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get that warm, get that warm cup on your hands. I am. I am using it. Uh, this, this is my current

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source of warmth. All right. It's working well. Oh my gosh. We got the deep freeze. It's good for,

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uh, focused work. I've found that over the last three days, I've had a lot of focused work because

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I've been forced to stay in the house. It's very punishing if you go outside. Yes.

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It's like the roads are icy. If I go visit a friend, I'm risking life and limb. I might as

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get work done you know yeah yeah why why risk it you can just sit at the computer you can play with

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all these ai tools you can push towards a goal you may have but uh i think the idea of focus work uh

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is apropos for this discussion because i know that you've had a lot of focus work building out magnolia

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relatively under the radar behind the scenes for the last couple of years.

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And as we were discussing before we hit record, I'm sitting down with Harsha Goley.

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And for those of you who are not familiar with Harsha, he's been in the industry for quite a while

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and worked on many impactful projects and companies.

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And so I think instead of me giving your background, it probably makes sense for you to do that, Harsha.

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to sort of explain your journey within the Bitcoin industry

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over the last better part of a decade,

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over a decade now, I think.

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Dude, thank you for the incredibly warm intro.

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Yeah, we're over a decade now.

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I started working in the space back in 2015.

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I was just like a sophomore in college

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and I like back then was really into like open source,

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you know, like anything, right?

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So I just like me and my friends,

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we would just go to hackathons and just work on,

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you know, like whatever get out projects we could find,

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make them better or like create something completely new and like ship stuff.

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And one of them, you know, someone was telling me about Bitcoin.

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And like to me, the best part of it about Bitcoin was that it was a financial thing that was open source.

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And I'm like, OK, neat. I can mess with this.

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Of course, I didn't know C, you know, I only knew Python and JavaScript.

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So I would I would like try to like find whatever clobbered together libraries other people put together.

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If anyone else is listening, who was a dev around the time that the state of Bitcoin tooling back then was abysmal,

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which, you know, was pretty awesome for me to work in.

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Um, and yeah, like from there, I decided like, okay, this stuff is pretty cool.

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I'd like to work on this stuff a little bit more.

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So at the time I had like, you know, a junior, uh, you know, like job at a company called

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GE, uh, they like GE power specifically that division.

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And I was like, okay, well, you know, I'd like to work on Bitcoin stuff that they work

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on turbines.

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So that's not really the same thing.

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Uh, so I got a job at BitPay, which was in Atlanta and yeah, they just like had me working

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on effectively this is very this was very controversial we're way past it but they had

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me working on like a bunch of segwit 2x tooling right so i was like the guy who like spun up the

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initial segwit 2x test net i remember like getting a bunch of like usb miners all right and like

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sticking into a bunch of raspberry pi's we had like 50 of them you know in a room uh just buzzing

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away and i wasn't there for the actual activation but i can imagine what what day that was because

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the whole thing just fell over immediately off by one off by once and so that was that was pretty

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cool but it was cool like setting up a test net you know like from scratch and yeah like after that

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um my friends and i we like you know realized like okay there's a lot of work in this space and

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there's a lot of like tools we can work on so we started our own startup basically like consulting

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firm that like had some internal products and that did really well until uh eventually i met

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some folks from Fold who were looking for

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a back-end engineer, and they

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wanted to work on some really, really cool stuff.

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So I was like, okay, well, you know,

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I know I have this startup, but it's doing pretty well.

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It can probably chug along without me for a while.

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Let me just hop on this

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team and see what we can do here.

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I still remember the job that I ended up

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applying for was

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a Clojure dev.

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I don't know if any of you guys know about Clojure, but

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it's a crazy language.

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I didn't know any Clojure. Still got

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the job, got hired.

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ended up working on their like back end uh like wallet infrastructure for a minute um which is how

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i started getting familiar with like how enterprises wallets really really worked

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and yeah like from there we shipped lightning and you know bitcoin uh for fold and eventually like

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you know launched the actual uh like full debit card right which actually is what got traction

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fold did not have too much traction on the gift card stuff the debit card really took off um even

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no gift cards never really stop being part of the bottom line. And then, yeah, like, so from Fold,

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and, you know, I've worked in a bunch of different places. I think Fold was a place where I kind of

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decided, like, okay, this stuff is better than, like, college. You know, this stuff is better than,

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like, working on anything else. Just the energy of, like, you know, of thesis and, like, Will and

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Tom and all the guys there was just awesome. So after I left there, I went to work at a couple

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different places including lightning labs just to work more on lighting stuff uh that was really

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really cool uh met some of the smartest people in my life there and then worked at voltage as well

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got my like chops and like product management um and then worked at swan another like a company i'm

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sure all you guys know uh again doing product management stuff specifically uh for their data

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team and their lightning teams and all this was kind of like going in a very specific direction

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because i wanted to learn how to run teams effectively on a myriad of different problems

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because there's been like this problem that I've been kind of seeing in the space,

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which is like, you know, the tech,

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like even though I've been working on Lightning for a long time

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and trying to get it implemented with more people,

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I noticed that most people don't use the new and shiny in Bitcoin.

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That's never really been a thing about Bitcoin.

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Tech enthusiasts like myself do, sure, but the masses do not.

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And the more I looked at it, the more I realized,

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like the problem is it isn't like you know bitcoin necessarily needs a new you know functionality in

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order to like get mainstream it already was the problem always was that in order to actually get

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bitcoin you could only go to reliably a couple of the big exchanges and if you were a small company

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smaller than you know coinbase uh in order to get that same functionality integrated into your

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application the exact same way Coinbase would, you had to do so much, right? And you had to rely

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on sometimes really sketchy partners. And it was a huge burden. It was one of those things where

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the payoff was immense, but the costs were somehow even more immense, right? I remember at Swan,

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we had like five different migrations between like all these different providers. It was nonsense,

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You know, especially when like 80% of your, um, 80% of your like engineering budget goes

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toward this one specific problem.

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That, that's not a good thing to me.

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But anyway, that's like my background in a nutshell.

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I've, I've been working in Bitcoin for, uh, I think, yeah, over 10 years now.

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It's, it's the thing I, I love.

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I've, I, uh, yeah, I, I think I'll be working in Bitcoin for the rest of my life, but you

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know, why not at this point?

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Yeah.

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And so this brings us to Magnolia, which is a company that you found and have been working

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on for a couple years now. And again, highlighting the end of your introduction there, which is this

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problem that exists for many companies in the space who basically just want to interact with

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Bitcoin and make it easy for their customers, most importantly, to interact with Bitcoin.

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The third party dependencies that have existed in the industry throughout the years have stood on,

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for lack of a better term, shaky foundation. And through my conversations with you and what you're

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doing at Magnolia, that's exactly what you're trying to solve is providing a sound foundation

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for companies trying to build the space. Yeah, it's quite surprising, actually. You know, like,

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I got to empathize with all these builders, you know, I feel like if you're a builder in Bitcoin,

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you've got a pretty like tough task ahead of you. And, you know, everyone seems to like solve it,

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but you spend all this time and energy cultivating an audience online,

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getting them to use the application that you're trying to get them to use,

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whether it's a wallet or a Bitcoin lending app or even a white glove service.

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That takes a lot of effort, a lot of energy.

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And it kind of sucks because after you've done all this effort, all this work,

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you try to make it as easy as possible to onboard your customers.

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And you realize getting these kind of integrations in your application

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isn't like, you know, signing up for a credit card, right?

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Where it's like one form or going to a bank and, you know,

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like signing a couple of papers and then, you know,

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getting access to the financial system.

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When you try and do this as a business,

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specifically like, you know, in Bitcoin and, you know,

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stable coins or anything else, it's so tedious.

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It's so expensive.

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And it's really just out of reach, right?

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You basically have two options.

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One is you just get like state licenses.

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You get money transmitter, like, you know, like access, right?

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And it's state by state.

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It's not like if I go to a bank and I sign up for a bank account, I can use that bank account anywhere in the U.S.

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That's not how it works if you're a business, you know.

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And then alternatively, you set up an account with someone else who runs the infrastructure for you.

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And that process is incredibly tedious.

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I think like for us, it can go over like three months when we were doing this ourselves.

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And then on top of it, they charge incredibly high minimums in the neighborhood of like $20,000 to $30,000 a month.

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It's like this is for a massive business like Polymarket, not for someone who's got a pretty effective retail audience, but not like I've dominated the world effective.

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And that's just kind of wild to me.

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Um, but, but yeah, so like what we're trying to do, what, what the, I've, I've really kind

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of identified as a huge problem in Bitcoin is I'm trying to turn every single one of

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these applications, like big ones for sure, but also smaller ones as well into bridges

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where you can just go with, you know, your credit card, your bank details, whatever,

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and be able to convert, uh, yourself from a precoiner to like a Bitcoiner.

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That that's the, that's the idea here.

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All these applications should be able to take someone's money and give them Bitcoin, right?

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Instead of shoving them off to Coinbase or something.

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And so what was the process of building this out like?

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Let's get a landscape of the technical architecture that exists.

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And then I guess the compliance architecture necessary to facilitate this as well.

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Yeah.

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So, you know, from a technical point of view, it's actually like, I guess for me, it's not that hard because it's something I built like three or four times in my career.

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right but it's like having an enterprise wallet system having uh what's called a like a double

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entry accounting ledger so it's just a it's just a well-built like accounting system um and then on

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top of that having a robust api that is not overwhelming that part's you know honestly not

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the most complicated part um i've done that multiple times most people have some version

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of that in in the systems you know um and then of course like a connection to your banking partner

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And that's where things get hard. The hard part is interacting with the banking providers. The hard part is being able to talk, really, step one. That was actually kind of wild when I realized just how hard that was going to be at the time. I think I had really long hair. I had just done a huge hippie dive. It was awesome. I lived in the van for a couple of years.

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and uh i realized like okay i'm going to these conferences you know i've got my hair tied up all

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nice and stuff uh in order to meet like a lot of these bakers but um i i've got to like you know

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make some changes to my appearance here you know i've got to like pick up a different kind of uh

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like repertoire and i've got to like cut my hair i've got to stop referring to ourselves as crypto

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to try and explain myself to them just be like no we do bitcoin you know the bitcoin is the thing we

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do you know we don't get involved with anything else and after like honestly a large number of uh

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of conferences and conversations, we managed to find a lot of really healthy inroads into the

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banking world with really good compliance folks on our backs too. There's a whole separate world

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of Bitcoin dedicated just to compliance. And it's kind of fascinating, right? Haley Lennon is

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a great name in this space too. She's the general counsel of Fold, right? And she was our lawyer at

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one point. And she was able to intro us to all these people who are on the Bitcoin compliance

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side of things. And they know all the right people in the compliance world to get you past

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all the big roadblocks that exist for everyone else. That was honestly pretty wild for us to

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realize, okay, compliance is not that effective. And the way how compliance tends to work is it's

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all about making sure that who you know is someone with a lot of moral accountability,

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essentially. And that does apparently go quite a long way in the compliance world. And I do kind

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see it and understand it now. Yeah. And so let's take a step back, a high level view.

