35,451
So they get to call all the shots, right?

797
00:42:36,031 --> 00:42:41,091
But if you show that you're willing to put money towards another vendor,

798
00:42:41,631 --> 00:42:44,131
that definitely shifts the power back to miners.

799
00:42:44,691 --> 00:42:47,751
So for that reason alone, I think at least a small allocation

800
00:42:47,751 --> 00:42:48,871
makes tremendous sense.

801
00:42:48,871 --> 00:42:52,371
and then there's going to be some miners

802
00:42:52,371 --> 00:42:54,651
there's also many different applications of mining

803
00:42:54,651 --> 00:42:56,651
in cold environments, hot environments

804
00:42:56,651 --> 00:42:58,791
we haven't talked about cooling

805
00:42:58,791 --> 00:43:02,731
so RIG works with air cooling

806
00:43:02,731 --> 00:43:05,011
which is the predominant method today

807
00:43:05,011 --> 00:43:06,711
as well as immersion

808
00:43:06,711 --> 00:43:10,291
and both were demonstrated at the event

809
00:43:10,291 --> 00:43:12,511
it doesn't support hydro

810
00:43:12,511 --> 00:43:15,451
maybe that comes in the future

811
00:43:15,451 --> 00:43:19,191
but the product announced doesn't support hydro.

812
00:43:20,411 --> 00:43:22,811
So, you know, if you're a miner that is,

813
00:43:23,071 --> 00:43:24,311
the whole new build-out is hydro,

814
00:43:24,491 --> 00:43:25,851
well, then this product's not for you.

815
00:43:26,051 --> 00:43:27,671
So you're not going to use that.

816
00:43:28,731 --> 00:43:31,051
But if you're doing air cooling or immersion,

817
00:43:31,811 --> 00:43:33,291
you know, then it's a good fit.

818
00:43:34,091 --> 00:43:35,371
And what is immersion?

819
00:43:35,851 --> 00:43:38,131
Is that not emerging, emerging in water?

820
00:43:38,651 --> 00:43:39,391
Immersing in water?

821
00:43:39,571 --> 00:43:41,191
It dipped in liquid.

822
00:43:42,191 --> 00:43:42,591
Oh, it is.

823
00:43:42,671 --> 00:43:42,871
Okay.

824
00:43:43,371 --> 00:43:44,471
Is it different than hydro?

825
00:43:44,471 --> 00:43:44,731
Yeah.

826
00:43:45,451 --> 00:43:52,331
how's that different than hydro um well i don't know what the

827
00:43:52,331 --> 00:43:57,411
it's not water i don't know i don't know what the i don't know what yeah i don't know what

828
00:43:57,411 --> 00:44:03,131
substance it is for the immersion but it's but i don't think it's cycled i mean it's like it's

829
00:44:03,131 --> 00:44:08,191
just dipped in liquid and then it just operates in that environment versus like water flowing

830
00:44:08,191 --> 00:44:14,351
through and cooling the system yeah steve can you maybe help us just think through a little bit

831
00:44:14,351 --> 00:44:18,671
back of the envelope, what that economic journey would look like? Because to your point,

832
00:44:19,071 --> 00:44:23,911
I get that Proto is competitive, but I mean, it's obviously, I think there's still top of the line

833
00:44:23,911 --> 00:44:28,691
Bitmain's or, I don't know what they're like, 12 joules per tera hash, is that right?

834
00:44:30,491 --> 00:44:36,751
12 or 13 compared to 14.1. One thing for you guys to understand and the audience to understand,

835
00:44:37,131 --> 00:44:41,431
whenever you're comparing those numbers, you really want to make sure you're comparing apples

836
00:44:41,431 --> 00:44:48,831
to apples. So what are some of the variables that different vendors can like tweak or massage?

837
00:44:50,631 --> 00:44:58,031
One is chip level versus system level. So it's always the case that your joules per terahash

838
00:44:58,031 --> 00:45:02,831
metric is better at the chip level than the system level. Once you're at the system level,

839
00:45:03,011 --> 00:45:10,091
you have some loss there. So some vendors might say we're at X joules per terahash,

840
00:45:10,091 --> 00:45:13,091
but they're talking about one ship, not a system.

841
00:45:14,451 --> 00:45:18,651
So if Bitmain or Proto are quoting a system level,

842
00:45:18,931 --> 00:45:20,831
then that's not apples to apples.

843
00:45:20,971 --> 00:45:22,051
That's one thing to be aware of.

844
00:45:22,471 --> 00:45:24,951
Two is the operating environment.

845
00:45:25,611 --> 00:45:30,691
The temperature can greatly impact the performance of the system,

846
00:45:30,951 --> 00:45:34,451
and it can impact different systems differently.

847
00:45:34,951 --> 00:45:37,691
So anytime someone's quoting a number,

848
00:45:37,691 --> 00:45:43,531
you want to know, okay, what was the environment that it was tested in, in particular temperature?

849
00:45:45,731 --> 00:45:52,671
And let's see, what else? Oh, third, did they underclock the chip? If you underclock the chip,

850
00:45:52,751 --> 00:45:57,991
you're going to get worse, you know, half per second performance, but a better energy efficiency

851
00:45:57,991 --> 00:46:05,771
number. So is it a fair comparison there? So there's a bunch of things to be aware of

852
00:46:05,771 --> 00:46:08,851
that make it hard to just do a Google search

853
00:46:08,851 --> 00:46:10,511
and compare these performance numbers.

854
00:46:11,911 --> 00:46:13,831
But yeah, I believe the...

855
00:46:13,831 --> 00:46:17,431
Oh, and then hydro versus air cooling.

856
00:46:17,751 --> 00:46:20,591
Like hydro, you get much better efficiency numbers.

857
00:46:21,331 --> 00:46:23,371
So Bitmain's top of the line, like S21,

858
00:46:23,651 --> 00:46:26,431
or I think reported S23, if it's hydro,

859
00:46:26,591 --> 00:46:30,091
I think it's even as good as like 9 or 10 joules per terash.

860
00:46:30,771 --> 00:46:33,291
But again, that's not apples to apples comparison

861
00:46:33,291 --> 00:46:34,851
to an air-cooled system.

862
00:46:34,851 --> 00:46:42,291
So I think their air-cooled top-of-the-line systems are on the order of 12.5 to 13 and change joules per terash.

863
00:46:43,151 --> 00:46:55,831
Yeah. And so just to be clear, so let's say even if the current state-of-the-art from Bitvan, and again, like eventually I'm sure people that are actually using these will be able to hopefully publish some of the real numbers around this.

864
00:46:55,831 --> 00:47:15,651
But even if it's 10%, 20% better on a pure efficiency, apples to apples, whatever that number ends up being, to your point, even if it's a little bit better, you still might say, okay, I'm going to allocate 10% of my fleet to Proto today because I don't want to be controlled by a total monopoly or I'm seeing the writing on the wall.

865
00:47:15,651 --> 00:47:18,571
I want to go towards an American-made chip or whatever it is.

866
00:47:19,011 --> 00:47:21,731
And then over time, I guess kind of what you're also saying,

867
00:47:21,811 --> 00:47:25,171
plus in this is, you know, related to their conversation,

868
00:47:25,251 --> 00:47:27,591
you were actually asking a question with me and DK earlier,

869
00:47:27,811 --> 00:47:30,551
why might someone bet with a company like Block in the long run?

870
00:47:30,891 --> 00:47:33,231
Well, you might also be betting that they're going to be able

871
00:47:33,231 --> 00:47:34,651
to have a faster aeration cycle.

872
00:47:34,771 --> 00:47:35,951
Now they've got the modularity.

873
00:47:36,271 --> 00:47:37,851
Like, yeah, maybe today I've only got whatever.

874
00:47:37,971 --> 00:47:41,951
I'm buying the rig and does this support Bitmain miners?

875
00:47:42,051 --> 00:47:44,151
Can you put them, I guess it doesn't fit in there exactly.

876
00:47:44,151 --> 00:48:04,551
But okay, well, whatever. Maybe I start buying more rig than I need, but the plan is I'm making a bet that Block is going to be able to nash or surpass it over the year or two years. And so I want to make sure that happens so I don't get caught with one supplier completely controlling my hash.

877
00:48:04,551 --> 00:48:06,851
yeah I think that's fair

878
00:48:06,851 --> 00:48:08,211
and also like

879
00:48:08,211 --> 00:48:10,871
you know comparing

880
00:48:10,871 --> 00:48:12,811
Jules Pratera-Ash in

881
00:48:12,811 --> 00:48:14,971
isolation I mean that's definitely a comparison

882
00:48:14,971 --> 00:48:16,971
one should make but it's just one of many

883
00:48:16,971 --> 00:48:19,011
factors because even if

884
00:48:19,011 --> 00:48:20,411
there's

885
00:48:20,411 --> 00:48:23,051
some deployments

886
00:48:23,051 --> 00:48:24,611
that metric

887
00:48:24,611 --> 00:48:27,131
matters as much as the numbers

888
00:48:27,131 --> 00:48:29,071
you can infer from the numbers

889
00:48:29,071 --> 00:48:31,091
others it doesn't matter as much if you're less

890
00:48:31,091 --> 00:48:32,191
sensitive to the energy

891
00:48:32,191 --> 00:48:36,671
if you have a low energy cost, you're less sensitive to that number.

892
00:48:38,431 --> 00:48:57,401
And then secondly if you are looking at the life cycle of this you see how you can save costs in many other ways That can easily be more than the savings from the energy And then you guys asked about price earlier which is not disclosed

893
00:48:58,421 --> 00:49:00,661
But whatever that turns out to be,

894
00:49:01,381 --> 00:49:06,461
that can be an advantage as well.

895
00:49:08,221 --> 00:49:11,321
Yeah, so there's just lots of factors to the purchasing here,

896
00:49:11,881 --> 00:49:13,841
which ultimately leads to,

897
00:49:13,841 --> 00:49:18,561
no, I don't think Proto is going to get 100% market share on day one,

898
00:49:18,961 --> 00:49:22,901
but there are many reasons that it's not going to be 0% either.

899
00:49:24,181 --> 00:49:27,661
And to me, the easiest sales pitch is just like,

900
00:49:27,741 --> 00:49:29,941
hey, it's a credible new vendor.

901
00:49:30,681 --> 00:49:35,521
Allocate something like 10% of new purchases to a new vendor

902
00:49:35,521 --> 00:49:37,761
just so you gain better negotiating power.

903
00:49:38,441 --> 00:49:41,481
And also, of course, it allows you to evaluate this new vendor,

904
00:49:41,481 --> 00:49:42,961
test it for real

905
00:49:42,961 --> 00:49:45,841
if you like it

906
00:49:45,841 --> 00:49:47,661
then buy more

907
00:49:47,661 --> 00:49:49,161
if

908
00:49:49,161 --> 00:49:52,241
a new hashboard or new chip

909
00:49:52,241 --> 00:49:53,761
comes out in the future

910
00:49:53,761 --> 00:49:55,921
that's even more competitive

911
00:49:55,921 --> 00:49:58,261
is the number one one or whatever

912
00:49:58,261 --> 00:50:00,301
then great you've got all these rigs you've already

913
00:50:00,301 --> 00:50:02,161
purchased you can just plug in new hashboards

914
00:50:02,161 --> 00:50:03,141
so

915
00:50:03,141 --> 00:50:06,581
let's see how it performs

916
00:50:06,581 --> 00:50:10,261
we learned in the chat that

917
00:50:10,261 --> 00:50:12,461
it's also being cooled in oil.

