[
  {
    "i": 0,
    "speaker": "Speaker 1",
    "text": "bear markets are actually where winners are born, and in a bear market like this, with a company like this, you need to have a strong balance sheet, you need to cut costs, and you need to figure out"
  },
  {
    "i": 1,
    "speaker": "Speaker 1",
    "text": "ways to optimize revenue."
  },
  {
    "i": 2,
    "speaker": "Speaker 2",
    "text": ">> All right, so you guys had a forward had a big announcement this morning, and I think it speaks to the direction I think the treasury companies may need to go in right now. So, maybe you could just"
  },
  {
    "i": 3,
    "speaker": "Speaker 2",
    "text": "break down what happened and what you announced."
  },
  {
    "i": 4,
    "speaker": "Speaker 1",
    "text": ">> Yeah, thanks for having me here, Scott."
  },
  {
    "i": 5,
    "speaker": "Speaker 1",
    "text": "Thank you everyone for being here this morning, Consensus on Tuesday."
  },
  {
    "i": 6,
    "speaker": "Speaker 1",
    "text": "Um so, this morning Forward announced our first kind of major deal since doing our our data transaction about 6 months ago."
  },
  {
    "i": 7,
    "speaker": "Speaker 1",
    "text": "Uh Forward is investing in a company called Onry. Onry is a reinsurance company."
  },
  {
    "i": 8,
    "speaker": "Speaker 1",
    "text": "Uh I think they manage 150 million or so, 100 to 150 million of assets flowing in reinsurance. Uh it's issued as an RWA on chain on Solana. You can buy it today."
  },
  {
    "i": 9,
    "speaker": "Speaker 1",
    "text": "Um it yields 12 or 13% and so, the deal Forward did is Forward acquired a pretty substantial minority stake in Onry, the parent company, and then also committed pretty substantial capital into Onry's"
  },
  {
    "i": 10,
    "speaker": "Speaker 1",
    "text": "fund, which is yielding 12 13%. Um the really cool part about this transaction for Forward is that we also announced a debt vehicle with Galaxy, where we can get access to cost of capital of roughly"
  },
  {
    "i": 11,
    "speaker": "Speaker 1",
    "text": "3 and 1/2%. And so, we can actually earn that spread of call it three three and 1/2 to 12 13."
  },
  {
    "i": 12,
    "speaker": "Speaker 1",
    "text": "Um I'm particularly excited about this because when we first announced Forward, I was doing kind of the first round of fest course around that, I said explicitly like there's a lot of"
  },
  {
    "i": 13,
    "speaker": "Speaker 1",
    "text": "cost of capital arbitrages to be had bridging TradFi and crypto, and also crypto and TradFi. There's arbitrage in both directions. And so, we're now capitalizing on that for our shareholders, and as a result"
  },
  {
    "i": 14,
    "speaker": "Speaker 2",
    "text": "can deliver real strong outperformance for them."
  },
  {
    "i": 15,
    "speaker": "Speaker 2",
    "text": ">> Yeah, I think a lot of the question marks around treasury companies early were what were they going to do beyond just buy assets and hold and wait, and it seems like there's a trend now. And"
  },
  {
    "i": 16,
    "speaker": "Speaker 2",
    "text": "you, as you said, announced it from the very beginning that this was your intention but either buy cash flowing businesses or find ways to actually put the assets to work. I mean do you think"
  },
  {
    "i": 17,
    "speaker": "Speaker 1",
    "text": "that that's sort of going to be the next iteration of treasury companies in general? Yeah, I mean look we launched this thing at basically the top more or less or grateful we got off the ground. The"
  },
  {
    "i": 18,
    "speaker": "Speaker 1",
    "text": "reality right now is like there's a lot of apathy in the market."
