Ep: 218 - Live from Devconnect Argentina, Sandeep Nailwal, founder of Polygon Foundation, William Duran (Minteo), Patrick Kearney (Relay Protocol), Grigore Rosu (Pi Squared)

[00:04] know about respect. [00:06] Okay. Hello. [00:11] We're here to boys club live. Welcome to boys club live. We're here at. [00:15] Dev Connect in Argentina. Buenos Aires. At Money Rails by Polygon. Here we are. [00:22] a really... [00:24] really high production situation here at the news desk. We're at the news desk. We're reporting [00:31] from here. [00:33] It's going to be a really good time. We're going to have a lot of great guests. [00:36] Um... [00:37] I feel as though we should give [00:38] the listener care for the listener and get a let's care [00:41] So we're here at Money Rails by Polygon, which is a full day of programming that Polygon is putting on about [00:49] the future of finance.

[00:51] the [00:52] the today of finances. [00:53] The moment of finance. The moment of finance. And we are... [00:58] co-located [00:59] at devconnect. If you're hearing some [01:03] background ambient noise. We're in, we're in the belly of the beast. We are. And that's just, it's part of the, that, [01:10] - It's atmospheric. - Yeah, so you can understand sort of the vibe. [01:14] that we're in. [01:15] But we're also at DevConnect, which for folks [01:18] who aren't familiar is the... [01:22] Ethereum's World Fair. - Ethereum's World Fair. - 15,[redacted address].

- It does. - It feels 15,000 people-esque. - Yeah, and from around the world. They've descended on [01:34] Buenos Aires. [01:35] and there is a full [01:38] conference, I guess. [01:39] that's how you could call it. I think that's what they say. A conference, [01:43] that's [01:43] on and about Ethereum. - Yeah, my experience of it was like, oh, [01:49] who did [01:50] why... [01:51] Wow. [01:52] My bags. [01:54] Our co- [01:55] cared for. [01:56] in this community of people. We're all backholders. [02:00] Totally. And I will say that it is truly [02:03] Global, like we were just on stage.

- Global. - Did a little show of hands to get a sense for where the audience [02:09] is [02:10] from and [02:11] We had a very wide distribution [02:14] of [02:14] people from all around [02:16] Everywhere everywhere. So I know a lot of people make the joke that I [02:20] the HQ of [02:22] of crypto is Williamsburg Brooklyn, which is [02:25] often where we're streaming from, but I will say that... We're the problem. I'm the problem. It's me. That feels totally not... [02:32] true in this room where it's a very global audience.

So anyway, we're happy to be here. We're going to be here for a couple hours streaming. [02:40] We're going to be pulling guests from stage to come and chat with us about their thing. [02:44] We're going to be talking with Sandeep in a few, who is the founder of Polygon. [02:48] But before we do that, should we start with some draft tweets just to warm up? [02:52] Let's do it. Okay. So, and for those who don't know, Draft Tweets is... [02:56] Our bit. [02:57] where we [02:58] Read... [03:00] tweets that we have not had the courage to send for one reason or another.

Yes. Too scandalous. [03:07] to not. [03:10] not funny enough work needing to be workshop, needing care. Like that's usually honestly what it is. Um, and, [03:17] You go first? Yeah, great, great, great. I have one... [03:21] that [03:22] I couldn't find the right time to send it. Okay. But... [03:27] Traveled to Argentina yesterday. Mm-hmm. [03:30] had to fly through Atlanta. I live in a place that doesn't have a great international airport. Terrible, I'm so sorry. Was in Atlanta and often flying... [03:37] through Atlanta. And my tweet was, once again, blown away by the incredible vibes at the Atlanta airport, PFK.

[03:45] just electric energy there. Oh my gosh. It's, it's, it's the moment. It is. It's the moment at the Atlanta airport. Every time I pass it, I'm like, man, these are having such a good time. Great time. Great time. They're having a beer at, at 915 in the morning. And some, uh, chips, like some, some, uh, Crab Rangon or whatever. I actually, I got that recipe and it's, [04:08] Fantastic. I'll make it for you sometime. I feel as though I get in a flow state in an airport. Yeah. I don't know what it is.

Tweeting. [04:15] sending things off like I'm in a creative... [04:18] atmosphere. [04:19] personally in an airport. Do you have an airport-related draft tweet? I don't have an airport-related draft tweet. I do have a tweet that I actually had... [04:28] I was like, this should live in the drafts. And then I said, [04:31] Fuck it. [04:31] Why? That's how the best ones are porn. And it performs not bad. And it's stop trying to have a dick measuring competition with me. Space, space, space, space, space. I don't have one. And I feel it's really layered and beautiful.

I do feel like that is a visual one. Like, I do feel like people should go to at Natasha G. Hoskins and see. [04:49] and see it for themselves. I feel like I'm having a lot of fun with the art form of Twitter, where the spacing, the lines... You're subverting the medium itself. Exactly, exactly. Performance art on the timeline. I will say Cloudflare was down this morning. [05:04] uh... [05:05] and upsetting, upsetting for those terminally online. - Yeah, it's been a... [05:09] somewhat of a black swan [05:12] moment for us [05:14] technical box one, not a financial box one.

[05:17] where we're [05:19] had [05:20] lots of [05:21] many days planning [05:22] this moment and [05:24] lots of time and thought put into how it was all going to come together and then of course this morning we wake up and [05:30] The internet is down. The internet. That was [05:34] very hard to deal with in a few moments. We got through it. And Clark Fair, I believe, is back up. And I have to say, you and me and everybody here, in fact, had such good energy around it. Yes. [05:46] We just kept it light.

Kept it light. All you can do. Totally. Okay, I feel we have some people we need to and want to thank and talk about. [05:55] Um... [05:55] And then I think we should talk a little bit about what it's like to be in Argentina. Yeah. [06:00] So first of all, huge shout out to Polygon. Huge... [06:03] Huge shout out to Polygon. Love them. Uh, [06:06] incredible team team [06:08] incredible [06:10] uh, [06:11] energy here today at Money Rails. Packed room. Packed. [06:14] Yeah, I just want to give people a comment.