918
00:50:12,641 --> 00:50:16,421
But don't worry, we've been assured it is beef tallow and definitely not seawall.

919
00:50:16,581 --> 00:50:18,521
So thank you for that clarification.

920
00:50:18,741 --> 00:50:20,021
I was getting nervous for a minute.

921
00:50:20,561 --> 00:50:21,941
Just like steak and shake.

922
00:50:22,801 --> 00:50:28,561
So I know you guys struck out in Vegas, but have you been to a steak and shake since?

923
00:50:29,041 --> 00:50:29,301
No.

924
00:50:29,801 --> 00:50:30,381
Definitely not.

925
00:50:30,381 --> 00:50:32,561
Where else would I find a steak and shake besides Vegas?

926
00:50:33,241 --> 00:50:35,161
Well, in the middle of Georgia.

927
00:50:35,441 --> 00:50:35,981
In Georgia, okay.

928
00:50:35,981 --> 00:50:37,481
I went to my first Steak and Shake.

929
00:50:39,301 --> 00:50:44,101
And apparently Jack grew up with Steak and Shake in St. Louis.

930
00:50:44,721 --> 00:50:45,041
Wow.

931
00:50:45,341 --> 00:50:47,681
I'm a little surprised because like Iowa, there are no Steak and Shake.

932
00:50:47,701 --> 00:50:48,261
I'm from Iowa.

933
00:50:48,381 --> 00:50:50,581
There's no Steak and Shakes in Iowa, at least when I grew up.

934
00:50:50,701 --> 00:50:52,541
I think we had them in rural Illinois.

935
00:50:53,021 --> 00:50:53,421
Okay.

936
00:50:53,841 --> 00:50:54,021
Yeah.

937
00:50:54,121 --> 00:50:54,941
We didn't have a Steak and Shake.

938
00:50:54,941 --> 00:50:57,721
It was in Missouri and Illinois, but not Iowa, I guess.

939
00:50:57,841 --> 00:50:59,961
But in any case, Jack grew up on them.

940
00:51:00,461 --> 00:51:03,181
So we swung by Steak and Shake, paid in Bitcoin.

941
00:51:03,601 --> 00:51:04,521
It's a beautiful experience.

942
00:51:05,361 --> 00:51:05,481
Nice.

943
00:51:05,481 --> 00:51:06,241
I used Lexi.

944
00:51:07,181 --> 00:51:07,541
Nice.

945
00:51:07,901 --> 00:51:08,761
LDK-based wallet.

946
00:51:08,901 --> 00:51:09,941
Lexi worked perfectly.

947
00:51:10,481 --> 00:51:10,721
Great.

948
00:51:10,861 --> 00:51:13,381
Paid for the lunch, and yeah, it was.

949
00:51:14,281 --> 00:51:16,901
We bought a jar of beef tallow.

950
00:51:17,481 --> 00:51:20,601
I think Miles brought it home to Costa Rica.

951
00:51:21,281 --> 00:51:25,321
Anyway, we did this take and shake thing, which is fun.

952
00:51:26,761 --> 00:51:27,201
Cool.

953
00:51:27,681 --> 00:51:31,161
I got to ask this question on behalf of my friend,

954
00:51:31,481 --> 00:51:34,081
and I'll share this segment with him.

955
00:51:34,081 --> 00:51:34,681
Your friend-ish.

956
00:51:34,681 --> 00:51:42,701
yeah i have a friend who's not involved in mining but he's excited about getting involved in mining

957
00:51:42,701 --> 00:51:48,621
in some way and i think it's mostly he wants to kind of like find an opportunity to deploy capital

958
00:51:48,621 --> 00:51:59,081
to get kyc free bitcoin and uh i don't know what's more about this friend i said if he figures it out

959
00:51:59,081 --> 00:52:09,001
he's interested to hear he's very handsome he loves to run and bike yeah with the dog you know

960
00:52:09,001 --> 00:52:15,161
but well he's he's had all kinds of ideas like he said uh oh maybe we should create some sort

961
00:52:15,161 --> 00:52:19,021
of collective and can we you know he's he's always dreaming something up about how to do

962
00:52:19,021 --> 00:52:26,501
mining in a new way and so his i i sent him the proto thing and um and he's like okay cool he's

963
00:52:26,501 --> 00:52:32,801
like i've got you know consider me tons of capital tons of time like how do i take advantage of this

964
00:52:32,801 --> 00:52:37,561
can i do something here uh so i guess my question to you is like can he do something

965
00:52:37,561 --> 00:52:42,381
yeah i mean if he wants to write like a hundred million dollar check

966
00:52:42,381 --> 00:52:49,461
no problem at all to do what like what do you is it just starting yet another minor or is there

967
00:52:49,461 --> 00:52:53,601
something interesting i could suggest to him to investigate

968
00:52:53,601 --> 00:53:01,241
um well i don't know i mean we've talked about the product that was launched it's a rig and

969
00:53:01,241 --> 00:53:08,541
fleet management software so he can if he's a big buyer he could talk to sales and buy a bunch of

970
00:53:08,541 --> 00:53:15,501
equipment um like would it would it impact like i don't know where you're going with this

971
00:53:15,501 --> 00:53:20,261
i mean no i guess i'm wondering like there's probably where you're going there's like third

972
00:53:20,261 --> 00:53:21,321
parties that might

973
00:53:21,321 --> 00:53:24,241
allow hosting of mining.

974
00:53:24,461 --> 00:53:26,321
But I mean, that already, you know, Compass Mining

975
00:53:26,321 --> 00:53:28,181
and I think Wilson Mining does this and

976
00:53:28,181 --> 00:53:29,941
that already exists.

977
00:53:30,261 --> 00:53:32,281
I think it depends on what his goal is.

978
00:53:32,321 --> 00:53:34,241
If his goal is to figure out how to get clean

979
00:53:34,241 --> 00:53:36,241
Bitcoin, then like, obviously just

980
00:53:36,241 --> 00:53:37,241
set it up off-grid.

981
00:53:38,081 --> 00:53:40,361
It'd be very interesting if he wants a project

982
00:53:40,361 --> 00:53:42,041
to play with to try this sort of solar

983
00:53:42,041 --> 00:53:44,461
storage, completely off-grid mining situation.

984
00:53:44,901 --> 00:53:46,121
That to me sounds very promising.

985
00:53:46,581 --> 00:53:48,161
And if he wants to do something just to get

986
00:53:48,161 --> 00:53:50,101
involved and play with the proto-mining, I love

987
00:53:50,101 --> 00:53:55,461
this idea of like now that you have a chip that opens for software where like can you plug the

988
00:53:55,461 --> 00:54:00,081
chip into into weird places like the inverter or like i don't know like the heating that we're

989
00:54:00,081 --> 00:54:06,201
seeing people doing now with the uh the heater or whatever the company is called those kinds of like

990
00:54:06,201 --> 00:54:10,241
new usefulness is a really really interesting way and i think i think proto is on the way to do it

991
00:54:10,241 --> 00:54:14,861
i'm interested in this this idea of like you touched on it but didn't quite say it but i

992
00:54:14,861 --> 00:54:21,721
think like the depending on what the payback period is if you were to install a chip in a

993
00:54:21,721 --> 00:54:27,041
solar panel could you actually give solar panels away for free to people and like well that's the

994
00:54:27,041 --> 00:54:33,041
idea the mining that's the idea it's very similar well either do you add or it's it's sold as part

995
00:54:33,041 --> 00:54:37,781
of a bigger a bigger package i doubt the numbers are there to make that exactly but is it like 18

996
00:54:37,781 --> 00:54:43,001
months or 36 months you think or even longer i have no idea i have to look at the numbers on this

997
00:54:43,001 --> 00:54:46,321
David, to help us answer the question,

998
00:54:46,981 --> 00:54:52,001
does your friend want a prepackaged product and service?

999
00:54:52,321 --> 00:54:56,481
Or is he an entrepreneur who wants to build a business based around this?

1000
00:54:57,261 --> 00:54:58,561
Because it's very different answers.

1001
00:54:58,641 --> 00:54:59,901
I'd say it's closer to the latter.

1002
00:55:00,921 --> 00:55:02,241
Yeah, closer to the latter.

1003
00:55:02,241 --> 00:55:07,841
Taking one of Max's crazy ideas and turn it into reality, right?

1004
00:55:08,481 --> 00:55:11,001
But I think he doesn't want to just...

1005
00:55:11,001 --> 00:55:14,841
I've told him, don't get involved in just trying to be yet another industrial miner.

1006
00:55:14,981 --> 00:55:19,341
It's like a brutal, it's a brutally competitive industry that's very optimized, right?

1007
00:55:19,961 --> 00:55:24,261
But that's why I do, like I said earlier, you know, now that you can buy chips individually,

1008
00:55:24,261 --> 00:55:31,821
you can come up with whole new form factors and designs, and that can open up totally new avenues.

1009
00:55:31,821 --> 00:55:34,001
So you're not doing the same thing that everyone else is.

1010
00:55:34,381 --> 00:55:39,861
Now, obviously, whatever you design and try to apply, it has to be like a good value proposition and tap into it.

1011
00:55:39,861 --> 00:55:49,641
You're developing a new application, a new market, and ultimately it has to be competitive financially within Bitcoin mining.

1012
00:55:50,601 --> 00:56:00,581
But it would be the case, you know, you can certainly imagine, like Max's idea is definitely not done today, right?

1013
00:56:00,641 --> 00:56:01,161
So it's new.

1014
00:56:01,601 --> 00:56:03,441
It leaves the potential to be differentiated.

1015
00:56:03,441 --> 00:56:24,801
Well, I'd be really curious. There's one guy, Ali, who's come to some of our chats, and he's very deep in both mining and solar, and we'll definitely have him for the evening as well. He's been trying to pencil this model. You could do it as just give away the energy system, the solar panels effectively, and then you monetize this over.

1016
00:56:24,801 --> 00:56:29,381
there's like many ways you could finance like that's what he saw or used to be uh where people

1017
00:56:29,381 --> 00:56:33,801
would essentially just um securitize a whole bunch of these give away for free and get the paybacks

1018
00:56:33,801 --> 00:56:38,961
now then went to loans now it's like more of like actual energy sales but regardless there's like

1019
00:56:38,961 --> 00:56:44,421
different financing techniques but i think this idea of can you can you move mining to the edge

1020
00:56:44,421 --> 00:56:48,701
is very interesting ali is definitely the farthest along on this i'd be curious to get his take-home

1021
00:56:48,701 --> 00:56:53,461
pro actually i didn't even think to ask him um because he's someone that you know if if this made

1022
00:56:53,461 --> 00:57:00,081
the economics slightly better. Maybe he can push this further. But it definitely has not penciled

1023
00:57:00,081 --> 00:57:04,061
yet. So to your friend's question, now the question would be, get this in the field test.

1024
00:57:04,641 --> 00:57:10,521
Does this make things like giving away free solar? Does this make that pencil? I doubt we're there

1025
00:57:10,521 --> 00:57:18,121
yet still, but maybe it's a closer step. I wanted to answer, Austin had a question a few minutes ago

1026
00:57:18,121 --> 00:57:21,121
about why has adoption been slow?

1027
00:57:21,501 --> 00:57:24,161
And I think he's referring to Stratum v2.

1028
00:57:24,961 --> 00:57:27,281
And I mean, this could be a long conversation.

1029
00:57:27,421 --> 00:57:29,961
I'll just answer it in a short way

1030
00:57:29,961 --> 00:57:32,701
that applies to any of these protocols.