  },
  {
    "i": 19,
    "speaker": "Speaker 1",
    "text": "We have the good fortune of all of us have been through apathy and crypto before myself, Ryan, Mark George at the executive team Garrison and everyone and so we all know that like bear markets"
  },
  {
    "i": 20,
    "speaker": "Speaker 1",
    "text": "are actually where winners are born and in a bear market like this with a company like this you need to have a strong balance sheet, you need to cut costs and you need to figure out ways to"
  },
  {
    "i": 21,
    "speaker": "Speaker 1",
    "text": "optimize revenue and we're doing all that stuff now to put ourselves in a position that when yeah excitement comes back that we're going to be really emerge as as the strong swimmer there."
  },
  {
    "i": 22,
    "speaker": "Speaker 2",
    "text": ">> It feels like all it would take for excitement to come back is just prices going up 50%."
  },
  {
    "i": 23,
    "speaker": "Speaker 1",
    "text": ">> I mean that solves a lot of problems."
  },
  {
    "i": 24,
    "speaker": "Speaker 2",
    "text": ">> But it's unbelievable. It's really just say it's really driven by sentiment more than fundamentals still I think."
  },
  {
    "i": 25,
    "speaker": "Speaker 1",
    "text": ">> if Bitcoin goes you know crosses 100k like I'm guessing you're in in kind of raging bull market territory at that point."
  },
  {
    "i": 26,
    "speaker": "Speaker 2",
    "text": ">> Yeah, so you've got a Solana shoes on."
  },
  {
    "i": 27,
    "speaker": "Speaker 2",
    "text": ">> I do."
  },
  {
    "i": 28,
    "speaker": "Speaker 2",
    "text": ">> They're pretty awesome. I'm jealous."
  },
  {
    "i": 29,
    "speaker": "Speaker 2",
    "text": "I don't have Solana shoes but so obviously your focus continues to be on Solana. So there's been a few announcements I think of late that have been really pretty powerful. Western Union"
  },
  {
    "i": 30,
    "speaker": "Speaker 2",
    "text": "launching their stable coin on Solana, saw that meta meta is testing creator payments on Solana and polygon with stable coin. So clearly there's a race right now by chains to sort of"
  },
  {
    "i": 31,
    "speaker": "Speaker 2",
    "text": "draw the attention of institutions and be the place where people are building."
  },
  {
    "i": 32,
    "speaker": "Speaker 2",
    "text": "So I mean maybe set the table for what's happening on Solana right now from the RWA and tokenization side."
  },
  {
    "i": 33,
    "speaker": "Speaker 1",
    "text": ">> Yeah, so I I think broadly about kind of RWAs in two major buckets two or two or three. One is kind of like the Wall Street side of the world and there's some sub components there equities, fund"
  },
  {
    "i": 34,
    "speaker": "Speaker 1",
    "text": "products like the on-ramp product I just talked about and then the other side is I kind of stable coins payments lands."
  },
  {
    "i": 35,
    "speaker": "Speaker 1",
    "text": "Um and if you look like Solana today is actually doing phenomenally well on both fronts. Um the payment side you know PYUSD is growing PayPal is doing a ton of stuff with their PYUSD on Solana"
  },
  {
    "i": 36,
    "speaker": "Speaker 1",
    "text": "today. It's getting a lot of press but it's actually growing very nicely. Um and they're doing a ton of like internal settlement as well between their various customers using that. Um Visa now is"
  },
  {
    "i": 37,
    "speaker": "Speaker 1",
    "text": "like their preferred network for their customer settlements is primarily on Solana. They just announced I think 7 billion in settlements between their their bank partners the most of which is on Solana."
  },
  {
    "i": 38,
    "speaker": "Speaker 1",
    "text": "Um Western Union just rolled out this this payments thing. So you're continuing to see the meta obviously have their big announcement a week ago."
  },
  {
    "i": 39,
    "speaker": "Speaker 1",
    "text": "So um all these companies around the world are recognizing hey I want to be able to move stable coins around instantly 24/7 for for effectively free um and Solana is I think at this point"
  },
  {
    "i": 40,
    "speaker": "Speaker 1",
    "text": "like the preferred choice because it's global it's permissionless it's open source it's battle tested the transaction fees are effectively zero the gas fees don't spike. Um those are"
  },
  {
    "i": 41,
    "speaker": "Speaker 1",
    "text": "obviously all the super important features you need for this all work. Um and it it just has global on and off-ramps every exchange every custodian every market maker right you need all of"
  },
  {
    "i": 42,
    "speaker": "Speaker 1",
    "text": "that infrastructure around."