It's standing room only at the Money Rails event. [06:19] And [06:21] Yeah, you know we love Polygon. If you've touched crypto in any way, chances are you've already used Polygon. It's the chain quietly powering a bunch of stuff that actually works. [06:28] that people actually use, like Stripe's crypto payments, [06:31] betting on poly markets, prediction markets, and a bunch more. [06:33] A big announcement was just made on stage. Polygon is partnering with Revolut. [06:38] which is [06:39] Huge, huge. [06:41] Huge. I think... [06:42] I, we got the preview on this announcement and so we knew that it was coming and I think my experience of it was that I have used Revolut, I'm learning French really, really slowly and poorly.

But not... [06:55] any [06:56] My tutor's not to blame. [06:59] But I had to pay her. And it was one of those experiences when you're trying to do cross-border payments. Okay. And it was like, how am I going to do this? And it was... [07:09] And she was like, "Revolute?" [07:10] and I was doing it and I was like, wait, [07:13] Why is Crypto not involved here? And look at Polygon. She's entering the chat. So Polygon and Revolut, and then also... [07:20] MasterCard announcement came out? MasterCard announcement. Which was really exciting.

So they're shipping a ton of stuff. A lot of announcements are going to be coming out on stage, which we'll share here when they do. [07:29] And then also we're going to be throwing a [07:32] For folks who are at DevConnect, who are in Buenos Aires, [07:36] come through. We're doing a party tonight. We're [07:39] really excited about it. We are doing it with Polygon and also PodCast. [07:44] network. [07:45] and Pod Network. [07:47] dares to ask the question, what if Web3 was as fast and simple as Google search? [07:51] Wow.

[07:52] That's big. That's a big today. I'm like, we need, we need. [07:56] We need some of that energy in the room. [07:59] So really excited to be partnering with them on this event tonight. More coming from them very soon. [08:04] they're really gearing up for some fun stuff. [08:07] And then we're also going to have some party pals there with us. [08:12] We love the privy team so much. [08:14] Privy powers the complete wallet stack. You know them. You love them. [08:18] Great team, great people. [08:20] They had a great year.

[08:22] sold it [08:23] Sold to sleep. Good for you. Kudos to you, babe. Kudos for coming. [08:27] And then Blockade, which is... [08:30] securing the largest companies operating on chain. So shout out to com. [08:35] That's the party. We're going to be dropping the link to... [08:39] RSVP in the chat and if you are still on the wait list [08:43] maybe make a polite request to be pushed to the approved list. [08:47] in the chat and then it might happen for you but just please be polite and that's all we ask [08:51] Now, second shout-out is going to go to our friends at Stamble.

[08:54] stellar. [08:56] Yes. [08:57] Art Basel is coming up. Art Basel. Basil. [09:00] Bessel, Basel, whatever you want to call it. [09:03] is coming up. We took last year off. [09:05] And we're ready to come back in full force. And we're going to be doing a lot of fun things with fun partners. [09:10] It's a great weekend week to be in Miami, Miami Art Week. [09:16] a lot of [09:18] trad art. [09:19] community comes in as well as more emerging artists and blockchain art and [09:26] digital stuff. It's really fun.

And Stellar is going to be there. They're doing Stellar House, which is going to be a great event, sort of [09:35] talking about technology and culture and how that all comes together. [09:39] If you've never been to a Stellar House event before, they're excellent, they're very well-produced, great speakers are going to be there. [09:46] And we'll be there hanging out. We're going to be there hanging out. Just to name drop a few of the speakers. [09:57] uh, [09:57] see a red swan. [09:59] A bunch of folks from Cellar who are going to be there.

MoneyGram folks. [10:03] on the Grim folks. [10:04] Serious people. - Friends at Purvy again. [10:07] So very, very great. [10:08] very great very great very great I'm also will be doing some fun stuff with [10:14] base at Basel as well. [10:16] So if you're going to be in Miami, hit us up. You won't want to miss out on what we're doing. So it's going to be fun. [10:23] Okay, I want to, before we have our first... [10:26] guest here. I want to spend some time [10:29] Just... [10:30] chatting about Argentina.

[10:33] I... [10:33] Lived here when I was 17 years old. Lived here for six months. I went to culinary school. Deep lore. People have been like, whoa, lore unlock. And that's just what happened. And... [10:43] I haven't been back since. [10:44] So, um, [10:46] A long time. I won't dox how long, but so long that I'm having like a feeling of nostalgia being everywhere. Yeah. And it's been really fun. I went and saw my old apartment. And anyway, it's a beautiful city and a really... [10:57] Beautiful people, great food. [11:00] I'm having an experience around the cash and the money of it that has never made crypto feel more...

[11:06] useful. [11:08] Timely. [11:10] It's basically impossible to get cash out, and you get major discounts. [11:16] paying in cash [11:17] because of the hyperinflation, [11:21] And... [11:21] I think I've just had like a lot of empathy for the experience of living here and not trusting, truly not trusting your financial institutions and getting paid and wondering if that money is going to be there and then being unable to access it. [11:34] and how infuriating and like destabilizing that would be to your day to day life. And so it's been [11:42] when you're, I was here over the weekend and, um, [11:46] I'm staying in house with a few people, a lot of them were at [11:49] some a world is doing it was doing a builder event this weekend [11:53] Talked to a lot of builders who are thinking about...

[11:56] who are thinking about... [11:58] actually solving the problems for people on the ground here in Argentina and in LATAM more broadly. [12:03] And it's one of those things where it's like, this is real people's lives every single day thinking about how to. [12:10] show up and pay for things. And so that's been, um, like really amazing to see, see that happening here. [12:16] We're going to have some folks [12:17] I'm not sure. [12:19] talking specifically to Argentinian and Latam use cases on the show in a little bit. Some friends from Rupio and Mintio, and I'm excited to get their take on all of it.