1031
00:57:33,261 --> 00:57:36,181
But it takes a long time because you need,

1032
00:57:37,281 --> 00:57:38,901
with protocols, you need,

1033
00:57:40,341 --> 00:57:43,281
there's network effects with the protocol

1034
00:57:43,281 --> 00:57:44,301
you're trying to replace.

1035
00:57:44,301 --> 00:57:46,561
so it's not like

1036
00:57:46,561 --> 00:57:48,661
who's the first mover

1037
00:57:48,661 --> 00:57:50,721
if you're the first adopter

1038
00:57:50,721 --> 00:57:52,141
you don't have anyone to connect to

1039
00:57:52,141 --> 00:57:53,981
so everyone's asking

1040
00:57:53,981 --> 00:57:56,301
who else has adopted it

1041
00:57:56,301 --> 00:57:58,041
why should I be first

1042
00:57:58,041 --> 00:58:00,701
and when you need like dozens

1043
00:58:00,701 --> 00:58:02,341
or hundreds of

1044
00:58:02,341 --> 00:58:04,921
projects, companies, products to adopt

1045
00:58:04,921 --> 00:58:06,681
something, each has their own

1046
00:58:06,681 --> 00:58:08,601
roadmap, priorities

1047
00:58:08,601 --> 00:58:10,381
and limited resources

1048
00:58:10,381 --> 00:58:12,841
almost always

1049
00:58:12,841 --> 00:58:14,041
there's way too much work

1050
00:58:14,301 --> 00:58:29,581
So you have to get on the priority list for hundreds of different products and all of them ask, why should I be first? So this takes years and years and years to get any kind of protocol adoption. And I think that that's a pattern that's true for any type of product.

1051
00:58:29,581 --> 00:58:41,641
But I think Austin or implicit what he was saying there is, you know, that's true unless it's like a hair on fire problem. And I think what he was asking is, was it not a hair on fire problem? People were just like stealing hash rate?

1052
00:58:41,641 --> 00:58:43,881
not really because there's no

1053
00:58:43,881 --> 00:58:45,881
there's no

1054
00:58:45,881 --> 00:58:48,261
concrete evidence of stealing

1055
00:58:48,261 --> 00:58:49,661
hash rate it

1056
00:58:49,661 --> 00:58:51,801
definitely can be done

1057
00:58:51,801 --> 00:58:54,121
it's definitely real and that it can be

1058
00:58:54,121 --> 00:58:55,461
done and it's been demonstrated

1059
00:58:55,461 --> 00:58:58,141
so it's not like a fake problem it's a real

1060
00:58:58,141 --> 00:58:59,281
potential threat

1061
00:58:59,281 --> 00:59:00,321
it also

1062
00:59:00,321 --> 00:59:04,061
it could be the case that it has been happening

1063
00:59:04,061 --> 00:59:05,561
we just don't know it

1064
00:59:05,561 --> 00:59:07,921
and we don't know it's definitely also

1065
00:59:07,921 --> 00:59:10,001
true that a lot of larger miners

1066
00:59:10,001 --> 00:59:12,881
have deployed custom solutions

1067
00:59:12,881 --> 00:59:14,881
to mitigate the risk.

1068
00:59:16,401 --> 00:59:19,161
But yeah, it's not like hair on fire

1069
00:59:19,161 --> 00:59:21,321
just because, I mean, obviously if we had evidence,

1070
00:59:21,381 --> 00:59:23,021
we have a dashboard that shows

1071
00:59:23,021 --> 00:59:25,641
5% of your evidence being stolen.

1072
00:59:25,961 --> 00:59:27,961
Obviously the miners would immediately prioritize

1073
00:59:27,961 --> 00:59:29,401
fixing it.

1074
00:59:30,821 --> 00:59:30,921
Yeah.

1075
00:59:31,281 --> 00:59:33,301
And then same with like running your own,

1076
00:59:34,661 --> 00:59:36,281
you know, creating your own block templates

1077
00:59:36,281 --> 00:59:39,041
and decentralizing Bitcoin.

1078
00:59:40,001 --> 00:59:48,881
further you know miners generally don't care about that um you know they aren't miners are

1079
00:59:48,881 --> 00:59:54,801
typically not on twitter pounding their chest about decentralization of bitcoin they are out

1080
00:59:54,801 --> 01:00:01,661
in the field more blue collar worker or accountant type person you know counting the coins that are

1081
01:00:01,661 --> 01:00:07,201
being mined and that's they're worried about energy costs and accounting and things like that

1082
01:00:07,201 --> 01:00:09,041
not decentralization of Bitcoin.

1083
01:00:10,781 --> 01:00:13,721
Austin was saying he thought maybe the stuff

1084
01:00:13,721 --> 01:00:14,821
would be backward compatible

1085
01:00:14,821 --> 01:00:18,681
for the network participants to be able to join in.

1086
01:00:18,781 --> 01:00:21,661
Is it true that it's a total break with the existing?

1087
01:00:21,661 --> 01:00:24,501
You don't have backward compatibility in these sort of calls?

1088
01:00:26,161 --> 01:00:27,541
Kind of neither.

1089
01:00:28,101 --> 01:00:29,721
There is some backwards compatibility.

1090
01:00:30,401 --> 01:00:35,461
And if you have a miner that is running Stratum v1 firmware,

1091
01:00:35,461 --> 01:00:38,761
there is part of the open source project

1092
01:00:38,761 --> 01:00:40,621
that we and others have been working on

1093
01:00:40,621 --> 01:00:43,041
there's a translation from stratum v1 to v2

1094
01:00:43,041 --> 01:00:47,141
so you can have existing equipment

1095
01:00:47,141 --> 01:00:48,861
you don't need to upgrade the firmware

1096
01:00:48,861 --> 01:00:53,081
or it could be the case that chip doesn't even have

1097
01:00:53,081 --> 01:00:54,921
stratum v2 firmware, that's fine

1098
01:00:54,921 --> 01:00:57,541
you can still be compatible with stratum v2

1099
01:00:57,541 --> 01:01:01,381
but you need stratum v2 mining pools

1100
01:01:01,381 --> 01:01:04,641
and that's where there's

1101
01:01:04,641 --> 01:01:07,721
you know, adoption has been lagging.

1102
01:01:08,201 --> 01:01:10,841
There's one startup that supports it right now

1103
01:01:10,841 --> 01:01:12,321
called Demand,

1104
01:01:12,901 --> 01:01:15,081
and it's early days for them.

1105
01:01:16,381 --> 01:01:19,081
And we'll see how things develop

1106
01:01:19,081 --> 01:01:21,861
in the coming months for other pools.

1107
01:01:23,521 --> 01:01:24,041
Cool.

1108
01:01:24,441 --> 01:01:26,981
Should we, anything else to say on Proto?

1109
01:01:27,201 --> 01:01:29,361
I think we sent about an hour on Proto,

1110
01:01:29,561 --> 01:01:31,961
but we've got two other topics to address.

1111
01:01:32,081 --> 01:01:34,321
So should we move to another topic?

1112
01:01:34,321 --> 01:01:42,341
move forward yeah okay so i think next up is this uh this google play store drama i um i saw

1113
01:01:42,341 --> 01:01:49,581
i saw that google had announced something about about uh not supporting non-custodial wallets and

1114
01:01:49,581 --> 01:01:55,281
then very quickly walked it back uh but i don't know all of uh all of the details of that have

1115
01:01:55,281 --> 01:02:03,401
you guys followed this one closely fairly closely um and yeah a few days ago people were

1116
01:02:03,401 --> 01:02:06,721
I mean, Marty Bent tweeted it, I think.

1117
01:02:08,761 --> 01:02:15,241
And the Rage Media had an article covering it.

1118
01:02:16,681 --> 01:02:22,121
And if you went to Google's or the Play Store's help page,

1119
01:02:23,341 --> 01:02:29,901
it was pretty clear language that if you have a cryptocurrency wallet,

1120
01:02:29,901 --> 01:02:32,061
but it has to,

1121
01:02:32,281 --> 01:02:34,561
and then they did a country by country breakdown

1122
01:02:34,561 --> 01:02:35,961
what the requirements were.

1123
01:02:36,181 --> 01:02:38,101
And I mean, I looked at the US and Europe

1124
01:02:38,101 --> 01:02:41,141
and you had to be like FinCEN,

1125
01:02:41,401 --> 01:02:43,461
you basically had to be like a licensed money business.

1126
01:02:43,921 --> 01:02:48,721
And in Europe, I think you had to be regulated

1127
01:02:48,721 --> 01:02:52,421
through the new MICA or MICA,

1128
01:02:52,421 --> 01:02:53,641
I don't know how they say it,

1129
01:02:53,801 --> 01:02:55,681
but different regulations,

1130
01:02:56,101 --> 01:02:56,961
which would eliminate,

1131
01:02:56,961 --> 01:03:04,141
which would mean like all self-custody wallets would be banned from the or the implication is

1132
01:03:04,141 --> 01:03:10,541
that they'd be banned from the play store so if that were actually the case it would be a pretty

1133
01:03:10,541 --> 01:03:18,381
dramatic event so a lot of people on bitcoin uh in bitcoin you know created out concern

1134
01:03:18,381 --> 01:03:21,381
were kind of aghast by that.

1135
01:03:22,461 --> 01:03:24,481
And then Google did respond

1136
01:03:24,481 --> 01:03:28,201
from some seemingly official Google Twitter account.

1137
01:03:28,301 --> 01:03:29,281
I'd never heard of it before, though.

1138
01:03:29,281 --> 01:03:35,301
But saying that it was like an error oversight

1139
01:03:35,301 --> 01:03:39,901
and they're going to correct the help content.

1140
01:03:40,921 --> 01:03:43,961
They did update the help content

1141
01:03:43,961 --> 01:03:45,641
with a little call-out saying

1142
01:03:45,641 --> 01:03:48,241
it doesn't apply to self-custody.

1143
01:03:48,381 --> 01:03:49,121
wallets.

1144
01:03:50,461 --> 01:03:52,501
Although then I just tweeted asking

1145
01:03:52,501 --> 01:03:53,941
what about like

1146
01:03:53,941 --> 01:03:56,421
liquid based wallets

1147
01:03:56,421 --> 01:03:58,201
or e-cash based wallets or spark

1148
01:03:58,201 --> 01:03:59,121
based wallets.

1149
01:03:59,821 --> 01:04:01,321
They probably know what that is.

1150
01:04:01,901 --> 01:04:02,441
They probably don't.

1151
01:04:05,121 --> 01:04:06,461
I'm certain

1152
01:04:06,461 --> 01:04:07,741
the Google Play Store

1153
01:04:07,741 --> 01:04:09,501
people don't

1154
01:04:09,501 --> 01:04:12,361
know, don't have an

1155
01:04:12,361 --> 01:04:14,441
appreciation for the spectrum of

1156
01:04:14,441 --> 01:04:14,941
trust

1157
01:04:14,941 --> 01:04:17,561
with different wallets, right?

1158
01:04:17,561 --> 01:04:20,021
but if I were

1159
01:04:20,021 --> 01:04:21,661
if I had a

1160
01:04:21,661 --> 01:04:23,101
like an e-cash wallet

1161
01:04:23,101 --> 01:04:26,081
that was in the app store

1162
01:04:26,081 --> 01:04:27,741
or any other

1163
01:04:27,741 --> 01:04:29,781
type of wallet like that I would definitely

1164
01:04:29,781 --> 01:04:31,461
want to learn more

1165
01:04:31,461 --> 01:04:34,221
I'd probably want to go educate

1166
01:04:34,221 --> 01:04:35,981
the Google Play Store folks

1167
01:04:35,981 --> 01:04:37,941
on all these nuances

1168
01:04:37,941 --> 01:04:39,121
and

1169
01:04:39,121 --> 01:04:41,101
assure them that

1170
01:04:41,101 --> 01:04:43,721
you know my category of wallet

1171
01:04:43,721 --> 01:04:45,701
is also acceptable

1172
01:04:45,701 --> 01:04:52,741
and should be not outright banned from the app store or the Play Store.