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Who is your ideal customer and how do they interact with you going from zero to one?

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So right now, like a huge focus for us is we realized that a huge pain point is OK. So

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like Bitcoin, right? Like the biggest value of Bitcoin is the value it has. And I think like

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2026 is turning out into this year where a lot of people are moving their Bitcoin into some kind of non-custodial setup, whatever it may be, where they can also take a loan out against it.

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Right. And be able to utilize the value they've accrued in some kind of way.

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This has been like kind of a silent explosion over the last, like, you know, I think six months to a year.

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And I think it's going to really, really, really get big in 2026.

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I have a crazy high ARR now, which is wild.

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L-E-D-N.

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They're like, I think, a leader in this space.

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I think it's like $100 million or something.

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And the reason why I bring this up is because all these different Bitcoin-backed lending folks, they all issue the loans in a stablecoin.

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And something I've learned from talking to these folks is the whole narrative for stablecoins for trading is kind of like dead, right?

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But people are still taking out these loans.

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And that's because they're taking out these loans at decent rates specifically to use them in the real world, you know, to pay for their like daughter's college or, you know, to upgrade a property they have or whatever.

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And so what we're plugging into for a lot of these folks is we're plugging into their systems to convert their stable coins to fiat directly for their end user.

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That way their end user doesn't have to take a couple more points at Coinbase or something like that.

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So that's someone that we're like really kind of charging headfirst in.

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But basically, our ideal customer is any kind of Bitcoin business that's got a high retail audience that they're looking to monetize effectively.

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We've interviewed a couple other wallets as well that are doing just that.

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Oh, and also anyone who's looking to access the US and EU financial markets, essentially.

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So South American companies and Asian companies, too, who would like to onboard folks from the EU.

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Super, super valuable for us right now.

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Let's dive into the stablecoins conversation.

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What are you seeing?

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You mentioned the trading narrative, which was the stablecoin, the predominant stablecoin narrative for many years.

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I think it makes sense.

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Yeah.

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is birthed out of bitfinex which is this big exchange and there was obviously the ability to

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send these stable coins between exchanges to um our prices or just get better margin

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rates on on different exchanges at any given point in time but it seems like it's breaking

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out of that the confines of trading only and breaking into um true for lack of a better term

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utility for everyday retail consumers who aren't traders um do you see it coming to america

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yeah i think that's a big question i have in my mind right now like do stable coins make sense

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in the united states and then even if they do or don't what um is the activity like outside of the

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united states from your perspective yeah i mean to to your point i think everyone everyone knows

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that there's a lot of activity for stable coins in developing nations, specifically in South

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America and Central America. But the US, now what's happening in the US is actually quite,

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quite fascinating. Right now, because of the Genius Bill, the Genius Bill

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creates a lot of pressure to implement stable coins somewhere in the US, right? Like in the US,

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like banking system in particular, that's fundamentally what the Genius Bill does.

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And if y aren aware of like how the Genius Bill really works it basically creates a ton of incentive to buy up T and then issue stablecoins against these T right

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And so now you have a lot of stablecoins

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that are rolling around, like, okay,

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we need to find a use for these stablecoins

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in order to justify our business, right?

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Because we're giving most of our return

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from the T-bills that are generated

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back to the end user,

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which is a whole conversation in and of itself.

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But we have these stablecoins,

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and we need to fit them somewhere.

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And so what we're kind of seeing

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is we're seeing this like really kind of

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backwards thing happen

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where normally if people implement products and stuff

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after there's some level of demand,

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but what we're seeing with stable coins

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is people are implementing stable coins everywhere

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and seeing where they fit,

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you know, what sticks and what doesn't stick.

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And one of the things that's sticking quite well

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is this concept of, okay,

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everyone's got some amount of like, you know,

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like Bitcoin or maybe even like some other assets

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as well that they want to take out loans against. Taking out the loans typically ends up being part

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of this, you know, like protocol, either it's a smart contract, you know, on Aave or something

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like that, or, you know, more like I think gaining more popularity, it's some kind of like Bitcoin

250
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backed loan, right? But either way, it doesn't really matter. You're going to get a stable coin

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as a result of this loan. And getting a stable coin is cool, but a lot of these people are not

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using these loans to like gamble more. That's just not what a lot of these folks are doing.

253
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They're using it to like actually improve their lives in some way.

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These loans are not that high anymore.

255
00:18:23,702 --> 00:18:33,862
I think before it made a lot of sense to like, you know, kind of gamble on another project or whatever when they were between like, you know, 15 and 12.

256
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But now you see them going kind of low in some platforms.

257
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It's as low as like 6 percent.

258
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I think a pretty good price you can get in Bitcoin is 10 percent.

259
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And those are like low enough to actually justify like building, you know, real value in the real world.

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you know, and that's kind of fascinating. So seeing that take off is really kind of interesting.

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Where else will stable coins fit? I don't know. You know, I'm a skeptic in general. I like seeing

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things before I believe it. You know, I, you know, call me crazy, but I don't know where else it fits

263
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right now. But I see that one really kind of like actually getting use cases right now. I'd be very

264
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curious to see if anyone uses them on the day-to-day elsewhere yeah it's obviously a big topic of

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discussion right now with the genius act and again it seems like they're trying to manufacture

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demand for these treasuries and that's the one thing a question in my mind is um is it a be

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careful what you wish for scenario with the genius act where um you have to recognize that stable

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coins, the success of stable coins to date has been driven by this regulatory gray area

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that's existed and allowed individuals outside the borders of the United States to get access

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to dollar instruments rather trippily.

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Yeah.

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I mean, like to their point, the reason why they're doing it, why they're so interested

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in doing it is because if it's not the U.S. dollar, it's the Chinese yen, right?

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It's the Russian ruble.

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And so everyone wants to like take advantage of these like, you know, deteriorating economies and just plant our flag in the first thing.

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You know, we've done this with real dollars like in the past, you know, especially like in Africa to stabilize economies.

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And, you know, in Zimbabwe, like, you know, after the currency like went to hyperinflation, people started using the U.S. dollar, you know, that that is like that is what happened.

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But I do agree that it is quite literally artificial demand.

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You know, that's what the genius bill is.

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and I do think it's interesting that we're just trying to like fit it in anywhere we can.

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I look forward to the day when my Walmart app offers stablecoin as a rewards option.

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You know, like I'm sure that's coming.

283
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You know, that's that's going to be wild.

284
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Switching gears a little bit and building on conversations we've had over the years.

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I think Magnolia, the impetus for you starting it again, as you alluded to,

286
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is that there are companies that try to do something,

287
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have tried to do something similar in the past,

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I think most notably Prime Trust and have failed epically.

289
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And so I guess what are the lessons learned from their failures

290
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and how you're trying to prove on that and make sure that Magnolia is sound?

291
00:21:26,142 --> 00:21:28,642
Yeah, dude. Yeah. I remember Prime Trust,

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the first version of Fold built against Prime Trust, you know?

293
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And we, you know, frankly loved it.

294
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It was great from a tech point of view.

295
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It was everything we ever wanted.

296
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It's just that it turns out the way how their operating side like worked was not, you know, everything we wanted.

297
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There's this like really kind of incredible story with Prime Trust and I think also like Fortress Trust where they ended up just losing a ton of money because they had some like really complicated key ceremony.

298
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right and the result of this really complicated key ceremony was they ended up losing the actual

299
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private keys that backed the deposit addresses right at prime trust and so people were depositing

300
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money at prime trust uh and for i think a couple weeks no one realized that they were they were

301
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putting money into a black hole you know they really were and when it came time to withdraw

302
00:22:23,522 --> 00:22:28,742
the money, you know, for typical operation purposes. Only then did they realize like,

303
00:22:28,882 --> 00:22:32,782
we don't have this cash, you know, Prime Trust wasn't hacked, you know, or they may have been

304
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hacked at some point there in their history, but this specific instance, they weren't hacked.

305
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And that is, that is just baffling to me. So like really my career is kind of built on

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the failures of these entities. And it's not just Prime Trust, you know, there, there's a couple of

307
00:22:47,542 --> 00:22:52,422
them out there. Uh, because folks like me and myself, you know, specifically, we had to deal

308
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with these ramifications, right?

309
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So we learned a lot.

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Some of the big things that we really learned

311
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is like the compliance folks,

312
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the operation folks,

313
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and the engineering folks,

314
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they have to be in the same room.

315
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They cannot operate independently, you know?

316
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They need to constantly talk.

317
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They need to understand like,

318
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okay, here's what we're implementing.

319
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This is how we're doing it.

320
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This is what our own like policies say.

321
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And here's what needs to get modified.

322
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This has been a really, really valuable exercise for us

323
00:23:19,722 --> 00:23:20,742
every time it happens,

324
00:23:20,742 --> 00:23:26,222
specifically because really often we realize something can get shaved down.

325
00:23:27,262 --> 00:23:29,402
Something doesn't have to get complicated, right?

326
00:23:29,682 --> 00:23:33,562
Or even, okay, we're implementing something that is actually very dangerous for us.

327
00:23:34,482 --> 00:23:37,422
And that is kind of a huge boon.

328
00:23:37,422 --> 00:23:43,522
From the security side, we made the decision that my computer is just completely segregated away from all of our systems.

329
00:23:43,522 --> 00:23:47,762
and from ensuring that our security is on top,

330
00:23:47,942 --> 00:23:50,842
our CTO, he's 100% in charge of that.

331
00:23:51,482 --> 00:23:52,862
And that's his focus, right?

332
00:23:52,902 --> 00:23:54,442
Alongside building features and stuff.

333
00:23:54,662 --> 00:23:56,062
But this separation of concerns

334
00:23:56,062 --> 00:24:00,182
makes it so that I'm able to work on my stuff

335
00:24:00,182 --> 00:24:01,502
and he's able to work on his stuff.

336
00:24:01,582 --> 00:24:03,602
And my job is just ensuring the machine

337
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gets to keep going forward.

338
00:24:04,682 --> 00:24:06,422
And his job is making sure

339
00:24:06,422 --> 00:24:08,322
that the machine is well-oiled to go forward.