  },
  {
    "i": 43,
    "speaker": "Speaker 1",
    "text": "Um and Solana really today checks all those boxes. So they're doing great on that front. If you look at on the the kind of Wall Street side um Solana actually today is now number one there. Uh it was just announced I"
  },
  {
    "i": 44,
    "speaker": "Speaker 1",
    "text": "think a week or two ago that uh the majority of of yield products funds yield products and as well as equities on chain are now on Solana. Um and so again like groups like On re which Ford just did a deal"
  },
  {
    "i": 45,
    "speaker": "Speaker 1",
    "text": "with are one of the big leading groups there. Mike Cagney who was just on stage a few minutes ago uh the prime product I think there's a couple hundred two 300 million of prime now issued on Solana."
  },
  {
    "i": 46,
    "speaker": "Speaker 1",
    "text": "So these are really cool products that are getting distribution to retail shareholders on chain that can never otherwise get it. I think between Kraken's Xstocks and Ondo's equities I"
  },
  {
    "i": 47,
    "speaker": "Speaker 1",
    "text": "think there's like half a billion to a billion of US equities now on Solana."
  },
  {
    "i": 48,
    "speaker": "Speaker 1",
    "text": "So these are all up from kind of call it zero 12 months ago to, you know, you've got a few billion of that now happening both in mix of equity products as well as yielding products. And it's just"
  },
  {
    "i": 49,
    "speaker": "Speaker 1",
    "text": "incredible to see and like that growth curve looks really phenomenal."
  },
  {
    "i": 50,
    "speaker": "Speaker 2",
    "text": ">> Yeah, I saw that the DTCC announced they're basically going to do their pilot for tokenized equities in July with 50 partners. And they've said that they're going to move effectively their"
  },
  {
    "i": 51,
    "speaker": "Speaker 2",
    "text": "full 4.5 quadrillion a year in settlement to tokenize rails. I mean, how fast is this happening, right? You said a year ago year ago we were talking about a billion dollars in RWA and it"
  },
  {
    "i": 52,
    "speaker": "Speaker 2",
    "text": "was all tokenized treasuries. Right now it's everything already. So, how fast is this?"
  },
  {
    "i": 53,
    "speaker": "Speaker 1",
    "text": ">> Yeah, it's it's uh slowly then quickly, right? And like with all these things the the the slow part of the curve is the frustrating frustrating part and you never know when it goes vertical. But"
  },
  {
    "i": 54,
    "speaker": "Speaker 1",
    "text": "look, if they're rolling out their pilot in July, I'm guessing with something like this, you know, 1 to 2 years later is probably when you see that inflection point go really vertical."
  },
  {
    "i": 55,
    "speaker": "Speaker 2",
    "text": ">> I mean, it's it's happening exceptionally fast. Do you really How do you view it now? Like do you believe that this is going to be a parallel system or is everything going on chain"
  },
  {
    "i": 56,
    "speaker": "Speaker 2",
    "text": "period and we're going to look back at the uh previous T+1 and T+2 settlements as dinosaurs?"