1173
01:04:53,541 --> 01:04:56,161
And also that I wouldn't have to become an MSV.

1174
01:04:56,601 --> 01:04:58,641
Although some of those get into gray area, right?

1175
01:04:59,021 --> 01:05:04,141
Was the initial announcement targeting self-custody cryptocurrency wallets

1176
01:05:04,141 --> 01:05:08,041
or was it more like a broad thing that didn't carve out?

1177
01:05:08,521 --> 01:05:08,721
The latter.

1178
01:05:08,961 --> 01:05:10,561
It said cryptocurrency wallets.

1179
01:05:11,241 --> 01:05:11,481
Okay.

1180
01:05:11,721 --> 01:05:13,861
Exchanges and wallets.

1181
01:05:13,861 --> 01:05:20,901
so they were probably trying to create a new policy for exchange and like entities that really are

1182
01:05:20,901 --> 01:05:26,941
money transmitters and they sort of inadvertently i think the reality is there's a bunch of fraud

1183
01:05:26,941 --> 01:05:33,461
in app stores right in general certainly around wallets because if i'm a criminal and want to

1184
01:05:33,461 --> 01:05:41,041
steal money what better way than like put a app in a store that it's a wallet that looks legitimate

1185
01:05:41,041 --> 01:05:43,101
or steal someone else's brand,

1186
01:05:44,061 --> 01:05:44,981
trick a bunch of people,

1187
01:05:45,101 --> 01:05:45,881
steal all their money.

1188
01:05:45,881 --> 01:05:46,901
So it's right.

1189
01:05:48,541 --> 01:05:51,141
The wallet scrutiny project that Spiral

1190
01:05:51,141 --> 01:05:52,701
funds

1191
01:05:52,701 --> 01:05:55,641
finds a lot

1192
01:05:55,641 --> 01:05:56,961
of these apps.

1193
01:05:58,221 --> 01:05:59,941
So I think it's quite

1194
01:05:59,941 --> 01:06:01,541
common. So I suspect

1195
01:06:01,541 --> 01:06:03,961
Google Play Store is just responding

1196
01:06:03,961 --> 01:06:04,841
to that.

1197
01:06:05,581 --> 01:06:07,861
I suspect that they are

1198
01:06:07,861 --> 01:06:10,001
well-intentioned, trying to eliminate

1199
01:06:10,001 --> 01:06:12,181
the fraud. They probably do not

1200
01:06:12,181 --> 01:06:14,041
understand all the nuances for all

1201
01:06:14,041 --> 01:06:16,061
these different types of wallets and trust levels.

1202
01:06:17,121 --> 01:06:17,181
And

1203
01:06:17,181 --> 01:06:19,081
maybe just like,

1204
01:06:20,101 --> 01:06:21,721
you know, so knee-jerk said, oh,

1205
01:06:21,941 --> 01:06:22,621
well, you got to be

1206
01:06:22,621 --> 01:06:26,161
regulated. Then you're good.

1207
01:06:26,561 --> 01:06:28,081
Not regulated, you know, then you're

1208
01:06:28,081 --> 01:06:28,481
not good.

1209
01:06:30,701 --> 01:06:31,941
And, you know, so

1210
01:06:31,941 --> 01:06:33,241
they've made an improvement,

1211
01:06:34,501 --> 01:06:36,081
but there's still some

1212
01:06:36,081 --> 01:06:38,181
gray area. But I think the bigger

1213
01:06:38,181 --> 01:06:41,301
the bigger issue which we don't have

1214
01:06:41,301 --> 01:06:43,561
you know maybe a bigger topic

1215
01:06:43,561 --> 01:06:44,761
for another day is just like

1216
01:06:44,761 --> 01:06:47,081
the power of two

1217
01:06:47,081 --> 01:06:48,941
stores and how

1218
01:06:48,941 --> 01:06:51,421
they could

1219
01:06:51,421 --> 01:06:53,441
just like completely change an industry

1220
01:06:53,441 --> 01:06:55,041
like imagine if all the wallets

1221
01:06:55,041 --> 01:06:57,301
were banned then an

1222
01:06:57,301 --> 01:06:59,121
Apple you'd be totally screwed

1223
01:06:59,121 --> 01:07:01,221
unless you jailbreak your phone and then an

1224
01:07:01,221 --> 01:07:03,501
Android everyone would have to adapt

1225
01:07:03,501 --> 01:07:05,181
to side loading

1226
01:07:05,181 --> 01:07:07,681
APKs which isn't

1227
01:07:07,681 --> 01:07:09,601
that hard, but it certainly

1228
01:07:09,601 --> 01:07:11,981
adds friction to the experience.

1229
01:07:13,901 --> 01:07:15,741
So this to me

1230
01:07:15,741 --> 01:07:17,421
is the big thing.

1231
01:07:17,641 --> 01:07:19,841
It's not the first time we've gone through this. There have been

1232
01:07:19,841 --> 01:07:21,541
wallet scares in the past.

1233
01:07:21,921 --> 01:07:23,261
All the Nostrums, right?

1234
01:07:24,041 --> 01:07:26,061
Will didn't get Domus in the App Store.

1235
01:07:26,541 --> 01:07:28,241
To me, you hit the nail on the head.

1236
01:07:28,541 --> 01:07:29,861
The danger here is the

1237
01:07:29,861 --> 01:07:31,161
arbitrary and capricious nature,

1238
01:07:31,601 --> 01:07:33,861
or just the arbitrary nature

1239
01:07:33,861 --> 01:07:35,881
of any two

1240
01:07:35,881 --> 01:07:39,921
companies having complete control over whatever people can use over their phone like that's that's

1241
01:07:39,921 --> 01:07:45,461
crazy and to me the thing that i keep coming back with i think the big question here is you know if

1242
01:07:45,461 --> 01:07:52,741
if we continue down the path we're currently on and your only option is apple or play store

1243
01:07:52,741 --> 01:07:58,221
then it seems to me like it's a question of when not if like something really bad happens whether

1244
01:07:58,221 --> 01:08:01,661
it's a government-directed attack or it's something that's kind of accidental or it's

1245
01:08:01,661 --> 01:08:04,841
just like we were saying like you know it's like we talked about last because that government

1246
01:08:04,841 --> 01:08:11,141
the internet becomes kyc and it's probably good intention probably maybe and all of a sudden it's

1247
01:08:11,141 --> 01:08:17,941
like as uh as well uh put very eloquently on on damas you know uh all of a sudden you have to scan

1248
01:08:17,941 --> 01:08:23,361
your eyeball and your anus to be able to access the internet and here we are right and so like

1249
01:08:23,361 --> 01:08:28,021
i i will say the each and every one of these events i remember a million from primal said

1250
01:08:28,021 --> 01:08:32,221
this a couple uh you know maybe a year ago we were asking like hey like should we capitalize

1251
01:08:32,221 --> 01:08:34,281
more on everything that's happening in Brazil when they were

1252
01:08:34,281 --> 01:08:36,261
cracking down. He's like, look guys, the rug pulls are

1253
01:08:36,261 --> 01:08:37,841
just going to keep happening, keep accelerating.

1254
01:08:38,401 --> 01:08:40,401
Everyone is a new chance for Nostra

1255
01:08:40,401 --> 01:08:42,281
to kind of, hopefully it'll be a little bit better, a little

1256
01:08:42,281 --> 01:08:44,121
bit more powerful to kind of reassert

1257
01:08:44,121 --> 01:08:46,141
itself. I think

1258
01:08:46,141 --> 01:08:48,281
and even in something else you said, Steve, even

1259
01:08:48,281 --> 01:08:50,181
in your preamble that you

1260
01:08:50,181 --> 01:08:52,201
made the point, you're like, yeah, we think Google

1261
01:08:52,201 --> 01:08:54,321
has fixed it, but it's from some Google account I've never

1262
01:08:54,321 --> 01:08:56,321
heard of. Same thing. How the hell do we even

1263
01:08:56,321 --> 01:08:58,361
know on the platforms or decentralized

1264
01:08:58,361 --> 01:09:00,301
media platforms that Google is actually

1265
01:09:00,301 --> 01:09:02,102
the one saying this, right? So

1266
01:09:02,102 --> 01:09:05,881
this made me increasingly bullish on things like Nostre.

1267
01:09:06,341 --> 01:09:10,321
I'm glad that something like Zap Store is still around. I still can't

1268
01:09:10,321 --> 01:09:13,481
use it because it's only for, I guess, sideloaded on Android.

1269
01:09:14,241 --> 01:09:18,081
But I'm glad that that's still going. I think every

1270
01:09:18,081 --> 01:09:22,121
Nostre app or the majority of the Nostre apps that most people use right now are available on

1271
01:09:22,121 --> 01:09:26,201
Zap Store. Zap Store, for those who don't know, you sign with your Nostre keys

1272
01:09:26,201 --> 01:09:30,381
or private keys when you publish. Everything is accessible. You can have customizable algorithms

1273
01:09:30,381 --> 01:09:34,241
to feature apps or decide which ones are frauds

1274
01:09:34,241 --> 01:09:35,041
or which ones are not.

1275
01:09:35,741 --> 01:09:36,602
So that's exciting to me.

1276
01:09:36,602 --> 01:09:38,921
And it's distributing PWA apps, right?

1277
01:09:39,002 --> 01:09:40,281
Not native mobile apps?

1278
01:09:40,621 --> 01:09:43,341
I think they're doing native for Android.

1279
01:09:43,461 --> 01:09:45,421
So the ones that you have to use the APK for, though.

1280
01:09:45,961 --> 01:09:46,241
Okay.

1281
01:09:46,741 --> 01:09:48,321
He was considering PWA

1282
01:09:48,321 --> 01:09:51,061
and maybe he'd gone more down that route.

1283
01:09:51,341 --> 01:09:52,921
But I think this is the broader question.

1284
01:09:53,102 --> 01:09:54,041
And DK, maybe you have a thought

1285
01:09:54,041 --> 01:09:56,041
because I know you've thought a lot about PWAs.

1286
01:09:56,441 --> 01:09:57,661
How the hell do we get out of this duopoly?

1287
01:09:57,861 --> 01:09:59,021
Like, I love ZapStore.

1288
01:09:59,121 --> 01:09:59,861
I love Nostro.

1289
01:09:59,861 --> 01:10:06,401
it's a great start but like if the game the only game in town is either off to like side load stuff

1290
01:10:06,401 --> 01:10:12,341
like okay so nerds are going to be able to free themselves most people are or pwas i'm like yeah

1291
01:10:12,341 --> 01:10:17,401
why haven't pwas taken off like maybe and i think there's still an opportunity but it doesn't seem

1292
01:10:17,401 --> 01:10:24,541
like it's it's getting that much traction um the bigger question my mind is is it still possible

1293
01:10:24,541 --> 01:10:29,521
and steve i know you thought a lot about this did you say fuck it launch a new phone new

1294
01:10:29,521 --> 01:10:32,081
open source operating system to compete

1295
01:10:32,081 --> 01:10:33,801
head on with Apple and Google.