340
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The separation of concerns works out,

341
00:24:10,402 --> 00:24:10,962
I think, a lot better.

342
00:24:11,462 --> 00:24:13,062
I know that the Prime Trust

343
00:24:13,062 --> 00:24:20,062
method of doing this stuff was a little bit more democratic where, you know, keys were

344
00:24:20,062 --> 00:24:21,462
separated between a bunch of different people.

345
00:24:22,102 --> 00:24:23,702
We have separated keys out.

346
00:24:23,802 --> 00:24:26,702
It's not one individual, but our keys aren't separated between individuals.

347
00:24:26,702 --> 00:24:32,282
They're separated in like, like actual different key servers, you know, that only one individual

348
00:24:32,282 --> 00:24:37,222
who's, you know, like got a shotgun at home and takes security very seriously, like is

349
00:24:37,222 --> 00:24:37,702
in charge of.

350
00:24:37,782 --> 00:24:41,242
And I think that's probably like the right way for how we handle things right now.

351
00:24:43,062 --> 00:24:47,502
So what is this key setup?

352
00:24:48,142 --> 00:24:49,922
I mean, you mentioned multiple different servers.

353
00:24:50,322 --> 00:24:55,782
One guy, how do you ensure that there's no key man risk with the setup?

354
00:24:56,502 --> 00:25:01,082
Yeah, so we use multiple different key servers from different other custodians specifically.

355
00:25:02,162 --> 00:25:03,702
So they're all watching out.

356
00:25:03,822 --> 00:25:09,302
I think a lot of it is automated, but for deposit addresses, those go into cold storage directly,

357
00:25:09,302 --> 00:25:11,702
but it's not cold storage that's run by us.

358
00:25:11,702 --> 00:25:13,082
It's cold storage run by someone else.

359
00:25:13,482 --> 00:25:16,282
That way, you know, like there isn't really a situation where we mess up.

360
00:25:16,502 --> 00:25:21,302
Our money that we send out is completely segregated from money that we receive.

361
00:25:21,442 --> 00:25:26,502
So there's just an operations focus to make sure that, you know, we always have enough money to withdraw.

362
00:25:27,562 --> 00:25:34,702
Yeah, like we've had to go through kind of a lot of iterations of this design for our compliance program specifically.

363
00:25:35,342 --> 00:25:38,742
And so we have this all really well documented in our policies.

364
00:25:38,742 --> 00:25:47,582
And whenever regulators or banking partners or even customers ask us for these, we're able to provide specifications on hand, which is nice.

365
00:25:48,182 --> 00:25:51,602
But it's really, in my opinion, nothing that isn't industry standard.

366
00:25:52,342 --> 00:25:55,102
This kind of separation of concerns is what everyone should be doing.

367
00:25:55,682 --> 00:25:57,502
It's something super crazy or magical.

368
00:25:58,682 --> 00:26:04,102
Are the regulators getting smarter on this, on how this technical architecture should be built?

369
00:26:05,542 --> 00:26:08,182
They're not really on the technical architecture side of things.

370
00:26:08,182 --> 00:26:18,722
They're really concerned about like over leveraging rehypothecation and making sure that certain individuals are touching it or not touching it.

371
00:26:19,142 --> 00:26:21,622
Right. Like that's that's really what they care about.

372
00:26:21,962 --> 00:26:30,002
And they they've gotten smarter in the sense that they're not going to allow like fancy diagrams to get in the way of their understanding.

373
00:26:30,222 --> 00:26:34,062
Right. So if we send them diagrams and they don't understand it, they'll tell us it's not understandable.

374
00:26:34,062 --> 00:26:41,842
at the back you know um make it better fair enough you know like so um which we've done a

375
00:26:41,842 --> 00:26:47,662
couple times we have like a whole uh like project for uh diagrams specifically for regulators like

376
00:26:47,662 --> 00:26:51,662
for this topic and they're huge they're like powerpoint presentations that are like over 200

377
00:26:51,662 --> 00:26:57,962
pages long right with 200 slides but it works you know they get it they get the idea yeah

378
00:26:57,962 --> 00:27:04,542
and so now i mean you've got a big announcement coming up we're recording this on tuesday the

379
00:27:04,542 --> 00:27:11,282
27th but i think over the weekend you guys are going to be um coming out with some news and this

380
00:27:11,282 --> 00:27:16,682
will be published after so by the time this reaches the audience the news will be announced

381
00:27:16,682 --> 00:27:25,842
um what uh what do we have in store so uh like later this past year right i think in december

382
00:27:25,842 --> 00:27:31,622
we launched a price oracle right we want this yeah it would do um we found some people really

383
00:27:31,622 --> 00:27:36,202
liked it and you know onboarded it and this price oracle works specifically with uh discrete log

384
00:27:36,202 --> 00:27:43,082
contracts right so it's like a a much more uh like trustless way of uh handling these bitcoin

385
00:27:43,082 --> 00:27:49,222
back loans and we we were also we also like announced that okay we're supporting um and so

386
00:27:49,222 --> 00:27:53,622
instead of stable coins you know you can do disbursements for these loans via fiat so you

387
00:27:53,622 --> 00:27:58,402
get, you know, cold hard cash in your bank. And people are really excited about that.

388
00:27:58,902 --> 00:28:03,902
The big announcement that will be out by time that by the time you guys hear this

389
00:28:03,902 --> 00:28:12,002
is that we are releasing our full fledged like banking products for everyone to use right in the

390
00:28:12,002 --> 00:28:18,982
U.S. and soon the EU. And so what I mean in the U.S., I mean, we can we can launch this in New York,

391
00:28:18,982 --> 00:28:26,302
florida california texas and all the states in between and what this product is it's it's a full

392
00:28:26,302 --> 00:28:32,162
bank right over an api so you can spin up individual accounts right like you know routing

393
00:28:32,162 --> 00:28:37,222
account number for each of your end users through this system if that's what you want to do put fiat

394
00:28:37,222 --> 00:28:43,842
into it or have it do an ach poll which is like auto pay convert it into bitcoin and then send it

395
00:28:43,842 --> 00:28:50,102
whoever it is you need to send it to this is to my knowledge the the the quickest way to convert

396
00:28:50,102 --> 00:28:58,322
someone like convert someone's fiat to bitcoin or lightning um and the most uh programmatic and

397
00:28:58,322 --> 00:29:03,702
like extents or expendable way or whatever um oh my gosh i'm forgetting the term but yeah

398
00:29:03,702 --> 00:29:09,882
this is the most like programmatic way you can do it uh so that's kind of a huge huge win so

399
00:29:09,882 --> 00:29:15,042
there's no iframes involved in this it's not moon pay or anything like that uh which means that

400
00:29:15,042 --> 00:29:22,142
people can create their own custom flows as as they'd like right and that also does include

401
00:29:22,142 --> 00:29:28,562
with ai so as long as you're onboarded with uh with with us and past kyb which we've gotten down

402
00:29:28,562 --> 00:29:33,622
from six weeks to less than a week now so it's really easy to to get turned around on that you

403
00:29:33,622 --> 00:29:39,662
can just like implement our api into existing infrastructure and turn any application into a

404
00:29:39,662 --> 00:29:46,762
full-fledged bank that's huge that's what i wish i had five years ago how's this work on the licensing

405
00:29:46,762 --> 00:29:52,362
side of things similar prime charts in that way where you guys have licenses and charter

406
00:29:52,362 --> 00:29:58,822
so we have some licenses uh but really like the big chains that we made in 2045 is we realized like

407
00:29:58,822 --> 00:30:04,042
what we should do instead is we should really focus on getting like everyone is just saying

408
00:30:04,042 --> 00:30:08,422
this is great come back like we we'd love to talk when you have more than you know a couple states

409
00:30:08,422 --> 00:30:14,782
right we realized people want to go to all these states so we figured out a way with our banking

410
00:30:14,782 --> 00:30:19,642
partners we have three different banking partners to use their licenses in different states so that

411
00:30:19,642 --> 00:30:23,282
we can actually just go to all these different states all at once right it turns out some of

412
00:30:23,282 --> 00:30:29,242
our banking partners also have uh locations in eu as well so we can do native european transfers

413
00:30:29,242 --> 00:30:34,422
so not swift in the eu um we're working on implementing that right now that has to come

414
00:30:34,422 --> 00:30:36,482
in a month or two after we do the US launch.

415
00:30:36,682 --> 00:30:40,202
But this brings our services kind of everywhere right now.

416
00:30:40,922 --> 00:30:43,542
In the future, I think it's going to make sense for us

417
00:30:43,542 --> 00:30:45,962
to finish up these applications.

418
00:30:46,362 --> 00:30:50,362
Unfortunately, these applications normally take a year or two.

419
00:30:50,662 --> 00:30:52,562
Right now, because of all the stuff that's going on,

420
00:30:52,762 --> 00:30:53,782
everyone is backlogged.

421
00:30:54,302 --> 00:30:56,342
So it's actually going to take even longer than that.

422
00:30:56,482 --> 00:30:59,302
So we realized we're going to have to come back to the applications

423
00:30:59,302 --> 00:31:01,402
whenever the regulators get back to us

424
00:31:01,402 --> 00:31:03,122
and just kind of handle it from there.

425
00:31:03,122 --> 00:31:10,302
But until then, we can go in all these states and bring our services to just about anyone we can.

426
00:31:10,822 --> 00:31:12,862
And that's a pretty big win for us, right?

427
00:31:12,942 --> 00:31:14,062
It's gotten people really excited.

428
00:31:15,542 --> 00:31:16,702
You mentioned AI.

429
00:31:17,022 --> 00:31:19,562
How do you see AI playing into all this?

430
00:31:19,602 --> 00:31:29,662
Because I've been leaning into it as heavily as possible here at TFTC, doing research at 1031, things like that.

431
00:31:29,662 --> 00:31:32,142
And it is becoming more and more powerful by the day.

432
00:31:32,142 --> 00:31:40,822
I was actually playing around with, I had my agent playing around with Money Dev Kit last night, and it was pretty cool to see what it can do.

433
00:31:40,902 --> 00:31:47,842
So how do you see this intersection of AI and not only what you're doing at Magnolia, but Bitcoin more broadly?

434
00:31:49,082 --> 00:31:53,342
Dude, the financial system should not be locked out to people who are building.

435
00:31:53,562 --> 00:31:54,802
It just should not be, right?

436
00:31:54,842 --> 00:31:56,362
We want to make it as successful as possible.