  },
  {
    "i": 57,
    "speaker": "Speaker 1",
    "text": ">> I mean, well, I mean, look at that stuff as as dinosaurs, but I I think as a practical matter both systems live in parallel cuz you can't just like hard cut switch and move everything over. It's just too"
  },
  {
    "i": 58,
    "speaker": "Speaker 1",
    "text": "risky to do that. So, it'll be a transition process. Um but you know, the kind of thing I find most instructive is I believe it was last July Chairman Paul Atkins of the SEC, he gave a speech kind of titled Project"
  },
  {
    "i": 59,
    "speaker": "Speaker 1",
    "text": "Crypto. And you know, he said unequivocally, \"We are going to move US securities markets on chain.\" Um and if you look at everything the SEC has done since then, they really are doing"
  },
  {
    "i": 60,
    "speaker": "Speaker 1",
    "text": "everything in that direction to get us there. Uh and actually probably the I think the most interesting thing that that the SEC has announced that that really hasn't gotten much air time, but"
  },
  {
    "i": 61,
    "speaker": "Speaker 1",
    "text": "they put out guidance two or three weeks ago and the guidance I says like uh equity perps like can be made available to Americans. It doesn't use those words, but if you like read the"
  },
  {
    "i": 62,
    "speaker": "Speaker 1",
    "text": "guidance and understand it, they are basically encouraging financial innovation around security design and structure, which we really haven't had a in America for quite some time at this"
  },
  {
    "i": 63,
    "speaker": "Speaker 1",
    "text": "point. So, uh and I think a lot of that's going to happen on chain uh because that's where most of the leading folks are are building things. So, I'm I'm incredibly excited to see the SEC in"
  },
  {
    "i": 64,
    "speaker": "Speaker 1",
    "text": "particular as well as the CFTC uh in their role push US capital markets on chain."
  },
  {
    "i": 65,
    "speaker": "Speaker 2",
    "text": ">> So, obviously the Clarity Act is sort of the big topic right now, the legislators versus the regulators. I think we have this Goldilocks regulatory environment obviously with the CFTC and SEC. Does"
  },
  {
    "i": 66,
    "speaker": "Speaker 2",
    "text": "the Clarity Act passing or not passing impact you at all, you know, as chairman of Forward?"
  },
  {
    "i": 67,
    "speaker": "Speaker 1",
    "text": ">> Uh I don't think it directly impacts Forward. Um certainly like Clarity is passing is good for crypto and obviously things good happen to crypto it's good for Forward. So, there's clearly an"
  },
  {
    "i": 68,
    "speaker": "Speaker 1",
    "text": "indirect benefit there."
  },
  {
    "i": 69,
    "speaker": "Speaker 1",
    "text": "Um but as a day-to-day matter like nothing would change at Forward."
  },
  {
    "i": 70,
    "speaker": "Speaker 2",
    "text": ">> So, you told me that you actually are pretty deep in the weeds playing with a lot of this stuff, right? Market making and really participating in your own time outside of Forward. What's"
  },
  {
    "i": 71,
    "speaker": "Speaker 2",
    "text": "exciting you and what are you like having a good time uh you know, messing around with right now in crypto?"
  },
  {
    "i": 72,
    "speaker": "Speaker 1",
    "text": ">> Yeah, um so a lot of this is it's already on Twitter, but uh I'm now doing a bunch of market making on chain."
  },
  {
    "i": 73,
    "speaker": "Speaker 1",
    "text": "Um you know, it's funny the last eight years of my life at Multicoin, I was super focused on kind of venture style thinking. So, very like long long horizon, long holding periods."
  },
  {
    "i": 74,
    "speaker": "Speaker 1",
    "text": "Um and obviously I've interacted with tons of uh traders over that time."
  },
  {
    "i": 75,
    "speaker": "Speaker 1",
    "text": "I've never actually done any market making despite being in crypto for so long. And so, it felt kind of natural to me that like I should kind of go from one extreme, which is super long"
  },
  {
    "i": 76,
    "speaker": "Speaker 1",
    "text": "duration, and I should try and figure out like can I do the the super short duration? Um so, you know, with Cloud Code today and Code X, you can build a prop prop market maker. It's not"
  },
  {
    "i": 77,
    "speaker": "Speaker 1",
    "text": "terribly difficult."
  },
  {
    "i": 78,
    "speaker": "Speaker 1",
    "text": "Um you got to tweak it and like you're going to make some mistakes and whatever and like I've kind of gone through that process now."
  },
  {
    "i": 79,
    "speaker": "Speaker 1",
    "text": "Um but now I'm having a ton of fun. I'm focused really on long tail names."