1296
01:10:33,961 --> 01:10:36,021
Maybe it looks like a long shot today, but if they

1297
01:10:36,021 --> 01:10:37,941
keep cracking down over time, you can keep

1298
01:10:37,941 --> 01:10:39,461
having better and freer

1299
01:10:39,461 --> 01:10:41,961
and more profitable product experiences

1300
01:10:41,961 --> 01:10:43,502
over there. Is that

1301
01:10:43,502 --> 01:10:45,901
the long term answer? Or is it

1302
01:10:45,901 --> 01:10:47,881
something else? Or with AI, are the app

1303
01:10:47,881 --> 01:10:49,741
stores potentially got to become irrelevant

1304
01:10:49,741 --> 01:10:51,701
and know actually we're going to be looking to the future

1305
01:10:51,701 --> 01:10:53,701
and it's really going to be the agent,

1306
01:10:53,861 --> 01:10:55,781
the assistant that I'm facing with and

1307
01:10:55,781 --> 01:10:57,521
letting that agent access things freely

1308
01:10:57,521 --> 01:11:00,021
and forget the old world, let the old world die out.

1309
01:11:00,481 --> 01:11:01,061
What do you guys think?

1310
01:11:01,421 --> 01:11:03,002
Yeah, I think I would say

1311
01:11:03,002 --> 01:11:05,861
the only thing worth spending time on is that last one

1312
01:11:05,861 --> 01:11:08,821
because it's so obviously going to happen.

1313
01:11:09,421 --> 01:11:12,261
And so how can you usher it in a way

1314
01:11:12,261 --> 01:11:13,781
that makes sense for people?

1315
01:11:13,781 --> 01:11:16,861
But I think the concept of have another app store

1316
01:11:16,861 --> 01:11:20,201
with another phone and just kind of replay history,

1317
01:11:20,321 --> 01:11:21,421
I think rarely makes sense.

1318
01:11:21,521 --> 01:11:22,881
It's attractive because it's familiar.

1319
01:11:23,041 --> 01:11:24,621
It's really like, oh, let's do the thing

1320
01:11:24,621 --> 01:11:26,621
that we're all familiar with and do it more open

1321
01:11:26,621 --> 01:11:28,081
or more generous in a way.

1322
01:11:28,181 --> 01:11:31,121
But I think the main story here is AI.

1323
01:11:31,901 --> 01:11:34,861
And I think what I want on my phone really

1324
01:11:34,861 --> 01:11:36,641
is I want a button like a Siri,

1325
01:11:36,801 --> 01:11:38,421
but I want to actually work, right?

1326
01:11:38,481 --> 01:11:40,461
And I want to be able to just say what I want

1327
01:11:40,461 --> 01:11:42,461
and like, hey, take a note on thing X.

1328
01:11:42,821 --> 01:11:44,661
Hey, like drop me into the experience

1329
01:11:44,661 --> 01:11:46,181
where I'm like navigating that world

1330
01:11:46,181 --> 01:11:47,701
or I'm navigating this world

1331
01:11:47,701 --> 01:11:48,781
and give me directions to a thing.

1332
01:11:49,002 --> 01:11:51,961
I never actually want to like swipe open the thing,

1333
01:11:52,741 --> 01:11:55,602
choose a specific app to do a specific function

1334
01:11:55,602 --> 01:11:57,281
and then try to like navigate through that app.

1335
01:11:57,301 --> 01:12:00,421
I just want to like will it into existence as I need it

1336
01:12:00,421 --> 01:12:02,281
or sort of conjure it up as I need it.

1337
01:12:02,281 --> 01:12:04,961
And maybe even will new software into existence as I need it.

1338
01:12:05,002 --> 01:12:09,421
But those are all things that AI is such a disruptive vector to.

1339
01:12:09,821 --> 01:12:13,701
So I, you know, it may be that Apple builds this device,

1340
01:12:13,781 --> 01:12:17,301
maybe that Google or, you know, Samsung or somebody else builds this device.

1341
01:12:17,821 --> 01:12:20,021
Maybe that OpenAI, I think OpenAI is, you know,

1342
01:12:20,061 --> 01:12:21,701
claiming to want to do a phone-like thing.

1343
01:12:21,781 --> 01:12:25,261
I think we're at a moment right now where you could really,

1344
01:12:25,261 --> 01:12:31,002
rethink what the device is and then what the os is and sort of how it accesses the concept of apps

1345
01:12:31,002 --> 01:12:35,821
um so i think it's very exciting but i would almost like send like no energy on trying to like

1346
01:12:35,821 --> 01:12:42,041
fix the problems of history and spend all of your energy on how do you usher in the new stuff in a

1347
01:12:42,041 --> 01:12:46,321
way that that aligns with the ideals that you want to promote in the world so let's talk more

1348
01:12:46,321 --> 01:12:51,502
about that then so i agree with you 100 percent um what i mean i'm curious here your thoughts on

1349
01:12:51,502 --> 01:12:53,741
what that form factor might look like,

1350
01:12:53,741 --> 01:12:56,002
and maybe the sort of payments, the Bitcoin stuff

1351
01:12:56,002 --> 01:12:58,002
is just plumbing in the background.

1352
01:12:58,002 --> 01:13:02,681
But if you were to start something,

1353
01:13:02,681 --> 01:13:04,841
or where would you even start thinking about

1354
01:13:04,841 --> 01:13:05,681
what that looks like today?

1355
01:13:05,681 --> 01:13:07,621
Do you think that the best place is to try

1356
01:13:07,621 --> 01:13:09,201
and actually create the assistant,

1357
01:13:09,201 --> 01:13:23,612
and then the background create the plumbing that using the MCP servers that are monetized or something like that for the assistant to be able to access different agents And how do you make sure or how do you try and shift or nudge

1358
01:13:23,612 --> 01:13:31,212
the scale towards open source in that world? I mean, I think, yeah, I've found the form factor

1359
01:13:31,212 --> 01:13:37,532
of glasses or maybe the AirPod type, you know, headphones experiences like a really good form

1360
01:13:37,532 --> 01:13:41,852
factor i think the thing that that i think it really needs is it needs some sort of camera

1361
01:13:41,852 --> 01:13:48,892
that's really high quality and i think the meta glasses i think are sort of a good step towards

1362
01:13:48,892 --> 01:13:54,552
that but probably not going to be super open we'll see um but but like i think you need to

1363
01:13:54,552 --> 01:13:58,752
sort of reinvent form factors you need connectivity so how is your connectivity going to work is it

1364
01:13:58,752 --> 01:14:02,972
going to go to at&t and verizon towers are you going to go to starlink are you going to go

1365
01:14:02,972 --> 01:14:07,452
somewhere else are you going to sort of have mbnos that abstract those and kind of multi-source them

1366
01:14:07,452 --> 01:14:17,132
the way like the google um uh what's the the offerings at fi the oh god yeah so yeah but i

1367
01:14:17,132 --> 01:14:21,432
mean that it's like an attempt to try to multi-source the the actual towers and networks

1368
01:14:21,432 --> 01:14:27,912
um but but i i think that you know just doing another phone doesn't doesn't feel like you can

1369
01:14:27,912 --> 01:14:34,132
i don't to me it doesn't feel as attractive as like the idea of um will we have something of a

1370
01:14:34,132 --> 01:14:39,572
of a new wearable that will help us do that and then the main interface the wearable in and out

1371
01:14:39,572 --> 01:14:45,052
is mostly through voice voice yeah and savage but okay so that's all interesting to me

1372
01:14:45,052 --> 01:14:52,592
how do you shift towards open like so let's say meta and apple are both going to compete

1373
01:14:52,592 --> 01:14:57,252
you we've i've heard repeatedly that tim cook only cares about competing with uh

1374
01:14:57,252 --> 01:15:01,932
zach on on these glasses whatever that looks like fine so they're usually go for a closed version

1375
01:15:01,932 --> 01:15:07,392
maybe you never know with what medicine you take what is the open version look like that and how do

1376
01:15:07,392 --> 01:15:12,012
you what are the advantages or how do you make sure you can tap the advantages of a fully open

1377
01:15:12,012 --> 01:15:18,812
developer ecosystem can i interject really quick with the police question yeah how many times have

1378
01:15:18,812 --> 01:15:26,372
either of you seen someone in the wild wearing apple vision pro in like in 2025 i don't think it

1379
01:15:26,372 --> 01:15:31,792
works in the wild it works like in your house so you have to be at the person's house well i so i

1380
01:15:31,792 --> 01:15:40,552
had my first experience oh okay in atlanta miles like mile miles and i went running a couple

1381
01:15:40,552 --> 01:15:47,272
mornings and then we went to a starbucks and there was a guy in starbucks sitting there

1382
01:15:47,272 --> 01:15:53,392
wearing his vision pro nice and uh i just it made me realize i've seen more people

1383
01:15:53,392 --> 01:15:59,672
in the wild wearing google glass in my life than apple vision pro yeah just just saying anyway

1384
01:15:59,672 --> 01:16:01,832
Back to your more serious question.

1385
01:16:02,272 --> 01:16:02,872
No, I don't.

1386
01:16:03,212 --> 01:16:06,952
And to be clear, I'm not convinced that this is the right form type,

1387
01:16:06,992 --> 01:16:08,012
but maybe it is, maybe it's not.

1388
01:16:08,332 --> 01:16:09,752
Like, I still think there's a world,

1389
01:16:09,952 --> 01:16:11,512
I don't know if I'll ever wear the glasses,

1390
01:16:11,692 --> 01:16:14,172
but like, would I like to have like earbuds

1391
01:16:14,172 --> 01:16:15,472
that I can just talk to my dude?

1392
01:16:15,592 --> 01:16:15,772
Sure.

1393
01:16:17,052 --> 01:16:17,252
Yeah.

1394
01:16:17,872 --> 01:16:19,072
I mean, maybe that's,

1395
01:16:19,232 --> 01:16:23,512
maybe just a better set of earphones that have like,

1396
01:16:23,512 --> 01:16:24,952
and I think if you want open,

1397
01:16:25,272 --> 01:16:28,432
you need the LLM that basically controls the whole thing

1398
01:16:28,432 --> 01:16:30,352
to be switchable at least, right?

1399
01:16:30,372 --> 01:16:32,332
So maybe a default, you know,

1400
01:16:32,372 --> 01:16:33,972
pairs with, you know, an open AI

1401
01:16:33,972 --> 01:16:36,352
or an Anthropic or Gemini or something.

1402
01:16:36,952 --> 01:16:38,712
But you could swap it out.

1403
01:16:39,032 --> 01:16:40,092
Same as like in a browser,

1404
01:16:40,232 --> 01:16:42,652
you can swap out which search engine you use.

1405
01:16:42,732 --> 01:16:44,412
Of course, everybody uses the defaults.

1406
01:16:44,692 --> 01:16:45,892
But I think if you want open,

1407
01:16:46,412 --> 01:16:47,732
you want to start to move towards that.

1408
01:16:47,812 --> 01:16:49,592
You can't swap out the App Store on iPhone.

1409
01:16:49,992 --> 01:16:50,932
You have to use the App Store.

1410
01:16:51,032 --> 01:16:53,032
You can't use really any alternative.

1411
01:16:53,732 --> 01:16:55,152
But I think if you can swap it out,

1412
01:16:55,252 --> 01:16:56,992
that's like one step towards open.

