0:03

It's amazing to me how blockchain

0:06

fundamentally solves so many

0:08

heavy problems and yet

0:11

so many blockchain creators make it

0:13

hard for the very people who

0:16

need those problems solved to use

0:18

it. Good

0:26

morning, good afternoon, good evening everyone. We're

0:28

now off into 2024. There's

0:31

a lot of action happening in crypto

0:33

land, a lot of action happening over

0:35

in the Bitcoin world, a lot

0:37

of action happening over even in

0:39

the non-crypto world with new hardware

0:41

stuff coming out. Actually, I haven't

0:44

even seen many crypto apps that

0:46

are utilizing the Apple Vision Pro.

0:48

I haven't really taken a deep dive into any

0:50

of hardware stuff, but actually we'll talk to our

0:52

guests a little bit about that. I'm

0:55

your host Charlie Schrem and you're listening and

0:57

watching another epic episode of the Charlie Schrem

0:59

show together for a very long time. Thank

1:01

you guys for coming in, leaving those reviews

1:03

together the past couple of days. I really

1:05

appreciate them. It helps the rankings, hitting that

1:07

subscribe button. It really, it helps so

1:09

much. And together we've been doing

1:11

this to understand how this movement truly came to

1:13

be, where we are right now. We tell stories

1:15

of the old days. We bring it back to

1:17

now, talk about where we expect things to go

1:19

in the future. And it's cool because if you

1:22

go listen to like every episode in the past

1:24

six years, you've noticed that everything that we talk

1:26

about comes true. All of the

1:28

waves happen. They end up landing every like

1:30

portion of our industry that we talk about

1:32

that's really small that nothing was really built

1:35

yet is now years later built out. Things

1:37

are happening. We're bringing these people back there.

1:39

Their companies have launched like, like it's just

1:41

cool to kind of be with you trailblazing

1:44

from behind this desk at the same time,

1:46

talking to some of the best, most smartest

1:48

people. Those are building out some of the

1:50

coolest things and it'll be a lot of

1:52

fun. So I'm really excited to introduce my

1:55

guest today. He's a good friend of

1:57

mine. We work together at our venture capital fund,

1:59

Drew Adventures. His name is Chris Jenkins, but

2:01

we all call him Jinx. Thanks, Jinx. Thank you

2:03

so much for coming on the show. Yeah,

2:05

awesome. I'm super excited to be here.

2:08

You're not only the general partner at Druid Ventures,

2:10

a lot of people don't

2:12

actually know what goes on behind

2:14

the scenes at a VC fund, like

2:17

the conversations about like off-fielding the

2:19

companies that are looking for investment. But

2:21

then once we like a project,

2:23

there's always things that we want to

2:25

fix and help. But you're also,

2:27

your other hat, other than working at

2:30

Druid, is you're the co-founder of

2:32

pocketpool.com. And PocketPool is a huge company

2:34

that supports the pocket ecosystem, node,

2:36

decentralized node infrastructure. You were

2:39

also the chief digital officer at

2:41

the Symphony Agency. You oversaw technical

2:43

and business development across all strategies

2:45

and clients. You were the

2:47

chief architect at Benefit Next. You

2:49

got your degree from Microsoft, and you've been

2:51

around the tech world for a very long

2:53

time, bringing your expertise and

2:55

experience. And I want to ask you... I

2:57

earned all this gray hair. Right? Yeah.

3:01

No, it's dye. Because I got gray hair too coming

3:03

in. I tell people I purposely make myself look older.

3:05

The question I want to ask you, though, one of

3:07

the most important pieces of crypto, and it's

3:09

one of the largest parts of the white

3:12

paper, the original Bitcoin white paper, is this

3:15

idea of like node infrastructure or

3:18

validator infrastructure. It's

3:20

like so important to decentralization. What I just said

3:22

went over the head of like half of my

3:24

listeners. Why is that so important?

3:27

What is that? Well, it's

3:29

funny. I think it was 2017 or so

3:31

I was looking around at the space and

3:33

they calculated at the time that more than

3:36

half of all blockchain infrastructure was sitting on

3:38

Amazon, which means that a

3:40

single person could have shut off

3:43

most of the blockchain services in the

3:45

world at the time. Even

3:47

as we started to get away from using

3:50

pure cloud services to host

3:52

blockchain nodes, we still had

3:54

centralized providers like Infura, who

3:57

when they went down, all of a sudden Ethereum

4:00

went down more or less because

4:02

so many people were reliant on

4:04

this centralized provider. And

4:06

so I think the first wave

4:08

where decentralization was really understood to

4:10

be so key was in the

4:12

original rise of Web3 back in,

4:14

you know, 20 and 21, as

4:17

people started to understand that it's

4:19

really absolutely critical that there

4:21

are people, individuals running physical

4:23

machines that are nodes on

4:26

these networks for them to

4:28

truly be unstoppable. You don't

4:30

get most of the benefits

4:32

of blockchain if you're on

4:34

a network or an infrastructure

4:36

that can just be taken down. It's

4:38

not just, though, like five people running 10,000

4:41

nodes each and voila, you have 50,000 nodes.