437
00:31:56,362 --> 00:32:03,942
So if people want to utilize banking in their VibeCore products, we can make sure that they do it safely.

438
00:32:04,662 --> 00:32:09,602
But AI can actually do the implementation, create incredibly delightful flows for people.

439
00:32:09,882 --> 00:32:10,882
And yeah, I agree.

440
00:32:11,002 --> 00:32:12,802
We've been leaning into it pretty hard too.

441
00:32:13,162 --> 00:32:15,302
It's helped us out kind of tremendously.

442
00:32:16,502 --> 00:32:20,102
The different teams at Magnolia handle it very differently.

443
00:32:20,102 --> 00:32:27,502
right um so our engineering team has a very like complex and precise method of handling ai that's

444
00:32:27,502 --> 00:32:31,882
very different from how our compliance team handles it and our compliance team was able to

445
00:32:31,882 --> 00:32:37,862
reduce its you know like our kyb process our onboarding process from like six weeks down to

446
00:32:37,862 --> 00:32:42,422
less than one with the help of ai just like you know optimizing what it can and reducing flows

447
00:32:42,422 --> 00:32:46,642
and trying to get as many uh like you know multiple birds hit with one stone so to speak

448
00:32:46,642 --> 00:32:49,182
and I use it kind of all the time,

449
00:32:49,262 --> 00:32:51,122
specifically with the Ralph Wiggum loop,

450
00:32:51,142 --> 00:32:51,922
if you're familiar with that.

451
00:32:52,362 --> 00:32:54,722
I use that all the time for our docs

452
00:32:54,722 --> 00:32:56,922
and our like main webpage as well.

453
00:32:57,402 --> 00:32:59,342
That way I don't have to bother our devs about it

454
00:32:59,342 --> 00:33:02,002
and I can make sure our docs are as accurate as possible.

455
00:33:02,862 --> 00:33:04,522
I'm actually watching it run right now

456
00:33:04,522 --> 00:33:06,142
because I'm going to El Salvador tomorrow

457
00:33:06,142 --> 00:33:08,342
and I need this new website like out.

458
00:33:08,762 --> 00:33:10,882
So I'm just like watching it just iterate.

459
00:33:11,122 --> 00:33:13,082
But we use it kind of a lot

460
00:33:13,082 --> 00:33:14,862
and I do kind of have this belief

461
00:33:14,862 --> 00:33:15,922
that I've always been against

462
00:33:15,922 --> 00:33:18,962
hiring as a growth metric, right?

463
00:33:19,342 --> 00:33:22,742
I do believe AI is going to really be able to like supercharge

464
00:33:22,742 --> 00:33:25,402
really, really powerful operators at a company

465
00:33:25,402 --> 00:33:28,022
and let people go even farther with, you know,

466
00:33:28,042 --> 00:33:29,522
their seed or pre-seed stage, right?

467
00:33:29,582 --> 00:33:32,742
We've come pretty far on pre-seed.

468
00:33:33,282 --> 00:33:35,822
And, you know, at some point we're going to like raise our next round,

469
00:33:35,942 --> 00:33:37,882
but we don't want to just, you know,

470
00:33:37,882 --> 00:33:39,742
like burn capital here for the sake of burning capital.

471
00:33:39,882 --> 00:33:41,462
We want everyone to go as far as they can.

472
00:33:42,542 --> 00:33:55,304
And AI really does supercharge folks It insane And to your point I think if you a founder out there not leveraging these tools obviously you got to be careful to an extent

473
00:33:55,424 --> 00:33:56,544
It's easy to foot gun yourself

474
00:33:56,544 --> 00:33:59,164
if you're not using it appropriately.

475
00:33:59,324 --> 00:33:59,944
But to your point,

476
00:34:00,024 --> 00:34:03,304
if you're a sort of high level operator

477
00:34:03,304 --> 00:34:04,544
that understands the risk

478
00:34:04,544 --> 00:34:05,964
and understands how to use it,

479
00:34:05,964 --> 00:34:07,104
if you're not utilizing it,

480
00:34:07,264 --> 00:34:07,864
you're going to get,

481
00:34:08,484 --> 00:34:10,404
I don't want to say maybe left behind,

482
00:34:10,404 --> 00:34:25,224
But I think from a sort of balance sheet management perspective, there's no reason not to lean into it so you can keep headcount as low as possible, get the revenue, profitability, and begin stacking sats as quickly as possible.

483
00:34:26,164 --> 00:34:26,384
Oh, yeah.

484
00:34:27,304 --> 00:34:27,884
Oh, yeah.

485
00:34:27,944 --> 00:34:31,284
Plus, with all the Twitter stuff, it's all everyone gets to see.

486
00:34:31,524 --> 00:34:32,964
So, you know, you have no excuse.

487
00:34:33,444 --> 00:34:34,124
You got no excuse.

488
00:34:34,324 --> 00:34:35,304
All the tricks are right there.

489
00:34:35,764 --> 00:34:36,404
BodBod is big.

490
00:34:36,464 --> 00:34:37,444
Or I think now it's renamed.

491
00:34:38,004 --> 00:34:39,564
But, you know, whatever the next trick will be.

492
00:34:39,564 --> 00:34:40,564
I'm sure it'll be very useful.

493
00:34:41,404 --> 00:34:42,604
Moltapot, Moltapot, no.

494
00:34:43,964 --> 00:34:47,264
Do you think that, like, I wonder if we're in a bubble on Twitter.

495
00:34:47,644 --> 00:34:55,124
And yes, it's obviously a massive topic of discussion in our Twitter bubble.

496
00:34:55,264 --> 00:35:02,904
But, like, how many people outside of that bubble are actually utilizing these tools or even recognize that they exist and are as powerful as they are?

497
00:35:02,904 --> 00:35:10,584
i i think like from a retail point of view most people are already on like chat gbt specifically

498
00:35:10,584 --> 00:35:17,384
because it has a free tier but using it in this kind of like complex way um is definitely in the

499
00:35:17,384 --> 00:35:22,124
realm of tech enthusiasts right it absolutely is there's still like a lot of setup a lot of uh like

500
00:35:22,124 --> 00:35:25,544
stuff you have to do you have to have like a prerequisite amount of knowledge to understand

501
00:35:25,544 --> 00:35:32,664
that code clog code exists right for something like um bod bot you know maybe like folks buy

502
00:35:32,664 --> 00:35:34,144
like the Apple Mini or whatever,

503
00:35:34,484 --> 00:35:35,784
where they figure out they can just run it locally.

504
00:35:37,464 --> 00:35:38,984
But as time goes on,

505
00:35:39,044 --> 00:35:41,104
you're going to see a lot of products

506
00:35:41,104 --> 00:35:42,924
that just spin up the whole thing for you.

507
00:35:43,084 --> 00:35:45,944
So one that's already existed before PlotBot

508
00:35:45,944 --> 00:35:48,104
is Interaction.

509
00:35:48,224 --> 00:35:49,524
If you're familiar with Interaction,

510
00:35:50,584 --> 00:35:52,184
it's a Telegram bot, essentially.

511
00:35:52,744 --> 00:35:54,364
Pretty delightful startup flow.

512
00:35:55,644 --> 00:35:58,764
But as things like this get bigger,

513
00:35:59,324 --> 00:36:00,704
you're going to see more full-fledged agents

514
00:36:00,704 --> 00:36:02,624
that I think are a little bit more appealing

515
00:36:02,624 --> 00:36:04,244
to the mass audience, right?

516
00:36:04,264 --> 00:36:06,104
So like a good check for me that I always have

517
00:36:06,104 --> 00:36:07,104
is my little sister.

518
00:36:07,884 --> 00:36:09,244
She's a chemical engineer, right?

519
00:36:09,244 --> 00:36:09,824
That's what she does.

520
00:36:10,224 --> 00:36:11,644
She just wrapped up her education,

521
00:36:11,864 --> 00:36:14,444
but she is not in tech in the slightest,

522
00:36:14,584 --> 00:36:16,544
like the way like, you know, you and I are.

523
00:36:17,104 --> 00:36:17,924
And so I asked her like, you know,

524
00:36:17,924 --> 00:36:19,944
what do people think about like AI and stuff like that?

525
00:36:19,984 --> 00:36:21,404
And her point of view is, listen,

526
00:36:21,464 --> 00:36:22,984
it's cool for like cheating on tests,

527
00:36:22,984 --> 00:36:24,984
but as far as like actually doing

528
00:36:24,984 --> 00:36:26,364
like chemical engineering work,

529
00:36:26,424 --> 00:36:27,904
it's fucking useless, you know?

530
00:36:28,684 --> 00:36:30,584
And so like, there's still a lot of room

531
00:36:30,584 --> 00:36:33,424
for this stuff to get in the hands of everyday people,

532
00:36:33,604 --> 00:36:35,204
people in other sectors.

533
00:36:35,764 --> 00:36:39,024
It's really, I think, focused on us right now,

534
00:36:39,124 --> 00:36:40,444
people in the tech enthusiast world.

535
00:36:41,504 --> 00:36:42,784
Yeah, that's fun.

536
00:36:42,784 --> 00:36:47,784
I was saying a lot of focus work with the snowstorm

537
00:36:47,784 --> 00:36:49,764
that hit the Northeast over the weekend.

538
00:36:50,544 --> 00:36:52,384
And I had some downtime on Sunday

539
00:36:52,384 --> 00:36:55,364
and spent an hour and a half spinning up ClaudeBot

540
00:36:55,364 --> 00:36:58,844
and making sure that it was secure behind Tailscale,

541
00:36:58,844 --> 00:37:02,644
behind a firewall and all of that stuff.

542
00:37:02,784 --> 00:37:06,864
And then I've been slowly but surely conversing with it

543
00:37:06,864 --> 00:37:10,704
and iterating on sort of how I'm interacting with it

544
00:37:10,704 --> 00:37:11,864
over the last two days.

545
00:37:11,984 --> 00:37:14,964
And it is insane what this thing can do.

546
00:37:16,024 --> 00:37:17,904
So what's the difference between Claudebot

547
00:37:17,904 --> 00:37:20,804
and like a Ralph Wiggum loop?

548
00:37:21,064 --> 00:37:24,484
Like would you say Claudebot is like significantly like better

549
00:37:24,484 --> 00:37:27,384
than like just doing fundamentally the same thing

550
00:37:27,384 --> 00:37:28,984
but in a more like narrow context.

551
00:37:31,364 --> 00:37:36,564
I'll preface this with I'm not an expert on the intricate differences between Ralph Wagon,

552
00:37:36,744 --> 00:37:42,584
which is essentially you give a, what is it, a product development roadmap

553
00:37:42,584 --> 00:37:50,144
with very specific outcomes that you want to complete in sort of a modular fashion.