[12:30] Me too. Um, [12:31] Some other things that are happening on the timeline. May I meet you? [12:35] Mmm. [12:36] May I meet you? Here's what I like about May I Meet You. [12:39] that [12:40] - Well, here, I'll start with what I don't like about it. - Do you want to explain what it is first? - Oh, sure, yeah. - Yeah. [12:46] of you who aren't on Twitter all the time. Again, God bless. [12:50] I'm so happy for you. And I, at some point soon, like, keep making the joke that I'm addicted to Twitter.

[12:55] Ha ha ha. [12:56] But at some point, I'm gonna have to [12:58] start taking some action about it. - Unplug. Yeah, yeah, yeah. [13:02] I'm gonna need to start drawing some boundaries for myself. That day is not today. [13:06] Certainly not. And I'm so glad because I got to see the May I Meet You thing happen over the weekend. [13:11] So, Bill Ackman, [13:13] is [13:14] hedge fund. [13:15] billionaire guy who [13:16] tweets a lot, too much. [13:18] for... [13:19] The amount of money that he has, he tweets far too much.

[13:21] FTFU. [13:22] - Totally. And he is often putting his foot in his mouth, but arguably maybe didn't do it in this instance. [13:32] Many people will argue that he absolutely did. [13:34] But basically he put out this thread. He put out a tweet that was like, [13:39] Speaking to sort of the male loneliness epidemic. Yeah, and there was a study specifically that came out. I do not remember the numbers. I'm going to botch it. But it was essentially something like 40% or more or something of men under the age of 30 have never hit on a woman.

Yeah. [13:53] in real life. [13:54] and that study came out and there was some discourse around it and then [13:58] he sort of had a [14:00] response. He responded. Comment from Bill Ackman. And his comment was... [14:06] sharing an anecdote about how he met his wife. [14:09] And he said, [14:10] and was also speaking to sort of a technique or a tactic that has worked for him in the past, which is going up to a woman... [14:18] thing. [14:19] and saying, "May I meet you?" He was basically like, "It's not that hard, guys."

Yeah. Just go up to a woman and say, "May I meet you?" May I meet you. [14:25] And wow, did that catch like wildfire on the timeline. Took it, ran with it, as far as possible. Oh, it's going, it's going, it's going. And honestly, you love to see it. May I Meet You is now like a canon, like everything is computer and a similar sort of sentiments. [14:45] I don't know. I think it's now become so meme-ified. [14:49] that it kind of went through this arc [14:52] I would say. As I do.

Where it started, "May I Meet You" bad. [14:56] Don't do that, was my thought. The reason why that worked, he's a six foot three billionaire. Okay? [15:01] Also what I want to say about May I Meet You is that it centers [15:05] person... It makes it about that. It makes it about the person who's asking. I'm meeting you. I'm meeting you. It doesn't make it about... [15:13] me as the person being met. [15:15] Right. Which is like, okay, I guess we could start off like that, but that wouldn't be necessarily my recommendation for how to...

[15:22] ingratiate yourself with a new friend. You had to meet a new friend. [15:25] Don't make it about yourself. It started bad. Then it kind of hit this arc of like... [15:30] maybe funny. Like then now bad again. Cause it's like, you're too online. Yeah. [15:35] It's a red flag. It's an immediate red flag. It's a signal to something that I don't want. So that's my personal take on it. Okay, two minutes left here before our first guest. And so I just want to hear about... [15:46] What are some of the trends we're seeing at DefConnect?

What are people talking about? I think we'll sort of intermittently talk about this throughout the stream here. But, yeah, what are you hearing? Word on the ground. Ton of stuff coming through from DefConnect. First one, I'm going to go through pretty quickly, and we're going to hit a few of them. [16:03] Everyone is really excited about [16:05] agents and agentic [16:08] No one knows... [16:09] what they want to do with it. [16:12] Yes. The use case. [16:13] is not clear. [16:14] Okay, well that was crypto for a long time, and look at us now.

Okay baby, we found it. The excitement and the enthusiasm, and honestly the technology with X4 too, shout out to Coinbase, it has arrived in many ways. [16:27] no one knows how to integrate it or implement it or, or build a novel use case around it. And so that's, [16:34] Insight number one. [16:35] Two. [16:35] I WANT TO TALK ABOUT THE [16:36] Death of the Foundation model. I'm seeing that. Wow. Boom, boom, boom, down, down. So a couple of weeks ago, last week, Uniswap announced that they were going to be... [16:47] running on the foundation and everything was going to consolidate into labs and there's a lot of [16:52] sort of history and regulatory history, honestly, about why that decision was [16:57] was made in the first place, but basically that's how a lot of, if not most, if not all, of crypto companies are [17:03] I'm [17:05] Organized.

Companies is the wrong word for it because of this distinction. But yes, that's how a lot of... [17:10] organizations are [17:13] Formed. Formed. And so... [17:15] I... [17:15] now that Uniswap is [17:16] saying [17:17] Good night. [17:18] to the foundation. [17:21] A lot of other people are going to be following suit or were... [17:25] expecting them to and that's been a lot of conversation. [17:27] Three. [17:28] This idea of orchestration. This is a new buzzword orchestration. [17:32] Okay. [17:33] past it was perhaps [17:35] Thank you. [17:36] something that was more interoperability interoperability yeah that's what everyone was saying [17:40] Now it's about orchestration, which is like one layer up [17:43] from interoperability.

We're interoperable now. Okay. Because we're interoperable, we need, like... [17:48] We need to... [17:49] We need to also have some air traffic control for... [17:52] how we interoperate. Yes. [17:55] And so that's this idea of orchestration, and that is very much a buzzword. [17:59] This next one here, LATEM. [18:02] So here we are in Buenos Aires. [18:04] having conversations with folks. [18:05] You spoke to sort of the challenges around the peso. [18:08] and hyperinflation. [18:10] The team's [18:11] that we're speaking to here. [18:13] that are working in Latin America are like, [18:17] scales.