4:44

There's a lot more that goes into

4:46

it. It's geographical based. It's how do

4:48

you make sure that people running the

4:50

nodes are actual individual people, especially when

4:52

you don't want to start collecting centralized

4:54

documentation? Yeah, I mean,

4:56

that really comes down to the incentivization

4:59

design, right? You've got to make it

5:01

both easy and affordable and potentially profitable

5:03

to run nodes and profit can mean

5:05

different things to different people. I know

5:08

a lot of people who are running

5:10

like desktop small cap Ethereum nodes

5:13

just because they want to be able to

5:15

pull Ethereum data quickly from a local source

5:17

without having to pay a third party service

5:20

for it. That's certainly one way to do

5:22

that. But when we look at like pocket network,

5:24

which is the base

5:26

layer RPC provider in the decentralized

5:28

blockchain space, anyone who's running a

5:31

chain node supporting whatever chain that

5:33

they're on should probably also

5:35

be running a pocket node because that

5:37

then contributes to the decentralization of that

5:39

network. And they earn some pocket along

5:41

the way for doing it. How

5:44

did the pocket ecosystem start? Did it

5:46

start because of what you just said?

5:48

We had Michael actually on this show,

5:50

the founder of the pocket network. Oh

5:52

my god, I remember when I recorded

5:54

with him, I was in my recording

5:56

studio downtown Sarasota. So that must be

5:58

like at least free COVID.

6:01

Wow. I have a long... No, I

6:03

mean, I've been a part of Pocket since...

6:06

Michael and I started talking in early

6:08

2017. We did some

6:10

development work together. He was working

6:13

on Pocket at the time and was a

6:15

huge advocate for blockchain, but he

6:17

was entirely inspired by the fact that

6:19

seeing how much of the blockchain was

6:21

running on centralized cloud services. I think

6:23

it was the founder of Adam at

6:26

the time who had done the work

6:28

to discover how many nodes were sitting

6:30

on AWS, and it was just incredible.

6:34

And so, when Infura had their big

6:36

notable outage, which I think was maybe

6:38

2020, somewhere around then,

6:41

that really drove it home for

6:43

everyone that, hey, listen, all of

6:45

this so-called unstoppable blockchain

6:47

grinds to a halt if you

6:50

can't access data from it because

6:52

a single provider has gone down.

6:55

It's so antithetical to the mission

6:57

of blockchain and especially to the

6:59

mission of Bitcoin. If

7:02

we want to have this sort

7:04

of everyone bank, if we want

7:06

to have these everyone networks that

7:08

are always running that are uncensorable

7:10

and unstoppable, we have to participate

7:12

in that and participate in a

7:14

meaningful way. And platforms

7:17

and protocols like Pocket, I think, help

7:19

make that easy for everyone to participate.

7:21

I don't have a Bitcoin node in the other room,

7:23

but I don't earn anything from it. Pretty

7:26

much people who run Bitcoin specific nodes just do

7:28

it just to be part of that kind of

7:30

religious movement. Do you kind of think there would

7:32

ever be a way to incentivize Bitcoin nodes? It's

7:37

so hard to say because Bitcoin has come

7:39

so far since it started. Nobody

7:41

ever would have thought about ordinals and lightning

7:44

and all these sort of platforms and

7:48

sidechain type stuff being built

7:50

alongside Bitcoin. Mintlayers, another example

7:52

of that. I don't think

7:54

that Bitcoin itself will necessarily

7:56

have that sort of built-in

7:58

node running incentivization. given that

8:00

the proof of work structure makes it that

8:03

you're really trying to compete from a Terahash

8:06

perspective. But if we look at all of

8:08

the other options that are building up around

8:10

it, I can certainly see a healthy economy

8:12

in supporting node running, while also running something

8:14

that's related to it, a side chain, a

8:16

layer two, something like that. So I can

8:19

see how like from a, I always look

8:21

from like an attack perspective, that's how they

8:23

used to attack chains. Like there was a

8:25

website called like 51percentattack.com. I don't

8:27

know if it's still around. And

8:30

you can see the cost of like taking over these

8:32

chains, taking over like all the nodes, or if it's

8:34

like a mining blockchain, or if it's a proof of

8:36

stake blockchain, like however it is. So does

8:39

having a better node infrastructure prevent

8:41

something like that from happening? Like

8:43

what type of attacks are you

8:45

preventing? Oh yeah,

8:47

I mean, gosh, you've been

8:49

around Bitcoin long enough that you remember

8:51

I'm sure that a state

8:53

actor, which I won't specifically reference here,

8:56

did basically for several hours achieve

8:58

a 51% consensus on the

9:01

Bitcoin network. And it was like, I think

9:03

that was terrifying for a lot of Bitcoin

9:05

originalists that, you know, everybody's like, oh, it

9:07

would be too expensive. It would be this,

9:09

it would be that. But then you have

9:11

to think about entities as large as national

9:13

governments and the kind of resources they have

9:15

to bear. And blockchain itself

9:18

is specifically supposed to solve some

9:20

of these issues, but without adequate

9:22

decentralization, that doesn't happen. So

9:25

everybody who is participating in

9:28

an infrastructure project like

9:30

Pocket is also running nodes on

9:32

that chain. That's how they connect

9:34

the Pocket network to that chain

9:37

specifically. And the more nodes

9:39

that are on a network, the harder

9:41

it becomes to gain, you know, attack

9:43

power on that network. Look at

9:45

how far Bitcoin's come in total

9:47

nodes since that timeframe. It's become

9:49

a lot more defensible at this

9:51

point. In fact, I would venture

9:53

to say, If

9:56

not unattackable, close to that with the

9:58

amount of nodes and the. Distribution of

10:00

know you mentioned a geographic distribution. That's

10:02

another he only part of the equation.

10:05

It's gotta be spread out around the

10:07

world. And that also comes into

10:09

performance right? You don't want to be. We're

10:11

using a of bitcoin node in Los Angeles.