  },
  {
    "i": 80,
    "speaker": "Speaker 1",
    "text": "There's no point in me competing with Jump on sole USD or on Bitcoin USD. Like I'm not going to win at that game."
  },
  {
    "i": 81,
    "speaker": "Speaker 1",
    "text": "But that's silly for guys like me to focus on. Instead like there's an opportunity for all these long tail interesting assets that there's a lot of inefficiencies in those markets and like those are great"
  },
  {
    "i": 82,
    "speaker": "Speaker 1",
    "text": "opportunities for independent call it prosumers like myself that play around with."
  },
  {
    "i": 83,
    "speaker": "Speaker 2",
    "text": ">> There's been a lot of talk about the intersection of AI and and crypto. Like we obviously talk about the adoption of tokenization real world assets as if it's only humans. But by any account I"
  },
  {
    "i": 84,
    "speaker": "Speaker 2",
    "text": "think we'll see the majority of transactions online probably being by AI agents. So how are you preparing for that and how do you view that?"
  },
  {
    "i": 85,
    "speaker": "Speaker 1",
    "text": ">> Yeah, I mean if you look at like the Solana community generally like I think we're in an incredible position on that front."
  },
  {
    "i": 86,
    "speaker": "Speaker 1",
    "text": "X402 protocol is now has full implementations on Solana MPP from Stripe and then Visa announced a protocol I I forget the name. It might have been MPP. So all of those are running on Solana. And then if you just"
  },
  {
    "i": 87,
    "speaker": "Speaker 1",
    "text": "look at all these major payments companies like they're all moving towards this world of agentic payments."
  },
  {
    "i": 88,
    "speaker": "Speaker 1",
    "text": "And again the infrastructure they need is super cheap super fast payments work globally and have all of the on and off ramps."
  },
  {
    "i": 89,
    "speaker": "Speaker 1",
    "text": "And like Solana is the best place in the world to do that today."
  },
  {
    "i": 90,
    "speaker": "Speaker 1",
    "text": "And so you that side of it is pretty clear. If you look at the kind of entrepreneur and developer side you look at at the teams coming out of Coliseum early stage teams getting funding building agentic payment"
  },
  {
    "i": 91,
    "speaker": "Speaker 1",
    "text": "solutions. The bulk of that today is happening on Solana. And that's because this community has made a concerted effort you know on that front."
  },
  {
    "i": 92,
    "speaker": "Speaker 2",
    "text": ">> But when my agent is paying your agent and we're completely oblivious to that transaction how big does that market become?"
  },
  {
    "i": 93,
    "speaker": "Speaker 1",
    "text": ">> I mean look in terms of just straight trend you know GDP of moving around like you got to imagine that's going to accelerate capital turnover but pretty substantially. I mean it could be 20 or"
  },
  {
    "i": 94,
    "speaker": "Speaker 1",
    "text": "30% but like it could be 50 or 100%."
  },
  {
    "i": 95,
    "speaker": "Speaker 1",
    "text": "And obviously multiply that against global GDP numbers and that's just an incredible rate of you know of capital flowing through the system. Obviously the the history of technology has shown us that when you"
  },
  {
    "i": 96,
    "speaker": "Speaker 1",
    "text": "make something lower friction to do demand grows pretty exponentially Instagram Uber etc."
  },
  {
    "i": 97,
    "speaker": "Speaker 1",
    "text": "I certainly expect nothing different here."
  },
  {
    "i": 98,
    "speaker": "Speaker 2",
    "text": ">> So do you think that all of those platforms eventually will just they'll transact in stable coins either yourself or your agent creator payments all of those things happen on these rails. I"
  },
  {
    "i": 99,
    "speaker": "Speaker 2",
    "text": "mean we know obviously like the institutional settlement is going that way but is that the way that social platforms and web 2 is going as well?"
  },
  {
    "i": 100,
    "speaker": "Speaker 1",
    "text": ">> Yeah, I mean like meta right announced payouts to creators on stable coin rails a week or two ago."