554
00:37:50,144 --> 00:37:55,804
You give a task and it just basically runs and checks if it's actually completing those tasks

555
00:37:55,804 --> 00:37:58,304
as laid out in the PDR.

556
00:37:59,164 --> 00:38:00,304
And once it's done, it's done.

557
00:38:01,724 --> 00:38:02,484
With Claudebot.

558
00:38:02,644 --> 00:38:07,204
And I tried Ralph Wiggum just to play with it for one thing

559
00:38:07,204 --> 00:38:14,164
and didn't really, I wasn't really able to get it working.

560
00:38:14,784 --> 00:38:18,644
So my personal experience, I found a good secure setup

561
00:38:18,644 --> 00:38:19,944
for Claudebot on Sunday.

562
00:38:20,384 --> 00:38:21,964
I was successfully able to set it up.

563
00:38:22,044 --> 00:38:24,584
I think the one common thing they have is like

564
00:38:24,584 --> 00:38:31,384
with ralph wiggum you're storing context in the task files so like it has context that it can

565
00:38:31,384 --> 00:38:36,664
constantly pull from after it clears context and that's what i think claude bot does as well just

566
00:38:36,664 --> 00:38:42,424
in a different way and then from what i understand clawbot the open source projects this has a bunch

567
00:38:42,424 --> 00:38:47,304
of sort of overlaid integrations that's been that have been built out over the last month it's still

568
00:38:47,304 --> 00:38:53,784
a really uh nation project but um i don't know just intuitively for me if somebody is not

569
00:38:53,784 --> 00:39:01,184
Highly technical, technical enough to be dangerous and get in the terminal and do some stuff with some direction.

570
00:39:01,844 --> 00:39:04,644
It's been a much smoother experience for me personally.

571
00:39:05,744 --> 00:39:06,964
You guys should check it out.

572
00:39:07,224 --> 00:39:10,224
I've definitely I've I've heard really interesting things about it.

573
00:39:10,324 --> 00:39:18,144
I think the biggest interesting thing is like, unlike any other like system, it's it's not user driven, you know, which is very, very valuable.

574
00:39:19,304 --> 00:39:20,024
What do you mean by that?

575
00:39:20,924 --> 00:39:21,984
My understanding of autonomous.

576
00:39:21,984 --> 00:39:26,464
yeah well it's it lets its loop run like regardless of what you're doing with it so

577
00:39:26,464 --> 00:39:31,044
it'll always be checking your dms it'll if you ask it to like keep an eye on this or that you

578
00:39:31,044 --> 00:39:34,984
know it'll constantly just keep an eye on this or that and let you know when things like when you

579
00:39:34,984 --> 00:39:39,984
need it like get surfaced but alternatively from everything else you know for ralph wiggum i have

580
00:39:39,984 --> 00:39:46,024
to set the like checklist up and then it executes and the thing the task i was running here just

581
00:39:46,024 --> 00:39:51,404
like execute like finished iteration 38 you know and now it's done that's time to check the work and

582
00:39:51,404 --> 00:39:53,604
give feedback and go on. It's just

583
00:39:53,604 --> 00:39:55,544
a bigger loop, but it's still a

584
00:39:55,544 --> 00:39:57,584
user-driven loop. But the difference

585
00:39:57,584 --> 00:39:59,464
between CloudBot is it's not user-driven.

586
00:40:01,024 --> 00:40:01,464
Yeah,

587
00:40:01,624 --> 00:40:03,644
this is clearly the direction that development is going

588
00:40:03,644 --> 00:40:05,684
in, right? I think people

589
00:40:05,684 --> 00:40:07,884
are going to rely on this stuff to a crazy

590
00:40:07,884 --> 00:40:09,424
degree. I spent like five years

591
00:40:09,424 --> 00:40:11,624
from now, some narrative loop like this.

592
00:40:12,304 --> 00:40:12,464
Yeah.

593
00:40:13,284 --> 00:40:15,704
Like I said, no enough to be

594
00:40:15,704 --> 00:40:17,564
dangerous, which means no enough

595
00:40:17,564 --> 00:40:19,844
to know that I shouldn't just give CloudBot

596
00:40:19,844 --> 00:40:20,944
everything. So I've been very

597
00:40:20,944 --> 00:40:22,604
restrained on

598
00:40:22,604 --> 00:40:24,884
the access that I can

599
00:40:24,884 --> 00:40:27,204
access to cloud code and I can

600
00:40:27,204 --> 00:40:28,744
interact with it via

601
00:40:28,744 --> 00:40:29,664
Telegram.

602
00:40:31,404 --> 00:40:33,044
It's actually funny. We had a long

603
00:40:33,044 --> 00:40:34,604
conversation in the Magnolia

604
00:40:34,604 --> 00:40:36,484
all hands yesterday

605
00:40:36,484 --> 00:40:39,124
about the security concerns of a lot of

606
00:40:39,124 --> 00:40:39,724
these AI tools.

607
00:40:41,104 --> 00:40:42,504
We handle PII.

608
00:40:43,044 --> 00:40:45,144
We definitely do. We can't be turning

609
00:40:45,144 --> 00:40:46,724
on, I think it was, the bypass

610
00:40:46,724 --> 00:40:48,024
permissions on

611
00:40:48,024 --> 00:40:51,564
like, you know, we can't be piping the stuff in.

612
00:40:51,884 --> 00:40:54,024
And that's just, that's for the folks

613
00:40:54,024 --> 00:40:55,484
who don't have production access, you know?

614
00:40:56,124 --> 00:40:58,884
And so we have to add to our compliance documents,

615
00:40:58,964 --> 00:41:00,264
like, okay, you know, we're going to use AI,

616
00:41:00,464 --> 00:41:01,424
but this is how we use it.

617
00:41:01,464 --> 00:41:02,544
We're going to use it in these like, you know,

618
00:41:02,784 --> 00:41:04,424
specific environments where, you know,

619
00:41:04,424 --> 00:41:05,784
it doesn't have access to all this other stuff.

620
00:41:06,784 --> 00:41:08,944
It's actually kind of like, kind of interesting

621
00:41:08,944 --> 00:41:11,364
because we're on the side, I think,

622
00:41:11,444 --> 00:41:13,144
of we care about security a lot.

623
00:41:13,524 --> 00:41:14,464
You know, we care about making sure

624
00:41:14,464 --> 00:41:16,364
that this data isn't going to go in the wrong direction.

625
00:41:16,364 --> 00:41:21,744
and I can only imagine how the companies or other places like, you know, that lack of, you know, security.

626
00:41:22,244 --> 00:41:27,264
And I'm just really looking forward to like, is 2026 going to be the year of just a lot more hacks, you know,

627
00:41:27,264 --> 00:41:32,124
like across the whole industry, because most people are just leaving like their credentials and just, you know,

628
00:41:32,124 --> 00:41:38,224
like white text, right? Plain text. And it's going to be a great year for hackers, for black hats.

629
00:41:39,004 --> 00:41:45,844
Yeah. Yeah. Getting familiar with .env files is very important, I think, for a lot of people out there.

630
00:41:46,364 --> 00:41:53,324
oh yeah well like how do you think this changes um

631
00:41:56,124 --> 00:42:00,444
a company building right like we mentioned like headcounts and all that like how

632
00:42:00,444 --> 00:42:06,044
like i guess to phrase this another way like how far do you think you can go

633
00:42:06,044 --> 00:42:15,984
um with a headcount under 20 at magnolia very far um but

634
00:42:15,984 --> 00:42:23,264
But when I came to, when I moved to New York last year, I moved into this like hacker house, right, called The Residency in Chinatown.

635
00:42:23,324 --> 00:42:23,804
It was awesome.

636
00:42:24,124 --> 00:42:33,384
You know, it was my first time living with a lot of like, you know, kind of deep like Silicon Valley tech folks who are really just, you know, in the grind and genuinely a great time.

637
00:42:34,084 --> 00:42:38,604
And I remember something that they always pointed out about me that I'd never heard anyone refer to me about.

638
00:42:38,704 --> 00:42:44,084
They always said that I was a very like agentic person, you know, and I asked them, like, what does that mean?

639
00:42:44,084 --> 00:42:45,284
Is this like, you know, an AI thing?

640
00:42:45,284 --> 00:42:50,324
they're like no no it just means that when you see a problem you do something about it you know

641
00:42:50,324 --> 00:42:56,864
and i i've noticed that in all my founder friends that's very much who they are when they see a

642
00:42:56,864 --> 00:43:03,404
problem they do something about it uh and i think fundamentally what this is going to allow uh in the

643
00:43:03,404 --> 00:43:08,644
long run is it's going to allow that barrier entry so if you just want to do something you can do it

644
00:43:08,644 --> 00:43:13,484
you know i you see these tweets online where you know being an idea guy is like now the alpha you

645
00:43:13,484 --> 00:43:18,864
know? Um, and I, I do kind of agree with that. I think things have changed now to, to the point

646
00:43:18,864 --> 00:43:22,804
where it's really just a battle of willpower, you know, like how much willpower do you have?

647
00:43:22,884 --> 00:43:28,044
It's always been a question of willpower, but sometimes, you know, like people are able to go

648
00:43:28,044 --> 00:43:31,604
really, really far in the wrong direction, you know, and that's detrimental to them. That's part

649
00:43:31,604 --> 00:43:36,524
of the risk, you know, are you going, uh, are you waiting until the right moment for your thing,

650
00:43:36,524 --> 00:43:42,664
or are you being boneheaded in whatever direction you're going in? Um, and I think with, with like

651
00:43:42,664 --> 00:43:46,804
the advent of these tools, it's going to specifically make it a lot easier for people

652
00:43:46,804 --> 00:43:52,044
to iterate and get to the stage that they want to get to, right? Like being able to launch a product

653
00:43:52,044 --> 00:43:56,924
and then being able to test the thesis, you know, out, uh, while also being able to maybe get more

654
00:43:56,924 --> 00:44:00,724
information on what it is they're trying to do. You know, like it's, it's never been so easy

655
00:44:00,724 --> 00:44:06,964
to get feedback on like the greater, uh, like context of your space than asking, you know,

656
00:44:06,964 --> 00:44:11,864
like a research bot, Hey, spend like three hours researching anything that has to do with this

657
00:44:11,864 --> 00:44:16,704
space here and give me like a competitive analysis of these different companies and how they're doing

658
00:44:16,704 --> 00:44:22,564
and you know what flaws might be um it's never been so easy uh and i think i think that does

659
00:44:22,564 --> 00:44:28,884
change like the landscape of business quite a lot in the sense that it just we're reducing

660
00:44:28,884 --> 00:44:35,524
information asymmetry you know and that lets people make more uh well-informed decisions

661
00:44:35,524 --> 00:44:40,544
while also allowing them to like get more done.