[18:18] There are millions of [18:19] millions of users. [18:21] In the US, of course there's apps that are scaled to [18:25] that degree, but it really feels like it's an [18:28] a different stage of maturity, crypto's in a different stage of maturity. [18:31] with some of the teams that we're talking to here, specifically around payments, specifically around stable coins. So that's really exciting. [18:37] Next. [18:39] Privacy era. I mean, shout out to Claire Cart, who I believe is like doing this work. Yes, she's been doing this work. [18:45] first. She's carrying it on her back.

And there's other folks, of course, but she's doing an incredible job. That's a lot of conversation about privacy. And it also might be [18:54] downstream effect of [18:56] this scaling where [18:58] now that people are... [19:01] stablecoins is happening, people are using the product now, it's kind of like, okay, well how do we make sure that we're not doxing ourselves in a weird way? [19:08] I think that might be a follow on effect from. Oh, interesting. Oh, you're saying that like, [19:12] in the, uh... [19:15] Yeah. [19:16] the scale of these [19:17] Software.

[19:19] the software the software's [19:22] it's starting to become more apparent like, okay, how, how is this? [19:25] actually... [19:27] how are the users actually experiencing it from a security perspective. You're saying it's downstream. Okay, that's interesting. Okay, next one, mini-apps. Mini-apps. I'm hearing a ton about mini-apps, both in the base ecosystem and in the world ecosystem. [19:39] Again, was around a lot of that this weekend just because the house I was staying in was really all about it. The world house. It was a world house. And amazing to see.

There's a lot of energy around many apps. I think it makes a ton of sense. People are building and... [19:55] deploying things really fast there, especially in both of these ecosystems, you have sort of this built in distribution for testing and iterating on things. [20:03] And in the world... [20:06] ecosystem, like very global, incredibly [20:10] Oh my God. Global. A global ecosystem. [20:14] Um, [20:14] like Japan, all over LATAM, all over Europe, like genuinely amazing to see. And so, I'm [20:20] One shout out here, Simplify Mini App. You can pay people locally.

That's built on the World App. So a lot of excitement I think around Mini Apps across the world. [20:28] in different ecosystems. [20:30] - Yeah. [20:31] folks a sense for how [20:33] why you would build a mini-op [20:34] I'm going to butcher sort of the technicalities of it. [20:37] But basically it's an app that's embedded in a [20:40] super app, a bigger app. And that super app or that bigger app gets [20:44] Probably and hopefully... [20:45] a ton of distribution and has a ton of traffic and people using it. [20:49] already and then the mini apps sort of plug into that.

So like you said, that built in distribution is really like what's attractive for mini app devs. [20:58] because they get to like go from [21:00] zero to whatever. [21:01] So faster than if they were trying to like just pushing it in the app store. Yeah. Also a lot of energy around prediction markets, sort of people talking about the coming up age of prediction markets where they've sort of grown into themselves. [21:14] and seeing a lot of that conversation as well, which isn't necessarily new, but feels like very solidified, I feel like.

Yeah, totally. [21:21] Shall we pause and welcome up Sandeep? [21:24] that I keep [21:25] I think so. I think, uh... [21:28] He'll be coming up here in a moment. - Okay, great, just really quickly before we-- - Let's do it. [21:33] the AVA app. [21:34] Aave app. I'm hugely excited about the Aave app. Great. Oh my gosh. And here's why. [21:39] Okay. [21:40] they have the 9% earnings on savings. That's a crazy number. It's boosted. I don't think it's going to last for that long. Okay. But that's still a compelling amount.

Very. Very compelling amount to boost. [21:50] your savings. [21:51] what is, I think much more compelling is that it's, [21:54] The deposits are insured. [21:57] most some deposits I have to read the fine print but deposits are secured [22:01] THE FAMILY IS GOING TO BE [22:02] deposits are insured [22:03] for a million dollars, which is above the FDIC. The FDIC only ensures 250k, yeah. - Wow, okay. [22:11] for folks. [22:12] Who, I don't know. That, for me... Oh, they have so much money. They're like, sure, fuck it. We'll insure it.

Okay. Insured. [22:17] You get insured and you get insured. [22:21] think that concept of insurance [22:23] Yeah, that's amazing. Yeah, I'm actually like, I would love to have somebody on and have them talk about it. Me too. Me too. I'm really excited about that. I feel like that will really reduce the middle of the night. [22:34] anxiety that I often have. Oh man, you have so much of it. You have so many. About my crypto that I hold. And I'm like, I wake up and I'm like, [22:41] Thank you. [22:42] Where is it?

And if I this and so this insurance like really speaks to me. Yeah. Like, okay, at least I could know that. [22:48] I might. [22:49] it's sub $1 million. So I'm protected. My first million safe. [22:54] So anyway, shout out to the ABAP. It looks great. I'm excited to use it. And yeah, if you're listening, we'd love to have you on the show. [22:59] Okay. Okay, okay. Should we say the H.? [23:02] Two more minutes. [23:03] Great. [23:05] Okay. Finally, some drama at the Uniswap Cup. Okay. So this is so inside baseball.

Like it's painfully inside baseball, but it's worth noting. They're Uniswap. [23:16] had an event called the Uniswap Cup here on Sunday. [23:21] hugely successful. - Tuniswap for folks who don't know is [23:24] I think it's a great question. [23:25] decentralized exchange. [23:27] And they did a soccer tournament. Uniswap Cup is a soccer tournament. And... [23:32] as someone who runs events and does events a lot [23:35] When an event pops. [23:37] you want to celebrate it and you want to shout it out and say, [23:40] Good job. Kudos. I'm giving kudos left right here.

Kudos. But they did a great job. And how it was set up was all of these different teams... [23:49] all of these different [23:51] companies had... [23:53] teams and a variety of how they formed those teams. [23:57] So [23:57] Some teams were actually people who worked at that place. - Uh-huh, like the world team, yeah. [24:02] Uniswap team, whatever. [24:04] and then other teams did some things that I feel are not ethical, which was they hired people to play on their team. [24:10] And then those [24:11] The two teams that did that, one, [24:13] Obviously.