1413
01:16:57,192 --> 01:16:58,092
But it's hard to have like,

1414
01:16:58,432 --> 01:17:04,632
an open hardware stack that everybody builds to that led to open source software and open choices

1415
01:17:04,632 --> 01:17:11,832
on everything without some real real ideology kind of delivering there was a public company

1416
01:17:11,832 --> 01:17:18,792
we knew that would ever consider doing something like that yeah i mean look at yeah look at

1417
01:17:18,792 --> 01:17:24,852
proto compared to uh you know history but what do you think is like so yes if you get the right

1418
01:17:24,852 --> 01:17:28,732
ideological founder, that's awesome. What do you think there is like the right starting? Like, I

1419
01:17:28,732 --> 01:17:33,772
mean, one reason to try and do this is because for example, if you were to access, I don't know,

1420
01:17:33,872 --> 01:17:38,172
all the content on something like Nostra or all the apps that people have developed. Now there's,

1421
01:17:38,172 --> 01:17:42,592
you know, hundreds of thousands of Nostra apps out there. Okay. That's interesting because now

1422
01:17:42,592 --> 01:17:48,672
I don't have to like start from scratch. So maybe that's kind of the way in is my LLM can access

1423
01:17:48,672 --> 01:17:54,472
all these other tools that, um, no, either ecosystem has, or like some of them will have

1424
01:17:54,472 --> 01:17:59,352
but it'll be super proprietary like with apples or facebook's so maybe maybe just like the um

1425
01:17:59,352 --> 01:18:07,632
the way to get this started is to have more of our developers developing sort of lln tools

1426
01:18:07,632 --> 01:18:14,552
maybe with monetized with the paid mct servers um but like with this kind of like vision in mind

1427
01:18:14,552 --> 01:18:18,132
that eventually there's going to be like one master assistant for every person or company

1428
01:18:18,132 --> 01:18:23,172
that's going to access these tools i mean i've i've got one for you uh a nice starting point

1429
01:18:23,172 --> 01:18:24,752
which is kind of inspired by what you just said.

1430
01:18:24,972 --> 01:18:27,872
But I'd love to see, I don't know if you've watched much,

1431
01:18:28,112 --> 01:18:30,172
like I think Anthropic calls them artifacts.

1432
01:18:30,632 --> 01:18:32,132
I think OpenAI calls it something else.

1433
01:18:32,212 --> 01:18:35,612
But they basically are little mini software programs

1434
01:18:35,612 --> 01:18:37,732
that run within kind of the traditional chat interface.

1435
01:18:37,892 --> 01:18:41,032
So you don't deploy them to a unique URL on the web.

1436
01:18:41,192 --> 01:18:45,412
You don't deploy it to an iOS app store app

1437
01:18:45,412 --> 01:18:47,012
that people download in the traditional way.

1438
01:18:47,292 --> 01:18:49,852
You just like kind of conjure something up in a chat session

1439
01:18:49,852 --> 01:18:51,972
and then the software is there in the session,

1440
01:18:51,972 --> 01:18:52,952
I think workable.

1441
01:18:53,452 --> 01:18:54,892
It's almost like a mini app

1442
01:18:54,892 --> 01:18:57,332
that you can use real time.

1443
01:18:58,052 --> 01:18:59,832
But I don't know if those

1444
01:18:59,832 --> 01:19:02,052
live anywhere persistently

1445
01:19:02,052 --> 01:19:03,172
or if you can access them later

1446
01:19:03,172 --> 01:19:04,792
or if they have data paired with them.

1447
01:19:04,952 --> 01:19:06,892
Like they're very easy to make,

1448
01:19:07,492 --> 01:19:10,032
but they're probably kind of like ephemeral,

1449
01:19:10,352 --> 01:19:12,052
which can be good for some applications.

1450
01:19:12,492 --> 01:19:14,312
But I wonder if there were ones that got made,

1451
01:19:15,152 --> 01:19:16,712
like where should those be shared?

1452
01:19:16,872 --> 01:19:18,872
We don't have a common place

1453
01:19:18,872 --> 01:19:19,932
to share those things.

1454
01:19:19,932 --> 01:19:42,092
I bet that sometimes people come up with things, they iterate them and make them better. And they could be useful by millions of people, but we don't have a way to make them available to millions of people. We don't have any kind of like sharing hub or infrastructure. So I could imagine, to me, it feels like Noster would be a good public place to be able to have those things live, kind of a public app store-like thing.

1455
01:19:42,092 --> 01:20:04,712
But I could almost imagine like a client where you could prompt something into existence in a very lightweight way. You don't have to worry about deploying it to a URL so much on the web, but you deploy it to kind of like a Nostra end pub. And then maybe that client or a separate client can kind of pull all of the little mini apps together and surface them in an app store like interface, maybe.

1456
01:20:04,712 --> 01:20:07,432
but anybody who wants could write a new

1457
01:20:07,432 --> 01:20:09,472
app store like Nostra

1458
01:20:09,472 --> 01:20:11,392
app that accesses all the same underlying data

1459
01:20:11,392 --> 01:20:13,452
so it's not controlled by the sort of app

1460
01:20:13,452 --> 01:20:15,152
store it's just discovered

1461
01:20:15,152 --> 01:20:15,752
curated

1462
01:20:15,752 --> 01:20:17,572
I love that

1463
01:20:17,572 --> 01:20:20,872
I just wanted to do a time check we have like

1464
01:20:20,872 --> 01:20:23,092
12 or so minutes left and I

1465
01:20:23,092 --> 01:20:24,312
do have a time

1466
01:20:24,312 --> 01:20:27,392
I have a hard

1467
01:20:27,392 --> 01:20:28,292
stop

1468
01:20:28,292 --> 01:20:31,072
so because I

1469
01:20:31,072 --> 01:20:33,172
actually wanted to talk about Cali

1470
01:20:33,172 --> 01:20:34,872
in the Play Store and BitChat,

1471
01:20:35,052 --> 01:20:37,052
but I guess we'll have to save that for another episode.

1472
01:20:38,232 --> 01:20:40,572
We could always do some of that.

1473
01:20:41,292 --> 01:20:42,932
We don't have enough time.

1474
01:20:43,332 --> 01:20:44,572
Do you want to get deeper on the L1s?

1475
01:20:45,112 --> 01:20:46,052
Well, we at least...

1476
01:20:46,052 --> 01:20:48,592
Steve is our proprietary L1 maximally.

1477
01:20:48,592 --> 01:20:49,532
We also won't...

1478
01:20:49,532 --> 01:20:50,052
That's how we're going!

1479
01:20:50,272 --> 01:20:52,172
We're also not going to get deep on this

1480
01:20:52,172 --> 01:20:53,212
because we only have 10 minutes,

1481
01:20:53,372 --> 01:20:55,632
but we should at least touch on

1482
01:20:55,632 --> 01:20:57,932
Stripe news and the Circle News,

1483
01:20:58,112 --> 01:20:58,872
don't you guys think?

1484
01:20:59,032 --> 01:21:00,632
I mean, it's super topical.

1485
01:21:00,632 --> 01:21:03,972
you're the Stripe L1 maximalist

1486
01:21:03,972 --> 01:21:05,452
take it away for us

1487
01:21:05,452 --> 01:21:10,372
so let's see

1488
01:21:10,372 --> 01:21:11,772
well I think

1489
01:21:11,772 --> 01:21:13,192
the order of the news

1490
01:21:13,192 --> 01:21:15,872
there were rumors that Stripe was working on

1491
01:21:15,872 --> 01:21:18,112
a new L1 along with Paradigm

1492
01:21:18,112 --> 01:21:19,572
then after that

1493
01:21:19,572 --> 01:21:21,212
Circle announced

1494
01:21:21,212 --> 01:21:24,012
formally announced a new L1

1495
01:21:24,012 --> 01:21:25,712
of their own called Arc

1496
01:21:25,712 --> 01:21:28,012
then I think

1497
01:21:28,012 --> 01:21:29,792
it was reported more

1498
01:21:29,792 --> 01:21:40,012
formally that paradigm and is working with stripe on an l1 called tempo so two new layer one

1499
01:21:40,012 --> 01:21:49,412
blockchains being announced and worked on um so i you know i heard a lot of reaction especially from

1500
01:21:49,412 --> 01:21:59,592
bitcoin community like my god why do we need more layer ones um isn't this 2025 didn't we

1501
01:21:59,592 --> 01:22:07,272
learned lessons like forever ago but i actually um my reaction number one generally makes sense to

1502
01:22:07,272 --> 01:22:16,012
me uh and i'll try to explain why briefly um but two i actually i generally think it's like pretty

1503
01:22:16,012 --> 01:22:23,572
positive news um in like my general view i think bitcoin is just so different from everything else

1504
01:22:23,572 --> 01:22:24,872
and sets itself apart.

1505
01:22:26,412 --> 01:22:31,072
That the other projects and tokens and chains,

1506
01:22:31,412 --> 01:22:33,412
they all compete with each other.

1507
01:22:33,772 --> 01:22:35,212
So it's kind of the more the merrier.

1508
01:22:36,972 --> 01:22:39,332
Kind of like the introduction of Solana

1509
01:22:39,332 --> 01:22:40,712
put a lot of pressure on Ethereum

1510
01:22:40,712 --> 01:22:44,292
and stole away a lot of application development

1511
01:22:44,292 --> 01:22:48,472
and applications and energy and momentum from Ethereum.

1512
01:22:49,392 --> 01:22:51,832
And I think these other layer ones

1513
01:22:51,832 --> 01:22:53,632
kind of do similar things.

1514
01:22:53,792 --> 01:22:55,012
We saw this in the past.

1515
01:22:55,552 --> 01:22:58,392
CryptoKitties initially launched on Ethereum,

1516
01:22:59,052 --> 01:23:02,952
and then that company came out with NBA Top Shot,

1517
01:23:03,352 --> 01:23:09,572
NFTs for NBA games and players and stuff,

1518
01:23:09,632 --> 01:23:10,932
and they didn't do it on top of Ethereum.

1519
01:23:10,932 --> 01:23:13,632
They created their own L1 blockchain called Flow.

1520
01:23:14,752 --> 01:23:16,712
So that was a company that decided,

1521
01:23:16,892 --> 01:23:19,772
well, we don't need any,

1522
01:23:20,272 --> 01:23:21,712
we don't need Ethereum.

1523
01:23:21,832 --> 01:23:23,532
We don't need what it provides.

1524
01:23:23,972 --> 01:23:24,952
And we don't need its cost.

1525
01:23:25,032 --> 01:23:28,252
We're going to optimize for our application this L1.

1526
01:23:28,352 --> 01:23:33,372
And I think it's a similar mindset from Stripe and Circle.

1527
01:23:34,552 --> 01:23:36,652
Obviously, what I'm about to say is all speculation.

1528
01:23:36,812 --> 01:23:38,432
It's just my read on the situation.

1529
01:23:38,432 --> 01:23:43,292
But I suspect Stripe's clearly getting into stablecoins in a huge way.

1530
01:23:43,712 --> 01:23:45,692
They bought Bridge for a billion dollars.

1531
01:23:45,812 --> 01:23:49,432
They bought Privy, which is like a wallet as a service company.

1532
01:23:50,032 --> 01:23:51,772
So they're making big moves there.

1533
01:23:51,832 --> 01:24:18,152
And it's pretty clear that they see the future of their payments business transitioning to stablecoins. That seems kind of obvious to anyone paying attention. So I suspect they don't want to be beholden to Coinbase and base, or they don't want to be beholden to Tether or whoever the leaders right now or Circle or whatever.

1534
01:24:18,152 --> 01:24:47,852
If you look at who are the leaders in stablecoins, like those three companies, well, they don't want to be beholden to them. So Stripe has tons of market power because they have a huge business, a huge network. They can just upgrade their network to use stablecoins on their layer one. So I think it makes tremendous sense. And they can also optimize their layer one specifically for stablecoins and for their use cases.

1535
01:24:48,152 --> 01:24:49,732
So I think that's...