662
00:44:40,884 --> 00:44:43,984
You know, before I think the things that limited founders

663
00:44:43,984 --> 00:44:47,164
were very much in the resource like division,

664
00:44:47,464 --> 00:44:50,504
you know, like how much money you have, obviously,

665
00:44:50,604 --> 00:44:52,624
but also like what your talent pool is,

666
00:44:53,284 --> 00:44:55,104
what connections you have.

667
00:44:55,944 --> 00:45:00,004
But with modern AI, if you're simply creative enough,

668
00:45:00,004 --> 00:45:01,784
you can overcome a lot of these problems.

669
00:45:01,944 --> 00:45:04,284
Like I've been, you know, for this launch here, right,

670
00:45:04,284 --> 00:45:08,984
we're fundamentally a B2B product. I have to talk to people in order to like, you know, get them to

671
00:45:08,984 --> 00:45:14,964
like to be aware of our product. I've just had Claude, you know, just running against like Twitter

672
00:45:14,964 --> 00:45:19,944
and Chrome and say like, hey, you know, look at everyone who follows me, you know, are they working

673
00:45:19,944 --> 00:45:24,664
on something that makes sense for like integrating with us, you know, and create like a leads list

674
00:45:24,664 --> 00:45:30,784
here and then rank it in terms of like how well I probably know them, you know, and that is

675
00:45:30,784 --> 00:45:36,144
something that wasn't possible, you know, before that's, that's reducing information asymmetry here.

676
00:45:36,384 --> 00:45:41,904
There's a lot of things you can do with that. Um, but really that's not like, it's, it's not a

677
00:45:41,904 --> 00:45:47,024
question of like how smart is Harsha. It's just a question of how bad does Harsha want it? You know,

678
00:45:47,024 --> 00:45:53,484
and I think now more than ever, uh, that, that barrier is lowered, you know, and I think that's,

679
00:45:53,584 --> 00:45:56,924
that's fantastic, frankly, for innovation as a whole.

680
00:45:56,924 --> 00:46:16,024
I completely agree. I think you put that beautifully. People with agency are going to thrive in this world. And I'm not so sure that I'm convinced that it's going to be the job killer apocalypse that it's being marketed as. Certainly it's going to have an effect on the jobs market and will displace a lot of jobs.

681
00:46:16,024 --> 00:46:23,844
But I think on the other side of things, I think it was Aaron Levy, Aaron Levy, Aaron Levy, the guy from box.com.

682
00:46:24,224 --> 00:46:30,104
He put out an article basically saying like Jeven's paradox compute is upon us.

683
00:46:30,184 --> 00:46:37,704
Like you think just because you're becoming more efficient with these resources, in this case compute, you're going to use less of it.

684
00:46:37,704 --> 00:46:39,844
But what we'll actually find is that we just use more and more.

685
00:46:39,844 --> 00:46:55,344
And by extension, one could speculate that that means that the potential jobs that exist in the future are way more bountiful than they currently are.

686
00:46:55,344 --> 00:47:09,484
And I do think, to your point, we do need some sort of social resurgence of individual agency and creativity to emerge, to make that a reality.

687
00:47:09,844 --> 00:47:20,144
And there will obviously be a period of time where we're sort of reacting and getting comfortable with this change.

688
00:47:20,264 --> 00:47:25,364
But I think people begin to realize, like, OK, this is what these tools can do.

689
00:47:25,364 --> 00:47:35,324
If I just start thinking in a different way and thinking more creatively and actually getting off my ass and typing into these LLMs, maybe something will happen.

690
00:47:36,564 --> 00:47:39,324
And I think that'll have a net positive effect.

691
00:47:39,844 --> 00:47:43,524
on the job market. Maybe that's naive. Maybe that's too optimistic. Maybe it's a pipe dream, but

692
00:47:43,524 --> 00:47:45,564
I can see it playing out that way.

693
00:47:46,464 --> 00:47:51,964
Let me ask you a question. Before the power drill,

694
00:47:52,444 --> 00:47:55,324
how did people fasten

695
00:47:55,324 --> 00:47:59,964
two pieces of wood together? Before we were able to drill things in,

696
00:48:00,304 --> 00:48:01,484
how did we screw drills in?

697
00:48:03,564 --> 00:48:04,844
Do you know the answer to this?

698
00:48:04,844 --> 00:48:13,504
uh that spurs even exist was just like hammered i think yeah but there were there were screws it's

699
00:48:13,504 --> 00:48:19,324
like this like tool it's like a rod that comes out with a crank handle right um and there's two

700
00:48:19,324 --> 00:48:23,864
there's two parts of it one is you have to drill the hole first right because it was just you know

701
00:48:23,864 --> 00:48:28,804
it was too high torque to go through the wood and then you had to put the the long screw all the way

702
00:48:28,804 --> 00:48:33,524
in you know and this is only really feasible for for long screws right for anything smaller you use

703
00:48:33,524 --> 00:48:40,624
a nail. But it was a pretty tedious job, you know, frankly. And this was like a specialized

704
00:48:40,624 --> 00:48:46,464
part of construction as a whole. And whenever like my friends like, you know, mentioning,

705
00:48:46,604 --> 00:48:49,404
you know, they're worried about AI, like taking everyone's jobs, making everyone like homeless,

706
00:48:49,624 --> 00:48:55,144
right? I bring this up, you know, we're long past that era. And no one even remembers that tool

707
00:48:55,144 --> 00:48:59,824
anymore. Everyone only thinks about how easy it is to take your drill and screw it in. And I ask

708
00:48:59,824 --> 00:49:04,484
people like, do people still have homes? You know, do we still build houses? You know, are there,

709
00:49:04,744 --> 00:49:10,504
is there a lack of construction jobs right now? No, there's actually a huge boom of construction

710
00:49:10,504 --> 00:49:16,844
jobs because these tools allow people to build more faster. You know, it just increases the

711
00:49:16,844 --> 00:49:21,564
economic output of them. And yes, when, when electric tools, especially the corded ones and

712
00:49:21,564 --> 00:49:26,944
the cordless ones came out, you know, people who like specialize in, you know, like doing this,

713
00:49:26,944 --> 00:49:33,604
they got displaced. Absolutely. And that probably sucked for them, genuinely. My family and the

714
00:49:33,604 --> 00:49:36,804
things that my family, like my mom and dad have done over the years, they've been displaced

715
00:49:36,804 --> 00:49:41,784
multiple times. I've been displaced. But economic displacement is a very normal part of any kind of

716
00:49:41,784 --> 00:49:46,264
healthy economy. All it means is you got to switch gears. You got to do something else.

717
00:49:47,264 --> 00:49:52,964
It doesn't mean you lose your job forever. People oftentimes learn a lot of skills that you can use

718
00:49:52,964 --> 00:49:56,704
somewhere else. That's a very normal, healthy part of the economy. But the part I want to

719
00:49:56,704 --> 00:50:03,004
to forget is like the economic output of an individual does compound think about all the

720
00:50:03,004 --> 00:50:08,164
all the hand cranks that are saved now every time you screw in a drill you know and i think the exact

721
00:50:08,164 --> 00:50:13,064
same thing happens with ai right now building all these like products and all these like you know

722
00:50:13,064 --> 00:50:18,264
simple like sass and limitations are you know hundreds of million dollar like you know enterprises

723
00:50:18,264 --> 00:50:22,664
that don't necessarily have to be they don't have to charge such massive amounts now people can

724
00:50:22,664 --> 00:50:26,664
spin up their own competitors to all these massive SaaS products.

725
00:50:26,664 --> 00:50:29,804
And now that's a good thing for everyone.

726
00:50:29,804 --> 00:50:32,804
The costs go down for everyone as a result.

727
00:50:32,804 --> 00:50:48,006
And I do think that not even long short to mid we going to see a lot of economic boom that comes out of this Now that comes with a caveat and everyone waiting for this in the AI world Will enterprise actually pick up

728
00:50:48,006 --> 00:50:52,466
tooling that reflects a lot of these AI things, right?

729
00:50:52,906 --> 00:50:54,066
That's what everyone's waiting for

730
00:50:54,066 --> 00:50:55,506
in the meta of the AI world.

731
00:50:55,766 --> 00:50:58,146
And if enterprise is not able to pick up

732
00:50:58,146 --> 00:51:00,546
direct AI tooling to fund the AI bubble,

733
00:51:01,266 --> 00:51:02,986
then the bubble does pop.

734
00:51:03,486 --> 00:51:04,546
And we're going to have to wait

735
00:51:04,546 --> 00:51:10,126
for our electric drills a little bit a little bit longer but you know well dig into that a little

736
00:51:10,126 --> 00:51:16,066
further what do you mean by um enterprise figuring this out and getting the tooling right yeah so i

737
00:51:16,066 --> 00:51:21,686
mean okay so right now like the ai world's in a very specific spot we put a lot of money in to a

738
00:51:21,686 --> 00:51:25,026
lot of these like you know data farms and a lot of these server farms you know ramp prices through

739
00:51:25,026 --> 00:51:30,526
the roof and you know gpus are pretty much hard to like impossible to find all that stuff um the

740
00:51:30,526 --> 00:51:35,286
The thing is, you know, Microsoft and, you know, OpenAI and all these folks only have so much cash to burn on this stuff.

741
00:51:36,146 --> 00:51:43,586
And so they've been utilizing a lot of really interesting economic tools to fund a lot of these projects.

742
00:51:44,166 --> 00:51:51,946
A lot of these tools, I think the term I've heard from The Economist is they are economic innovations, which is, you know, always a great thing to hear.

743
00:51:51,946 --> 00:52:02,826
And so everyone's pretty sure that if these server farms don't work out, it's going to be a relatively big pop.

744
00:52:03,366 --> 00:52:08,986
And we've already seen a big pop in these huge hype-driven investments.

745
00:52:09,326 --> 00:52:10,446
Like EVs are a huge one.

746
00:52:10,606 --> 00:52:18,386
Regardless of how you feel about EVs, that project is kind of dead right now, mostly due to the death of government subsidies.