Totally. Obviously. Anyway. Although it was dark because we're going to be talking about who those teams were. And so maybe if the goal was. [24:20] Let's get people to say our name. [24:23] marketing. And yeah, so the teams took it really seriously, but there was a punch, a physical altercation that happened. There was a punch thrown and we were, this is rumored. So I do want to say this is a rumor mill here, but if, [24:36] If we can't talk about rumors on this show, [24:39] Where can we talk about rumors?

Totally. Like, what are we doing? [24:42] So the rumor is... [24:45] I [24:45] someone from ENS was punched in the face. I actually don't want to say who... [24:50] punch DMS in the face because I don't... Okay, Bungie. [24:52] The bungee team. [24:54] It's a rumor. It's a rumor. Rumored. It's rumored. But I'm sorry. You're going to throw a punch. You got to own totally that punch. So that's, that's what folks are saying. That's what the chat saying. Um, [25:04] And shout out to Leighton Cusack. He scored a goal. We're really proud of him.

He is from the world team. And I'm so glad he scored a goal because that must have felt really great. [25:15] Here we are. Sandeep, come on down. [25:19] Great to see you. [25:20] So we have Sandeep Nawal, founder and CEO of [25:24] Polygon Foundation. These are for you? [25:27] Let's make sure your headphones are working there. [25:29] Can you hear me okay? [25:31] Okay, great. Here you go. How come you guys have this table thing? I'm sorry. I'm sorry. No, you look cooler holding it. It's more nonchalant. [25:40] Thank you for coming on Boys Club.

We're so happy to have you. [25:43] And you had some big announcements today. Where should we start? [25:47] I think just tell us how's your money rails been so far? How's your DevConnect been? Yeah, I'm very happy with the event, like the turnout, the venue looks super cool. Full house, full house by the way. It's a full house, the talks looks very good. [26:03] and my talk I thought was went well also. [26:06] I'm [26:07] He's feeling confident. Good job. Good job. Okay. So we're here in Argentina. [26:13] We've been talking a little bit about the experience of crypto in Argentina and the relationship between sort of those two parties.

[26:20] What's Polygon's relationship with Argentina? What work do you do here? [26:25] And what are some of the projects that you might want to highlight around that work? [26:29] Yeah. [26:30] Argentina, like first of all, like overall LATAM polygon has been really big, right? I also said on the stage that around 60% of the local stable coins in LATAM region [26:40] They are on Polygon. Wow. [26:42] And what we are now seeing is [26:45] in Argentina particularly multiple [26:49] large financial fintech startups are using stable points. And primarily they use polygon rails.

[26:57] I think Bello is one, Tekenos is one, [27:00] There's one more which I am forgetting the name. What was the name? [27:05] I think it is I'm forgetting the name. I don't want to miss the name. Like, Camipe. [27:15] Yeah. It's also very big, right? [27:17] Some of these are really, really doing well. [27:20] And because I'm not from here, so I don't get to experience the local, which apps are being used. [27:26] But on a global scale, like when I get [27:28] monthly statistics, weekly statistics and I keep seeing Argentina top of the charts, Latin top of the charts.

[27:35] There's a lot going on there. [27:37] and we continue to love to see it you tweeted on on Monday about Polygon's [27:42] stablecoin volume and how exciting and up and to the right it is. Can you tell us more about what's happening there? [27:48] The Polygon stablecoin volume, like we talked about on the stage also, [27:53] that overall I think we see numbers between [27:57] Pure stablecoin movements on the chain if you see 50 to 200 billion dollars a month. Wow. Wow, a month? [28:04] Oh my gosh. [28:05] But many of those transactions include [28:08] exchange transactions, arbitrages, so we don't want to consider them as stablecoin usage.

[28:14] because you know it's like a trading use case [28:17] So... [28:17] But we actually try to count the [28:21] P2P. [28:22] use case. Okay. And in P2P, John was telling on stage that [28:26] last quarter has been $14.6 billion in P2P payments. - And that's like one person sending to another person. - Yes, yes, and that is the actual [28:36] like I see as an actual measure or metric [28:39] of people using and stablecoins getting into the average person's life. [28:46] Because institutions like, you know, the trading volumes and all that, a lot of chains will say we have...

[28:51] 100 billion, 200 billion dollar volume and all that, but that's actually some [28:55] trading bots. [28:56] of the market makers trading something in the background. That's not real usage. That can go away any time. [29:01] If they find a new way, [29:03] to do [29:03] you know, their arbitrages and all that, right? The real usage, I think, is the P2P for me. Yeah. [29:09] B2B, I'm not trying to... [29:11] you know, diasporage, like the B2B [29:13] adoption. Yeah. Yeah. We love B2B. We love B2B too. You said 40% market share for P2P payment volumes for Polygon.

[29:22] Yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah. That's crazy. Yeah, the global, that's also insane. Like, and [29:26] in [29:27] I think Polygon... [29:29] in terms of its payments as stablecoin adoption is criminally undervalued [29:33] in the markets because [29:35] Like you know one chain having 40% of the all of the P2P [29:39] payment share is [29:41] Incredible. Yeah. Yeah. [29:42] Okay, we've been seeing a lot of activity with the Japanese stablecoin [29:46] And by the way, I want to clarify that. You know, that 40% is why the number of transactions and number of users...

[29:52] The volume probably, you know, the [29:54] Because crypto [29:56] We started with those... [29:58] measures like TVL and volume and all that [30:01] So by TVL, an amount of money moving [30:04] Tron would be higher, right? Because Tron has like people sending... [30:08] hundreds of thousands of dollars or millions of dollars moving here and there. But we are talking about an average user paying [30:14] $100, $200, $500 in and there. That's where Polygon dominates. [30:19] Right, which is... [30:20] by many measures, the harder metric to achieve. Extremely hard metric.