  },
  {
    "i": 101,
    "speaker": "Speaker 1",
    "text": "I believe Uber has announced they're experimenting with payouts for drivers."
  },
  {
    "i": 102,
    "speaker": "Speaker 1",
    "text": ">> And YouTube did it in December."
  },
  {
    "i": 103,
    "speaker": "Speaker 1",
    "text": ">> YouTube announced something recently. I know DoorDash announced something recently. So you're already seeing all of these kind of like labor marketplace type of businesses already do a bunch of that stuff."
  },
  {
    "i": 104,
    "speaker": "Speaker 1",
    "text": "That's all happening you know slowly today and accelerating. I think it you know a year or two from now when you hit the tip but I think Twitter's adding a tip function I think Nikita announced"
  },
  {
    "i": 105,
    "speaker": "Speaker 1",
    "text": "that."
  },
  {
    "i": 106,
    "speaker": "Speaker 1",
    "text": "And if you do any do any commerce like that's all going to be settling on stable coin rails."
  },
  {
    "i": 107,
    "speaker": "Speaker 2",
    "text": ">> So walk me through if you're an institution right now and you look at crypto and you're not necessarily crypto native choosing between a public blockchain a private blockchain which"
  },
  {
    "i": 108,
    "speaker": "Speaker 2",
    "text": "public blockchain to build on. I was skeptical actually that you know they would choose the crypto native chain Solana Ethereum etc. That we would just see walled gardens and maybe you know JP"
  },
  {
    "i": 109,
    "speaker": "Speaker 2",
    "text": "Morgan chain you know and and that's it."
  },
  {
    "i": 110,
    "speaker": "Speaker 2",
    "text": "They settle themselves. Seems like a lot more actually coming towards the native crypto incumbents."
  },
  {
    "i": 111,
    "speaker": "Speaker 1",
    "text": ">> Yeah, I mean I think about this in a lot of ways like >> [laughter] >> um The question for like everyone thinks about crypto and what they want to do a little bit differently but like the"
  },
  {
    "i": 112,
    "speaker": "Speaker 1",
    "text": "thing what I've realized how I'd say most institutional type folks think when I talk to folks work at banks, asset managers, payments companies is like they understand that like this open network, while there are some"
  },
  {
    "i": 113,
    "speaker": "Speaker 1",
    "text": "disadvantages of like well maybe my competitors can like steal some share from me, the flip side is also true is you can steal share from your competitors. And so like by having an"
  },
  {
    "i": 114,
    "speaker": "Speaker 1",
    "text": "open playing field, um like it actually creates opportunities for you to expand your customer base. Again, I look at um the prime fund that that Mike was just talking about on stage a few minutes"
  },
  {
    "i": 115,
    "speaker": "Speaker 1",
    "text": "ago. Um you look at what Henri's doing at this is the asset management lens."
  },
  {
    "i": 116,
    "speaker": "Speaker 1",
    "text": "Those those guys are looking to uh get distribution for their funds to retail investors. And blockchains provide the best way to do that because you can buy $5 worth of the Henri reinsurance fund."
  },
  {
    "i": 117,
    "speaker": "Speaker 1",
    "text": "You just can't do that um on in tradfi."
  },
  {
    "i": 118,
    "speaker": "Speaker 1",
    "text": "Uh and the same is going to be and I think asset managers all over the world are are waking up waking up to that fact. And so like just for them alone, their strong motivation is to say what"
  },
  {
    "i": 119,
    "speaker": "Speaker 1",
    "text": "why do I want BlackRock chain or Apollo chain or whatever, um the motivation for them is I want to get my products to retail investors. And like that's where all uh the public permissionless chains"
  },
  {
    "i": 120,
    "speaker": "Speaker 1",
    "text": "are. So um there's there's a lot of uh when you actually look at the dynamics of like how these guys want to grow their businesses, they want to tap into the people and the capital who are"
  },
  {
    "i": 121,
    "speaker": "Speaker 1",
    "text": "already out there. And by definition the people and the capital are only on the public permissionless chains."