747
00:52:18,386 --> 00:52:24,326
and some companies, some manufacturers spent billions of dollars building battery plants in

748
00:52:24,326 --> 00:52:31,186
the US, billions of dollars that they're not going to get a good return on. Those same lenders are

749
00:52:31,186 --> 00:52:37,046
the ones backing the AI bubble as well, building a lot of these data farms. And so everyone's just

750
00:52:37,046 --> 00:52:42,426
kind of like waiting with bated breath in 2026. Does enterprise actually pick up the bill and

751
00:52:42,426 --> 00:52:48,766
start paying significant amounts for a lot of these AI tools. You know, people kind of feel like

752
00:52:48,766 --> 00:52:54,086
retail is tapped out for AI. And people are trying to figure out ways to monetize retail,

753
00:52:54,286 --> 00:52:57,886
you know, more so. I think like the tech enthusiasts are happy to pay the $200 a month,

754
00:52:58,266 --> 00:53:03,826
but most retailers are just happy with free ChatTBT. And if not free ChatTBT, free DeepSeek,

755
00:53:04,006 --> 00:53:10,186
you know, so ChatTBT is going to have to stay free. And so, yeah, right now, everyone's looking

756
00:53:10,186 --> 00:53:15,666
for what the next thing is. And, you know, the initial reports are, frankly, enterprise isn't

757
00:53:15,666 --> 00:53:20,226
getting that much value out of AI tooling. You know, if anything, they're actually losing money

758
00:53:20,226 --> 00:53:24,146
because AI tooling is kind of expensive for them. So we're going to have to see, like, you know,

759
00:53:24,206 --> 00:53:29,586
what can a lot of the big guys do to actually change this? And if some decisions that they do

760
00:53:29,586 --> 00:53:35,926
don't make that much sense, like implementing ads in ChatGPT or, you know, making it harder to use

761
00:53:35,926 --> 00:53:42,486
cloud code outside of cloud code it's due to this like large-scale macroeconomics thing they they do

762
00:53:42,486 --> 00:53:47,326
need the enterprise angle to pay off um and so that that that's what i mean by that spot you know

763
00:53:47,326 --> 00:53:51,966
there's a lot going on over there you know i i hope the bubble doesn't pop but it could

764
00:53:51,966 --> 00:53:58,286
no i mean as somebody's been using claude um pretty heavily over the last six months i look

765
00:53:58,286 --> 00:54:03,086
at my usage look at my bill and i'm like just like knowing how hard i've hammered it in some

766
00:54:03,086 --> 00:54:07,226
days, I'm like, I'm definitely not paying enough for this as being subsidized to some extent.

767
00:54:07,226 --> 00:54:15,566
And it's like, how long can that subsidization persist before the reality sets in and you don't

768
00:54:15,566 --> 00:54:24,686
have a deeper sort of investor pockets to dig into? Which is interesting. It's like, are we

769
00:54:24,686 --> 00:54:33,006
going to see a dot-com bubble like pop and sort of valley of despair for a few years and the market

770
00:54:33,006 --> 00:54:35,186
eventually figures it out between now and 2030.

771
00:54:35,406 --> 00:54:36,506
Like, okay, here's how to do it.

772
00:54:36,726 --> 00:54:39,626
And not only do it, but do it in a way where you can make money.

773
00:54:39,786 --> 00:54:43,806
It actually makes economic sense and consumers are paying for what they're consuming.

774
00:54:44,246 --> 00:54:49,186
And the producers of that product are actually making money because that's all it comes down

775
00:54:49,186 --> 00:54:49,246
to.

776
00:54:49,286 --> 00:54:50,786
You have to make money at the end of the day.

777
00:54:51,866 --> 00:55:01,786
But then you also have this existential geopolitical angle to it where it has been deemed existentially

778
00:55:01,786 --> 00:55:09,406
critical to the future of freedom in the digital age, America versus China. So you do have daddy,

779
00:55:09,506 --> 00:55:13,846
daddy, uncle Sam, who seems pretty motivated to step in and back it up as well.

780
00:55:15,126 --> 00:55:22,886
Oh yeah. Oh yeah. There's, I, it's, the only thing I know is that technology advancements

781
00:55:22,886 --> 00:55:28,566
always come in waves, right? There's, there's always a big one and the crashes, that's the

782
00:55:28,566 --> 00:55:29,786
Same thing happened with EVs.

783
00:55:30,266 --> 00:55:32,826
We're on, I think, the third or fourth waves of EVs.

784
00:55:32,886 --> 00:55:36,906
People forget there was a wave in the 80s during the oil crisis.

785
00:55:38,246 --> 00:55:43,046
There was a wave in the mid-2010s, and there was a recent wave that just crashed there.

786
00:55:44,266 --> 00:55:47,626
Now, the Ford Lightning is going to go and throw in a gas generator.

787
00:55:48,126 --> 00:55:49,026
That's about how that's going.

788
00:55:49,326 --> 00:55:51,406
I might buy it in complete transparency.

789
00:55:51,486 --> 00:55:52,086
I think that's awesome.

790
00:55:53,986 --> 00:55:55,826
Will AI have a crash?

791
00:55:55,826 --> 00:56:01,766
it would follow the pattern of every other technological advancement if it did yeah just

792
00:56:01,766 --> 00:56:08,386
using pure heuristics it it would make sense that it should at some point um bringing this back to

793
00:56:08,386 --> 00:56:15,546
bitcoin what um what are your thoughts on the current state of bitcoin both from a economic

794
00:56:15,546 --> 00:56:22,906
technical adoption standpoint and then uh the industry the state of the bitcoin industry um

795
00:56:22,906 --> 00:56:29,726
where it is right now where it could be 12 months from now particularly if uh magnolia takes off

796
00:56:29,726 --> 00:56:38,226
or a changing i don't know if you saw but uh optx hash has uh a bip now right which is interesting

797
00:56:38,226 --> 00:56:42,486
i think it came out like like an hour or two before i hopped on um so that's interesting

798
00:56:42,486 --> 00:56:48,006
um are like basically at the high level of bitcoin right you zoom out as much as possible

799
00:56:48,006 --> 00:56:53,166
So there's where is Bitcoin going at an enterprise level?

800
00:56:53,366 --> 00:56:55,626
Where is Bitcoin going at a legal level?

801
00:56:56,086 --> 00:56:59,026
And then where is Bitcoin going at a tech level, right?

802
00:57:00,126 --> 00:57:04,466
And when it comes to the enterprise plays, there have been some interesting plays over 2025.

803
00:57:05,746 --> 00:57:16,886
But by and large, the value of Bitcoin has always been the actual buy-sell price of Bitcoin.

804
00:57:17,726 --> 00:57:21,046
People are trying to take advantage of that in really interesting ways.

805
00:57:21,926 --> 00:57:27,626
Like MSTR, you know, has always been like, how do we acquire more of this on the bet that it's going to go up?

806
00:57:27,646 --> 00:57:32,546
And, you know, we're going to use all these different like devices to get that, you know, to get that going.

807
00:57:32,646 --> 00:57:35,966
Right. And I think Bitcoin treasury companies are always some version of that.

808
00:57:35,966 --> 00:57:40,646
Right. You know, I'm not trying to say if it's good or bad, but that's they're playing on the price of Bitcoin.

809
00:57:40,866 --> 00:57:44,206
And that seems to be like more of the enterprise play when it comes to Bitcoin.

810
00:57:44,786 --> 00:57:51,406
When it comes to the legal aspect of Bitcoin, it's pretty much just riding the coattails of the genius building the Clarity Act.

811
00:57:51,406 --> 00:57:59,146
I think all those conversations are about stablecoins, but Bitcoin just kind of follows along.

812
00:57:59,706 --> 00:58:06,606
It's just hanging out in the same conversation, but not the part that everyone's fighting this way or that way.

813
00:58:07,046 --> 00:58:13,526
People are fighting over the stablecoins and the yield from the stablecoins and what to do with that.

814
00:58:14,206 --> 00:58:22,486
And then when it comes to the tech side of Bitcoin, the thing is, Bitcoin has had a lot of tech improvements over the years.

815
00:58:23,206 --> 00:58:26,086
Almost none of them getting serious adoption, right?

816
00:58:26,166 --> 00:58:27,586
I mean, not just Lightning.

817
00:58:27,906 --> 00:58:31,506
Lightning, when I mean serious, I mean serious compared to Bitcoin, right?

818
00:58:32,146 --> 00:58:35,066
Lightning is there and has been awesome for a while.

819
00:58:35,066 --> 00:58:41,706
But now we've got Spark and ARK and a lot of other layer twos that are coming up.

820
00:58:41,706 --> 00:58:45,706
And, you know, those are all fine and do like interesting things.

821
00:58:46,346 --> 00:58:53,006
But then there's all these like other upgrades to Bitcoin coming along, like, you know, whether or not covenants come to Bitcoin, all these different questions.

822
00:58:53,126 --> 00:59:06,446
But the thing is, compared to the other two things I described, the enterprise and the legal changes that are in the Bitcoin space, all these tech innovations, they do seem smaller, right, significantly.

823
00:59:06,446 --> 00:59:13,886
And as a developer, right, that's my entire background, I would like to see those innovations be bigger and make more of a splash.

824
00:59:14,506 --> 00:59:17,686
But that's just not the part of Bitcoin people are really interested in, you know.

825
00:59:17,946 --> 00:59:30,486
So for Magnolia, I want to follow the things that like have much bigger splashes, you know, which to us seems to be tooling and services that have to do regarding with the price of Bitcoin.

826
00:59:30,886 --> 00:59:34,686
You know, like pragmatically, that's just the direction that everything is in.

827
00:59:34,686 --> 00:59:43,086
And so if there's a way we can use the price of Bitcoin to make other people money or to, you know, like convert precoiners in, that's where I think Magnolia wants to be.

828
00:59:43,586 --> 00:59:57,786
For these other projects, I want to support them the best I can because there might be like some way to, you know, have a really cool like lending protocol related to some of these things or a really cool like way to bridge gaps here with Lightning.

829
00:59:57,786 --> 01:00:01,986
We support Lightning at Magnolia and that lets us plug in things like ARK and maybe even Spark.

830
01:00:02,746 --> 01:00:04,106
And that's fantastic.

831
01:00:04,686 --> 01:00:12,046
But I think the future for 2026 is going to be a lot like really focused on these bigger folks right now.

832
01:00:12,426 --> 01:00:20,626
I think the thing that people haven't really talked about is that retail isn't pumping in Bitcoin and not even AI.

833
01:00:20,906 --> 01:00:23,226
You know, so I think people are feeling squeezed right now.

834
01:00:23,366 --> 01:00:25,826
But enterprises are out here and they're doing things.