So, yeah. But that's long term also. [30:27] like once you keep that keeps on going at the in that organic traction mode [30:32] eventually large transactions also [30:34] start coming in and they are then very sticky. [30:36] Yeah. Like some of the Trons [30:38] Tron's, you know, kind of usage is also very sticky. [30:43] because a lot of people... [30:45] are moving this cash movement like cash converted into [30:48] the dollars and cross-border payments, they use it. [30:51] And for the larger payment like $10,000, $100,000 they used on and that is also fairly sticky.

[30:56] But for the average user, we want to get into that Venmo style user. Like you're paying $20, $50, $100. [31:03] to someone, that's where we want to win. [31:05] - Cool. - On that note, I wanna get your take on sort of your [31:08] stablecoin thesis more broadly and this idea of there being [31:14] an unlimited amount essentially of stablecoins that get fractured into all these different use cases versus [31:20] the usage consolidating onto a few [31:23] coins. Like, what's your take on [31:26] sort of how you see the ecosystem developing.

Yeah, I think that the power laws always play out the same way, right? [31:32] 80%, like 20% of these stable coins are going to have like 80% of the usage. There's absolutely no doubt about that. [31:39] But [31:40] We also need to see that as governments are waking up [31:44] the local governments are waking up to the threat of dollar stable coins. [31:49] Why? [31:49] Because countries like India, [31:51] like in LATM because they're [31:53] their currency is so... [31:54] you know kind of inflationary. Yeah. [31:57] that [31:57] a lot of [31:59] I think there is some...

[32:00] Level of [32:02] That's it. [32:03] government [32:04] you know, kind of approval. I don't think like there's a formal approval, but they're like kind of okay. People are doing it. It looks like it. They're kind of okay. [32:12] In India it's not [32:13] It's not that, right? Okay. So a lot of these local governments are waking up that stable coins are being used for XYZ purposes. [32:21] Um... [32:22] For some of the countries where the stablecoin's primary usage [32:26] is to [32:27] is to avoid the inflation [32:30] of the currency or devaluation of the currency

[32:33] That's okay. They are going to use dollar stable coin. [32:36] but a lot of other local use cases [32:39] are [32:40] also becoming, you know, dollars take dollars, right? Okay. [32:43] I mean, I was... [32:44] I don't know whether you guys experienced it or not, but yesterday I went to meet somebody in a cafe [32:50] I paid for the coffee in dollars. Like I didn't know that [32:53] you know the Argentina you know there's like oh we might need you to move your mic a little bit closer completely you know dollarized in terms of the payments yeah [33:03] So that is happening for a lot of countries.

And countries slowly are waking up [33:08] very strongly and they're going to react with [33:11] local stable coins [33:12] No, okay, you know, you want to use it, use the local stablecoin or at least [33:16] You know, if there's a cross-border payment, it comes in USD, but then once it lands into, let's say, India, it gets converted into INR. Why would it need to come in USD in the first place? Because of the remittances, right? Like, if you are a US person, you're sending money into this. It's much better. And also, like, you know, why USD?

USD remains stronger. [33:34] is that let's say you are in Argentina [33:36] and you are sending money, [33:38] So probably... [33:39] You know, because of the forex exchange market [33:41] would not be that great for your stable, let's say Argentinian pesos to INR, right? So what you will do is you will convert at a low slippage to USD. [33:51] that USD travels... [33:52] cross border [33:53] comes to the you know let's say India or Hong Kong or Philippines [33:57] and then gets converted into pesos. So that path will be cheaper than you trying to convert Argentinian pesos into Filipino pesos.

[34:08] so that's [34:09] That's where some of these stablecoin users will be there. [34:13] I think the local stablecoins is going to be a pretty large deal. [34:17] Because government... Because I recently tweeted about it also that, you know, previously... [34:21] the dollar's relationship with the rest of the world was a kind of a B2B relationship. [34:28] that. [34:29] You know, previously the dollar was... [34:31] issued by government, you know, US government treasury. [34:34] and the other countries' treasuries will buy dollars. [34:37] It's not like the average person was buying dollars.

Now with stablecoins what is happening is the average B to C, the relationship is converting from B to B to B to C. [34:46] - Yeah. [34:48] I was really surprised. My father traveled to my... [34:52] you know, native place which is like a hinterland in India and all that, like the normal [34:57] money rails are not there. [34:58] And he said that some people are using Polygon there. Like, you know, I heard... And I was like... [35:03] They're using polygons? What are they using polygons? [35:05] And only later on I realized that they are using USD on...

[35:09] on Polygon for some of this and me being from India like I actually [35:12] want India to adopt INR stablecoins and at least these local use cases where people are paying 1% or another [35:19] should be used in stablecoin. Only problem is government [35:23] Because crypto has a very bad branding problem. We have like... [35:27] You know, from 3AC, Luna, to FTX, to Mt. Gox and all these scenarios. And 90% of the activity many times is scams or gambling. [35:37] So government has a very bad view of crypto. Right.

But I think what they are not realizing is... [35:42] actually stable coins [35:44] are a much better way of [35:46] currency movement within their geographies and all that because it's more traceable, more trackable. [35:55] and they can actually... [35:57] there is an illicit activity, they can confiscate also. So they are in much more control than they are with cash. [36:04] So while they have a digital form of currency, they should actually promote stablecoins. I also think what you're speaking to is that local people and their constituents will start to be using stablecoins for peer-to-peer transactions.

And then I think that will push a government that may be, local governments that maybe have some... [36:21] skepticism about crypto and seeing that, okay, local people are using this. Like we need to adapt it into our practices as well and kind of catch up with the times of how people are actually using money online today. We're seeing that the Japan stable coin JPYC on Polygon had like a huge growth the last few weeks. Can you talk to us about what's going on there? Right now, it seems like it is growing like two orders of magnitude faster than any other chain.

And we actually recently heard that [36:51] the local government has praised it [36:53] a lot. [36:54] And a lot of this activity is purely organic. [36:56] Right? Because, you know, Japanese yen is also [36:59] you know, is devaluing constantly. Recently the government is pushing in, putting in [37:05] hundred and ten billion dollars in stimulus which will further [37:07] Okay. [37:09] JPY coin [37:11] and probably people are using it to [37:14] many times like the [37:16] convert the money into JPYC and then maybe [37:19] have this arbitrage, convert this into USD...