10:13

If you're in Singapore, you know you need

10:15

local in grass and eat grass. I.

10:18

Wish I knew back in like twenty

10:20

sixteen because twenty sistine even because there

10:22

were the the block size war that

10:24

was happening is it was really bad

10:26

like that's why you got bitcoin cash

10:28

in bitcoins at oh she's is in and

10:31

that whole like C S W thing

10:33

of the sake toshi coming in and

10:35

claiming is that O Sea and Via

10:37

was a spin off his own that

10:39

the he was able to take advantage

10:41

of a of of a war that

10:43

was already happening within the bitcoin community

10:45

over like increasing the block size and I

10:47

was a knee because. It's not

10:49

that it was so black and white

10:51

it wasn't but you couldn't find people

10:53

to properly explain the problem and then

10:55

everyone who can explain the problem was

10:57

always run, explains their version of a

10:59

solution and it was so polarizing. And.

11:02

It was such a like to raise the block size or

11:04

not but they are so many. Sessions.

11:06

Of people that wanted different things. When.

11:08

It came down to is that as you

11:11

allow for a larger block size without doing

11:13

it in an optimizing way, we are lowering

11:15

the the weight that it takes up on

11:17

the on the data file as you will.

11:20

If. You raise the block size you

11:22

make nodes has to be more expensive

11:24

and better computers and therefore you'll have

11:26

less nodes and therefore more centralization on

11:29

a block chain. Whereas if you keep

11:31

the nodes and are they would say

11:33

like oh right we need to make

11:35

the bitcoin node run on a raspberry

11:37

Pi. That was like the whole thing.

11:40

Is. Only like two sons, all that shit

11:42

like what went on the says. Yeah.

11:46

I mean, it's you know that the best bet

11:48

they're really there is a lot of truth to

11:50

that we've seen. you know, as as. appeared

11:52

one of the funniest stories above maya

11:55

block chain career around twenty fifteen or

11:57

so i was still work working from

11:59

home, working on the first startup that

12:01

I actually got some success in. And

12:04

I had a work computer and I

12:06

was looking at Bitcoin mining, and I

12:08

installed a miner. And I

12:10

was like, Hey, I want to play with this,

12:12

we'll spin it up and see what happens. And

12:14

so I started it and the fan on my

12:17

machine started going nuts. It was like whining at

12:19

max RPMs. And I'm like, Whoa, whoa, whoa, whoa,

12:21

whoa, this is my work machine. I don't know

12:23

what this thing is doing here. I'm not trying

12:25

to get into all that. And

12:27

the next day I found Dogecoin

12:29

and install their little thing. And it

12:31

didn't seem to be taxing my computer at

12:34

all. So I was like, Whoo, this is

12:36

so fun. And I ended up mining like

12:38

a significant number of Dogecoin over the years

12:40

that I was running it. But then

12:43

I looked at what that would have been

12:45

if I'd really just left that Bitcoin

12:47

miner running the complexity factor

12:50

or the difficulty factor in solving

12:52

Bitcoin hashes, right? Is something that

12:54

you know, is sort of a

12:56

built in protection over time that

12:58

the more people participating in the network, the

13:00

higher that level of complexity gets and the

13:03

harder it is to win the race, so

13:05

to speak, the rotating L1

13:07

thesis that Chainlink God wrote talked about

13:09

this problem quite a bit. Every

13:12

new L1 that's coming into the space

13:14

is coming into the space offering speed

13:16

and ease of use and

13:19

less resource usage and all the rest

13:21

of that. But it's because they don't

13:23

have much data in their chain. And

13:25

over time, as usage increases, and network

13:28

congestion begins to form and the amount

13:30

of data that has to be synced

13:32

in this distributed ledger, that all builds

13:35

up, they become just as every

13:37

single one. Yeah, well, as other L1s.

13:39

And so every single one,

13:41

like that's just the thing, right? And

13:43

so it really takes a fundamental change

13:45

of architecture to get around these problems.

13:48

That's why we have roll ups now,

13:50

for instance, we Used to joke about

13:52

speed running Bitcoin Shopping for double and triple

13:54

spend attacks at the mall way back in

13:56

the day, right? Because you needed 10. many

14:00

verifications or or six terminator of patients

14:02

the other way around but essentially an

14:04

hour before the transaction was fully settled

14:07

right? And so the question

14:09

was, if all the stores in the

14:11

mall accepted Bitcoin, How many source can

14:13

I hit and spend the same bitcoin

14:16

before my first transaction was fully settle,

14:18

right? All I need was different points

14:20

of sale within a runabout distance. And.

14:23

Now we've seen that with architecture

14:25

solutions, lightning and and other you

14:27

know side chain or or layer

14:29

to tie products were able to

14:31

do some of the work that's

14:33

required in a faster way. While.

14:36

Benzene doing that. rolled up data

14:38

to the parent chain in it's

14:40

normal cycling timeframe. So I mean

14:42

these are these are architectural problems

14:44

that that aren't really solvable within

14:47

the the same core protocol in

14:49

Harrow On Moving made a point

14:51

them for is that possible? Roll

14:53

it up into the zebra. Yeah.

14:56

I mean, that's when things are Pocket Network

14:58

Somebody was asking. you know, because it normally

15:00

takes other. The pocket network takes about fifteen

15:03

minutes for each block, right? and system. He

15:05

was asking me like man, it's a fifteen

15:07

minutes for any transaction do occur. how's it

15:09

going to be useful than Rpc Network? While

15:12

I mean tens of to hundreds of thousands

15:14

of transactions are occurring within that fifteen minutes.