1536
01:24:49,732 --> 01:24:51,912
I have one huge clarification question.

1537
01:24:52,052 --> 01:24:54,352
Are they launching a stable coin as well as the L1

1538
01:24:54,352 --> 01:24:55,052
or just the L1?

1539
01:24:55,152 --> 01:24:55,552
Do we know?

1540
01:24:56,192 --> 01:24:56,912
We don't know.

1541
01:24:58,092 --> 01:25:00,792
Because those to me are two very, very different things.

1542
01:25:01,032 --> 01:25:03,912
So, I mean, high level, my take on it is this.

1543
01:25:03,952 --> 01:25:05,032
I think you're going to see a lot of people

1544
01:25:05,032 --> 01:25:06,292
coming out their own stable coins.

1545
01:25:06,452 --> 01:25:08,972
I question if there's a lot of value in that.

1546
01:25:09,332 --> 01:25:09,932
We'll see.

1547
01:25:10,412 --> 01:25:11,772
But the L1 thing,

1548
01:25:11,812 --> 01:25:13,772
the thing that just bugs me with this,

1549
01:25:14,212 --> 01:25:14,772
I hear you.

1550
01:25:14,772 --> 01:25:16,212
If you have that much marketing power

1551
01:25:16,212 --> 01:25:17,512
or market power,

1552
01:25:17,512 --> 01:25:19,572
you can create, kind of can make yourself

1553
01:25:19,572 --> 01:25:20,872
fine. But

1554
01:25:20,872 --> 01:25:23,612
you also could do this whenever you just

1555
01:25:23,612 --> 01:25:25,472
I don't know, create your own private

1556
01:25:25,472 --> 01:25:27,452
MySQL database. Whenever you're like, we can customize

1557
01:25:27,452 --> 01:25:29,352
it for our use case. It's just like, there's no nose.

1558
01:25:29,452 --> 01:25:31,232
It's us. Or it's our nose.

1559
01:25:31,412 --> 01:25:33,512
I think what frustrates me is even calling all these

1560
01:25:33,512 --> 01:25:35,732
L1s, it's always been decentralization

1561
01:25:35,732 --> 01:25:37,492
theater. And it's like, to

1562
01:25:37,492 --> 01:25:39,532
get around very light regulation or

1563
01:25:39,532 --> 01:25:41,492
to kind of be like, well, we're not really the

1564
01:25:41,492 --> 01:25:43,572
company controlling it, but it's always the company controlling it.

1565
01:25:44,052 --> 01:25:45,592
And so, I guess to me, it's just

1566
01:25:45,592 --> 01:25:49,952
frustrating it's like if you're going to launch your own payment rail to compete with i don't know

1567
01:25:49,952 --> 01:25:55,132
visas and master cards of the world and you're coming for them great go for it but like must we

1568
01:25:55,132 --> 01:25:59,232
continue to have this kind of like tongue-in-cheek wink at the regulators it's decentralized like

1569
01:25:59,232 --> 01:26:05,212
i don't know that's my that's my frustration well one thing i don't know too is like um

1570
01:26:05,212 --> 01:26:15,272
what is the token going to be for this layer one um i think at least one of them reported that the

1571
01:26:15,272 --> 01:26:17,732
fee for stablecoins is going to be in the same

1572
01:26:17,732 --> 01:26:19,652
token

1573
01:26:19,652 --> 01:26:21,452
as the, maybe it's

1574
01:26:21,452 --> 01:26:22,652
ARK from Circle,

1575
01:26:23,332 --> 01:26:25,592
the fees for their layer one will be

1576
01:26:25,592 --> 01:26:27,632
in USDC.

1577
01:26:27,872 --> 01:26:29,052
That would actually make sense.

1578
01:26:29,752 --> 01:26:31,352
I'm not 100% sure on that,

1579
01:26:31,392 --> 01:26:32,692
but that's probably the case.

1580
01:26:33,252 --> 01:26:34,832
And I think with Tempo,

1581
01:26:35,972 --> 01:26:37,372
I don't think

1582
01:26:37,372 --> 01:26:39,012
it's been announced what the token will be.

1583
01:26:39,632 --> 01:26:41,152
So it'll be very curious

1584
01:26:41,152 --> 01:26:42,792
to see, is it a new token?

1585
01:26:43,372 --> 01:26:44,592
How is it issued?

1586
01:26:44,592 --> 01:26:51,832
Is there like a huge pre-mine that Paradigm gets and Stripe gets?

1587
01:26:52,272 --> 01:26:53,552
My guess is yes.

1588
01:26:53,932 --> 01:27:00,352
It'll be really interesting to see that, you know, that gives Paradigm tremendous financial interest in this.

1589
01:27:01,652 --> 01:27:13,212
Also, having, you know, I've spoken to Patrick Collison before, a long time ago, before I worked at Blah, to see if Stripe would be interested in creating a Bitcoin initiative.

1590
01:27:13,212 --> 01:27:16,012
because that would have been something I would have been interested in working on.

1591
01:27:17,552 --> 01:27:22,512
And he told me that he was interested in finding the next Stellar

1592
01:27:22,512 --> 01:27:29,972
because Stellar Lumens Stripe made a very large investment in that

1593
01:27:29,972 --> 01:27:32,152
and it turned out to make them a lot of money.

1594
01:27:33,192 --> 01:27:35,512
So he was interested in the next Stellar Lumens.

1595
01:27:35,712 --> 01:27:37,212
And that's when I...

1596
01:27:37,732 --> 01:27:39,892
I mean, I have great respect for him as an entrepreneur

1597
01:27:39,892 --> 01:27:40,832
and what he's done with Stripe,

1598
01:27:40,832 --> 01:27:44,852
but I didn't have a lot of respect for his views on Bitcoin, at least.

1599
01:27:45,732 --> 01:27:48,292
And I knew that wasn't the right opportunity for me.

1600
01:27:49,332 --> 01:27:52,092
So it'll be really interesting to see what they do around the token

1601
01:27:52,092 --> 01:27:56,512
and how much they view that as a business opportunity

1602
01:27:56,512 --> 01:28:00,372
versus just trying to create something efficient.

1603
01:28:01,012 --> 01:28:01,832
And then that might...

1604
01:28:02,532 --> 01:28:04,752
The more they think it's a financial opportunity,

1605
01:28:05,112 --> 01:28:08,632
the more answers why it's not just a database, right?

1606
01:28:08,632 --> 01:28:28,692
Yeah. So, so that, I mean, either way, it's like sketchy to me, to be very frank. Like if they're trying to create their own rail to somehow compete with Visa and MasterCard and all that, then it's like, I mean, okay, maybe you could do that because you have enough, you know, merchants on board. But again, this is the whole problem Bitcoin tries to solve is what you just said. Protocols. Protocols are hard to get.

1607
01:28:28,692 --> 01:28:32,992
right we're gonna fix your up but i don't think it's literally yeah sorry go ahead no but but if

1608
01:28:32,992 --> 01:28:38,272
it's if it's also what you're saying they're just gonna you know pump and dump retail again i don't

1609
01:28:38,272 --> 01:28:43,072
know man like i i've just lost a lot of what what if we were to to flip it though i just want i'm

1610
01:28:43,072 --> 01:28:47,892
just curious like because this has been sort of a question in my mind for a long time is we recognize

1611
01:28:47,892 --> 01:28:53,412
that stable coins have product market fit and people want to use them and we don't believe that

1612
01:28:53,412 --> 01:28:59,052
any of the underlying kind of l1 infrastructure is really worthwhile or really decentralized or

1613
01:28:59,052 --> 01:29:04,692
any of that and so a question i would have is if you were let's say you were patrick colson or you

1614
01:29:04,692 --> 01:29:11,552
you did have sort of the the the belief set around kind of how bitcoin you know the specialness of

1615
01:29:11,552 --> 01:29:17,112
bitcoin and sort of the unspecialness of the l1s and the non-decentralization of it like do you have

1616
01:29:17,112 --> 01:29:19,912
a good proposal for how you would

1617
01:29:19,912 --> 01:29:21,932
say transition Stripe's business to

1618
01:29:21,932 --> 01:29:22,972
a

1619
01:29:22,972 --> 01:29:23,832
you know

1620
01:29:23,832 --> 01:29:26,672
some sort of a stable coin rail

1621
01:29:26,672 --> 01:29:28,712
that has like competes with Visa

1622
01:29:28,712 --> 01:29:30,832
but doesn't necessarily try to

1623
01:29:30,832 --> 01:29:32,652
launch a new L1 and sort of

1624
01:29:32,652 --> 01:29:35,052
just go for that kind of cash grab

1625
01:29:35,052 --> 01:29:36,472
you could adopt

1626
01:29:36,472 --> 01:29:38,372
USDC on base

1627
01:29:38,372 --> 01:29:39,632
and partner with Coinbase

1628
01:29:39,632 --> 01:29:42,032
you could partner with

1629
01:29:42,032 --> 01:29:44,012
Lightning Labs or

1630
01:29:44,012 --> 01:29:46,672
LightSpark

1631
01:29:46,672 --> 01:29:50,412
each of those companies have new platforms

1632
01:29:50,412 --> 01:29:51,832
Taproot Assets and Spark

1633
01:29:51,832 --> 01:29:53,912
in which you can issue stable points

1634
01:29:53,912 --> 01:29:57,392
and so I don't know what the future holds for either

1635
01:29:57,392 --> 01:30:00,372
well I guess it's been announced that Tether's

1636
01:30:00,372 --> 01:30:02,732
working on Tether on Taproot Assets

1637
01:30:02,732 --> 01:30:06,952
whether Tether's going to work on Spark

1638
01:30:06,952 --> 01:30:08,212
or if USDC is

1639
01:30:08,212 --> 01:30:10,672
I think they announced it yesterday or the day before

1640
01:30:10,672 --> 01:30:12,852
Spark, I'll have to look it up

1641
01:30:12,852 --> 01:30:21,532
um i don't i don't think so they they announced the wallet development kit yeah that's right

1642
01:30:21,532 --> 01:30:28,912
and i don't think they announce um an issuance but anyway yeah put simply there are many options

1643
01:30:28,912 --> 01:30:35,432
that they that stripe could do but i think if like i think it's very reasonable for stripe

1644
01:30:35,432 --> 01:30:42,092
not to choose any of those and build their own l1 l1 because it gives them more control it gives

1645
01:30:42,092 --> 01:30:44,052
them more control over customer experience

1646
01:30:44,052 --> 01:30:46,072
and it gives them more control

1647
01:30:46,072 --> 01:30:47,312
over business models and

1648
01:30:47,312 --> 01:30:49,992
financials. Let's just

1649
01:30:49,992 --> 01:30:52,092
set aside whether they're going to have a token

1650
01:30:52,092 --> 01:30:54,112
and try to profit off that. Let's just assume they're

1651
01:30:54,112 --> 01:30:54,432
not.

1652
01:30:55,852 --> 01:30:58,052
Then what I just said holds true. I think it

1653
01:30:58,052 --> 01:30:59,332
makes perfect business sense.

1654
01:30:59,792 --> 01:31:02,232
They don't care about Bitcoin

1655
01:31:02,232 --> 01:31:04,052
and decentralization and freedom money.

1656
01:31:04,232 --> 01:31:05,692
That's not their...

1657
01:31:05,692 --> 01:31:06,732
I'm speculating, but

1658
01:31:06,732 --> 01:31:10,172
I've seen no evidence they care about any of that.