[37:22] where they want to protect the value whenever they want to use, bring it back to JPYC and things like that. But we are very pleasantly surprised that it is growing very organically. A lot of people are using it. And Japan being very forward-looking in technology is... That's cool. Okay, so we're here at Money Rails. We're talking about, you know, payments more broadly. Can you give me the pitch for why Polygon as it pertains to payments specifically? Yeah. So I think, like, there are multiple factors to it. [37:52] Hold on.

[37:53] historically it's an 8 year old [37:56] 7-8 year old chain. It is extremely entrenched in [37:59] in the payment rails and the money rails everywhere, right? When I say, what do I mean by that? Like literally every on-ramp provider is connected to it. Literally all exchanges are connected to the chain. [38:12] Literally [38:13] You know, if you are doing any card payment and all that, cards are connected to... [38:17] Yeah. So all of that. [38:19] thoughts [38:19] having a compounding effect on the network. [38:22] you know, the money effect on the network.

[38:25] One is that [38:26] Second is, [38:27] We recently... [38:29] In the last one year, we have scaled the blockchain from 200 TPS to 1500 TPS. [38:34] And now we have a very clear path to in next three to six months to go to 5000 DPS. And from there in 12 to 24 months to 100,000 DPS. At 5000 DPS, it is an EVM chain which people are very comfortable with. The wallets are very, you know, kind of deeply wallets. All wallets are also integrated. And the cost of the transaction becomes extremely low.

Right. So at 5000 DPS, it will be it will be higher throughput than, for example, Solana itself. [39:04] Oh, [39:05] You would see... And Solana, why am I? Because Solana is like the trailblazer of this, like, high-throughput chains and all that, right? So now... [39:14] I think like due to all of these things, this interconnection, then people use applications like Polymarket, applications like Courtyard, where people are actually using stuff, not only speculating. [39:26] Like there is speculative use cases are less on Polygon, right? Like for example, your perp trading, your DeFi loopings and all that.

[39:35] which [39:36] You know, many times, like as I was saying on the stage also, we are not that great as a DNA of the team. We are not, or the community also, is not very speculative friendly. Yeah. It's more on the real world utility friendly. So, that's where like for the payments, it's right up their alley. It's the network effects. It's the people knowing. And the cost, the transaction costs are extremely low for the users. Like they are literally transacting for free. That's why you see the daily active users.

[40:06] Circle stablecoin, we have the largest number of... generally we are number one daily active users. [40:12] for USDT we are generally the third ranked in the daily active users and [40:19] You know, the non-USD stablecoin I already talked about, like 60-70% of the market usage in LATM. [40:25] 80 to 90 percent in Saudi Asia. [40:27] So-- [40:28] you know it looks like crushing it I love it [40:30] Okay, we have a few more minutes here. I want to give you some time to talk about the two big announcements you had, both

[40:35] with Revolut and MasterCard. Can you just give us a sense of what those two look like and what that means for quality? [40:41] People know that in Europe it's a [40:43] It's a juggernaut for payments. [40:46] and uh [40:47] the Revolut has been very [40:49] you know, open for stable coins and they understand the value of stable coins [40:53] and we have been working with them for quite a long time. [40:57] and you know they only recently now we are making it public but [41:00] In the background, Revolut has already processed $700 million worth of payments on Polygon already on the day of announcement.

[41:08] and [41:09] Polygon is now becoming a preferred chain there because users prefer it based on the gas fees and everything. [41:15] And now we have like very strong plans to grow and add more and more users. [41:20] and you know grow these users there. And with MasterCard this is one of the many things that are coming with them. But like you know in crypto [41:30] transferring from address to address becomes very costly. Yeah. And like, you know, error prone, [41:35] So we know these ENS names. [41:37] in the ecosystem.

[41:39] So with MasterCard, we have launched exclusive MasterCard names. [41:43] on Polygon where you can actually, like I can have a com [41:47] you know, [41:47] - So for easy payment? - For easy payment and all that. [41:51] and MasterCard and Visa, these are the behemoths. Totally. They are now getting in [41:55] with these small [41:56] you know kind of activations but slowly [41:59] the plans are much bigger to be... Yeah, it's a signal for where they're headed. Yeah. Yeah. [42:03] That's great. [42:04] Okay. [42:06] Should we do a show minute?

Yeah. [42:07] Okay, so we do a game on the show. [42:11] where we have, you have one minute. [42:13] to shill anything. [42:15] Ideally, it's not Polygon. Ideally, it's something else. It could be one time somebody shielded the Bay Area. It can be anything. 60 seconds on the clock. [42:26] You ready? [42:26] let me think quickly what do I want to just your favorite any favorite thing of yours TV show or something that you've used recently an app your hometown it can be anything [42:38] Okay. [42:39] Okay. Okay. Okay. 60 seconds.

Go. Gotta show the camera. I mean, the first thing I want to shill was Polygon Excel because yesterday I said somebody asked you. A good founder. A good founder. Somebody asked me what is the most underrated thing on Polygon. I said Polygon is the most underrated thing on Polygon. But like to shill. [42:57] I would say that I would shill meditation a lot. Oh, nice. You know, spirituality and all because we human beings, I think we are moving into this age of abundance. Yeah. Where... [43:09] you know like lot of our physical world [43:12] traumas like you know the fights that we have to fight to [43:15] to gather food or to have like a, you know, for shelter and clothes for us and all that.

[43:20] these [43:21] problems will go away [43:23] And human beings are going to find themselves more and more hollow about like what am I like what is my purpose? [43:28] to be here, like right now. [43:30] 80% of our purpose actually gets absorbed [43:33] in being. [43:34] you know just surviving as a human being but once the AI enables that survival the age of abundance comes [43:39] then we are going to find a lot of emptiness in our lives [43:42] And I think spirituality helps [43:44] in solving that emptiness. Yeah, perfect.