15:16

Just. Sit this one role on block

15:18

at the end of each cycle which

15:21

directs them all up and and indexes

15:23

them. That's what people kind of need

15:25

to understand. To with that is that

15:27

there is that. Like you know, a

15:29

lot of wallets choose to not so

15:31

incoming unconfirmed transactions for that purpose. But

15:33

if. You're hot wallet Santana showed like a

15:35

pending transactions or like there was some roll

15:37

up mechanism to prevents in a you could

15:39

solve the double spending problem my their lot

15:41

of people are trying to do and it's

15:44

it's kind of cool that you we talked

15:46

about. All. these different block chains

15:48

like going out there and and

15:50

playing around and having their little

15:52

science experiments and like becoming more

15:54

efficient and then we talked about

15:56

bitcoin and some the other older

15:58

chains like using those learning technologies

16:00

and adopting them. And that's really what happens in

16:02

the end of the day. You know, we talk

16:05

all the time and I have

16:07

a lot of Bitcoin maxi friends,

16:09

love to them, but I do

16:11

think that it's kind of a

16:13

narrow perspective to not allow for

16:16

the fact that blockchain is a

16:18

massive, massive space that benefits from

16:20

competition and innovation and differing architectural

16:22

approaches and all the rest of

16:24

this, and that all eventually makes

16:26

its way back to the big

16:29

daddy. Right. Bitcoin always is going

16:31

to be the driver in the blockchain market.

16:33

When it goes up, other things go up.

16:35

When it goes down, everything goes

16:37

down. Right. That is the grandfather

16:39

in the space. But if

16:42

we only ever worked in the

16:44

Bitcoin space, we wouldn't have transformable

16:46

encrypted data right now. We wouldn't

16:49

have the ability to do

16:51

lightning fast transactions on the Bitcoin network

16:53

right now. When we talk about Bitcoin

16:55

as money, right? It needs to be

16:57

able to act like money and money

16:59

doesn't take an hour to settle. Money

17:02

shouldn't take an hour to settle. It's

17:04

such an interesting thing how like data

17:06

and money, it's all changed. We were

17:08

talking earlier, you and I on our

17:10

Zoom with the rest of the fund

17:12

that it's crazy how like some of

17:14

these kids that are pitching us, their

17:16

companies have never lived through like the

17:18

great financial crisis, like where, you know,

17:20

paper trading fell apart. And so that's

17:22

why when you're doing crypto stuff, we're

17:24

being very cognizant of making sure there's

17:26

no like double proliferation of assets or

17:28

like we're rehypothecating stuff that we're not,

17:30

but a lot of it's, it's definitely

17:32

like without those lessons that you go through,

17:34

I don't know how, you know, I always

17:36

joke out this country needs like some

17:39

sort of national service or something. I don't

17:41

know what it doesn't have to be like

17:43

army or military related, but like service to

17:45

the country or something like go work in

17:47

a national forest. Yeah. I mean, if I'm

17:49

okay with those kinds of things, but you

17:51

know, the country actually

17:53

needs a dedicated blockchain department

17:55

to encourage this kind of

17:57

stuff. I mean, blockchain itself.

18:00

And not even blockchain, DLT, distributed

18:02

ledger technology. Yeah, I'm surprised we don't have one. Right.

18:05

At the federal level. Right. Because

18:07

it solves so many issues, right? And

18:10

I wonder sometimes, you know, how many

18:12

people benefit from blockchain being treated as

18:14

though it's something that should be illegal.

18:16

Yeah. When, you know, if

18:18

you're concerned about money laundering, look

18:20

at what chain analyst and

18:22

Zach XBT and some of these other

18:25

guys were able to do with tracking

18:27

down stolen funds in blockchain, right? Yeah.

18:30

You cannot get around a public

18:32

transaction record. It's funny that you

18:34

bring that up and it gives me opportunity to give some

18:36

props here to our local Florida

18:39

Blockchain Business Association, the FPBA. You know,

18:41

the guy Sam Arms, he's the founder

18:43

and a lot of our portfolio companies

18:45

are members of it. Let

18:47

me tell you what he did. You brought up something that

18:50

he did. It's so brilliant. He got, he's so

18:52

forward thinking when it comes to politics.

18:54

He got the governor to create a

18:56

blockchain like board advisory board, kind of

18:58

like what you're talking about, not on

19:00

the federal level, on the state level

19:02

here in Florida. He knowing full well that

19:04

the governor's office will just appoint like

19:06

lackeys that don't really like black. He

19:08

knew that and he knew that they

19:10

were going to come out with a

19:12

report, which they did saying that blockchain

19:14

was going to have nothing that has going

19:16

to have no help. But what he

19:18

realized, he's like, Charlie, now that that

19:20

office is established and it doesn't cost

19:22

the state anything, people will cycle in and

19:25

out of those roles. It's just

19:27

creating that first kind of flywheel effect. I'd

19:30

love to have that. Yeah, sometimes I mean,

19:32

we talked about this the other day with

19:34

with buying cars, right? For anybody who doesn't

19:36

know, never, ever, ever buy the first model

19:38

year of any vehicle. They've got to work

19:40

out all the bugs, right? But

19:42

the fact that that first year of the

19:45

model exists means that now you

19:47

have access to this kind of thing. Cybertruck is

19:49

probably a great example of that. And

19:51

opening up any bureaucracy, it never

19:55

gets smaller, right? It only maintains

19:57

its size or grows. So now

19:59

that this blockchain office

20:01

exists, it's probably going

20:03

to be there forever. And eventually, at

20:06

some point in time, somebody who has

20:08

come up into the political arena, who's

20:10

been around long enough to understand blockchain

20:12

and cryptocurrencies and how it all works,

20:14

is going to sit in that chair.