  },
  {
    "i": 122,
    "speaker": "Speaker 2",
    "text": "Yeah, so it's interesting then why choose Solana over any of the other chains cuz that's the more specific question I guess that you'd be more interested in."
  },
  {
    "i": 123,
    "speaker": "Speaker 1",
    "text": "Yeah, uh look at this point like it's a bunch of things. One is regulatory, you've got it's a it's a commodity as an ETF, it's been around, all those things."
  },
  {
    "i": 124,
    "speaker": "Speaker 1",
    "text": "Um two, obviously just stability and scale. The you know the big thing people don't appreciate if you haven't been around in crypto for a little bit is gas fees on Ethereum spike. I mean, as"
  },
  {
    "i": 125,
    "speaker": "Speaker 1",
    "text": "recently as probably two or three months ago, I'm sure there was a gas fee spike where transactions went from yeah, today they're probably two or three cents, but uh I bet you at some point in the last 6"
  },
  {
    "i": 126,
    "speaker": "Speaker 1",
    "text": "months transactions were 20 bucks."
  },
  {
    "i": 127,
    "speaker": "Speaker 1",
    "text": "And so like if you want that guaranteed consistency of transaction cost, Ethereum just can't provide that. You look at median transaction fees on Solana over the last 5 years, it's like"
  },
  {
    "i": 128,
    "speaker": "Speaker 1",
    "text": "a penny."
  },
  {
    "i": 129,
    "speaker": "Speaker 1",
    "text": "Right? So, um I think that stuff is super important for for stability. And then obviously just like it's been around and now you have all these global on and off-ramps."
  },
  {
    "i": 130,
    "speaker": "Speaker 1",
    "text": "This is I think a big challenge that that most new chain founders don't appreciate or even corporate chains is like if you launch Base for example, like is is Binance going to integrate"
  },
  {
    "i": 131,
    "speaker": "Speaker 1",
    "text": "with Base? Like I mean they could, but they probably aren't. Right? And same with OKX, etc. And so you having these credibly neutral open systems um is important because it allows two companies who are competing with"
  },
  {
    "i": 132,
    "speaker": "Speaker 1",
    "text": "each other to build on top of some sort of shared standard. Um and I think that again that fact is is pretty underappreciated but uh by investors generally. But then when you actually go"
  },
  {
    "i": 133,
    "speaker": "Speaker 1",
    "text": "talk to the executives at Wells Fargo, excuse me, at Western Union, at PayPal, um at these these these places, like they don't want to be beholden to corporate chains. They want to say,"
  },
  {
    "i": 134,
    "speaker": "Speaker 2",
    "text": "\"Look, I want open neutral infrastructure.\""
  },
  {
    "i": 135,
    "speaker": "Speaker 2",
    "text": ">> Toly tweeted something to the effect of Ethereum L2s are dead, run for the hills. I don't remember what the exact wording was yesterday, but I mean is that the sentiment now?"
  },
  {
    "i": 136,
    "speaker": "Speaker 1",
    "text": ">> I think so. I mean I mean look, if you look at general activity on the L2s, it's like not moving in a positive direction. I think the only one at this point that even appears to be you know, have like a"
  },
  {
    "i": 137,
    "speaker": "Speaker 1",
    "text": "reasonable case is Base. But which is a corporate chain. And so like, you know, again, are are Binance and OKX and Bybit going to build on that? Seems super unlikely. Um are NYSE and Nasdaq going to build on"
  },
  {
    "i": 138,
    "speaker": "Speaker 1",
    "text": "that? That seems super unlikely. Right?"
  },
  {
    "i": 139,
    "speaker": "Speaker 1",
    "text": "Like there's just so many kind of players for for obvious reasons that are not going to build on on that system."
  },
  {
    "i": 140,
    "speaker": "Speaker 1",
    "text": "And so, you know, if anything, I I almost think that Base's existence actually is good for permissionless chains like Solana, um because then it just enforces those people to \"Well,"
  },
  {
    "i": 141,
    "speaker": "Speaker 2",
    "text": "where do I actually want to go?\" And, you know, >> What happens to the existing payment companies that don't adopt fast enough?"