And I do meditation a lot and I think [43:49] these mental problems, psychological problems are going to become bigger and bigger and bigger. [43:54] And I think like having a daily meditation regime. I love that. I love that. Wait, we're not over time. But no problem. Sandeep, thank you so much. Thank you. Such a pleasure to have you. Congrats on today. Thank you so much. Great to be here. Thank you for having me. Thank you. Thanks. [44:06] I need to meditate. I need to meditate, too. Thanks for the reminder. I feel really...

[44:14] in need of a meditative moment. Also moved by that message because [44:17] uh... [44:18] I believe it. It was like, I was like, oh, that's what I'm experiencing now. [44:24] That's what my problem is. [44:26] I need to go hunt and gather. Okay, what a great... [44:32] A great guy. Really nice to hear about. I love when you hear from someone who really believes what they're talking about. Just great founder energy. [44:41] Yeah, I think [44:44] It just is... [44:45] Passion is contagious. It is contagious. And... [44:48] being around, that's [44:49] part of the reason I love working with founders so much is because [44:52] you get a good one and you're like, man, I believe that you're going to move heaven and earth to make your thing.

Yes. [44:57] Yes. I get that from him. So totally. Very cool. Okay. I, um, [45:03] I'm wondering, uh, [45:05] We have a couple minutes before our next guest. - If I'm looking shiny. [45:08] I had a whole thing on whether on... I think you look great. I might need your Mac compact as we go, okay? [45:17] - On the go. What's happening on the timeline? Twitter's back up. Twitter's back up. I'm seeing that we're [45:26] Still live, which is great to see. [45:28] We have a next guest coming in about seven minutes.

[45:32] Um... [45:33] There's a few things that I want to talk about that are unrelated to crypto, really. [45:38] are interesting that are happening. [45:40] Should I talk? Should I get into them? Okay. So I wanted to talk to you about [45:47] a thing that happened last week. We didn't have time on our livestream last week to talk about it, so this feels like a good moment at the Polygon Experience to get into it. Oh, wait. Actually, our next guest might be here. Oh, let's do it. Come on down. Come on in.

[46:03] Thank you. [46:03] Let's go. Okay. We have William Duran, who is the co-CEO and founder of Mintio. So nice to meet you. [46:12] Nice to meet you. Okay, these are for you. [46:14] and then [46:17] You're going to want to hold this quite close. [46:19] Okay? [46:20] There you go. Check that in there. Okay. [46:25] practice [46:26] Testing, testing. Can you hear us? [46:28] Uh... [46:28] Okay, great, great. It's going to need to be a little... There it is. There it is. How are you doing, William? [46:34] Good, how are you?

We're doing great. We're doing great. So happy to have you. [46:37] So tell us, let's start, what's Manteo? [46:40] So we're a stable co-nature for Latin America, so you can think of us as sort of like circle for LATAM. So we meant... [46:46] You know, the stable coin of the Colombian peso, which is launched the Brazilian real. And we're launching Chile and Mexico in the next couple of weeks. [46:54] Where are you from? I'm from Bogota, from Colombia. Oh, nice. Beautiful. We were there for [47:00] DevCon. Oh, no, it's like three years ago.

Yeah, yeah, three years ago. Okay. A great city. I love Columbia. It's so beautiful. So, okay. [47:08] Where do you guys sit in the, we're talking about the global money stack here. Money rails. And I'm curious, like, yeah, where do you guys sit in that stack? Like, where is Mintio? [47:21] I would say we're in the sort of like trust layer issuance, right? Because at the end of the day, it's all about trust as an issuer. [47:28] And then I would also say we're in the infrastructure layer, right? Because at the end of the day, you need to be able to have...

[47:33] Sort of like a way to connect in and out, on chain, off chain. [47:38] So we always sort of consider ourselves sort of like that, like, [47:40] 2.5 version of... [47:43] of crypto, right, or Web3. That's what we said. Can I ask a dumb question? [47:48] Yep. [47:49] that's sort of business related. So I am wondering what stops [47:54] circle from [47:56] minting [47:57] the Columbia Peso or from minting some of these other currencies in LATAM? Yeah, that's a good question. I mean, I think at the end of the day, it's about, one, like business focus.

I mean, do you want to actually go into these regions and then if so... [48:11] Say you make the business decision of going into a region, which countries do you focus on? [48:16] And then there's the complexity around actually building a product that [48:20] appeals to the local market, which I think in LATAM [48:23] A lot of times people think of it as a region, as a whole, [48:28] But at the end of the day, each country is very different, right? Like different compliance, different... [48:33] money rules, different culture. [48:36] different banks.

[48:39] So it's kind of funny because at the end of the day, [48:41] I think the hardest part for us has been building country by country. [48:45] But at the same time, it also makes it the most defensible, right? Because you have to have all these... [48:49] sets of accounting rules and all these different [48:51] things, licenses, [48:53] And I think that's why [48:55] Like Circle could potentially come in, but then they would have to figure out sort of like country by country how to do it. Got it. Okay, that makes a ton of sense.

And then for them it's like, [49:03] maybe they're just focused on the S. [49:05] dollar USDC. And so that at that point, it becomes fragmented. That makes sense. Yeah. And if you think about it, like, [49:10] If you think about the US dollar supply, I think right now there's probably only 1% of it tokenized. [49:17] You know, it's really tethered circles that are sort of like leading that. [49:20] I would say there's probably so much more to do even just there. [49:24] in terms of like, you know, [49:26] protecting market share and continuing to sort of like [49:28] Dollarize.

[49:30] a lot of these economies. It's really just a decision for them, I think. [49:34] Yeah. [49:35] Okay, so how did you come to start this? [49:37] What's sort of your origin story? [49:40] Yeah, that's interesting. So I'm actually a Colombian, non-Colombian in the sense that I live most of my life overseas. So I actually grew up in Africa. I grew up in Angola, West Africa. [49:48] Saudi Arabia, I've lived in the US for over 10 years, and I came back about eight years ago to Colombia [49:56] And, yeah, I don't know.

I just, like, realized that there was, like, so much stuff that was wrong with...