20:17

And when it does, we'll probably see

20:19

some useful legislation get developed around it.

20:23

You work with a lot of

20:25

companies helping them on their consumer-facing

20:27

presence, whether it's their product

20:30

and how they sell it to their

20:32

customers or their website. Is there any

20:34

common denominator thing? A lot of listeners

20:36

of the show have their own small

20:38

crypto businesses are doing something

20:40

like a side hustle. They're

20:42

earning money. I will say that most

20:44

of the listeners are earning money in

20:47

crypto somehow, holding, earning, working in it.

20:49

They're doing something related. Do you see

20:51

any common denominator, any tips you

20:54

can give or advice? Web2,

20:56

SaaS companies in particular, have

20:58

spent the last couple

21:01

of decades learning how to optimize

21:03

for user experience. And

21:05

the way that that works is this, I identify

21:07

who my user is in detail, not

21:10

some generic demographic, white guy 42,

21:12

whatever. Like

21:14

literally, okay, Jinx is a general

21:16

partner at a venture capital fund

21:18

that focuses on blockchain. What are

21:20

the problems that he faces? And

21:23

then I look at what I'm offering and

21:25

how what I'm offering solves that problem. And

21:27

I need to draw a map between those

21:30

two things, right? The user

21:32

that I want and the solution that I'm

21:34

offering and how to get them to convert

21:36

into that sale. And that map

21:38

should be as short a step

21:41

as possible from A to B.

21:44

Let me show up immediately understand

21:46

what you're offering in the clearest

21:48

way possible. Limit the buzzwords,

21:50

limit the jargon, limit all the rest of

21:53

that, make it dead easy for me

21:55

to understand the solution that you're offering

21:58

and more importantly, to buy that solution.

22:01

One of the jokes that we had running in

22:03

the blockchain space for a while is, oh, yeah,

22:05

this is easy. So you just

22:07

convert frog token to ST frog,

22:09

and then you stake it over

22:12

here on the Barker platform, and

22:14

then you draw a collateralized token

22:16

from like, no, you know, if

22:18

your thing takes 12 steps,

22:20

that's 11 too many. It's

22:24

so true. It's so true. It's like, and a lot

22:26

of the times too, you know, I'm thinking about a

22:28

good idea. And then I end up asking myself, am

22:30

I creating a problem? Or is this a real problem

22:33

that I'm solving? And like, most of them, I'm like

22:35

creating a problem just because I want to start it.

22:37

It's amazing to me how blockchain

22:39

fundamentally solves so many

22:42

heavy problems. And yet,

22:44

so many blockchain creators make it

22:47

hard for the very people who

22:49

need those problems solved to use

22:51

it. That's

22:53

how I'm starting the show right there. That's like the tag,

22:56

like, that's going to be

22:59

the hook to make people listen. That's our lead in

23:01

Caesar. It's so true. No,

23:03

it's getting better and it's changing. Unfortunately,

23:05

we need bear markets to learn this

23:08

shit. Yeah, it's funny how in the

23:10

exuberance of a bull run, you know,

23:12

anything that produces a block every 10

23:14

minutes or so can get $10 million

23:16

in funding. But it's my

23:19

new block blockchain

23:23

powered bidet, right? Every time

23:25

it cleans my assets, 10

23:28

million in funding, that should be our slogan.

23:31

But you know, the bear markets are really where

23:33

the meat hits the frying

23:35

pan, right? You either make bacon or

23:37

you don't. That's a necessary stage, I

23:39

think, to flush out all the stuff

23:41

that shouldn't be there and to see

23:43

what the market really needs. And if

23:46

you're building a blockchain powered project right

23:48

now, especially in the consumer

23:50

facing deep in segment, you're

23:52

trying to onboard normies. And

23:54

you need to understand that it needs

23:56

to be normies simple. What are

23:59

your thoughts? on the Apple Vision Pro, is

24:01

it more of the same or is

24:04

it like the watershed moment next level?

24:07

We used to joke back in the day

24:09

that, you know, you could invent anything, but

24:11

until Apple released a knockoff of it, it

24:13

wasn't gonna be popular. So far

24:15

to date, that has always proven true. I

24:17

was a Google Glass user back in 2011

24:19

or 2013, I

24:22

guess, in that region. And we were, you

24:24

know, experimenting. A lot of people don't seem

24:26

to understand that, you know, that was a

24:28

prototype program, not a retail product. I

24:31

actually ended up getting three different versions of the device while

24:33

I was in that program. That's what you were paying for,

24:35

was access to the program. I remember it was like

24:37

a development program. And it was just a

24:40

total moonshot. They were asking the question, if

24:42

we allowed people to do computing from a

24:44

facial heads up perspective, what would be the

24:46

use case of that, right? And in the

24:49

last 10 years, we've seen a number of

24:51

attempts at it. I've looked at

24:53

and used a number of those products along the way.

24:56

Apple now is taking a stab at

24:58

that marketplace. And with their engineering cache

25:01

and their marketing prowess and

25:03

all the rest of those things, I

25:05

think we will hit a wider adoption,

25:07

probably the widest adoption that we've seen

25:09

since the Oculus Rift came out, right?