835
01:00:26,346 --> 01:00:27,346
So that's where McDonald's got to be.

836
01:00:29,106 --> 01:00:34,106
Yeah, there's an order of operations to Bitcoin's long term success is something I've long said.

837
01:00:34,106 --> 01:00:38,446
I mean, expressed in other ways, like store value, medium exchange, unit of account, whatever it may be.

838
01:00:38,606 --> 01:00:45,146
It seems like we're still squarely in the early phase of adoption where it's monetizing.

839
01:00:45,646 --> 01:00:53,146
And like it or not, that is where a lot of the money is going to be made at this particular point in time and where a lot of the activity is.

840
01:00:53,246 --> 01:00:56,646
But to your point about the second layers to that, I'd be interested to get your thoughts on that.

841
01:00:56,726 --> 01:01:00,946
Like how much do you think people in the industry should even market them?

842
01:01:00,946 --> 01:01:07,906
So you think of Spark, Arc, Chami, Mintz, Liquid, these second layers.

843
01:01:07,906 --> 01:01:13,566
I think 2025 was the year, at least in my perspective, that people in the industry begin

844
01:01:13,566 --> 01:01:15,566
to realize, oh, all these things are interoperable.

845
01:01:15,566 --> 01:01:24,426
And if we can combine them in creative ways, we can eke out efficiencies and really improve

846
01:01:24,426 --> 01:01:28,526
our processes as a Bitcoin service provider.

847
01:01:28,526 --> 01:01:32,646
One thing that comes to mind is being able to automatically rebalance channels by combining

848
01:01:32,646 --> 01:01:36,546
ARK and Lightning.

849
01:01:36,546 --> 01:01:40,846
Obviously caveat, at scale you'll probably need covenants, but we're not at that point

850
01:01:40,846 --> 01:01:43,386
yet.

851
01:01:43,386 --> 01:01:48,086
Point being, the point that I'm trying to make is how much of these second layer technologies

852
01:01:48,086 --> 01:01:54,186
should even be marketed to the public and should they just be viewed as a backend infrastructure

853
01:01:54,186 --> 01:01:58,526
that app developers and product developers integrate and don't even

854
01:01:58,526 --> 01:02:04,286
don't even really market to the end user that that's what's happening in the back end.

855
01:02:05,286 --> 01:02:06,486
I think that's the second part.

856
01:02:07,106 --> 01:02:10,786
Like, well, like all this stuff is really complicated for even people in this space,

857
01:02:10,986 --> 01:02:13,646
you know, all these different like different protocol schemes.

858
01:02:13,906 --> 01:02:18,146
But to your point, it's it's becoming pretty interoperable, you know,

859
01:02:18,146 --> 01:02:23,426
and I think we're going to have like it's going to have its moment when there is a killer application

860
01:02:23,426 --> 01:02:30,326
somewhere in in this like whole you know ecosphere but all these different ecosystems work together

861
01:02:30,326 --> 01:02:34,626
quite effectively so let's say you know we partner with like arc for example and some of those

862
01:02:34,626 --> 01:02:39,286
partners with spark and both of them are trying to like interact with some application on like

863
01:02:39,286 --> 01:02:44,266
some layer two that is neither of those right but everyone has bridges we can all interact with the

864
01:02:44,266 --> 01:02:51,606
application uh just like quite fine right and i think that is a world like worth kind of like going

865
01:02:51,606 --> 01:02:56,566
for you know like if that explosion occurs everyone wins especially when it's interoperable

866
01:02:56,566 --> 01:03:03,186
um how soon will that well how soon will that it will take to get there i have no idea i think we're

867
01:03:03,186 --> 01:03:08,966
firmly past the era where there's like like a lot of you know frankly just like scam projects out

868
01:03:08,966 --> 01:03:13,946
there i think that the guys that are left are like probably pretty good at this point um i've

869
01:03:13,946 --> 01:03:17,926
been paying attention to i think like a couple days ago i checked in on a couple projects that

870
01:03:17,926 --> 01:03:23,766
I was always a little skeptical of just to see what they were up to. I hadn't heard about them.

871
01:03:23,966 --> 01:03:28,746
And I don't think they're doing super well, which is good to see that they're not going to get

872
01:03:28,746 --> 01:03:32,486
involved in any of our conversations. But that's a good thing because now I can kind of generally

873
01:03:32,486 --> 01:03:37,886
start to trust like, okay, we've weeded out a lot of folks from 2025. You guys are left. They're

874
01:03:37,886 --> 01:03:41,446
still building, they're launching, and they're doing things. Let's see what they come up with.

875
01:03:41,786 --> 01:03:45,726
And if they come up with something good, hopefully there's a way we can all bridge over there with

876
01:03:45,726 --> 01:03:50,606
minimal cost, you know, then everyone really wins out on, on one person's game.

877
01:03:50,846 --> 01:03:54,346
You know, I think that's like kind of the strategy other projects have really taken,

878
01:03:54,346 --> 01:03:59,006
uh, when they had like, you know, a lot of, uh, you know, different projects that needed

879
01:03:59,006 --> 01:04:00,386
to interact with each other for whatever reason.

880
01:04:00,606 --> 01:04:03,546
I think that was a winning strategy, you know, as long as it's all based on Bitcoin, I'm happy.

881
01:04:05,026 --> 01:04:05,386
Yeah.

882
01:04:06,706 --> 01:04:12,306
And considering where the price is too, I got actually, I get a, I get a bit of guilty

883
01:04:12,306 --> 01:04:13,906
pleasure out of the price consolidating.

884
01:04:13,906 --> 01:04:19,826
like it has some people freaking out and i think it's been a trope for at least uh as long as i've

885
01:04:19,826 --> 01:04:24,466
been in bitcoin like building happens in the bear markets not to say that this is a bear market like

886
01:04:24,466 --> 01:04:28,626
we've experienced in the past but it feels like that to many particularly many who are relatively

887
01:04:28,626 --> 01:04:37,186
new to bitcoin and if you just zoom out and look at all the progress that's been made whether that's

888
01:04:37,186 --> 01:04:43,106
uh in the business sector the industry being built on top of the protocol or the protocol and

889
01:04:43,106 --> 01:04:46,646
And the second layer protocol is being built on top of it.

890
01:04:46,746 --> 01:04:49,286
It's been pretty massive from my perspective.

891
01:04:49,926 --> 01:04:53,986
It's the signal in the sea of price noise that exists in my mind.

892
01:04:54,726 --> 01:04:58,726
Yeah, I think if you're someone who thinks that this is a bear market,

893
01:04:59,026 --> 01:05:00,406
then, you know, just don't worry.

894
01:05:00,546 --> 01:05:03,346
Like, you know, you'll lose that idea over time.

895
01:05:03,486 --> 01:05:06,426
Every now and then I like see a tweet like the price is down.

896
01:05:06,426 --> 01:05:10,466
And it's like actually higher the last time I knew the price.

897
01:05:10,466 --> 01:05:15,826
I've been in Bitcoin long enough to

898
01:05:15,826 --> 01:05:17,966
what even is the price right now? I have no idea.

899
01:05:18,646 --> 01:05:22,246
It's an 88. That's funny.

900
01:05:22,886 --> 01:05:26,126
I think the last time I saw it was an 86. I'm not too

901
01:05:26,126 --> 01:05:29,566
upset. 88. Lucky.

902
01:05:29,566 --> 01:05:33,706
Lucky number 88. This has been

903
01:05:33,706 --> 01:05:37,666
awesome. What parting thoughts, messages,

904
01:05:37,666 --> 01:05:41,446
ideas around Magnolia that we haven't touched on

905
01:05:41,446 --> 01:05:44,106
do you have for the freaks out there?

906
01:05:44,686 --> 01:05:47,386
Yeah, I mean, like, really, what we're trying to do is just make it easy

907
01:05:47,386 --> 01:05:51,866
to get banked, right? Like, to get you banked, to get your customers

908
01:05:51,866 --> 01:05:55,706
banked, so that you can just implement whatever interface you want, right?

909
01:05:55,766 --> 01:05:58,466
Like, you can go as far as creating a neobank if that's what you want to do

910
01:05:58,466 --> 01:06:03,586
with Magnolia. If you want just auto-pay, or even just auto-DCA,

911
01:06:03,806 --> 01:06:06,406
you can do that with Magnolia. Like, what we're trying to do here is just

912
01:06:06,406 --> 01:06:10,966
create as much financial tooling as possible for the builders. And if there's something that,

913
01:06:11,386 --> 01:06:16,126
you know, that you would like to see that you don't think we have, reach out, you know,

914
01:06:16,486 --> 01:06:20,846
maybe there's a way you can do it. We're, I'm a very customer first person, right?

915
01:06:21,506 --> 01:06:24,966
If people tell me they want to go to EU, we'll go to EU. We figured out a way to do it. People

916
01:06:24,966 --> 01:06:29,366
told us that they wanted to go to all 50 states, you know, and that's what they wanted to focus on.

917
01:06:29,366 --> 01:06:34,886
They don't want to focus on geofencing people from like Alaska, right? Or Indiana. So we figured

918
01:06:34,886 --> 01:06:39,686
got a way to do that you know um we're very like customer focused and i think that's that's really

919
01:06:39,686 --> 01:06:45,406
worked out for us and our launch is kind of based on what people have really wanted so you know if

920
01:06:45,406 --> 01:06:50,566
you're building something and you've got a customer base that you want to to like you know connect to

921
01:06:50,566 --> 01:06:55,546
tradrails for whatever reason reach out there's probably some way we can help you like genuinely

922
01:06:55,546 --> 01:07:01,846
i think all bitcoin apps can can utilize something like this um yeah and even even if uh you just

923
01:07:01,846 --> 01:07:05,206
like say hi also we love to just talk with people i love chatting with people bitcoin

924
01:07:05,206 --> 01:07:11,526
y'all are my people you know so i just love to talk oh yeah well thank you for your time today

925
01:07:11,526 --> 01:07:17,206
congrats on getting this over the line i know it's been a lot of a lot of hard work on your end in the

926
01:07:17,206 --> 01:07:23,286
in the uh end of your team there at magnolia so looking forward to seeing you guys really get out

927
01:07:23,286 --> 01:07:28,806
there and uh we'll have to do this at some point again in the future dude till next time man thank

928
01:07:28,806 --> 01:07:31,766
Thank you so much for having me on and I'll catch you when I see you.

929
01:07:32,446 --> 01:07:32,646
Peace.

930
01:07:33,266 --> 01:07:33,966
Peace and love, freaks.