1659
01:31:10,172 --> 01:31:17,672
so and what they don't need to i mean like it's not their shareholders aren't demanding that they

1660
01:31:17,672 --> 01:31:23,032
do that so so the question i come back to then though even for them and coinbase with base is

1661
01:31:23,032 --> 01:31:27,672
like okay that's cool i get it you only want to maximize profits for your customers fine

1662
01:31:27,672 --> 01:31:32,892
why do you need one of these quote-unquote l1s or a blockchain or whatever it is like why not just

1663
01:31:32,892 --> 01:31:38,532
because it's regulatory arbitrage or regulatory theater yeah oh i don't know i thought i just

1664
01:31:38,532 --> 01:31:42,352
answered it it gives them more control over customer experience it gives them more control

1665
01:31:42,352 --> 01:31:47,332
over business models and and no no financial future like but that's not my point the difference

1666
01:31:47,332 --> 01:31:52,752
between that and just saying hey guys like stripe has a private database it's completely ours oh

1667
01:31:52,752 --> 01:32:03,852
okay okay regulatory arbitrage and also they but they also um i'm serious like are they that done

1668
01:32:03,852 --> 01:32:07,572
but also

1669
01:32:07,572 --> 01:32:09,972
we don't know what their strategy is

1670
01:32:09,972 --> 01:32:11,772
but they probably will want

1671
01:32:11,772 --> 01:32:13,892
adoption of their new layer

1672
01:32:13,892 --> 01:32:15,512
one beyond themselves

1673
01:32:15,512 --> 01:32:17,872
because A it helps strengthen the

1674
01:32:17,872 --> 01:32:19,852
regulatory angle

1675
01:32:19,852 --> 01:32:21,952
but B it just

1676
01:32:21,952 --> 01:32:23,712
grows their power like if everyone

1677
01:32:23,712 --> 01:32:25,952
just like Coinbase wants

1678
01:32:25,952 --> 01:32:26,352
base

1679
01:32:26,352 --> 01:32:29,472
everyone to use base

1680
01:32:29,472 --> 01:32:31,072
LightSpark wants everyone to use Spark

1681
01:32:31,072 --> 01:32:33,292
Lightning Labs wants everyone to use ChapRu

1682
01:32:33,292 --> 01:32:38,232
everyone has their like platform everyone wants to grow their platform of course so stripes just

1683
01:32:38,232 --> 01:32:45,872
entering the platform race right and it they have a massive set of assets and it's still early days

1684
01:32:45,872 --> 01:32:53,112
so it makes total sense to me that they're doing this um and then with circle they introduced

1685
01:32:53,112 --> 01:32:57,652
arc it might be for very different reasons because they have a very different business

1686
01:32:57,652 --> 01:33:03,052
they issue a stable coin they're the number two position i'm sure they have their you know a

1687
01:33:03,052 --> 01:33:05,092
strategy to become number one and become

1688
01:33:05,092 --> 01:33:06,792
dominant and

1689
01:33:06,792 --> 01:33:09,092
looks like they've concluded that

1690
01:33:09,092 --> 01:33:10,952
creating a layer one

1691
01:33:10,952 --> 01:33:12,872
blockchain that is

1692
01:33:12,872 --> 01:33:14,892
optimized for USDC

1693
01:33:14,892 --> 01:33:16,772
is part

1694
01:33:16,772 --> 01:33:17,892
of that strategy

1695
01:33:17,892 --> 01:33:20,692
and

1696
01:33:20,692 --> 01:33:22,952
just speaking

1697
01:33:22,952 --> 01:33:25,312
with some folks on what they

1698
01:33:25,312 --> 01:33:27,092
speculate

1699
01:33:27,092 --> 01:33:28,132
this could be is like

1700
01:33:28,132 --> 01:33:30,892
from Circle's viewpoint

1701
01:33:30,892 --> 01:33:32,632
they might be challenging like

1702
01:33:32,632 --> 01:33:36,872
FedNow or other types of real-time traditional

1703
01:33:36,872 --> 01:33:39,992
tradfire settlement systems with

1704
01:33:39,992 --> 01:33:41,272
ARK.

1705
01:33:44,512 --> 01:33:45,592
So I know

1706
01:33:45,592 --> 01:33:51,392
lots of unknowns around both these, but again,

1707
01:33:52,332 --> 01:33:55,872
I guess to me it seems kind of obvious why both companies are doing this.

1708
01:33:55,872 --> 01:33:58,292
I don't find it outlandish at all.

1709
01:33:58,292 --> 01:34:02,692
I totally understand why they're doing it.

1710
01:34:03,132 --> 01:34:05,632
I wish we could stop at the theater.

1711
01:34:05,752 --> 01:34:06,572
But I get your point.

1712
01:34:06,672 --> 01:34:10,312
Maybe they'll get adoption and somehow it will become disqualizing.

1713
01:34:10,312 --> 01:34:15,812
A lot of cryptocurrency projects, I would agree, like theater.

1714
01:34:16,072 --> 01:34:19,272
But I absolutely could imagine 10 years from now,

1715
01:34:19,912 --> 01:34:24,092
Tempo being heavily used.

1716
01:34:24,692 --> 01:34:26,292
Like trillions of dollars.

1717
01:34:26,292 --> 01:34:27,912
on use for sure.

1718
01:34:28,132 --> 01:34:28,592
Or Tempo.

1719
01:34:28,912 --> 01:34:30,552
Trillions of dollars on either of those.

1720
01:34:30,652 --> 01:34:31,652
I could totally imagine.

1721
01:34:32,212 --> 01:34:33,472
I can totally imagine that too.

1722
01:34:33,752 --> 01:34:34,552
And two things.

1723
01:34:34,652 --> 01:34:35,992
One, the question that I would have

1724
01:34:35,992 --> 01:34:38,212
is who's actually running the nodes?

1725
01:34:39,132 --> 01:34:40,772
Who are the actual participants?

1726
01:34:41,172 --> 01:34:41,992
Who cares?

1727
01:34:42,612 --> 01:34:43,592
Well, that's my point.

1728
01:34:44,052 --> 01:34:45,732
Then let's call it what it is.

1729
01:34:45,872 --> 01:34:47,332
Hey guys, I'm Stripe.

1730
01:34:47,692 --> 01:34:49,012
I'm the biggest mafia in town.

1731
01:34:49,192 --> 01:34:51,592
Use my MySQL database and pay my fee

1732
01:34:51,592 --> 01:34:54,312
or you're completely shut out of the economy.

1733
01:34:54,692 --> 01:34:55,452
It's fine.

1734
01:34:55,452 --> 01:35:00,652
it's cool like it's in the right to do it it's not a blockchain or decentralized that's how

1735
01:35:00,652 --> 01:35:07,492
it's not how visa works well visa owns i feel like this conversation is like

1736
01:35:07,492 --> 01:35:14,812
um framed as like competing with bitcoin and some neutral system and that's i don't think

1737
01:35:14,812 --> 01:35:20,592
that's their goal they're not trying to do that agreed they're trying they're trying to like become

1738
01:35:20,592 --> 01:35:27,252
visa i think i think max is pointing out that they are that the visa is not claiming to be

1739
01:35:27,252 --> 01:35:31,052
decentralized they're not claiming to need an l1 for their business they actually just run their

1740
01:35:31,052 --> 01:35:38,232
business on a sequel database can you point me to where they claim decentralization is they say a

1741
01:35:38,232 --> 01:35:44,452
new l1 blockchain so far that has meant blockchain is uh decentralized versus i run my own database

1742
01:35:44,452 --> 01:35:47,912
if they change the terminology which is kind of what steadily happened over time

1743
01:35:47,912 --> 01:35:50,812
would you agree that

1744
01:35:50,812 --> 01:35:53,372
there's any difference between a blockchain with one person

1745
01:35:53,372 --> 01:35:54,612
running it and just a database

1746
01:35:54,612 --> 01:35:57,372
we have a comment

1747
01:35:57,372 --> 01:35:59,092
saying rest in peace my heart stop

1748
01:35:59,092 --> 01:36:00,692
and that is correct

1749
01:36:00,692 --> 01:36:03,272
alright well we've got more

1750
01:36:03,272 --> 01:36:04,412
to talk about next

1751
01:36:04,412 --> 01:36:05,272
I just think it's semantics

1752
01:36:05,272 --> 01:36:08,932
I don't understand this implication that like

1753
01:36:08,932 --> 01:36:11,332
first of all we know

1754
01:36:11,332 --> 01:36:13,092
that there's a wide

1755
01:36:13,092 --> 01:36:15,092
range of actual

1756
01:36:15,092 --> 01:36:16,892
decentralization between blockchains

1757
01:36:16,892 --> 01:36:18,972
but I also didn't know that blockchain

1758
01:36:18,972 --> 01:36:22,892
we also know

1759
01:36:22,892 --> 01:36:24,032
what's the point of a blockchain?

1760
01:36:24,292 --> 01:36:26,712
thank you, this has been my point

1761
01:36:26,712 --> 01:36:29,392
we know dino is a thing

1762
01:36:29,392 --> 01:36:30,832
decentralized name only

1763
01:36:30,832 --> 01:36:31,992
anyway

1764
01:36:31,992 --> 01:36:36,192
well anyways

1765
01:36:36,192 --> 01:36:38,772
the only point to me of a blockchain was

1766
01:36:38,772 --> 01:36:40,532
decentralization, if you don't have it, I think it's theater

1767
01:36:40,532 --> 01:36:42,452
I think it's great to get around regulation

1768
01:36:42,452 --> 01:36:45,012
but it's just frustrating, that's all I'm saying

1769
01:36:45,012 --> 01:36:46,872
it's smart from there in, they're probably going to have

1770
01:36:46,872 --> 01:36:48,732
a lot of usage. And even if they do,

1771
01:36:48,832 --> 01:36:50,772
then there's another opportunity, which is who's going to market

1772
01:36:50,772 --> 01:36:52,792
make between their chain and Bitcoin, which is

1773
01:36:52,792 --> 01:36:54,132
the internet. Hopefully,

1774
01:36:54,732 --> 01:36:56,712
the internet ends up winning fast enough

1775
01:36:56,712 --> 01:36:58,432
to have their force to join forces with us.

1776
01:36:58,612 --> 01:36:59,872
That's what I'm sure. Well, they

1777
01:36:59,872 --> 01:37:02,572
bought bridge, right? So bridge will

1778
01:37:02,572 --> 01:37:04,632
bridge between all these different tokens and stuff.

1779
01:37:04,632 --> 01:37:04,852
Yeah.

1780
01:37:06,012 --> 01:37:08,152
But not Bitcoin yet. Still, critically.

1781
01:37:09,972 --> 01:37:10,612
One day.

1782
01:37:10,932 --> 01:37:12,692
One day. We will resurrect

1783
01:37:12,692 --> 01:37:14,012
Steve's hard stop.

1784
01:37:14,012 --> 01:37:18,212
from the dead

1785
01:37:18,212 --> 01:37:20,552
from the beef tallow

1786
01:37:20,552 --> 01:37:22,392
great topic so

1787
01:37:22,392 --> 01:37:25,152
we'll definitely have to talk about stable coins

1788
01:37:25,152 --> 01:37:26,692
more and we'll talk about

1789
01:37:26,692 --> 01:37:28,872
play store and who has the right

1790
01:37:28,872 --> 01:37:31,032
to put an open source app

1791
01:37:31,032 --> 01:37:33,232
in the play store I think it's a fascinating

1792
01:37:33,232 --> 01:37:35,212
question we'll talk about

1793
01:37:35,212 --> 01:37:36,492
that in a future episode

1794
01:37:36,492 --> 01:37:38,932
great till next time thanks guys

1795
01:37:38,932 --> 01:37:40,092
alright bye bye