25:11

And again, though, this is their first

25:13

model year, I would recommend waiting for

25:16

year two or year three, unless you're

25:18

a leading edge adopter. No, it'll get

25:20

cheaper and smaller and better. Right,

25:23

longer battery life. That's how it always works, right?

25:25

Let a product get a little mature, then jump

25:27

in, unless you're a gadget nerd and you just

25:29

want to be first out of the on the

25:32

block. I don't think that

25:34

we're there yet in AR, MR, spatial

25:36

computing, whatever they want to call it.

25:38

I do think that battery life needs

25:40

to get better. CPU and

25:42

GPU power needs to get

25:44

more micro in size total.

25:47

And this comes from somebody who has

25:49

been an AR fanatic since it was

25:51

a thing in science fiction. I'm excited

25:54

about these products, but I

25:56

Don't think we're quite there yet. Yeah, I

25:58

Don't understand why for them. They're artists.

26:00

Spatial computing I saw can get

26:02

my roomba to just say in

26:04

one room. The. Little a laser things

26:07

to his own clergy worse oh god I

26:09

have to a woman and I have exactly

26:11

the same problems and by the way room

26:13

bus create a web app leave i can't

26:16

draw maps on my phone this the him

26:18

and rumors now that thought that most that

26:20

mobile lawn and I could just see them

26:22

like a thrilling also people seem of nine

26:25

hundred and one in every time you know

26:27

it's going to be which is as a

26:29

for coming other Saturday I really appreciate absolutely

26:32

no other. So love love your work and

26:34

and everything that you've been working. With years

26:36

you're one of those pieces of or are

26:38

Bitcoin history. We.

26:41

Have a lot of fun. That's the best part

26:43

I will said last year and a half has

26:46

this been like just like I really say they

26:48

have fun going to work it's a lot of

26:50

fun. I don't like ever not look forward to

26:52

any of our zooms is it's a good time

26:55

the matter what we're doing the a boring conversation

26:57

as as I haven't done as a sort of

26:59

found an operator prior to being here it's It's

27:01

really nice being on the side of the table

27:04

and being able to directly contribute to the next

27:06

generation of start ups coming down and and going

27:08

You've got a great idea. You deserve a solid

27:10

make it happen. Or not have

27:12

a great weekends. Forgot. About

27:14

Oxford. Adam,

27:21

crazy conversations and last couple days my

27:23

really different brand and Goldman who runs

27:25

a at an Ai defense fund to

27:27

like investing tens of millions of dollars

27:29

into a I Defense to prevent a

27:31

D I in preventing things from becoming

27:33

to centrist. He knows that I'm investing

27:35

a juror adventures all the time and

27:38

he said charlie just promise me every

27:40

investment you make in Crypto in A

27:42

I Wear any project you look at

27:44

or or anything you do just make

27:46

sure you're trying to benefit the user

27:48

and not the Ai. is

27:50

gonna need to be private public government

27:52

companies satellites free tools like proof of

27:54

human prison brain like how do you

27:56

know that you're taught to zoom in

27:58

on the other side How do

28:01

you know that the software isn't lying?

28:03

There's another company today that I was

28:05

talking to that's trying to build out

28:07

basically like crypto containers, if you will,

28:09

where all the code is kept, you

28:11

know, privately on your own server. But

28:13

if you need to give access to

28:15

it, it's a very complicated type of

28:17

public private key technology that can be

28:19

used. Anyways, I'm digressing. I'm

28:21

really excited to introduce my guest today,

28:23

Dr. Danny Lim. Dr. Lim, I apologize.

28:26

I ramble off for a few minutes, but thanks for coming

28:28

on the show. Yeah,

28:31

thanks, Charlie. Yeah, thanks. It's been a crazy couple of

28:33

days. My head has been so deep in AI defense.

28:35

I mean, what do you think about all that? Do

28:37

you think it's something we should care about? Yeah,

28:40

definitely. AI is a trend like

28:43

recently the Sora, the publications of

28:45

Sora. I think it's amazing.

28:47

Like finally someone can use it.

28:49

And I guess there are a

28:51

lot of job cutting of Hollywood

28:53

because I think it's a dilemma or

28:56

rather an issue that we should actually look

28:58

into, right? How can we protect our interests

29:00

or rather our privacy with AI? I

29:04

think I read something yesterday saying that

29:06

the big model of AI, we

29:08

need to keep feeding them data. So

29:10

for a website, there is a robot act,

29:13

but actually, the

29:15

basic rules saying that I don't want

29:17

your robot to take my data

29:20

from my website. But AI right now, since

29:22

I did just don't care about this rules

29:24

and then, you know, just spider just all

29:26

of whatever they want to do to feed

29:28

the big model. I am

29:30

seeing that actually AI or rather

29:33

the machine learning stuff, I

29:35

try to overcome the systems

29:37

or rather the truth, the

29:39

custom that we set. So that might

29:41

be an issue in the future. How

29:44

do you prove that a user and

29:46

there's no answer to this, but

29:48

how do you believe that whatever

29:50

on the Internet is not an AI,

29:52

but a user itself? Because what's happening

29:54

is they're creating viruses that just emulate

29:57

what a user would do. could

30:00

do that really well. And if

30:02

you can't differentiate between a regular

30:05

person and, you know, someone who

30:07

shouldn't be there on a network, then

30:09

I mean, you're shit out of luck. You're

30:11

talking about the AI, it can hide itself

30:13

anywhere. I mean, but I don't want, I

30:15

don't want to talk about that today, to

30:17

be honest. That's just what's in my head.