  },
  {
    "i": 142,
    "speaker": "Speaker 2",
    "text": "You mentioned obviously Visa is doing tremendous transaction volume on stable coins already, but this feels like a Blockbuster to Netflix moment for most of them."
  },
  {
    "i": 143,
    "speaker": "Speaker 1",
    "text": ">> Um, look, I think for them it for payments companies it could be um, if they don't kind of address it. Um, I'd say I'm pretty optimistic most payments companies won't get disrupted."
  },
  {
    "i": 144,
    "speaker": "Speaker 1",
    "text": "Um, they will lower their costs, but I generally think they are the it's just hard not to see it coming. You know, in the internet era with Netflix like it was I can see why a Blockbuster"
  },
  {
    "i": 145,
    "speaker": "Speaker 1",
    "text": "executive was like, \"Look, we have the popcorn package and the video games and like all these other things.\" Um, here I certainly haven't met anyone who operates in payments land who's like,"
  },
  {
    "i": 146,
    "speaker": "Speaker 1",
    "text": "\"Well, stable coins are bad.\""
  },
  {
    "i": 147,
    "speaker": "Speaker 1",
    "text": ">> Yeah."
  },
  {
    "i": 148,
    "speaker": "Speaker 1",
    "text": ">> Like it just doesn't Right. So, I think most will end up surviving. I mean, Western Western Union news being the prime example."
  },
  {
    "i": 149,
    "speaker": "Speaker 1",
    "text": ">> They're the Pony Express."
  },
  {
    "i": 150,
    "speaker": "Speaker 1",
    "text": ">> If if you were to look at at the the company that crypto people kind of laughed and pointed at 5 years ago around payments like it was like Western Union. And like, dude, they're here and"
  },
  {
    "i": 151,
    "speaker": "Speaker 1",
    "text": "they're actually making moves."
  },
  {
    "i": 152,
    "speaker": "Speaker 1",
    "text": ">> Yes, we got a minute left. Anything I missed that you're excited about?"
  },
  {
    "i": 153,
    "speaker": "Speaker 1",
    "text": ">> Um, you know, I think it's it's an incredible time to be an investor."
  },
  {
    "i": 154,
    "speaker": "Speaker 1",
    "text": "There's been a lot of exuberance in AI and a lot of apathy in crypto."
  },
  {
    "i": 155,
    "speaker": "Speaker 1",
    "text": "Um, and so I I it kind of it strikes me that the right thing to do is to figure out how to use these AI tools, learn about the world, and then figure out where you want to allocate um, in in"
  },
  {
    "i": 156,
    "speaker": "Speaker 1",
    "text": "crypto cuz there there's just an incredible opportunity set going forward."
  },
  {
    "i": 157,
    "speaker": "Speaker 2",
    "text": ">> And what do you think happens to the uh, coins from the past that maybe don't really have a bid or a narrative anymore? Do you think we're going to see a consolidation into the Solanas and"
  },
  {
    "i": 158,
    "speaker": "Speaker 1",
    "text": "Bitcoins and at the top?"
  },
  {
    "i": 159,
    "speaker": "Speaker 1",
    "text": ">> It's very it's it's pretty clear that the a lot of long tail alts are are bleeding out. Um, and that that's likely to continue. Um, and look, the the market is maturing. And like, the"
  },
  {
    "i": 160,
    "speaker": "Speaker 1",
    "text": "market's saying, \"Look, we think these are the winning platforms of technologies. Like let's own those.\""
  },
  {
    "i": 161,
    "speaker": "Speaker 2",
    "text": ">> Makes perfect sense. All right, guys."
  },
  {
    "i": 162,
    "speaker": "Speaker 2",
    "text": "Everybody give it up for Kyle Samani."
  },
  {
    "i": 163,
    "speaker": "Speaker 2",
    "text": "Thank you."
  },
  {
    "i": 164,
    "speaker": "Speaker 2",
    "text": ">> Thanks, Scott."
  }
]