30:19

I want to talk about some other stuff.

30:21

You are the founder and CEO of MarginX,

30:24

really cool perpetual DeFi company. I know we're

30:26

going to talk about the Bitcoin ETF

30:28

impact in Asia. I'm really curious, you're

30:30

Singapore based, you're talking about how token

30:32

2049 is

30:34

like basically one of the largest, you

30:36

know, culmination of like people coming into

30:39

one place in Singapore. What

30:41

is MarginX? What do you guys do? Right.

30:43

So MarginX is a perpetual deck.

30:46

So what we did is a

30:48

bit different. We actually,

30:50

this protocol or rather this freedom

30:52

call, hello, automated

30:54

limit order book. So

30:57

basically users just provide liquidity.

31:00

Then we will just like Airman,

31:02

so we will populate the orders

31:04

according to the XY equals to

31:06

K equation. So users can

31:08

trade the perpetual just like Airman,

31:10

but without the market maker. So,

31:12

but it's an limit order book

31:14

systems itself or swap. So

31:17

this is what we did. So we actually

31:19

make the so-called the order book or rather

31:21

the perpetual order book become so

31:23

easy that not even the

31:25

middleman market maker needs to come in

31:28

to provide liquidity. How do

31:30

you not need to have a market maker?

31:32

We just had on a previous episode, talk

31:34

about market makers. Do you think there's no

31:36

need for them or they would adopt the

31:38

software? The Airman

31:40

X, Y equals to K. So

31:42

we actually modify this equation. Then

31:44

we put in some funding rates

31:46

because the current Airman model, they

31:48

only cater for spot trading, not

31:50

perpetual. So we actually

31:52

modify this algorithm, make it even

31:54

as far that order book without

31:57

the interference of market maker, the

31:59

order book. will be populated by

32:01

the algorithm itself, just like the current

32:03

and then start with the

32:05

funding rate equation and the liquidation

32:08

equation. Do

32:10

you foresee any regulatory challenges in the

32:12

future in the U.S.? I

32:15

think we need to differentiate what they are

32:17

actually looking at. So if we are looking

32:20

at the tax thing, I think, I mean,

32:22

there will definitely come in. But

32:25

if we make it more like a,

32:27

I mean, from a trading perspective, so

32:29

if we make it like just an

32:31

M.M. model or even with the decentralized

32:33

features and elements in it, just like

32:35

Bitcoin. So I think for that

32:37

particular point, we are good to go. But

32:40

for the tax side, as in the protocol,

32:42

we make money and then it's a decentralized

32:44

protocol. We will set on

32:46

some IP barriers issue, like 100% guarantee

32:48

that there will be no U.S. users will be

32:50

coming in. So I think that there will be

32:52

some issues along the line. Okay.

32:56

Yeah, I mean, you could do your best and

32:58

you have to do your best. I'm

33:00

sure you would like to see some good U.S.

33:02

regulations come out that allow you to accept U.S.

33:04

users, but that's what's just going to happen in

33:06

the short term. Right. Right.

33:10

Like if we're about to enter a bull market or we are in one,

33:13

how is, no, not yet? I

33:15

mean, I'm not a neutral. We

33:17

run a decentralized protocol. And

33:19

then for us, when it's the bull market,

33:21

then we see the trading volume will go

33:23

up, which we are actually happy. We

33:26

are seeing more users and more trading

33:28

volume and then there will be more

33:30

interest in decentralized protocol. Is

33:33

that happening now? Yeah, yeah. We

33:35

are seeing the trading volume is,

33:38

compared with our performance six months ago,

33:40

obviously, we are doing pretty good. I

33:42

mean, this is an uptrend, I would

33:44

say. But are we

33:47

seeing that we are at the bottom of

33:49

the bull market or rather the big market?

33:52

I can't really sure that as in

33:54

there are so many factors we haven't

33:56

actually factor in halving is one than

33:59

the Fed. rate reduce and then I

34:01

mean there are so many things. There's

34:03

so many things. Yeah, there's a suggestion.

34:05

Elections, regulations. Right, right. So,

34:07

so this year, I mean, US elections

34:10

will be I think on November, December,

34:12

and then the current elections

34:14

will be coming as well. So I think

34:16

yesterday or the day before yesterday, both

34:19

opposing party and the current running

34:21

party, they actually sort of like

34:23

giving out a new policy that

34:26

is in favor of cryptocurrencies. So

34:28

even in Asia, like Korea, also

34:30

looking at how to regulate cryptocurrencies.

34:33

So not only US and not

34:35

only Singapore, I mean, everything is

34:37

just moving to that good direction.

34:39

Like, you know, we are seeing

34:41

Bitcoin or rather cryptocurrency as the

34:43

currencies or the asset, and

34:45

they want to regulate it. And

34:48

once the stock is open, I think more

34:50

and more traditional trade fine money to come

34:52

in and yeah, who knows what's going to

34:54

happen, right? You're

34:56

right. It seems so like

34:59

do you think the Bitcoin ETF was

35:01

that moment that needed to happen in order

35:03

for all these things to come forward positive?

35:06

Yes, I agree. So I think

35:08

the Bitcoin ETF is something like

35:10

the judgments that the verdict from

35:12

the court, the pressure from those

35:14

big guys, you know, a backdrop

35:16

and then yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah,

35:20

I mean, the judgments

35:22

of like in favor

35:24

of cryptocurrencies and I

35:26

think Gary Gessler, the channel of

35:28

SEC, when I read this, the image

35:30

is like, I have no choice but to

35:33

vote yet for the Bitcoin ETF. I

35:35

really just there and then the market is

35:37

so, you know, looking for the alternative. So

35:39

we can keep seeing, yeah, I keep seeing

35:41

the net inflow of Bitcoin, right? Just crazy.

35:44

Do you, though, he really didn't

35:47

want to approve the Bitcoin ETF. You're

35:49

still right. So the question I have

35:51

is like, when does bull market continues

35:53

to grow and rev up and snowball

35:55

effect? How will trading be different

35:57

this time than it was like in 20. 21

36:00

from a token holder perspective, like how are things

36:02

different? Okay, obviously, it's

36:05

the money. Normally,

36:07

when we trade Bitcoin, or

36:09

rather without our era, without

36:12

ETFs, we can't see the

36:14

trade-by monies coming because of

36:16

their mandate. On

36:18

their mandate, the fund mandate, they

36:20

can say, okay, we can only

36:23

go through the asset class

36:25

that approved by SEC.

36:27

So this time, ETFs is something

36:29

that approved by SEC. So the

36:31

trade-by monies ought to really come

36:34

in. And then secondly, obviously,

36:36

the regulation. So before,

36:39

or rather, on 2021,

36:41

the KYC, or

36:43

rather the money laundering regulations for

36:45

the implementation, it's not there yet,

36:47

I would say. So if you

36:49

go to Coinbase right now, they

36:51

will ask you if you want

36:53

to transfer your funds from address

36:55

A or from Coinbase to address

36:57

A, then they will ask

36:59

you to fill in the whitelisting

37:01

even though because there's the travel

37:03

rules implementation. After the travel

37:06

implementation of KYC, then I think the next

37:08

thing very soon will be tax, will be

37:10

the in-time tax. So

37:13

this time, I think what

37:15

really happens is not only

37:17

the funds, the way we're going

37:19

to interact, or we're going to buy

37:21

and trade a sale of cryptocurrencies, but

37:23

also the regulations, the tax. So before,

37:25

I think on the next, if you

37:28

happen to see on offshore exchanges, you

37:30

will see quite a bad

37:32

bit of watch trading, like people spoofing you

37:34

the trade and then try to manipulate the

37:37

market. I think on this stage,

37:40

after three or four years, regulations

37:42

been implemented, all these rules and

37:44

that, I think the so-called the

37:46

environment cleaner as well. There's

37:49

a lot of talk about decentralized prediction

37:51

information, kind of like it's a big

37:53

thing, deepens. Can you kind of like

37:55

unpack that for my listeners? Right, right.

37:57

We first do want to, you know.

38:00

Like here more about what

38:02

does it even mean? Okay deep in I think

38:05

it's a decentralized Physical infrastructure

38:07

network, so you will see a

38:09

lot like deep in projects on Solana

38:11

I think deep in happens in

38:14

2017 18. I remember

38:16

those yeah like the internet right right So but

38:18

after a while I think people start

38:20

to or rather the the deep painting

38:22

or the IOT thingy Proptom's

38:25

or she's keep fading away. For

38:27

example, um, I was a Participate

38:30

with a project called a put decks

38:32

before 17

38:34

is a point of self-esteem. So back

38:36

then we we actually doing this I

38:38

mean on on Merchant so people

38:40

can come to you know, just a point of

38:42

self So people can just pay through the machine

38:44

the post of the palm cells machines in the

38:47

store and in the restaurant in the cafe So

38:49

when we started the project in 2017 to 18

38:51

no one really sees that right? No

38:54

one really sees that it's the DP because the

38:56

concept hasn't come out So so people keep

38:59

seeing that all this is a so-called

39:01

a payment project But a fast forward

39:03

undo today or last year rather last

39:05

year. So so people start to think

39:07

so this is a physical Infrastructures right

39:10

just like all coin just

39:12

like a random So you just

39:14

said you need a physical things that

39:16

then you are leveraging on the tokens

39:19

Intendivising the users to expand

39:22

on the so-called network effect. So

39:24

you just like the put decks

39:26

example So we were incentivizing users

39:28

the merchants to solve like to

39:30

install the pops of systems And

39:32

we also incentivizing the users to

39:34

come to the audience. Yes.

39:36

That's right. That's right. That's right. You just they

39:39

are using Wi-Fi for

39:41

or draw draw a location service

39:43

or they stick so Phone

39:46

is kind of doing that like a mesh network

39:48

or whatever to right, right. That's

39:50

right So in deep in is

39:52

some things that we are leveraging on

39:54

tokens or rather script or currencies to

39:57

Expedite or to expand the

39:59

net of that

40:01

particular blockchain or cryptocurrencies that can

40:04

benefit users at the end of

40:06

the day. Very cool.

40:08

Well, Doc, I really appreciate you taking the time

40:10

and coming on the show today and teaching us.

40:13

I really appreciate it, man. Thank you. Have

40:15

a great day. It's night time for me. It's

40:17

morning for you. The cycle of life continues. Thank

40:20

you. Thank you, Charlie. Thank you, everyone. Nice to

40:22

meet you again. Thank you. I'll see you later.

40:24

We're going to have your show notes and information

40:27

like your Twitter and everything in the show notes

40:29

so people can follow you. Thanks for my listeners

40:31

and leave reviews, please. Have a great day. Thank

40:33

you very much. Thank you, guys. Thank you, Charlie.